Chapter 9: Ashblood
The mountain pass was choked in frost and blackened trees, their limbs sharp as spears, their bark scarred by old fire. Snow fell in flakes of ash, dry and silent.
Anterz and Elaria trudged through it, weapons drawn. They were being hunted.
Behind them, the valley burned—what had been a sleeping village now reduced to cinders and smoke. The cult hadn't just fled. They had summoned something.
It was following.
Not fast.
But relentlessly.
---
The first attack came with no warning.
A howl cut the sky.
Anterz turned just in time to see a hulking shape drop from the cliffside—eight feet tall, cloaked in tattered banners, its arms ending in hooked blades fused to bone.
Eyes burned blue in its horned skull.
> "Ashblood," Elaria said grimly. "Born from fire-warped knights."
The creature lunged.
Anterz dodged, barely. Its claws carved stone.
He rolled, came up swinging—Valteris roared through the air, met iron-hard bone, and shrieked as sparks burst.
The blow staggered the monster, but didn't fell it.
Another one landed behind Elaria.
She didn't flinch.
---
The pale blade in her hand—still unnamed—flashed once.
The second Ashblood moved fast, but she was faster.
She dropped low, spun, and slashed across its midsection. The cut left a glowing seam of silver flame. The beast howled and fell twitching, its form unraveling like ash in the wind.
The first charged again.
Anterz met it head-on.
He swung high—then feinted low.
The creature blocked—but too late.
Valteris pierced its chest.
The runes blazed. The sword drank.
The monster's scream was choked in red light as its insides collapsed inward, consumed by ruin.
Its body fell hollow.
Ash poured out.
---
More came.
Six. Then ten.
They emerged from the trees, crawling from the snow, rising from pits dug long ago. Some carried shattered shields. Some wore melted crowns. All bore the marks of flame—burned into their skin, their souls twisted by some forgotten war spell.
"They're not just cursed," Elaria said. "They were soldiers."
Anterz nodded grimly. "Someone woke them."
And now someone was watching.
He could feel it—an eye above, somewhere far, far off, staring down the spine of the world.
He lifted Valteris.
"Let's kill them quickly."
---
The next wave hit like thunder.
Three Ashbloods leapt at once—one from the trees, one from the air, one rising straight from the ground.
Anterz met the first mid-leap, blade-to-blade. The force drove him back—but he didn't fall.
He reversed grip, stepped inside, and drove Valteris up through the beast's chin.
Its skull exploded in red fire.
The second Ashblood landed behind him—claws ready.
Elaria appeared from the smoke, blade flashing twice in the blink of an eye.
The creature's arms fell off. Then its head.
She spun, blood splattering across her cloak.
The third Ashblood clawed toward her back.
Anterz hurled his sword.
Valteris sang through the air like a comet, tore through the beast's chest, and embedded in a stone outcrop fifty paces away.
The monster took two steps.
Then folded in on itself.
---
Anterz retrieved the blade with a single pull—stone cracked, smoke billowed.
Elaria stared at him, breathless. "You've gotten faster."
He glanced at her. "So have you."
She hesitated.
Then she said it.
"I remember now. Some of it."
He stopped.
Elaria looked away.
"When I was a child, I was brought to a place called the Archive of Stars. It wasn't a kingdom. It was a vault—hidden under the western sea. They said I was born with a fractured echo."
He frowned. "What does that mean?"
She touched the pendant at her neck.
"I was never just me. I carried a piece of something ancient. Something sealed when the gods fell."
Her voice dropped.
"They tried to contain it. They trained me. Fed me memories that weren't mine. But the dreams kept breaking through. The sword I carry… it found me before I found it."
She looked at him now.
"Your name woke mine."
Anterz blinked.
"You were part of the Fall."
Elaria nodded. "Not just part. I think I was one of the flames they tried to extinguish."
---
A horn blared in the distance.
Low. Hollow. Wrong.
The Ashbloods turned and ran—vanishing into the trees like hunted beasts.
Elaria gripped her blade. "That wasn't them."
"No," Anterz said, eyes narrowing. "Something worse."
The fog shifted.
Then it stepped out.
Tall. Towering. Armored in silver-black plates that hissed with trapped heat. Its helmet bore no eyes—just a single, vertical slit that glowed with shifting color.
Its left hand was a massive cleaver.
Its right arm ended in a chained lantern, inside which burned a screaming flame.
It walked like memory.
> "A Bound Warden," Elaria whispered. "One of the God-Forged."
Anterz felt Valteris quiver.
> "This one… we remember."
---
The Warden pointed the cleaver at Anterz.
A voice cracked from within the armor—metal grating on bone.
> "Ruin-bearer. You walk in defiance of the old sentence."
Anterz stepped forward, sword drawn.
"What sentence?"
> "Annihilation."
The Warden charged.
Faster than it should've moved.
---
Anterz barely blocked the first strike. The force flung him backward.
The Warden followed—swinging the cleaver in an arc that shattered the trees behind them.
Elaria moved to flank it—her blade aimed for its exposed back.
The Warden turned mid-swing, as if it already knew.
It kicked her.
She hit a tree hard—slumped but alive.
The Warden turned back to Anterz, dragging its lantern arm forward.
The flame inside howled louder.
Valteris hissed. "That is no fire. That is a soul they burned alive."
Anterz rushed in.
Blade met cleaver.
Red light and silver sparks.
Strike, block, spin—every blow Anterz landed made the Warden stagger, but it didn't bleed.
Until—
Elaria threw her blade.
It hit the lantern.
Glass shattered.
The fire screamed.
And the Warden paused.
---
Anterz didn't wait.
He leapt, brought Valteris down with both hands—
And drove it into the Warden's chestplate.
The armor split.
The blade sank deep.
The scream turned into a roar of flame as the soul inside exploded outward.
Ash rained down.
The Warden fell to its knees.
And spoke one final time.
> "The Pale Fire sees you now."
Then collapsed into burning dust.
---
Silence.
Elaria limped toward him.
"That was one of the Watchers they left behind. To erase survivors."
Anterz looked north again.
"They know I'm awake."
She nodded.
"And they're afraid."
He looked at her.
So was she.
But she still stood.
Still burned.
He reached out, placed his hand briefly over hers.
"Let them come."
---
Far across the continent, in a tower carved from frozen flame, a priest opened his eyes.
He saw the ruin-bearer.
He saw the girl of echoes.
And he began the ritual.
The stars cracked.
The Tower of Pale Fire shuddered.
And the second war truly began.
---