Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Wenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Glossary

To the shooting star who lit up my sky
and helped me find my way.
Thank you.

We giving all gained all.
Neither lament us nor praise.
Only in all things recall,
It is Fear, not Death that slays.
—Rudyard Kipling, “Epitaphs of the War”

The night sky deepened, stripped bare in the growing cold. Stars burst forth like silent musket volleys, pricking the heavens with rosettes of white light. On the desert floor below, remnants of lives littered the sand in all directions. Broken bodies draped limply over rocks. Ash piles marked the deaths, though not the final resting places, of many more. Bones jutted from the sand at angles—not odd angles, though, for that would suggest that there were ways bones could protrude that made sense—and the eyes of those still living stared and saw nothing.

Or did their best not to.

Major Konowa Swift Dragon, second-in-command of the Calahrian Empire’s Iron Elves, stood among the carnage. His six-foot-tall frame loomed above the fallen like the last tree in a dying forest. Red-rimmed eyes and cracked and bleeding lips stained with black powder offered the only contrast in a face coated in gray soot. The ferocity of the battle marked his uniform, too. The once vibrant silver green of the cloth was now mottled in blood, dirt, black powder, and bits of gore. Ripped and burned sections of uniform exposed strips of bare brown flesh streaked with grime.

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. He realized he wasn’t sure what time it was, or even what day. Battle did that, winnowing away everything until all that was left was a furiously burning spark that ignited only one of two actions—kill, or flee and be killed. But battles didn’t last forever, at least, not in the physical realm. Konowa felt his warrior veneer slip a little as time reasserted itself. The toxic high of battle that sustained and drove him when he shouldn’t have been able to swing his saber one more time began to subside. Visions of the grotesque, the obscene, and the heartbreaking began leaching into tissue and memory, staining his very character and thoughts so deeply that no lifetime of drink and repression would erase them.

The wind snatched at the loose strands of his long black hair tied in the back in a regulation queue. A storm front was moving in.

With his left hand he absently pushed the hairs out of his eyes and behind his ear. His fingers paused as they traced the shorn ear tip. He’d been marked as a chosen one by the Shadow Monarch, his ear tip frost-blackened in the womb. He was one of the first so marked to remain with the tribe, albeit minus part of an ear. So fearful were the elves of the Hyntaland of the Shadow Monarch’s touch that they chose to abandon babies born with the disfigurement to their deaths in the wild rather than raise them. In this way the Shadow Monarch gained Her children, collecting the babes and raising them as Her own. In time, they grew to be as twisted and dark as the Silver Wolf Oak at the center of Her mountain forest.

Neither their fate nor Konowa’s was one any elf should have to bear, but no one had asked if they accepted the burden. A thin, cold pain gripped his chest where the black acorn, the source of the Iron Elves eternal existence, rested against his chest. It was a reminder that the power of the frost fire and the curse of a hellish life after death had been a burden of his own choosing.

His hand reached up to adjust his shako, the distinctive tall black hat with its winged appendages, and realized it had fallen off. He looked down and spied it a few feet away. He walked over slowly, ignoring the wet sounds beneath his boots, bent down, and picked it up. When he tipped it right side up to place it on his head, a silver locket fell out and landed in the sand. It’s not my shako, he realized.

After looking inside to see if anything else was there, he put the shako on his head and crouched down to where the locket lay half-buried in the sand. He grasped it gingerly between finger and thumb as if he were plucking a rose and trying not to get jabbed by a thorn. The metal was cool to the touch and Konowa realized that it wasn’t silver at all, but simple pewter. It was oval in shape and no more than an inch tall, and a small post at one end was broken where a chain would have fastened, no doubt explaining why the soldier had chosen to keep it under his shako for safekeeping.

Konowa stood back up, cringing as his left knee spasmed and threatened to collapse. He closed his fist and pounded it against the joint, and the spasm shuddered to a halt. When he opened his hand again, he saw that the locket had popped open. He brought his right hand up to open the locket all the way and stopped in surprise. He was still holding his saber.

A sliver of his reflection stared back at him from the polished steel. He twisted the blade slowly, letting it catch the starlight. Shadows slid across his face, arcing from nose to eye socket, concealing and revealing eyes that had seen more than they ever should.

Still, they did not blink.

He lowered the blade and sheathed it one handed in a single, fluid motion. Releasing his grip on the pommel sent blood flowing back into his fingers with a fiery sting. He flexed them a few times, then pried the locket completely open. The hinge broke and the two halves lay flat in his palm. The right half contained a small lock of blond hair tied with a thin, purple thread. The left bore an inscription of just four words—Come back to me.

Konowa’s hands fell to his sides, the pieces of locket tumbling to the sand. Noises he hadn’t realized were there filled his ears. The soft ting-ting of cooling musket barrels; the gulping down of brackish water by throats parched and raw from inhaling smoke and shouting; and a single, ragged scream from someone dying. All of it slid in deep between the ear and the brain like a sliver that would never work free.

Come back to me.

It was a plea, an admonition, a desperate hope from a wife. Everything was implied—love, trust, need, desire—but nothing would be fulfilled.

Nearby, a quill began scratching across a piece of paper. The sound carried to Konowa in thin, clear tones. He felt the rhythm of the point as it curved and sliced its path. He turned, letting something more than his hearing guide him. Her Majesty’s Scribe, Rallie Synjyn, sat on a rock among the bodies, a scroll unfurled across her lap. Her black cloak blended with the darkness as if the night itself was part of her. The feather barbs of her quill fluttered as the wind and her writing picked up speed.

Konowa watched, mesmerized. From this distance he couldn’t see what she was writing, yet he imagined he saw every word. The quill rose above the page, moved over, and plunged back down. He saw the story unfold back in the world they’d left behind.

This desert of wasted lives and damaged souls was a battle won, the sharp end of imperial power applied. On maps in headquarters far away, the red-rimmed limits of the empire would surge outward as another pin was pushed in place. Bottles would be uncorked and talk of promotions—discreet of course, lest one be seen as too eager—would creep into conversation. Through the news sheets and crier services, the citizens of the Calahrian Empire would learn of the Iron Elves’ latest feat of arms and rejoice at their triumph over the Shadow Monarch’s minions and the ancient desert power of Kaman Rhal’s dragon. Evil was thwarted once again and the power of a new Star was delivered unto the people, courtesy of the benevolent Empire. The cost—fifty-four soldiers dead, wounded, and missing, and a couple hundred native warriors lost against untold hundreds of the enemy—would seem satisfactorily grim and proportionate.

Sergeant Yimt Arkhorn and most of his squad. Missing . . .

. . . his mother, Chayii Red Owl; his father, Jurwan Leaf Talker; Tyul Mountain Spring; and Jir, his bengar companion. Missing . . .

Visyna . . .

These names, these people, would mean little to someone back home, except for a very few for whom these names would be everything. No doubt the masses would show appropriate concern at the frittering away of valuable resources in such a far-flung place. Konowa suspected they would be satisfied that the losses suffered offered the requisite sense of drama and the all-important Imperial motif of the few overcoming the many. No one, not even an empire, wants to be viewed as a bully.

Konowa knew celebrations would ensue, albeit without the guests of honor that had made it possible. Still, it was everyone’s patriotic duty to hoist a pint, shout brave slogans, and remind all those within earshot that if not for “this bum knee” or “a wife and six young children to feed” they, too, would be over there, instead of quartered safe in here. Smiles would abound as revelers congratulated one another, winking as they nodded their heads and said with gruff pride, “Damn right, we showed them, eh?” If a twinge of embarrassment caught in their throats as they pronounced “we,” it would be quickly washed away with the next round of drinks.

For now, however, the “we” were confined to a few small acres of ravaged land so far from home that home seemed more like a fevered dream than something real. There was no backslapping, no loud shouts of martial prowess or Imperial superiority. Quiet sobs of those trying to understand that the “we” were now fewer were studiously ignored by those fighting to keep it together. The tenets of diplomatic doctrine and the flush of Imperial pride found no purchase here. Later, perhaps, Konowa thought, they would see themselves as victors. For now, it was enough to struggle to comprehend that they were survivors.

The wind worried the edges of Rallie’s scroll. Konowa shivered. Rallie paused, her quill frozen above the paper. She looked up, pushing the hood of her black cloak back on her head. Gray, frizzy hair framed her face, hard-earned wisdom etched into every crease. The end of the cigar clenched between her teeth glowed fiery orange as she inhaled. Her eyes found his.

She was weeping.

A moment later her face disappeared in a veil of smoke. The drop of ink at the tip of the quill trembled. A chill breeze set the downy barbs thrumming. The drop fell, splattering onto the page.

It began to snow.

Konowa blinked. Flakes fell and skittered along the sand and the bodies lying there. A few snowflakes found the gap between his neck and the collar of his uniform, sending tiny rivulets of water down his back as they melted. He took a breath, his whole body shuddering as he let it out.

It was snowing.

Snowing in the middle of the bloody desert.

The laugh that escaped his lips startled him. He gritted his teeth, but more laughter rose up, spilling out in ragged gasps. His breath exploded in chalky sprays in the cooling night air. Soldiers lifted their heads to turn and stare. He couldn’t stop. His ribs ached and his lungs seared as they struggled for air, yet the laughter only grew.

He stood surrounded by death. The very smell of it permeated him so deeply he could no longer tell where it ended and he began. So many gone, condemned to a living hell of service after death — and here he was, laughing. He doubled over and braced his hands against his knees, but the laughter would not die. The natural order, always a buzzing, confused noise on the edge of his understanding, coursed around him as if storm-tossed by the approaching blizzard. He didn’t even bother to make sense of it. He didn’t need to. He stood up straight, gasping for air, with tears running down his face. He was still laughing, but now finally under control.

He was alive, and he was an elf. Maybe not an elf like the others, but then who said he had to be? What mattered was what he felt. A dawning, as yet barely grasped and understood determination, began to fill him. It flooded into the spaces left empty by the losses he’d suffered. It calmed, though it did not quench, the pain and agony he’d been using as fuel. This was something different, something quieter, yet stronger because of it. He knew now in a way he hadn’t before that the fallen did not die in vain. The missing would be found, no matter what their fate. And the Blood Oath of the Iron Elves would be broken.

He had no words for it, and doubted he could explain it even if he did. This went beyond anything he could say. All his life he’d known anger. It burned him, but he’d come to enjoy that pain. He was never more alive than when he was screaming at the top of his lungs and charging headlong at the enemy. Now . . . now he saw the first steps on a new path, one that saw beyond the horizon of battle.

He took in a few deep breaths, letting the laughter subside. So be it. There was always a price to pay, and his would be higher than most. He would pay it a thousand times over to end what the Shadow Monarch had started. He wasn’t going to be a pawn any longer. Not for Her, not for the Empire, and not for his anger. He rolled his shoulders and stood straighter. His body relaxed as muscles unknotted. He felt . . . taller, stronger, more alive than he had in a long time. In another place he might have even felt happy, but the carnage around him ensured that that emotion remained distant. If there was any joy at all to be found, it was in this: Before he took his last breath, he would end Her.

Konowa became aware that silence had fallen around him. The sound of Rallie’s quill on paper had ceased. He glanced up. The stars had vanished, the sky muddled with thickening clouds.

“It appears to be snowing, Major,” Rallie said, as gruff and matter-of-fact as ever. Konowa was relieved to hear she had stopped crying. He couldn’t handle that, not right now.

He shook his head and snow cascaded down from his shako. This wasn’t good. Konowa had never been to the desert before and had no inkling of the annual levels of rain or other weather events that might occur within the Hasshugeb Expanse. Still, he was certain that before tonight, the chances of snow blanketing this typically sunbaked landscape had been specifically “none.” And before his arrival, the chances of snow falling in this desert wasteland would have remained none, probably for eternity. But of course, those damn stars were changing all that.

Konowa turned his gaze to the north. The Shadow Monarch’s forest blocked his view. He should have found comfort in the fact that the malevolent trees and the many foul creatures that roamed within their thrashing embrace were retreating, pushed back by the power unleashed by the fallen Blue Star, the Jewel of the Desert. Having transformed into a towering tree, it rose high above the valley floor, the blue fire of its energy blazing from deep within branch and leaf, wreathing every shadow in cobalt. He wanted to find solace in the knowledge that here, as in Elfkyna, the power of the Stars was greater than that of the Shadow Monarch, but he couldn’t.

One of the reasons stood a few yards away, watching.

Konowa risked a glance at Private Alwyn Renwar. The soldier, if that’s what he still was, had not moved since his transformation. Once a meek and trembling lad barely able to hold a musket steady, jumping at his own shadow . . . now in command of the shades of the dead.

In another time and another place, Private Renwar’s lone battle against a long-dead dragon magically reanimated from the skeletal remains of donor bodies would have earned him the highest medal of valor and a hero’s funeral. No one should have survived the destruction of that monster. But Renwar had, his body a fused bonfire between the competing magics of Rhal’s dragon and the Shadow Monarch’s oath. Perhaps his intent had been to die, but like Konowa, a sense of service had compelled him to make a far more difficult choice.

I don’t know whether to pity him or hate him.

“You might try talking to him,” Rallie said. “He’s lost a lot this night. We all have.”

Konowa shivered and didn’t bother to lie to himself that it was because of the snow. Rallie’s uncanny ability to know, or at least sense, what he was thinking always left him feeling unsettled. He took a steadying breath and turned to face her. “I know, but he made a deal with Her,” he said. “He made a deal with the Shadow Monarch and became Her Emissary. He defeated the dragon because She gave him the power to do so.”

Rallie shook her head, her frizzy gray hair obscuring her eyes. Her quill remained poised above the paper. Konowa noticed that despite the falling snow, not a single flake fell on the scroll laid out before her. “You’re stating the facts, but not the truth of them. He is Their Emissary, not Hers. He speaks for the dead now.”

Konowa waved away the distinction with a hand. “Hers, theirs, the difference is moot. He forsook the regiment. He had a duty to fight against Her, not grow stronger by joining Her.”

“Major, don’t you see, he followed your example,” Rallie said, brushing snow from her hair. “He sacrificed his well-being and that of this regiment for something greater.”

“The oath remains, Rallie. Those killed still become shades doomed to do Her bidding. Every day Her power over them grows. What is it you think he’s accomplished?”

Rallie shook her head from within her hood. “You’re wrong, Major. She no longer holds sway over them as She did before. It might seem small, but it is important to note. She might think She’s gained an ally in Private Renwar, but I think She’s miscalculated, and not for the last time.”

Konowa’s retort stayed behind his teeth. It was easy to convince yourself that your enemy always knew what it was doing, that every setback you encountered was a clever trap laid by design. Konowa grudgingly considered that maybe Rallie was right. Maybe the Shadow Monarch underestimated Alwyn. Twice now She had failed to acquire a newly returned Star, first at the battle of Luuguth Jor in Elfkyna, and now in the Canyon of Bones in the Hasshugeb Expanse. In each case the returning Star, a vessel of natural magic attuned to the land from which it had originated, was free to transform, becoming a towering tree coursing with power. They were guardians in much the same way the Wolf Oaks of his homeland stood watch over the natural order, bridging the gap between the heavens and the earth.

“Perhaps, but I don’t trust this,” he said, waving his hand vaguely to take in the devastation around them. A gust of wind blew snow in his face. “The Stars of Knowledge and Power are returning, and that appears to be positive, if you don’t take into account the growing likelihood that the Empire will be torn apart from the inside. Every colony and native people see this as their chance to be free. Who will have the power then? The Queen in Celwyn, presiding over an ever-dwindling realm, or the Shadow Monarch on Her mountain? Last time I checked, the ruling monarch of Calahr couldn’t do this.”

Rallie waved her quill in the air. Snowflakes swirled around it as if deliberately trying to avoid it. “Which begs the question, why are we still here and not moving?”

The sigh was past Konowa’s lips before he could stop himself. “Prince Tykkin is still searching through what’s left of Rhal’s library.” He wasn’t sorry the library had been destroyed in the fighting. The Prince’s quest to find the fabled lost library and bring back to Calahr all its purported treasure of knowledge accumulated over the ages had seemed more like a boy’s adventure than anything else. Perhaps it was Konowa’s lack of sentimentality, but a dusty tome on ancient mathematics or spells paled in comparison to the pressing needs of the here and now.

He looked over at her. “I thought you would be there with him.” It wasn’t meant as a slight. Konowa genuinely assumed Rallie would be interested in ancient artifacts. A spark of self-preservation saved him from saying ancient out loud, but as he looked at her pursed lips he suddenly wished he were somewhere, anywhere, else.

“What I’m looking for isn’t there,” Rallie said, her tone as gruff and kind as ever. She blew the hair from her eyes with a smoky puff from her cigar.

Konowa held her stare for a moment. “Dare I ask what that is?”

Rallie shrugged. “I’m not entirely certain myself. It’s more than annoying, I assure you.” Her face brightened and the quill stabbed the air. “But I will know it when I find it.”

“Won’t we all,” Konowa said, turning again to look north. A wall of churning snow crawled ever closer. He reflexively hunched his shoulders and stamped his boots in the sand. “It’s time we were going.” Steel buttressed his voice. He saw his immediate future and it was crystal clear, despite the darkness.

“Visyna was—is the one with the knack for weaving the weather. My abilities work along other lines,” she said, chuckling at the pun. “Putting aside the fact that you still have to pry His Highness out of the library, how do you think we’re going to make it through all that?”

Konowa started to reach for his musket, then instead brought his left hand to rest against his thigh. The fingers of his right hand closed around the pommel of his saber. Black frost sparkled on the hand guard.

“I’m going to have a little chat with the shades’ new leader,” he said, louder than he’d intended. Soldiers turned to look. The wind piled drifts of snow and sand against his boots as the blue light of the Star tree pulsed faster. He fixed his gaze on Private Renwar and started walking.

Renwar remained where he stood, his head tilted to one side as his completely gray eyes stared without blinking, and without emotion. Black frost limned his wooden leg, a magically rendered replacement after his real leg was lost in the Battle of Luuguth Jor. The blue light of the Star tree shattered and refracted through the wind-driven snow, strobing the air with images that vanished and reappeared.

Shades of the dead materialized around Renwar. They didn’t occupy space as much as create a black emptiness in the air, which they temporarily filled while crossing into this world from the one in which they now existed. Looking directly at them was difficult, and not just because of the emotional shock of recognizing the faces of friends and comrades. It physically hurt Konowa to stare at them for any length of time, as if his vision were being drawn into their world, a place where no living being could survive. Pain flowed out from them like a tide, and it was growing stronger.

Konowa narrowed his focus to Renwar. The soldier’s gray eyes gave nothing away.

Unbidden, and without orders, the Iron Elves began to form up behind Konowa, falling into step as he marched across the battlefield. They numbered little more than a hundred now, their ranks decimated by claw, fang, arrow, and magics no soldier should ever have to face. Yet they had, and they would again before this was over. Konowa would understand if they loathed him. It was his doing that had bound them to the regiment for eternity. He hated himself for it, but like them, he was a soldier, and together they would see this through to the end. It wasn’t particularly elegant or even noble, but it was what a soldier did. And so they marched with him, stride for stride. They could hate him a thousand times over, but they would follow where he led, and for that he loved them all.

They were the Iron Elves.

His Iron Elves.

Konowa kept walking. The knuckles of his right hand lost all color as frost fire sparkled along the entire length of his scabbard. All eyes, living and dead, were on him as he led what was left of the regiment across the sand. With each step, the black acorn against his chest grew colder.

Behind the regiment, the fine, sharp stitch of quill on paper resumed. A legend was being woven into the fabric of history. The late-evening cries of thousands of celebrating patrons in pubs around the Empire would no doubt repeat with full-throated joy what Rallie Synjyn penned this night.

Anyone brave enough to look over Rallie’s shoulder, however, would have seen that her quill was not flowing in a smooth left to right path across the page, but instead tracing the same shape repeatedly on one small section of the paper. There, the shape finally clarified and revealed itself as the ink glittered and flickered in the blue light of the Star.

It was the image of a black acorn wreathed in flame with two words in ancient elvish script emblazoned within it.

Æri Mekah:
Into the Fire.

The new forest of sarka har was starving. The Shadow Monarch’s blood trees drove their roots into the cold sand of the Hasshugeb Expanse and found little to feed on. They flung their branches in ever widening arcs trying to trap anything unlucky enough to stray near. Spawned by the Shadow Monarch’s frost-burnt Silver Wolf Oak, these twisted saplings craved the heavy, bitter ores found deep in the distant mountains of the Hyntaland. Here, however, in this wide-open plain of dunes and disintegrating rock, there was barely enough to keep them alive. They took what they could from anything living, but there were not enough humans in this sparsely populated land to satisfy their hunger. Rakkes and dark elves roamed between their trunks and would have been easy hunting, but Her Emissary had forbidden such feeding, and they had no choice but to obey its order.

They needed other prey.

A hint of metal tantalized them to the south. They had no idea it was called Suhundam’s Hill, or that elves from Her land now lived there, only that they sensed the great upthrust of rock in the desert floor through vibrations received in their roots. The rock and what lived there promised them ore and blood and something else. There was a darkness there that spoke to them in a language they understood, but how to get to it? The power of the returned Star, the Jewel of the Desert, kept them at bay, hemming them in along the northern coast of the Expanse.

As their need grew, so did their frenzy. Again and again, the sarka har flung their roots forward in an effort to seek purchase in the freezing sand and move south. All the while, more sarka har sprang forth from the ground behind the tree line that marked the edge of the Shadow Monarch’s influence and the beginning of the land now under the protection of the returned Star. Black, gnarled roots stabbed again and again like clawing fingers into the crust of snow over the desert floor in an effort to get to the rock. They scrabbled at the ground in desperation. Trunks shattered and roots snapped and sheared off in the growing violence, but no matter how hard they tried, they could go no further south.

Rakkes and dark elves began to fall to the flailing limbs. A limb skewered a rakke in the chest, the beast’s howl of pain cut short as it was torn apart by others joining the feast. A dark elf tilted its head, staring with unblinking eyes at a sight it knew should not be. It continued to stare even after a branch scythed its head off and sent it tumbling to the frozen earth.

When no blast of frost fire struck down the trees, more began to search for food. The screaming didn’t last long. When the last of the Shadow Monarch’s creatures had been slaughtered within the forest, the sarka har thrashed the air in search of more. Their appetite was whet; now they needed to sate it.

Unable to move forward because of the power of the Star, the sarka har did what they knew best. The ground was soft here, not like the mountain of Her realm.

The digging would be easy.

Roots burrowed down through the sand, no longer questing for food, but for power. They found fault lines and hairline cracks in the deep bedrock and worked their way in, prying deeper into the darkness. The ground above shook. Cracks opened up in the desert floor, swallowing dozens of sarka har into its black depths. Yet Her forest was relentless, pushing its roots ever deeper. When it seemed that their search would be fruitless, a lone sarka har found disturbed rock in a channel running from the surface. Its roots wormed into the passage and followed it down. Whenever the passage had been dug, it had been filled in again millennia ago. Nothing had been down this far in a very long time.

Other sarka har followed, and soon the passage was filled with writhing, pulsing roots. Only the Shadow Monarch’s Silver Wolf Oak had plunged its roots this deep before. The sarka har knew only instinct, and instinct told them there was great power down here.

Sand crackled underfoot as Konowa came to a halt five yards away from Private Renwar. Only then did he realize he hadn’t given the regiment the order to halt. He half-expected to see them march right past him, but they came to a smooth stop two yards behind him. Konowa didn’t need to turn around to see it; he heard it as every right boot slammed down at exactly the same time.

Konowa forced himself to release his grip on his saber. He casually adjusted the hem of his jacket while taking care to look directly at Private Renwar. I’ll be damned if I’ll speak first, he thought.

Silence cocooned the tableau. Snow swirled everywhere, piling in drifts a foot high, but in the space around Private Renwar not a single snowflake fell.

Konowa forced himself to look past Renwar to the shades of the dead. He squinted as if looking into the sun. Their anguish was growing stronger with every passing day. It flowed out from them with an intensity that caught Konowa in its glare and wouldn’t let go.

He easily recognized Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian sitting astride the warhorse Zwindarra, the pair of them felled at the battle of Luuguth Jor. Konowa hadn’t considered before now that the horse obviously hadn’t taken the oath, but Lorian had talked about the bond between a cavalryman and his horse. Tragically, the bond must have been strong enough to carry over into death, dooming the horse to a fate it had no hope of understanding. And there was one-eyed Private Meri Fwynd, the patch still covering his lost eye. Their forms shimmered as if black flames made up their bodies. Konowa couldn’t shake the feeling that he was peering into the abyss. Each shade appeared darker at its core, as if a bottomless pit now replaced each dead man’s soul. Konowa shuddered at the thought and banished it from his mind. He took a moment to acknowledge each dead face, fearing to see the dwarf among them, but no shade of the salty sergeant appeared. Konowa wished he could feel relieved, but he suspected the white fire of Kaman Rhal had taken Yimt. Private Kester Harkon’s shade never rejoined the regiment, and it seemed Sergeant Arkhorn’s now shared his fate. Maybe, Konowa allowed, it was a blessing. At least those two weren’t condemned to suffer in eternal service.

Konowa ignored the coursing flood of pent-up energy inside him and pushed the frost fire back down. He wouldn’t be ruled by emotions. He knew that with all eyes on him, he had to keep his composure. He was an officer in the Calahrian Army, and standing before him was a private in his regiment. If they were buried in snow a mile deep, he would wait for Renwar to salute.

Private Alwyn Renwar continued to stand and stare. His gray eyes appeared depthless and cast his face in a deathly pallor, but the power that resided behind them was unmistakable. Konowa would have shivered if his body had been any warmer.

Somewhere behind Konowa, a ramrod began to slide out of its brass rings. The sound of metal on metal rang like crystal. A soldier was preparing to load a shot.

Renwar’s eyes never flickered, but Konowa felt the communication between the private and the shades. Though it didn’t seem possible, the air turned colder and every lungful stung as if filled with tiny razors.

Movement to Konowa’s left drew both his and Renwar’s gaze. Rallie stood off to the side, her quill in one hand and a large scroll of paper in the other. At first Konowa thought she was scratching her head, then realized it was a gesture aimed at Renwar. The private looked back to Konowa. Slowly, as if trying to remember something from a very distant past, he stood to attention and raised his right hand in salute. It wasn’t parade ground sharp, but for here and now it was enough.

More surprisingly and definitely unnerving, the shades followed suit.

Konowa didn’t fool himself that the dead saw him as their leader anymore, but they were clearly following the lead of Renwar, and he was still a living member of the regiment Konowa commanded—the Prince notwithstanding.

Konowa waited three beats, enjoying the building tension because now it was his to control, then returned the salute. The air warmed as a collective sigh passed among the soldiers.

“Right,” Konowa said, taking his time to exude a calm he didn’t feel. “Private Renwar, I’ll need you and the lads there to form up and follow me. We’re heading due north for the coast.” He raised his voice and shifted weight from one boot to another in a studied act of nonchalance. “These Stars are going to keep dropping from here to hell. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t plan on spending the rest of my life, living or dead, tracking them down one by one. It’s time we took this fight to its home, and that’s the Shadow Monarch’s mountain.”

The cheer that greeted this pronouncement was hardly boisterous, but it had a flinty edge to it that filled Konowa with hope. The regiment was still with him . . . or at least those living were.

“You ask a lot,” Private Renwar said in his new role as spokesman of the shades. He spoke quietly and carefully, sounding more like the young soldier Konowa knew. Konowa chose to view it as a positive sign even if the response wasn’t. He decided to bull ahead.

“I’m not asking, Private, but even if I were, I’m not asking any more of you than I am of myself or the rest of the regiment,” Konowa said, taking a couple of steps to turn around and take in the assembled troops. They were no longer the shiny rascals of the Elfkynan campaign. The marching, the fighting, and above all the oath, were taking a fearsome toll. The once tall winged shakos now had a crumpled, weathered look about them. Many wings had shed so many feathers that it was more accurate to describe their headgear as plucked. The original velvety sheen of their Calahrian silver-green jackets was faded, ripped, patched, bloodied, and loose-fitting. Konowa dared look in their eyes, fearing the worst and feeling his heart swell when they met his gaze. There was strength there yet. They were grouped tightly together, shoulder to shoulder, each holding his musket in both hands. Many had attached their bayonet though no bare metal showed signs of frost fire. Good, Konowa thought, good.

“Every last man here, and Rallie, too, knows this has to end, and it can only end one way, and in one place. That means heading north and setting sail for the Hyntaland. Every hour we stand here is an hour She grows stronger and our mission becomes that much more difficult.”

Renwar stared, his eyes revealing nothing of his thoughts. The shades around him, however, began to fade. Konowa felt the unnatural cold of the oath and Her power falling away, to be replaced by the biting wind driving sand and snow before it. Finally, Private Renwar spoke.

“She knows this and will be waiting. She is . . . not pleased. Her Emissary yet lives and marshals Her forces,” he said, his gray eyes straying briefly to where Her forest lay in wait beyond the snow.

Konowa silently cursed. Viceroys were clearly proving to be the bane of his existence. The last two appointed to oversee the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna had turned out to be in league with the Shadow Monarch, each acting in succession as Her Emissary. Konowa had killed the first, which had set the entire chain of events in motion leading to here and now. Private Renwar had dispatched the second, but they weren’t done with that foul thing yet. Former viceroy Faltinald Gwyn was nothing if not determined . . . and as a twisted puppet in the Shadow Monarch’s hands, he had become manically so.

Konowa allowed himself a little bravado. “Not pleased? I should think so. In fact, I imagine She’ll be furious, and maybe a little frightened, too. When the Iron Elves come calling, it doesn’t go unnoticed.” A few grunts of approval from the troops reached Konowa’s ears. They all knew that what he was proposing was tantamount to suicide with only the slimmest chance of survival, but it would be a death on their terms, fighting for something they believed was right. In the life of a soldier, bound by a dark oath or not, that was no small thing.

“As for Her Emissary,” Konowa said, his upper lip curling of its own volition into a sneer, “you seem more than capable of handling it. You flung the creature miles!” More soldiers added their voice to the cheers this time. It had been a spectacular sight.

The shades of the dead and their leader did not raise their voices in support. “I did what I had to do. What you ask now is less . . . clear. The oath is different now. Those who perish answer to me, not Her. They now have a voice. My voice. Why should those who have gone beyond this life continue the struggle? It won’t bring them back. It won’t bring Yimt back.”

The dwarf’s name caught Konowa off guard. For the first time, Konowa fully saw Private Alwyn Renwar for who he was and not as an emissary of the dead before him. “We don’t know what happened to him. I can see that he’s not among the shades and you should know that no one found his body. He’s the toughest bugger in this army. If anyone is a survivor, it’s Sergeant Arkhorn.”

“I felt him fall, then nothing more,” Alwyn said.

Konowa sensed morale crumbling as the regiment pondered the loss of the dwarf, and he spoke quickly to rally what spirit in the troops remained. “Arkhorn’s been busted in rank more times in his career than there are one-eyed newts stumbling around a witch’s garden, and he’s climbed right back up the ranks again every time. I’m not about to count him out yet and neither should you. But whatever the case, I know damn well he’d be placing one very large boot up each and every one of your backsides if he thought for a moment any of you were going to give up, and that includes the Darkly Departed.” Konowa looked around and let a grin creep across his face. “I don’t know how, but I’m sure he’d find a way to kick a shadow. And with good reason. As long as the Shadow Monarch lives the oath will never be broken. We’re tied to Her and She to us. But remember this: Her power, however dark and unwise its origins, is ours to use as well. And that’s what we’re going to do. Our dead aren’t at rest, and Her sarka har and rakkes and every other abomination She can pull out of the depths haven’t gone away. This only ends one way, and that’s when the Shadow Monarch and Her forest are destroyed.”

Konowa caught motion out of the corner of his eye and turned. A small group of six soldiers accompanying Prince Tykkin and Viceroy Alstonfar were marching toward them from the direction of the library. The Prince led the way, though his gait suggested a man leaving the pub after a few stiff drinks.

The group came to a stop right between Konowa and the Iron Elves on one side and Private Renwar and the shades of the dead on the other. The Prince looked down at his boots, shuffling them like a child. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, all the while muttering to himself “It’s gone, it’s all gone.” The smell of smoke wafted off the Prince and the knees of his trousers were black with soot. He’d been down in the burned-out library sifting through the debris since the battle ended. Konowa realized with some surprise that he sympathized with the Prince. Both had come here looking for something—Konowa his lost elves, the Prince the Lost Library of Kaman Rhal—and both had come away empty-handed.

Viceroy Alstonfar shambled to a halt beside the Prince and attempted a smile at Konowa from behind a huge pile of scrolls clutched tightly against his substantial stomach. Perhaps not entirely empty-handed, Konowa thought, marveling at the load carried by the Viceroy. More scrolls, bronze canisters, and thin wooden boxes bulged from canvas sacks hung from both shoulders. As Alstonfar bent over to catch his breath, Konowa spied an overfilled pack with even more items on his back.

The Prince turned, and catching Konowa off guard as much as anyone else, motioned to a couple of soldiers to help the diplomat. The Viceroy stood up gratefully and nodded his thanks as the weight of the sacks was taken from him. Despite the cold, the Viceroy’s face was red from exertion and beaded in sweat. His pastel blue Calahrian Diplomatic Corps uniform, designed to exemplify and project the peaceful intentions of the Empire during stressful negotiations, now suggested much darker intentions. Konowa tried to imagine the reaction of a foreign ambassador if forced to sit across from the now sooty, sweaty, and bloodstained Viceroy and decided this new look would be very effective during peace talks. Small burns from black powder speckled the front of his coat, indicating that at some point in the battle the Viceroy had actually fired a musket. The once glittering array of silver-plated buttons showed gaps in their ranks and those that remained had lost much of their luster. His scabbard, however, was firmly tied to his belt and the hilt of his saber had clearly been polished since the battle ended. Konowa knew without checking that the blade was clean, too. Alstonfar might appear to the world like a wobbly piece of fat ripe for the first bayonet to split him open and spill his guts on the sand, but there was gristle under there, somewhere deep. The coming march across the sand might help reveal more of it.

The soldiers stood to attention as best they could. Konowa looked at Renwar, wondering what the soldier would do. Never once taking his eyes off Konowa, he, too, stood to attention. The sharp bite in the air lost some of its tooth. The shades of the dead then faded until Konowa couldn’t tell a shadow from a swirling patch of snow. Go back to your darkness and stay there until you’re really needed.

Konowa saluted and Prince Tykkin returned it without fanfare and absently waved the men to stand at ease as he brought his hand back down. Konowa expected him to begin speaking, or possibly yelling, but instead the Prince began to fiddle with his uniform, worrying at a dangling piece of embroidered cord hanging from his lapel. He then reached up to straighten a cockeyed epaulette on his shoulder, slowly spinning in a complete circle like a dog chasing its tail. As he did so every soldier couldn’t help but see the left sleeve of his jacket. A large tear ran from the cuff up to the outside of the elbow, revealing a blood-soaked bandage underneath. The Prince—future ruler of the Calahrian Empire—had been in battle, and not on the periphery.

Konowa fought a battle within himself between disgust and admiration and was pleased that admiration won. The Prince, however reluctantly and by sheer misadventure, was becoming a leader of men. The gilded popinjay who grew up on a diet of privilege and arrogance had run stride for stride with the regiment and had not flinched as the Iron Elves smashed into the enemy. Not having taken part in the Blood Oath, there was no afterlife waiting for the Prince, however horrific that life might be. His death in battle would be finite and forever. Leading the men, Konowa knew, was no more than what the Prince should have done, yet he couldn’t banish the grudging respect with which he now viewed the future king. Konowa was convinced the Prince was still a royal prick of the first order, but the man wasn’t a coward, and that counted for a lot.

“So,” the Prince said, looking around at the assembled soldiers. He seemed to struggle for what to say, opening and closing his mouth a few times as he searched for the words. His gaze fell on Alwyn, but if he was startled by the private’s appearance he showed no sign of it. Spying Rallie, he dipped his head in acknowledgment and stood up a little straighter as she dutifully poised her quill above her scroll.

“So,” the Prince began again, his voice stronger this time. “I should like to congratulate you all on a battle well fought. Due to your exceptional efforts another Star of power has been returned to its land and its people. Our enemies, both ancient and new, have been crushed and sent scurrying for cover.” The Prince pointedly chose to ignore the forest on the horizon marking the limits of their victory. Here and now in this exact place though, the Empire was triumphant.

Instead of filling his lungs and lustily carrying the speech to a roaring climax as he usually did, the Prince grew quiet, his shoulders sagging again as he finished. “Most wonderful and worthy . . . yes, a feat of special significance. In fact, one that no doubt will go down in the annals of history and mark this moment as an auspicious one for this modern age . . .” he said, his voice trailing off. He caught Rallie’s eye as if pleading with her to make it so.

Stupid, silly bugger getting that bent out of shape over a bloody library, Konowa thought. He did genuinely feel sorry for the man, but there was a limit. They still had a war to fight. And win. Someone’s going to have to have a talk with him, Konowa realized, knowing deep down that the task would fall to him.

Without looking around, the Prince started to walk away, but caught the toe of one of his boots on a sack that Viceroy Alstonfar had been carrying. He stopped and stared down at the spilled scrolls, nudging at them with his boot tip. Rallie’s quill bit hard into the paper with a sharp ripping sound, drawing the Prince’s attention back to the moment. He raised his head and jutted out his chin. “And of course we discovered the long-lost Library of Kaman Rhal and all its treasures.”

Several soldiers looked to Konowa for guidance, their eyebrows rising along with their shoulders in a clear sign they were unsure if they should cheer. Konowa sighed and slid his saber from its scabbard and lifted it high into the air feeling half the fool and glad the night would hide the grimace of embarrassment on his face. “Three cheers for His Majesty! Three cheers for our glorious victory won this night! Three cheers for the return of the Jewel of the Desert and the finding of a great treasure!”

Still catching his breath, Viceroy Alstonfar struggled to stand straight and lifted his saber into the night sky, almost launching it out of his hand in his enthusiasm. The Prince looked genuinely surprised, and began dabbing at the corner of his eyes. Muskets rose, too, their bayonets flashing in the falling snow. Despite himself, Konowa found his voice growing louder with each cheer.

They had defeated the Shadow Monarch and Kaman Rahl’s dragon this night. They had returned another Star to its rightful people. And though he didn’t give two hoots of a lice-infested owl about it, they had found a pile of books and other ancient knickknacks buried in the sand.

Given all that, a foreign feeling now gripped Konowa, one that seemed at odds with the current situation. The fate of Visyna, his parents, and even Arkhorn and his squad remained to be determined, and he was no closer to reuniting with the original Iron Elves. None of that was very happy news, yet the strange emotion that now filled him only grew stronger. He continued to ponder its full meaning long after the cheers had died down and Color Sergeant, now acting Regimental Sergeant Major, Aguom, began bellowing at the troops to fall in and prepare to march. As the regiment gathered up its weapons and equipment in preparation for setting out, Konowa looked up to the snow-filled sky and shook his head.

“It’s called hope, Major,” Rallie said as she walked past, turning her head toward him so that her words carried on the wind. “Now that you’ve found it, finding everyone else doesn’t seem so impossible, does it?”

Konowa didn’t bother to look at her. He didn’t have to. Rallie would know that for the briefest of moments, a true and genuine smile graced his upturned face.

The roots of the sarka har stretched to the breaking point in their hunt for power. They were so deep below the desert now without finding anything that the trees above were beginning to wither and die. Without a new source of power to feed them Her forest in this land would soon cease to exist. There was no choice but to go deeper. The passage of disturbed rock they had followed was their last resort. Something had to be at the end of it.

Something was.

A root brushed up against a leathery-smooth object. The root began snaking its way around the oddity, slowly encircling it without disturbing it. Anything found at this depth required caution. More roots followed, branching out and finding other, similar objects. When nothing happened, they wrapped their roots around the exteriors of the strange things.

It became apparent at once that these weren’t rocks. These objects were unlike any others they had encountered before. Their surfaces were hard, but not brittle. They were round, but with one end larger than the other, creating a slightly distorted oval shape. What was most curious, however, was that these objects were hollow, but not empty. Each one was large enough to hold a fully grown elf . . . or something else of that size.

The roots plunged their tips into the objects, smashing through the thin walls. They had no idea what they’d found, but in the bottom of each object lay a pool of congealed, brownish ichor. As debris fell inside, it landed in the liquid, swirling up greasy strains of darker material that gave off a familiar, bitter tang.

Yes. This was what Her forest needed. This was ancient power.

The sarka har couldn’t know it, but they had come across eggs, potential life that had been long abandoned and left to rot and die deep underground by the last of an ancient race of creatures that had once ruled this world. Even if they had known it would have made no difference.

Their desperate search for sustenance had been rewarded.

Roots drilled into the ichor and began pumping it up to the dying trees above.

The changes were immediate and terrifying.

The few sarka har with roots directly in the newfound power, grew taller. Branches that were once thin and brittle now flushed with the liquefied remains of long-dead embryos as the brown ichor flowed into them. As they grew supple they began twisting and rubbing against each to slough off their old bark. In its place, a new protective armor of dull black scales emerged. Leaves sprang forth like arrows fired from a bow, their needle points eight inches long and dripping with a glistening red fluid that resembled blood. As one, the leaves unfurled, revealing a variety of differently shaped leaves, each one translucent in the light of the falling snow. The veins in the leaves filled with the bloodlike fluid and the leaves began to change colors, rapidly shifting from green to brown to red and more as they swayed in the wind.

But it wasn’t just energy the sarka har had found. These were simple creatures, their sole purpose the survival and perpetuation of Her realm. Each was but a dark, stunted, and twisted offshoot of the Shadow Monarch’s great Silver Wolf Oak. Now, however, those feeding from the dead eggs experienced an unexpected side effect. No longer were they simply creatures of pure instinct. A crude kind of intelligence began to permeate the sarka har along with something far more sinister—they began to think for themselves.

Crude, stark thoughts crawled through their heartwood, worming into every branch and leaf. Images of a time long forgotten imprinted themselves in every fiber. It had been a brutal world, one of even greater peril and death than this one. Every thought struck the sarka har like bolts of lightning. They shook and quaked as this new consciousness permeated them.

They had to move. To remain still and stay here in this barren wasteland was to die. These sarka har were not going to let that happen.

Now thirteen feet tall and towering above their brethren, the newly transformed sarka har spread out their branches, seeing by touch and tasting the air with their leaves. They understood how different they were from the others. They understood they were anchored in place by a root system driven deep into the ground, and so they tore themselves free from the soil, severing their roots when the last of the ichor had been drained. Pain was not new to them, but understanding it was. It filled them with a whole new concept: anger.

They ignored the thrashing fury of the sarka har around them that could not change, and focused on their own growing awareness. In order to move, they could not stay as they were. More pain would be required.

Much more.

They twisted the remaining shards of roots into two distinct shapes. The first wound itself into a corkscrew shape that drilled back into the ground, anchoring the tree in place. The second took the form of a massive claw, and began crawling inch by inch in the opposite direction. The sarka har groaned as the tension built on its trunk. Cracks began to appear in their new bark that quickly spread to the wood beneath. The more the claw crawled the bigger the cracks grew until the night was shattered by explosive ripping and splintering.

These sarka har now had legs.

Pulling the twisted root back out of the ground, they took their first awkward steps across the line of power drawn by the Jewel of the Desert. Sparks flew as they crossed the line. Flame crackled but then died. This new land was inhospitable, the soil filled with the power of the Star, but they remained on its surface, and were not struck down by it.

Each step was a stumbling, broken motion that threatened to topple the trees over, but they soon learned to swing their branches to act as a counterbalance. The sarka har had learned to walk.

As they walked, they began to transform further. In order to better move across the snow-covered desert, the sarka har altered their form to something more suited for traveling upright over distances. Their trunks split further, lengthening the two pieces they were using as legs while their branches twisted together to form two rudimentary arms.

Two sarka har, however, took a different, more difficult form, finding a template long lost in the power of the ichor. Their transformation was much more painful and time-consuming. Branches tore and trunks shattered as the two sarka har remade themselves. Ichor spilled on the snow and steamed as it burned. Leaves spun away in the wind, but more sprouted. Larger. Stronger. They didn’t grow tall, but they grew long, extending themselves along the ground. It was a strange and horrifying sensation for a tree to fall toward the earth, but as more of the transformation took hold, they saw the power in this new stance. When the transformation was complete the other sarka har were gone, their trail in the snow already erased by the wind. It mattered little. These sarka har had discovered a new means by which to travel, and they knew where their brethren were heading.

Deep in the heartwood of every transformed tree lived a surging intelligence adapting itself to its newfound form after laying dormant for centuries untold. There was little for it to find beyond basic needs in the sarka har except for one, pure thing—a hatred of elves. In fact, it was a distorted echo of an emotion so ingrained in the Shadow Monarch’s Silver Wolf Oak that its acorns spread the poison of this feeling. The emotion of Her Silver Wolf Oak was a confused maelstrom of fury and love aimed at a single elf. As a result, the forest sprouted from its acorns reproduced this hatred in every sarka har. These new sarka har felt the hatred burning deep inside them, and while they little understood it, they were driven by it all the same. And unlike the sarka har who had not transformed, these trees could do more than lie in wait. They could move, and they could hunt. Their leaves tasted elf in the air. They weren’t far.

Without knowing its name, its history, or even what it was, the transformed sarka har began to close in on a single point in the Hasshugeb Expanse.

Suhundam’s Hill.

To march is to grind the body slowly with a torturer’s attention to detail. Granules too small to see find that perfect place between flesh and strap, rubbing skin until it blisters, weeps, and tears, staining shirts and filling boots with an oozing, red-tinted mud. Muscle and sinew explore pain so searing that the onset of stabbing needle pricks of numbness comes as a welcome relief. Shoulders erupt in burning cauldrons of agony that ache long after pack straps have been pried off, while wild thoughts of amputation race through the mind with every footfall.

At his most cynical, Konowa even wondered if it was all diabolically planned to be this way. Soldiers have very little to say about marching that’s relatable in mixed company. And when no officer or sergeant is around, their comments usually start by spitting in disgust, and for good reason. The prospect of battle, no matter how terrifying, grows in the mind of the soldier to be a kind of salvation from all the damned marching.

Konowa pushed away those thoughts and scanned the inhospitable wasteland curtained with snow. That in itself was worrying enough. What only yesterday had been a broiling pan of bleached sand and wind-frayed rock was now an unnatural tundra, cold and unforgiving. That the Iron Elves were about to march straight into the teeth of it was of less concern than what lay on the other side. Every man knew that the Shadow Monarch and Her creatures would be at the end of this journey. This march would have to be several types of hell for that prospect to look good.

Konowa did his best to buoy their spirits. “Just a short jaunt to the coast, lads. Not exactly a walk in the park, but we’ll make it.” Soldiers nodded, mostly because he looked at them, but hopefully because some actually believed him.

“Remember, the Prince brought a whole fleet with us when we landed,” Konowa said. “Admittedly, the navy types are a bit soggy, but they’ll be there for us when we need them.” I hope.

Konowa gave up on his pep talk and wandered among the men. Every soldier was busy examining the contents of his pack, lifting it and judging the weight, knowing every ounce carried would become ten pounds of pain in a few hours. Contents were dumped out and reexamined on the snow as soldiers thought long and hard about what to keep and what to discard.

“You might find your stomach will wish you’d kept those,” Konowa said, stopping by one soldier who was kneeling in the snow, busily dumping out the hard-as-rock biscuits given to them from the HMS Black Spike’s stores. Feygan . . . Feyran . . . Konowa tried, but couldn’t remember the man’s name, if he ever knew it. This soldier was scrawny and his uniform so dusty and torn that he looked more like a beggar sifting through a rubbish heap.

“My stomach don’t have a death wish, but if yours does you’re welcome to them,” the soldier said, then looked up and realized who he was addressing. He jumped to his feet and saluted. Eyes still wild from battle stared back at Konowa from a gaunt, sunburnt face smeared with black powder. Konowa recognized the look, knowing his own visage was just as startling. He returned the salute and motioned for the soldier to continue with his packing.

“You’re right; they are an acquired taste. Still, if you dunk them in a mug of arr they almost become edible.”

The soldier’s face took on a puzzled look. He reached up and brushed a greasy lock of blond hair off his forehead. “Well, sir, if that means poison then I agree with you there. I tried feeding one to a rat on the ship and the little bugger took one sniff and hightailed it in the other direction.”

Konowa could smell the soldier from here and suspected the rat hadn’t reacted entirely to the biscuit. None of them, save the Prince perhaps, were too fresh at this point. “Smart rat. How are you set for cartridges?”

At this, the soldier brightened. “Chockablock full there, Major. These heathen warriors use a ball just a smidge smaller than ours. They might rattle a bit coming out the barrel, but we’ve been grabbing up as much as we can carry. I’d wager our muskets will still be true enough to a hundred yards give or take.”

Cartridges weren’t the only thing the Iron Elves were stripping from the dead Hasshugeb warriors littering the sand around them. In addition to jewels and coins quietly pocketed, belts, robes, daggers, and goat-hide water skins were quickly becoming part of the regiment’s dress. Konowa marveled that the Prince had nothing to say on the subject—a far cry from the parade-ground dress he had demanded just a few short months ago. That strange sensation of hope stirred in Konowa again. If the Prince could learn, who knew what else was possible?

“Very well,” Konowa said. He paused, a question forming that he wasn’t sure how to ask, or even if he should. He knew most officers and certainly the Prince wouldn’t inquire of a soldier how he was doing. Soldiers do what they’re told. For the most part Konowa accepted it as the way it had to be. He also believed, however, that a soldier fights better when he understands the situation, at least as far as he’s able to grasp it. And that meant officers needed to understand things, too, most especially the hearts and minds of the troops.

Konowa realized the soldier was staring at him so he simply said: “How are you holding up?”

The soldier pointed to his chest. “Me, sir? Better than most,” he said, waving in the direction of the battlefield. “I’m still here, got all me parts, no extra holes, and I’m looking forward to moving out.”

Konowa strained to hear a trace of sarcasm, but couldn’t detect a note. “Eager to get at the Shadow Monarch are you?”

The soldier shrugged his shoulders. “You could say that, sir. Way me and the lads see it, when we climb the elf witch’s mountain and kick Her down the other side, well, we’ll be good and done with the oath. With that taken care of, I’ve been thinking I might take me back pay, retire from this here army, and take on a new job, one with a little less danger if you take my meaning.”

Konowa did. “Clerking in a shop perhaps, or driving a milk wagon?”

The soldier’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head vigorously. “Lordy no, sir. I was thinking about joining the navy. Except for these biscuits, the sea air felt good somewhere deep inside me, you know? A man can breathe out there.”

Thoughts of the ocean for Konowa brought about the immediate opposite reaction. “I suppose everything qualifies as a job with less danger when compared to our current activities.” Konowa hunched his shoulders as a blast of wind drove more snow down his back, where it melted and trickled down his spine. The chill made thoughts of the ocean a little too real for him. “Can you swim?”

“Not as such,” the soldier said, a shy smile stealing across his face, “but I float like a champion. I figure that’s close enough.”

“Could be, but try to bunk near some cork, just in case. Carry on, Private,” Konowa said. He saluted as he took a step to walk on, then stopped and turned back. “Feylan.”

The soldier’s smile grew. “Aye, aye, Major!”

Konowa enjoyed the rest of his time moving among the troops. Wherever he went, they nodded or gave a thumbs-up. A few even grinned. Despite the horrors they’d faced and the losses they’d suffered, these men were not broken. He felt a small yet rousing speech coming on when an icy blast threw snow in his face and brought him back to reality. It reminded him that despite the black acorn connecting him to a cold magic, he still needed to stay warm. Konowa began to search for a dead warrior still clothed, but wherever he looked, the bodies were already stripped bare. He spied the Prince in conversation with Rallie and deliberately angled away from them. He had all he could handle right now with the coming march.

The determined form of Viceroy Alstonfar heading straight for him, however, begged to differ.

“Viceroy,” Konowa said, nodding his head in greeting as the man rolled to a stop. He was swaddled from head to toe in robes from at least five different Hasshugeb warriors. “Think you’ll be warm enough?”

The Viceroy beamed a smile that suggested he’d missed the sarcasm completely. “You’d think my few extra pounds would keep me warm, but all they’re really good for is lowering people’s estimation of me when we meet.”

Konowa inwardly cringed. This man before him was an accomplished diplomat with obvious intelligence between his ears who had shown real courage on the field of battle. Before Konowa could form an apology the Viceroy carried on.

“I find it works in my favor more times than not, although not as well as I’d like when it comes to the fairer sex. And please, call me Pimmer.” His smile, thankfully, did not leer at the mention of women, but the conversation was heading in a direction Konowa didn’t want to follow.

“Are you ready?” Konowa asked, wondering how the man could ride a camel wearing so many robes. “We should get moving as soon as possible. With a bit of luck, we can break through what trees remain and reach the coast at Tel Bagrussi in two days.” Konowa saw the expectant look and relented. The man had earned it. “Pimmer.”

Pimmer’s eyes misted and Konowa worried for a moment that he might actually tear up, but another cold gust of wind took care of that. “Ah, yes, Tel Bagrussi. Quite a little cesspool. I’ve only been there once and I can assure you it’s not for the faint of heart or those with a sense of smell. They ferment a fish there that attracts a beetle that lays its eggs in the rotting flesh, which then hatch as larvae to consume the putrid mess. Now here’s where it gets interesting. They then take the larvae and grind them into a pulp which—”

Konowa raised a hand to ward off any more. “I don’t imagine we’ll be there for long. We just need to signal the fleet and jump aboard.”

“Quite true, quite true, but alas, we won’t be going to Tel Bagrussi.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s too close to Nazalla, I’m afraid. The citizenry there will be filled to overflowing with anti-Imperial fervor. It was a close run thing getting out of the city. Trying to get back in would be tantamount to storming a castle at this point. The Jewel of the Desert has returned, Major. Our time here, and by that I mean the Calahrian Empire, appears to be coming to a close. Oh, don’t look so surprised—there will be some in the royal court and more on the Imperial General Staff who will try to hang on to every far-flung piece of land like this, but I fear it’s a losing proposition. And even if that weren’t the case, we are faced with the immediate problem of no longer being able to travel under the auspices of the Suljak.”

Konowa sneered at the name. Both spiritual and political leader of the far-flung Hasshugeb tribes, the Suljak had played a dangerous game in invoking what he had thought was the ancient magic of Kaman Rhal. What he called forth instead was an abomination. The feeling of absolute stunned terror Konowa had just experienced when he’d come face to skeletal face with that dragon of bones still lingered.

Pimmer shuffled closer to Konowa. “I’m afraid the poor man has suffered quite a setback in the eyes of his people. Not that I’d wager on such a thing, but after his dalliance with Rhal’s dragon it’s only a matter of time before he’s taken out to a nice patch of desert and diced into small bits.”

Konowa felt no pity for the man. “He caused a lot of needless deaths.”

“I don’t disagree,” the Viceroy said, “but his demise will create turmoil among the tribes as each puts forth a new leader to claim his place. Couple that with the return of the Jewel of the Desert, which is viewed as a powerful symbol of native self-determination in these lands, and you have all the ingredients for a full-scale revolt.”

“That really isn’t our problem anymore,” Konowa said, emphasizing each word. “We have to get to the coast.” He felt his newfound sense of hope wavering in the face of this new reality.

“You are right, Major, and we will. There is a trading route that runs parallel with the coast to the west of here. It has the added benefit of having several fortifications guarding it, which should provide us with some lodging and provisions as we proceed. After no more than two or three days march, we’ll be able to turn north and be in Tel Martruk a day after that.”

“To the west?” Konowa asked, turning to look in that direction. Snow and darkness worked against his elven vision and revealed nothing.

“Toward Suhundam’s Hill, as a matter of fact,” Pimmer said, his voice dropping slightly. “The place where your elves are stationed. For all we know they could still be there even now, although with Her forest . . .”

It was a thought Konowa had refused to explore, but now he could no longer avoid it. What if he found his elves dead? For all he knew they had been slaughtered and spitted on sarka har all across the desert. He started to curse, then caught himself. He should have found a way to go there first, but that damn Star had changed things. Only a few months ago the idea of the Stars were little more than long-held myths. Konowa wished desperately for those days.

“And the Prince approves of this plan?”

Pimmer looked over to Rallie and the Prince before turning back and motioning for Konowa to come closer still. “The Prince is in a rather delicate state at the moment. The loss of virtually the entire collection of the library has had a devastating effect on him. Defeating the Shadow Monarch’s forces, destroying Kaman Rhal’s dragon, and ensuring the safe return of a Star of power would be more than enough for most men, but his Highness, despite all the bluster, is not a warrior at heart. Not like his father and definitely not like you. I did my best and managed to grab up some truly remarkable documents and a few other priceless trinkets that are . . . invaluable, to the peoples of the world of course.” At this he paused and looked down at the ground. “Still just odds and ends though. I’m afraid most of what was in the library is now gone forever.”

“Good riddance,” Konowa said, knowing it would upset the Viceroy and not caring. “Searching for treasures, no matter what form they take, makes men do stupid things.”

If the Viceroy was insulted he didn’t show it. He looked up at Konowa with genuine hurt on his face. “Knowledge is worth preserving.”

“So are lives.”

Faces of those Konowa held dear immediately sprung to mind, and he had to swallow hard before trusting himself to continue. “In any event, the library is gone and the Prince will have to get over his disappointment.” He paused to let the building anger subside. Pimmer wasn’t the Prince. “About this caravan route to the west that will take us to Suhundam’s Hill. You’re certain about our path?”

At this, Pimmer lowered his voice again, making Konowa strain to hear him over the wind. “As certain as can be in these uncertain times. We’ll have Her forest to the north, and it’s difficult to say how the tribes further to the west will react should we come in contact with any of them. But one factor above all others makes me believe this is the way to go.”

“And what is that?” Konowa asked.

“Miss Synjyn agrees with me.”

Konowa reached out a hand and placed it firmly on the Viceroy’s arm. The cloth was soft and thicker than Konowa had realized. Frost fire began to sparkle along the fabric and he removed his hand before he hurt the man. A wind gust picked that moment to drive a flurry of snow in his face. They were in for a long, cold march. “Then it sounds like we have a little more walking in the snow to do than I thought. Tell me, Pimmer, I seem to have missed out on the procurement of foul weather clothing. How much for one of your robes?”

The world appeared washed-out and blurry through Alwyn’s open eyes.

Everything he had known was fading, as if the colors that made life vibrant and fresh now feared to be near him. Even his memories were taking on a patina of gray, diluting the emotions he once associated with them and gave them meaning. He knew that before long the very concepts of laughter, compassion, even love, would be lost to him.

He would fight it, but he wasn’t sure how long he could resist.

Alwyn closed his eyes, but his vision didn’t darken. Even with his eyes closed he saw the world, but now as a vast sea swirling and frothing with energy. Major Swift Dragon stood speaking with Viceroy Alstonfar twenty yards away. He saw them clearly; the elf and the man shone like two torches against black velvet. Alstonfar showed as a warm, soft blend of oranges and yellows. The major’s aura was a twisted mess of greens and reds surrounding a metallic black core, a source of energy and power to be directed and used.

Threads of pulsing force connected everything, and all Alwyn had to do was reach out and pluck one and claim the power for himself.

He understood the Shadow Monarch better now. The pull of the energy surrounding him was seductive. His right hand began to rise as anticipation coursed through his body. He could use his life force, direct it to better purpose. He could make things right again.

Alwyn forced his eyes open, fighting back a scream as he did so. Dizziness threatened to topple him. He brought his already raised hand up to his head and squeezed his temples. The pressure felt good, and he shifted his weight to his wooden leg, testing his balance. Pain flared in the stump of his leg and frost fire sparkled briefly wherever the thin wooden branches of the artificial limb touched his flesh. A wave of cold spread throughout the stump in response, and the pain melted away as his flesh went numb. The magic that had once infused the wooden leg was dying, overwhelmed by the growing power of the oath inside him. Already Alwyn could see new black shoots sprouting from dead branches in the leg.

Before much longer the leg, like the rest of him, would belong to Her.

Snow gathered on the sand around him and he looked up into the sky. A scouring wind was driving the snow at an increasingly sharp angle as it moved in from the coast. Carried on the wind was the unmistakable smell of Her presence. He shook his head and turned to Yimt only to stop and catch his breath.

Yimt was gone.

Thoughts of the dwarf burst through the darkening vistas of his mind and he desperately clung to them, finding strength in the memories of his lost friend.

“Kill him.”

Alwyn looked up as the shade of Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian, astride the warhorse Zwindarra, materialized beside him in the gusting snow. Laced with pain, Lorian’s words were more plea than command. Alwyn returned his gaze to follow Major Swift Dragon as he resumed walking among the troops. The Blood Oath that bound the dead to the regiment and Her lived through the major. Killing him, however, would not break it, but it would satisfy an all-consuming need for revenge. “Kill him,” Lorian said again, his voice a cold echo inside Alwyn’s head.

Lorian’s anguish washed over him in ethereal waves flooding between this world and the next. Alwyn fought for balance again as more shades materialized, their suffering adding to the surging eddies of vengeance that threatened to carry him along until their desire was his.

Alwyn alone would have yielded to their cries, but he was no longer just Private Renwar. He was more. He had assumed the role of leading the shades of the dead, giving voice to their anguish and their anger. In doing so, he held a power the shades did not. Unlike them, he remained part of both worlds—their allegiance, however confused and harrowing, was his to lead. He hadn’t wanted that, but he had bargained with the Shadow Monarch in his dream, freeing the shades from Her grasp while condemning himself in the process. His task was simple—ensure that Konowa arrived safely to Her mountain. Too late he realized that it had been no bargain at all. Alwyn had hoped that in freeing them he would ease their pain, but the brilliance of Her plan was in its very simplicity. The dead were now bound to Alwyn, and he was bound to Her, and so the Blood Oath was not diminished. Through it all, the shades’ suffering grew.

“No, he must live,” Alwyn replied, focusing his thoughts on the shades. These were former comrades, men who had risked their lives for something greater and deserved better than the existence they now endured. All that stood between them and immortal service was Alwyn’s force of will, and he knew he couldn’t hold out forever. Either the Shadow Monarch died, or they were all doomed.

“He caused this,” Lorian’s shade said as voices of the dead around it howled in agreement.

“No. She caused this,” Alwyn shot back, concentrating his strength and adding power to his voice. “He is as much a victim as we are.” As is She, he thought to himself. It was Her love for the dying sapling that had driven Her to extreme lengths to save it. That one, desperate act now drove them all to find a way to end it, and Her.

Shrieking in protest, the shades drifted back into darkness. They could not defy their Emissary. Their agony reverberated in the air for several seconds.

Alwyn shuddered. Time was against them. Even now they watched the major and he felt their need to destroy him.

It was becoming his need, too.

It seemed right. Before long he would know it was right, and then all would be lost.

“Prepare to march!”

It took a moment for Alwyn to recognize the command referred to him as well. No living soldiers came near him, and Alwyn understood. He also knew that if Yimt were still alive, the dwarf would be cajoling him to snap out of it and get a wiggle on. The thought almost brought a smile to his face. Marshaling his thoughts and focusing on the humanity that yet remained inside him, Private Alwyn Renwar of the Calahrian Empire’s Iron Elves shouldered his musket, and without waiting for further orders or looking behind him, began to walk to the west.

From high on a broken rock face overlooking the battlefield, a pair of milky-white eyes followed the procession of human meat marching behind a limping figure.

Even from this distance, the rakke could sense Her mark on the one leading the men. It was similar, but not identical, to the mark carried by Her Emissary, and it was much stronger than the aura that filled the air around the column of men.

Every instinct was on fire, urging it to charge down there and tear into all that wet flesh, to feast until its stomach was full. Drool glistened off the rakke’s fangs. Its eyes narrowed to slits as it calculated the fastest path down the rocks that wouldn’t set it tumbling through the air to its death. The way was difficult, but not impossible. Ignoring the snow falling on its raised hackles, it began to shiver, not with cold, but anticipation.

The rakke leaned forward until it was almost tipping over the edge. Its muscles throbbed with tension as its nostrils flared, drawing in the frigid air and filling its lungs in preparation to charge. It caught the scent of the meat below and almost howled in joy. The procession of men and animals acted like chains with hooks dug deep into its flesh, pulling it closer. It leaned a little more, feeling its body start to fall forward. It would have allowed itself to keep falling, knowing it would then be forced to leap and begin its run, but a thin suggestion of caution slipped through the red haze of wanton hunger, tempering its rapacious needs. It caught itself and leaned back, snapping its jaws in frustration. Reluctantly, it searched the procession with greater care. The rakke could see only the living, but the storm-driven snow alternately revealed them, then hid them from view, giving the column a spectral appearance in the night. The rakke knew to be afraid of the shadow ones. It was difficult to be sure if the shades were there or not, and so it eased itself away from the edge.

Settling back down among the rocks, it turned its head and growled in anger at the glow of the blue tree now dominating the landscape. Everything about the tree was wrong. Instead of offering a wet, dark place to hide in like Her forest, this tree shone light everywhere. It felt to the rakke as if the radiance was worming its way into its skull, slowly killing it with its light. It knew in the most primitive way that the tree was trying to send it back to the nothingness that the Shadow Monarch had rescued it from. The rakke longed for Her power to return here and cleanse the land of this new terrible light. The rakke’s desperation to move away from the tree increased, but it would wait and watch until the enemy left. Only then would it abandon its perch and report back to Her dark elves.

Gnashing its teeth and ripping at the rocks with its claws, it stayed in place. It would endure the agony of the blue light and go hungry. Soon enough, it would be able to hunt again, and when it did, its prey would know true agony before it died.

The rakke was so consumed with rage that it didn’t notice the shadow that suddenly appeared behind it. A soft, gurgling sound like that of water in a mountain brook was swept away by the wind before it reached the rakke’s ears, denying it a final opportunity to escape. A single spark of dull green blossomed into a teeming mass of phosphorescing globules from deep within the shadow. They clustered into a roiling ball as they surged up a black throat and into a gaping maw.

A sudden shift in the wind brought the scent of something sweetly caustic and distantly familiar to the rakke’s nostrils. Its bowels turned to ice water as a fear it had long forgotten shut down its ability to think. Primal instinct took over. It bared its fangs and hurtled its body to the left as it unleashed its claws to slash at the horror behind it.

The rakke was a blur, swinging its massive arm out in a wide arc. The explosive force of its move would have torn plate armor like parchment, but its claw met only air. Without the weight of flesh and blood to slow the momentum of its swing, the rakke overrotated and pitched backward toward the rock-strewn desert floor far below. Instinctively, the rakke pushed its legs out to brace itself, but found only open air behind it and began to topple over the edge. It flung out its right hand to grab on to anything, but by now its body was too far away from the rock face and already beginning to accelerate.

The rakke accepted its impending death on the rocks below with relief. Anything was better than falling prey to the green death stalking it.

The swirling green mass spit forth from the shadow, hitting the rakke in the chest even as it fell.

The green globs separated on impact. Each uncurled, revealing tiny legs and a sharp beak shiny with acid. A hissing sound enveloped the rakke as the tiny creatures released their toxin and began to burrow into its flesh.

The rakke screamed as it tumbled through empty space, savagely ripping at its flesh wherever the minute invaders touched it. Arterial spurts of blood arced through the air as it dug its claws deep into its own rib cage. Howling in agony, it began pulling itself apart in a desperate attempt to get at the burrowing green creatures. Its heart pumped furiously as they crawled ever deeper, burning voraciously through sinew and bone.

The rakke was dead before what was left of its body hit the desert floor with a squelching thud, scattering the pieces in a wide, wet crescent.

Konowa looked up at the canyon as they marched past. Were those rocks falling? The wind howled and whatever it was got lost in a swath of snow that blocked his view, muffling all sound more than a few feet away. He considered pushing his senses outward using the power of the black acorn, but as he felt no urgent warning from the frost fire, the effort didn’t seem worth it. Stomping his boots hard enough in the snow to make the soles of his feet sting, he kept marching, hoping that eventually the process would warm him up.

I miss the heat of Elfkyna, he realized, shocked that he could ever think that. The whole time he’d lived in that accursed place he’d wanted to be anywhere else, but now that he was, Elfkyna didn’t seem all that bad. He reached up and knocked some snow off the wings of his shako. Snow in the desert. He no longer felt like laughing about it, but cursing would waste too much energy. He settled for sighing, and tried to look ahead to where Private Renwar marched at the head of the column. Tiny orange lights bobbed in the gloom. He knew he was seeing the burning ends of cigarettes cupped in soldiers’ hands so that the palm of the hand protected the lit end as they marched. Smoking on the march was prohibited, but Konowa wasn’t about to say anything. They deserved every bit of comfort they could find, and if an enemy could see the glow of cigarettes, it was already close enough to see them.

He could just make out an area of darkness with no telltale orange lights, and realized that would be Private Renwar. He squinted and saw the dimmest of outlines of the limping soldier. He walked a good ten yards in front of the column, alone and yet not alone.

With Renwar out front, it meant the Darkly Departed would be, too. It was a thought that provided Konowa with less comfort than it had just a day before. It wasn’t jealousy, he told himself, but a growing concern over where Renwar’s loyalties lay. The understanding between Konowa and Renwar was fragile at best, and Konowa knew it couldn’t last. The private was bound to Her now in a deeper way than even Konowa, and that could only lead to a very dark end. Killing the first Viceroy had been a clear and necessary duty. What remorse he felt for doing it focused solely on the terribly unfair banishment and disgrace his act had brought down on the original Iron Elves. To kill Private Renwar though would be something else entirely . . . but he knew that time might soon be upon him.

Konowa’s footsteps broke through the building layer of snow and crunched in the frozen sand beneath, momentarily throwing him off balance. Regaining his footing, he pulled the robe from Pimmer a little closer around his shoulders and leaned into the wind. The cloth was surprisingly good at keeping out the wind, yet wasn’t burdensomely heavy. Konowa still marveled at how little he had had to trade in exchange for the garment. The Viceroy had simply asked that Konowa dine with him once they reached the small fortress at Suhundam’s Hill. Konowa had readily agreed, though it was no real barter at all. Still, Pimmer’s beaming smile and his training in the Diplomatic Corps where negotiations came as naturally as breathing made Konowa wonder if there was perhaps more to the trade than he realized.

A new flurry of snow snapped Konowa’s attention back to the here and now. The snow was falling in ever thickening sheets, so that for most of the time Konowa found himself marching alone. He did enjoy the peace and quiet it afforded him, but as second-in-command, he knew he couldn’t indulge in such luxury for long. Someone had to lead, and the Prince was still in no condition to do so. Slapping the hilt of his saber in annoyance, Konowa halted and turned to look back over the column.

He could just see the shapes of the Viceroy and the Prince atop their camels. Konowa had been offered one of the beasts, but the Prince didn’t insist and Konowa happily volunteered the camel as a pack animal instead. Marching in snow was a frigid version of hell, but it was still preferable to riding along on one of those monsters.

Konowa hunched his shoulders against the wind as the column marched past. It wasn’t a happy sight. Soldiers and animals alike walked with a slow, plodding gait, heads bent low against the elements. There was no singing, no laughing, barely any talking at all. Few even noticed Konowa as they marched past, and fewer still bothered to acknowledge him with a salute or a halfhearted wave. It occurred to Konowa that in his Hasshugeb robe in the dark, he probably didn’t look all that different from any other Iron Elf in the regiment. He hoped that was the case, choosing not to dwell on less charitable ideas.

The camels carrying the Prince and the Viceroy ambled past. Neither man turned to look at him. Konowa made no move to draw their attention. Before long he would have to confront the Prince and snap him out of his sulk, but for now he actually preferred the future king silent and moping. It certainly kept him out of Konowa’s way and let him get on with the business at hand.

A motley assortment of bullocks and camels plodded past towing the naval contingent’s battery of three cannon. Despite the wind and his damaged hearing, Konowa was convinced he heard a good deal of cursing going on. He’d made it clear the guns would travel with them despite having exhausted their supply of ammunition. Pimmer assured him the forts along the trade route they were following were well supplied with gunpowder, among other items that could, in a pinch, be shoved down the barrel of a cannon and fired. The idea of traipsing across a snow-covered desert with no ammunition was clearly not what the naval gunners had signed up for, but it was their lot and they could deal with it.

Behind them and still marching in bare feet were the twenty-three surviving volunteers of the 3rd Spears. Whether it was stubbornness, pride, or a genuine imperviousness to cold, the soldiers from the Timolia Islands refused all offers of footwear or even rags to wrap their feet. Placing these fearsome warriors directly behind the grumbling artillery gunners had been a deliberate move on Konowa’s part. The gunners could grouse all they wanted, but with the 3rd Spears behind them, they would keep the guns moving.

As the 3rd Spears marched past, Konowa squinted to catch sight of the rear guard. He knew they were a squad of scared and unhappy soldiers, but just like the naval gunners, they had to accept it. Konowa had seen the terror and anger in their eyes when he assigned them the task, but there was no other choice. The rear of the column had to be protected, and whoever got that duty knew it was filled with risk. What he had promised them, however, was that they wouldn’t have to shoulder the burden alone. Two other squads were picked to take turns bringing up the rear. Konowa knew it wasn’t time yet to make the change, but he could at least fall back and march along with them for a bit and perhaps pick up their spirits.

As the backs of the Timolian soldiers disappeared in the swirling snow, Konowa stepped out onto the trampled path and waited for the squad to appear. They should be just a few yards behind.

As the seconds stretched into a minute, Konowa grew increasingly worried. The rear guard should have been directly behind the 3rd Spears. He drew his saber, conscious of the fact that he was now completely alone.

“One of these days your impulses are going to get you in trouble,” he muttered to himself. He reasoned that it was likely already too late, but hoped the trouble was something he could handle.

Realizing his current position was the worst possible one he could be in, he started walking backward while keeping his eyes peeled for the rear guard. “C’mon lads, be okay,” he said, gripping the pommel of his saber tight.

He shivered in the cold, only realizing a few moments later that it wasn’t the weather, but the black acorn against his chest.

A soldier appeared out of the snow twenty yards away. “Over here,” Konowa hissed, waving his saber in the air then crouching down as he looked around for the danger. The soldier stumbled as if severely wounded. Konowa could barely make out his form in the snow and couldn’t tell how badly he’d been hurt. His first instinct was to rush forward to help the man, but the stab of ice against his chest was growing colder. The enemy was closing in.

The smart thing, the proper thing, for Konowa to do was to turn and run back to the end of the column. It was foolhardy to risk his life for one soldier when the entire regiment needed his leadership. Konowa was already running toward the soldier before he’d made up his mind that the smart thing and the right thing weren’t always the same.

The soldier stumbled again and went down on one knee. The acorn blazed with freezing intensity, causing Konowa to gasp with pain. Ignoring it, he jogged the last few feet to reach the fallen soldier and help him up.

“How badly are you hu—” Konowa started to ask before his ability to form words left him.

The “soldier” climbed back to its feet on two gnarled chunks of roots. The . . . tree, Konowa’s mind finally registered, had taken the rough form of a soldier. Its branches were bent and twisted at impossible angles to form a pair of large shoulders, from which two arms hung. Long, sharp thorns for fingers twitched and snapped at the end of each arm. Its head was a thicket of leaves and thorns crafted into something that in the dark and the snow had looked convincingly like a soldier wearing a shako. But as disturbing as it was to see a tree take on human form, it was the bark that froze Konowa’s gaze. It was dragon scale. He was sure of it. The scale had shaped itself to look like a uniform.

How or why he didn’t know and likely never would, but somehow the sarka har had changed.

Luckily, Konowa’s instincts were still working even as his mind pondered the impossibility before him.

Konowa started to backpedal even as he brought his saber up in front of him and slashed at the tree. The stroke missed, which threw his balance off. His boots slipped and he fell backward to land hard on his back. Snow flew in the air hiding the abomination from sight.

Konowa rolled to his right, burying his face in the snow in the process. He felt the thump of a heavy root slam down on the ground just inches from where he had been. He continued rolling several more times before finally scrambling to his feet, one hand pushing his shako back down on his head as the other held his saber at the ready. He shook his head and blinked the snow from his eyes.

There were five of the walking sarka har now. Each one looked like a child’s idea of a soldier. Everything was there, but all of it was distorted. In the light of day, their disguise would fool no one, but in these conditions they were more than good enough to get close to a potential victim.

“I’m not dead yet!” Konowa shouted, mad at himself that he even considered himself lost. He’d been in tough scraps before, where the odds were stacked so high against him he couldn’t see over the enemy’s chips and still he’d prevailed. These were still sarka har, and he had the frost fire at his command.

“This is why I HATE TREES!” Konowa bellowed, charging forward, the blade of his saber wreathed in black flame.

The closest tree had no time to parry as Konowa’s blade slashed down across the midsection of its trunk.

Black ice crystals exploded as blade met trunk. Konowa’s entire right arm erupted in burning pain like he’d been stabbed with a thousand needles. He stumbled backward, barely managing to hold on to his saber. The tree he’d struck was engulfed in frost fire, but whereas normal sarka har quickly burned to ash, the dragon-scale bark seemed to be shielding it from the worst of the flame.

“And Visyna wonders what I have against the bloody forest,” he said to himself, flexing his arm to get feeling back into it. He caught motion out of the corner of his eye and more of the transformed sarka har appeared out of the snow. They marched along the path left by the column, ignoring Konowa just as the soldiers had before. He had to get out of here and warn them.

That’s when he remembered he had more than the frost fire to call on.

“Renwar! Get the Darkly Departed off their arses and cut down these damn trees!” He turned while keeping an eye on the burning sarka har and its four companions. There was no sign of the shades of the dead.

“That wasn’t a request—it was an order!” he shouted into the wind. The black flame on the tree he attacked guttered and went out. Singed leaves fell from its head and it continued to stumble, but it started to come toward him again as the other four fanned out to cut off any chance of escape.

Konowa turned and started to run, but in the deep snow he knew at once he wouldn’t get far. The sarka har would catch him exhausted and that would be that.

He turned to face his fate.

The dawning realization that he was looking at the very real possibility of being killed by a bunch of walking trees brought a snarl of a smile to his lips. His whole life he’d loathed the forest with a passion that bordered and sometimes crossed the line of sanity. It never occurred to him until now that the forest might just feel the same way about him.

He was charging at the trees before his battle cry pierced the air.

“Timber, you bloody pieces of lumber! Timber!”

A pack of fifteen rakkes clustered around the mangled remains of one of their brethren. Despite the blowing wind, the tang of fresh blood hung in the air above the corpse. Normally, the rakkes would have welcomed the chance at fresh meat even when it was the body of one of their own, but not this time. Green insects crawled over and through the rakke’s flesh even as the falling snow buried the body from sight. A primal fear of the green death kept the rakkes at bay.

Four gray blurs drifted through the snow, coming to a silent stop a few yards behind the rakkes. The pulsing, rhythmic blue light of the Star tree slowed momentarily like an ocean wave retreating down a beach as four dark elves appeared from out of the gloom.

Even amidst the cobalt-tinged darkness and swirling snow it was clear that nothing about these elves was natural. The points of their left ear tips absorbed what light there was, making them blacker even than the surrounding night. Every joint and limb appeared angular, sheared, and incomplete as if sheets of stone as thin as parchment had been wrapped around bundles of metal stakes. For clothing, they wore only ore-saturated leaves secured with steel-colored vines, revealing far more than they covered. If the elves felt the bite of the cold, they gave no indication.

Each elf held a long bow the color of rusted iron in its hands. Drawstrings thrummed as they were drawn to their full pull, the limbs of the bows arching back to create grotesque smiles with tongues of thin, black arrows. At this distance, the arrows would pass through the back of a rakke’s skull and continue on through with enough force to embed themselves in another victim.

Bony fingers flexed and creaked as they curled tighter around the vine-wrapped grips of the bows. Wet, black eyes stared at the assembled rakkes calculating distance and trajectory. With no eyelids, the orbs shone like polished granite, and with as much warmth. The elves would not miss. They waited only for the command.

Her Emissary materialized behind the elves. Or rather it attempted to. Parts of it were simply missing, lost forever when that damnable Iron Elf soldier had summoned a vortex of magic and blown it to pieces. It knew pain now as it had never before, and the experience was transcendent. Twice in the life of the creature formerly known as Viceroy Faltinald Gwyn it had served powerful rulers—always in the pursuit of more power—and each time it had suffered greatly. Now, as every shredded fiber of its flesh and soul screamed in agony, it called on the power so horribly earned to rebuild itself one more time. It focused its energies on a dark, fathomless core—the black acorn planted into its heart by the Shadow Monarch.

It was rewarded with nothing. The acorn had shattered when the soldier had attacked—all that remained of the Shadow Monarch’s gift were cracked and broken shards. Her Emissary’s form mirrored that of the acorn, as did its mind. In its insanity it was finally free, but still the Shadow Monarch’s will filled its thoughts, commanding it to destroy the rakkes.

“Kill them. They grow too wild and will destroy everything in their path. My lost children must be allowed to return to me alive,” said the voice in what remained of Her Emissary’s head. It understood. The pact She made with the soldier that turned him into an emissary of the dead meant Her power over the fallen was diminished. She needed the Iron Elves brought to Her alive.

A crease of a smile cracked across its frost-burned face. If Her dark elves looked like mannequins created in an iron foundry, then Her Emissary was the wretched slag that remained. Redoubling its efforts, it coalesced enough of itself from the ether to create a form roughly human in shape. It drew what little power remained from Her gift, but found a new and more plentiful supply in something far stronger—rage. This was an endless well of power it could call its own.

It stumbled forward, growing stronger with each step. At that moment the wind shifted and the rakkes noticed the terrible being behind them. The elves pulled back on the bowstrings a little more, waiting only for Her Emissary to relay Her command.

It never came. Instead, as Her Emissary found a rasping, hissing voice barely capable of speech, it only needed to utter one word.

“Die!” A ragged scythe of ice formed in the air in front of Her Emissary. It reached out and grabbed it, swinging it in a wicked arc faster than the eye could follow. For a moment nothing happened, then as one the four elves crumpled to the ground, their heads falling away from their bodies. Fingers no longer restrained by life released the bowstrings and the arrows flew true, still aimed at the rakkes. The creature knew it had the strength to stop the arrows in midflight, but it did not. Six of the rakkes fell. Those remaining stood rooted to the ground.

“Build your strength,” the creature commanded. “Soon you hunt for fresher game.”

The rakkes roared their pleasure and fell on the bodies, both rakke and elf. The remnants of the acorn in the creature’s chest flared with frost fire, but it extinguished them with its madness.

The Shadow Monarch no longer pulled its strings.

High above on the canyon wall and undetected by those below, something stirred. A pair of eyes studied the scene on the desert floor through the falling snow. The figure remained deep in shadow as it watched the rakkes tear into the bodies of the dark elves first and then their own kindred. The rakke it had slaughtered earlier was untouched. Stupid, rudimentary creatures that they were, they knew enough to avoid that.

And here, off to the side and cloaked in shifting darkness, a violently misshapen thing directed the rakkes.

Interesting.

Killing one rakke had been satisfying. Killing this pack and its new leader would be . . . enjoyable.

From deep within a black throat, a green glow came to life. Stalking this prey would be more difficult than the first kill, but not impossible. The green insects began to multiply, responding to subtle signals that a new quarry was at hand. But just as quickly, the signals then weakened. The rakkes were moving off, carrying what meat they could as they began to track west.

The watching shadow had no choice but to move into the open to begin tracking the rakkes, who no doubt had picked up the trail of the Iron Elves.

A group of six rakkes detached themselves from the rocks along the ridgeline where they had been hiding and spread out in a rough U-shaped pack. Claw tips extended and fangs began to glisten with drool as they set out after the shadowy figure.

The hunter was now the hunted.

“Major, get the hell out of the way!”

Konowa was so intent on his last charge that the shouted warning went unheeded. He was still several feet from the nearest sarka har when it blew apart in a red-orange explosion. Thousands of black scales cartwheeled through the air followed by flaming splinters. Konowa’s shako was blown off his head and he skidded to a halt, his arms thrown across his face. Only the flaring of the frost fire into a frigid wall in front of him saved him from being cut to ribbons.

“That’s new,” he gasped, equally impressed by the exploding tree and the frost fire’s reaction to it.

A familiar ringing in his ears told him musket fire had sounded a moment before the tree was destroyed. The remaining trees seemed oblivious to the fate of their brethren and continued to close in on Konowa.

“Major, over here!”

Konowa spun around. Several more soldiers had appeared out of the snowy night. He kept his saber at the ready, unwilling to be tricked again by a shadowy form seen in the distance. The soldiers advanced—Konowa relaxed as he recognized them as his rear guard.

“What in the bloody hell are those things?” Konowa asked when the soldiers came to a stop.

“We were hoping you’d know,” one of the soldiers said. Konowa recognized him as the young private planning on joining the navy.

“What’s your name again, son?” Konowa asked.

“Feylan, sir, Private Bawton Feylan.”

“Well, Private Bawton Feylan, all I know for sure is never trust a damned tree.”

As a group, they began to fall back, walking backward to keep the trees in sight the whole time. Six soldiers knelt in the snow and fired their muskets at another sarka har. Huge chunks of bark and wood tore from the trunk in great flashes of flame. One massive arm cracked and fell away, but unlike the tree before, this sarka har remained intact. The remaining five soldiers walked a few more paces, halted, and having reloaded their muskets, took aim and fired at the wounded tree. This time it blew apart.

“Why do they explode like that?” Konowa asked, resheathing his saber and unslinging his own musket. He banged snow out of the muzzle and unwrapped the leather covering that kept the fire lock dry.

“Haven’t the foggiest, sir, they just do,” Feylan said. If he was scared he was doing a fine job of hiding it. “It’s like they’re filled with gunpowder or something. Hit them with a few musket balls and you can hurt them, but it takes at least five or six all at once to light ’em up.”

“A little more dragon than you bargained for, eh?” Konowa shouted at the trees, ramming home a charge in his musket and preparing to fire.

Instead of advancing, the remaining sarka har converged on the spot where the last tree was destroyed. They unsnaked their branches and began picking up pieces of bark, applying it to their trunks.

“That’s brilliant, that is,” Konowa said, spitting in the snow. “Not only have the buggers learned to walk, now they’ve figured out how to protect themselves.” He was tempted to add “what’s next?” but the question became moot as the trees began grabbing burning pieces of wood and crushing them into flaming spheres. As the spheres grew, the ends of their branches caught fire and began to burn. The night turned an ugly orange as each sarka har held up its two arms, now transformed into massive torches.

“Well that wasn’t too bright now, was it?” Konowa shouted at the trees. “You’ve gone and set yourselves on fire, you dumb bastards. Guess you missed the lesson about fire and wood.”