Chapter 1. Legacy of Light
The Wind at Uruk'herald
The dry wind tore across the base of Uruk'herald like a living thing, restless, cutting, howling through the crags and ravines as if trying to warn us back. It caught my cloak and flung it sideways like a banner, the same wind that snapped and pulled at the war standards of my band—tattered cloth painted with the sigils of past glories. Frost clung to the stones beneath my boots, a glassy veil that caught the last light of the dying sun and gleamed like the edges of a blade.
Above us, a sharp shriek shattered the air. Harpies. Their forms twisted in silhouette, half-bird, half-woman, gliding with effortless menace on the high currents. They circled far above, always out of reach, yet always watching.
My warband clustered around me in a tense half-circle. No one spoke loudly. A few muttered prayers under their breath, calling to gods we no longer named in public. Others said nothing, gripping their weapons tighter with white-knuckled resolve. We were killers, veterans of the border skirmishes and deep desert raids, but there was something sacred about this place— something that even hardened soldiers dared not mock.
Vulghere, my second-in-command, stepped up beside me. He was taller, broader, scarred like a bear who'd forgotten what fear was. His arms were crossed against the cold, his eyes narrowed at the path that rose like a stairway to the gods. He tugged once at the leather cord around his wrist— a worn charm carved from bones, shaped like a fang.
"You really think the Prophet meant for you to survive this climb?" he muttered, keeping his voice just below the wind's roar.
I gave a dry, grim smile. "Either I climb… or the Light will call someone else".
Above us, the harpies let out another chorus of shrill, echoing cries. This time, they sounded almost amused. The sound bounced off the cliff walls, repeating and distorting until it seemed the mountain itself was laughing at me.
My heart thudded—not with fear, but anticipation. The trial had begun long before I would touch the first stone.
Legacy of Ash and Steel
I thought of my father—and his father before him. I saw them not as memories, but as shadows walking beside me, carried in blood and story. My grandfather had been a general of the second great Empire of Light, commander of the 7th Legion, who led his warriors against the gnoll hordes in the olden days. They said his sword never dulled, his shield never broke. They also said that when he came home, he slept with all candles lit. Sometimes he screamed the names of things that were never written in the annals.
He had earned honor—yet silence followed close behind.
My father spoke of those days with a reverence that bordered on sorrow. He had not been a soldier, not truly. He was a scholar in a time that demanded blades. Yet he carried my grandfather's war stories like scripture, passing them down with trembling hands and eyes full of fire. He spoke of the glory of the Empire—but also the fall. He cursed the same darkness that had spared us, yet scattered our people like leaves before a storm. The Empire was gone. What remained were outposts, uninhabited city-states, fragments.
And now, I stood in the shadow of Uruk'herald, feeling the weight of that broken legacy pressing into my bones. Not just the honor—it was never just that—but the expectations. As if their unfulfilled oaths had latched onto my shoulders like invisible chains.
The world had changed. It had moved on, changed gods, changed tongues. But I remained bound to the stories. As if fate or something crueler demanded I see them through.
Words from the Balcony
The Prophet had stood upon the highest balcony of Uruk'herald—a place few had ever seen—and declared a vision that shook the very stone beneath our feet. "The Light must expand," he had said, his voice ringing across the cliffs like a struck bell, clear and resonant and without apology.
He spoke not only about us elves. All races must unite, he had said, to stand against the darkness. Even the Gnolls were meant to find the Light within them. The words sounded noble—almost poetic.
And yet, in my chest, something twisted.
Could bloodstained claws be taught to heal instead of kill? I had seen Gnolls rip villages apart with laughter on their lips. I had buried brothers who believed they were safe. Redemption didn't just seem impossible—it felt like betrayal.
Still, I had heard the Prophet speak. And something in me had listened.
For whom was I to deny the Prophet?
The Trial's Edge
The trial came like a blade— not with a flourish, but with purpose. The command had been simple: climb to the Prophet's balcony. Alone. No escorts. No rest. No excuses.
The path was ancient and near vertical in places, a series of stone steps carved into the mountainside, most now chipped or worn smooth by time. Snow dusted the crevices, and sheer drop-offs waited to swallow the careless. No one had climbed to that height in a generation. Not even the Prophet descended to meet his followers anymore.
My warband stood in a silent half-circle behind me, watching. Their expressions were unreadable— equal parts awe and unease. Some believed this was a divine act. Others whispered that it was exile by another name.
Vulghere muttered, just loud enough for me to hear, "Madness. Climb a mountain while the Gnolls sharpen their blades."
I said nothing, but my hand drifted to the hilt of my sword— a familiar comfort. I remembered the campaigns in the western desert plains, where Gnoll packs stalked the trading caravans at dusk. I remembered the screams, the smell of blood, the rhythmic chant of battle. I had earned my command through fire and iron, not through visions.
Yet this trial… it was different. It demanded not just strength, but submission. Not just discipline, but devotion. And somewhere deep within, I feared that obedience might break me more than any sword could.
Above, the sun bled its final light across the peaks, and the harpies circled again— closer now. Silent. Watching.
Their wings cast long shadows across the stone path ahead.
Ascent
I lifted my foot onto the first stone of the mountain path, and for a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. The wind surged again, tugging at my cloak like a child begging me not to go. Above, the harpies gave a shriek that echoed like cruel laughter, carried on the air as if mocking my first step.
Still, I climbed.
The stones were slick with frost, worn uneven by time and weather. Every footfall felt like a decision. Each movement demanded precision, balance, and the kind of resolve that comes only when turning back means shame. My muscles burned quickly, and my breath turned to steam in the cold, but I pressed on.
I did not think of the summit. I thought only of the next step.
Of the wind. Of the weight on my back. Of the gaze of those below, and the unseen eyes above.
Every fiber of my being screamed to stop— to turn back, to wait, to let someone else fulfill the Prophet's impossible dream.
But I did not.
I climbed.
Under the eyes of gods, demons, and harpies alike, I ascended toward whatever judgment waited above.
Chapter 2. The Trial of Uruk'Herald
Inner Struggle
My thoughts are the only things that keep me from collapsing under the weight of fatigue as I climb the great mountain of Uruk'herald—the silent monolith spoken of in the old prophecies, where stone meets sky and the spirits of judgment stir.
The mountain does not permit weakness. It strips away illusion. The cold air claws at my lungs with every breath, turning each inhale into a punishment. My fingers, raw and bloodied, drag along stone that offers no mercy—jagged, ancient, and uncaring. Every muscle in my body screams, but I ignore them. I must.
There is no comfort here. No warmth. Only the wind's howling voice and the ache of my own mortality.
This is no test of the body alone. The mountain does not ask if I am strong—it demands why I continue. And it is only in my thoughts, in the burning core of my will, that I find my answer.
I climb because I must. Because something greater watches. And because failure means more than death.
It means surrender.
The Harpies Appear
A shriek tears the silence like a blade.
I jerk my head upward. Two harpies spiral through the moonlit air above, wings stretched wide like banners of war. Their feathers shimmer with unnatural grace —golds, whites, and hints of crimson that gleam in the pale light. Their cries echo down the cliffs, cruel and sharp, like laughter from something ancient and hungry.
Their shadows sweep over me, elongated and shifting across the stone. They circle, closer now, silent in some moments, then screaming in others—not random, I realize, but deliberate. Like sentinels. Like spirits summoned to watch.
No, not just watch.
I feel it in my bones, in the strange weight of their gaze. These are not idle beasts nor wild scavengers. They have come because of me—called by something older than the mountain itself.
The prophecy spoke of watchers at the threshold. Guardians of the old way.
And now, they are here.
Strain of the Climb
The path thins to little more than a crack in the stone, a cruel joke carved into the cliff face. I press my chest against the rock, fingers fumbling for holds barely the width of a coin. My boot slips, skidding on loose gravel, and for one breathless moment I dangle—held by three fingers and a prayer.
Below me yawns the abyss, endless and hungry. The wind roars up from its depths like a beast waiting to devour.
Pain blooms through my limbs. My arms twitch with exhaustion; my legs tremble with each motion. Sweat and blood sting my eyes, and still I climb—not because I can, but because I must.
Vulghere waits below. Always watching, always ready to step into the gap if I fail. His smirk is carved into my memory like a scar. He would take my command with cold hands and speak of my death as if it were destiny—as if I had never been worthy.
But I will not give him that satisfaction. Not while I can still draw breath.
Not while I can still bleed.
I grit my teeth and claw upward, inch by brutal inch.
First Contact
The wind shifts. A sudden rush—a force not born of nature, but of wings.
She dives without warning. The harpy descends like a falling star, her form a blur of moonlight and feathers. She veers close—too close—and as she passes, the edge of her wing brushes against my shoulder.
The contact is electric. Her feathers are warm, almost soft, but alive with power. Gold, tipped in white—colors I'd only seen painted on the tapestries of temples. She wheels upward in a smooth, graceful arc, and her eyes lock with mine.
Predatory. Intelligent. Ancient.
There's hunger there, but not for flesh. It's something more: evaluation. Recognition. A flicker of emotion I cannot name. I see myself reflected in those eyes, small and uncertain—a soul laid bare.
She trills—a low, throaty sound that resonates in my chest like a forgotten melody. It is neither kind nor cruel. Simply… real.
Above us, the second harpy screams, her cry sharp and urgent, as if asserting her claim, or perhaps warning me that the trial is shifting.
They are no longer distant observers.
They are part of the mountain now.
And they are choosing.
The Plateau
I stumble onto the plateau, half-falling, hands scraped and bleeding. The flat rock beneath my feet feels like a blessing, though no warmth greets me here. I stand, legs shaking, breath ragged, vision swimming.
The sky opens before me. And with it—revelation.
Across the endless dark horizon, pinpricks of fire dot the world like stars fallen to earth. Hundreds of them. Gnoll war camps, flickering with life and menace. Their numbers stretch to the forests and beyond, a tide preparing to break across the land.
Each fire is a heartbeat of war. Each light, a promise of violence.
The Prophet was right. The darkness is no longer rising—it is here.
And then the harpies descend.
They dive together, wings folded tight, talons gleaming like blades. Their voices rise as one, not screaming—singing. A harsh, beautiful chorus that shakes the very stones beneath me.
I don't move. I do not flee. I stand still, arms outstretched, unsure if I offer myself or defy them.
Their eyes burn into mine. Not as hunters. Not as judges.
But as initiators.
This trial is no longer a climb. No longer a test of pain and stone.
It is a covenant.
And I am no longer merely a climber.
I am becoming.
Chapter 3. Vulghere's Doubt
Uneasy Camp
The desert night pressed in like a living thing. Cold winds drifted over the dunes, tugging at tents, rattling armor, scattering ash from the dying campfires. Shadows shifted across the sand as the warband moved quietly, each soldier lost in their own thoughts beneath the blanket of starlight. Even the warbeasts shifted uneasily, pawing the ground as if sensing something stirring beneath the dunes.
Fires flickered against the stone outcroppings that ringed the camp. Far off, Uruk'herald rose black and silent, cutting into the sky like a blade.
Vulghere stood near the largest fire, arms crossed, eyes scanning the men. Whispers carried just above the crackle of flames:
"The climb should have ended by now.""The Prophet said nothing of delays.""Maybe he never made it to the top.""The gods test the worthy… but they also bury the unworthy."
Each voice was a spark threatening to ignite the tension Vulghere worked to contain. He did not speak—not yet—but their words dug deep. Mortals were fragile. Hope was brittle. And tonight, it cracked.
The commander was gone. And in that absence… ambition, fear, and doubt waited.
Rallying the Band
Vulghere let the murmurs simmer another heartbeat, then stepped forward. His voice cut through the night like a whipcrack:
"Enough!"
Heads snapped up. Conversations died. Even the fire seemed to dim for a moment.
Vulghere moved to the center of the camp, firelight casting shadows across his stern face.
"Vulhairi lives. He climbs not for glory, but because he was chosen. And he will return because he is worthy. The Prophet saw it. So did I."
He scanned the soldiers—young and old, scarred and untested. Some met his gaze, others looked down, ashamed.
"You swore to the Light. You swore to each other. That oath does not vanish because one man is gone. You do not serve the mountain. You serve the mission."
He pointed toward the desert horizon.
"Guard this camp as if Vulhairi were already returned, blade in hand and harpies at his back. Do I make myself clear?"
A few voices answered softly, uncertain.
"Do I make myself clear?!"
This time, the response came louder, unified.
"Yes, sir!"
Vulghere nodded once, then returned to the fire. Tension eased slightly among the soldiers, but not within him. Doubt twisted in his chest like a thorned vine.
What if the Prophet is wrong? What if this isn't a trial of ascension… but of sacrifice?
Whispers and Unease
Night deepened, the desert stretching endlessly under a cold, endless sky. Fires burned low. Soldiers returned to their tents, but rest did not follow. Silence weighed heavy—as if the world itself held its breath.
Vulghere sat alone beside the central flame, sharpening his blade. Steel against stone—predictable, grounding. Real.
Behind him, whispers floated again, softer this time, edged with fear.
"He could fall.""And then what? Retreat? Or follow the Prophet into a war led by ghosts?"
Vulghere did not look up. Doubt was everywhere—in the camp, in himself. He had fought beside Vulhairi through ambushes, border raids, and desert campaigns. No one was more capable.
But Uruk'herald was not a battlefield. It was something older, sacred, and sacred things cared little for logic or loyalty.
And the Prophet… he had changed. Words more cryptic. Eyes more distant. Seeing not the men before him, but something far beyond.
All must serve.
Once he had believed it. Tonight, the words felt colder. Less like guidance. More like warning.
The Vision in the Firepit
A soft whumph stirred the flames.
Vulghere's hand drifted to the hilt of his blade. The wind had shifted, sharp and clean, carrying a hint of mountain air instead of desert sand.
The fire surged. Sparks spiraled upward—not red and orange, but white-gold, shimmering like feathers caught in the sunlight.
Then they fell.
Golden-white feathers drifted silently into the pit, glowing faintly. Some gold with white tips, others silver-blue, all landing atop the logs without burning. They hummed with an energy that tingled in Vulghere's teeth.
One by one, they dissolved into light, vanishing as if they had never been.
"What in the name of the old gods…"
A young scout crouched nearby stared, mouth open. Others saw it too, drawn by awe rather than curiosity.
Vulghere said nothing, only watched, certainty forming in his gut. Vulhairi still climbed. And something beyond mortal hands had taken notice.
Echoes of the Prophet
The last feather vanished. The glow faded. Silence returned—expectant, not uneasy.
Vulghere remained by the fire long after the others had retreated to their tents. His eyes stayed fixed on Uruk'herald, its summit lost in clouds.
The Prophet's words echoed: "Each of you will bind yourselves to the Light in ways you cannot yet imagine."
Vulghere had thought they applied to Vulhairi.
Now… he wasn't so sure.
A patch of warm stone caught his attention. He reached out. For a moment, he thought he saw another feather resting there.
Then it was gone.
The mountain would soon give its answer.
And Vulghere would be ready.
Chapter 4. The mirror of Wings
Wings of East and North
Elizna's feathers gleamed as the dawn spilled across Uruk'herald. Golden shafts caught the white tips of her wings, shimmering like sunlight on riverwater. She was born to the jungles of the east—where light broke through endless canopy and beauty itself had become a weapon of survival. To shine was to command. To gleam was to endure.
Her people were singers, dancers of the air, weaving color and motion into both battle and courtship. She carried that grace in every glide, every silent beat of her wings.
Ajadressor was nothing like her. The mountain-born harpy's feathers were duller, streaked in ash-grey and deep brown. Not beautiful, but jagged— designed to vanish against the storm clouds that wreathed the harsh northern peaks. Where Elizna was melody, Ajadressor was thunder. Her people lived where prey was scarce and predators constant. To them, survival meant ferocity. It meant tearing before being torn.
They circled the summit together, two halves of an instinctive judgment: the golden beauty of the jungle and the scarred feral edge of the mountain.
The Walkling Who Climbs
Below, Vulhairi dragged himself higher. Dust and frost clung to his armor like leeches, dulling the steel to the color of ash. His breath rasped in shallow bursts, each exhale a ghost that vanished into the cold air. Blood darkened the torn skin of his palms where the stone had bitten deep, and his knees shook as if they might give with the next step. Yet he climbed.
Every movement was stripped of grace. He did not march. He did not charge. He endured.
From above, Elizna tilted her head, gold-ringed eyes narrowing in thought. The jungle had taught her to see beyond posture, beyond flesh, to the flame beneath. And in this walkling she saw it—not pride, not hunger for glory, but something heavier. A weight carried willingly, though it threatened to break him. He burns with purpose, she thought. Not the hollow fire of ambition… but the slow fire that outlives storms.
Ajadressor's wings snapped wide, the gust scattering grit down the path. Her mountain-born instincts cared little for fire or poetry. To her, bodies broke, wings tore, hearts failed. Purpose did not keep prey alive in the storm. Strength is tested by what comes after the climb, not the climb itself, her thought snarled across their bond. If he staggers now, how will he stand when war breaks upon him?
Yet for all her scorn, she did not look away. Could not. His persistence was a challenge in itself, hurled at the mountain and at them. He did not plead for wings to carry him. He did not curse the path. He simply climbed—alone, battered, unyielding.
And so both watched. One with wonder. One with suspicion. Neither turning from the question he became.
The Debate of Feathers
Their voices rose on the wind, in the language of wingbeats, trills, and sharpened breaths. To elvish ears it would be chaos. To them, it was judgment.
Elizna: He endures. That is a rare light. Ajadressor: Endurance is not enough. He must learn humility, or he will command us like beasts. Elizna: And if he does not? Ajadressor: Then he falls.
Between them stretched an unspoken memory: other mortals had tried. Commanders with steel but no spirit. Fanatics who saw only glory. All had failed.
But this one—bloodied, worn, still climbing—was different.
Instinct on the Wind
The plateau yawned below, broad and pale as bone, etched with markings older than memory. The air here was thin, sharper, flavored with stone and silence.
Ajadressor's feathers bristled. A scent clung to the wind—faint, but wrong. Not frost, not dust. Something heavier. Burned flesh. Blood turned bitter by sorcery.
She hissed low in her throat, the sound more storm than song. "War comes," her thought rasped across their bond. "It stirs beyond the sands. I feel it."
Elizna's golden eyes narrowed. She felt it too, though in a different way: a tremor in the currents, a rhythm beneath the silence. The world was turning, and the mortal climbing below was no stray soul. He was pulled into it, woven into some design greater than either wing or claw.
Not prophecy—instinct. The kind that all harpies knew: when storms gathered, when prey scattered, when change was coming.
They circled tighter above Vulhairi. His presence was the center of it. The wrongness in the air did not drive them away. It pressed them closer.
The Test of Presence
A sudden gust tore along the cliffside, sharp and wild. The path cracked beneath Vulhairi's boots, and the force dropped him to one knee. His breath came ragged, the frost of it torn away by the wind. He did not cry out. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself upright again.
Elizna descended first. Golden feathers flared in the sunlight as she circled close, each sweep of her wings shimmering like a cascade of molten dawn. She brushed against his shoulder, then along his cheek—deliberate, lingering, enough to draw his body's response. She felt it ripple through him: the quickened pulse, the momentary weakness, the awe. Mortals always faltered when touched by beauty. Many were consumed by it.
But this one—this battered walkling—did not crumble. He looked up, straight into her eyes. His breath shook, but his gaze held steady, focused not on her brilliance, not on desire, but on the climb, on the summit itself. He saw her. Acknowledged her. Yet did not lose himself in her.
Elizna's golden eyes narrowed. A soft thrill moved through her feathers. He sees, without surrender. That was rare. That was worthy.
The stone cracked beneath a new weight. Ajadressor had landed, her shadow devouring the path. Wings spread wide, talons gleaming, her presence struck like thunder. She hissed low, then shrieked, a sound that split the air like a storm tearing sky from earth. Her claws dug deep into the rock, blocking his path, her body a wall of menace.
Most mortals would break here—either cower, or draw their blade in desperate defiance. But Vulhairi did neither. He stood. His legs trembled, his lungs fought for air, blood darkened the cracks of his palms. But he did not step back. He did not lower his head. Nor did he raise his hand to strike.
He simply held his ground.
Ajadressor tilted her head, eyes narrowing to slits of burning yellow. His stillness was not weakness. It was refusal. Refusal to yield, refusal to dominate, refusal to be anything other than present. Her talons clicked once. Then again. A hunter's rhythm.
Finally, a short, sharp chirp left her throat. Judgment. Recognition.
Elizna answered with a low, clear note of her own. Agreement.
The test was finished.
Not approval. Not yet. But acknowledgment. This mortal had passed the first breath of the covenant.
The Covenant Begins
The wind settled. For the first time since the climb began, the summit path was quiet—save for the ragged draw of Vulhairi's breath.
Elizna tilted her head, gold-ringed eyes narrowing. He had resisted her shimmer, her brush of temptation. He had acknowledged her without falling to awe. He sees me, but does not worship. That restraint—rare among walklings—was strength.
Ajadressor loomed still, her wings stretched like stormfronts, talons gouging the stone where she had landed to bar his way. She had shrieked her challenge into his face, demanded either fear or fury. Yet the walkling had neither struck nor cowered. He had stood. Bruised, shaking, but unbroken. He stands when the storm screams. That earned not her trust, but her recognition—and in her world, that was the first step.
They exchanged a glance, a brief pulse of trills on the wind. Not harmony, not yet. But agreement.
Together, they drew back.
Vulhairi stood alone in the clearing of stone, the last of the climb behind him, the abyss yawning below. His armor was cracked, his skin torn, blood seeping into the dust. And yet, upright, he endured.
Above him, Elizna rose into the dawn, her golden feathers catching the first full blaze of light. Ajadressor followed, her storm-dark wings slicing the air like blades. They circled him, shadows crossing and weaving, two judgments bound into one verdict.
Not prey. Not master.
Chosen.
The mountain held its breath.
The climb was finished. The covenant had begun.
Judgement
Elizna hovered above, wings folded slightly against the wind, eyes narrowing. He burns with purpose, she thought. Not pride. Not dominance. Something older, something heavier. A fire forged in endurance, sharpened by trials few mortals—or harpies—could survive.
Ajadressor circled to the north, talons scraping against the jagged stone as the wind tore at her feathers. Her voice rippled through their shared bond, harsh and precise: Purpose does not keep flesh from breaking. Strength is tested after the climb, not during it.
The first day had been heat and dust, the sun baking the stones, forcing Vulhairi to seek shelter under jagged overhangs at midday. The second day brought storms, whipping sand and sleet into his eyes, forcing him to press hands and knees against the stone, dragging his body inch by inch. On the third, frost clung to ledges, and his muscles screamed with every movement. Each night, he had slept in patches of shadow, never fully trusting the mountain, never allowing his spirit to slacken.
Elizna observed him as he stumbled past a narrow ledge. She swooped low, brushing a wing across his cheek. Vulhairi flinched at the contact, a shiver running through him, yet his eyes never left the path. He does not falter. He acknowledges, but he does not surrender.
Ajadressor landed suddenly on a protruding rock, blocking his way. Claws flashed; a screech rolled off the cliffs like thunder. The wind flattened Vulhairi's cloak against his back. His instinct would have been to strike or step aside, but he stood his ground, battered, bloodied, unwavering. He meets the challenge without submission, Ajadressor noted, eyes narrowing.
The harpies circled higher, watching. Every wingbeat, every trill, every judgmental glance carried the weight of their expectations. This was no simple test of strength. It was endurance. Will. Presence. The mountain had demanded his body, but the harpies demanded his soul.
Elizna tilted her head, golden eyes catching the dawn light. He is not yet complete. But he listens. He feels. He moves without losing himself.
Ajadressor snorted softly, wings snapping like a whip. He will break before he bends. But perhaps… he will survive.
For hours, for days, they followed him: east and north, color and ferocity, melody and storm. Every stumble, every breathless gasp, every scrape and bruise was noted, measured, weighed. Vulhairi was becoming more than a walkling climbing a mountain. He was becoming the hinge on which their bond would rest—between east and north, beauty and survival, instinct and will.
High above the cloud rim, a figure crossed the light—neither rumor nor vision but a man of burning eyes—and for the first time the summit answered not with thunder, but with footsteps. High above, a figure crossed the light—neither rumor nor vision but a man of burning eyes—and for the first time the summit answered not with thunder, but with footsteps.
Chapter 5. At the Peak of the World
The Summit's Silence
The climb ended not with triumph but with silence.
The last stair of Uruk'herald broke into open sky. Three nights had thinned into one long dawn that refused to end; only then did the summit lift its face from the clouds. The wind thinned to a whisper that seemed afraid to speak. Frost smoked from the stone, curling into the dawn light. Vulhairi staggered forward, armor dull beneath a crust of ice, breath rattling through split lips. Below him the desert unrolled without end, its sands catching the sunrise like molten brass. Far to the west, sparks trembled against the horizon—gnoll campfires, countless and patient.
A shadow crossed him.
Elizna descended first, her wings outspread in a slow, perfect glide. Golden feathers caught the light, scattering it in ripples across the frost. She landed without sound, the scent of warm dust and myrrh following her. Ajadressor came after, a streak of storm-grey; she hit the ground hard enough to send gravel skittering.
For the first time their voices reached him as words. The height did something to sound; meaning thinned like air and then became simple—at this altitude their voices shaped themselves to his understanding.
"You climbed without wings," said Elizna, wonder softening her tone.
"He climbed because he was told to," Ajadressor answered, voice like a blade drawn through stone. "Now he will learn why."
Vulhairi straightened, pain blooming through every joint. "I thought the mountain had no end."
Elizna's eyes gleamed, ringed in sunlight. "Mountains end only for those who fall. For the chosen, they become doorways."
Beyond them the summit stretched into a circle of ancient monoliths. Between the stones glowed runes that pulsed like slow heartbeats. At their center stood figures—twelve elves in mirrored armor—and among them, taller, unmoving, a presence that bent the light itself.
The Prophet.
He was not the wraith of rumor. Flesh and radiance intertwined in him until neither could be told apart. His hair burned pale as lightning; his eyes were the color of molten gold. When he spoke, the air carried his words before sound could form.
"Welcome, children of the desert," he said. "Welcome, Vulhairi of the Seventh Line. The Light watches, and it remembers who climbs."
The harpies fell silent, feathers drawn close. Vulhairi knelt without thinking, though the stone scorched his knees. The Prophet raised a hand and the fire between the monoliths flared higher, pure and white.
"Rise," he said. "You have reached the summit of the world. Now let us decide what world shall rise beneath it."
And the air itself seemed to bow.
The Prophet's Council
The circle of Light roared to life.
Twelve kneeling disciples pressed branded palms to the stone, their voices a single hum of devotion. Above them, the fire ring pulsed from gold to white and back again, each heartbeat of flame in rhythm with the Prophet's breath.
He stood within that radiance as though born from it. "The gnolls multiply in the west," he said, his gaze cutting toward the desert horizon where embers dotted the dunes. "Their laughter carries through the night like a hymn to darkness. We have waited, believing they would wither. They have not. The Light must expand, or it will die in its own sanctity."
A murmur passed through the gathered priests. The Prophet silenced them with a raised hand.
"The Light does not beg to be followed. It commands to be known. Each of you will go down from this mountain and carry it into every tongue, every tribe, every soul that crawls beneath heaven. Mercy will be our weapon, discipline our law."
He turned slowly, eyes sweeping over the assembly until they rested on Vulhairi. "You have climbed through pain and doubt. Tell me, Captain—what did the mountain teach you?"
Vulhairi hesitated. The harpies watched him, one radiant, one shadowed. "That obedience is easy," he said at last, "but meaning is not."
A thin smile curved the Prophet's lips. "Then you have learned its first truth. Faith without struggle is decoration." He extended his hand; from his palm rose a feather forged of living flame. It drifted toward Vulhairi, hovering before his face. "Take it. The Light chooses you as its herald. You will lead the first campaign east of the sands. The gnolls will kneel, and through them the world will remember the dawn."
The feather touched Vulhairi's hand. Pain seared through skin and bone, carving its mark into his palm, but he did not cry out. It neither burned nor shone; it lived on the narrow line between; it was the narrow line between—white heat that wanted to teach and to consume at once.
The Prophet's voice lowered. "The Light rewards endurance, not comfort. Go now, and prepare. In a fortnight the desert moves."
The council bowed. One by one, they filed away into the pale fog that rimmed the summit. The Prophet remained, eyes fixed on Vulhairi as though weighing his soul against the fire.
And for the first time, Vulhairi wondered whether the Light still illuminated—or only burned.
The Echo of Doubt
When the council dispersed, the mountain grew strangely normal again. The chanting ceased; only the wind remained, sighing through the gaps of the monoliths. The Prophet lingered by the altar, hands clasped behind his back, watching the western fires flicker in the distance.
Vulhairi stood apart, his palm still glowing faintly where the feather had branded him. Elizna and Ajadressor closed in on either side—sun and storm, warmth and warning.
Elizna's voice was soft. "He saw you. Out of all who climbed, he chose you to bear the Light's weight. That is not accident."
Ajadressor's reply cracked like ice. "Chosen, or chained. The Prophet binds more tightly than any oath."
Vulhairi flexed his burned hand. "He speaks of mercy as conquest. Of faith as empire. If the Light commands through fear, what difference is there between it and shadow?"
Elizna turned to him, eyes shimmering. "Difference lies in intent. The Light does not destroy for pleasure—it refines. Fire purifies, even when it screams."
Ajadressor's wings shuddered open, scattering frost. "And what of those who burn? Purified or erased?"
The Prophet's voice broke their argument, calm and near. "You question as all newborn flames do," he said. He had crossed the circle without sound. The air around him trembled faintly with power. "Doubt is not sin, Vulhairi. Doubt is hunger—proof that the Light still works within you."
Vulhairi met his gaze. "And if hunger never ends?"
The Prophet smiled. "Then you become my equal." He rested a hand on Vulhairi's shoulder; warmth surged through armor and skin alike. "But remember—question only what you are willing to replace. The Light requires builders, not skeptics."
He stepped back, the radiance around him dimming to a soft gold. "Rest. At dawn, you will descend and gather your warband. The first sermon will be spoken in blood and flame."
He turned and walked into the shimmer of the altar's light until his form blurred and vanished.
Silence closed again.
Elizna brushed a feather across Vulhairi's cheek. "He grants you destiny."
Ajadressor's eyes were hard as iron. "No. He grants you purpose—and waits to see which kills you first."
Vulhairi looked west, where the gnoll fires pulsed like the heartbeat of some vast beast. His branded palm throbbed in time with them.
Faith had found its voice—and it spoke in pain.
Feather and Flesh
The Prophet's radiance had faded into the mountain's breath. Night rose again from the west, painting the stones in cold silver. Vulhairi lingered beside the altar, palm still raw from the feather's brand, the mark pulsing in rhythm with his heart. The harpies stood at either side of him—Elizna all light and warmth, Ajadressor coiled in shadow, feathers trembling with the memory of restrained flight.
Elizna broke the silence first.
"You have touched the heart of the Light," she said. "Few mortals survive such closeness. Fewer understand it."
Vulhairi looked at his hand, the burn still glowing faintly. "I don't understand," he murmured. "I only endure."
Ajadressor's laugh was a dry rasp of thunder. "Endurance is what keeps beasts alive, not prophets. The Light feeds you now, but it will drain you when it hungers again."
Elizna's wings rose in irritation, gold flashing through the gloom. "You would turn from grace because it frightens you."
"Because I remember what it does to those who kneel," Ajadressor snapped. She turned her fierce eyes on Vulhairi. "The Prophet will send his banners north soon after the Gnolls. When he does, the storms will need their own voice." She turned toward the horizon where stormlines stitched the sky to jagged ice. The wind there carried the smell of iron and snow—her people's warning-call. "I will fly to my kin in the peaks. If you wish to know truth beyond fire, find me there."
The wind caught her words and carried them outward. With a single sweep of her wings she launched into the dark, the sound of her departure rolling like distant thunder until it was swallowed by the clouds.
For a long moment, only Elizna's breathing filled the void. Then she stepped close—so close that the scent of wind-warm feathers and myrrh enveloped him. Her eyes glowed with reflected starlight.
"She seeks storms. Let her." Her voice softened to something near common tongue. "You have already been claimed by flame."
Vulhairi's protest died before it reached his lips. Elizna's hand—talon turned delicate—touched the edge of the burn on his palm. Her touch was neither love nor lust; it was faith looking for a body to live in. A shiver rippled through him. "Feather and flesh," she whispered. "The covenant is complete when the sky remembers the ground."
He could not tell if she blessed him or bound him. When she spread her wings, their gold bled into the night like spilled dawn.
"Come," she said. "The Light no longer waits for those who walk. It flies."
Her arms closed around him. The air rushed upward in a single, terrifying grace. The mountain fell away beneath them, shrinking into shadow. Wind tore through his hair, carrying the Prophet's words, Ajadressor's warning, and the echo of his own heartbeat into the sky.
He did not know whether he was ascending or falling—only that the world below had already begun to burn.
The dance of falling
The sky opened around them like a great, trembling lung.
Elizna's wings unfurled in arcs of molten gold, each beat sending ripples of light across the thinning clouds. The wind caught them, spun them, lifted and let go again. Their descent was not a fall—it was a dance, a slow spiral between heaven and sand, choreographed by gravity and grace.
Vulhairi's heart pounded in rhythm with her wingbeats. His armor hummed as air swept beneath its plates, the metal vibrating like a struck bell. Elizna's laughter—half wind, half song—broke through the roar of descent.
"Do you feel it?" she called. "The sky learning your name?"
He tried to answer, but breath escaped him in bursts of awe. The mountain turned beneath them, its flanks streaked with shadow and fire. The Prophet's altar blazed faintly at the summit—one last star, pulsing in farewell.
Elizna twisted midair, rolling him with her. For a heartbeat, they were horizontal to the world, sky beneath, earth above. Feathers brushed his cheek like sparks. Her hands gripped his shoulders, guiding his body through the rhythm of her wings.
"Do not fight the fall," she whispered. "The Light dances best when it forgets the ground."
Below them, the desert shimmered—an ocean of bronze dust. The wind rose from it in long spirals, carrying heat and the scent of iron. From the west came the faint glimmer of gnoll fires, small and trembling like candles before a storm.
Elizna hummed. The sound wrapped around them, deeper than words, older than flight. Each note pulled the air into new shapes; the sky bent, the stars flickered, and the fall became rhythm. Vulhairi closed his eyes and followed. Their movement turned to ritual: descent as devotion, momentum as prayer.
He no longer knew where she ended and he began. Their spins grew faster, feathers scattering like embers, until the dunes rushed up to meet them. Elizna opened her wings wide, braking in a single elegant flare. They struck the air one final time and landed hard but alive—sand exploding outward like applause.
She leaned close, breath hot against his ear. "Now you've learned the second truth," she said. "The Light does not rise—it falls, and those who fall with it become its shape."
Vulhairi looked back toward the mountain. The Prophet's flame was gone, hidden in cloud. Only the wind danced now, carrying their descent across the endless desert like the memory of a song.
Epilogue -The Watching Flame
High upon the summit, where wind and silence were one, the Prophet watched the two shapes spiral down the sky.
Gold and shadow twined together, falling in widening circles until they vanished into the shimmer of heat that cloaked the desert.
The fire at his back burned low, its light flickering over the stones carved with the names of the first believers.
He did not turn toward it.
"The Light chooses its dancers," he murmured. "But not all remember the steps."
Below, the first horns of the crusade sounded—long, mournful notes that carried across the dunes like the breath of something ancient waking. Far below, Vulghere felt the tremor of those notes pass through the sand and into his bones. He tightened his grip on the banner pole and knew the mountain had given its answer.
The Prophet closed his eyes.
The world was moving as he had foreseen.
And in the rhythm of that fall, he heard the beginning of a hymn.
Chapter 6. The Horns Beneath the Mountain
The first commitment
The mountain still smoked behind them when Vulhairi and Elizna came down from the clouds.
The dawn wind carried frost from the summit and heat from the dunes, a meeting of two tempers that felt like breath drawn before a cry.
Below, the small camp of his warband stirred—tents of canvas and bone, banners half-buried in the sand, men already awake though the sun had not yet broken.
Vulghere saw them first.
He froze, a ladle of water slipping from his hand.
Around him, talk died. Thirty soldiers, dust-caked and sunburnt, turned toward the descending shapes.
For a heartbeat none spoke, unsure whether what they saw was victory or omen.
Elizna landed lightly, gold feathers folding tight. Vulhairi followed, stumbling as his boots struck the ground. The men stepped back; even the horses shied.
"By the dunes," someone whispered, "he brought one of them down alive."
Vulghere pushed through the silence until he stood before his commander. "Alive, aye—but changed," he muttered, studying the branded hand. "What in all the wastes happened up there, Vul?"
Vulhairi looked at the mark. It still glowed faintly, pulsing with his heartbeat.
"The mountain spoke," he said. "And the Prophet listened."
That earned him uneasy laughter, the kind that hides fear.
One of the younger spearmen crossed himself. "We heard horns in the night. Thought the world was ending."
Elizna's gaze swept over them—curious, faintly amused.
"It was only beginning," she said, her words soft but clear enough for all to hear.
Vulghere stared. "It talks?"
"She," Vulhairi corrected, his tone calm but final. "And yes. She does."
The warband exchanged glances. Men who had fought beside him for years suddenly looked at him as if he'd stepped out of legend.
Vulghere broke the silence again. "You coming back to lead us, or to preach?"
Vulhairi smiled without warmth. "Both, if the Prophet wills it."
He turned toward the mountain's shadow, where banners were already gathering in the rising light. "He means to march soon. The Gnoll fires are closer than you think."
Vulghere spat into the sand. "Then the Light best learn to bleed like the rest of us."
Elizna's feathers rustled—a sound between warning and laughter.
Vulhairi's eyes met hers, and for a moment the camp seemed to hold its breath, caught between faith and fatigue.
Then the first horn sounded from the east, low and long, rolling over the dunes like thunder remembered.
The Circle of Command
The horn's echo had barely faded when a rider appeared from the east—robes streaked with dust, face veiled in white silk.
He dismounted before Vulhairi's fire and bowed so low the sand clung to his brow.
"Captain of the Seventh Line," he said, "the Prophet summons the circle. All commanders are to stand before dawn's light."
Vulghere grunted, "Summons, not invites. Already feels like church."
Vulhairi tightened the strap of his gauntlet. The brand on his palm throbbed faintly, warm as a heartbeat beneath the leather.
Elizna turned toward him, her feathers brushing the wind.
"Go," she murmured. "The flame calls its sparks."
The command tent stood in the center of the encampment—a vast canopy of gold and bone spears, heavy with heat and incense.
Inside, two dozen commanders gathered around a map carved into the sand: Uruk'herald to the east, the valley beyond, and far to the west the dull red scatter of gnoll fires.
At the far edge stood D'Moroath, the Prophet's emissary.
His robe was ash-grey, his eyes the pale blue of saltwater left too long under the sun. When he spoke, the tent's whispers fell away.
"Before the next moon, the Light moves west," D'Moroath said. "The Prophet's Chosen—those who stood upon the summit—will form the center host. The veteran commands will flank north and south."
He drew three lines through the sand with a rod of carved bone.
"Together, we will break the gnoll vanguard here."
A low murmur spread.
The word Chosen carried weight—it meant those who had seen the Prophet upon the mountain, those now marked by flame or faith.
Vulhairi felt the eyes of older elves settle on him: the ones with names like Falken, D'Rhael, D'Seron, Falkmar—not bloodlines, but titles earned through long years of service.
They wore their age as proof of worth, their titles as armor.
Among them, his own name felt raw, unfinished. Vul.
It wasn't a title, not even a house.
Every desert elf born after the Empire's fall carried it—a generational mark, a reminder of years spent rebuilding from sand and ruin.
To the veterans, Vul meant untested.
To Vulhairi, it meant alive.
A commander with gilded braids spoke, voice rough from wind and age.
"With respect, D'Moroath, the center is a graveyard. Why trust it to a boy of the new sands—and his winged companion?"
D'Moroath regarded him with a look that neither praised nor condemned.
"The Prophet trusts the new because the old have learned too well how to hesitate."
Vulhairi stepped forward. "The mountain didn't care when we were born. It only cared that we climbed."
The tent fell silent. Even the candles seemed to lean toward him.
D'Moroath nodded once.
"At sunrise, the Prophet himself will bless the banners. Come prepared to kneel."
As the commanders dispersed, Vulghere lingered beside him.
"Bless the banners," he muttered. "Sounds like he's naming the ones who'll burn first."
Vulhairi looked toward the west, where the gnoll fires still flickered.
"Then at least they'll burn with purpose," he said.
The Prophet's Blessing
Sleep never found him.
The night before the ceremony, the camp did not rest—it waited.
Armor was polished, banners stitched, blades re-oiled and laid beside prayer candles. Even the air held its breath.
Vulhairi sat apart from the others, a dull ache settling between his shoulders.
His warband was restless—men born to strike from shadow, not hold a line. Raiders, not saints.
They'd grown used to moving light, hitting hard, vanishing before dawn.
Now they were being told to march in formation, shoulder to shoulder with priests and prophets, into the open maw of war.
Vulghere had said little, but his silence was heavy. The others sharpened blades not for battle, but for comfort. Habit was safer than belief.
Elizna sat near the edge of the fire, wings folded like robes. Her eyes watched the horizon where the Prophet's pavilion burned like a second sunrise.
"You do not sleep," she said.
"I never did before a raid," he replied.
"This is not a raid," she murmured. "It is a crusade."
Vulhairi almost laughed. "We call it the same thing where I come from."
Before dawn, horns sounded—not the short, sharp blasts of desert war, but long, trembling notes that shivered through the bones.
The entire camp rose. Lines formed. The Chosen—those who had stood on the mountain—took the front ranks.
Behind them, the old veterans of the "D"-names formed their disciplined wings, banners high and still.
Vulhairi's men shuffled uneasily. "Feels wrong," one whispered. "Too clean."
"Don't think," Vulghere said. "Just move when I move."
They marched to the Prophet's field. Thousands knelt in concentric rings around a raised dais of stone and flame.
When the Prophet appeared, silence fell like sand through glass.
He wore no crown, no armor—only a cloak of orange linen that seemed to glow where the light touched it.
His eyes found the crowd, and the wind seemed to hush in respect.
"Children of the Dunes," he said, voice carrying with impossible calm. "Today we do not march to war—we march to remembrance. The Light reclaims its shadow."
Every head bowed. Every knee sank.
Vulhairi hesitated. His hand hovered at the hilt of his blade—not in defiance, but in reflex.
Then, slowly, he knelt.
The sand was cool beneath his knees, but the brand on his palm burned hotter than ever.
The Burning of the Banners
The Prophet raised his hand, and the desert answered.
From the ring of kneeling soldiers came the sound of flint on steel, thousands of sparks bursting into brief, hungry life.
Torches flared, their smoke curling into the still air, turning the sky above to brass.
Around the dais, priests stepped forward carrying long troughs of oil and clay braziers etched with symbols older than the Empire.
The smell was sharp—iron, ash, and incense.
One by one, the commanders advanced with their standards.
The Prophet touched each with a branch of burning reed, and the cloth caught in perfect silence.
Flames ran up the banners like veins of living gold.
The crowd watched, entranced. No one moved to smother the fire; no one screamed.
When the burning reached the sigils at the top, the Prophet lowered his hand.
The flames halted—frozen mid-consumption—hovering as if held by invisible breath.
"The Light does not destroy what it sanctifies," he said. "Its fire devours fear, not flesh. Its burn is memory."
The wind shifted, sending heat rolling across the front lines.
Vulhairi's throat tasted of copper.
He saw men trembling—not from pain, but from fervor.
Some whispered prayers, others laughed softly through tears.
His warband stayed silent, their eyes darting between him and the Prophet like wolves unsure of their leash.
Beside him, Vulghere muttered under his breath.
"Flames that stop halfway. That's not Light—it's trickery."
Vulhairi didn't answer.
Part of him agreed; part of him feared that if he spoke, the fire would hear.
The Prophet turned then, his gaze sweeping across the kneeling ranks.
"The old world burned without purpose," he said. "Now we give it meaning. When the banners burn, you will not see loss—you will see Light made visible."
He gestured toward the western horizon, where the faint glow of gnoll fires pulsed against the dunes.
"Out there waits the darkness that mocks us. Go and show it mercy. Go and teach it fire."
A murmur of assent spread through the crowd—deep, rhythmic, almost worshipful.
The commanders began to lower their burning standards, the flames bending but never dying.
When Vulhairi's turn came, he stepped forward and held his warband's banner aloft.
The Prophet's reed touched its edge; heat surged through the cloth and into Vulhairi's arm.
For an instant, he saw shapes in the flame—faces, perhaps memories, perhaps warning.
Elizna's voice reached him softly from behind.
"Fire remembers its maker."
The Prophet's eyes flicked toward him. Just for a heartbeat.
And in that gaze, Vulhairi felt it—the weight of something vast and hollow, demanding faith where fear should be.
When he lowered the banner, the cloth was untouched, yet the pole smoked faintly in his hands.
March of the Faithful
The banners still smoked when the horns sounded again.
Across the dunes, the army began to move—first a shuffle, then a rhythm, then a tide of feet and hooves grinding the sand to dust.
The Prophet's pavilion burned behind them like a sun refusing to set.
Vulhairi rode at the front of his warband. The branded hand rested on the reins, the faint heat pulsing with each heartbeat.
Elizna flew high above, a golden arc against the light, her shadow passing over them like a wing of memory.
No songs rose. Only the dry rasp of armor and the slow creak of leather.
By midday, the heat had grown savage. Vulghere rode up beside him, face drawn, eyes narrowed against the glare.
For a long while they said nothing. The dunes rolled around them—endless, indifferent.
At last Vulghere spoke.
"'Teach them fire,' he said."
He spat into the sand. "You ever heard a priest call killing teaching before?"
Vulhairi's gaze stayed on the horizon. "I've heard worse words for the same act."
Vulghere snorted. "Maybe. But I don't like how the men looked when the banners burned. Like they saw something they couldn't turn away from."
"They saw hope," Vulhairi said. "Or what they think hope looks like."
Vulghere glanced at him. "And you? What did you see?"
Vulhairi hesitated. The brand on his palm flared once, as if answering for him.
"Fire doesn't teach," he said finally. "It only shows what was already tinder."
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of oil and smoke from miles behind.
Vulghere nodded slowly. "Then maybe the Prophet's lesson is that everything burns, given time."
"Maybe."
Vulhairi's voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the shifting dunes. "Or maybe he means to prove it."
They rode on. Around them, the desert shimmered with heat, the horizon bending and reforming like glass.
In the distance, faint pillars of black smoke marked the gnoll frontier—thin and rising, as though the world itself was exhaling before the first strike.
Elizna dipped lower, circling once above them. Her voice drifted on the wind.
"The fire moves faster than wings."
Vulghere shaded his eyes to watch her. "If that's true," he muttered, "then we're already too late to outrun it."
Vulhairi said nothing. The Prophet's words still echoed behind his ribs, louder than the horns, sharper than the heat.
Go and teach it fire.
The dunes swallowed the sound of their march, but the wind carried the smoke forward—
as if eager to learn.
Chapter 7. The Valley of Ash
The Doubts
The valley between dunes lay still as a wound.
Smoke drifted from fissures in the sand, curling through the cold dawn air.
On the eastern ridge, the Prophet's host waited—thousands of desert elves in mirrored mail, banners glowing faintly where the morning light touched the scorched edges.
Across the basin, the gnolls had gathered.
They were not the wild scavengers of border raids.
These ones moved in ranks, their howls timed with drumbeats made from bone and hide.
Red light pulsed beneath their skin, rising and falling like breath.
The dunes below shimmered faintly with runes that bled corruption into the sand.
At their center towered the creature that had once been a chieftain: now half-gnoll, half-demon, its horns blackened, its eyes pits of molten iron.
When it roared, the dunes shivered.
The Prophet rode to the front, the wind tugging at his white cloak.
He did not shout. He simply spoke, and the air carried him farther than sound.
"Children of the Dunes—today we meet the hunger that mocked our silence.
The Light will speak through steel, and mercy will carry its flame."
He turned his gaze across the gathered commanders, each waiting in rigid stillness, their warbands behind them.
"D'Rhael, take the northern ridge. Hold the high ground and let fire fall with the wind."
"D'Seron, lead the southern riders. Circle wide and break their beasts before they can charge."
"Vulhairi—your vanguard will strike the valley floor.
There's a cut in the dune to your left.
Cross it when the sun blinds the basin.
The Light will hide your blades until it needs them."
"D'Moroath, guard the banners.
Should any falter, let their ash remind the others to stand."
Each command fell like a hammer upon stone.
No one questioned; no one dared.
The Prophet raised his hand, and the desert brightened.
A slow ripple of gold rolled outward, washing over armor and eyes until even the wind seemed to glitter.
The gnolls stirred restlessly, their corrupted runes flaring in answer.
"Do not pity them," he said, his voice now low, steady, immense.
"They sought Light without understanding its cost."
He dismounted and walked forward alone.
Each step burned faintly in the sand, leaving afterimages like fallen stars.
The gnoll ranks parted as he descended, and the demon-chieftain stepped forth to meet him, wielding a cleaver of dark glass and hate.
For a moment, the two figures simply regarded one another—the embodiment of Light and the beast that fed upon its shadow.
Then, without gesture or cry, the Prophet extended his hand.
Light erupted—white, soundless, endless.
The dunes turned to glass.
The gnolls screamed and clawed at their faces.
The Duel of Fire and Shadow
The desert vanished in brilliance.
Every grain of sand burned white; every shadow fled.
The air turned solid—a wall of radiance that seared without heat.
Vulhairi's vanguard charged blind through the glare, shields raised, blades flashing in fractured glimpses of gold.
He could hear nothing but the thunder of his own heart and the hollow, echoing screams of the gnolls ahead.
The Light had become both storm and silence.
When his vision cleared, the Prophet and the demon-chieftain were already locked in battle.
The gnoll towered above him, a beast of sinew and black flame, its horns etched with runes that dripped molten crimson.
It swung its cleaver in great arcs, the air hissing as if it cut through creation itself.
Each strike left trails of shadow that clung to the Prophet's radiance.
But the Prophet did not move with mortal rhythm.
He flowed.
Every motion was deliberate, serene—each step marking a new pattern of light upon the sand.
When he parried, the air screamed.
When he struck, the sound was the breaking of dawn.
Above the battlefield, wings filled the sky.
The harpies of the Prophet's host flew in vast spirals, each bound to a commander below—eyes of the heavens paired with blades of the earth.
Their cries cut through the din, weaving signal and order into music.
Where they turned, the formations shifted; where they dived, the dunes themselves seemed to move.
Elizna flew among them, but not with them.
Her arc was broader, her descent slower—less a hawk's strike, more a dancer's fall.
She called out not in command but in warning, her voice threading through the Prophet's radiance like a note of memory.
To the soldiers below, the harpies were angels.
To Vulhairi, they were mirrors—each one reflecting obedience, except hers.
Her wings caught the Light, but they refused to hold it.
For a heartbeat, she looked like rebellion written in gold.
The Prophet and the demon clashed again—shadow and brilliance colliding until the ground itself split.
Flashes of red and white tore through the valley, scattering gnolls and elves alike.
Vulhairi's vanguard struck from the left, cutting through blinded ranks.
Vulghere's voice rose beside him, hoarse and fierce:
"Move with the Light! Don't let it move through you!"
The demon roared, plunging its cleaver into the sand.
Dark fire burst outward, swallowing half the valley in smoke.
The Prophet vanished within it.
Then came a sound like glass shattering from within.
A pillar of radiance split the clouds.
When the haze cleared, the Prophet stood alone, the demon broken at his feet, its chest hollowed by light that would not fade.
He looked back toward the army—not in triumph, but in something colder.
"Behold what the darkness teaches those who listen too long."
The gnoll horde broke.
They fled screaming into the dunes as the elves advanced in perfect, silent order.
Vulhairi watched the Prophet's glow shrink to the outline of a man—and wondered if the Light itself had learned to hunger.
The afterglow
Silence returned slowly, like breath after drowning.
The storm of Light faded, leaving only the hiss of cooling sand.
The valley floor was no longer earth — it had become glass, stretched smooth and pale beneath the sun.
The dead lay where the brilliance had left them: gnolls turned to black ash, their weapons fused to their bones.
The air smelled of salt, blood, and something sharper — the scent of miracles gone stale.
The Prophet stood at the center, motionless, his cloak untouched.
Steam rose from his footprints.
Around him, the army waited — thousands of elves frozen in reverence or disbelief.
None dared speak first.
Elizna landed beside Vulhairi, her wings trembling with exhaustion.
For the first time since they had met, she seemed dimmed — feathers dull, her breathing shallow.
"The Light burns longer now," she said quietly.
"It does not rest between its lessons."
Vulghere approached through the haze, his armor scorched to dull bronze.
He glanced toward the Prophet, then down at the ground.
"Even the sand's afraid to move," he muttered.
He knelt, touched the glass, and hissed.
"Still warm."
Vulhairi crouched beside him.
Through the translucent surface, he could see faint shapes — shadows of bones caught mid-turn, preserved like fossils in the molten earth.
He felt the heat pulse faintly beneath his palm, echoing the brand there.
"The Light doesn't just destroy," he said. "It remembers."
Vulghere's eyes met his.
"Then it's learning the wrong lessons."
Above them, the surviving harpies circled slowly, their formations broken.
A few still carried the discipline of command, gliding in neat arcs over the fallen.
But others drifted without purpose, wings sagging, songs reduced to hoarse murmurs.
Elizna watched them in silence, her jaw tight.
"They're bound to what shines," she said. "But the sky doesn't know the difference between glory and grief."
The Prophet finally moved.
He raised his hand, and the light around him dimmed, pulling itself inward like a tide retreating.
His voice, when it came, was calm — too calm.
"The first flame is lit.
The darkness knows our name again."
He looked over the battlefield — not at the fallen, but at the still-standing.
"Carry this memory with you.
The Light does not retreat.
It consumes until nothing remains to doubt it."
Then he turned away, descending the blackened slope without waiting for response.
The soldiers began to follow, hesitant, the sound of their steps fragile against the glass.
Vulhairi watched him go, the Prophet's orange cloak trailing a faint mist that refused to dissipate.
Elizna stood beside him, feathers stirring in the heat.
"You see it too," she whispered.
He nodded once. "The Light is no longer teaching," he said. "It's testing."
They followed in silence, their reflections warping in the glass at their feet —
two shadows moving beneath a sun that no longer felt like home.
Ash in the Wind
Night settled slowly over the valley of glass.
The dunes no longer glowed; they shimmered faintly in the starlight, each curve reflecting the day's ruin.
The army camped at its edge, silent and disciplined, their fires burning small and low—as if unwilling to compete with the memory of the Prophet's brilliance.
The Prophet himself had withdrawn to a simple tent at the ridge's crest.
No guards stood watch. None dared approach.
Only the glow of his lantern burned within, its light soft and steady—like a heart still beating after the body had gone to rest.
Vulhairi stood near the perimeter with his warband.
They had washed the sand from their armor, but the shine would not return; even polished steel looked dull after what they'd seen.
Some men whispered prayers. Others stared at their hands, the skin still marked where the Light had brushed them.
Vulghere sat nearby, turning a cracked emblem over in his palm.
"That blast took half my riders," he said, his voice rough. "Didn't even touch a gnoll near them. Just—gone."
He exhaled, slow and heavy. "Still, I suppose that's what loyalty costs."
Vulhairi nodded. "We were asked to give," he said. "And the Light took what it needed."
Elizna landed quietly behind them, folding her wings like cloaks.
Her feathers caught the starlight—dim gold, singed at the edges.
"The Light never takes," she said softly. "It only receives what is freely offered. That is its mercy, though few understand it."
Vulghere snorted but didn't argue. He looked to the Prophet's tent, its lantern flickering like a small sun behind the thin fabric.
"Still feels like too much for one victory."
Vulhairi's gaze followed his.
"The first flame always does," he said.
He remembered the Prophet's voice, calm amid the battle: The Light reclaims its shadow.
There had been no pride in those words, only inevitability.
Like fire explaining why it burns.
Across the camp, the other commanders gathered their harpies.
The great wings beat dust into the night sky, scattering embers over the tents.
Their calls were low, mournful, almost a hymn.
Elizna watched them, her expression unreadable.
"They sing for those who fell," she murmured. "In the old songs, the wind carries the names of the willing to the sun."
Vulghere frowned. "And if the sun doesn't answer?"
"Then the Light remembers anyway."
A gust swept through the camp, scattering the ash that still drifted from the valley.
It rose in silver spirals, glimmering briefly before vanishing into the stars.
Every soldier watched until the last mote was gone.
Vulhairi turned to his warband.
"Rest," he said. "Tomorrow we bury what we can, and march where the Prophet leads."
As they settled, Elizna spoke one last time.
"You fear the cost," she said. "But cost is how the Light stays pure."
Vulhairi looked out at the valley—at the glass that had once been sand.
"Then let it stay pure," he said quietly. "We'll carry the weight for it."
The wind stirred again, cool and patient, lifting the ash until it disappeared beyond the ridges—
a quiet procession of smoke, faith, and remembrance.