"Talking to that horse won't steady your draw, painter."
Haliden spun around and quickly knocked another arrow.
An ancient scarecrow of a man stood a few footfalls away, leaning on a gnarled staff. "You won't need that here," the coot spoke, gesturing to the bow. "My days of bloodying others have long since set."
Haliden stepped back, the bow still drawn. "Who are you?"
The coot sat down on an overturned barrel, his bones creaking and popping as he let out a sigh. He had a thin tuft of white hair wavering gently in the morning breeze, and his skin was wrinkled and liver spotted.
"Been too long since I knew that, friend. Me woman said I had the mindrot before she coughed herself into the ground three weeks past."
"Yet you knew my name?"
The old man laughed. "It's queer, I admit. I couldn't tell you what I ate this morning, or if I shit water or rocks. But I remember my days at the Isle thirty turns ago. Every moment and every face." He smiled as he looked at Haliden. "And you, Haliden Stroke. I've always remembered you."
2
They sat together most of the day, two strangers enjoying the warmth of fire and companionship as ash drifted onto their shoulders.
The coot gulped down a long, healthy swallow from one of Haliden’s bottles. "Ahhhh,” he gasped. “Not even the Breath can warm the blood like firewater." He handed it to Haliden and nodded his thanks. “Can’t remember the last time I tasted berry rum.”
Haliden took a swig. When he was done, he leaned back against his pack and stared at the man. He said his first name was Warden, but that the mind rot had long since wiped away his last name.
"I spent most of my life on the Isle," Warden spoke as he warmed his hands over the fire. "Bending the knee as befit my rank. I was even an acolyte to Menutee himself. Warmed his wine and kept his quarters clean for almost five turns. Of course, those were the days before Overwatch rule. The turns of gold and happiness for young Warden."
“You really knew Menutee?” Haliden asked, unconvinced.
“Knew him as much as any acolyte could.”
Haliden huffed. Narthax Menutee was the most notorious Circle Charger, the root of the Meridium War that ravaged the Culver thirty turns past. And that wasn’t Warden’s only claim. Throughout the night, he spun tales of dining with princes and thieves. He even claimed to have been present in the Culver, when the Brighthorse Brigade finally stormed Menutee’s bunker at the end of the Meridium War.
But even after conjuring tales thirty turns past, the man still couldn’t explain the villagers' whereabouts, or how he even arrived in Alimane. "I awoke one day and I was here in this village," he told Haliden, his voice sullen. "A man turning gray and old, the past turns all but lost to me, save for those spun long ago."
By noon the two were good and drunk. Haliden sighed as he sniffed the ashy air. He had to move on soon; the Breath would be on them any day now.
"So tell me, artist," the old man spoke. "Where do you hope to hide? Beneath Saladin Watch? Or perhaps with the water worshipers of Yxulian Stretch?"
"The Block,” Haliden spoke. “With enough coinage, any man can find quarter there. Or so the rumors say."
"It's been four hundred turns since the last Breath came forth," Warden spoke. "Four hundred turns to crack and crumble the Block's granite walls. What makes you think it will withstand it?"
"Hope," Haliden replied. "That’s all I have now. But tell me something. How did we meet upon the Isle?"
"I told you but you don't listen. I was acolyte to Menutee, cleaned and prepared his bed chambers for five turns. But when he embarked upon his atuan, I fell beneath the hand of Commander Howl and his vile Overwatch dregs."
Haliden felt a sudden chill tickle his spine. Brim Howl. He hadn’t heard that name in many turns. That sickly shit, he thought. I should never have taken his commission.
In his youth, his ego had taken him far across the Acid, all the way to the Isle itself. There, he earned a commission from one of the Circle’s rising stars, Brim Howl. One of Menutee’s most vile and dedicated acolytes. And one I hoped never to think of again.
"I see from your expression you remember now," Warden spoke, a grin betraying his few remaining teeth.
"I do," Haliden replied, his voice sullen. "The Black Bird commission. A wall of glyphs and runes painted in the..."
"Blood of executed Chargers."
Haliden's stomach turned. “I’ve tried very hard to forget all that.”
“You were young and arrogant. A noble excuse. How could you know the darkness that viper was concocting?”
Haliden swallowed. After they brought him the first body, he had tried abandoning the commission. But Howl’s men chained him to the chamber floor, forcing him to work or starve. "You're not the only fool to wield a brush," Howl had told him. “Either you finish your work or I will see to it you suffer worse than any artist has ever known.”
“I almost lost my soul on that island,” Haliden spoke.
"Yet you produced one of your finest works."
Haliden huffed. "I should have torn the walls down when I was through." He still remembered Howl watching him from the shadows as he sipped wine and groped himself beneath his pus-stained robe. If only I was a braver man, I would have stabbed him in the heart with my brush. But he wasn't, and to break a contract with Howl would have meant his head on a spike.
"All the same, artist, the runes of Ithliad are no easy thing to imitate. Especially when painted with trembling hands."
Haliden spat into the fire. “What does it matter anymore? My days of painting are over.”
Warden frowned. “You’re a damn fool then, boy. Do you know what a gift you have?"
“Had. My spark went out the day my Milane walked out the door.”
The old man spat into the fire. “I'm not talking about painting or any of that shit. I'm talking about the gift of youth. The gift of time.”
“You do see the horizon there, right?” Haliden spoke, pointing south. “Our time is just about up. I doubt I'll even get within sight of the Block.”
Warden suddenly leaned over the fire and slapped Haliden across the face.
“What the hell, you old fool-”
“Ssshhh!” Warden hissed. “And listen!”
Halide swallowed, rubbing his cheek.
“You piss and whine about losing your talent and your woman, about your time chained to the Overwatch. You act like you’re already dead. But you still got legs and a cock, right? You still got talent buried somewhere inside? Talent most men could only dream of?”
Haliden sat silent, too shocked to speak.
“Be a damn man and get yourself to the Block! Else go lay down in Edmund’s cabin over there and finish yourself off like he and his wife did.”
For a time after, neither man spoke. Warden drank and stared at the sky while Haliden sulked in the shadows.
“You’ll do fine,” Warden finally spoke. “The gods watch over their own.”
Haliden stared at the dancing flames. He felt ashamed and embarrassed. He’s right, he thought. My fate’s in my hands now. I can either give up here, or shut up and make my run.
Warden yawned and lay back against a bale of rotting hay. “One thing, though, Stroke. You may have a gift with the brush, but as for a bow…” He laughed. “Best you learn to shoot a hell of a lot straighter. Men will come for you now. During times like these they always do.”
“And what will you do when they come?” Haliden asked.
Warden raised one of Haliden’s bottles of fire water and smiled. “Hope they’re as generous with their drink as you.” And with that, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
The two awoke at dawn.
Haliden winced as a hangover tugged at his aching head. “By the gods,” he moaned as rivulets of ash trickled from his shoulders.
Beside him, Warden sat up and stared at the sky. “It’s getting on, child. Best you depart soon.”
Haliden nodded. “There�
�s room if you want to come. Instar can carry two of us.”
Warden smiled but shook his head. "My wife's bones feed these grounds. It's only right that mine should join her.”
Instar whinnied beside them, shaking a layer of ash from her coat.
Haliden approach the mighty garron and withdrew an ornate, jewel encrusted wine bottle from one of his saddlebags. "Here,” he spoke, handing it to Warden. “For my final admirer. Algian Red. The finest in all of Alimane.”
Warden’s eyes noticeably widened. Algian wine was the rarest vintage in all the lands, worth as much as a thousand acre homestead or more. "I will toast you when the fire carries me to my Lindane!"
Haliden nodded and nudged Instar forward. As they rounded a bend in the road, he turned one last time to wave. But Warden was already gone.
“God speed, friend,” he whispered.
For three calls they raced across the ash covered landscape. No rest, no slowing. Only the thunderous bounce of Instar’s hooves as they tore across the dying world.
Thirty leagues, Haliden guessed as they entered a dense pine forest. Maybe less if we hurry.
But the Breath was moving faster now, it's hungry flames having reached the vast wheat fields of Pelnor. Once it finished there, it would only be a day or two until it reached the Wavering Stretch, melting it's desert dunes and endless sand fields into glass. Haliden tried to imagine what it would look like, league after league of glistening, fire-blasted desert.
By nightfall Instar was foaming at the mouth and her body was covered in ashy-sweat. Haliden stroked her mane as guilt racked his soul.
"You did wonderful today," he whispered. "Not even the wings of a dragon could have carried us so far and so fast."
Instar shook her head, a sad, exhausted whinny escaping her maw.
The sound plunged a dagger deep into Haliden's heart. But there was no choice in it, he told himself. The fire waits for no man... or beast.
They were somewhere between Fell Pass Way and the Lake of Bones. He had grown up not more than a few miles away in a small village called Moss Town, one of the lesser known outposts dotting Alimane’s Sunbelt. Soon familiar landmarks appeared in the distance: the Gale ruins, with its mysterious obelisks and funeral mounds; the Remway Rock, a place where Haliden had received his first true kiss; the Watcher’s Valley, with its stretch of maze-like bramble and ivy. So many memories, so many experiences. And all during simpler and happier times.
Yet… it all feels so different, he thought. Not a bird or coon stirred in the brush, and the ash gave everything an eerie, death-like pallor.
When they finally reached the edge of the forest, a rutted, ash-covered road stretched north before them. Harin's Road, Haliden thought. Named after the Charger who had protected Moss Town during the last Breath.
But will another come this time? He doubted it. At the end of the Meridium War, the Isle Overwatch exiled most of the Circle’s Chargers to the Culver Waste. There they rotted, cleaning up the deadly remnants left behind after Menutee’s failed coup. Stewards of a failed war, Haliden thought. How far they've fallen.
Alimane would be on its own this time. The poorer towns would burn, their inhabitants and history all but wiped from the land, while the wealthiest took solace in Tritan vaults buried deep inside Pelimin's Block.
As for those of faith, they would simply gift themselves to the fire. From soil and sun we thrive, he thought, the familiar Firewalker mantra playing out in his head. From fire and ash we are reborn.
As a child, Haliden had listened to the local Firewalker spout those same words time and again. Many of his father’s closest friends belonged to the religion. To them, the Breath was a blessing, a promised path to eternity amongst the gods.
All bullshit, Haliden thought as he passed a crow cage hanging from a gnarled tree. A charred skeleton stood propped inside, a single black arm reaching toward him through the bars. It's already begun, he thought as he stared at the pile of ash and charred wood heaped beneath it. The mark of the Firewalkers had been carved into the victim’s skull: a single flame flickering beneath an orb. A warning to the unfaithful that all would burn, willingly or not.
Haliden nudged Instar onward, praying that those who had erected it were long gone.
After several more dark miles, the town of Merin's Folly appeared in the distance. The closest of its hovels was nothing more than a charred pile of rubble, ribbons of smoke still coiling from its collapsed innards. A hundred footfalls behind it, sat a large, ornate well shaped in the likeness of a mouth.
"How does a nice cold drink suit you?"
Instar nickered playfully, shaking ash from her mane.
But as they got closer a strange buzzing filled the air. When they reached the edge, Haliden froze.
“By the gods!”
A tangle of charred corpses lay broken at the bottom of the well, clouds of flies swarming over them like black smoke.
Haliden wretched. The stench of death was overwhelming, rising from the well like volcanic fumes. Even Instar retreated to the road, her nostrils flaring at the pungent odor.
They quickly put the well behind them and headed toward the western edge of the village, where they came upon a collapsed stone inn Haliden remembered from his youth.
Inside, dozens of blackened skeletons sat chained to burnt and broken chairs, their jaws agape and frozen in agony.
What in the hells is happening to us? he thought as he turned away in disgust.
Beside the inn lay the Lake of Bones, its surface the same mirror of placid beauty Haliden remembered from his youth.
If the tales were true, Halowin the young, the first Charger to take up station in Alimane before the last Breath, had convinced half the town to take solace beneath the lake in a Tritan bunker. But after the fires ended, he and his followers were never seen again.
Perhaps they had the right of it, though, hiding down there in the cold dark, Haliden thought. Better to drown in the cool embrace of a lake, than burn in the fires of hell.
The lake was almost two leagues across at its widest point and stretched for four leagues alongside Harin's Road. Its water was deep and black, rich in dragon bass and salinder. Fisherman from every quarter of Alimane had once flocked to its bountiful waters. Even in the wake of the last Breath four hundred turns ago, the village had sprung back to life stronger than ever before.
Haliden looked down at his feet. A charred skull lay gazing up at him, the Firewalkers' now familiar mark carved into its cracked, black surface.
Perhaps it’s best we’re all wiped from this planet, he thought as he pulled his last bottle of firewater from his saddle bag. This land is nothing more than a golgotha now. He took a long sip and closed his eyes. In his mind, he was no longer in Alimane. Now he stood atop a pine-dotted hill somewhere deep in the wilds. Far from humanity. Far from the Breath.
But how long can you hide here? he thought as the liquor warmed his stomach. Lost in the blind haze of drink and adreena weed like some damn coward?
When he opened his eyes, the lake reflected the sky’s waning, gray light. It was once a beautiful sight. He had even sketched his first landscape here. A charcoal drawing depicting Halowin’s followers rising from the lake's surface, their spectral claws reaching toward a hopeful, blue sky.
Haliden sighed at the memory. His father had been the only person to ever see it. And how I loved him, he thought.
"You have a gift, son," his father once told him. "Many do, but lose it somewhere along the way. But I won't let you."
Haliden’s heart ached. What would he think of me now? A washed up artist alone and on the run from the Breath? He decided he didn’t want to know.
In the village’s main square a massive cage hung beneath three crossed trees. Haliden slowed Instar as they approached it. When he was last here, a stage stood in the very same spot. He could still hear the laughter from the nightly mummers shows. Great troops of colorful jesters and honey-voiced singers parading about the crowds, plying thei
r talents for coin and trade.
But those days were long gone.
Now only a blackened cage remained, and a pile of charred and broken bone lying within.
Beside the cage, several burnt wagons sat crooked and collapsed, their contents charred beyond recognition.
They were trying to flee, Haliden realized. Women, children... He swallowed back bile as several crows alighted from the cage.
The cultist were everywhere now, killing anyone attempting to flee the fire. They believed the Breath was a gift sent from the god Alirath. A tool to cleanse the faithful.
Nonsense, Haliden thought. He had known many cultists before piety took hold. They were whore-mongers and drunks like himself, the lowest of the low. But as soon as they caught wind of the Breath, each and every scoundrel took to the cloth, hiding behind the fire like the cowards they were.
For the next two calls, he and Instar searched for survivors. But they found only ash and bone. As afternoon gave way to dusk, they moved down the road until they found a creek shielded from sight. There Haliden fed and watered Instar in silence. When he was through, he lay down in a patch of willows and closed his eyes. No fire, no food. His only yearning: sleep.
The arrow went wide, missing the bale by at least fifteen footfalls.
"Damn it!" Haliden hissed. He quickly knocked another, drew back and released. This time the arrow grazed a tree three yards from his intended target, vanishing into the foliage beyond.
"Gods be damned!”
Instar watched silently as his master gathered up his arrows. Haliden had been at it since dawn, cursing and shouting with little result.
“If I could shoot as good as I drink, we would be dining on verindeer for the next fortnight,” he grumbled.
As the morning stretched on, they left the Lake of Bones far behind. It was a haunted place now, it's scars deep and permanent. No one would tread there again. At least none of Haliden’s generation.
I am to be the last, he thought.
The realization chilled him to the bone. All the town’s memories, joys and culture wiped away in a matter of days, transformed into a cloud of ash.
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