Despair was a poison, and it was working its way through the heart of the company far more effectively than any physical venom. Praxus, a man who had dedicated his life to knowledge, found himself in the agonizing position of knowing, with absolute certainty, that they were helpless.
They were watching Captain Malik die. The Ashen's bite on his leg was a grotesque mockery of a wound, the flesh blackened and swollen, and thin, dark veins crept up his thigh like thirsty roots. The fever had stolen his mind, leaving him in a delirium of half-remembered sea shanties and the names of long-dead sailors.
Hanna was a portrait of quiet, professional devastation. Her satchel of remedies, once a source of comfort and pride, was now a collection of her failures. She had tried every cleansing herb, every fever-reducing tea, every poultice in her arsenal. The poison in Malik's blood was unnatural, a corruption of life itself, and it was beyond the reach of her considerable skill.
"It is a malady of the spirit as much as the flesh," she whispered to Eva, as she wiped Malik's burning forehead with a cool cloth. "My remedies heal the body, but they cannot fight a poison that is born of the Tyrant's will."
The company was a circle of grim, silent witnesses, waiting for the inevitable. The loss of Joric had been a soldier's death, swift and violent. This was different. This was a slow, creeping decay, a testament to their powerlessness in this new, monstrous world.
Refusing to surrender, Hanna lit a small lantern and turned to her oldest, most battered text, a herbalist's guide her grandmother had passed down to her. She paged through it, not with any real hope, but because the act of searching was the only defiance she had left. Most of the entries were familiar, their properties known to her by heart. But in a forgotten appendix, a section on semi-mythical plants, her eyes caught on a faded, intricate drawing.
"It can't be," she whispered, her voice a thread of disbelief.
"What is it?" Praxus asked, his voice weary.
"A legend," Hanna said, her finger tracing the drawing of a deep red moss. "A passage my grandmother called a 'fool's hope,' because no one had seen it in five hundred years. The Kingsblood moss." She read the ancient, spidery script aloud. "A parasitic growth that counters poisons 'born of shadow and cold malice.' It is said to grow only in the most impossible of places: on the northern face of sun-scorched black rock, but only where a source of deep, underground water runs close to the surface."
A flicker of hope, so faint it was painful, sparked in the oppressive gloom.
"The desert is full of black rock," said Gareth, Joric's grim replacement. "And it's all sun-scorched. Finding a specific patch of moss in this wasteland, in the dark? It's impossible."
All eyes turned to Finnian. The young navigator, who had been silently observing, looked at Hanna. "Tell me everything the book says about it," he said, his voice quiet but intense. "Its color. The plants that grow near it. The texture of the rock it favors. Everything."
For the next hour, Hanna recited the ancient lore while Finnian listened, his eyes closed in concentration, building a map in his mind from the fragments of text. When she was finished, he stood up, his movements filled with a sudden, new purpose.
"There is a series of ravines, a half-day's journey west of here," he said. "We passed them yesterday. The rock is blacker there, volcanic. I noticed the way the wind-lizards hunt in that area; they stay close to the ground, which means there's cool air coming from fissures in the rock. There might be a hidden spring." He slung a water skin over his shoulder. "I will be back by morning."
He vanished into the darkness before Eva could object.
The night was the longest of their lives. They took turns watching over Malik, his breathing growing shallower with each passing hour. Their vigil was a silent prayer, not to a god, but for their scout's impossible success.
Just before dawn, a figure stumbled into the faint light of their fire. It was Finnian, his clothes torn and his face scratched, but in his hands, he held a small, leather pouch. He opened it. Even in the dim light, the contents seemed to absorb the firelight and glow with a deep, internal heat. It was a patch of moss of the richest crimson, the color of fresh, arterial blood.
Hanna took it with a reverence usually reserved for a holy relic. There was no time for celebration. Her exhaustion was replaced by a fierce, focused energy. This was her battlefield. She crushed the Kingsblood moss with two stones, mixing the vibrant red pulp with a binding agent of ground bark and a few drops of precious, clean water. She worked with the swift precision of a master craftsman, creating a dark red, potent-smelling poultice.
The application was a grim affair. They had to hold the delirious captain down as Hanna cleaned the hideous, blackened wound and applied the poultice, packing it deep into the Ashen bite. She bound it tightly with clean linen, her hands steady.
Then, they waited. As the sun rose, its weak light offering no warmth, they watched, their hopes pinned on a legend and a healer's skill. For hours, nothing changed.
It was near midday when Malik's violent shivering ceased. Hanna placed a hand on his forehead, and for the first time in days, it was not burning with fever. The angry, black veins spreading from the wound had not vanished, but they had faded, receding like a dark tide. He was sleeping, truly sleeping. He would live.
A wave of profound, exhausted relief washed over the company. They had faced the Tyrant's corrupting touch and, for the first time, they had won. It was not a grand miracle. It was not a divine gift. It was a victory forged from a healer's forgotten knowledge, a navigator's impossible skill, and a company's collective will to survive.
Later that night, Praxus sat by the fire, watching his companions. Finnian was teaching a sailor a new kind of knot. Hanna was quietly preparing more medicine. Eva was inspecting her sword, her movements once again filled with a sharp, clear purpose. They were still broken and exhausted, but they were no longer just survivors. They were a unit.
He opened his new journal. The King's wager on a First Magic had filled his thoughts for months. But now, he had a new, more powerful idea to consider.
The King wagered on a divine inheritance. But tonight, I saw a different, perhaps truer, power. The healer's knowledge. The navigator's skill. The commander's resolve. The captain's endurance. This is the Chorus. A song of human resilience.
Perhaps our salvation lies not in a power we are waiting to receive, but in the collective strength we already possess. We are not waiting for a weapon. We are the weapon.
He closed the book. He looked at the small, battered group of humans huddled in the vast, hostile darkness, and for the first time since he had seen the hole in the sky, he felt a genuine, unshakeable hope. It was a hope placed not in a dead god, but in the stubborn, defiant, and brilliant people beside him.
---
The Chronicle of the Fallen
Time Period Covered: Approximately Days 228 through 235 of the Age of Fear
Victims of The Reaping: 2
Victims of the Covenant: 211 (The practice of the Covenant is now a fully established part of Covenanter ideology in the lands outside of Aethel's direct control)
Deaths from Ashen Attacks: 189
Total Lives Lost: 402
Of Note Among the Fallen:
— The last master of a forgotten martial art in the Iron Peaks, reaped.
— The entire crew of a merchant ship from a city-state in Zahram, who made a collective bargain to escape a freak storm, their ship found adrift and crewless.