"We're back again," Enoch announced proudly as he shouldered the door open, the full bucket sloshing in his small hands.
Rya stumbled in behind him, but she was barely recognizable as the same girl who had left an hour earlier. Her face chalk-white, her lips bloodless, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, her legs shook so badly she had to grip the doorframe to stay upright. She looked like death had already started carrying her away and only forgotten to finish the job.
"Hold on, I'm coming," Aeloria said at once, abandoning the rabbit soup. She crossed the room and took the heavy bucket from Rya's trembling fingers as though it were empty, and poured the water into the clay cistern with a single tilt. Rya sank into the nearest chair like a puppet with its strings cut, her chest heaving, unable to even speak.
Enoch set his own bucket down carefully and looked up at his mother with hopeful eyes.
Aeloria wiped her hands on the apron and gave him a soft smile. "Enoch, this is enough. It should last us two full days if we're careful."
The boy's face fell; he had been ready to march straight back to the river. But even he could see that one more trip would finish Rya for good.
Rya had never heard sweeter words in her life. She let her forehead drop to the table with a dull thud, her arms were limp at her sides.
"The soup is almost ready," Aeloria said, returning to the hearth. "Wait just a little longer and I'll have everything finished."
Rya managed a tiny nod without lifting her head.
Enoch dragged a chair beside her and climbed up, swinging his legs. He immediately launched into an excited monologue about how he was going to grow big and strong, strong enough to carry two full buckets at once so neither his mother nor his new big sister would ever have to walk to the river again. Rya smiled weakly every few sentences, but Aeloria, peeling potatoes at the counter, saw the shadow that lingered behind the girl's eyes.
It was the same shadow that had lived in Aeloria's own heart whenever she thought about the man in black.
That day, three years ago, Aeloria the Cannibal had stood in full black-and-crimson plate at the southern border, four hundred and fifty soldiers arrayed behind her in perfect ranks along the banks of the Lonorith river. The banners snapped in the wind, the silver wolf of Runevale snarling against blood-red cloth.
According to Ramius's perfect plan, Namesh had only two realistic choices: strike the obviously weak southern river defences where Aeloria waited, or swing north to Jorm where Commander Orin and his larger force were dug in. Hundred elite scouts from the hundred-man intelligence division were split evenly between the two armies. The moment the enemy's direction was confirmed, the scouts would ride like lightning to summon the second force. A pincer that could not fail.
Everything had been quiet. Too quiet.
Aeloria had spent the first day pacing the riverbank, bored, occasionally giggling to herself every time she remembered the words potato-headed brute commander.
"Head Captain, look," Yoru said suddenly, shielding her eyes against the low sun.
Two figures were walking toward them from the west—slow, unhurried, one cloaked in black from head to toe and the other in red.
There was only one safe road through the western border into Runevale lands. Any traveller with half a brain took it. The only alternative was a suicidal detour through the bandit-infested Ironfang Mountains that eventually spilled into Jorm and half a dozen other kingdoms. Either route, sooner or later, brought you past Runevale's banners.
Everyone in the known world had heard about the war brewing between Runevale and Namesh. Everyone.
Yet these two walked straight down the main road as if the hundreds of crimson wolf banners meant nothing at all.
"They must be stupid," one of the younger soldiers muttered behind Aeloria. "Can't they see the banners raised high? To think there are still fools willing to challenge Lady Nyxelene."
Another laughed nervously. "Maybe they're blind."
Aeloria's stomach twisted.
'I have a bad feeling about this.'
"Head Captain," Yoru said, stepping forward eagerly, her hand were already on her sword hilt, "please let me go and deal with them."
Aeloria hesitated only a heartbeat. Yoru was a captain now—capable, loyal, and hungry to prove herself. There were only two travellers. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
"You have my permission."
Yoru saluted sharply and strode out to meet them, her voice ringing with authority as she called for the strangers to halt and state their business.
No sound carried back on the wind.
The two men in black kept walking.
Yoru's voice cut off mid-sentence.
A moment later she was simply… gone.
Vanished.
The soldiers behind Aeloria shifted uneasily.
Then the man on the left raised his arm.
He was holding something round, about the size of a melon, dripping red.
Aeloria's blood turned to ice.
Even from this distance she could see the short black hair plastered to the pale skin, the familiar captain's braid now matted with blood.
Yoru's severed head swung gently from the stranger's hand like a lantern.
And the two men in black kept walking, slow and steady, straight toward the four hundred and fifty soldiers.
"What happened? Where did Captain Yoru go?" one soldier stammered.
No one answered. Four hundred and fifty pairs of eyes stayed locked on the two approaching figures, waiting.
When the strangers finally stepped close enough for faces to be seen, the wind itself seemed to die.
Two men.
One cloaked entirely in black, his hood drawn low, and his face was as pale as moonlight.
The other in deep crimson, armour gleaming like fresh-spilled blood.
The man in black moved first as he flicked his wrist.
The round object he had been carrying sailed through the air and rolled across the dirt with a wet, heavy sound until it bumped to a stop against Aeloria's boots.
It was no ball.
Yoru's head stared up at her, her eyes still wide in frozen surprise, her mouth parted as if she had been about to give one final order. Blood pooled beneath the severed neck and soaked into the leather of Aeloria's greaves.
A low, animal sound escaped Aeloria's throat.
Yoru had been the very first soldier in the entire army to walk up to the cannibal, the first to bring warm food to the little house on the edge of Ohlm, the first to laugh with her instead of at her. They had sparred together almost every dawn, trading bruises and grins.
"You bastard! What did you do to Captain Yoru?!" a young soldier roared, grief and fury overriding sense. He charged, his sword raised high in both hands.
The man in red moved, one lazy step, blade flashing once.
The soldier's head left his shoulders in a perfect, clean arc. The body took two more stumbling steps before it understood it was dead and collapsed.
The crimson warrior caught the head by the hair and tossed it underhand. It rolled across the ground and came to rest beside Yoru's, his eyes still blinking in disbelief.
Aeloria's vision went red.
"How dare you!" another soldier screamed, sword half-drawn.
"Take," Aeloria's voice cut through the air like a whip, low and trembling with something far more dangerous than rage. She bent, cradled Yoru's head against her breastplate for one heartbeat, then stood and pressed it gently into the arms of the nearest soldier.
"Take five others. Ride for Runevale. Give her a proper burial. That is an order."
"Yes, Head Captain," the man whispered.
Six horses thundered away in a spray of dirt.
Aeloria stepped forward until only twenty paces separated her from the two strangers. She stared straight into the black-clad man's strange eyes and spoke, each word carved from ice and fire.
"Tell me, dear sir… are you tired of living? I don't care if you're trying to start a war with Runevale. But provoking Queen Nyxelene and provoking me are two very different things, and you are about to learn the difference with your life."
"How dare you raise your voice in His Majesty's presence!" the man in red snarled, his hand already on his sword.
The man in black lifted one hand. The red warrior froze instantly.
'A king with only one escort?' Aeloria thought. 'Who in all the hells is he?'
The man in black studied her the way a scholar studies an interesting insect.
"Unbelievably smooth skin. Long black hair threaded with faint traces of brown. Those unnatural purple eyes with pupil like a viper. And not a single visible weapon. You must be the Head Captain of Runevale," he said, his voice almost admiring, his gaze drifting to the wind-tossed treetops as though the army in front of him were beneath notice. "Aeloria the Cannibal."
'He knows my name and still dares this?'
"I am truly sorry if these people were precious to you," he continued, adopting a conversational tone. "They left me no choice. They attacked first. I can, of course, compensate you for the inconvenience of their deaths."
"The price," Aeloria answered, her voice shaking with barely-leashed violence, "is your head at my feet beside theirs. You claim they attacked first? I know Yoru. She was reasonable, polite, disciplined. She would never draw on an unarmed traveller. You murdered her because you felt like it."
"Watch your tongue, cannibal," the red warrior hissed.
"Is that the name of the female soldier?" the man in black asked, tilting his head with mild curiosity. "She must have been very precious to you. All she did was tell me, quite politely, that the road was closed and I should turn back. I'm afraid I disliked the look in her eyes when she said it. She insisted on standing in my way."
"So you killed her because you didn't like the look in her eyes?" Aeloria's voice cracked like breaking ice. "Because she did her duty and asked you to turn back? It doesn't matter anymore. You both die here today."
She dropped into a crouch, knees bent, fingers flexing, teeth already lengthening behind her lips, ready to tear the world apart.
The man in black turned his back to her completely, hands clasped behind him, and gazed out over the endless horizon beyound the river as though she were no more threatening than a summer breeze.
He spoke without looking back, his voice soft and utterly certain.
"Think carefully about your actions, little cannibal."
Only then did he glance over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming with amusement.
"Because a man capable of standing in my way… has not yet been born."