Soul's Eye

Chapter 8: Ashes on frost.

~Lance Aurora~

I was walking alone.

The icy wind whipped mercilessly at my face, sharp as a steel wire. Each gust seemed to carry with it the murmurs of the dead, muffled echoes of Arhen's streets that no longer existed. The metallic-grey sky weighed down on my shoulders like a leaden blanket. It lifted the black, still-warm ashes of what had once been a home, a city... my city. They swirled around me, sticking to my skin, seeping into my wounds as if to remind me that I now bore the scars of that fall.

Behind me, the scene was desolation. Arhen had fallen.

There was nothing left of her. Not a stone still standing, not a wall still daring to defy the void. Only a mute field of ruins, where even the crows seemed to have given up alighting.

It had been three days.

Three days since the sky had fallen.

Three days since my world had burned.

I could still remember the smell. That acrid stench of charred flesh and burnt wood that filled the air, mingled with another, more insidious scent: that of gunpowder and overheated metal.

I'd seen the flames dance in a fold of death, destroying everything I'd clung to. I'd seen the bodies, too. Piled up like logs, their faces frozen in expressions of terror or resignation.

But above all, I'd seen the chains.

Heavy, brutal, tightened around the wrists of the survivors being taken away, those on the arms of the stunned, burned young lord thrown like a sack of grain into one of those metal wagons.

And there was nothing I could do.

I could do nothing.

I couldn't face them. Even if I was still able to move, my body was too weak. Too slow. Nor could I risk following a motorized vehicle on the Arcs only they knew how far and, above all, where.

So I waited. I'd crawled to the ruins of the infirmary, found something to dress my wounds. I had buried those I recognized.

But today, I was ready. I was going to follow in their footsteps. One by one. I was going to find them. And we would have our revenge.

Over the past few days, I'd gathered everything I could lay my hands on: a meager set of bandages and a few miraculously spared medicines. A chipped canteen. A compass with cracked glass. Charred rations that I chewed with difficulty but which nevertheless took me back to the meals my comrades and I used to eat after our shift.

I wore light, incomplete armor, salvaged from the body of a soldier whose face I preferred not to remember. At my waist hung a short sword: the lord's. My late master. The blade was simple, unadorned, but perfectly balanced.

My breathing was short. I was frightened. I trembled at the thought of what awaited me. But more than anything, I wanted to avenge Arhen. And to do that, I had to find them.

I swore to myself. Elya, Abel...

I'll find you. Even if I have to die a thousand deaths. I'll bring you back.

It was a long, bare, desperately empty road.

The road was long, bare and desperately empty.

I skirted the remains of a paved path east of Arhen, heading for Combenil, a large town according to the old maps. Maybe I'd find some information. Or maybe a lead.

The sun was beginning to decline on the horizon, turning the clouds a blood red.

I stopped for a moment, breathless.

Fear gripped my stomach.

Not of dying, but of never finding them.

Of being too late.

I felt like a lonely man facing a world far more vast and cruel than I had imagined.

But there was no way back.

No home to return to.

I had nothing left to lose but this promise.

So I would go on.

Step by step.

Not to survive, but to save them.

Night had fallen, darkness had swallowed everything.

The sky, tinted mauve and indigo, stretched above me. Dotted with thousands of stars, it inspired neither wonder nor hope that evening.

For the first time, the sky seemed bland. Distant. Indifferent.

I was alone.

Sitting in a makeshift camp, my back against a tree, I watched the flames of a hesitant fire, ready to be extinguished by the slightest gust of wind. All around me, the forest loomed black. Slender trees with gnarled branches whose shadows danced on the dead leaves, drawing disquieting, almost living shapes, under the intersecting movements of fire and wind.

A creak.

I grabbed my sword, muscles tense.

Nothing.

Only the wood groaning in the cold.

I forced myself to relax. The wood I'd hastily gathered was damp. It crackled more than it burned, and the acrid smoke stung my eyes. But it was better than nothing. Light. A warmth. A presence.

The sounds of the forest were omnipresent.

The flutter of a bird disturbed by my fire. The furtive squeaks of a rodent. The muffled growl of a predator somewhere in the darkness reminded me that I was an intruder in this wild territory.

And yet, these noises were better than silence. The latter confronted me with memories I wasn't yet ready to face.

I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders. The bite of the cold pierced me to the bone.

I hadn't eaten since morning. In Arhen, all I'd found were a few pieces of hardened bread and a flask of lukewarm water. Not enough to last long, but enough to get me through another day.

My back, legs and shoulders ached. The armor weighed heavily on my body and my body itself was in bad shape, but all I could do was keep going.

I imagined the state of the young master and lady.

I imagined their chains. Their fears. Their screams.

And me, helpless, fleeing into the rubble.

I lay down slowly on the ground, on a layer of dead leaves and hastily woven grass. I had my sword against my hip and my satchel for a pillow.

I took one last look at the stars.

Until a few days ago, I'd been a knight in the service of a lord. I'd been a knight, blade in hand, and now I was a wanderer.

A survivor.

"An avenging blade without a master," I murmured, feigning a smile. "There's a kind of poetry to it all."

I closed my eyes.

'Tomorrow, I'll go on my way.'