---- When the world ends, would it be better to sleep?
As the horizon crumbles, or the reaper's shadow looms, would you face it, or allow your dreams to comfort you through?
The young and the proud tend to believe that facing death with open eyes is a noble act, but they're wrong. Those who see his face in their every waking moment: the old; the ill; the well aquanted, they know that to sleep – to dream – is a mercy one ought not to discount.
Amell Fielder was a man who had learnt to blink before death. He was a man who knew well the shadows in which the reaper hid.
He had felt his final breath, and he had taken it twice. His heart had raced to the edge of his grasp, and he had let it go. The man he was had chosen to dream through his death, but it hadn't come. Now, he dreamt through life instead. A blessing and a kindness had become his plague.
"The blue giant?"
Amell rode through the woods in search of a trail, a hint, a sign of hope. She had been so close and he had missed her. She might have been a nation away by now, and he would never know. He rode hard. Destiny would not leave him behind. He had lost too much; he couldn't lose hope. Not when she had been so close.
"He's a friend? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
Cobalt eyes traced the tree line as a fresh memory pounded in his head. A heretic, a liar. The conclave had so publicly condemned her, and yet... she had to be the Champion. They had to be lying.
"They've already denounced me? I hoped I might have more time."
The tracks led east, but fresher hooves obscured them. He raced all the faster, he couldn't let the Veytors find her first. There was too much at stake.
"Veytors? Fuck. Look, I don't know who you are, or who the blue knight is, but I need to go. I need to get moving."
Fates clashed and were all too soon to intertwine. With a father unmade, would a father be found. With a mother at the heartbeat of the world, would a mother take the heartbeat of another.
"Enough! Just let me-"
---- "Please, Ash... Wake up," a little voice whimpered. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Please, just wake up." She clung to Ash's palm and sobbed into her shoulder.
"I-" was all Ashtik could cough.
"ASH!" the young girl shrieked and wailed. "Can you hear me? Are you alright?"
Sense slowly returned to the huntress. The sun blinded her through the charred hole tunnelled through the canopy. Black soot covered her and Evara while Sujin, covered in white hot ash, stamped out the last of the flame.
"I-" Ash tried to say, though her effort quickly failed her. "I said... don't blow us up."
"What?" Evara begged, pressing her ear close to Ash's cracked lips.
"I said... don't blow us up. It was- was the first thing I said when I- gave you the book," Ash panted, a pained smile worn across her cracked lips. "One rule."
-- "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I- I don't know what I did... How I did it?"
"It's okay, Evy. I'm okay," she croaked. "It's not your fault. Something clearly went wrong."
"I- I healed your burns," Ev sobbed as if it were an apology. "The worst of them, anyway."
-- "And the enchanter?"
"I am well, Ashtik," Sujin called from afar. "Not so badly burnt as yourself."
"Do you know what happened?" Ash demanded weakly.
He limped towards them. Soot and ash lay atop the grass like fresh fallen snow. "I... No, I haven't the faintest clue, truth be told. The explosion was magical, but we weren't using magic. It shouldn't be possible."
Ash grunted her way up, resting her weight against her sister. "What do you remember then, Ev?"
-- "There... was fire. Green fire, and so much of it. It looked like-"
"-Like the walls back home," Ash finished as Evara's voice failed her. "You had a vision of the siege, didn't you?"
-- "Wh- Yes. How did you know that?"
"I saw it too. You were stood atop of the elder's home. The rains were too heavy for us to light the walls, so you fired a flaming bolt, and it all went up," Ash recalled. "But I saw it through your eyes, you said 'burn'."
-- "And it burned."
Ash didn't know if Evara really had cast a spell back then, or why it caused her to explode now, but she quickly remembered her truer priorities. The dream; the warning.
"We need to move," she sternly ordered. She made an attempt to rise but quickly fell back down to one knee. Evara caught her and took what little of Ash's steel-clad weigh she could manage.
"You're going nowhere," Ev protested. "You can barely speak, let alone travel. You need to rest."
"There's no time!" Ash took to her own feet, unsteady as they were, and marched towards where the horses had been trailing them.
"Ash?" the little voice pressed. "Ash!" she called out again as her sister carved out a warpath. "Ashtik Sai-Weleg, you will stand still or Veytor as my witness, I will set off another explosion!"
-- "We haven't got time to stand around and argue! The monks are on our trail and they're gaining on us every second we aren't sprinting in the other direction!"
-- "The monks? Why would the inquisition already be after us? Surely the Conclave would wait till we arrive in Meomi at least? How do you know they're so close behind us? And how did you know about my vision? What's going on?"
"We can talk about it while we ride," Ash insisted. "Sujin move your arse."
"of course, Ashtik," the enchanted said. "But I think young Evara is right: You ought to rest."
"And what in the world suggests I value your opinion?" Ash snapped.
--"Sister!"
"Winge and whine later. Move now! And where the fuck are the horses?" Ash ordered one last time. The severity on her tongue and the heat in her eyes took any hope for protest and dashed them against the seared oaks.
"Gone," Sujin meekly said. "They took off after the explosion... With all of our food in their packs."
-- "Then we go on foot. Move."
---- They hadn't been moving ten minutes before a sight tore Ash's belly apart. A murder of crows flocked to the sky at their backs. They flew along their tracks, near the scorched trees. It had to be cavalry unsettling them. That, or a stampede. There would be no other reason for so many to flee at once.
Ash considered: run, and the horses would soon catch up and trample them; or hide and hope they can slip past undetected. If they hid, the Veytors would reach the port city first and cut the party off there instead.
A fight would be their only chance, and a slim one at that.
"Ash?" Evara timidly asked as the huntress fell behind the party. It was the first word any of them had spoken.
Ash all but ignored her, whistling out to the fleeing crows instead. A half dozen heard her call and came to the ground before her. Ash knelt, looked in their eyes and knew.
"Veytors have reached the burnt woods. Hundreds march from the west, but a small group is closing on us," Ash said to the others. "Go, keep an eye on them," she whispered to the birds.
"Then- what do we do?" Ev asked.
"We run!" Sujin insisted.
"No," Ash sighed. "They'll catch us within the day. We should stand our ground, take the small group by surprise and flee before the horde can descend. Enchanter, are you any good in a fight?"
"Better than most," he shyly answered. "But not better than a horseback Veytor."
A huntress must know her prey. "What do you know about them, either of you?"
The two shared worried glances, but it was Evara who spoke first, "They hunt anything heretical. Dark magicians, Vampris, and well... you."
"So, they're more-so geared towards fighting magic?" Ash hurriedly asked.
-- "Aye, they tend to forgo steel armour for enchanted robes. I suppose Sir Stabby would do reasonably well against them."
-- "What else?"
"They ride war chargers, not trackers," Sujin put forth.
-- "So, the horses will charge headfirst into whatever we offer them, so long as the rider is distracted?"
"Possibly," Sujin said.
"Then... fog. Can you use your enchantments to make some smoke, or fog, or something? We'll draw them in, blind them, and have them charge into a ditch or some spikes," Ash said with a hesitantly hopeful look.
"That would take some time to prepare," Sujin answered.
-- "But could you do it?"
"I... Yes. They will be prepared for most enchantments, so we must hide the fog charms from their reach," he decided, balling his fist against his apron.
"Then get to work. I'll but us some time," Ash ordered.
-- "How?"
Ash whistled out again, only this time it wasn't a couple of crows that came to her call; it was all things great and small. A fox and vixen, a fluffle of rabbits, a dray of red squirrels, a prickle of hedgehogs and every colour songbird came to heed her words.
"Tracks, cover. Horse, block. Night, hold," Ash called out, and with it, the small stampede dispersed into the woods.
"That's... incredible," Sujin awed.
--"Get to work, enchanter."
---- The traps were meant for rabbits and rats. They were large enough now to fell horse and man. The enchanter had spent the last of the day scrawling over slabs of copper and bronze. He must have finished two-score of them before he began scattering them around the planned ambush zone. They had made a bastion of a small clearing. Spikes circled the centre where their little camp lay. They hadn't dared temp fate by lighting a fire, so Sujin had been kind enough to grant them a warming rune to cook on. The moment seemed calm, and the battle seemed far for the moment.
The huntress squinted to see the foreign man in the dark. "I-" she coughed. "I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you... Sujin."
-- "Do not worry about it."
"No. You've been a great help. I- I don't ignore you because I dislike you, it's just... how I am. I'm sorry," she said as lowly as any whisper could sound.
"I understand," he said, a warm look shining in the dark. "But do not worry. I know you only want what's best. I do not begrudge you a harsh tone after you saved my life so valiantly."
-- "Saved your life?"
-- "Yes... You don't remember?"
-- "Remember what?"
"Ash," Ev whispered. "You stopped me during the fire."
"I didn't stop you; I passed out," she insisted.
"What? No, you put your hand on my cheek and told me to sleep. Don't you remember?" Ev insisted.
Ash agonised over the memory, but there was nothing. She hadn't done that. She'd collapsed on the ground and passed out. The huntress matched eyes with the curious little girl and asked, "I told you to sleep and you just fell asleep?"
-- "Aye."
"Ashtik, if I may?" Sujin contended. Ash just shrugged through her cloud of thoughts. "Well, it's just... I am correct in assuming that you are the Champion of Black, yes?"
"Wait..." Evara gasped. "We didn't tell you? How could I be so stupid!"
"It's okay," he awkwardly chuckled. "I... put the pieces together when you mentioned the Veytors. It's just that the Black Goden is the patron of dreams, no? Maybe he has granted you some power over his domain? A power over dreams."
"Well, he certainly has power over mine," Ash grumbled.
"What do you mean?" Ev asked.
"I- Nothing. I've just had some bad dreams of late. I think you're right." She looked out at her sister. "Speaking of which: aren't you tired?"
"Me?" Ev asked. "No. Not at all, really."
-- "No? You blew up earlier... and healed all of my burns? Not to mention all the riding we've been doing."
-- "Honestly I was tired... but I suppose the adrenaline of the day hasn't worn off? I've never felt so energised as I do right now. I feel- I feel like I've been carrying a weight for as long as I can remember but at last I've cast it down."