Chapter III
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Year 800 A.F.—After The Fall
Valdheim—The Human Realm
The Outskirts of Shattered Waste
A massive crater marked the place where Hidenheim had fallen—broken towers, shattered walls, and twisted metal still jutting from the earth at wrong angles.
Hoofbeats broke the silence. Golden-cloaked riders crested the crater's rim, horses slowing, breath steaming in the cold air. They looked at what was left and said nothing.
The lead rider dismounted and helped a woman down from her mount—finely dressed, though the dress concealed reinforced mage weave beneath it.
She was tall and dark-haired.
The journey had loosened strands of hair from their arrangement. She hadn't fixed them.
They walked through the devastation together. She stopped. Knelt. Pressed her fingers into the scarred earth.
Her hands trembled. She didn't try to stop them.
The tears came silently.
"Find him," she said. "Find him and bring him to me."
The knight beside her spoke gently. "No one could have survived this. Hidenheim is gone—let yourself—"
"Don't."
She looked at him.
"Find him."
The Outskirts of Greenwood — A Tavern on the Road
Rough wooden tables worn smooth by years of elbows. Lanterns that flickered more than they lit. The honest smell of ale, sweat, and the end of long days.
At a corner table, a young blind man sat beside a boy working through a plate of roasted meat.
The blind man was lean and weathered, somewhere past forty, with close-cropped hair gone grey-salt at the temples.
A plain sword rested against the bench beside him, the scabbard worn in the places that mattered.
Beside him sat Julius—fourteen years old, slight and straight-backed, with quick dark eyes.
His traveling clothes were plain and road-worn, his hair cut close to the scalp. For a boy his age it gave him an oddly deliberate look.
The tavern owner's daughter set down a mug in front of him. He smiled as she turned to go.
"This isn't ale," he said.
"You're too young for that."
"The world is at the edge of ending. Surely that earns me a proper drink."
His companion laughed quietly into his mug.
A grizzled mercenary at the central table looked over—broad, sun-darkened, and with easy arrogance.
"The world ending? Where'd you hear that, boy?"
Julius stood.
The blind man's hand moved to his arm.
"Julius. Sit."
Julius didn't sit.
"Hidenheim has fallen; the mage realm is gone."
"Demons are growing stronger in its absence. Cities are failing.
People are dying. A pause. "These aren't rumors."
"You believe in demons, boy?"
"I believe what I've seen."
The tavern erupted in laughter.
"Sit down, boy," someone called.
"Let's go." The blind man steered Julius toward the door, paused to apologize to the owner, paid in golden coins, and pushed out into the evening.
Two hooded figures waited just outside and gave no acknowledgement as they passed.
Back inside, the first mercenary raised his tankard.
"Now then. Where were we? Ah—the job." He grinned.
"Clean off, one stroke. The big shot's daughter. Pretty little thing. A real pity." He shook his head, not meaning it at all. "Fat bag of coins for a little neck."
The tavern roared. Tankards clashed.
"Drinks on us!" the second mercenary announced, standing.
The owner's daughter wove through the celebration with fresh tankards. As she turned to go, the first mercenary's hand closed around her wrist.
She pulled back. "Let go of me. Please."
"Relax," a practiced sneer. "Sit on my lap, lass."
The owner stepped forward. "Please let her go."
"Shut your mouth, old man. I took a nobleman's head this week. Yours wouldn't even be an inconvenience."
"Leave the girl," the second mercenary muttered, uncomfortable.
"Don't tell me what to do."
He yanked her forward.
The tavern door opened.
Cold air moved through the room. The lanterns guttered. Several went out.
The room went quiet.
The first figure pulled back his hood.
A scarred face—not one scar, but many, each earned separately over years.
Hard, patient eyes that moved across the room once and stopped, having seen everything they needed to.
A short beard, dark going gray at the jaw. The handle of a large blade is visible over his shoulder, the grip worn to the shape of one specific hand.
A drunk at the bar set his mug down carefully. "That's—that's the drought."
The second figure lowered his hood.
A broad-shouldered young man—black hair falling forward across his face. Dark, practical traveling clothes layered for work and weather.
Short blades at both hips, sheaths angled for speed.
This was Dot.
Dren Chaster crossed to the mercenaries' table, unhurried.
The second mercenary felt sweat start at the back of his neck. They're here for us.
The first mercenary still had the girl. Dren looked at her. "Go."
The grip tightened. "And who are you to—"
The blade came out and went back in what looked like a single motion. Between the two moments, the man's hand opened. Blood hit the floor. The girl ran. He screamed.
Dren looked at the sword with mild irritation. "Didn't plan to draw this early. You made me." He sheathed it, took the man by the hair, and dragged him across the floorboards like a sack of grain. With his free hand he lifted the nearest full tankard and drained it.
The second mercenary bolted for the door — and into Dot, who didn't move. The man changed direction, threw himself onto the nearest horse outside, and kicked it into motion.
"Dot—my horse!" Dren called.
Dot was already at the door. He picked up a loose stone without breaking stride, turned, and threw. It caught the man across the skull. The horse reared. He hit the road.
Dren watched, quietly approving.
The remaining patrons found their feet and their weapons.
"Dren Chaster," someone whispered, sweat visible on their face. "The Drought."
The bleeding mercenary screamed in pain, turning his face to the room.
"Five million!" His voice cracked. "Five million to whoever takes his head—right now—"
That settled it. The room moved.
Dren kicked a table into the first man, spun without looking, and cracked his tankard into the next one's temple. The man dropped.
Another swing came. Dren ducked, closed his hand around the wrist, and turned his body. A crack. A scream.
He drew the big sword, and one stroke opened two chests at once. They fell in different directions.
He stood over the last man, blade against his throat—less than a shave, more than a touch.
"You were celebrating a beheading earlier," he said. "Funny how an evening turns."
The door opened again. Dot dragged the second mercenary in by the collar and dropped him at Dren's feet.
"Which one do you need?"
"Not that one," Dren said.
The first mercenary looked up, hand gone, bleeding badly. "Please—I'll pay you anything. Everything. Just—"
Dren raised the sword.
One stroke. Clean.
The head rolled.
The owner and his daughter stood frozen in the corner. The surviving patrons found the walls and floor suddenly very interesting.
The girl said, quietly, "Thank you."
Dren sheathed his blade and set two silver coins on the bar. "A room. If you have it."
The owner pointed upstairs, hand shaking. "Take the whole floor. Please."
The room was simple—one bed, one chair, and a window over the dark road. Dot dropped the bound prisoner and the sack against the wall and sat on the bed's edge, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
Dren leaned against the wall. "We take them to the crossroads at first light."
"I know how it works."
"Right. The floor's yours, then."
Dot didn't answer. His mind was already somewhere else.
An old memory. A girl with silver hair, laughing.
"Liora," he said, almost to himself, and gradually fell asleep.
Dren watched him for a moment, crossed to the bed, lifted Dot, and laid him down properly. Draped the blanket over him. Returned to his chair.
Dot dreamed of fire, a girl with silver hair, and a mark on a forehead going dark. Then nothing. He jolted awake in the dark, breathing hard, the dream already dissolving into pure feeling with no shape left to it.
He lay still and waited for morning.
The Next Morning
He smelled the food before he was fully awake. Dot padded downstairs in yesterday's clothes.
Dren was already at a table, deep into a bowl of something, laughing with the owner and his daughter like he hadn't burned the room down the night before.
"Boy, come and eat. They cook well here."
The daughter flushed at the compliment.
Dot sat; pulled the bowl toward him; tasted it; then finished it fast and without ceremony.
"Hungry," the owner observed.
"Yes."
"My name is Dot."
"Nice to meet you, Dot." The man smiled.
Dot glanced at Dren. "It's very good," he added—half a degree warmer than the rest of the sentence.
They settled up and walked out into the cool morning, the daughter's eyes following Dren to the door.
A rider met them on the road. The tied mercenary and his companion's head in the sack changed hands for a heavy purse and a sealed letter. The rider left without a word.
Dren broke the seal, read, and smiled slowly. "Looks like we'll be sleeping in a castle soon." He held up the letter. Call to Greenwood.
Dot looked at it, then at Dren, and said nothing.
They'd been riding maybe half an hour when a voice called down from above.
"Help me!"
A woman sat on a tree branch over the road, relaxed, waiting to be acknowledged. Small, sharp-eyed, dark hair loosely pinned, travelling clothes worn with complete indifference to their condition. She dropped and landed behind Dot on his horse before he'd fully registered it.
"Long time, Dot." Close to his ear. Her hands found his cheeks and squeezed.
"Ysmay," Dren said.
"Coming," she said cheerfully, not moving.
"Ysmay."
She released Dot and moved her horse alongside Dren's. He passed her a folded note.
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"I just got back, Dren," she protested, hitting his arm.
"No, no, no—" She hit his back again, playfully this time.
"I'll treat you to something when it's done," Dren said, already riding ahead with Dot.
She stared after him. Then she folded the note away and turned her horse onto a side path into the trees.
Dot watched her go. "She's not coming?"
"You're stuck with me," Dren said and laughed.
"Cruel."
They rode on toward Greenwood, its great trees already visible above the horizon—vast, dark, patient.
The trees grew larger as they rode, and the road curved once and disappeared into shade beneath them.
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— To Be Continued —