The Virak'tai scouts returned at dawn, their steps quiet but their bearing sharpened by urgency. Nyzekh met them at the rise, the horizon still gray with the dim light that passed for morning in this realm. Bruga stood beside him, arms crossed, his presence like a slab of iron.
The lead scout lowered his spear, speaking without flourish.
"We found a valley. Narrow mouth, sheer walls. Defensible. There's a cave set into the cliff, hidden, shielded from sight. Inside, a spring. Enough water to keep us alive."
Bruga's head lifted at the last word.
"Running?" he asked, voice flat, testing the ground beneath the sound.
The scout met his eyes.
"No. Holding. Cold, clear. Spring-fed tiers. We drank. No rot on the tongue."
Bruga's jaw worked once, then he gave a short nod.
"That will do."
Orders unspooled in brisk, practiced motion. Litters first. Shields posted to the outside. Skirmishers on the wings. A rotating rear guard. Warmages bent light and laid thin wards along the rim. No blaze, no marks on stone. The cohort moved like a machine that had known too much and trusted too little.
They found the cave where the scout said it would be: a slit high on the north cliff, admitting one at a time, opening into a vaulted chamber where a spring spilled in layered curtains. The sound of water softened the constant ache in their chests.
Nyzekh tested it with two fingers and a taste.
"Clean," he said.
The Hospitaliers moved in, cooling burns, filling cups. Warmages set listening sigils at the valley throat. Bruga posted watches and set the camp with the blunt efficiency of a man who could not afford mistake.
By afternoon the place had shape: litters strung, a corner for mending armor, a shallow pit for scrap. Someone took a shard of obsidian and scratched a name around it, half-jest, half-oath.
Λόχος Δράκοντος.
Bruga grinned with a flash of tooth.
"The Company of the Dragons," he said. "Drakons, then."
Nyzekh let the name sit, felt it fill the hollow where hope had once been.
"Bruga holds the bowl," he said. "I take four and range. Food buys us time; time buys us nothing if we don't eat."
Bruga met him like a brother.
"You bring us back something heavy to hang on the spit or you get eaten first. Either way, don't die on my watch."
There was warmth in the threat.
Nyzekh gave a tight smile.
"Then I'll see you cursed by name."
He left with Vaelren, Thalryn, Ilyr, and Shae, Virak'tai, lean and silent, moving along ribs of glass and cracked stone until another valley unrolled below them, wide and pulsing with faint, uncanny light. The ground there breathed: mats of thick blades crowned with bioluminescent caps that swelled and dimmed in slow rhythm.
A herd browsed the glowing turf. At first they read as bison; up close they were enormous, scaled flanks, long ridged horns jutting from the brow, slow, heavy movers that fed with patient intent.
They belly-crawled to the rim and watched. The herd's rhythm was a thing of its own: bulls placing themselves along the edge, calves kept in the center, a line of bodies forming a slow-moving protection. The beasts fed, unbothered by the world beyond their valley.
Nyzekh counted them in the low light, watching how they shifted, where the herd thinned. He pointed with a quiet finger.
"There," he said.
The youngest of the herd, smaller than its kin, loose of hide, grazed a pace from the main line, nearer a venting seam in the ground. It fed with less attention, more curiosity than caution. Alone enough.
The Virak'tai nodded. They understood the logic without speech: take a lone calf, quiet and clean, and the rest will not stir if the wind does not carry human scent and the first breath goes unnoticed. If the herd smelled them, any strike could bring thundered hooves and the world unmaking itself.
Nyzekh's plan was terse, as all good plans are.
"Two to hold the line," he said. "Ilyr, Shae, cover the flank. Vaelren, Thalryn, bring the rope and the spread. Thalryn, you take the bow. Best shot we have. One arrow. Heart or lungs. If you take anything else, we leave a blood trail and the herd walks us out."
Thalryn met the look, the weight of responsibility settling on him like armor. He slotted a single, heavy-shafted arrow, sigil-etched for sharpness, and cinched it to the string.
"One shot," he said. "I'll aim where the ribs loosen and the chest opens. Quiet on the exhale."
They moved like ghosts. No one spoke above breath. Wind held its breath with them. They eased into place, Thalryn with the bow knotted low in the shadow, Vaelren and the others braced to leash the fallen. The world narrowed: the breath of beasts, the soft crush of grass, the tension in a bowstring.
When Thalryn released, the arrow sang. It found a seam where scale thinned and chest moved beneath, a sharp sound like a struck chord, and the nearest calf grunted, shuddered, and took five stiff steps forward. Then it folded, a heavy sigh and stillness. The herd's rhythm did not break; its grazing continued as if one small life could be folded into the valley without applause.
For a long held heartbeat the hunters watched the herd as if waiting for sound. None came. The beasts did not rear. They did not panic. They continued to feed.
Nyzekh signaled, the Virak'tai moved. No clanging, no shouting, only the precise motions of men who had butchered before at a worse pace. They crossed the rim and approached the calf. Thalryn moved first, knife in hand, sigil-etched and gleaming, breathing slow. They checked the arrow's place, found the chest and the fall, and then began the work with quiet hands.
It was then that the boy approached. He had been watching from the ridgeline, slate-gray of skin, younger than any of them, carrying only a spear with ward-twine looped at the haft. He stepped closer, voice small but steady.
"You cut wrong," he said, pointing. "The beast has two kinds of meat. Black by the stomach and mouth, don't eat. Poison to us. Red meat here, fit for eating. The marrow of the bones, best part of all."
Nyzekh raised a hand, and the Virak'tai stepped back to watch. The boy knelt and worked the knife with quick, sure motions. He peeled back the darker flesh, showing them the red, lean cuts, and then split a limb with practiced force, cracking the bone to reveal pale marrow.
The boy's eyes gleamed with curiosity as he reached toward the belt of one of the nearby Stormguard.
"May I borrow this?" he asked quietly, pointing to a sturdy hunting knife.
The warrior nodded, stepping aside. The boy carefully took the knife, testing its weight and balance in his hand. He moved with newfound confidence, slicing cleanly through the thick, scale-like hide.
"With this, we can make armor," he muttered, eyes wide.
"Here," he said, "do not waste this. Strength lives here."
When the boy finished, Nyzekh stepped forward. From the bundle of best cuts, he pressed half into the youth's arms.
"You showed us well," he said. "Take this."
The boy's eyes widened, and for the first time in his life perhaps, his smile carried pride more than hunger. He clutched the meat to his chest.
That evening, the Æthrynn made camp. They cooked the meat and shared it around the fire. The father spoke of their people: once human, fierce and proud, warriors forged in the crucible of the First Gate War. They had been cursed when the Nerathil rot spilled into the realm, and many had succumbed, their flesh twisted and minds lost.
The Æthrynn eyed Nyzekh's group with cautious curiosity.
"Not human?" one whispered.
Nyzekh smiled faintly.
"Virak'tai," he said. "We have dark skins, but cousins with fair skins."
The Æthrynn exchanged glances, their expressions sharpening with surprise and intrigue.
"But they don't agree much," Nyzekh continued. "Usually we end up fighting each other."
The Virak'tai grinned, a rough humor in their dark eyes.
"Fight is an understatement," one muttered, shaking his head with a small laugh.
The Æthrynn studied them a moment longer, then slowly relaxed, seeming to accept the strange, dark-skinned warriors as allies, at least for the night.
They described the Mercy Braiding, a ritual to release the soul and prevent conversion, and the War Bond, a binding of body and spirit that made berserkers from the sane, turning men into living weapons against the Nerathil. They spoke of the axe-wielding berserkers, grey-skinned and streaked with black veins, their fury controlled by wards and chants, a living line between survival and madness.
The father traced his fingers along faint scars on his arms and hands, evidence of ward-crafting and battle alike. The boy displayed smaller, precise marks, tattoos of ward-lines, sigils for memory, endurance, and protection.
"We survive by remembering," the father said. "Every wound, every strike, every choice, it is preserved in the stone and braid. Nothing is lost, not even the fallen."
Their voices painted the Red Realm in stark, living colors: molten skies, serrated ridges, petrified forests etched with faint sigils, lightning clawing through thick clouds. They described the wards that blinded Nerathil, hid caches, and muffled sound, the frost cellars that preserved the dying, the Hall of Names where the Choice was made, and the bitter, necessary rituals that defined life and death in the caves.
The Virak'tai listened in silence, the firelight glinting off weapons and scaled hides. Even amidst the tales of rot, war, and unyielding hardship, there was a thread of stubborn life, a refusal to vanish quietly, a mastery of body, mind, and magic that carved order from the chaos of the Red Realm.
By the time the meal ended, Nyzekh and his companions felt the weight of history in the smoke and ember glow. These were not just survivors, they were keepers of a hard-earned truth, a people who had faced the abyss and stitched their own fate in defiance of it.
Morning came pale and brittle, light slipping through the serrated ridges above the hidden valley. The Virak'tai gathered their packs and the bound meat, ready to move. The Æthrynn father watched them with steady eyes, his boy at his side.
"This is not the last time," the father said, voice carrying quiet authority. "If you need trade, arrows or meat, you know where to find us."
Nyzekh nodded.
"We will return. And next time, perhaps we bring knowledge as well as steel."
He looked at the boy and pressed a hand briefly to his shoulder, a small gesture of respect and acknowledgment.
The Virak'tai fell in behind Nyzekh as they made their way along the valley edge. When they were out of sight of the hidden cave, Nyzekh allowed a breath to pass, letting the tension in his shoulders ease.
Bruga met him at the high rise where they had first surveyed the valley.
"So," he said, arms crossed, gaze sharp as ever. "Who were they? And why did they help?"
Nyzekh smiled faintly, recalling the father's calm authority and the boy's precise hands at the carcass.
"They are called the Æthrynn. Children of the First Gate War. Humans, once, now warded by cave and curse, tempered by the rot and the cycles of war. They survive where most would die."
Bruga whistled low.
"And what do you plan to do with them?"
Nyzekh's smile widened just slightly.
"Maybe teach them to fight back the Nerathil. Show them the ways the Virak'tai move in silence, strike in coordination. Help them reclaim a small part of the world that took so much from them."
Bruga's lips curled in something like approval, though his tone was still clipped.
"Bold. Dangerous. I like it. But if you do this, remember, they are not soldiers like us. They are children of rot and stone. Handle them carefully, or the Red Realm will swallow them faster than the Nerathil ever could."
Nyzekh chuckled softly.
"I think they've already learned to survive the impossible. Perhaps they only need someone to show them how to turn survival into resistance."
Bruga shook his head, a sound between laughter and disbelief.
"You and your hope, don't get eaten before you teach them."
Nyzekh let his eyes drift toward the horizon, where the Red Realm stretched in jagged, molten color.
"We'll see," he said, voice calm, carrying the weight of both promise and uncertainty. "But if we survive, perhaps tomorrow is not just another day of hunting, but the start of something more."
Bruga followed his gaze, then added thoughtfully, "Maybe the Æthrynn have knowledge… of other gates or similar places."
Nyzekh considered that, nodding slowly.
"Perhaps," he said. "Next time we meet them, I'll ask."
The Virak'tai returned to their camp, tending to their packs and the bound meat. Fires flickered low, casting long shadows across weary faces. The night was quiet, the air thick with the scent of embers and stone. For a moment, the weight of survival eased, and the soldiers allowed themselves to rest, even as the Red Realm loomed around them, jagged and unforgiving.
In that stillness, the bond between Nyzekh, Bruga, and their cohort felt sharper, more vital. Lessons had been learned, alliances tested, and the memory of the Æthrynn lingered, a reminder that even in this harsh land, trust could be forged, and perhaps one day, greater understanding might follow.
The fires burned low into the night, and the Virak'tai slept lightly, each dreaming of the battles yet to come, the gates still waiting, and the world that would not yield without a fight.