Chapter Ten: Fire and Steel

“Fire birthed the world, so fire shall end it.”

—Alysteria, Dragon Queen of the Mountain

Upon the conclusion of the festival, couples old and new took to the village square to share one last dance under the fading fireworks. Alend had left his wife and daughter to search for Ein when he heard the scream.

At first, he thought nothing of it. Maybe the Wydlings had decided to put on another performance, or one of the Mistresses had gotten into an argument. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence at this time of the year for two rivals in love to fight.

But when the second and third screams came, he realized something was wrong. As men and women began to flee across the village square, he smelled blood.

The first of the relicts emerged in the distance, a wolf-like humanoid waving a crude shortsword in the air—a Worgal. It was grey and muscular with long, furry arms and a broad chest, and its thin lips were pulled into a ferocious snarl. Behind it were two more of the beasts and a Celadon with curved horns, and as Alend watched, the Worgals threw back their heads and howled. It was a long and chilling howl, one that froze his blood to ice, a sound that would make even wolves run in fear. Shouting at each other with low grunts and growls, the relicts advanced across the square with no regard to the bodies they trampled underfoot.

Alend clenched his fists and looked around. There were more of the wolf-men coming from all directions, clustered in groups of twos and threes with growling Celadons between them. Troupers and villagers alike began to fall, cut to death and tossed aside like ragdolls. Alend instinctively reached to his waist for his sword, but it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there for sixteen years.

“Go!” Talberon was suddenly beside him, his gossamer cloak flapping like the evergreen leaves of the wood. He stepped in front of Alend and yelled again, louder. “Go get your sword! I’ll take care of these ones!”

One of the Celadons coiled and sprung at the druid, rippling through the air like a dark missile of claws and fangs. Talberon drew a handful of seeds from his pocket and scattered them into the air. His eyes flashed emerald and he lashed out with his voice, stoking the seeds as if they were coals in a fireplace. Three giant thorns sprung from the ground, impaling the Celadon through the chest, neck and abdomen. The creature writhed in place, struggling to break free as black blood splattered across the dirt. Talberon sang again, and this time great vines burst from where the seeds had landed. They arced through the air and cut through the Celadon as cleanly as a blade, severing it into three pieces. The Celadon stopped moving.

The other relicts hesitated, eyeing the vines warily.

“What are you doing?” Talberon growled. “Are you going to desert your village as well?”

A black pillar of smoke rose into the air. Somewhere down the street, a house had caught fire.

People are dying, Alend thought. Because I came to this village.

He screwed his eyes shut and swore. When he opened them again, he was calm. He turned and ran.

#

“Evaine! Evaine, wait!”

Ein plunged through the darkness, scrabbling on all fours through the twisted undergrowth towards the village. He didn’t know where he was or if he was even on the path, but the smell of smoke grew stronger and Evaine’s ragged breathing was always ahead of him. He followed her blindly, listening to the crunching of twigs underfoot and the patter of snow as it shook free from the branches, ignoring the stinging cuts that lashed across his exposed skin. The screams never stopped—shrieks of panic and hysteria, feet crunching desperately across gravel, barks and growls and howls that belonged to no animal he knew.

“Evaine! Evaine—”

The bushes broke apart and he found her hunched over by the edge of the road. Evaine let out a yelp as he collided with her and they both went tumbling onto the ground in a mess of sweat and hair and the peppery scent of her clothes.

“Evaine, what are you—”

Ein came face to face with a dead man and cried out. It was Master Damuth, one of the local farmers, and his face was contorted in a mask of horror. Ein and Evaine freed themselves from each other and scrambled a good distance away from the body.

“He’s dead,” Evaine murmured.

A gash ran from Damuth’s throat to his ribs, almost splitting his body in two. A flap of skin the size of Ein’s thumb connected his head to his neck, and his ribs were cracked and broken where he’d been cut. Blood gurgled across the ground.

Evaine rose shakily to her feet. Her dress hung in tatters, ripped and torn by the trees, coated in dirt and grime, her combed hair a tangled mess running down her back. Ein remained on all fours, his eyes wandering to the ground past Master Damuth. The Mistress was dead too, lying face-down in a mangled heap. He didn’t look for where she’d been wounded. The amount of blood told him it didn’t matter.

“Gods above,” he whispered. He turned away from the bodies, back towards them, back away. His stomach lurched and he felt bile rise to his throat. “Al’Ashar’s eyes and ears. Wyd almighty. Merciful Cenedria up above.” He swallowed and took a deep breath. No amount of slaughtered animals could have prepared him for this.

“Ein,” Evaine said. “The village square… we have to check if everyone’s alright!”

“Damn it,” Ein repeated. He closed his hands into fists and looked into Evaine’s eyes. They were wide and fearful. “Damn it all!” He shook his head. “Stay here, Evaine. Don’t move. I’ll come back when it’s safe.” Behind him, the sky burned red with fire and ash.

Evaine drew a deep breath. “Like hell you’re going alone. I won’t let you get yourself killed without me.”

Ein made a pained expression, but there was no time to argue—people could be dying with each second that passed. He let out a cry of exasperation and bolted towards the village square.

Felhaven lay on the brink of ruin. Houses had been pillaged and ransacked, and of those several had gone up in flames. Each step they took they found another dead body—Masters, Mistresses, children, troupers, all carved up and left on the roadside to rot. Occasionally they found the body of a relict—half man, half wolf, they could be nothing else—twitching on the ground, wriggling forward with three missing limbs or stumbling around without a head. Ein and Evaine gave them a wide berth, racing towards the village square where the screams had all but waned.

They reached it in due time, though they almost missed it for what it was. The square was covered in wild undergrowth—giant thorns and vines exuding from the ground, wooden stakes impaling wolf-men, leaves and ashes blowing across the wind. Talberon stood in the middle of it all, a slender blade of polished wood in one hand, his face streaked with blood and ashes. He raised his hand as they approached, letting out a cry of warning.

“Behind you!”

Ein had just enough time to shove Evaine to the ground as a relict lunged at them, emerging from his blind spot. A wooden stake burst from the ground beside them, impaling the creature through the stomach, and a heartbeat later three vines came around and cleaved it three-fold. The pieces hit the ground and thrashed about for a moment before falling still.

“What are you two doing here?” the Songweaver yelled. The wind tore at his cloak, whipping it into a frenzy. Wave after wave of heat blew across them, as hot as a furnace. “Run! Get to safety!”

“Where is everyone?” Evaine cried. She looked at the inn in horror. “What about Father?”

“Most of them are gone,” Talberon called back. “Evacuated. Head to the river and leave the Worgals to me!”

Worgals. The working class equivalent of the relicts, the wolf-human hybrids that had supposedly made up the majority of Al’Ashar’s armies. If Ein doubted the legends before, the last of those doubts had just gone up in flames like the village.

“Come on,” he grabbed Evaine. “Let’s go!”

#

Alend breathed a sigh of relief when he found the forge untouched. He gripped the doorknob with unsteady hands and pushed it open, hurrying inside.

He’d left the sword on the table next to the furnace, but it was gone. Maybe Rhea had stashed it away somewhere. He hoped she hadn’t drawn it from its sheath; he hadn’t told his wife about the conversation with Talberon yet.

The sword wasn’t under the counter, either. Alend raced into the storeroom where he kept his materials and rummaged through the shelves. If Rhea had placed the Rhinegold blade anywhere, it would be here. He cried out in frustration as he finished sweeping the entire contents of his shelves onto the ground and then bent down to his personal trunk. Inside were a variety of tools—hammers, buckets, tongs, whetstones, and at the very bottom...

The Worgals are one of the lowest in the hierarchy, he recalled. The last time he’d heard their tales, he’d been no older than his son was now. Their strength lies in their coordination and resilience. Relicts make for formidable enemies, but there are three known weaknesses all relicts possess that allow them to be killed more easily.

He tossed aside a pair of callipers in frustration. Where was the sword? Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to spot, being nearly three feet in length.

Fire. Setting a relict on fire can kill it, even faster if the aforementioned relict has already been dismembered.

Soulforged steel. Rhinegold and Darksteel, the former of which is rare and expensive, the latter of which is all but extinct. A blade made from either has the same effect as fire on a relict. There are other types of metal used by those such as the felen and the dweor, but these are the most common.

Alend finished upending the contents of the trunk. There was nothing. No blade, no sheath, nothing. He tipped it upside down and shook it. The sword was gone.

The front door exploded and he heard three sets of footsteps enter. Alend grabbed the closest weapon at his disposal, an iron longsword, and stepped out into the forge.

What was the third way? It was something to do with alchemy, wasn’t it? Alend tried to concentrate, but the footsteps were growing closer. He heard the low growl of a Worgal, spotted the silhouette of a Celadon as it prowled through doorway.

“The Fire take you!” he roared, coming out to meet it. The Celadon sprung, leaping across the room in a mass of black hide. Alend felt the breath leave him as he fell, hitting the ground hard. His head spun while he kept the Celadon at bay with one hand, frothing jaws and all. Pinpoints of pain flared through his arm as the relict’s fangs dug deep. He gripped the longsword and awkwardly shoved it into the beast’s throat, piercing through the back of its neck. The blade was too long and cumbersome to be wielded in close quarters, but it did the job and loosened the Celadon’s jaws. With another cry, he grappled the relict and hauled it into the furnace, coughing and choking at the smell of burning hair. Before he could recover, one of the Worgals came lumbering through, a glint of dull steel arcing past his ear. He fell over the anvil behind him, knocking over a bucket of water. Coldness seeped through his hair. He felt strangely calm.

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Worgal, he thought. But didn’t Valeesha say the relict had a mane like a lion’s?

The second Worgal trundled into the room. Alend rolled over and reached out his hand, grasping for something, anything he could use as a weapon. His hand closed around his hammer and he raised it with a howl, intercepting the Worgal’s shortsword as it came at his chest again. Iron rang against steel and the blade shattered. The Worgal grunted in surprise.

“Wyd!” Alend cried. “Anturia! Kalador give me strength!”

He brought the hammer down as hard as he could. A tremor ran up his arm as the Worgal’s face caved inwards along with the bone underneath. The Worgal growled and reached for Alend’s throat, digging its yellowed nails into his flesh. Its partner raised its sword, mouth open in a snarl. Alend began to feel faint, black spots dancing around his eyes.

“Begone, demonspawn!” A voice cried out from behind, and the Worgal with the sword looked down to find a black blade sprouting from its chest. The blade twisted sideways and then disappeared. The wolf-man fell to the ground with a whimper, revealing the charred face of Garax the storyteller.

Alend groaned and pried at the hands around his neck, kicking the second Worgal off him with all his strength. Garax spun on his feet and ran his blade cleanly through its neck, separating its head from its body.

“Blacksmith! You alright?” he cried, extending the stump of his hand. Alend gripped it and was hauled to his feet. He sucked in the acrid air, rubbing at his throat.

“Garax?” he coughed.

Garax wiped his blade clean against the fur of a corpse. Alend realized two things—the sword was pitch black, the colour of polished obsidian, and the Worgals were dead.

“Darksteel,” he uttered in disbelief. “Where did you get—”

Garax dismissed him with a wave of his right stump. “Your swords won’t work on them,” he said. “You need fire, soulforged steel or salt.”

Salt. That was it. Salt was like poison to a relict. It shut down a relict’s internal systems, eroding them from the inside.

“Go to Helda,” Garax continued. “Get as much salt as you can and come to the river. Most of the villagers are there and they want to fight. I’ll keep looking for survivors.”

Alend nodded. “Are Rhea and Cinnamin okay? And Ein?”

Garax was already heading toward the door. “I can’t say for sure,” he said. “But I’d assume so. They were on the side furthest away when the Worgals attacked.”

Alend followed the old man into the burning village, eyes watering from the smoke. He gripped his hammer tightly and ran in the opposite direction to Garax, the direction where Helda’s hut was. Some of the houses still burned, though most of the fires were beginning to die out. The wind had carried the majority of the embers in a westward direction to the houses that stood further apart, minimizing the spread of the fire. Alend let out a sigh of relief when he found Helda’s hut intact, untouched.

“Helda!” he called out. No one answered. The hut was empty, and Alend silently thanked the gods. He rushed to the cabinets and skimmed over the neat little tabs that labelled each of them, searching for the one he was looking for…

Abruptly he realized it was going to be empty, just as the door opened behind him and someone entered.

“You won’t find any,” Sanson said.

Alend had just enough time to turn around as the butcher stabbed him in the gut. Alend looked down at the Rhinegold blade embedded inside him, and then up at the red-faced man by the doorway.

“Sanson…” he spluttered. “Why…”

“Why?” he was expressionless. “Twilight approaches. When a ship sinks, everyone jumps. When Faengard goes up in flames, the Oathbreaker’s followers will be saved and given a place in the new world.”

Alend’s face darkened. “What are you talking about—” His voice warped into a screech of pain as Sanson pushed the blade further in.

“The Lord will reward me for slaying you,” he continued. “All I need to do now is find your son and daughter. With the last of the Thorens gone, the Protector will crumble. Lord Al’Ashar’s return will be ensured.”

“Bran…” Alend coughed. “What about… Bran?”

“I’ve made sure the relicts are not to harm him,” Sanson said. “When the time comes, I’ll introduce him to my Lord. He was always a timid child; he will listen to what I say.”

Blood tinted Alend’s vision. “Bastard,” he growled.

“Are you really in a position to be saying such things?” he smirked. “I’m going to have so much fun killing Ein. He always annoyed me, that boy, with how close he was to young Mistress Tamelyn and all—”

Sanson’s eyes widened as Alend lunged at him with pure strength of will, gripping his thin neck with both hands.

“You… goddamn… bastard,” Alend spat. Pain wrenched in his gut, but he tightened his grip. Sanson released the sword and pulled at Alend’s arms, kicked and flailed, but Alend had spent years in the forge and was by far the stronger of the two. Sanson’s skin grew pale as his eyes rolled into his head. The area around his neck began to smoke—only slightly at first, and then more and more until it was burning Alend’s hands. He squeezed tighter, fighting the darkness closing in around him, thoughts of the village and his family keeping him conscious. The butcher’s eyes sank into their sockets, the fat melting from his cheeks, his nails extending into rotten claws, until finally, with a sickening pop, his eyes and ears vanished completely. Alend released his grip. The creature that fell to the ground was no longer Sanson the butcher. It was a thing without a face, a servant of Al’Ashar. A Faceless.

Alend lurched sideways and grabbed onto Helda’s table to stop himself from falling. Blood trickled down his trouser legs, soaking them all the way through. He brought his hands to the Rhinegold blade and pulled it free with a cry of anguish. Leaning on it for support, he pressed his free hand firmly to his wound, fighting the pain and the tiredness and the seeping cold, and made his way out of the hut. He took three steps across the road and fell to his knees, the sword clattering uselessly to the ground.

“Ein,” he croaked. “Cinnamin…”

There was a distant cry and a rush of what sounded like leaves in the wind. Someone bent down beside him, sliding their arms beneath his armpits. The last things he saw were Talberon’s eyes, dark and smouldering as the sky above.

#

“I think there’s someone in that house,” Evaine said.

Angry red flames licked at the house in question. The roof had partly caved in to reveal the entrance hallway and the living room, which were fast becoming husks of blackened ash. Ein spotted three figures huddled against the wall, the large silhouette of a Worgal standing over them.

“Money, food, anything we have, we’ll give you! Please spare us!” The voice was familiar, and once Ein was close enough to see who it was, he realized why.

“Bran!” he cried out. The Worgal turned around. The butcher’s son was next to the wall alongside two crying children no more than ten years of age. He had his hands clasped together and was kneeling on all fours, spluttering through tears and a running nose. An axe lay on the floor next to him, and the corpse of a Worgal bathed in the flames near the doorway.

“Lauriel, Cenedria, Mother Anturia,” he blubbered. “Wyd almighty, save us!”

It pained Ein to see him in such a shameful state. Evaine bit her lip.

“Bran!” he called again. “Bran, we’re coming!”

Evaine rushed past him and pried the shortsword from the dead Worgal’s hand. “Ein! Use this!”

He plunged into the house after her and grabbed the sword from her hands. Ein had barely trained with a shortsword, and the blade didn’t suit him at all—but it was a weapon, and it could kill. He weighed it and stepped deeper into the burning house, eyes stinging from the heat. A beam cracked above him and fell, sending a fireball roaring past his ear.

“Ein!” Bran had finally spotted them. “Evaine! Gods above, help me, please!”

The Worgal eyed the sword in Ein’s hands and let out a throaty cough. It pulled back its lips and twisted them open and closed, its tongue flickering between its teeth. Ein realized it was talking.

“Your friend is a coward,” it laughed. “He grovels and begs with no sense of dignity. He is a disgrace to your species.”

Heat shot through Ein’s body and it wasn’t from the fire. He blinked and he was in his backyard, swinging a wooden sword under his father’s watchful eye. Ein stepped forward and parried the Worgal’s blow, catching it on the tip of his blade and driving it down to one side. Steel slid against steel among the crackling flames. The Worgal swung again, but Ein ducked this time, sinking just low enough for the blade to pass over his head. He took a step forward, right up to the Worgal and thrust the blade deep into its chest. The Worgal grunted in surprise, but didn’t fall.

Fire, he thought. Burn it with fire.

He rammed his shoulder into the Worgal with all his strength, sending it backwards into the flames. It tripped and stumbled onto the floorboards, fire catching onto its fur, racing along its exposed belly in the blink of an eye. The Worgal screamed in pain and tried to rise to its feet, but stumbled and fell. Ein pinned it down with one foot, ignoring the flames licking at his boots, and yanked the sword from its chest. Then, with a cry of pure hatred, he split the relict’s head from its neck.

“Bran!” he heard Evaine shout. “Are you okay?” She ran over and helped him to his feet. The two children buried themselves into her dress, sobbing. “It’s alright,” she said, patting their heads. “It’s alright. Let’s get you two out of here.”

Bran looked down, sniffling. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was worn so thin it barely came out as a croak. Ein noticed a wet patch on his pants.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ein said. “Come on—”

The house shuddered as another flaming beam fell to the ground. The two children began to cry anew.

“Evaine!” Ein yelled. “What are you waiting for—”

He stopped and stared in disbelief. At the far end of the building, standing by the front door was a relict—but it wasn’t a Worgal or a Celadon. It had the head of a proud lion and a ragged mane the colour of fresh blood. In its hand was a curved sabre with a blade nearly twice as long as Ein’s shortsword. Even in the heat of the inferno, Ein felt a chill at the sight of it—the blade wasn’t made of iron or steel, but bone—and from a single glance, he could tell it had tasted the blood of many victims. It was a whisper of evil that spoke to his soul.

“I thought it was a lion at first. Like the crest of the Leonhart family in the legends—but it was tall, and it stood on two legs. It had a mane of pure red, like it was stained in blood. And it wielded a sword, though it wasn’t anything forged by a man.”

“...something that can take on six wolves at once with enough strength to rip them apart. Something that walks on two legs and has claws.”

Ein looked at the beast’s feet. They ended in claws, just like the monster that had attacked the Tamelyn farm.

“You have the scent of a warrior,” the relict breathed. “I did not expect to find one like you in a village like this.”

“Evaine,” Ein said. He coughed, bringing a sleeve to his lips. The smoke was thickening. “Take the children and go out through the back door. You too, Bran.” In that moment, his mind was surprisingly clear. If no one stopped the relict, it would kill them all. Of the three, only he stood a chance.

Thankfully, Evaine didn’t object. “We’ll be waiting by the river,” she said.

She took the children by the hand and hurried past him, through the choking hallway and to the back door. Bran gave him one final look before following her into the night. A moment later, another section of the roof collapsed and sealed off the hallway behind him. The fire roared.

“Come,” the relict spoke. Its voice was surprisingly human, a deep baritone that could have come from a man. “My blade wishes to taste your blood. Let us dance.”

Ein adopted the stance Alend had taught him. It was just another relict, like the Worgal he’d slain. He’d killed one; surely he could kill another. He didn’t try to think too much about what his father had said about relicts having a hierarchy.

“Kalador give me strength,” he murmured. If the god of war ever chose a time to take his side, he wanted it to be now.

The relict moved, just as the wall beside Ein collapsed. It was in front of him in a heartbeat, fangs bared, mane shimmering in the heat, sabre racing in a roar swallowed by the flames, and he was ducking—diving, grazing his shoulder against the scorching floorboards, rising to his feet with a cry and sweeping his sword down low. Their blades met and Ein knew victory wouldn’t come as easily as it had against the Worgal. The lion-man wielded its sword with deadly efficiency, as if it were an extension of its body rather than a tool. Under even circumstances he might have held the advantage, but the sabre had far greater reach than his shortsword, and the relict had clearly been given more than a few minutes to become accustomed to wielding it.

They moved through the disintegrating house, the relict advancing, Ein retreating. Sweat leaked into his eyes but he didn’t dare wipe them clean. A single blink, a single moment with his hands out of position could mean death. Smoke streamed through the air, searing his lungs. All the while he parried, blocked, ducked the relict’s blows, stepped out of reach when he could do none of those. He gave his body to the motions that had been drilled into him. He didn’t think. He simply reacted.

Another section of the roof caved in. The night sky peeked through, grey with smoke. Ein began to grow light-headed, bursting into fits of coughing, his movements growing sluggish. The relict seemed to be the same, though it never made any sound or noise to confirm it. A section of its left shoulder had caught fire. Darkness clouded Ein’s head, inch by inch. His senses shut down one by one. His vision narrowed to the figure before him. The howling blaze became a thick, heavy ringing in his ears, his nostrils stinging from the smell of smoke, his fingers no longer feeling the grip of the Worgal blade. He wouldn’t last for much longer.

The relict, apparently realizing the same, increased its tempo, swinging more wildly, erratically, with no disregard for what crumbling walls and furniture it knocked over. A piece of something struck Ein’s shin, hot and burning. Ein stumbled through one of the blows and pivoted, throwing away his defences to attack.

Just a while longer...

He willed himself to stay upright, to stay standing. How long had it been since he’d last drawn a breath of fresh air? The thought went unanswered when his shoulder ignited—not from fire, but from blood being drawn. The relict smiled, and in that moment Ein saw it—an opening at the throat, one that had been left wide open to make the attack possible. Ein squeezed his eyes shut and thrust with all his strength, feeling the shortsword pierce flesh and blood. He staggered and lost his balance, crashing into the relict, grappling its sword arm. They tipped backwards for one sickening moment before the wall stopped them. There was a heavy thud as the shortsword impaled itself into the wood.

The relict knocked Ein across the temple, sending him sprawling onto the ground. It gasped and choked, scrabbling at its neck where the sword pinned him down, but the flames raced from all sides to engulf him. It opened and closed its mouth in an attempt to speak, but only gnarled sounds emerged.

“I’m alive,” Ein said, looking at his hands. “I’m… alive.”

Bursting into a fit of coughing, he turned around took a blind step to where he thought the exit was. His foot didn’t obey him, and as he crashed towards the ground amidst the relict’s howling death throes, he wondered if it was sweat or tears running down his face.