The road was a graveyard.
Ash fell like snowflakes from the sky, drifting lazily yet settling heavy on Oisla's skin, his hair, his breath. Every step he took seemed to land on something that cracked—an abandoned cart wheel, a broken pot, sometimes bones. His father, Dael, walked beside him, shoulders squared, eyes locked forward, never hesitating, never slowing.
Oisla tried to keep his eyes on his father's back, but they always slipped sideways, snagging on the ruin around them. The Nordits had left nothing untouched. Houses leaned like broken teeth, fields smoldered, and the cries of the living were drowned beneath the silence of the dead.
It was then they heard it—a sound that did not belong to fire or steel. It was softer, higher, a ragged wailing that cut through Oisla's chest.
A boy.
They followed the sound to the edge of a ditch where a body lay crumpled in the dirt, a spearhead jutting from his chest. Next to him knelt a small figure, fists pressed to his eyes, sobbing until his whole body shook.
"Gable…" Oisla's voice cracked.
The boy turned, his face streaked with tears and ash. He was Oisla's age, perhaps a little younger, his hair tangled, his tunic torn. His father's body lay beside him, already stiff, blood pooled dark in the earth.
"Get up, son," Dael said gently, kneeling to place a hand on the boy's shoulder. "We can't stay here. He's gone, but you're not. Your father would want you to live."
Gable shook his head, his sobs breaking into hiccups. "I can't leave him. I can't—"
Oisla crouched beside him, fighting his own tears. "We have to. Please, Gable. Come with us."
The boy's eyes met his, wide and raw with grief. Slowly, painfully, he nodded. Dael pulled him to his feet, and Oisla took his hand. It was cold and clammy, but Oisla gripped it tight, as if holding on could stop Gable from slipping away into the dark.
They moved together, three shadows against the smoke. Dael led them along the back roads, avoiding the open fields where Nordit patrols still prowled. Oisla kept glancing back at Gable, whose face was hollow, whose steps dragged. He wanted to say something, anything, but words felt useless when fathers lay dead in ditches.
"We're almost out," Dael said at last, his voice hoarse but steady. "Once we reach the ridge, the forest will cover us. From there, we'll be safe."
Safe. Oisla clung to the word like a rope. Safe meant his mother. Safe meant Mara. Safe meant tomorrow.
But the world was not ready to let them go.
From the shadows of a burned-out cottage, a figure emerged—tall, broad, with eyes that gleamed like knives in the firelight. Kharven. The chief.
His clothes were torn, his beard matted with soot, but his presence still carried weight. His hand gripped a blade dark with dried blood.
"I warned you, Dael," Kharven growled, his voice low and poisonous. "You humiliated me before them all. Now look at Baibars—ruined. And you'll die knowing you struck the first blow."
Dael pushed the boys behind him, his arm flung wide like a shield. "You brought this on yourself, Kharven. You brought it on all of us. Step aside."
But Kharven did not move. His eyes flicked to Oisla, and a twisted smile pulled at his lips. "The boy… he saw, didn't he? That night. I saw him. His silence condemns him as much as it does me."
Oisla froze, his breath caught. His father's body stiffened, his hand tightening on the hilt of his knife.
"Don't you touch him," Dael warned, his voice sharp as steel.
Kharven lunged.
Steel clashed, sparks flying. Oisla's heart slammed against his ribs as his father met the chief's blows, pushing him back with every strike. The sound of metal rang through the ruins, a desperate song of survival.
But Kharven was larger, stronger, driven by rage. Dael fought with skill, but his breath grew ragged, his movements slower with each strike.
"Father!" Oisla cried, clutching Gable's arm.
"Stay back!" Dael barked, sweat and blood mingling on his face. His blade caught Kharven's once, twice—but on the third, it slipped.
The chief's knife sank deep.
Dael staggered, a sharp gasp escaping his lips. His hand went to his chest where the blood poured freely, dark and terrible. His knees buckled, but he forced himself between Kharven and the boys, even as his strength drained away.
"Run!" he roared, his voice raw with the last of his power. "Take him, Oisla. Run!"
Oisla's world shattered. He screamed, the sound tearing from his throat, but his legs moved even as his heart begged him to stay. He grabbed Gable's hand and pulled him, stumbling, sobbing, running through the smoke.
Behind them, the chief's laughter rose, cruel and triumphant. But over it came another sound—Dael's final cry as he struck one last desperate blow, buying his son a heartbeat more of life.
They ran.
Oisla could not see through the tears blurring his eyes. He could barely breathe past the sobs ripping from his chest. Gable stumbled beside him, his own face twisted in grief, their hands locked together so tightly their knuckles turned white.
"Father—" Oisla gasped, choking on the word. "He's—he's—"
But he couldn't finish. The truth was too heavy, too sharp.
Every step was agony, but he didn't stop. His father's command burned in his ears. Run. Live.
So he ran. He dragged Gable with him through the blackened roads, past the broken houses, past the memories of laughter now buried in ash. The world around him blurred into smoke and fire, but he kept going, because stopping meant death, and because his father had given his life for these steps.
His legs screamed, his lungs burned, his heart splintered. But still he ran.
And behind him, Baibars burned.
That night, Oisla did not sleep. He sat beneath the twisted arms of a dead tree, Gable curled against his side, both of them shivering though the air was hot with ash. His hands still shook, sticky with blood that was not his own. His ears still rang with his father's voice, with the chief's laughter, with the sound of steel cutting flesh.
For the first time, Oisla understood what it meant to be truly alone.
And for the first time, he hated the silence of the night—because in it, his father's absence screamed louder than anything else.