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Book 2: Chapter 7: No Way Back
🕑 Added 2025-07-31 00:19:29 +0000 UTCChapter 7:
No Way Back
The king set his golden goblet down with a hollow thud. The wine within trembled, flickering blood-red shadows across the council table. His hands lingered on the stem, knuckles white with age and weariness.
“So, it’s true?” he asked quietly, though he already knew the answer.
The messenger, hood battered, cloak stained from the road, didn’t lift his eyes. “Yes, sire.”
No anger rose in the king’s chest. Only a bone-deep ache. He looked older than his years, his face lined by sorrow. “And the Second Army?”
“Only a few hundred survived,” the messenger said, voice thin and ragged. “They’re fleeing… over the mountains, into Beastkin territory.”
The king stared, unblinking. “Over the mountains?” He almost laughed, but the sound died in his throat. “They’d rather risk the clans than Ashford’s wrath.”
The messenger hesitated. “After the incident… the armies—ours and the Beastkin—both retreated. There are… stories. No one will speak of what happened on that field.”
The king’s gaze drifted to the rain streaking the tall windows, gray and unrelenting. He remembered old stories; legends of Boran the Madman, ancestor to Ashford. Of dark rites, blood spilled in the name of victory. He’d thought those ghosts long buried.
He closed his eyes, a dull ache behind his brow. “Merrick was my squire once,” he said, not as a king, but as a man remembering a friend. “Bold, always eager to prove himself. Laughed when I fell off my horse and promised we’d write our own legend, better than the tired old ones.” His jaw worked. “He wanted to be a hero. But all roads led here. Now he’s the villain in every square.”
He looked to the messenger. “So, it’s rebellion. Liliana has raised the black banner.” The words felt heavy as stone. “All of Ashford stands with her?”
“We… can’t say, sire. But none resist her.”
He nodded, eyes hardening. “Summon my chancellor. And the adjutant.”
The door opened. An attendant bowed and hurried out. The king looked down at the kneeling messenger. “Rest. You’ve done your duty.” He waved the man away, watching him stumble out, dragging the weight of old news with him.
He was still for a long time, staring at the map on the table; the markers for the Second Army swept aside, Ashford’s sigil still standing, the Beastkin tokens circling but not closing in.
The doors opened again. The Chancellor, tall and thin, carrying a ledger; the adjutant, crisp and silent, sword at his hip.
The king did not hesitate. “Issue the proclamation. Merrick of Ashford is to be executed—publicly—for high treason. Let the people see what comes of rebellion. Let Ashford’s bloodline know mercy is gone.”
The Chancellor paled, but the king’s voice was iron. “Draft the decree yourself. Post it in every town and city. Ashford’s treachery will be ended at the root. If the duchy wants war, they will have it.”
The adjutant bowed and left. The Chancellor lingered.
“Sire, are you certain?” he asked softly. “Merrick is… her husband.”
The king’s eyes hardened. “He is a traitor. She has made him so.” He turned away, staring out at the rain. “Let the realm know that mercy ends here.”
He did not look back as the men filed out.
Alone again, the king’s fingers dug into the edge of the table until his knuckles whitened. He remembered the boy he once knew—Merrick, muddy and grinning, sword too big for his arms. He remembered loyalty and laughter. Now there was only silence and the weight of duty.
“Perhaps we missed something,” he murmured to the storm outside. “Perhaps the world is turning old again, and none of us can stop it.”
He stood alone for a long time as thunder rolled across Virethorn, and history moved, piece by piece, toward its next reckoning.
--::--
Elen floated somewhere between dream and darkness. Her back ached against something hard and uneven, she must be lying on wood. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick and useless, and everything behind her eyes was a dull, nagging ache. For a moment, there was nothing but black and the hollow gurgle of her empty stomach. Something was moving around her, or maybe it was just the feverish spinning in her head.
Then came the sounds: the creak of wood, the thud of boots, voices, quiet and rough, not the clipped tones of nobility. Horses snorted nearby, the faint tang of sweat and leather in the air.
Wait, what?
Her eyes snapped open. The first thing she saw was the sky, blue and green and dappled with sun. The view swayed and jerked. Overhead, leaves slid in and out of her vision as she bumped along.
Wood pressed into her back. She realized, with a start, she was lying in a cart, an actual cart, like a sack of grain. Her head throbbed, her lips cracked. The world spun.
“Oy, mate—the lil’ lass is moving!” someone called.
“Oh, yeah! Look, her eyes are open.” Another voice, rougher but amused.
Two men appeared beside her, their faces shadowed by broad hats and unshaven cheeks. One grinned wide, revealing a gap where a tooth used to be. Both wore battered leather armor, patched and streaked with dirt and dried blood.
Elen blinked at them, the cart wobbling beneath her. Behind the men, she could see others—some marching on foot, others riding tired-looking horses, a few more carts trailing behind. Most looked wounded, their bandages gray with old blood.
The nearer man crouched, peering at her like she was a lost puppy. “You alive, then? We was startin’ to think we’d picked up a corpse by mistake.”
Elen tried to push herself up but her arms felt like overcooked noodles. “I… I think so,” she managed, her voice little more than a croak. “Where… am I?”
The second man grinned, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “Told you she’d wake! Never seen a kid sleep so hard. You’re with us, little miss. Lucky for you, too, we almost left you to the foxes.”
A third voice, tired but gentle, drifted from the front of the cart. “She needs water, not questions.”
Elen’s thoughts scrambled to keep up. Her mind raced back, flowers, walking, running, falling… and then nothing. She looked down and realized her hands were still caked with dirt, her tunic stained and torn. But her sword was still at her side. She gripped it, more out of habit than threat.
“Are you… soldiers?” she asked, blinking hard. “Where are you taking me?”
One of the men scoffed. “Soldiers? Not anymore, lass. Survivors, more like.” He gestured at the ragged column ahead and behind. “We’re the lucky ones from the king’s Second Army—least, what’s left of it.”
Elen’s stomach tightened. The Second Army? So, she really was far from home. “What happened?” she whispered.
The first man shook his head. “What didn’t happen?” His voice lowered, glancing around. “Ashford happened, that’s what. And the sky. Gods, you should’ve seen it. Blood and shadows and… worse.” He looked away, jaw clenched. “We’re heading for the border, get as far from the duchy as we can. Nobody wants to stay here after what we saw.”
Someone from the front tossed a battered waterskin back toward her. Elen caught it on instinct, nearly dropping it with her weak grip. She drank, sputtering as the warm water stung her dry throat.
“Thank you,” she said, and meant it.
The men grinned again, though their eyes were tired. “We don’t leave kids in the woods. Not even here. You got family somewhere?”
Elen hesitated. Did she? Was the estate still her home? Was her mother even looking for her? She clutched her sword tighter, feeling suddenly very small.
“Not close,” she admitted. “I… I was running away. Or maybe running to something. I don’t know anymore.”
The men exchanged glances, but one just shrugged. “We’re all running from something, miss. You just keep that sword handy, and stick close. We’ll see you out of Ashford lands, gods willing.”
Elen pulled the water skin close, letting the tepid liquid soothe her aching throat. Her mind spun. The Second Army, soldiers from the Crown Duchy, no doubt. Their thick accents were strange to her, rolling their r’s, clipping their words, nothing like the careful, rigid formality she’d been taught in Ashford. So, this is what the west sounds like, she thought.
But to which border were they heading? And what did they mean; Ashford happened? The words echoed in her mind, twisting her gut. After a few minutes, when her voice was less rough, she managed to thank the soldiers for helping her. The gratitude was genuine.
She tried, quietly, to ask more. Where were they really headed? What had happened to split their army, to turn the world upside down in a single day? But most of what she learned came in fragments, between fits of coughing and the jostling of the cart.
A big battle against the Beastkin. The joy, the adrenaline when reinforcements had arrived, then the chaos, when someone screamed “traitors!” and was cut down by Ashford blades. They spoke of betrayal, confusion, and fear: “There was shouting, orders flying every which way, and then…” One of the men went quiet, staring off as if he could still see it. “And then the sky split open. Foul magic, real as any nightmare. A gate, straight from one of the Thirteen Hells, right there on the ground. Demons pouring out. Men running. Men burning. The world went mad.”
Elen listened, numb. The story unfolded in their words, sharper and more real than any tale from her childhood. War wasn’t honor or banners; it was screams, smoke, terror, and blood. She was quiet for a long time, watching the forest slip past as the cart rolled on.
As the hours dragged, the soldiers warmed to her presence. They introduced themselves—Ser Quen, with his gruff laugh; Jarl, younger, whose accent was thickest; and Faren, whose hands shook whenever he talked about the battle. She learned they were heading north-east, through the big forest that stretched from Virethorn into the east. There were old tracks, paths over the mountain range. If they could cross, they’d skirt the Beastkin lands on their side of the peaks and make for Stormvale, hoping to reach friendly ground.
“This is only one company,” Ser Quen explained. “Sixty, maybe seventy, if we find the others. Everyone took a different route, less likely to get caught, and also less likely to starve. With luck, some’ll make it home.”
Elen tried to picture it: dozens of shattered groups, all scattered and running for their lives, lost in the wild.
That night, around a campfire ringed with tired men and shivering in the cold, the stories got worse. She heard again and again about the first clash, the rising hope when help appeared, the shock when Ashford banners turned, and then the fear—real, choking terror—when the magic split the field. They described the smell, the sounds, the certainty that death was everywhere.
Elen sat quietly, sword hugged close, staring into the fire. Everything she’d believed about Ashford, the honor, the loyalty, the pride, felt suddenly thin and hollow. These men weren’t the “scum” from the west she’d always imagined. They were scared, battered, and had shown her more kindness in a day than most nobles had in a year.
Her throat ached with unshed tears, not just for herself but for all of them. For everything that had shattered.
Later, lying awake on the cold ground, she whispered, almost without thinking: “Oh, Lirien, thank you…” The goddess had warned her, had sent the flowers to guide her. She understood now. If she had stayed, if she’d gone back, she might never have survived.
Elen closed her eyes. The world was not black and white, not Ashford and enemies. It was full of blood, and mercy, and confusion, and people just trying to get home. She drifted to sleep surrounded by strangers, no longer sure what side she was on, but—for the first time—grateful for the chance to choose her own path.
--::--
The Ursin, paced atop a rise at the edge of the blood-soaked valley, the cold wind raking through his heavy fur. The echoes of war still rang in his skull, each memory sharper than a blade. The chaos at the battlefield was like nothing he’d ever known, not in a dozen campaigns nor a hundred winters. He flexed his claws, rage smoldering just beneath the surface.
They had actually retreated. The main force was still alive. That should have been enough, but he hated the humans more than ever. The humans, with their games and schemes, had outdone themselves. He growled low, the sound rumbling in his chest. To see one army of men—cousins, kin, whatever they called themselves—turn upon their own, hacking them down without hesitation… It was an abomination. A sin beyond reason.
For a Bearkin, betrayal was the truest poison. Loyalty was everything. And he, the Ursin, was the highest judge of all. He’d seen treachery before, cowardice, even the odd duel among young wolves, but never had he witnessed a people so quick to butcher their own.
The chaos only grew when the demons appeared, gates splitting open, foul creatures pouring forth, all teeth and shadow. For one brief, brutal moment, both beastkin and men fought side by side against the nightmare. But then the real betrayal struck: the new human force, black armor gleaming, charged not at the demons but at their own kin. Among their ranks, spots of white, priests, mages or zealots, he didn’t know, moving with single-minded fury. They cut through the retreating army like a sickle through grain.
And the demons did not attack them.
He remembered that detail, cold and sharp: the demons turned aside, letting the black-armored humans pass, their weapons slick with blood.
But it did not end there. The black-armored army did not halt after cleaving the human army in two. They pressed forward, crashing through the beastkin front as if the Ursin’s warriors were no more than autumn leaves. In their wake, panic, confusion, and corpses.
Overhead, wyverns circled, at least ten, darting and weaving, dropping fire and terror upon the field. But the largest, the biggest he had ever seen, nearly as big as the old war-dragons, hovered like a shadow over everything.
That display alone, the wyvern host, the massive beast, was a declaration. A threat. This, more than the blood or the treachery, made the Ursin’s hackles rise.
He had given the order quickly: ignore all fleeing humans not clad in black. Spare those who ran. Let them scatter. The true enemy was marked, and the lesson had to be learned.
A voice broke his reverie. One of the Boarkin tacticians, panting from a hard climb, dipped his head. “Chief, we’re on position. The last paths up the pass are blocked. No more humans can come north without meeting our spears.”
The Ursin nodded, silent, heavy with thought.
“Hold the lines,” he rumbled. “Kill only those in black armor, or those who bring demon-taint. The rest… let them go. We fight for the living, not the damned.”
The tactician bowed and hurried off into the gathering dusk.
The Ursin stood alone for a moment, staring down at the scarred valley below. He gritted his teeth, a sound like boulders grinding together. Everything in him ached to turn and charge, to show the world what Bearkin were made of. But he was not just any bear; he was the Ursin, the one who remembered that survival came before pride.
He weighed the battlefield with a cold, steady gaze. In the old days, Drekkh Thar—the call to war—would end only in blood or glory. Today, it ended with the taste of ash and the sting of betrayal. The game had changed. The enemy had changed. He would not send his people to die needlessly for the honor of a single, ruined field.
Orderly retreat. That was the only answer.
He growled, a low rumble of frustration and acceptance. It was not cowardice, it was realism. The demon threat was unclean, unknown. The wyverns overhead, meant new tactics and new dangers, and if there were ten, there could be many more hidden behind human lines. The black-armored army had shown discipline, cruelty, and a power that was not their own. It was madness to challenge them head-on now, not with so many lives at stake.
He turned to the next line of messengers. “Signal the clans: the Drekkh Thar is finished. We hold the passes until the last kin are through, then we fall back to the old lands. None stray behind. We regroup, we heal, and we remember. If the humans want their war, let them have it in their own cursed valleys.” The young Wolfkin at his side nodded grimly and vanished into the darkness.
For a moment, the Ursin’s vast shoulders sagged beneath the weight of command. The mountain wind bit at his fur, but he did not shiver. There was no shame in retreat, not today, not when the future of every beastkin clan hung in the balance.
Let the humans drown in their own betrayals. Let the mountains remember who truly owned them.
