The kingdom of the Frostwolves was smaller than Mordran had imagined.
He had expected walls of stone, towers rising against the rust-colored sky, perhaps even a great hall built by the hands of generations. Something befitting a people who claimed descent from the Sunwolves and had spent centuries fighting to preserve their dominion over the North.
Instead, there were hundreds of cloth houses.
They stood in uneven rows across a broad stretch of frozen earth, their frames fashioned from timber and animal bone, their walls sewn from thick hides and weather-beaten fabric. Some leaned beneath the weight of accumulated snow. Others had collapsed entirely, their contents scattered across the muddy ground. Narrow paths wound between the dwellings, connecting cooking pits, storage huts, animal pens, and crude workshops.
At the settlement's center stood a structure considerably larger than the rest.
It was built from thick timber, with layers of fur and hide stretched across its roof. Two enormous wolf skulls had been mounted above its entrance, their empty sockets staring out over the settlement. Banners bearing the Frostwolves' insignia hung from either side, though several had been torn down or trampled into the mud.
This was where Orla the One-Eye had held court.
Orla's Hollow, the Frostwolves called their seat of power.
A hollow, Mordran thought. An appropriate name for a kingdom that had never truly been one.
He lay across his horse's back, one arm hanging loosely beside the animal's flank. His legs remained in the stirrups, but he had long since abandoned any attempt at sitting upright. The world still felt distant, as though he were watching it through a dirty window. His shoulder throbbed beneath Garrick's bandages, and the dagger at his left hip seemed heavier than it had any right to be.
The weakness would pass.
It always did.
Eventually.
Mordran raised his head enough to look over the settlement.
So, I've finally made it.
He had spent years fighting the descendants of the Sunwolves, years hearing stories of their northern strongholds and their supposedly unbreakable clans. Now, after all the blood spilled and the men buried, he had arrived at their doorstep.
And what did he find?
A collection of hide tents, a few timber buildings, and a muddy yard large enough to hold a modest gathering.
It was almost insulting.
Almost.
He had learned long ago that the appearance of a stronghold meant little. A castle could fall from within, and a village could withstand an army if its inhabitants knew how to fight. The Frostwolves had survived in this land for generations, and Mordran had no intention of mistaking poverty for weakness.
"General!"
The voice came from somewhere to his right.
Mordran turned his head.
A captain approached on horseback, his blackened armor streaked with dried blood-water. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were alert.
"The outer dwellings are secured. We're spreading the men through the settlement now. No organized resistance so far."
"Secure the workshops and stores first," Mordran replied. His voice sounded rougher than he intended. "I want the food counted, the weapons collected, and every building searched."
"Every building, sir?"
Mordran gave him a tired look.
"Did I stutter?"
"No, General."
"Then why are you asking me to repeat myself?"
The captain straightened. "Understood."
"And keep the soldiers away from the families unless they're given cause to intervene. We came here to take a stronghold, not to let frightened men indulge their worst instincts."
The captain nodded and rode away.
Mordran lowered his head again.
He had no strength left for the sort of conversation that required more than a handful of words.
Around him, the Midnight Sun began to occupy Orla's Hollow.
Blackened-sun banners rose above the central buildings. Soldiers moved between the dwellings, their boots sinking into the soft earth. Others dragged fallen timber aside to clear the paths. Officers shouted instructions while quartermasters began counting provisions.
There was no grand celebration.
No drunken cheering or triumphant songs.
The men had seen too much death for that.
They had taken the Frostwolves' home, but they had not yet taken their war.
And Mordran suspected the difference would become painfully apparent.
"You're certain this is the place?"
The soldier asking the question stood beside a half-collapsed hut, his spear held a little too tightly in his hands.
Kaelen Draemir stood opposite him.
The swordsman had spent the last several minutes examining the dwelling's entrance. Its hide covering had been torn apart, leaving the interior exposed to the cold. A child's wooden carving lay half-buried in the mud beside the doorway.
Kaelen crouched, picked it up, and examined it.
It was shaped like a wolf.
"Yes," he answered.
The soldier glanced toward the settlement's center. "Then what's the problem?"
Kaelen turned the carving between his fingers.
"Do you know what happens when a clan dies?"
The soldier frowned. "They get buried?"
"Sometimes."
Kaelen's answer was so matter-of-fact that the soldier appeared uncertain whether he was being mocked.
"What do you mean, sometimes?"
"The North has a long memory."
Kaelen looked beyond the hut, toward the abandoned dwellings.
"There are stories of clans that were wiped out so completely that not even their names survived. Yet travelers still hear voices in their settlements. They see figures moving through empty houses. They wake to find footprints in the snow surrounding their camps, though nobody has approached them."
The soldier snorted.
"Ghost stories."
"Perhaps."
"Dead men don't come back."
Kaelen slowly turned his head.
For a moment, he simply stared at the man.
Then he smiled.
It was a small smile, almost pleasant, but something about it made the soldier's expression change.
"You've seen something," the soldier muttered.
"I've seen many things."
"Have you actually seen a ghost?"
Kaelen slipped the wooden wolf into his belt.
"I once watched a man die three times."
The soldier's mouth opened.
Kaelen walked past him.
"Search the houses carefully. If you hear someone calling your name from an empty room, don't answer."
"That's not funny!"
Kaelen continued walking.
The soldier watched him go before turning toward his companion.
"He's a strange bastard."
His companion glanced after Kaelen.
"Then don't give him a reason to remember you."
Eldrin Quillhand had discovered that a conquered settlement was a chronicler's paradise.
Unfortunately, it was also a terrible place to keep clean paper.
He stood beside a cooking pit, attempting to interview a broad-shouldered soldier whose left ear was missing.
"And you claim the Frostwolf warrior attacked you without warning?"
"He tried to take my head off!"
"Fascinating. Did he say anything before doing so?"
"He screamed."
"Words, man. Actual words."
"He screamed actual words?"
Eldrin closed his eyes.
"Gods preserve me."
He scratched another line into his book.
The soldier leaned over to inspect the page. "What are you writing?"
"That you were nearly killed by a man who screamed at you."
"That's not what happened!"
"Then give me something worth writing."
The soldier grumbled and wandered away.
Eldrin sighed, dipped his quill, and looked toward the settlement.
There were stories everywhere.
A woman who had watched three generations of Frostwolves die in the same house. A blacksmith who claimed he had once forged a blade from the bones of a cursed beast. A soldier who swore the blood-water in the northern streams had begun flowing backward during the last winter.
Eldrin recorded what he could.
Some stories were probably lies. Others were certainly exaggerations. A few were so disturbing that he found himself wishing he had never asked.
But he wrote them all down.
The world was changing, and Eldrin had begun to suspect that history would become less forgiving of those who failed to record it.
Besides, if he survived this war, he intended to publish something that would make him very wealthy.
He glanced toward the central hall.
Preferably something that did not involve being eaten by a ghost.
Mordran lay on a narrow bed inside one of the larger timber dwellings.
It had belonged to a Frostwolf officer, judging by the quality of its furnishings. There was a table near the entrance, a cold hearth against the far wall, and a narrow window covered by a piece of stained hide.
The room smelled of smoke, damp fur, and old blood.
Mordran found it preferable to sleeping outside.
Garrick Thorne stood beside the bed, inspecting the bandages around his shoulder.
"Raise your arm."
Mordran stared at him.
"No."
Garrick looked unimpressed.
"That wasn't a question."
"I understood you perfectly well."
"Wonderful. Raise your arm."
Mordran attempted to lift it.
Pain pulled across his shoulder, and he stopped halfway.
Garrick pressed two fingers against the bruised flesh beneath the edge of the bandage. Mordran's expression tightened.
"Does that hurt?"
"No. I'm simply making that face because I enjoy your company."
"Good. Your sense of humor is intact. I was worried the dagger had taken that too."
Mordran let his arm fall back onto the bed.
Garrick examined the bruising, then began mixing a preparation of crushed herbs with a little warm blood-water.
"The hammer struck you harder than you admitted."
"It caught me."
"It nearly took your shoulder apart."
"But it didn't."
"Do you ever listen to yourself?"
"Occasionally. I usually find myself rather sensible."
Garrick gave him a flat stare.
"You're a bloody nuisance."
"So I've been told."
The doctor spread the preparation across the bruised area before replacing the bandage.
"The bones appear sound. I don't believe anything is torn badly enough to require more than rest, binding, and a few days of proper care. The cold won't help, but you'll recover."
"Good."
"Don't look so pleased. That's the easy part."
Mordran watched him secure the final strip of cloth.
Garrick's expression grew more serious.
"I know what that dagger does to you. I've seen you after you've used it. I know the weakness, the shaking, the way you can barely stand. I've seen you stare at the wall for hours because even turning your head seems too much effort."
Mordran said nothing.
"I also know you understand the consequences. You understand them better than most men would."
"Then we needn't discuss it."
"Of course we need to discuss it. That's the problem with you generals. You think understanding a danger makes you immune to it."
Garrick gathered his instruments.
"You're not immune, Mordran. You're just stubborn enough to keep making the same mistake."
Mordran's gaze drifted toward the dagger at his hip.
"If I hadn't used it, more men would have died."
"Perhaps."
"That's generally how these things work."
"And perhaps the next time you use it, you'll be the one who doesn't get back up."
Mordran looked at him.
Garrick met his gaze without flinching.
"I don't care how many men you've killed or how many battles you've won. You're still a man who bleeds. And I'm still the fool expected to put you back together."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Mordran nodded.
"I know, Garrick."
The doctor's expression softened, though only slightly.
"Good. Try remembering it before the next battle instead of after."
He collected his things and headed for the door.
"And if anyone comes looking for you, tell them you're dead."
Mordran raised an eyebrow.
"Would that not cause some confusion?"
"Wonderful. Perhaps they'll leave you alone long enough to recover."
The door closed behind him.
Lyssara entered first.
She wore a dark traveling dress beneath a heavy cloak, her black hair falling loosely over her shoulders. Her eyes, entirely black from birth, seemed almost to absorb the dim light of the room.
Aldric followed her inside.
The older warrior had removed his armor, leaving him in a dark wool tunic with his sleeves rolled to the elbows. His graying hair was damp from the cold, and the lines around his eyes appeared deeper than usual.
Lyssara approached the bed and sat beside Mordran.
"Are you feeling better?"
Mordran turned his head toward her.
"Tired, as per usual."
She took his hand gently between both of hers.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I've got."
"Then I'll accept it."
She brushed a loose strand of hair from his forehead. For all the cruelty she could unleash with her magic, there was a tenderness in the way she touched him that she rarely allowed anyone else to see.
Aldric remained near the far wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
"I told you to stop using that thing a long time ago."
Mordran closed his eyes.
"Good evening to you too, Aldric."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"No, you're not. You're lying there pretending that being half-dead is an acceptable price to pay for winning a fight."
Mordran opened his eyes again.
"What other choice have we got?"
"Magic," Aldric answered immediately. "Strength in numbers. Better positioning. Better preparation. There are a dozen ways to win a battle without surrendering pieces of yourself to a cursed weapon."
Mordran scoffed.
"It wasn't working particularly well. Otherwise, I wouldn't have needed the dagger."
"Then we find another way."
"And how long do you imagine we have to find it?"
Aldric pushed away from the wall.
"As long as it takes."
Mordran let out a tired laugh.
"That's a comforting answer."
"It isn't meant to comfort you."
Aldric's voice hardened.
"Those things are a sure way to lose yourself, boy. I've seen men turn into monsters for far less than what you've done with that blade. They start by telling themselves it's necessary. They end by forgetting there was ever another choice."
Mordran looked down at their joined hands.
"And if losing myself is what it takes to keep the others alive?"
"Then what exactly are you keeping them alive for?"
The question settled heavily over the room.
Lyssara's fingers tightened around Mordran's hand.
Aldric shook his head.
"I didn't spend years teaching you how to fight, how to think, how to lead, just to watch you become another cursed thing that happens to wear a man's face."
"If that's what it takes," Mordran murmured, "then so be it."
Aldric stared at him.
Then he gave a short, bitter scoff and turned toward the door.
"You're a damned fool."
"I've been called worse."
"By better men, I hope."
He left without another word.
The door shut hard enough to rattle the wooden frame.
Lyssara remained beside Mordran, saying nothing for a long while.
Outside, the settlement continued to stir. Men shouted orders. Hammers struck timber. Somewhere in the distance, a horse whinnied.
Finally, she looked at her husband.
"Why does he care so much?"
Mordran's expression changed.
For the first time that evening, he smiled.
Not the thin, calculated smile he offered officers before sending them into battle. Not the cold expression that made enemies wonder whether he had already planned their deaths.
This one was smaller.
Older.
"He found me when I was a child," he said.
Lyssara waited.
Mordran looked toward the narrow window.
"I don't remember everything. Not clearly."
His fingers moved against hers.
"But I remember the blood."
He had been small enough that the bodies seemed enormous.
The house was burning when he found his family.
Smoke filled the rooms, crawling along the ceiling and choking the air. The wooden beams groaned overhead, and somewhere outside, something howled with a voice that was not entirely an animal's.
Mordran remembered his mother's hand.
He remembered his father's voice telling him to hide.
He remembered monsters.
Their bodies had been wrong, bent in ways that made his young mind struggle to understand what he was seeing. Their limbs were too long, their mouths too wide, their teeth crowded together like broken pieces of bone.
He remembered trying to scream.
He remembered that no sound came.
When the monsters finally left, the house was quiet except for the crackling fire.
His family was dead.
Mordran did not understand death then. He only understood that the people who had promised to protect him were no longer moving.
He wandered through the house until he found his father's dagger.
The same dagger that now rested against his hip.
He remembered being warned never to touch it.
Under no circumstances.
His father had spoken those words with a seriousness Mordran had never understood.
But his father was dead.
And the monsters were still outside.
He picked up the dagger.
Then his memory broke apart.
He remembered flashes afterward: the sound of something tearing, the smell of burning flesh, the wet crunch of footsteps on the road.
And blood.
So much blood.
Some of it belonged to the monsters.
Some of it belonged to people who had never harmed him.
He remembered walking alone down a lonely road, carrying the dagger in one hand, his clothes soaked in blood-water. He did not know how long he had been walking.
He only knew that he was tired.
Then he collided with a man.
The stranger was middle-aged, broad through the shoulders, with graying hair and a weathered face. He wore a traveler's cloak and carried a sword at his side.
He looked down at the boy.
Then at the dagger.
Then at the blood covering him.
"Gods above," the stranger whispered.
Mordran remembered trying to step away.
The man crouched.
"What's your name, lad?"
Mordran stared at him.
"Can you speak?"
A pause.
"Mordran."
The stranger nodded slowly.
"All right, Mordran. My name is Aldric."
He glanced at the dagger again but made no attempt to take it.
"Are you hurt?"
Mordran looked down at himself.
"I don't know."
It was the only honest answer he had.
Aldric studied him for a long moment.
Then he removed his cloak and wrapped it around the boy's shoulders.
"Come with me."
Mordran looked up.
"Where?"
"Somewhere warm."
"What if the monsters come?"
Aldric's expression changed. The softness did not disappear, but something harder settled behind it.
"Then they'll have to come through me first."
Mordran remembered those words.
He remembered the man's hand on his shoulder as they walked.
He remembered being given food, a bed, and a reason to wake the next morning.
He remembered Aldric teaching him to hold a sword.
Teaching him to read.
Teaching him that strength was useless without discipline, that intelligence meant nothing without judgment, and that a man who abandoned his humanity to survive would eventually discover that survival had cost him everything.
Aldric had raised him.
He had made him into the man he was.
And Mordran had spent much of his life trying to prove that he had learned those lessons.
Sometimes, he wondered whether Aldric regretted teaching him so well.
Lyssara listened without interrupting.
When Mordran finished, she lowered her eyes to their joined hands.
"So that's why."
"That's why."
"He believes he's losing you."
Mordran stared at the ceiling.
"Perhaps."
"Do you think he is?"
For a while, he did not answer.
Then he turned his head toward her.
"I don't know."
Lyssara leaned closer and pressed his hand against her cheek.
"You are still here."
"For now."
"Then let that be enough."
Mordran watched her, studying the face that the world had taught her to hate before she was old enough to understand why.
She was a defect.
A word spoken with disgust by people who had never bothered to know her. A word that had followed her through childhood, through training, through every village and settlement where her black eyes drew stares and her magic inspired fear.
Yet she had never allowed the world to decide what she would become.
He loved her for that.
Perhaps more than she knew.
"I'll try," he whispered.
Lyssara smiled faintly.
It was a small promise, but she accepted it.
For a time, they sat together in silence.
The world outside could wait.
The war could wait.
Even the Carrion Sage, with his grand ambitions and rotting flesh, could wait.
Mordran closed his eyes, letting exhaustion pull him toward sleep.
Then a scream split the settlement.
It came from somewhere beyond the dwelling, sharp and terrified, followed by the clatter of running feet.
Mordran's eyes snapped open.
He tried to sit up.
Pain tore through his shoulder, and the weakness left by the dagger surged through his limbs. His arm buckled beneath him.
Lyssara caught him.
"Don't."
"Someone's in trouble."
"And you're in no condition to help them."
Another scream rose from outside.
Mordran swung his legs toward the edge of the bed, but Lyssara pressed a hand against his chest.
"Mordran. Stay here."
His jaw tightened.
He hated being helpless.
He hated it more than pain, more than exhaustion, more than the lingering sensation of something reaching into his soul whenever he used the dagger.
But Lyssara was right.
He could barely stand.
She rose from the bedside, her expression changing as the tenderness left her face.
The blackness of her eyes seemed to deepen.
"Stay," she repeated.
Then she turned toward the door.
And stepped out into the cold.