Aalune survived.
For several days afterward, that was the kindest thing any of them could say about it.
The village remained standing where enough of it had not been torn apart, burned, crushed, swallowed, shaken down or briefly incorporated into something large enough to attack them with its own streets. Some of the people who had fled into the woods returned after sunrise. Others did not. Whether they had chosen to keep walking or simply discovered that leaving Aalune felt easier than entering it again, no one could blame them.
The elder was dead.
There were other dead whose names the heroes never learned.
There were houses without families and families without houses.
And there was morning.
Sometimes that was what victory looked like.
The Heroes of Oxland stayed long enough to be certain the night was actually over.
No new portal opened.
Nothing fell from the sky.
The ground remained ground.
Hexen checked that twice.
Then they left Aalune behind.
They returned eventually to the country they called home, to the lodge and the small community that had grown accustomed to having legends nearby. The journey back was quieter than the one that had carried them toward the Great Lake. Even Kaylor seemed willing to let long stretches of road pass without searching deliberately for the next thing that needed killing.
For a little while, there was food.
Sleep.
Repairs.
Fendor counted arrows and discovered that counting arrows after Aalune was considerably less satisfying than counting them before it.
Isamu recovered in the way Isamu recovered from most things: by behaving as though he had not required recovery.
Hexen spent time outdoors where nothing was trying to become a mountain.
Nethnarel slept longer than she intended.
Kaylor changed horses.
That was not entirely accurate.
The Peryton had served him through a number of adventures with what Fendor considered admirable tolerance for being repeatedly placed near creatures large enough to eat it. Kaylor, however, had decided that if he was going to continue traveling through increasingly unreasonable danger, his magical mount deserved an upgrade.
The ritual took time.
When it ended, the creature that answered was no Peryton.
White wings unfolded.
A horse stepped from the fading magic, powerful and impossibly clean despite arriving upon ordinary earth. Its mane moved in a breeze none of the heroes could feel. Intelligence lived behind its eyes, accompanied almost immediately by the suspicion that it had understood exactly who had summoned it and was reconsidering the arrangement.
Fendor looked at the Pegasus.
Then at Kaylor.
“You replaced the other one.”
Kaylor ran a hand along the animal’s neck.
“Improved.”
“You are going to ride that toward monsters.”
“Yes.”
The Pegasus looked at Fendor.
Fendor nodded sympathetically.
“I know.”
Kaylor mounted.
The Pegasus folded one wing across his face.
Nethnarel watched from the porch.
“I like it.”
“Thank you.”
“I was talking to the horse.”
Kaylor looked down at the animal.
“So was I.”
The quiet might have lasted longer if the world had possessed any sense of timing.
It did not.
The first rumors reached them less dramatically than most new disasters.
No frightened messenger burst through the door.
No magical warning shook Hexen awake.
No tiefling screamed from the darkness.
People simply began talking.
Travelers brought the stories first.
Merchants heard them along the roads west and north of Gildan. Farmers repeated them after market. A courier passing through mentioned that people had begun leaving villages in small groups, not fleeing from anything but traveling deliberately toward the mountains.
Then the stories became more specific.
An abandoned town.
A pilgrimage.
A goddess.
Fendor was at the table when that word entered the conversation.
He stopped checking the fletching on an arrow.
“What goddess?”
The traveler who had brought the latest report was not entirely certain.
“A woman of fire.”
Nethnarel looked up.
The man continued.
“Some call her the Fallen. Some call her the Burning Woman. I’ve heard other names.”
“Describe the symbol,” Nethnarel said.
The traveler did.
A female figure.
Unclothed.
Surrounded by flame.
The room became quiet.
Kaylor had been leaning against the wall.
He straightened.
“No.”
Fendor glanced toward him.
“You’ve started doing that too.”
Kaylor ignored him.
Hexen had already recognized the image.
They all had.
The Naked Goddess.
She had remained at the edge of too many things now to dismiss the connection.
The Crossroads.
The creatures.
The impossible machinery beneath Gildan.
Leonidas twisted into something that should never have worn his memory.
The attacks had been fragments. Servants. Plans interrupted before their purpose became visible.
Now ordinary people were walking voluntarily toward her.
That was different.
“How many?” Hexen asked.
The traveler shrugged.
“Depends who tells it. Dozens. Hundreds.”
“Where?”
“In the mountains outside Gildan. There was an old settlement there. Abandoned for years.”
Fendor frowned.
“Why would anyone go there?”
The man looked uncomfortable.
“They say she is coming.”
No one spoke.
The traveler continued because silence from five armed legends was surprisingly persuasive.
“They say her presence will cleanse the world.”
Nethnarel’s expression changed.
“Cleanse.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
Kaylor pushed away from the wall.
“We’re going.”
Fendor looked at him.
“We’ve had this conversation before.”
“And?”
“We always go.”
“Then this should be faster.”
It was.
They left after preparations that would once have occupied most of a day and now required barely an hour.
That was one of the differences between being adventurers and having survived long enough to become professionals at catastrophe.
Weapons had places.
Supplies remained packed.
Everyone knew what everyone else forgot.
Isamu was ready before the question was asked.
Nethnarel checked the Staff of Power.
Fendor selected the Icy Burst bow for ordinary travel and kept the Oathbow within easy reach.
Hexen carried the Staff of the Woodlands and wore the Cloak of the Moon.
Kaylor rode the Pegasus.
The creature already looked resigned.
The road north did not remain empty for long.
At first the travelers they encountered looked ordinary.
A wagon carrying an elderly couple and two younger men.
A family walking beside a donkey burdened with blankets and cooking pots.
Three farm laborers carrying packs.
None possessed the appearance of zealots marching toward the end of the world.
Then Fendor saw the first symbol.
A rough carving hung from a leather cord around one man’s neck.
The workmanship was poor.
The meaning was not.
A female figure stood amid carved flames.
Fendor’s hand tightened around the reins.
“There.”
Nethnarel had already seen it.
A mile later they passed another group.
This one larger.
Nearly twenty people traveling together, accompanied by two figures whose clothing separated them from the others. Their garments were still plain by the standards of wealthy priests, but the symbol of the burning woman had been worked deliberately across the chest.
Not merely scratched into wood.
Embroidered.
Repeated.
Formal.
The people around them listened as they walked.
One of the robed figures spoke in a calm voice.
“When she comes, all shall be made clean.”
A woman beside him repeated it.
Another voice answered.
“All shall be made clean.”
Fendor looked at Nethnarel.
“That is becoming worse.”
“Was there a version where it wasn’t?”
“I was hoping.”
More people appeared as they traveled.
Small roads joined the main route.
Each added bodies.
Families.
Laborers.
Young men.
Old women.
Children walking beside parents who appeared entirely convinced they were taking them somewhere safer.
That was what disturbed Hexen.
He had seen armies march.
Refugees flee.
Religious processions move under song and banner.
This had elements of all three without truly resembling any of them.
Nobody appeared afraid.
Nobody seemed forced.
The pilgrims walked with the exhausted satisfaction of people who believed they had finally discovered the answer to a question that had been tormenting them.
A man carrying a wooden staff smiled when Hexen’s group drew alongside.
“You’re going to her too?”
Kaylor looked down from the Pegasus.
“No.”
The man’s smile faltered.
“To the awakening?”
“No.”
“The cleansing?”
Kaylor stared at the symbol hanging from the man’s neck.
“You should go home.”
The pilgrim appeared genuinely confused.
“Why?”
“Because the thing you’re worshiping is evil.”
Several nearby travelers heard him.
None reached for a weapon.
No one shouted.
That almost would have been easier.
The pilgrim merely smiled again, patiently this time.
“You don’t understand yet.”
Kaylor’s expression hardened.
Fendor saw it.
“Kaylor.”
“The world has suffered because we have been separated from her,” the man continued. “When she is restored, there will be no suffering.”
Kaylor leaned slightly forward.
“I have met things that promise that.”
The pilgrim nodded as though Kaylor had agreed with him.
“Then you understand.”
“No.”
“Her presence will cleanse everything.”
“What does cleanse mean?”
The man hesitated.
Not because he was reconsidering.
Because he had never asked.
Nethnarel saw that.
“Who told you this?”
The pilgrim looked toward the robed figures farther along the road.
“The servants of the Fallen.”
“Who are they?”
“Those who heard first.”
“That is not an answer.”
The man smiled again.
The expression was peaceful.
Empty of doubt.
“Come with us. You’ll see.”
Kaylor’s hand shifted toward Peacemaker.
Fendor moved his horse between them.
The pilgrim kept walking.
Not frightened.
Not offended.
Not angry.
Certain.
Fendor watched him rejoin the procession.
“I preferred the meat puppets.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“Because you could cut their heads off?”
“Yes.”
“Reasonable.”
Isamu had been watching the crowd instead of the conversation.
“These people aren’t soldiers.”
“No,” Hexen said.
“Most don’t have weapons.”
“No.”
“They believe this.”
Kaylor looked ahead at the growing procession.
“That can be fixed.”
Fendor sighed.
“With words.”
Kaylor looked at him.
Fendor continued.
“We are trying words first.”
“I used words.”
“You threatened him.”
“I told him the truth.”
“There were implied follow-up activities.”
Nethnarel drew alongside a woman carrying two small children in a wagon.
She offered money for the woman’s symbol.
Ten gold.
The woman refused.
Nethnarel increased it.
The answer remained no.
Eventually the amount became ridiculous enough that Fendor stopped pretending not to listen.
The pilgrim shook her head.
“We won’t need money when she comes.”
That unsettled Nethnarel more than if the woman had named a price.
Money mattered to people.
Not because everyone was greedy. Because money represented tomorrow.
Food.
Repairs.
Winter.
Children.
A roof.
A debt.
A future.
People refused money for many reasons.
People who believed the future itself was about to become unnecessary refused it differently.
Nethnarel put the coins away.
“How long have you been traveling?”
“Six days.”
“With the children?”
“Yes.”
“Who told you to come?”
“I heard.”
“From whom?”
The woman smiled.
“Everyone is hearing.”
Nethnarel let the wagon move ahead.
She looked toward Hexen.
He had heard too.
No one needed to explain why that answer mattered.
A cult could recruit.
A priest could preach.
A movement could spread from town to town.
But everyone is hearing suggested something else.
By afternoon the abandoned settlement came into view.
The old town occupied a shallow fold between mountain country and rough farmland, the landscape rising beyond it toward darker ridges. Time had not destroyed the place so much as withdrawn from it.
Roofs had sagged.
Walls weathered.
Roads narrowed beneath grass.
Some buildings had lost entire sections to rot.
But abandonment was vanishing.
New timber brightened old walls.
Fresh thatch covered portions of ancient roofs.
Scaffolding surrounded several structures.
Smoke rose from chimneys that had been cold for years.
People moved everywhere.
The town was returning to life.
Or something was wearing its corpse.
At the center stood the largest building.
A fortress once, perhaps.
A temple now.
The distinction had become difficult.
Its old stone base appeared far older than the work surrounding it, but new construction climbed along the walls and gathered around a central spire. Workers moved over scaffolds. Pilgrims flowed through the streets toward it in a steady stream.
Fendor stopped on the rise overlooking the settlement.
“That’s where everyone is going.”
Isamu studied the roads.
Caravans approached from more than one direction.
Not dozens of people.
Far more.
“They’ve been doing this for a while.”
Hexen nodded.
The outer parts of the settlement told the same story. Some pilgrims entered immediately. Others stayed to rebuild. Ancient houses had been cleared. New roofs placed over old walls. Storehouses reopened.
This was not merely a gathering.
Someone was restoring the town.
Nethnarel watched the temple.
“Why here?”
No one had an answer.
Kaylor urged the Pegasus forward.
They followed the main road.
The closer they came, the less comfortable Fendor became.
The pilgrims themselves remained friendly.
That was the problem.
People greeted them.
Some recognized them.
A few seemed genuinely delighted that the Heroes of Oxland had come to witness whatever they believed was approaching.
No one blocked the road.
No one demanded conversion.
No weapons appeared.
The town invited them in.
Fendor trusted that less than a wall.
They were still outside the oldest streets when Nethnarel noticed the farm.
Most of the fields around the settlement had gone untended. Some had been recently reclaimed by the pilgrims, but others remained wild after years without cultivation.
One farm did not.
A narrow lane branched from the main road and crossed a small stream. A waterwheel turned beside a modest house. Beyond it stood a barn and several fenced plots.
A woman worked in one field.
A boy moved nearby.
Nothing about either suggested pilgrimage.
No burning-woman symbol hung from the woman’s neck.
No robed priest walked the property.
The farm existed beside the strange procession as though the entire world had changed except for this one small piece of it.
Nethnarel slowed.
Fendor noticed.
“What?”
She continued staring.
“I don’t know.”
Kaylor looked toward the woman.
“She evil?”
“That’s not how my magic works.”
“I was asking generally.”
“No.”
Nethnarel reached outward.
Magic answered.
Faintly.
Everywhere around the farm.
Not a single enchanted object.
Not the woman.
Not the child.
The place.
She frowned.
“There’s magic here.”
That stopped everyone.
Hexen studied the fields.
“What kind?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Strong?”
“No.”
“Old?”
“I can’t tell that either.”
Fendor looked back toward the pilgrims moving past the lane.
“They’re all going to the town.”
“Yes.”
“And these two aren’t.”
Nethnarel nodded.
Kaylor turned the Pegasus toward the farm.
“Then we ask.”
The woman noticed them when they crossed the little bridge.
Surprise came first.
Not fear.
She set down the tool in her hands and watched five armed strangers approach with the caution of someone who had lived alone long enough to learn that hospitality and suspicion could occupy the same face.
Kaylor dismounted.
The Pegasus immediately took two steps away from him.
Fendor approved.
The woman approached.
“No one’s come down this road in a month.”
Her voice sounded ordinary.
That helped very little.
Kaylor looked at her.
“Why?”
She blinked.
“Why what?”
“Why hasn’t anyone come here?”
The woman looked toward the road.
“Everyone goes past.”
“Toward the town?”
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Her face tightened slightly.
“My farm is here.”
It was such a sensible answer that Fendor almost trusted her.
Almost.
Kaylor reached with his old senses.
No undead.
No fiend.
No celestial presence hiding behind a farmer’s body.
She was alive.
Human, as far as he could tell.
Tired.
Wary.
Normal.
He disliked how relieved that made him.
Fendor approached more gently.
“We’re sorry to bother you. We’re trying to understand what’s happening up there.”
The woman glanced toward the distant temple.
“You and everyone else.”
“What have you seen?”
She looked at them again.
Perhaps recognizing something now.
Perhaps simply deciding that five people carrying enough enchanted weaponry to conquer a modest kingdom were unlikely to leave because she asked.
“My husband died some time ago,” she said. “It’s been me and my boy since.”
The child appeared briefly near the barn.
He saw the heroes watching and retreated inside.
The woman continued.
“This whole area was mostly empty. The town too. Nobody went there unless they had a reason.”
“When did that change?” Hexen asked.
She thought.
“A wagon came first.”
“How long ago?”
“Longer than a month. Maybe two.”
“What kind of wagon?”
“Ordinary enough. The people weren’t.”
Kaylor’s attention sharpened.
“Describe them.”
“Warriors. A few. And priests, I thought. Strange-looking. They went into the old town and stayed.”
“What did they do?”
“Started working.”
“On the temple?”
The woman looked at him.
“You’ve seen it.”
“Yes.”
“That was first. Or close to first. I went up once because I wanted to know what they were doing. They were clearing the big building. Repairing it.”
“And then?”
“People started coming.”
“At once?”
“No. A few. Then more.”
She looked toward the road.
A line of pilgrims was visible even from the farm.
“Now they never stop.”
“Do they bother you?” Nethnarel asked.
“No.”
“Talk to you?”
“Sometimes. Mostly they pass.”
“Have they tried to bring you with them?”
“Once or twice.”
“What did you say?”
The woman shrugged.
“I have work.”
Fendor liked her.
Hexen looked around the farm again.
The faint magic remained.
Not concentrated.
Not obviously hostile.
A pressure spread across the property.
“Did anything strange happen here before the wagon arrived?”
“No.”
“After?”
The woman considered.
“Not that I know.”
A muffled sound came from the barn.
Fendor turned.
Nethnarel turned at exactly the same moment.
The woman noticed.
“What?”
Fendor looked at the building.
“What’s in there?”
“Animals. Hay.”
The boy burst through the barn door.
He slammed it behind him.
Then ran.
Not toward his mother.
Away from the barn.
The woman called his name.
He did not stop.
Fendor was already moving.
“What happened?”
The boy ran around the far side of the house.
Then the screaming began.
Animals.
Several at once.
A sound of terror and pain so violent that the farm woman went white.
Something heavy struck the inside of the barn.
Wood cracked.
Kaylor drew.
Isamu was gone.
He crossed the yard before Fendor had fully unslung the bow.
The barn door opened.
Blood smelled stronger inside.
Isamu entered.
A cow lay partly on its side near the center of the barn.
Something enormous crouched over it.
The creature looked vaguely humanoid only because it possessed limbs arranged in ways Isamu recognized. Beyond that, comparisons became less useful. It was giant-sized, hunched beneath the beams, its body thick with muscle and unnatural mass. Farm blood covered its mouth and forearms.
It was eating.
The creature looked at Isamu.
Isamu looked at the cow.
Then back at the creature.
“No.”
He moved.
The whip cracked through the barn.
The first strike landed before the thing fully rose.
The second followed.
Isamu marked the creature in his mind and continued the attack, every blow driving it away from the terrified animals still trapped in the stalls.
Hexen reached the doorway.
He saw the surviving livestock.
Saw the monster.
Then called the wolves.
The pack appeared around him in a rush of fur and magic.
“Protect the animals.”
The wolves spread.
One planted itself between the creature and a terrified sheep.
Another snarled near the cow.
The monster charged.
It came through the barn entrance with enough force to splinter what remained of the door.
The wolves hit it together.
Jaws found legs.
Flanks.
Arms.
The creature pushed through them anyway.
Isamu moved back before its first strike.
The second caught him.
Hard.
He absorbed it, shifted, and refused the monster the follow-up it wanted.
Fendor reached the stone bridge over the stream.
From there the angle was terrible.
He could not see inside the barn.
So he waited.
“I hate waiting.”
Nethnarel rose on fiery wings beside him.
“You complain when you can shoot too.”
“That is different.”
“How?”
“I am busy then.”
The creature burst fully into the yard.
Fendor smiled.
“Better.”
The Icy Burst bow came up.
His first arrow struck the monster in the shoulder.
The second landed in the chest.
The third followed before the creature understood where the shots originated.
Cold spread around the wounds.
The monster roared.
Fendor lowered the bow fractionally.
“That worked.”
Nethnarel flew past him.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’ve fought a lot of things lately that object to behaving properly when shot.”
She raised the Staff of Power.
Then chose something else.
Finger of Death.
The magic reached for the creature.
Necrotic force struck it.
The monster convulsed but remained upright.
Nethnarel frowned.
“That usually receives a stronger reaction.”
Fendor fired again.
The wolves remained around the creature, tearing at it whenever they could reach flesh. Isamu attacked from one side while the monster tried to decide which threat mattered most.
That was always the party’s advantage.
Everything mattered.
Kaylor arrived last.
Not because he was slow.
Because he had stopped beside the farmhouse.
The woman had fled inside and barred the door, frightened beyond any ability to understand whether the heroes or the monster were the larger danger.
Kaylor watched the windows.
Nothing followed her.
Nothing appeared behind them.
His senses reached outward.
The dying creature in the yard answered.
Fiend.
Kaylor turned.
“Demon.”
Fendor heard him.
“I knew I disliked it.”
The fiend charged Isamu again.
The monk moved.
The wolves struck.
Nethnarel’s magic burned through it.
Fendor’s arrows accumulated until the creature looked as though a quiver had been emptied directly into its body.
Then it fell.
The impact shook the yard.
Silence returned to the farm.
A sheep screamed once from the barn.
Fendor looked toward it.
“Fair.”
Kaylor approached the corpse and reached outward again.
The evil presence was fading.
Nothing else answered within range.
“No more.”
Fendor lowered the bow.
“There is never ‘no more.’”
“I mean here.”
“Still suspicious.”
The woman remained inside the house.
The boy had disappeared around the far side of the property.
Hexen sent the wolves back toward the barn to settle among the surviving animals.
Isamu checked the creature.
Nothing about it supplied an easy explanation.
It carried no message.
No obvious symbol.
No convenient map identifying where the next fiend would be located.
Fendor searched what little the creature possessed and found nothing worth the blood on his hands.
Kaylor entered the barn.
The smell hit first.
Blood.
Manure.
Hay.
Fear.
One cow was dead.
Another animal had been badly injured.
The remaining livestock pressed toward the farthest stalls, as though distance from the dead fiend mattered even now.
Kaylor walked farther inside.
Nothing attacked.
He checked the loft.
Empty.
The corners.
Nothing.
Then he returned to the dead cow.
Something metallic showed beneath it.
Kaylor crouched.
A hilt protruded from beneath the body.
Not a farm tool.
Not a short blade carried by a traveler.
A great weapon.
Fendor had entered behind him.
He saw where Kaylor was looking.
“No.”
Kaylor glanced back.
“What?”
“We found a fiend in a magically strange farm beside a growing cult devoted to the Naked Goddess.”
“Yes.”
“And there is a mysterious sword beneath a dead cow.”
“Yes.”
“So we’re agreeing.”
Kaylor reached for it.
Fendor stared.
“That was the opposite of my conclusion.”
Kaylor gripped the hilt and pulled.
The dead animal shifted.
Steel slid free.
The sword was enormous.
Nearly six feet from pommel to point, built for two hands and someone strong enough to make that proportion look reasonable. The metal was bright steel rather than the black of Peacemaker, its surface extraordinarily well preserved despite having lain beneath blood and livestock.
The craftsmanship was exceptional.
Even Fendor stopped objecting long enough to appreciate it.
Then he saw the writing.
Runes ran along the blade.
Not decoration.
Language.
Kaylor turned the weapon to catch the light.
“I don’t know these.”
Fendor leaned closer.
Neither did he.
The symbols were sharp and elegant, cut deeply enough that the grooves appeared darker than the surrounding metal. A decorated scabbard lay partly buried beneath the cow as well, made for the same enormous sword.
Nethnarel entered the barn.
She saw the blade.
Then Kaylor.
Then the dead cow.
“No.”
Fendor pointed at her.
“Thank you.”
Kaylor lifted the sword.
“It’s a sword.”
“Those are famous last words.”
“It hasn’t done anything.”
Nethnarel studied the runes.
Magic stirred.
Not around the farm now.
Here.
The blade possessed power.
She took one step closer.
Kaylor suddenly spoke.
One word.
None of them understood it.
Kaylor did not understand it either.
The syllable tore itself from his throat with the weight of a command remembered by someone else.
The runes ignited.
Light raced along the entire blade.
Fendor stepped back.
“There.”
Kaylor stared at the sword.
“I didn’t—”
The air beside him split.
Something appeared.
Not walked in.
Not emerged from hiding.
Appeared.
A vast serpentine body uncoiled into the barnyard beyond the door, armored in overlapping plates that caught the daylight like blades. Its length twisted across the ground, too large and too armed to belong anywhere near a farmhouse.
Metal flashed along its body.
A long head rose.
Weapons—or structures so sharp they might as well have been weapons—caught the light as the creature turned.
Toward Kaylor.
The woman screamed from inside the house.
The boy screamed somewhere beyond it.
Fendor drew the Vorpal Longsword.
Nethnarel’s wings flared.
Isamu turned toward the new threat.
Hexen’s wolves began to growl.
Kaylor looked down at the glowing runes upon the sword in his hands.
Then at the thing the sword had called.
Fendor came beside him.
“I would like the record to show that I said no.”
The plated serpent opened its jaws.
Kaylor tightened both hands around the strange blade.
“Noted.”