I should have told Wyn to put off Bloodrain. Better to have walked the Rift myself on my own feet, to have a feel for what Hakkon might be thinking, than to stay and play host to a gaggle of entitled nobles.

Could have, should have… and no amount of regret would change what had to happen now.

Burial duty. Ancestors knew I was no stranger to the pits of the war, when bodies had been stacked six-high and set alight.

I closed my eyes, breathing in the cold air, and let go of the regret. I’d had a hand in this, and now I would clean up after myself.

The soft clop of hooves on stone approached: the grooms, holding the reins of two horses. Cirri emerged from the keep, wearing a thicker cloak, Rose and Thorn on her heels with heavy bags in their arms.

The golems loaded the chestnut mare with the bags, and Rose cupped her hands, giving Cirri a boost into the saddle.

Thank you, she said. But you can’t come outside the keep. Wait in the tower, please. Or the library. 

The golems resisted her order for as long as they could, their faces turned longingly towards their mistress, but as Miro emerged, wearing a sword and several daggers, they slunk away with ill-grace.

Miro glanced sidelong at Cirri. “Do you think you can handle this?”

She nodded shortly. Take us there, Bane. We’re right behind you.

I looked up at her as she nudged her horse forward, and rested my hand on her leg for an all-too-brief moment. “We’re taking the road north. Keep heading that way, even if you lose sight of me. By horse, it will take several hours. Miro, you know the way.”

She touched my hand, and waved me on.

“Yes, my Lord.” Miro nudged his horse towards the outer wall.

We went through the gate, and the soldiers silently shut it behind us. I waited, listening as they locked and barred it—several times, the doors crossed with cold iron, with silver, with steel.

Only then, on packed earth and pine needles, did I drop to all fours, letting my body shift just a little—enough to carry me swiftly, as swift as the fastest warg.

“There’s going to be blood,” Miro hissed, and I couldn’t see Cirri’s reply, my eyes clenched shut tight as the pain of the adjustment spread through my arms and legs.

My wife could handle herself. I took another breath, tasting the air, and galloped towards the northern road. No sign of wargs yet… but there would be.

I circled back at times, ensuring Cirri and Miro were behind me and safe. He did as I ordered, guiding her to the north, and Cirri rode in apprehensive silence, not even trying to communicate with him.

It wasn’t until the misty ceiling of the sky was bright white that I caught the first telling whiff on the wind, blood and rot and warg piss.

The northern road was paved with stone, unlike much of the Rift’s hard-packed dirt. And up ahead, there was Tristone’s wall, a section visible through the trees.

Once, it had been a high wall. Time had brought it crumbling down; in the first years of the war, newly emerged from Below and determined to prove our worth, we had built it back up.

But war took its toll on everything. Constant warg attacks, combined with the Forian Army’s cannonfire, had brought it low again.

And if I’d simply forced the Rift-kin to work the mines earlier, we might have rebuilt it enough to withstand a siege. As it was… chunks of the wall had been long exposed, and had been scaled easily. Unlike Thornvale, they hadn’t built a barricade of sharpened stakes tipped with wolfsbane.

They had been an easy meal, easy pickings.

The scent of slaughter was a thick reek, coating my throat and choking me with every breath as we approached. Several vampire knights, standing sentry duty, watched warily as we approached. A horn blew, cutting through the unnatural silence.

Visca pushed one sentry aside, emerging from a broken section of the wall. Her brown skin was smeared with blood, black braid wild, face grim.

“Here’s our answer, then. Hakkon had his eyes set northward.” She shook her head and spit, eyes flicking to Cirri and Miro. “The wargs are long gone. He took them late last night. Folk down Fog Hollow way thought they heard a signal horn, but they didn’t send anyone to check until sunrise.”

I rose up, brushing my filthy palms on my trousers. They’d be covered in worse soon enough. “Of course they didn’t,” I said, gritting my teeth, wondering what waited on the other side of that sad, half-collapsed wall. I almost wanted to turn my back on it, to let it all rot.

What was the point of shouldering responsibility for all of them, for their survival, if they were more content to wallow in the dirt with their cold iron charms for protection? If they were willing to put off opening the mines for fear of ghosts, knowing that their defenses had crumbled so far past service they might as well be a hindrance?

But I had accepted it when I took the throne, and now I would walk through the horror that awaited me and take all the guilt onto my own shoulders. I’d sworn my life to it.

“It’s exactly what you expect,” Visca said flatly. She looked at Cirri in full. “It’s bad, my Lady. Might be best for you to stay outside the walls.”

Cirri set her lips flat and signed in the terse, simplified movements used by the Silent Brothers. I’ll do what I can.

In truth, I was glad she was with me. I couldn’t empty Tristone of the dead while worrying every second that Hakkon would be slipping around to take the keep. I only hated that she would see the carnage in full.

“There’s nothing to do. I’ve got a full legion on corpse duty, and another digging the pits.” Visca stepped through the breach in the wall, and I followed.

It was like walking into the past, but all the more sickening for how fresh it all was.

My eyes went straight to the church, where the wargs had painted, as they liked to do—leaving their calling card everywhere they spread destruction. The scent of their piss was strong, burning my nose; the bodies were at least preserved by the cold, the reek of decomposition not quite as terrible as it could’ve been.

But the sight… that was terrible. The wargs had not just painted, but built a totem from some of the bodies, pieces of flesh strung on wire, the wire twisted around splintered poles, the poles dug deep into the earth. The configuration in the middle of the town was like a tree, the frost-stiffened limbs its drooping branches.

Visca pulled her lips back in a feral sneer.

“No graves.” She kept her voice quiet. “Fuck, we can’t even figure out which piece belongs with whom. Better to have a pit.”

I turned back as Miro rode through, followed by Cirri. She looked up, already apprehensive, and her face went blank. Skin pale as the snow on the ground, all blood draining from it.

“Stay in the village,” I told her, no gentleness to my tone. “Keep the legions in sight.”

She nodded, but almost absently. Still terribly blank.

“You need do nothing,” I said, softer now. “But I must help bury them.”

Another nod. Miro dismounted, looking around with wide eyes, jaw set tight. “Where do you need me?”

I gestured expansively. “Corpse duty.”

The snow was so red. An auspicious color, in normal times.

Not so for these people. I took in the carnage, the abattoir the wargs had made of my people.

“Might be time to consider taking the fight to him.” Visca sidled closer.

“To where? The Below?” I looked at my commander. “We could hunt down there for years, and earn nothing for our efforts but a loss of our own. For all we know, he’s found a city of his own down there to reinforce.”

“Right. It was just a thought.” She sighed, but her eyes were hard. “This can’t go on forever. Hakkon, his little death cult of wolves… they need killing, Bane.”

“I know it,” I muttered, and helped her as she took a man’s corpse under the armpits. His iced-over eyes stared up at her, wide with shock and horror.