The desert had a way of scouring a person down to their essential self. In the week that followed their flight from Al-Khem, a heavy, oppressive silence fell over the Company of the Serpent's Tooth. The physical hardships of the journey, the rationing of water, the relentless sun, the freezing nights, were nothing compared to the new, corrosive despair that had taken root in their hearts.
From her place in the column, Hanna watched them. She saw it in the slump of the soldiers' shoulders, in the way Captain Malik stared at his own worn hands for hours, and in the grim, haunted silence of Finnian. The horror of Al-Khem was not that they had seen an enemy; it was that they had seen their own people, the very people they were trying to save, willingly and gratefully embrace that enemy. It was a wound that no poultice could heal.
Even Praxus seemed to have retreated into himself, the fire of his discovery banked, his nights spent staring at his ancient maps with a look of profound futility. They were marching towards a prison built by the Progenitors, chasing a mad prophet, in the name of a dead god, for a kingdom of people who were beginning to worship the monster that was devouring them. Their mission had started to feel less like a heroic quest and more like a fool's errand.
The breaking point came one night as they huddled around a small, smokeless fire made of dried scrub brush. The wind howled over the dunes, a lonely, mournful sound. It was one of the sailors, a man named Brynn, who finally gave voice to the despair that plagued them all.
"What's the point?" he asked, his voice rough and low, directed at no one in particular. "We saw them. Back in that town. They were happy. He gave them water, and they thanked him for it. How do we save people who don't want to be saved?"
A bitter silence answered him. Malik grunted in agreement. "The lad has a point. You can't force a man to be free. Ouen offers them an easy answer. A miracle for a price. We offer them… this." He gestured around at the vast, empty darkness. "A hard road and a silent sky."
"Our duty is to the King, not to the hearts of madmen," Joric said, though his soldier's certainty sounded hollow. "We eliminate the threat of Ouen. The rest is not our concern."
"But it is," Finnian countered, his voice quiet but intense. "We don't have to save everyone. But what about the ones like us? The ones in the sanctuaries, the ones who are fighting back. If we fail here, Ouen will take his poison back to Aethelburg, and that fire will be extinguished. We have to give them a chance."
The argument devolved into a grim, circular debate, their weariness and fear fueling a sense of hopelessness. Eva remained silent, watching her company, her 'scalpel,' begin to dull and fracture from within.
Finally, all eyes turned to Praxus. He had been staring into the fire, his face a mask of deep thought. He was the Magister, the First Advisor, the man who had started them on this impossible path.
He looked up, and his gaze was not one of despair, but of a strange, weary clarity. "Brynn is right," he said, and a hush fell over the small group. "We cannot save those who choose damnation. But he is wrong about the point of our journey."
Praxus leaned forward, the firelight casting deep shadows across his face. "We have been thinking about this war in the wrong terms. We have been thinking about victory and defeat. But Ghra'thul's goals are not so simple. He is the Carver of Silence. His perfect world is not one of corpses, but of perfect, monotonous order. A single, unwavering note of worship, sung by every soul in unison. A world where every choice is predictable, where every life serves the same, single purpose."
He looked around the fire, at the unique, tired faces of his companions. "Qy'iel's world was a chorus. A messy, chaotic, beautiful song made of a million different voices. A farmer's work song in the fields of Aethel. A sailor's shanty on the Mirror Coast. A mother's lullaby. A scholar's question." He smiled, a faint, sad gesture. "All of it, the joy and the sorrow, the harmony and the discord, that was the music of life."
"Our mission is not to 'save the world' in some grand, final battle. Our mission is to save the song. We are here, in this desert, to ensure that there is still a world where a person can choose defiance. Where a healer can choose to heal without a price. Where a navigator can choose to chart his own course. We are fighting for the existence of choice itself."
He looked at each of them in turn. "We are the few voices still attempting to sing in the dark. That is the point of what we do. It is the only point that matters."
The scholar's words did not magically erase their fear or their exhaustion. But they reframed their mission. They were no longer just soldiers on a desperate errand. They were keepers of a flame. They were a memory of what the world had lost, and the only promise of what it could be again.
Hanna, who had been listening intently, reached into her satchel. She pulled out a small, carefully wrapped cloth bundle. Inside were a few precious, fragrant leaves she had been saving.
"Praxus is right," she said softly. "We are a small chorus."
She crushed the leaves between her palms, releasing a scent of mint and cool, damp earth, the scent of Verdane, of a living world. She dropped them into their small pot of heated water. As the fragrant steam rose into the cold desert air, she poured the simple tea into their tin cups.
The nine of them sat in a close circle, the howling wind a distant thing. They sipped the tea, a shared, simple act of community, of warmth, of life. For a brief moment, in the face of a monstrous god and a dying world, they were not soldiers or scholars. They were a fellowship. A chorus of nine voices, finding strength not in a promise of victory, but in each other.
They were ready for Qar-Teth.
---
The Chronicle of the Fallen
Time Period Covered: Approximately Days 151 through 165 of the Age of Fear
Victims of The Reaping: 5
Victims of the Covenant: 188 (Ouen's influence is now fully established in parts of Zahram, and "sacrifice pits" are becoming a common feature in converted towns)
Deaths from Civil Unrest: 12
Total Lives Lost: 205
Of Note Among the Fallen:
— The entire ruling council of the independent city-state of Silverstream, who made a collective bargain for wealth to fund their army, leaving their city leaderless.
— The last master musician in Aethel known to play the ancient High Harp, reaped.