Through hazy memories and trails unmarked, Anneliese and those displaced ventured forth through the near endless winter of the northern plague. Their tracks were concealed under late seasonal snow. The valleys were abundant with elk and other wildlife – the sign of the uninhabited and undisturbed. Until the tranquility gave way to human refuge.

The Temple of the Last and its obscured cone-shaped ridge was encircled by a sprawling shanty town that swelled with thousands of refugees and nomads.

As Cestmir’s exiles wondered through the flimsy dirt-mount fence line, they passed familiar faces. The old red-headed former leader of Keesh was tending to a cauldron while a gathering of poor unsheltered souls waited to be fed. Many had nothing more than a thick wrapping and a warm supper, which was barely enough to keep warm against the ice flake wind that was drifting in between lines of caravans from the displaced woodland gypsies.

The gypsies were no longer the joyful nomads. They huddled several to a wagon, enjoying imaginary tales from the old wizard Zizrum. She was the last of the Pragian old guard, and she now acted out plays through transformed faces that ranged from rabbit to lion. Her stories of misadventures mesmerized the children, offering them an escape from their collective sorrows.

At the steps of the temple ridge was a crowd of strong-bodied pagans and disowned cross-worshippers, listening intently to the cries of war from one burnt-faced Verivix.

‘Look at us now. We are all that’s left, but we are not alone. For our nomadic brethren of the Greater Northern Steppe have heard our cries. The northern fjord tribes have felt our tears. The battle mages — oh, the battle mages. From their slumber, they have awoken, for we are the resistance. And you, be you boy or man … THIS IS YOUR FIGHT.’

His sermonizing rallied calls of ‘Hoorah’ and ‘Death to the one true serpent’. It was enough to lure the hesitant disenfranchised from their states of helpless despair. His words resonated with Cestmir and his soldiers, who watched on from a distance. Their numbers made up a small contingent of a growing crowd, many of whom carried heirlooms of their past lives or were lost souls in search of martyrdom.

‘Please don’t,’ said Anneliese as she retreated behind her hooded cloak while pulling at Cestmir’s sleeve. However, she was unable to break his hypnotic focus among the roaring crowd that bumped and jostled her to the background.

‘We are weak and tired. But give us a couple days and you’ll have fifteen of Vasier’s finest,’ said Cestmir.

His presence was a silencing force upon the crowd as the familiar few whispered his name like long-lost royalty. Never had the backroom quartermaster experienced such recognition; an aura of authority shimmered around him. His stature offered legitimacy to Verivix’s cause and turned the undecided to outright recruiters for the pagan resistance.

Until the flash of green light burst out from opposite Verivix.

It was Bjarke’s legendary battle-axe, preserved within a velvet-lined wooden chest, wedged open by Bjarke’s callus foot. He now resembled a lopsided cripple, with his usual crooked jaw accompanying a tilted head and wilted left arm as he leant against a nearby wagon. His deformities were in full display, and they were repulsive to those unfamiliar or unable to reconcile the troll-like aesthetic to the legendary Bjarke.

‘You coward, stabber of backs,’ Bjarke said with dead eyes and ventriloquist lips to Verivix.

The crowd parted to form a straight line between the two outspoken figures.

Bjarke then mumbled out loud, ‘Fools believe lies. Verivix’s hate is virtue cloaked. This man cares only for Verivix. When you need him most, you find him least.’

The insults landed like a painful joke, and Verivix recoiled into an awkward smile that constricted gritted teeth. ‘Bjarke. Where have you been? A little worse for wear. A little non-committal. Strange how you are the weak link in this entire chain,’ he said before one of his goons snatched away the heavy chest, closing it firmly shut. While his other goons grabbed Bjarke and restrained the weakened demon slayer. ‘It was you who deserted us, turned your back and betrayed your own cause. What a tragedy you’ve made yourself,’ said Verivix, snatching the dagger from his holster and striding forward with vengeful glee.

The crowd was at odds, expecting a defiant Bjarke to prove himself worthy of the legend, yet there was no struggle.

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Nor did Bjarke play victim as he once again held his chin high, unafraid of death. From the corner of his eye, Bjarke saw the small, hooded girl. His straying sight drew Verivix and his goon’s attention. Yet they could not make out the lonesome figure that was hidden in plain sight.

But for Anneliese, it unleashed the stress impulse that usually accompanied an all too familiar face. From distant figures to backwards-facing heads, Lascivious’ image haunted her range of vision.

‘There he is. The cause of all your despair. The liar and the thief.’ His voice echoed in Anneliese’s mind, spurring equal parts fear and hatred as memories of her troubled childhood replayed that fateful confrontation with Draconian and Verivix. The precursor to her troubles, from the orphanage, to Lascivious and the cascading events that led her here. The impulsive urge started building, turning her hands numb and eyes a cloudy white.

Then, like a splash of cold water to the flame, Weddle’s calming hand extinguished Lascivious’ presence, returning Anneliese back to reality.

‘A wizard is more than magic. They are hope against the chaos of life, the entrusted leaders of their communities and protectors of the human spirit,’ said Weddle.

His touch took the edge off Anneliese’s inner demon, allowing her to regain control and fend off Lascivious’ influence. With her mind cleared and soul lighted, she transitioned from the physical to the transient and traversed the crowd unopposed. Once she was in the middle of the feud, she transformed back into her physical form and brought the observant onlookers to a frighted awe. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said to the goons. Her eyes were a cloud of white, speaking with absolute authority as she withdrew her hood.

‘Hmm, aren’t we so lucky,’ said Verivix with a twitching eye as he turned to face Anneliese – he was all fake smiles and angst.

‘You know what he is and what killing him would achieve,’ said Anneliese, while a concealed goon attempted to blindside her. His short sword swiped unopposed through her metaphysical dislocation. And then Anneliese teleported and returned the goon to the pagan stronghold and back. His momentum tumbled him forward, coming to the ground just shy of Verivix’s feet.

‘And I know what you are,’ said Verivix as he pulled a sack of his own enchanted sands from his side. With far more fluid mastery, he whipped and recoiled his wrist into a flash of blue flame, which, when angled in Anneliese’s direction, made an x-ray vision of her body to show the outlines of Lascivious. ‘Hmm, as I thought. The unremarkable petulant child became subservient to the malevolent hand of Lascivious. Behold the demon slayer and the demon. What a fitting duet.’

‘That’s enough, Verivix,’ said Cestmir. ‘We’ll fight, but not each other.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Verivix as he relinquished his blade and offered his hand to Bjarke, with the slimy insincerity of a conman, looking to make amends, and not with Bjarke, but with his public image.

It was an offering Bjarke shrugged off as he reclaimed his wooden chest and dragged it one-handed across the frost ground. The lid was kept slightly ajar in case of easy access, and he kept a keen eye on Verivix’s goons, who gave the ill-impression that their paths would cross again. Not that Bjarke feared death or that they’d meet again under less fortunate circumstances. It was his legacy – or to be precise, Coble’s legacy – that preoccupied his prerogative: the legendary battle-axe and the hope of finding a warrior that he could pass it onto, who was worthy of fulfilling its oath. Not far on from his confrontation, he found himself stalked by another less ominous stranger.

‘Looks like you need a hand?’ said Gideon. His sleeves were rolled up, ready to carry the dragging half, if not the entire wooden chest.

‘You are?’

‘I’m a … No one of mention.’

For Bjarke, Gideon’s high-pitch voice and apparent deafness was a stark difference from his usual able-bodied admirers. Further still, there was a genuineness about him, a transparency that said nothing of ambition or pride. Who through his obvious deafness, knew the humiliation that came with being considered less than.

With acceptance of Gideon’s assistance, Bjarke led the former prince to his secluded encampment. It was a place of relative isolation among the tightly packed shanty town.

There he could flip open the chest and expose Gideon to the green light, where the blade’s gravitational pull tested the character of Gideon’s nature, and the demonic spirit, of which Gideon did not possess. Gideon’s only vice visible to Bjarke was the unspoken desire to wield such a weapon.

Then, without warning, the magical energy pulsed through Gideon, and with it, a strange sensation: scattering pans, sloshing steps on muddied ground, to the whirling winds. Sounds once forgotten, now clear.

‘You look stranger to world. It you first time,’ said Bjarke as he lent Gideon the blade.

His words sparked shock in Gideon, who was still coming to terms with language beyond lipreading. Confounded to the point of speechlessness, he held the axe tight with a double-handed grip. Its relative weightlessness was at odds with its hefty size, and the shaft hummed with a faint vibration; time itself slowed down. His senses and spirit were enhanced to a point of heightened consciousness.

‘Blade is tool. It purpose tied to no man or woman,’ said Bjarke.

‘It is truly remarkable,’ said Gideon. His sense of unworthiness was repulsing him to return the prized blade. And with it, the inevitable withdrawal into deafly self-isolation. As though for a moment, the gates of heaven opened before slamming shut upon judgement of his wasted life.

‘It is. One day, you be good man. Use it against me, against Bjarke demon?’ said Bjarke as he too looked upon the blade with his own emptiness.

‘Do what?’

‘We no speak. You come. Someone you meet,’ said Bjarke. His one good hand then shuffled up the shaft, and he offered the axe back to Gideon so the former prince could witness the world through open ears.