Elara lay upon the stone-framed bed that had served her for centuries, though sleep refused to come. Thick furs lay piled across her immense form, warm enough to ward off the northern chill that seeped into every crevice of the fortress, yet useless against the weight tightening in her chest. The old structure groaned as the wind battered its walls, the sound whispering through its bones like a lamentation for those who had come before. Somewhere in the distance, a lone tundra wolf howled across the snowfields—an omen… or simply nature doing what it always had, indifferent to her thoughts. Tonight, though, Elara heard it differently. It felt like a warning of blood soon to be spilled with the coming dawn. Blood that she would spill.

  For hundreds of years, she had been stationed in the north, her golden light burning without falter. She had fought, bled, and slain across countless winters, but never had the eve of a Blood Rite felt so heavy upon her heart.

  Her hand tightened unconsciously around the haft of Burden, lying beside her—a warhammer of Godsteel, its ancient holy glyphs whispering faint prayers older than the Bastion itself. Outwardly, she was a statue of stalwart resolve; such was expected of the Golden One. But behind her radiant eyes, anger simmered like a forge left stoked overnight, but it was not the Northern Hordes that stirred it. She did not hate them, nor had she ever run from them. No, her wrath was for those to the south. Her… brethren.

  The ruling Chosen of the Bastion, blinded by their own power, and insulated from the horrors they endured to the north. They had grown stagnant, fearful, complacent, and worst of all… political. They treated her seasoned warriors as bargaining chips, shipping them across the Greatmere for favors and alliances. In their place, they sent greenies, untested souls who did not yet understand what it meant to stand against the tundra and its merciless people.

  The Northern Hordes were a force of nature—brutal, ancient, and proud. They’d once been the continent’s most significant threat to peace. Now, the Bastion treated them like sacrificial game, and the Blood Rite, once a desperate treaty forged between desperate peoples, had become sport for those not involved.

  “A hollow thing. A disgrace,” she seethed.

  And this year… something was wrong. Something was wrong. She tried swallowing the bad taste that had come into her mouth, but she just felt like retching instead.

  Elara rose from the bed, furs falling from her broad shoulders as the faint glow of her aura filled the dim chamber. Her eight-foot frame rippled with dense, divine muscle. Her braided amber hair swung as she moved with the weight of centuries—yet still with the controlled grace of a goddess sculpted for war. Ivory muscled-skin perfection as her body healed all flaws.

  She stepped toward the window slit overlooking the northern path below her. The first snows of the year blanketed the valley in waves of shimmering white beneath the fading moonlight. The white valley snaked away from her sight, splitting two massive mountain ranges. This pass formed the only path south into the heart of the Greatmere from the northern tundra within thousands of miles. The tribal peoples of the north had migrated through this vast, snaking valley since the corrupting of Alcondria, and now, far beyond that endless sheet of frost, she knew the Hordes gathered their warriors, the twenty-five who would be this year’s sacrifice to Burden. To the Golden One’s inevitable victory.

  Except this year, her skin crawled with unspoken news on the wind. She knew that outside her vision, something stirred to make her life hell on this forsaken world. Elara waited, knowing the bad news would come sooner or later.

  On cue, the heavy oak door to her chamber slammed open so suddenly that frost dust drifted from the ceiling. A young Chosen, some Half-Elf barely out of his first decade on Alcondria, stumbled inside, his breath steaming thickly as he gasped:

  “Golden One….. The Northerners…. twenty-five…they approach, on foot!”

  The words came in excited bursts. Only after speaking them did he seem to register where he was, and more importantly, who stood before him in nothing but her radiance. His eyes went wide, then wider still as color rushed violently into his cheeks. His gaze swept over her unclothed form, haloed by golden light, and he stiffened like a boy caught staring into the sun.

  He swallowed hard. He craned his neck up. Then he spun on his heel as if burned. “I—I apologize, Golden One—I should have—knocked—I—please forgive me—”

  His voice cracked with humiliation, but Elara neither reached for the furs nearby nor attempted to cover herself with her hands. Shame was a mortal burden, and she had not worn it in lifetimes. Instead, she studied him with a slow furrow of her brow, digesting his frantic words. Her molten-gold eyes drifted to the badge, crookedly pinned to his breastplate: a white number two.

  “Young. Fresh from another world’s cleansing. He still smells of his first death. His next will soon come.” Elara hated herself as soon as she thought this. The dismissiveness of an Elder. The reason for the Bastion’s current state.

  The pinned numbers were the Bastion’s currency of worth. Her own badge, a twelve, was tarnished from centuries of blood, heavier than any warhammer she had ever wielded. It’s number deceiving to all but the Chosen. It marked more than twelve lives lived. Dozens of service cycles, but only twelve successful cleansings, amid countless deaths. She let the silence stretch. The boy squirmed under it like a trapped animal.

  At last, she broke the silence, “Muster those who have been selected for today’s Rite. I will prepare myself.”

  The Half-Elf snapped into formality with visible relief. His eyes were straining as he forced them to stay above her neckline. “Haldin,” he said suddenly. “I… my name…it’s-“Elara just stared at the junior Chosen”-I mean, yes, Golden One.” He saluted sharply, his cheeks almost catching fire, to the wooden frame of her door. “Right away!”

  He turned to leave but hesitated, shoulders tightening. “Um… Golden One… is there any way you might send someone else up to the Hawk?”

  Elara’s lips twitched—no smile, but for her it was knee slapping adjacent. “I will go to the roost,” she replied. “I am certain he already knows.”

  Haldin nodded, throat bobbing. “Understood,” he whispered, then vanished down the torchlit hall.

  The moment he left, Elara exhaled deeply. She donned her battle-garb with ritual precision—layer by layer, strap by strap, and plate by plate. She selected her equipment from the armory shelf with familiarity born of lifetimes. Memories would flash and fade with the motion. Every plate shone with the polish of religious zeal; every link sparkled like diamonds, and each brought back its own tragedy.

  The Blood Rite was not an ancient cruelty born from superstition. It was a compromise. It had been hammered out in the aftermath of terrible slaughter, when the Northern People had fought in fury and nearly drowned the Watch in their blood. The Rite had been the solution offered by the Chosen Council: a sanctioned proving ground where Northern warriors could still fight for sovereignty without igniting another massacre. Should their twenty-five ever win, North Watch would be theirs to do with as they wish. The Chosen would leave it to them.

  They never had. Not once. Instead, the Rite became a slow culling—every five years—until the North ran out of champions strong enough to matter. Elara’s council had called it brilliant. She had watched it hollow their ranks, strip away their Legends, and recently, replace them with the young and untested, or the old and infirm. Long ago, the North had come to the fields singing, praying for their Legends to reclaim what was lost. Now they camped away from the Rite in silence. They no longer hope for victory. Only bracing themselves to never see their warriors again. What had begun as a safeguard against slaughter had become something quieter and colder. A bleeding, carried out with ritual formality. With Elara at its head.

  To the people of Alcondria, she was legend. Scripture. A living hymn to the corrupted Goddess Solayn. But all Elara felt was… nothing. “I’m so tired, One. Are you there? Do you hear your daughter’s prayers?” She felt nothing in response to her silent prayer, and it was more than she expected. Once armored, she stood as a demi-god of war—towering in gleaming gold plate, her tabard heavy with the sigil of Light. Altogether, her plate and mail weighed more than two men, yet it felt like the lightest silk to her, a paladin who sat at the pinnacle of her Tier. Elara hefted Burden before patting it affectionately, as if it were her favorite hound, then strode into the hall.

  Green Chosen saluted sharply as she strode through the keep; the freshest recruits bowed their heads reverently. She barely acknowledged them as she hurried past. Their awe felt distant, as though it belonged to another woman in another age. The only detail her keen vision picked up was the white numbers on their badges as she passed them. “Ones, twos… not a single three or four? How can they possibly think so little of our enemy?”

  She found the spiral staircase up, one hundred steps of cold stone winding toward the open tower. Not a fun journey for anyone, she took the steps three at a time without notice. She climbed them as if weightless, despite the three hundred pounds of gear draped across her body. She was at the peak of her class, a War Priestess, a level no one had surpassed in over two thousand years.

  And unless something changed, no one ever would.

  As she ascended the tower, a strange sensation washed over her, déjà vu. How many times had she walked these same steps, lived this exact moment? She knew precisely what Grimm would say when she reached the top. She could speak his lines before he did. Elara could predict his posture, his breath, the way he squinted into the dawn, the perpetual frown hidden within the black beard. It all felt like a story she’d lived too many times.

  Elara pushed open the heavy tower door, stepping into the biting morning air. Wind screamed across the height, carrying the scent of snow and something older… something metallic. Even the air she breathed this high up tasted of past death. She looked briefly over the northern valley, but the sight knifed into her with memories she refused to relive. Memories of a far-distant slaughter that had stained her soul for eternity.

  Before the thoughts could take root, a gruff voice rumbled beside her. “Did you sleep well, Commander?”

  She didn’t turn. Her reply came flat. “Of course. Like a dream.”

  “We don’t have dreams anymore.”

  “Exactly.”

  She finally turned to regard the figure. Grimm was short, even for one of dwarven lineage, though he was broader than most. Nearly wider than he was tall, in fact. His entire form was shrouded in thick, shifting gray furs of a stone viper he’d slain… by himself. They moved subtly, blending into the stone of the tower and making the dwarf look like a living mirage. His beard was cut short, an oddity for his race, but anything was fitting for a dwarf who wore the number eleven on his chest.

  He wasn’t looking at her. His dark eyes were fixed upward. Elara frowned, their routine broken, and followed his gaze. The Heron star blazed bright against the pre-dawn sky.

  “That’s odd,” she murmured. “The Heron shouldn’t be bright until spring.”

  “I was thinking the same.” Grimm’s usual frown deepened. “Perhaps the Wolf finally grew tired of the Bastion’s charades. The fact they’ve lasted this long is a miracle.”

  She shrugged. “That does sound like them… but if The Wolf truly was attempting a cleansing, why choose the Heron? The Pyre and The Oak are closer.” The question unsettled her. She didn’t like being unsettled, not before a Rite. “Is this what is causing this feeling of dread?”

  Grimm licked his lips, and it was that alone that made the hairs on Elara’s neck rise. Grimm never licked his lips unless… unless delivering terrible news.”

  “Mave reported who is among the twenty-five,” he said softly, watching his Hawk flying high overhead. “Commander… there are three Legends among their ranks.”

  Elara’s chest tightened, and her right fist rose to her lips, teeth pressing into a thick leather knuckle as her left arm braced beneath it. The last reports claimed the North had only five in total. “Three?” Her voice dropping to a whisper edged with steel. “Why would they send more than half their remaining Legends?”

  Grimm’s gaze finally slid to hers, and for the first time in centuries, she saw sorrow in his cold eyes. “Commander… Redbeard is at their head.”

  Elara went still. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but she remained silent. It felt like Grimm had struck her in the skull with one of his hatchets.

  “You… that’s a mistake.” Her breath hitched. “You have to be mistaken, Grimm.”

  Grimm simply held her gaze. He never lied or exaggerated. His eyes did not blink as he stared into her soul. The truth settled over her like a burial shroud. Redbeard. Trigor. Her son in all but blood. And he was walking to his death.

  Everything blurred suddenly within Elara’s mind, stars brightening too early, legends joining the Rite, The Bastion sending greenies, and her own doubt. The world stacked its weight upon her shoulders, trying with all its might to crush her down… and now Trigor, the final straw.

  She swallowed. It didn’t help. She felt like retching.

  Elara forced a slow breath through her nose, still tasting iron on the cold air. She knew this feeling, this hollow drop in her stomach, as if the world itself had shifted under her boots. When the only family she had was threatened. When a warrior lived long enough, she learned to trust certain instincts. And the dread strangling her now was an old enemy, familiar and merciless.

  “Show me,” she said quietly, though her voice held enough command to split stone.

  Grimm stepped aside, handing her his looking glass and giving her a clear view over the tower’s edge. Far below, the northern valley stretched out like a frozen sea, the horizon faintly blushed with the dawn. The twenty-five warriors, no, twenty-five monsters on foot, moved in a tight formation across the tundra, their silhouettes enormous against the snow.

  Even from this height, she recognized the gait of the giant at their head. Her breath hitched. “Trigor,” she mouthed. The child she once found sneaking through her keep with a knife meant for her, and a heart she had spent the next century shaping. The youth who had grown into a legend. Her adopted son. Her legacy for the North and Alcondria. And now the fool was walking willingly into the Rite.

  “I need to speak with him… I must convince him of this foolishness.”

  Grimm didn’t argue, though he knew what was to come; he nodded. He understood. He always did. She all but flew down the tower steps, Grimm matching her rapid pace despite being half her size. Every soldier she passed shrank under her passing.

  Her armor thrummed from the radiance in her veins, urging her forward. Her heartbeat was no longer steady, and the Holy mana inside her roiled.

  At the base of the fortress, the gate guards stood ready to open the massive iron doors for her and her men. The gathered looked to her with reverence, fear, and something more profound, a plea. None of them wanted this Rite. None of them wanted to die in the snow to feed The Bastion’s pride, but all of them, even the greenest Chosen here, would gladly perish to help draw them one step closer to cleansing this world. For they were Chosen.

  “Open it,” she commanded, as she rushed forward.

  The gears screamed as the doors heaved open and the drawbridge lowered, groaning like dying beasts. Cold wind rushed in, carrying with it the scent of iron, pine sap, and the distant cook fires of the Hordes.

  Elara tore out onto the tundra road, boots cracking frozen stone beneath them. Her breath steamed in bright, violent plumes, catching the early light. Grimm flanked her silently, his gray armor whispering against itself. Elara felt the time winding down to inevitable violence. By Bastion law, the Rite MUST be performed as soon as the sun clears the surrounding peaks.

  In the distance, the twenty-five Northern warriors halted at the meeting point within the valley, their formation shifting slightly as they recognized her. She almost ran toward them now, with thundering steps, each one echoing like a drumbeat in the white valley. Her approach held them in their tracks.

  And then the giant at their head stepped forward. Trigor Redbeard. Though his beard, once the deep red of fresh blood, had grown long and pale with streaks of white, like snow melting into fire. His leather armor was thick, adorned with marks of hunts and victories spanning decades. A massive war axe hung across his back, its hilt worn smooth from constant use. His eyes, deep green and bright as emerald fire, locked onto hers.

  “O’ma,” he said, voice booming across the snow. “You look well… for an immortal being.”

  She came to a halt, a few dozen feet away, and despite everything, a faint warmth brushed her heart. “O’sa,” she replied, her voice catching, “it is good to see you.” The traditional greeting of his people.

  He approached her with long, confident strides. The rest of the Northmen stayed back and wearily watched her from a distance. When Trigor reached her, he swept her up in a crushing hug that lifted her plated form off the ground with ease. Once, she might have scolded him. Now, she closed her eyes, letting the moment press into her heart. Wishing once again in her existence, time would stop moving. “He smells of pine and rosemary. Ophilla has him still washing regularly.”

  But even as she felt the strength in his arms, she sensed the tension beneath it, the worry, the choice that was already made, but the consequences he had yet to pay. When he set her down, his hands rested on her shoulders, and Elara spoke first. “But, my son. I cannot say that I am well.”

  His forced smile faltered, but his hands remained on her shoulders, large enough to engulf them. Trigor’s giant ancestry gave him two feet on Elara, but her divine aura could still cause the large man to seem a kid caught in a mischievous act.

  “O’ma,” he said quietly, just for them, “I know, and I promise this was not an easy choice.”

  Her throat tightened. “Why have you come for the Blood Rite? You have many more years before you are out of your prime. Your people have only just begun to unite behind your and Ophilla’s clan. If you fall here…” She swallowed, shaking her head. “Your people cannot afford this. Not now, not when you are so close...”

  Her voice cracked, and for the first time in thousands of years, Elara—The Golden One, Saint of Light, Commander of the Northern Watch—begged. “Please… please withdraw. Find another to take your place. I can hold this off… I can make the others wait.”

  Trigor’s expression had softened. He released her shoulders, lowering his arms to his sides. He turned for a moment, glancing back at the warriors who had followed him. Each stood tall, resolute, and watching them silently.

  “These twenty-four,” he said, “would only agree to the Rite if I led them. I had to have the very best for today. All of them will cost their tribes dearly to lose, but they all agree that it will be worth the price.”

  Elara shook her head slowly. “You know, that even with these mighty warriors, you stand no chance. None in the North can stand against me. Do not make me slaughter these great men… do not make me kill you.”

  Trigor chuckled. “I’ve heard a rumor that the Bastion has not sent you true fighters. Only fresh greenies… and Grimm, of course.” He cast a glance at the dwarf, whose eyebrow twitched in faint greeting. The stout dwarf had approached while they communed, but remained silent as a ghost. “Perhaps it is you who should withdraw, O’ma.”

  Elara’s eyes narrowed. “I know you don’t believe that. That you understand what will happen.” She nodded toward the warriors behind him. “Look at them. Each one holds the resolve of one who knows they will die today. None carries the bearing of those with a chance at victory.”

  His men held her eyes. None of them flinching from her Golden gaze. Heroes of the North did not fear death, but they recognized it. She saw strength. The blood of giants, keeping their backs straight and eyes bright.

  Trigor exhaled, his smile fading into something more complicated. “Well… they are a bunch of Darrough heads anyway.”

  Elara couldn’t help the faint smile that twitched at her lips—an old joke from a better time.

  Trigor looked skyward then, his brow furrowing. “The Legion,” he murmured. “Still bright. Even this late.”

  “Legion?” Elara turned sharply to follow his gaze. The sign burned bright in the far southern sky, a star that heralded omens for the northern clans. She felt her heartbeat stutter. “How did I miss that? The Legion and the Heron… what is going on?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “No,” she whispered, realizing something at last, “Tell me someone did not claim a sign.”

  “Not just anyone,” Trigor said, eyes still locked on the heavens. “The sign visited me.” When he looked back at her, there was a terrible, fervent gleam in his eyes.

  Her stomach dropped. “Trigor,” she hissed, losing more of her composure, “you cannot be serious! I thought I had run those foolish beliefs out of your head decades ago. You know the signs are false. Time after time, year after year, they predict the end of the corrupted Gods, and time after time, they are wrong. You can’t—”

  He raised a hand gently, stopping her. “I am no fool, Golden One.” The title stung, more deeply than she expected. She inhaled sharply through her nose as he continued. “My kin have been misled before, true. But this time is different.”

  “How?” she demanded. “Because you saw something?” she scoffed.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “And before this day is done, I know you will see it too.”

  Her jaw clenched. “Trigor—”

  “I wish I could tell you,” he said softly. “But now, more than ever, I need you to trust me. I need you to trust your O’sa.” He held out his hand, palm up, in supplication. “Trust,” he whispered, “that I do not throw away my life for anything less than certainty.”

  She stared hollowly at his hand, calloused, scarred, larger than any she had ever seen. She wanted to strike it aside. She wanted to drag him back to his mate, Ophilla, and to his children. She wanted to command him to leave. But she would not taint his legend. She would not bring disgrace upon this great man.

  Elara reached up and took his hand. She lovingly rotated it palm-down and folded it into a fist, then placed it atop her own open palm—an ancient gesture from the North. One that spoke to the thoughts she had been toying with for decades.

  A vow and a farewell.

  Gasps rippled among the warriors behind Trigor. They leaned into one another, speaking in hushed whispers. Even Grimm inhaled sharply behind her, showing just how far his control was faltering today. He was the only Chosen who understood what she had just promised. The other Chosen stood as statues waiting for their leader to let them know when it was time to farse.”

  Trigor’s body tightened, his eyes brightening with moisture, causing her own to well. For a man of his size and legend, the vulnerability was crushing for her. He leaned down and embraced her. A gentle embrace of a child. The final embrace with her son.

  After a long moment, he whispered into her ear, “If I am correct, you will be needed in the south. If your duty no longer lies with this valley, then you will find a new purpose there. For Elara the Golden One… there shall always be another fight.”

  Elara’s tears slowed as they separated. When she pulled away, she saw wetness in Trigor’s eyes as well. “I pray to the One you are right,” she whispered. Trigor nodded once, then glanced over her shoulder.

  “Grimm,” Trigor said.

  “Redbeard,” the dwarf replied, his low voice vibrating like thunder. The two men stared at one another for a heartbeat, then two. It was enough. It always had been between them. Trigor looked back at Elara, and she saw it, the fear hidden behind the mask. The flicker of doubt, and the acceptance of death, but the resolve to face it head-on anyway.

  He lifted his great waraxe off his back, holding it high into the sky. Elara withdrew Burden from it’s strap and matched the gesture, raising the hammer to the heavens in silent salute.

  One by one, the Northern heroes mirrored the motion, their weapons rising to form a living forest of metal and bone beneath the early light. For a few breaths, no one moved.

  Then Elara lowered her weapon. She turned on her heel, Grimm falling into stride beside her. Together, they crunched across the snow toward the twenty-three Chosen waiting for their commander. They stood in formation, their armor catching the dawn in sharp glints. Twenty-three souls. Twenty-three warriors chosen from worlds long dead. Ready to die again.

  Elara approached them in silence, the weight of the moment pressing down upon the tundra like a suffocating pillow. Her massive form moving across the snow, the rising sun casting long shadows behind them. She took in her soldiers fully then, their breaths pluming in the cold, the faint tinkling of chainmail, the creak of wooden hafts, the whispered prayers spoken under their breath.

  She saw Elf, Dwarf, Man, and Beastkin. Each one bearing a face carved by death and rebirth. They had all died before. They knew what waited beyond. The endless void until the corruption is cleansed. None welcomed it, but every one of them would carry out their task to the end, and for most, that end would come soon.

  The Half-Elf Haldin approached, his helm tucked beneath his arm, eyes sharp now despite his earlier embarrassment. “All are ready for your words, Commander.”

  Elara nodded. “Thank you, Haldin. And thank you for choosing to join the Rite.”

  He shrugged softly, with a slight grin, “No choice. Just duty.”

  The traditional saying of their people. False humility. But his eyes held no lie. He was ready to die. Most of them were. They understood what stood across the field from them. This world did not make all men equal.

  His grin widened a little further, while he quipped, “I only ask that if I make it through today, you may grant me a second viewing like this morning.”

  Elara at first had no idea what he spoke of, but as the memory of their encounter returned, she couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the request in this moment. “Oh, Junior, you make it through a hundred today’s and then we can start talking.” His smile would have dropped if not for the slight wink she shot him.

  She thought a quick prayer that he would survive. Anyone brave enough to approach her was worth keeping around… for their bravery…

  The moment of slight levity passed for her. She was thankful for it, but Elara exhaled slowly. Grounding herself back in the moment as she faced her Chosen siblings.

  Then she spoke, her voice amplified with divine power, carrying across the entire line. “Two hundred years ago, a massacre that claimed half a million souls brought forth this Rite. The metallic smell in the air, which never goes away, still echoes the screams and misery of that event. This birthed a treaty between the Chosen and the Northern Tribes. Their twenty-five greatest warriors against our twenty-five greatest Chosen to sate their pride. A goal for them. Their victory giving them control of Northwatch to do with as they wish.”

  She paused, letting the history settle.

  “For thirty-nine Rites, we have never tasted defeat. We have held the Watch. And today,” she said, her voice carrying like a cavalry charge, “we will hold it again!” Her soldiers remained silent, still as statues. No cheers. No raised fists. They simple stared across the hundreds of feet of tundra towards the Northern warriors.

  The Northmen had begun to move into formation. Massive fighters wielding great iron shields stepped to the front. Many of Trigor’s men fanned out to spread their forces. Their most vulnerable taking spots behind the shield wall.

  Elara continued.

  “We do this so the innocent will not suffer again. We grant the Northern children a world where they need not pick up arms against our people. We are the executioners of their Legends, so that they may pass into the void with their pride. Able to die in glory and honor as their customs demand.”

  Trigor seemed to speak to his men. His voice not thundering like Elara’s. Instead, the chieftain gave last-minute orders. The twenty-five taking their final places. They readied swords, maces, and odd instruments of death. Elara took a moment to try to spot her first targets as she spoke her final words.

  She raised her hammer high again. “In the name of the One,” she declared, “we pray for strength to see our duty done!”

  The echoes of her invocation faded into the frozen valley, swallowed by the steady howl of the northern wind. No cheers followed her call, as falling snow began to pepper their formation.

  Her Chosen lowered their heads in one last moment of silent prayer to the One. Armor shifted. Boots dug in. Forty-eight souls braced for death.

  Elara felt the weight of the moment settle over her shoulders like a mantle of ice. A Chosen Kynari nearest her handed Elara her Greathelm, and with quick hands, she fastened its straps. She slammed her visor down. The world narrowed into a strip of gold-lit vision and breath-steamed air.

  Grimm stepped to her right, drawing his twin hatchets silently. The runes carved into their edges pulsed faintly cold, sharp, and hungry. Black and red mana began to pour out of his hands, imbuing the edges with enough magic to eat through stone. She felt, more than saw, the slight shift in his posture, the small tilt of his head, the measured inhale that preceded violence on a godlike scale. This was Grimm, one of ten on Alcondria that could challenge her, and unfortunately for the Northmen, none of those ten stood across from the two of them.

  No one spoke now.

  Not the Chosen.

  Not the Northmen.

  The only sound was the low whistling of wind, and gathering cries of scavengers overhead. The sun pushed past the jagged peaks of Caelvar’s Teeth. Its first rays kissed the valley. Everything went still.

  Then, like a divine signal, it crested fully over the mountain peak. Forty-nine warriors burst into action. Her chosen charged. Their line raced across the hundred yards to Trigor’s awaiting formation.

  Elara raised Burden, her connection to her divine might, and whispered a prayer she had readied.

  “Radiant Aegis.”

  A golden shield burst forth from nothingness onto her left forearm. A wave of warm light erupted outward, washing over her soldiers’ backs. Their Armor glowed. Shields flared. Every breath for them coming easier. Her men bolstered as divine fortification flooded through them. Her War Priestess prayer giving them the slightest chance at survival.

  Behind the Northmen, Trigor raised his waraxe and let out a roar that shook loose snow from the pine trees a mile away. His call rushed towards her men and crashed against their protection. Some stumbled and fell to a knee, and a few let out screams of their own. Trigor’s warriors answered with their own battle cries—a chorus of fury that resonated in Elara’s bones, adding to his assault, but soon the chorus faded, and Elara’s Aegis held firm.

  The iron wall of shields began to move—the two forces closing the final distance. The Northerners did not run or charge blindly. Instead, marching. Like executioners. Like legends. Like gods themselves, and despite it all, Elara felt the old thrill creep into her heart. Into her mind. As her shield moved before her and her voice bellowed its second prayer- “

  “Archangel’s Wraith!”

  White angelic wings of light burst forth from her back. Flame followed their wake as they unfurled. With this, Trigor’s line now broke into a sprint, knowing what was coming but unable to stop her. They spread further apart, trying to lessen her chance of catching--

  “God’s Step.”

  With a single beat of feathered wings, she shot forward, the world blurring before her. In a blink, she crossed the distance. Her approach outpacing her own soundwave. Her golden shield struck the iron shield of a bone-clad warrior with the force of a falling comet.

  Teeth, bone, and blood erupted in a grotesque bloom as her aegis smashed through the man’s defenses. His body flew from her strike as if flung by a catapult. A moment later, the force of her arrival hit the Northern warriors like a physical wave. Blowing out eardrums and causing blood to spill from their eyes and ears.

  It barely seemed to register to these monsters.

  A second warrior was already swinging a curved blade of flame at her flank. Sparks burst in a cascade as the blow struck her divine protection and skidded harmlessly away. The blow was enough, however, to cause her protection miracle to fade. She pivoted, Burden, dipping low. The Warhammer rising beneath his guard, but this man was fast.

  His shield met her strike. His speed was undeniable. The shield shattered, all the same, and the arm behind it disintegrated into pulp. The shrapnel flayed his face, removing his vision. A return spin of the Warhammer caved in his chest before his scream could rip from his lips. He fell without another sound. Then, the Chosen arrived, snapping the world fully into the madness of battle.

  Instantly, there were no lines anymore—no clean formations—only violence. “And the smell…-” Elara breathed in, as her eyes hunted her next victim, and she tasted the blood in the air, “-Why God… why do I love it?”

  A massive kick slammed against Elara’s shield, the force jarring her shoulder. The leg that struck her was severed mid-motion as Grimm slid beneath her shield edge, his twin hatchets flashing in a blur. He darted past her like a grey wraith, carving through tendons, throats, and armor with surgical precision. Each wound immediately festers and ignites from his mana.

  Elara didn’t pause. A Velari woman in bone armor, not wearing it, “fused into it”—charged her with a blood-soaked axe. A Chosen lay at her feet, head split open like firewood.

  Elara slammed her shield and hammer together, crying out—"

  “Saint’s Rebuke.”

  A concussive blast of light ripped outward from her in a cone.

  The bone-fused woman skidded to a halt and slammed her axe into the earth, wrenching a slab of frozen ground up as a barrier. “This must be Veska the Whiteclaw. She had almost attended her legendary tier. She’s good.” Just after her thought, her shockwave smashed into Veska’s cover, bursting it into powdered clumps of dirt and ice, buying herself a heartbeat of cover.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Elara surged through the scattering debris. The woman swung her axe upward, but Elara’s hammer crashed into her bone head from the side—no resistance, no deflection—just an explosion of red. Her head vanished, and the bone body toppled to the snow.

  Elara’s breath misted heavily as she turned for the next threat. A spear punched into her calf, deep enough to pierce her protection. Pain flared through her leg.

  Elara snarled, ripping the weapon free with one hand. She flung her shield up instinctively as her peripheral vision caught glass vials arcing toward her—a green liquid swirling inside. “Those are Greenblood’s.” Elara knew the shield would not save her from this attack. But they never reached her.

  Grimm intercepted them mid-air, two of his hidden throwing knives striking and shattering them. The green liquid splashing harmlessly into the snow igniting the rock beneath. Her eyes found a crooked man wearing mottled armor, as he prepared to throw another round of vials her way. “Hennon Greenblood.” One of the Legends of the North, someone who had campfire stories told of him and his terrible, acidic blood. “I need to move, that shit will tear through…” Her thoughts were interrupted as Hennon threw his vials, and a black streak of feathers intercepted the projectiles.

  Mave had caught the vial and returned it to the owner. The thin glass shattered on Hennon’s face. His scream lasted less than a second before his flesh melted away like wax under a smith’s torch. Two of her Chosen descended on him and finished what was left.

  A moment won, Elara whispered-

  “Heal Pain”

  -and the fire in her calf dulled instantly, as she took in the battlefield around her.

  Dozens of bodies were already scattered and broken. Blood steaming through the snow. Screams—human, elven, dwarven, beastkin—rising in jagged bursts, before being silenced by the nearest enemy.

  Elara watched as Trigor’s waraxe spun through two Chosen at once, its enchanted edge singing like a mourning wail. The large man bled heavily from multiple wounds—deep gashes running across his ribs, his left arm smoldering, his face exalting in the slaughter, as his Bezerker’s Fury fed on the carnage.

  He fought like the world’s fate depended on it. He fought like they had trained him to.

  The nearest fight caught her eye. The Half-Elf, Haldin, was dueling a northern warrior twice his size, blade flashing in desperate arcs. Every parry shook his entire frame. Elara lunged forward to help—

  —but Haldin struck first. He slashed upward, opening the Northman’s gut in a spray of gore. He grinned in exhausted triumph as his opponent fell away.

  Then a thunderous crack split the battlefield. An arrow thicker than a spear slammed through his spine, bursting from his stomach in a gout of blood, before it buried itself two feet into the ground. Haldin froze eyes wide before the second arrow exited his clavicle. He fell forward, sliding onto the snow as his life spilled out behind him. The holes in his body turned black and decayed before anyone could stop them. He was gone.

  Elara’s head snapped toward the source of the ballista like arrows, a quarter mile away: Ferrick the Black, one of the three northern Legends. Like Trigor, he was another with strong giant blood. His greatbow—nearly as large as Elara herself—was already firing, the missile whistling its furious approach—his dark mana streaming from its enforced point.

  Ferrick had loosed the arrow toward her. Her shield snapped up. The arrow struck dead center—

  —splintering into an explosion of black fragments. A large piece ripped through her helm, slicing across her cheek and drawing divine blood. Her own mana staving off his from ending her life. Elara’s mouth opened to cast--

  Ferrick’s brow rose, eyes widening in fear as he tried to cast an escape spell—

  “God’s Step!”

  Elara was already upon him.

  She caught him mid-air with her shield, slamming him upward with so much force that he launched skyward. She hurled Burden after him. The hammer struck him dead center with a sickening crunch. His ribs collapsed inward, as she clenched her fist and announced--

  “Divine Burst.”

  Burden detonated in a flash of blinding light. Chunks of Ferrick rained down across the snow.

  The hammer reappeared in her hand in a pulse of golden brilliance. Elara’s head snapped at a now distant yell.

  Trigor bellowed something in tribal—an order or a warning—as another northern warrior attempted to flank Grimm. They managed to score a blow with a glass cleaver, but the dwarf moved like a storm given flesh. His axes carved a lattice of steel that severed tendon, bone, and flesh. The leaf-clad woman he fought turned into smoldering piles of meat, but Grimm was stumbling, clutching at the new wound on his face, as his blood seemed to boil and hiss.

  Elara’s gaze searched for her remaining Chosen. Someone who might come to Grimm’s aid, but only three still lived. Grimm, Elara, and someone who was currently flying away from Trigor. A backhanded blow from the man sending them skipping across the frozen ground. All the other Chosen… broken in pieces, bleeding out into the snow, or lying still and cold. Her heart twisted for their sacrifice, but the battle wasn’t done, and now, Elara was out of charges for Gods Step, and the Northern Chief was closing on Grimm.

  Trigor roared and lunged toward Grimm to end the dwarf before he could recover, and while Elara flew back to the battlefield. With quick and measured swings, the smaller of the two warriors was quickly overwhelmed, Grimm’s wound stealing much of his vision. Trigor’s blood fury was overflowing, and, with savage strength, Trigor slammed home his axe, directly onto the dwarf’s left shoulder.

  Anyone else and the arm would have been gone, but somehow, Grimm twisted in mid dismemberment, and the axe split down his upper arm, exciting without taking the limb. All the same, a fountain of blood erupted from the wound, and Grimm fell to his back. Trigor stepped forward and swung to end the dwarf, but Elara arrived and intercepted the blow with her shield.

  The attack drove her into the ground, but the woman did not bend or break. Instead, her golden shield bursts in a shower of sparks, temporarily blinding Trigor, allowing Elara to lash out with a fist and send the man stumbling backwards from her friend.

  He was back and on her in an instant, eyes completely red, his blood fury stoked from taking the life energy from one as powerful as Grimm. Their weapons clashed with a sound that split the sky.

  She slammed her left fist into his chest, cracking ribs.

  He struck back with his waraxe, the blow crunching her shoulder plate, causing hot pain to race up her neck and down her arm.

  She batted the weapon away with Burden and kicked out.

  He staggered.

  She lunged.

  He parried.

  They circled each other, both breathing heavily, both bleeding, both knowing precisely how this must end. The wounds that covered Trigor were beginning to take their toll. His berserkers’ rage was ebbing as she kept him from feeding his frenzy.

  “O’ma,” he rasped, “please.”

  She knew what he asked. He wasn’t begging for his life. Not even for a quick end. He wanted confirmation… he wanted his omen to be true, whatever that may be. He needed her to complete what he must have seen.

  Elara shook her head once, tears burning behind her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “Please, not like this.”

  Trigor smiled sadly. He charged, swings coming fast. Elara did what she could to stay ahead of the bigger man. Trigor fought with the fury of a wounded animal, but even that could only sustain him so long. He gasped for air from the effort. All fight slowly seeping from his body. He looked at her then, and Elara saw fear in his eyes. Not fear of dying, but that she would not kill him.

  Elara felt disgust. “How could the man I raised have fallen for such an obvious falsehood? How could he think I would do this?”

  Then, with a final, desperate swing, Trigor used whatever remaining skill he was holding—his axe sped towards her with the intent to kill. Elara stepped in, instincts finally winning out. Burden lashed out, caving in the chest of Trigor. And the Golden One granted her son the warrior’s death he deserved.

  The world went silent. The giant collapsed, snow kicking up around him as his massive body struck the ground. Blood spread from his wounds and painted the white red around him.

  Elara dropped to her knees beside him. His eyes were still bright, still burning, as they met hers with fading warmth.

  “O…a…” he tried speaking, but only wet choking came out. His airways were no longer functioning.

  “Hush,” she mumbled, cold gripping her heart. She moved, lifted his head, and brushed his cheek with a gauntleted hand. She placed his head on her lap as she had done so many times before. His relaxing eyes stared up into the bright morning. The battlefield already all but forgotten.

  His ragged breathing slowed. His lips parted with a final attempt for air, but then a ghost-soft smile appeared, and he moved no more. Trigor Redbeard, the greatest hope of the North, was gone.

  Snow drifted gently over the fallen. The Heron star dimmed overhead. Signaling that the contest was completed. Elara didn’t even look up. She knew that Trigor had been wrong. That the stars remained where they always had. The her son had died for nothing.

  She stood, slowly lifting Trigor’s body as easily as when he had been a child, her armor streaked with blood, her wings flickering away behind her. Grimm slowly limped towards her, breathing heavily, his axes dripped red at his waist, his arm wound already glowing with his own healing ability. It would not kill him, but he would not recover fully until he could meet with a true healer. Elara numbly stared at him, making sure he wasn’t trying to hide anything, before her empty eyes fell back to her son.

  A sharp cry from Mave overhead halted Grimm in his approach. His head snapped up as he searched for his hawk companion. Elara’s brow furrowed, and her own gaze began to search. She was relieved to find Mave, but that relief melted away.

  Something was wrong.

  “The sky… Something is wrong with the sky.” Elara’s weary mind couldn’t puzzle out what it was. Her brain was too sluggish after the battle, and her energy was tanking.

  “Where…WHERE IS LEGION?” cried the only other surviving Chosen—the Kynari woman from earlier. Elara looked at her. The wolf-like woman’s helm had been caved in. Massive purple bruising had already formed around her face, and there was an obvious break in her cheek.

  “What did she say?” Elara wearily wondered.

  “My God… My God! By the One, it's gone, “Grimm gasped.

  It clicked. Elara understood what was wrong. “There are only FIVE!” Her heart felt as if it stopped beating. Five divine sigils remained scattered high above in the heavens. This morning, only minutes ago, there had been six. The star denoting Legion was gone. “How is that possible? Who is even in the swamps… none of our ten.” She rasped. “It’s a terrible season to try Legion. The swamps….”

  Elara began rambling. Brain misfiring from the day’s events. Her own son forgotten, until Grimm asked a question, drawing her back to the present, “Do you think this is what the kid saw? Could he have possibly… is there any way he was right?”

  At Grimm’s question, everything crashed back down into her. All of it. Crushing her into the snow, and heaviest of all, was her vow to Trigor. Elara stared down at her son, replaying everything and ignoring the pain of the recent memories. “Maybe he was. I vowed to him that I would see his vision come true… or see it as false.” She looked back at the sky as she stood unmoving with her thoughts. The same sky that had not changed since she arrived over one thousand years ago.

  Elara, the Golden One, was frozen in indecision. It was an uncomfortable feeling. “Move or die, but by God do something.” An old line played through her mind. Something she had not thought of in nearly a thousand years. “I will stay to bury the dead and report to Ophilla, but will leave as soon as that is finished. I will also need to return to the Bastion… to report, and to submit my resignation as Commander of the North Watch.”

  “I will come with you.”

  Grimm’s words didn’t catch her off guard. The two of them had been inseparable for more than eight of their previous lives. Where she went, Grimm followed. Still, she finally looked away and over to her old friend, nodding a silent thanks. “Legion was in the swamps. The Silent Fen, if I remember correctly.” Elara spoke more to herself, her mind racing with plans. “I’ve never been south of The Bastion. In fact, I’ve never left the Old Imperium.”

  Elara began trudging to the camped people of the North, bearing her son’s remains. She knew that the new Tribal Chief would be waiting for her Heart’s return. Elara would tell Ophilla of her promise, since everyone from the North who had borne witness was now dead. Her head was racing. She felt the pull towards the South. Towards the answers. “How did they kill them. How could they have possibly killed The Legion?” Her mind leaping, Elara The Golden was on the move. Cold wind blowing past her, racing away to the south.

  Little did she know that thousands of miles to the south. Far further than the Old Imperium and the Last Bastion. Past the Greatmere Plains and the Ashen Banner Confederacy, and running parallel to the great Southern Spine Mountains, lay a sprawling wetland. Death and decay swirling together with life and growth in its shadowed boughs. The Silent Fen. It was a territory of bogs, decaying villages, and crumbling buildings from a long-dead empire.

  The marsh was a nightmare for most who entered. It was infested with biting flies, mosquitoes, and creatures not yet named, where croaking frogs and the call of exotic birds gave life to the dead air.

  Deep, deep within its heart lay piles of dead and decaying bodies sinking slowly into the marsh.

  Near the center of the mass of corpses, among the piles of the decaying and rotting, knelt a gasping naked man. His gray skin was slick with sweat and gore. He was looking down in shock at the bodies stacked beneath him, at the mounds of seeping flesh surrounding him. Dozens of different races and creatures made up the dead. His gray eyes scanned frantically as his brain tried to process what was happening.

  As he moved his hand, it made a sucking sound as it was pulled from rotting intestines. Then, without warning, he sprayed vomit from his gasping mouth. Overwhelmed by the cacophony of smells surrounding him. He choked and spat the vile, moaning, “Well… I guess it’s good to smell again.”