The air was thick with the stench of life. It poured through their flesh husks, thicker than blood. Swirled like eddies in the empty space between them. Rich and hearty. They did not see it. They did not understand. It was fuel for the Dead.

Protis stayed the urge to slaughter them all and drink from their opened veins. To devour their insides with insatiable relish. There would be time for feasting later. Think of the purpose. Secure the voivode.

The Soulborne watched from its spot in the shadowed rafters of the hall. It hid in the distant corner, far from view, visible only to someone far above the din of humanity below. Smoke and dancing darkness obscured its pale, hulking form, veins spiderwebbing under its skin like cracks in glass.

Waiting.

Waiting.

The prey laughed below. He was unaware. It was nighttime, and the dying of the fire spelled out his doom. His city would fall. Daecinus's plan would manifest. And Protis could finally drink of the life of man once more.

Is this what I want? it thought in strange, sudden clarity.

Human lives… Innocent human lives… They were to be protected, were they not?

Memories of a distant past, confusing and twisting, occasionally pierced its mind. It was not just painful but disconcerting. It pulled apart what remained.

Eventually, the distracting sensations drifted away. The Soulborne watched patiently as the crowds below thinned. Guests returned home. Warriors drank alcohol and became comfortable and distracted. Some left. Others slept. A large celebration for the future that would not be. Only the robe-wearers did not become lost in the revelry. Protis watched them carefully. One of their Souls was hot and turbulent under its flesh. An aura around its form, like heat radiating off a fire, dimmed by some strange means. A Sorcerer revealed, finally. Hidden amongst the grasses of the city like serpents. Why the fear? Why the caution? A matter to report to Daecinus, later.

Protis had on the resewn scraps of the Sorcerous gambeson over its armor, but it would not be a perfect defense. Not against a potent, Sorcerous assault. So, it planned its moves carefully. And waited.

The fires grew lower and were fed more logs. Great blazes spat smoke that thickened the room, obscuring distant vision. Good. Let them be blind to death.

Protis did not move, did not shift. Its armor was covered in dark charcoal and dyed cloth to cover the spots where the charcoal didn't work. A phantom in the shadow.

The Sorcerer stood. The voivode was walking around, laughing, clapping shoulders and smacking backs. The doors to the hall opened as a warrior left, staggering and chuckling to himself. The Sorcerer stopped to get a cup of wine just below. The central hearth flared as a log cracked.

Protis dropped.

The Sorcerer crumpled underfoot. Bone snapped as all he eked out was a strangled, forced exhale. No Spells slung. Protis smashed a hand down, crushing the priest's head, just to be thorough, and rushed forward. Everyone turned. Stared. A silence that stretched for an entire second. Then someone screamed. Others hollered. Most ran. Some grabbed for weapons and tottered to their feet defensively. All too slow. Protis weakly smacked the voivode's head with the thick wooden handle of the axe. The prey fell limp. Protis snatched him up and held him under an arm. A guard got in his way. His head burst into pulp and shards of bone. Axe sprayed blood over a terrified crowd. Protis barged through them, making toward the doors. A priest stepped out from a hidden panel, a Sorcerous presence suddenly flaring to life. They formed a Spell in hand. Protis kept going, lowering its shoulder to charge the half-opened doors. Something icy and sharp touched Protis's shoulder blade, then rolled down its back like frigid raid. The weave of Sorcery in the gambeson took most of it, but the impact was enough to nearly topple the Soulborne as its muscles went stiff and limbs weakened with the stagnation of barely-controlled Sorcery.

Ravens of death circled. They plucked at Protis's flesh. The caw of nonexistence echoed.

But this Soulborne would not die today. Protis reached forth and plucked a raven from the sky and crushed it, shrugging off the Sorcery. The priest gasped and staggered back. Protis snatched a fleeing cowardous thing by the leg and threw it. The body twisted, screaming, and crashed into the priest; they both went down hard. Protis knew they would not move for some time, so it faced the doors once more.

No one else got in the way.

The night sky was open and moon bright. Screams filtered into the night. Something clattered off Protis's iron shoulder plate. A thrown spear. Insufficient.

Bounding forward. The rush of wind. Freedom from the cramped, dark, hot interior. Feet smacking across the muddy courtyard. The interior wall's gate was open, and guards were turning to stare, alerted to the noise. They went to shut the gate. Protis reached them first.

The city was afraid. It bled terror at every turn. Protis bounded over rooftops and through alleys. The voivode struggled in its grip, wriggling and writhing. In the jaws of the predator, knowledge of its impending doom certain. Too weak to escape or harm. No weapons.

Through the night. Through the dark.

Minutes passed. The voivode stopped struggling.

The exterior wall came into sight.

"Protis!" a man's voice shouted.

Wendof. A mercenary. Trusted by Daecinus. He emerged from the darkness of a hovel. Others behind him. More scattered in nearby hiding places, weapons ready. Not enemies. Trusted.

"Fuck, you really have him? Alright!" Wendof drew a sword and faced the gate, then yelled out to the guards, turning to stare from a human's spear throw away, "We've got your voivode here! If you want him to live, better vacate the premises now. No weapons in hand!"

"If I see one spear, one axe, even a damn knife, we'll cut his throat," Aelle said.

Hesitation. Protis dropped the voivode at the feet of the one named Bowyer, who took the prey and held him up for the enemy to see. Bowyer was trusted more than most.

Protis scanned the field. No one behind. Slow human legs. The creature listened, but there were no hooves in the distance. Horses made them fast, harder to fight. Had to be cautious when they charged. Protis looked back. The guards below were surrendering. But not those above. Nine that were visible.

"Of course they got to make it hard," Wendof muttered. "Alright. We do this by force."

The bloody-faced Red Locc bellowed and hurled a spear up high. It narrowly missed a guard but forced them to drop down. Bows trained on the mercenaries temporarily askew. Protis moved forward. Climbed to a nearby roof, then used it to leap to a landing on an interior-facing staircase. The wall was stone and crumbling. Protis jumped and grabbed a handhold in the cracked gap, launching itself further. A spearblow glanced off its helm. An arrow thunked into the flesh of its arm, then fell out, a superficial puncture. Protis snatched the leg of the spearholder and threw him from the wall. He fell below with a scream, then a thud. Two archers stared and knocked arrows. One lost his arm, the other a smashed in ribcage. Both tossed from the walls.

Men shouted and fought below. Protis surveyed the carnage, feeling heightened in the death and release of Souls. The mercenaries killed the surrendering guards as they sought to join back in the fight. The door to the gate's main tower was shut, internally barricaded. Red Locc had an axe out and was chopping at the wood with a fury. Others secured a perimeter. More at the stairwell, fighting guards there.

Protis went inside the tower from above. Levels of wooden floors connected by ladders. Protis moved down, killing any in the way. There were five guards at the bottom, two holding the door, three bearing arms, looking up at Protis with terror. The mercenaries got inside once the two abandoned their defense to fight the Soulborne. All died quickly. Red Locc grinned at Protis, showing teeth stained red.

Protis mimicked the gesture. Its own maw was bloody from man flesh. Red Locc laughed.

Aelle worked a pulley to raise the iron portcullis that blocked the entrance. Others opened the wooden gate itself. Protis bound up to the top of the wall. Watched for the enemy. A fire was lit. Distant movement in the night beyond the city.

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Inside the city, the foe neared. First came the warriors on horses, most unarmored, all bearing arms. The mercenaries shot at them from the walls, keeping them back. Soon, there were many, and they ignored the arrow fire, pressing forward. The mercenaries went below and formed a wall defending the gatehouse, shields locking, blades, spears, and axes bristling. They faced many. The horses danced back, mounted warriors wary to engage. Bowyer warned them he would kill the voivode. It was sufficient until the enemy had accumulated greater numbers. Forty-three humans in various states of readiness, all slowly surrounding the smaller force, keeping a distance of a few paces. Slowly, they crept forward. Like wolves.

Protis watched and waited. The foreign voices returned, whispering things Protis should recall but could not. Speaking of others' lives. Speaking of humanity.

One warrior was giving commands, trying to negotiate with Bowyer, who was arguing. Some of the things he said made little sense. Protis listened and understood. Delaying for Targul arrival. In the dark outside the city, dust trails from horses, the clatter of hooves, hoots of excited men. They were coming. Another minute.

The enemy crept in. A pace away. The leader on his horse reigned back and prepared to charge, readying a lance.

Protis descended. Humanity could wait until after the slaying.

…

Emalia had never witnessed a battle at sea before. But much like violence on land, it was dreadful, horrific, and chaotic. After they boarded the Pethyan ship, the fleet moved upon the scattered and uncertain Novakrayuans. With the commanding ship destroyed, they didn't know how to react. Accordingly, it was a slaughter. Pethyan rams smashed hulls, sinking exposed and vulnerable vessels like deer caught out by wolves in an open plain. A few ships tried to form together and break away, but they were caught by the agility of the strange galley-like Pethyan ships and promptly boarded. She watched from the edge of the deck as the defending sailors tried to rebuff such assaults. They never succeeded. Sorcery broke them before the Pethyans even clashed arms. It seemed each ship had a Sorcerer aboard hurling magic like firebombs into masses of frightened, desperate opposition.

After a little while, Emalia had to stop watching. The battle lasted through most of the night. Navigation and fighting only made possible by the pale moon in the sky and Spells of greenish hue that lingered just below the clouds. Like Daecinus's signal, but smaller, nondescript, and somehow bright like fires. He explained it was a variant of Soulfire, but Emalia couldn't summon up the interest in such things. She felt wrought out. Emotionally and physically, even if she did no fighting. It was the cost of being part of this, she figured. In the end, she was a scholar, perhaps even an explorer, but hardly a warrior. Watching all who followed their party here in hopes of a prosperous future get slaughtered left her quiet and self-isolating. Yet, Sovina stood beside her, a steady, comforting presence.

"It's almost done," Sovina murmured after some time.

Emalia glanced up and found that she was right. There was but one more Novakrayuan ship about to be boarded. All others were sunk or seized. It had to be closer to dawn than dusk. She stood and rubbed her eyes; it had been a long day, but she'd be a poor priestess of knowledge and truth if she confined herself to pity and sorrow. So Emalia went over to Daecinus and Demetria, seated upon chairs at the ship's helm, watching the battle, conversing with the Sorcerers from before. She understood a little, for Demetria had taught her some Pethyan, but not enough to communicate properly.

During a pause in their conversation, Daecinus turned to her and smiled. "Maecia has been alive for over a hundred years. She escaped in the late seventh century from Elansk. After some time, she found our people in Merkenia and brought them east across the sea into a new land."

Her melancholy fled with the onslaught of new information and excitement for Daecinus. "Such good news! Rotaal above, a hundred years! How old is she? How did she find them? And why east?"

He gave a good-natured laugh. "So many questions. Good ones as well. Due to the uncertainty in her escape, it is unclear, but I would project just over two hundred years. My sister has become an old woman." His smile faded somewhat, and he looked over the crew with a clenched jaw and something flinty in his eye. "The Pethyans that fled extermination found Merkenia hostile to their resettlement. Wars with natives, Vasians in their expansion, and untamed Dead thinned their numbers. We had millions once, then reduced to a few ten thousand… They lived in a city known as Arkia, now a Ruin. Maecia found them just before a combined Merkenian force attacked. What ensued is lost to memory. The isle was an escape from Merkenian hostility and Vasian expansion. It's been many decades since they settled the Pethan Isle."

"Incredible," she said in amazement. "I'm glad your people are well, Daecinus."

"As am I. Yet Maecia has been gone for years. No one knows where she is."

"Maybe we can find out more once we go there? I'm sure there are clues to be found." She thought for a second, then asked, "Do they still speak the same language? Or has it changed much?"

"It is Pethyan at its core. I suppose separation from other groups has kept it consistent. You should learn the tongue."

Emalia nodded, a sort of anxious wave passing over her at the thought of being in a strange new land, unable to communicate with anyone there. A terrible isolation indeed. But this sparked another question. "I thought you were a special class in Pethya. Why does everyone here have similar features, if not so… hm, stark?"

"Ah, yes. I asked this myself. Apparently, after many centuries of flight and exile, my caste broke down, and all merged as one people. The distinct Sorcerous advantages of Demetria and my biology are mostly gone."

"At least it's all fair now," Sovina suggested.

He scoffed, though Emalia knew it was not directed at her personally. "There will be no more powerful Sorcerers of my time again. The lead Sorcerers here are only somewhat stronger than any others. Ah, never mind that, they are alive and well. That is what matters." He glanced over to Demetria and said, "Well, there may still be an opportunity for a Sorcerous rebirth."

Her brow raised, and a smirk touched her lips. "That is very crass of you, my Love."

"Perhaps." He laughed. "And yet, the time may finally be right. Or soon, at least."

Emalia wanted to change the subject, even if she were somewhat curious about how their biologies differed from the average human's reproduction timelines. "Will we be going back to Novakrayu?"

Daecinus looked pained for a moment. He wanted to go to the Pethan Isles, as he called it, but also see to Protis and his men, she imagined. Demetria leaned in and said, "We ought to. The sooner we can make contact with the Targul, the better."

"That makes sense." Emalia noticed then that Daecinus didn't look as exhausted as before; she asked him why.

He nodded to the concluding battle. "Death means expended Souls. They typically are split, returning to the High and Low, but in their presence, I passively siphon some of their raw energy. It is renewing, in a way, as long as there is not too much Sorcery burning through the latent environmental stores."

"Shouldn't they be? We are on the ocean."

"One would think." He thought for a moment, then asked something in Pethyan to the two Sorcerers standing nearby like attentive servants. One was the man from before, with grey-white hair and a face aged with weather and experience, bearing a strange beard that only touched his chin. The other was a woman with long black hair streaked with grey plaited down her mid-back. Both their eyes were a shade of brown, colder, and with a touch of red.

The man, now recovered from his earlier euphoria, clearly the senior of the two, responded quickly, hands clasped before his expensive silk robe. After an exchange that drew on for longer than she expected, Daecinus turned back and explained in Vasian, "They keep war slaves for fuel."

Emalia gasped. Slaves were not uncommon in most parts of the world, but using them for Sorcery was an archaic, brutal practice. It fell away with the decline of systemized Sorcery over a century ago. "For fuel! That's horrible. Is this truly necessary?"

Daecinus did not seem so moved. "It offers a distinct advantage."

"But it's crueler than even galley slaves!" Some barbarous peoples used slaves to row ships for raiding and battle, which meant constant exposure to the harshest and most dangerous of conditions.

"Perhaps not. It is prudent to keep Soul slaves in good condition to maintain a healthy reserve should the need arise—"

He stopped when Demetria put a hand on his arm. She spoke to Emalia in an even, understanding tone, "They only use captured warriors and the like for such positions. Others might be brought back to the mainland for traditional work. Besides, they are bound by an oath to power—such a thing is hard to shake when all appear hostile."

She wanted to keep arguing, maybe try to convince them they should change the Pethyans' minds, but something Demetria said stopped her. "Wait, what do you mean oath to power?"

"It isn't exactly clear, but evidently, Daecinus is said to have had four oaths that bind him. It's a religion of a sort. It guides their principles as axioms. Quite interesting, thought a tad personal."

"Yes," he mused, "being known for my hubris is a curious legacy."

"Rotaal protect me," Emalia whispered. "When was this system of belief curated?"

Demetria asked the Sorcerers, then said, "When Maecia brought them to the isle. So early seven hundred, one would estimate."

"That coincides… They claimed an older legacy, but the religion is new to Vasia, originating from the east. It has to be—"

"What are you saying?" Sovina asked.

"Deus… Daes… Daecinus!" She rubbed her head. "They have the same oaths here. Oaths lost in the transmission of the faith to the West. It all spawns from you, Daecinus. From Maecia. All of it!" How could a religion so prominent just be summoned out of nothing? Out of old legend? Was there truth to any of it? So many believers just caught up in a myth that kept on shifting with passing time and distance? If such a thing could happen to Ekhenism, then what did that mean for other faiths? For the Column? For her own gods? A dangerous line of thinking. "I can't believe it, yet it must be so."

Daecinus looked stunned, Demetria taken aback and already curious, and Sovina skeptical. Her partner said, "I don't know. It might just be a coincidence."

"No," Demetria said, "it is not. Maecia would take advantage of Daecinus's legacy. It would be useful to bind a people to her vision. And the similarities are undeniable. Religion, like any cultural artifact, can be transmitted to other peoples. Yes, this makes sense." She turned to Daecinus and stroked his cheek, bringing him out of his daze. "How does it feel to have inspired a religion, my love?"

"Like the pressure only mounts." He sighed, then chuckled. "I'll have to be careful not to let Stanilo know. He would be very disappointed to find out the origin of his faith is me." The smile faded. "If he's alive, of course."

Emalia didn't know what to say, so she stood in silence and waited for the battle to be over. To return to Novakrayu and witness what her betrayal did to these people. Then, finally, the Pethyan Isle.

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