Ygrain fumbled about in absolute darkness. Her hands spread out before her, lightly touching the damp cavern walls, guiding her through the narrow stone tunnels under the mountain.

  Voices seemed to echo from far, far away. They began as a subtle warbling, its source distorted by twisting veins and dark gulches of the deep earth, and the closer she came the more it coalesced into coherent sound.

  Ygrain couldn’t make out the words exactly, but the sounds, and the feeling of them made her blood run hot.

  Her heart and head were pounding with each syllable.

  It terrified her, and yet something, some drive she didn’t understand urged her onward.

  Refusing to be denied.

  Her pace quickened as she came to a stumbling, frantic run. Her hands sliding across the walls at speed.

  In her haste her palm’s slid harshly and ripped against sharp cracks and grooves in the wall and she felt blood begin dripping between her fingers.

  She paid it no heed.

  Eventually she felt that she had crossed a threshold.

  The walls vanished from her touch into the darkness, and the slightly fresher air of a wide open chamber filled her lungs.

  She lingered near the entrance to the tunnel she’d come through nervously, unsure of the chamber's depths.

  The voices had grown so much further away.

  

  She whipped her head about, uselessly searching for the voice’s origin.

  From the shadows ahead a fiery light emerged, twisting and shifting fluidly like molten steel.

  Her limbs immediately obeyed the beckoning light.

  A pool of golden rays, a lake of liquid sunlight set out in the center of the chamber before her.

  Never once did she consider why the light did not illuminate the rest of the chamber, ending at the borders of those waters.

  She walked through a bed of shadows towards the lighthouse.

  She fell pathetically to her knees before the light, her eyes brimming with tears.

  Suddenly she was full of such terrible relief, like a great weight she hadn’t realized existed was simply gone.

  Life would be better now, she felt.

  She bent down and began to drink from the light like one lost in the desert.

  

  The words were summoning and binding.

  A voice come from within her own soul, as familiar as her own. As if it had always been there.

  

  Ygrain knew then that she had been wrong, and her blood had not been burning back there in the tunnel.

  She had known nothing of what it was to burn.

  She had been like a child, speaking a word she’d heard and repeated with no understanding of its meaning.

  All until she had taken that last greedy gulp from that terrible pool.

  She shot to her feet, limbs stiff as boards and contorting painfully, the muscles spasming so powerfully the skin rippled in liquid waves.

  Ygrain screamed as the heat of a bonfire spread through her guts like a draught of molten lead.

  She fell again, this time onto her side and twisted hideously in a bent shape with all limbs cast back at odd angles, joints popped and cracked as she shrieked and quaked.

  Sweat was pouring from her in streams, and there was the coppery taste of blood in her mouth.

  She tried to call for help, to ask for forgiveness, to beg for death, but the words were heavy on her tongue.

  She had bitten through it.

  Her bestial moans and tortured mutterings devolved, their meaning lost to the madness of agony.

  That fire that burned away all reason, all of the inner voices that called themselves Ygrain scattered to the winds.

  

  The words washed over her with a new sort of heat, soothing, healing. The pleasant burning relief of a body after great labors.

  Ygrain could think only of relief, and of the words which blazed like the light of the sun in her mind.

  

  The pain had gone, but the cave had gone too.

  The dark cavern had dissolved like smoke into a horizon of fire and ruin all around her.

  Fiery clouds of swirling molten fluid and pockets of burning gasses glided across black peaks.

  The land below was no better, what earth remained had all become black ash.

  Molten rivers flowed down familiar mountaintops like the rivers they had replaced.

  The world was burnt, down to the rocks.

  And Ygrain knew, somehow, that she was responsible.

  

  A smoldering shape looming in the smoke before her.

  A blackened scorched hand, almost human but scaled and clawed reaching desperately out for her.

  ...

  Ygrain sat bolt upright in bed.

  Her eyes were wide and fearful, and her breathing a frenzied pant.

  A bucketful of sweat drenched her nightclothes and a haze of steam was rising from her skin. She took a few slow breaths as she pulled herself out of bed, the steam slowly petered out.

  She was nearly stumbling to the window of the relatively small darkened bedchamber when she finally managed to grip the curtain’s edge and pulled it open cautiously.

  The morning sun was in the early stages of its rising and taking its sweet time.

  Autumn winds blew through thick forests of yellow and green fir trees, and the princess took a number of grateful breaths.

  The mists clung heavy to the ground between the hills and mountains in pooling valleys. The clouds hung very low in the sky, as if she could have reached out and grabbed hold of them.

  The sounds of distant hammering broke the tranquility of the moment.

  Ygrain yanked the curtains fully wide, and revealed the whole of what was to be her new home, if however meager.

  The keep of Kaerwyn Muir spread out before her.

  Below, the smoke of dozens of small thatch homes rose into the air in wispy trails.

  From the window Ygrain followed the sound of hammering to see the gathered craftsmen working at the keep’s gate amongst a mound of lumber, in the middle of constructing several intricate wooden watchtowers.

  A watchman atop the gatehouse raised and blew an ornate green war-bugle and the workers swiftly moved away from the gate as the guards opened it, pulling aside piles of lumber and tools to do so.

  The working men spoke desperate apologies to the mounted party as they entered the keep.

  Booming deep laughter greeted them as a group of armed men and horses rode in from beyond the gateway, sealed shut for the past six days.

  “Speak nothing of it! You do us all a dear service, friends! Dear service! And an excellent work of carpentry at that!”

  The deep voice rang out with warmth and camaraderie, echoing through the village, audible to all but a few in the small hold.

  The craftsmen chuckled earnestly and accepted the praise with good graces, raising their waterskins to toast the prince’s safe return.

  Ygrain smiled fondly, her eldest brother tended to have that effect on people.

  Uhtren the Bear Prince was as renowned throughout Eiren for his prowess in battle as he was for his gentleness of heart.

  She hurried to dress.

  Hopping toward the door by one foot, pulling a final riding boot into place double handed. Managing miraculously not to stumble and fall as she sprinted down the tower’s stairs.

  Her breath came out in steaming clouds, freezing in the air. Winter was fast coming.

  The kitchen staff was hard at work preparing the morning meal.

  A dozen women sweating worked the coalfire brick stoves baking loaves of crisping bread, turning spits of roasting chicken with brown crackling skin, slicing portions of aged wheels of graying cheese.

  Ygrain burst through the door, nearly knocking over an old woman slicing vegetables.

  She rushed out the other side of the kitchens just in time to hear a barrage of cries, either of condemnation or insult echoing out from behind her.

  “Apologies! I’m running late!” she yelled back at them over her shoulder.

  “Late for what, I wonder?” asked a booming voice ahead of her.

  Ygrain whipped her head about just in time to crash headfirst into a towering bear of a man.

  He wrenched her one handed from the floor to her feet.

  “You weren’t in the hall when I returned this morning.” her brother said firmly, his face the dispassionate mask of a stern parent.

  “I know Uhtren I-”

  “My instructions were specific, were they not? If you weren’t there in the hall and dressed by the time I arrived, then you couldn’t come.” He crossed his arms, his disappointment palpable.

  “I didn’t mean to sleep in, it was just an accident! You have to let me come along Uhtren, you promised!” she pleaded.

  His face remained grave and unshaken.

  “Oh I see. Well if it was just an accident then I suppose it's alright if you still come along.” he spoke without tone, but halfway through a creeping smile started breaking through the smoke screen of his dense red beard.

  Ygrain scowled in annoyance.

  “You’re terribly unfunny, I hope you know that. Everyone says it.”

  Uhtren broke out into thick bellowing laughter, and she couldn't help but follow suit.

  “Not so nearly as unfunny as you, my dear sister. But come! I promised you a hunt, and we have many mouths to feed.”

  ...

  They rode together for many hours, the sound of their horses' footfalls echoing minutely in the wooded valley.

  Ygrain had thrown on a white wolf skin cloak, a bow and quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder.

  After a long period of silence, her eyes fell guiltily to the floor, “I had the nightmare again last night.”

  Her brother was silent for a time after, though he watched her carefully as they rode, brow thick with worry.

  “The entire vision?”

  Ygrain nodded grimly.

  “And the voice in the dark. And that feeling when I drank the Waters, the burning inside...” her voice trailed off, not wishing to revisit.

  “The memory won’t ever really go away I’m sorry to say little sister. You will grow used to it though, in time. You’ll sleep easier.”

  Ygrain was lost in her own troubles, and she scowled at the stones.

  “At this rate, I doubt it. And the queen won’t tell me anything about any of it, naturally. She delights in keeping me in the dark about everything!”

  “You are young, sister. Younger than any who has ever tasted of the Elder Fire, our mother just wants to keep you safe from harm. An impossible goal in times of war. A matter we well disagree upon, but a noble one nonetheless.”

  Ygrain simmered down from scowl to frown.

  “Maybe...The others have been no help either, not that they’d know anything I suppose.”

  Uhtren cracked a smile.

  “You give them all too little credit, but her especially, Ygrain. We are all of us here doing all that we can. Nothing more, nothing less. Forgiveness costs you little, bitterness far more.”

  Ygrain’s face flashed with confusion.

  “That’s a strange sentiment for a general to have.”

  “I believe it's the sentiment every general ought to have.”

  They rode in silence for a good time after, and it wasn’t until it appeared that their journey had been for naught, and they may have to return empty-handed that Ygrain spoke, deep in thought.

  “Uhtren?”

  “Hmm? What is it? Do you hear something?” her brother craned his head listening for the rustling of prey.

  Ygrain’s eyes grew dim, and grave.

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  “No. There was something else in my dream, a new vision.”

  “Tell me.”

  Ygrain’s eyes collected dew, the dams threatening to burst as she spoke.

  “The dream continued past where I usually wake. I awoke outside the cave, in a strange place. The land looked like Eiren. I recognized the hills, the rivers. But it was...It was ashes. It was burnt and blackened. And the voice spoke again.”

  The same rivers seemed to run now down her pale face, and as she wept the terror of it returned to her anew.

  “What did it say?” Uhren asked, softly.

  Ygrain gritted her teeth as if in pain.

  She would never forget the creature's words. Burned there in her mind like a brand of hot iron on her flesh.

  “To ash. To dust. To ruin. What do you think that could mean?”

  “Ash is what all fire comes to, when the fuel is spent, when the dark rolls in. Ash is death.”

  “Whose death?”

  Uhtren held his hand aloft and they both ceased their stride, neither making a sound.

  Ygrain heard the faint rustling of something in the grasses.

  They moved as one sliding soundlessly off their saddles, only making the fainest of rustling as they cautiously crept closer through the brush.

  Ygrain drew the pale wood of her yew bow from her shoulder.

  Cresting an earthy mound, they pressed low to the ground and inched forwards towards the sound. Over the mound’s side a tiny patch of blackberry bushes dense with thorns sat in the shade of a grove of young trees.

  Something shuffled through the bushes with its snout, scarfing down the berries and thorns alike.

  From behind Ygrain thought it a bear for the creature's incredible size and great shaggy pelt of light brown fur that covered its massive frame. A long bushy tail swung between its legs, and two pointed ears peaked past its shoulders from behind.

  Ygrain looked to Uhtren, who had already taken a hunting spear from the bundle at his back and angled it for a throw.

  He mouthed two words, “Feinn wolf”, and gestured for her to move away.

  Ygrain crawled away and down the side of the low hill, now nearly level with the creature. From this new angle Ygrain could see what she had not.

  The beast was a monstrous union of boar and wolf.

  A maw of snapping fangs and curling tusks slick with blackberry juice, jaws wide enough to fit a child inside. Its claws dug deeply into the brambles, tearing the roots and thorns to ribbons.

  The Feinnwolf had a monstrous appetite, and would devour anything it could find, be it plant or animal. It was well known in the walled villages and hamlets of Eiren that the beasts preferred the hot blood of fresh prey above all.

  The wolf lowered its head to gnaw on a bundle of roots.

  Ygrain breathed in as she took an arrow between her fingers, carefully nocking the bow.

  She could see a flash of exposed flesh between the neck and shoulder. She released the arrow and her breath at once.

  Flying through the air the arrow buried itself just shy of her mark, and the Feinnwolf whipped its head through the air wildly, bucking and roaring in its twisted howling squeal.

  Ygrain whipped her hand back to nock another arrow, making the slightest rustling as she did.

  The Feinnwolf stopped bucking, darting to face the sound.

  They locked eyes. Its maws dripped with frenzied drool as it snarled, and then charged.

  Panicked, Ygrain took aim again, firing swiftly. The arrow buried itself uselessly in the creature's shoulder.

  Ygrain closed her eyes as the thing leaped at her, its claws outstretched and open hungry jaws reaching.

  Uhtren’s javelin caught the Feinnwolf through the neck, the force sending it sprawling away from her and into the forestry.

  “You alright?!” Uhtren called, a note of fear in his voice.

  “Quite fine! How long were you going to wait to throw that? Till it had time to properly clean its teeth?”

  “I was merely waiting for the right opportunity, dear sister. You make excellent bait.”

  They broke through the treeline, finding the carcass of the beast slumped against a nearby tree stump.

  The javelin had gone cleanly through the neck, ripping out the opposite side by half its length.

  Blood and drool pooled beneath the beast's still twitching jaws.

  “I hate Feinnwolf.” Ygrain grumbled noisily.

  “It's not so bad really. I mean when you think about it, it's at least half pork. Unless you’d prefer to pick berries?” She snorted haughtily, and helped her brother field dress the kill.

  The beast was too great for their mounts alone to carry, so they laid out a thick fur blanket and wrapped the carcass in it. The Feinnwolf was tied to both their horses and to Uhtren who pulled a third rope.

  Ygrain walked alongside, deep in thought.

  ...

  The kaerwyn’s great hall was near to bursting with bodies, as men, women, and children of the Clan Muir all crammed themselves inside.

  The long feasting tables were quickly filling up, and many took to standing by the walls or crouching upon an animal skin rug.

  The hearthfires blazed, and the warmth was enough that many shed their coats.

  The food was carried out from the kitchen and placed onto the tables. Large vats of stewed carrots and potatoes, long steaming platters of Feinnwolf steaks, loaves of bread and whatever else could be scrounged up.

  Only when the last of these were put in place did the gathered throng begin to eat.

  Uhtren and Ygrain sat at the great table’s head, amongst a small gathering of other highborns.

  “Bah, a single helping for breakfast. We truly have fallen far.” groaned Lord Tirveog, a white-beared man pushing both his sixties and his waistline.

  The other assemblage of lords about the far end of the table chuckled amongst themselves at the remark.

  Prince Uhtren roared with playful laughter, making many in the assembled crowds crack returning grins.

  “We have enough, my lord. And besides, even if we were forced to endure the slimmest cuttings of feinnwolf steak, we would still be more blessed than others. Elder Fire give them rest.”

  “Aye, I suppose you are right, young master. At least we aren’t the Grynts. Entire sodding family burned alive on their own palace green. Poor bloody bastards.” Tirveog said, shaking his head sadly.

  The hall doors burst open.

  A frantic man, one of Clan Muir’s soldiers in grey and white haulberk and helm, sword by his side, came into the feasting hall at a run.

  “My lords! Dragons! Dragons seen in the skies! Over the far western range! There is word of smoke from that way, that a Guhran banner now flies above the hills of Dun Andhar! Our countrymen were slaughtered there in droves!”

  The crowds all became consumed by panic.

  Lord Tirveog stood to his feet, holding his hands out in a calming fashion, the crowd obeyed.

  “Calm yourselves! We have taken precautions. This fortress is the best in Eiren, all thanks to the young crown-prince’s modifications and craftsmen! The towers are complete! And anyway, we’ve pushed these invaders back from our borders twice now, and made them suffer for it. I say, they require a third lesson in Eireni strength!”

  The warriors were invigorated by the speech, each making greater and greater boasts and oaths of their presumed valor in the future battle.

  Uhtren remained quiet after the news, his face twisted in thought in nearly an identical fashion to his sister.

  The eyes narrowed as if trying to see something small.

  “He wouldn’t...so close to winter? He must know they’ll freeze to death taking this mountain. And why? We’ll just take it back in spring...It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What’s going to happen Uhtren?” Ygrain asked, trying her best to appear brave.

  Uhtren’s eyes flashed with fearful realization.

  ...

  There was a thundering at the gates of Kaerwyn Muir, the iron buckling and stone shattering audible from every corner of the mountaintop keep as the dragon Baksurra tore through this final bulwark with a terrible wrenching of its talons.

  The creature’s cavernous maw peaked through the newly opened passage and sprayed arcing flames in a powerful torrent over the first wave of Eireni warriors.

  Each man or woman caught in the fire were like candle wicks and continued to burn long after they had died, even after the spray had ceased.

  Little more than ash remained in the end, a low shroud of it now hung in the air thicker than smoke.

  Baksurra pulled its head back out into the night and took to the air in great booming flaps of its wings, scattering the ash clouds.

  Through the breach and the ash fog, the Guhran infantry surged into the keep, a tide of blue and silver, swords and spears flashing.

  The keep shook as the second and third waves of defenders came charging forth to meet them.

  War paint freshly applied to their faces, leaving faint specks of color across the battlefield to accompany the traditional red. Howling out battle cries and death oaths in their ancestral tongue as they launched a doomed final push, the two forces met with a resounding boom.

  Archers in the newly built watchtowers sent volleys of arrows into the waves of attackers coming through the gate.

  A great roar resounded through the skies above like a thunderbolt, and it was answered by a chorus of lesser shrieks and hisses.

  The archers began to check the skies.

  A flash of light appeared out of nowhere in the night sky, a shooting star.

  The ball of light came like a true comet, smashing into the first tower in a trail of molten flames and crackling splinters.

  The second tower was quicker to act, they moved and began firing towards the skies. In the night it was hard to see the beasts, so well adapted to hunting by darkness.

  Terrified shrieks spoke to their success, and in moments two, then three dragons crashed to the mountainside. They and their riders dashed to pieces by the fall.

  The Eireni cheered, for a moment reinvigorated in the combat.

  The chorus of roars filled the skies yet again, and a dozen, then two dozen, then near a hundred small lights began to fill the skies.

  It rained fire on the watchtowers which all crumbled to splinters and ash in moments, and the main stretches of dwellings and workhouses that dotted the kaerwyn all caught and began to burn.

  Fires served to illuminate the night, and the Eireni could at last see the swarm of dragons filling the skies just as they all dove.

  Fangs and talons tore through their ranks, and gouts of fire caught any attempting to flee the melee.

  They were trapped. Soldiers at their front, dragons at their backs.

  Nowhere to go and nothing to do but to die with their swords in their hands.

  ...

  Deep within the keep Ygrain packed.

  She was hurried along by the frantic insistence of her lady-in-waiting, an older woman about her mothers years by the name of Alane who threw clothes and tinderboxes and whatever else she deemed essential into a series of travel packs.

  “We mustn't dawdle my lady, the keep could fall at any moment!” the woman ordered anxiously as she hauled open a trunk of cloaks.

  “But how can we leave all these people behind Alane! A hundred clansmen and clanswomen live in the Muir. Not warriors, farmers and fishermen!”

  “Child, we could hardly help if we tried. Unless you suspect our deaths may aid the war effort. We must use the opportunity your brother and his men have bought us to escape. Find refuge with your father and mother in the northern range if we can.”

  “There are children here Alane...”

  “Most of the elderly and children have already fled, and those others that haven’t are in just as much danger as we are. They ought to consider fleeing themselves if they aren’t dead already.” Alane cringed, hearing aloud how cold and callous she sounded. Ygrain shrank back, as if struck.

  “Alane, but what of Uhtren?! I can’t just leave him to die here!” Alane paused in her packing for a moment.

  “No... No of course not, you’re kin. We don’t abandon kin, miss. Quite right. I’ll fetch the rest of the travel gear, you head to the hall and straight back. Us three will slip out the sluice gate, take the river into the deep valleys where their damnable fire-lizards can't follow.”

  ...

  Out on the field, Kaiaan Raich dismounted Baksurra, who curled now around the exterior of the highest tower of the keep, blasting gouts of fire at any it saw attempting to flee or approach the keep.

  Kaiaan drew his sword, a long thin blade in a single hand that stretched easily twice the length of his forearm.

  As he stepped into the melee, the screaming and thrashing of battle had reached its height.

  Bloodstained bodies lined the stone steps leading up the winding keep and to the foot of the hall where the leadership still planned a defense.

  Drawn by the visage of the war-crown, many warriors dove into the regent’s path one by one or many at a time, certain to end the invasion with their singular act of bravery.

  It was foolishness.

  The Shadow of the Emperor cut each of them down with a practiced and ruthless precision.

  Their futile strikes rebounded fruitlessly again and again against the flat of the straight sword, before with terrible skill and sickening thoroughness the regent separated heads from shoulders, amputated limbs, split men and women apart.

  Disassembling the warriors as he went with all the cool detachment of a true-born killer.

  It was not long before he had carved a path through their defensive front, all the way to the foot of the keep’s main hall, where beyond lay the last vestiges of resistance in this corner of the rebellious mountain kingdom.

  He pushed open the door with a firm shove, it relented with a groaning of heavy oak.

  Within, the grand hall contained a long feasting table with a wooden throne at its furthest end.

  In it sat an imposing man in his early thirties with a shaved head and a wild ginger beard.

  He was accompanied in a handful of nearby seats by six lords and ladies of the nearby mountains.

  Each looked in Kaiaan’s eyes more like barbarian chieftains than highborn nobles adorned as they were in animal furs and wielding brutish, inelegant weapons. Hammers and axes sat on the table before their masters.

  The fire-cracker of a man at the far end shot to his feet, his followers rising with him.

  As Kaiaan entered a cold wind at his back caused the hearth to flicker and dim.

  The regent’s face and eyes were dispassionate, but resolute.

  “This fight is over, traitor prince. Your army is crushed on the field of battle, your keep has been broken, and the last of its defenders are squeezing out their last breaths as we speak. In mere minutes, my men will reach this place, and your fate will be sealed.”

  “And yet in the meantime my good lord regent, you are here, alone, with minutes between you and the protection of your valiant legions.” The red-headed giant raised a meaty hand that clutched a greatsword twice his length. He swung it to rest atop his left shoulder, the blade’s flat set against it.

  His men began to inch slowly towards the door, weapons drawn.

  “You and your men will drop your weapons and fall to your knees before me, Prince Uhtren, and you will surrender yourselves to me at once. I shall not ask you again.”

  “You don’t frighten me Shadow. In fact, you won’t ever frighten anyone again.” And with that the prince charged, surging forward with a rallying battlecry.

  Kaiaan Raich hardly moved, eyes lazily flicking between those approaching like a toad observing hovering flies.

  Hand firmly on the handle of his sword, held out in front of him and at a low angle to the ground.

  His other arm flat at his side as the force approached, pushing aside chairs and flipping tables to clear a path as they came.

  The first man rushed ahead of his compatriots, eager for the fight.

  He leapt forth with a longspear in hand, pointed at the regent’s unprotected flank.

  The regent barely moved his wrist at all as the tip of the sword deftly slid against the haft of the oncoming longspear, a brief shower of sparks sprayed between them as he diverted the spear, sending it harmlessly aside.

  It buried itself into the wood flooring at his feet.

  Weapon stuck fast into the floorboards, the young lord looked down and panickedly began yanking furiously to free the spear to no avail.

  He glanced back at Raich, his eyes filled with true terror as the regent’s sword sailed past just below his chin, sending him spinning to the floor.

  The second and third warriors, armed with sword and clawed hammer respectively, both drew ornately painted wooden shields from their backs and lashed them tightly over their arms.

  They learned from their fallen companion and came at him from either side near simultaneously in an attempt to overwhelm his guard.

  Kaiaan reached casually with his unoccupied hand and grabbed the haft of the longspear buried in the oak floor, eyes still locked ahead.

  With barely an indication of exertion he pulled the spear free in a shower of splinters and snapping wood.

  Before the warriors had a moment to react he hurled the spear, watching it glide through the air with precision and smash through the shield arm of the sword toting warrior, shattering the shield and impaling the man, pinning his shield arm to his chest.

  The spear blade punctured chainmail as he flew across the hall, landing in a still mound by the Traitor Prince’s feet.

  The third warrior, a great-hammer in hand, came upon Kaiaan a moment later.

  Kaiaan bent back, folding his body nearly in half as he ducked beneath the first horizontal swing of the hammer, springing back up and throwing his body sideways as a downward vertical swing attempted to pulverize his skull.

  Both swings having proven ineffective, he swung about and grasped the man by the shoulder and pulled his body close against him as if in embrace.

  As he did he forced the tip of his sword straight through the man's heart.

  The final three arrived and surrounded Lord Raich cautiously, having seen and learned from their hasty companions.

  “Flee my prince, we will hold this devil at bay!” one shouted, but the prince remained steadfast.

  He made his way across the hall, greatsword now held in both hands, blade laid against his back in a readied swing.

  Raich watched the prince move on his exposed flank, and eyed the warriors surrounding him.

  He shifted the grip on his sword, and took the blade hilt into both hands calmly.

  Raich shot forth, his sword arm outstretched. The blade flashed out like lightning against the darkening hall, losing all at once the cool pretense of dispassion he snarled, baring teeth.

  He managed to catch the axe-blade of an Eirenman at the hilt and with a twist of Kaiaan‘s wrist sent it spiraling out of the man’s grasp and spinning dangerously through the air past the regent’s shoulder.

  A hulking woman in a bear skin cloak with two curved daggers from the opposite side of the circle lurched forwards, blades poised to fall into the regent’s exposed back as the ax blade lands with a dull thump, burying itself in her skull.

  Eyes go blank as she slips to the floor, daggers clattering to the floor.

  Unarmed, the man before the regent turns to flee, making it two steps before a sword comes blossoming out the front of his tunic.

  As Kaiaan drew back the outstretched sword he was forced to drop it suddenly as a greatsword came slamming onto the blade’s length, sending it flying from his grip and sliding across the floor.

  Too far to reach with ease.

  Prince Uhtren stood before him now, face red with blood and rage. Eyes full of murder, and leaking thin wisps of terrible black smoke from the corners of his barred teeth.

  No one dared move as the prince and his final retainer steeled themselves.

  Raich locked eyes with the prince, cold and unblinking.

  ...

  Ygrain came sprinting down the spiraling stone stairs of the squat eastern tower, reaching the base in but a few bounding strides.

  At the end of the stairs was a long hallway lined with doors and passages, the main interior of the keep.

  Built primarily within the mountain, partially hidden chambers and passageways allowed one to move through nearly the entirety of the keep without need to leave the safety of stone tunnels.

  Eventually, she reached the passageway that curved off towards the main hall where her brother and his advisors led the defense.

  The door opened onto a small balcony, a rickety old ladder giving access to the feasting hall below.

  Ygrain’s hand suddenly flew to her mouth in a muffled gasp of shock and horror as she saw the scene below.

  Six bodies, each a lord or lady she knew from her earliest days of childhood lay dead.

  Many of them had been reduced to bloody pieces spread across the hall in motionless mounds of flesh.

  The grand table which had sat in the hall's heart for centuries was shattered into splinters, and great pits had been dug into the floorboards like the footfalls of some giant.

  Before the great hall doors she saw her brother, Prince Uhtren, exchanging blows with a demon of blue and silver, head a crown of steel thorns.

  The greatsword was flying through the air and yet for her brother’s incredible strength he could not match the demon for speed.

  Shifting his feet, diving and ducking, rolling and leaping aside as blow after blow failed to connect.

  As Uhtren brought the greatsword wide in a vast swing, Raich dropped low to the ground and fell just below the hungering blade’s sweeping edge. He reached down, right hand gripping at a discarded dagger.

  Launching back to his feet as the young prince recovered from his latest swing, he buried the blade into her brother’s side just beneath his ribs.

  “No!” Ygrain shouted, throwing herself forward against the balcony’s rail, overtaken by grief.

  Kaiaan’s head whipped around, eyes scanning the room for the voice before settling his icy gaze on Ygrain.

  Uhtren, now fallen to one knee before him, still clutched at his sword but was shaking visibly and unable to lift it.

  His breathing was heavy as the dagger remained buried to the hilt in his heart.

  “It would appear, MacLeod, that I no longer have any need of your services. I only require one of your mother’s heirs after all, and she seems like less trouble.” With a cruel smile, Kaiaan reached and forced the greatsword from Uhtren’s grip.

  Her brother’s hands still struggled feebly against him as one by one he pried her brother’s fingers free, taking the blade for his own.

  The wounded prince’s gaze burned at Raich, still full of rebellion and hate, the blood dripping from between his clenched teeth.

  Uhtren peeked his head at Ygrain, seeing her eyes full of tears, snaking steaming trails down her cheek.

  He looked at her with eyes that became resolute and calm, an apology held behind them as familiar words formed on his lips.

  “No, please!” Ygrain’s cries echoed through the hall as Raich brought the greatsword high, and then low.

  Uhtren’s body fell limply to the floor, and the red curls of his hair came rolling to a stop just before the open double doors where an amassing throng of blue and silver armored lancers had begun filing in.

  Raich’s midnight black eyes seemed to reflect the light of distant fires against the dark of the hall as he stared at her.

  A war-horn sounded, echoing victory through the hills and valleys.