Paragon of Destruction

Chapter 403 Into The Desolation

Though Kaleesh’s mansion was little more than a shack compared to Nisra’s estate, it still held a good two dozen different rooms, and it didn’t take Arran long to find a suitably comfortable chamber. He sat down in a large wooden chair with velvet padding, then took a moment to gather his thoughts.

He had no illusions that he would be able to fully unravel the seal before sunrise. It was far too complex for that, a hideously complicated puzzle, forged by someone whose skill and cunning far exceeded his own, and whose intentions were anything but benign.

Even thinking about how the seal might be broken was too great a step, Arran knew.

He was all but certain that carelessly damaging the seal would trigger some sort of backlash — a trap laid to ensnare and kill anyone who attempted to undo the seal. If the seal had been created to keep the Imperium’s knowledge hidden and protected, after all, its creator would surely have considered the possibility of someone trying to break it.

But even if that wasn’t the case, breaking the seal now would only place him in danger. Others would inevitably discover that they could no longer discuss the Imperium’s secrets with him, and once word of that got out, he’d doubtless be hunted down by the church.

Thus, although he had some ideas on possible ways to attack the seal — his insight into severing and his Destruction Realm, to name but two — he quickly decided that his first step must be to study it as thoroughly as he could.

Only when he fully comprehended the seal could he start to think of the step beyond that.

He began the examination by observing the strands of Essence that formed the seal within his body. That would have to come first — to understand the power used to build the seal. He already knew that the thin threads were made out of Shadow Essence fused with another kind, and the question now was what that other kind might be.

An hour of observation and pondering yielded few useful answers. He saw that the Essence bore resemblances to other kinds he knew — Fire, Wind, and Earth, though not Force or Destruction — but he did not know of any single type of Essence that married them all together.

That the seal’s Essence carried characteristics of all was undeniable, however. He clearly recognized the ferocity of Fire, the toughness of Earth, and the lightness of Air, along with several other qualities he could not place.

Finally, he had no choice but to conclude the obvious: that the thin strands within his body fused more than just two kinds of Essence together.

The discovery brought Arran no joy. Though it was a step forward in understanding the seal, it also meant that any attempt he made to remove the seal would involve manipulating Essence he did not fully understand.

And that, he knew, would make his task a great deal harder.

There was little point in lingering on the disappointment, however, and he turned his attention to the strands of Essence within his body that made up the second seal — the one created when he joined the Shadowflame society.

A quarter-hour was enough to confirm much of what he already expected. Both seals consisted of the same sort of fused Essence, the difference small enough that they were almost identical.

Yet he was surprised to find that as similar as the Essence in both seals was, there were still small differences to be found. If the Darian seal appeared to contain just a sliver more Fire Essence, then the Shadowflame seal was heavier on Wind and Earth.

This time, he did feel some excitement at what he had learned.

If the two seal discs had been created by the same person, the mix of Essence fused within both would have been so similar as to be indistinguishable. But with the difference Arran now saw, he knew that the two discs had been wrought by different hands.

Only a Sense as strong as Arran’s, sharpened by countless years spent in a Shadow realm, could have found so subtle a distinction. But found it he had, and he knew the discovery was a major one.

He had no doubt that the two seals had been designed by the same person, and that person could only be an unparalleled master. But if the oath discs had been made by others — mages who were merely copying the original design — then there was a far better chance of the seals containing subtle flaws.

And that would give him a much better chance of breaking them.

The more he considered it, the more it made sense. Just like a master swordsmith would not equip an entire army by himself, a single seal master would not waste his time creating the hundreds — if not thousands — of oath discs the Imperium alone must hold.

In both cases, the work would be done by others — apprentices, most likely. And while Arran had no confidence in besting the seals’ original designer, apprentices were a different matter.

He celebrated the discovery with a quick meal of dried meat and fruits, then stepped outside the mansion to take a brief glance at the goings-on on the practice fields.

As expected, he found the army in a state of near-chaos. More carts had appeared, with hundreds of merchants, porters, and soldiers moving like ants between them, loading and unloading supplies in a bustle of activity that showed little sign of purpose or organization.

Yet at the center of the disorderly scene stood Kaleesh, and although Arran could make little sense of his shouts and gestures, the captain did not seem to be overwhelmed by the ceaseless turmoil around him.

If anything, it seemed as if Kaleesh was somehow enjoying the frenzy, his appearance like that of a skilled commander directing an army through a chaotic battle that he was confident in winning.

Arran watched the spectacle for some minutes, then headed back into the mansion. Though he had some doubts about whether or not Kaleesh would have them ready by morning, he was certain that whatever help he could offer would do little to change the outcome.

When he returned to his room and sat down in the padded chair once more, he took some moments to clear his mind, then immediately set to work once more.

After investigating the raw material from which the seals were made — at least half a dozen types of Essence fused together, as it turned out — he would now turn his attention to the seal itself.

He began the work by taking a birds-eye view, examining the overall structure of the seal while ignoring its many details. Even this, however, was enough to make him sigh in discouragement.

A simple seal comprised dozens of strands of Essence, while a particularly complex one might involve thousands. Yet this seal made even the most complicated ones Arran knew look like the work of rank beginners by comparison.

Countless thousands of Essence filaments stretched throughout his body, each of them thin enough that only meticulous inspection would reveal them. And the more Arran searched, the more he found — enough that he began to wonder whether there was even an inch of his body that remained unaffected.

Several hours passed quickly, and by the end of them, Arran found that his understanding of the seal had not increased the slightest bit. If anything, he now found himself thinking that a seal this complicated should be utterly impossible.

Just managing thousands of strands of Essence should stretch the limits of even the greatest master, and this seal held that number many times over. And not just that — if his earlier suspicion was correct, then it wasn’t even the seal master himself who had wrought the oath disc, but an apprentice or assistant.

Yet impossible though it seemed, there was no denying that the seal was both real and every bit as complex as it appeared.

Arran continued to ponder the matter for some time, but he found that his efforts were in vain. No matter how he looked at it, the seal could not have been created through any method he knew.

Daylight was already approaching when he finally decided to give up. Comprehending the seal wasn’t a task that could be achieved in a single night, and he could tell that any more time he spent investigating it now would do little to ease his confusion.

Instead, he decided to head outside and see whether Kaleesh’s efforts had been any more fruitful.

As he stood up from the comfortable chair, however, he felt a familiar weight at his side, and realized that he’d forgotten to hand Nisra’s coin purse over to the captain.

At this, a grin crossed his face. After the long night of work Kaleesh was about to finish, the coin purse should do much to raise his spirits.

More out of curiosity than anything, he took the coin purse and emptied it on the wooden desk before him. Yet when he saw the black coins that spilled out, his eyes widened with surprise.

That the coins were black was no cause for shock, of course, as Arran had long since learned that the Darians used a black material called shadowmetal for their currency. Common gold, meanwhile, was worth less in the Imperium than silver elsewhere.

But where the normal Darian coins were a shiny jet-black, the ones that lay before him now were darker still. They were so completely devoid of color that Arran might have thought they were forged from raw Shadow Essence had his Sense not told him there was nothing magical about them.

With a thought, he dug up a common shadowmetal coin from his pockets, then laid it down next to the ones Nisra had given him. Then, he placed the Warlock’s amulet beside the coins, and finally produced one of the black coins his void ring held — the ones of which he had taken thousands in the underground city.

With the coins and amulet laid out next to each other, the difference was impossible to dismiss.

While both the common Darian coin and the Warlock’s amulet were black, Nisra’s coins and the one from the underground city were a different shade of black altogether, their lack of color so complete it seemed like they had been wrought from condensed shadow.

Arran could not help but grimace as he considered the disaster he’d unwittingly escaped. Had he tried to pass off one of his coins as a common Darian one, there was no doubt any wily merchant or shopkeeper would have recognized the difference in an instant.

He gave a brief sigh, chastising himself for ignoring the coins in his void ring for so long. Though he had little use for wealth, that was a poor excuse for failing to recognize so obvious a truth.

But there was little point in lingering on the matter, and after a moment of frustration, he turned his attention back to the coins.

A cursory examination appeared to confirm what he already suspected — that the common Darian coins were made from the same material, except of a far lower purity.

Though he was no blacksmith, he guessed that if his own coins and Nisra’s were both made from pure shadowmetal, then the common Darian coins contained only a hundredth of the material, with the bulk consisting of common iron. But even that was already enough to turn them black as night.

Other than its utter darkness, however, the shadowmetal appeared unremarkable. Some small tests on his own coin showed that it was both softer and heavier than gold, making it completely useless for anything but coins and jewelry.

After a quick glance at the Warlock’s amulet, he decided to try another test, and he poured a sliver of Shadow Essence into the coin from the underground city.

This time, the result brought an intrigued expression to his face. Though the shadowmetal did not resist Essence, exactly — not the way that starmetal did — it was as if it settled the foreign energy, with the metal barely being affected by the magic.

With the memory of the oath disc still fresh in his mind, it didn’t take him long to think of a possible use for such a quality. Perhaps the shadowmetal was useless for weapons and armor, but that didn’t mean it was useless altogether.

He drew a trickle of Shadow Essence, then quickly placed a small seal on the coin. It was a simple practice seal, but even so, he found himself surprised by how well the coin held it.

Yet before he could do any other tests, he saw that the first rays of daylight were beginning to peek through the window. He had thought there were still hours left before morning, but it seemed time had passed faster than he realized.

With a sigh, he put Nisra’s coins back into the coin purse and returned the one from the underground city to his void ring. Though there was still much he wanted to investigate, that would have to wait.

First, he would travel to Sacrifice.

He headed toward the mansion’s exit without any further delay, curious to see whether Kaleesh had succeeded in his seemingly impossible task. As much confidence as he had in Kaleesh’s abilities, he suspected that to ready an army of three thousand for travel on such short notice was beyond even the captain’s skills.

But then, he would welcome a few hours’ delay, if only because it would give him the chance to take a closer look at the shadowmetal coins.

When he opened the door and stepped outside, however, his mouth nearly fell open at the sight.

There was no sign of the chaos and disorder that had filled the practice fields only hours early. Instead, well over three thousand soldiers stood in neat ranks, their numbers divided into groups of a hundred men or so, each of them led by a single Ranger.

When Arran first arrived in Knight’s Watch, the Wolfsblood Army had looked little different from a rowdy group of brigands and bandits. But now, he could see that it was an army in earnest — organized and disciplined, if perhaps a bit rough in appearance.

There were more soldiers than he had realized, too. While he had witnessed the troops on the practice fields, he’d never seen them all gathered together before, and he could not help but feel a tremble of awe at Kaleesh’s achievement.

In a short few months, the captain had turned a rough gathering of mercenaries, inexperienced Darians, and prisoners into an army no less than those commanded by the Darian lordlings. But unlike them, Kaleesh had done so without the wealth and powerful backers they relied on.

"Arran!" the captain’s voice sounded as he stepped onto the practice fields. "Get over here! We’re ready to leave!"

Some scattered cheers sounded as Arran made his way past the troops, which he answered with a half-hearted wave. Even now, the troops’ admiration made him uncomfortable. He’d entered the Imperium with hopes of drawing as little attention as he could, but instead, he now found three thousand sets of eyes staring at him, not a one among them who didn’t know who he was.

That the situation was one of his own choosing was of little comfort. While he knew that there was no way to learn the Darians’ secrets without drawing attention, that did not mean he had to like it.

As Arran reached the captain, he cast a meaningful look at the army. "I’m impressed."

"As you should be," Kaleesh replied. "Preparing a march with only half a day’s notice is a fool’s errand, but I succeeded all the same." He made no effort to conceal his pride in completing the task, grinning broadly as he looked at the army.

"Don’t encourage him," Sassun interjected. He cast a dour look at the captain, and added, "He’s been insufferable all morning."

Arran shrugged. To his mind, Kaleesh had some cause for being proud. "So what’s the plan?"

"The plan," Kaleesh replied, "is to reach Sacrifice as quickly as possible. I’ve prepared a dozen scouting parties, but the fewer Blightspawn we encounter on the way, the better."

"So you want me to take the lead?" Arran asked.

"That would be helpful." Kaleesh gave him a small nod, then continued in a softer voice, "The troops have improved, but not so much that I wish to test them already."

"Understood," Arran said. "I’ll make sure the journey is a smooth one."

It didn’t take much to understand the captain’s meaning. If Arran scouted ahead, he could ensure that the army would encounter not even a single Blightspawn during the march to Sacrifice. And the ambush they had faced on the road to Knight’s Watch was still fresh in their minds — fresh enough that Kaleesh would not dare take any risks.

Moreover, with most of their troops still inexperienced and untested, another ambush could well be even more devastating. As strong as Blightspawn were outside the Desolation, even a small group of them could easily wreak havoc among the soldiers’ ranks.

And if they lost a few hundred men to the Blightspawn before even reaching Sacrifice, it would be a devastating blow to the troops’ morale.

After discussing the route they would take with Kaleesh and Sassun, Arran departed at a jog, making his way to the gates of Knight’s Watch as the Wolfsblood Army slowly set in motion behind him.

He was disappointed to find that the Knight who had helped him wasn’t at the gates. Although the Knight had acted on the Governor’s orders, Arran still felt he owed the man a favor, as the help had saved him weeks if not months of effort.

Instead, Arran told the Knight who now stood watch to pass on his thanks, and then hurriedly made his way out of the city.

He felt a brief moment of relief as he left the city’s tall walls behind him. Though the road ahead was a perilous one, he couldn’t help but feel that the dangers of the wilderness suited him more than those of the city.

At least in the wilderness, it would be obvious who his enemies were.

The day that followed proved uneventful. For most of the way, Arran traveled a mile or two ahead of the slow-moving army, occasionally making his way back to ensure that his companions had met no delays, and constantly keeping an eye out for any sign of Blightspawn.

But no Blightspawn came, and as Arran traveled through the wilderness, he found that his thoughts kept returning to the shadowmetal coins.

His time in the Imperium had given him little opportunity to ponder the seals he’d studied in the Ninth Valley, but taking the oath had forcefully revived his interest in seals. And the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that the coins had an important part to play.

One of the biggest weaknesses of seals was the time it took to create them. Even the few seconds it took to set up a simple seal would be like an eternity in battle, and more complex seals took many times longer to create.

Moreover, seals had a tendency to degrade over time, as their Essence would slowly dissipate in the world around them. There were some exceptions to this — especially sophisticated seals like those crafted by Master Zhao and the oath seal — but all but a few seals would gradually lose strength, requiring regular maintenance to retain their power.

The simplest way to address this was to infuse a seal with a vast amount of Essence, giving it such reserves that even centuries of gradual decay would not be enough to deplete it.

But there was a limit to how much Essence a piece of stone or metal could hold.

While a seal placed upon a mountain or the earth itself could hold as much Essence as the seal’s creator could give it, with smaller objects the sheer power of the Essence would cause them to disintegrate. To put a particularly powerful seal on an object like a rock or a coin would be like trying to rest a man-sized boulder on a single twig.

But the oath disc had to contain more Essence than common materials could hold. Otherwise, it could not have had the destructive power that had come so close to killing him. And although the oath disc wasn’t made from shadowmetal, he now wondered whether shadowmetal might serve a similar purpose.

Yet although Arran was eager to study the matter further, he knew it would have to wait. Only after they reached Sacrifice would he have the chance to give the question the attention it needed.

When the day finally drew to an end and evening approached, Arran made his way back to the army, finding it camped out on a large meadow that must have served the same purpose for numerous armies over the years.

The camp held an atmosphere of cheer and excitement, with song and laughter sounding across the meadow as the soldiers ate their evening meals. The troops showed little sign of exhaustion from the day’s march, and from the look of it, many were eager for the journey that still lay ahead — though Arran wondered whether they’d still feel that way after a week of marching.

It didn’t take him long to find Kaleesh, who sat by himself at a fire near the edge of the camp. The captain gave him a wave as he approached, then immediately asked, "Any Blightspawn along the way?"

"None," Arran replied as he sat down. "Not even a footprint."

"Good." Kaleesh nodded thoughtfully. "Though I know it’s unlikely to find any this close to Knight’s Watch, what happened at the village still has me on edge."

Arran shook his head. "There’s no need to worry. Even if there are any Blightspawn along the way, I’ll make sure they die before they can even bare their weapons."

Unless, of course, there was a Warlock among them. But he did not point that out to Kaleesh — the man looked worried enough as it was. And no wonder, Arran realized, as Kaleesh likely felt that the lives of every single one of the soldiers rested on his shoulders.

Which, admittedly, was true.

"Where can I get some food in this camp of yours?" he asked, as much because he was hungry as to distract Kaleesh from his worries.

A frown crossed the captain’s face, but then, he stood up and said, "If you wait here, I’ll go get you some."

Kaleesh returned two minutes later, balancing two deep plates in his hands and wearing a frown even deeper than the one he’d had when he left.

"I didn’t have much time to find cooks," he said, shrugging apologetically as he handed Arran one of the plates.

"How bad can it—" Arran began, but he fell silent as he saw the grayish stew that filled his plate. Lumpy and dotted with indistinct chunks of what he could only guess was meat, its appearance was only matched by its smell. "Maybe it tastes better than it looks?"

Before he could test the theory, they were approached by a soldier who came hurrying toward them. Arran briefly felt some concern, but it passed when he saw that the man had a wide grin on his face.

"Master Arran!" the soldier called out, his scarred face covered in sweat. Despite his rough appearance, his eyes held a look of excitement. "Master Arran!" he repeated as he came to a halt. "Barric sent me to ask if you’d care to join us in training."

Before Arran could respond, Kaleesh’s voice thundered across the camp. "Off with you! Let the man eat in peace!"

The soldier cringed at the sudden outburst, quickly taking several steps back. Yet although he did not dare to speak again, he still cast a questioning look at Arran.

"I’ll drop by later," Arran said with. "After I finish my meal." As the soldier gave a thankful bow and hurried off again, Arran sighed deeply. "I wish they’d stop calling me that."

"Master Arran does not like the way the troops address him?" Kaleesh faced him with wide eyes, only a twinkle in the man’s eyes betraying the laughter he was holding back. "Perhaps Master Arran would prefer to be called Lord Arran, instead?"

Arran gave the captain a dark look. "It’s not too late for me to head back to Knight’s Watch and join one of the other armies." He swallowed a spoonful of stew, and grimaced in disgust — somehow, it tasted even worse than it looked. "If nothing else, I can’t imagine the food being any worse."

"Perhaps," Kaleesh replied. "But then you would miss out on the pleasure of my company." Eying his own barely touched plate of stew, he frowned. "Though I will have to hire different cooks once we reach Sacrifice."

"You’d better," Arran said. "More than a week of this, and you’ll have a rebellion on your hands."

As Arran forced himself to swallow down another mouthful of stew, Kaleesh cast a long look at the camp. "You can’t blame them," he finally said. "For calling you that, I mean. I may be the one who leads this army, but you’re the one who gives them hope of besting the dangers of the Desolation."

Arran did not reply. Uncomfortable though the troops’ continued attention made him, he knew the captain was right. As cheerful as the soldiers now seemed, there could be little doubt that they all dreaded the dangers that awaited them.

Yet with a Knight among their ranks — or someone whose power matched that of a Knight — their chances would be far better. Unless, of course, they found themselves faced with enemy Knights.

"You said Nisra overstated the dangers of the factions," he said, remembering the captain’s words from the previous day. "Care to explain?"

"So I did," Kaleesh replied. He paused for a few moments, then finally took a deep breath. "As she said, we have many enemies, both among Kadun’s allies and among those who detest outsiders. But the church does not allow open violence in Sacrifice, and outside Sacrifice, few would be foolish enough to attack us."

Arran rubbed his chin. "Why wouldn’t they attack us?"

"For fear of weakening themselves," Kaleesh explained. "The Darians travel into the Desolation to battle the Blight, and if they waste their troops, it will hamper them in their true purpose." He smiled darkly, and continued, "Of course, that’s only half the story. The other half is that if they weaken themselves fighting us, others might seize the opportunity to attack them."

Arran nodded in understanding. "So they can’t afford to waste their strength. But what about the Knights? Any group with a handful of Knights would make easy work of us."

"There are few Knights among the armies in the Desolation," Kaleesh said with a dismissive gesture. "Not many Lords have more than a dozen Knights in their command, and most have far fewer than that. Sending those off into the Desolation would leave them too weak at home."

Once more, Arran nodded. "Then it seems we have less need for Nisra than she claimed."

Kaleesh hesitated before shaking his head. "I wouldn’t go that far. If there’s any truth to the rumors about prices in Sacrifice, supplying the army will be a tall task."

"About that..." Arran took Nisra’s coin purse and tossed it to Kaleesh. "Nisra gave me that. She said it should be enough to see us through our first few weeks in Sacrifice."

As Kaleesh opened the coin purse, his eyes went wide in an instant and he whistled between his teeth. "This is a small fortune," he said, a hint of awe in his voice. "Pure shadowmetal coins... A single one of these is more than most people earn in a lifetime. I’ve only ever seen them twice before." Yet his excited expression faded a moment later, concern taking its place. "If this is only enough to last us a few weeks, we might need her help even more than I thought."

Arran cast a look around them, and when he was certain there were no soldiers nearby, he spoke in a soft voice, "I have many more of these, and not from Nisra."

The captain gave him a look that wavered between curiosity and disbelief. "How many?"

"Thousands," Arran replied, deciding that there was little point in hiding it. Kaleesh already knew enough of his secrets to get him killed a dozen times over, after all.

His words brought a look of shock to the captain’s face. "Thousands?!" he cried out. "How do you have—" He caught himself mid-sentence, and continued in an agitated whisper, "How do you have thousands of pure shadowmetal coins?!"

"The how of it doesn’t matter," Arran said. "But I have them if we need them."

For several moments, Kaleesh sat in silence. Finally, he laughed cheerlessly. "We can’t use them," he said. "Perhaps we can sneak in one or two with the others, but any more than that will raise questions that neither of us is willing to answer."

At this, Arran could only nod. It was the reason he hadn’t shared his wealth earlier, and although he’d thought that Kaleesh might know a way around the problem, it was clear that the captain had no answer either.

"As for Nisra," Kaleesh continued, "I suggest that we spend a few weeks in Sacrifice before we choose whether to accept her offer. There’s little point in making decisions before we know the situation."

"True enough," Arran replied, though he could not help but wonder whether the Darians would wait that long before acting. Even if the church forbade open violence in Sacrifice, something told him they would not be given the chance to decide their path at their own leisure. "How long will it take us to reach Sacrifice?"

"A little over a week, if all goes well," Kaleesh said. "But we should be able to see it several days before that." Seeing Arran’s confused expression, he explained, "Sacrifice sits atop a giant mountain. Supposedly, the god who fell against the Blight raised the mountain from the earth in a last attempt to stop his enemies."

Arran spent some moments considering this. Though the story sounded more like legend than truth, he found himself wondering what kind of power it would take to raise an entire mountain. If there was even a sliver of truth to the story, then the Darians’ gods might well have been worthy of the title.

His musings were interrupted when another soldier approached them. "Master Arran!" the woman called out. "Arjun wants to ask if you—"

Before she could finish the sentence, Arran cast a glance at his half-eaten plate of stew and quickly said, "I’ll join you right away."

He spent the rest of the evening sparring with the troops, his lingering worries soon forgotten as he engrossed himself in practice. Because even after setting a step into Enlightenment, he knew there was still much to learn — even from those less skilled than him.

The days that followed were much like the first.

Though Arran encountered several groups of Blightspawn, none were large enough to last more than a moment against his blade. Even the largest among them — a single Reaver accompanied by two dozen Blightspawn — fell within seconds, their bodies torn apart before they even had the chance to realize they were in battle.

The troops saw nothing of these enemies, however, and the army continued to advance at a slow but steady pace, drawing ever closer to the Desolation. Even the food improved somewhat after a group of soldiers decided to forcefully replace the cooks — a small act of mutiny that received Kaleesh’s silent blessing.

But smooth though the journey was, the soldiers’ excitement waned with every step they took. None would say it outright, but Arran could tell that all but the bravest and dumbest among them feared what lay ahead.

And as the troops’ fears grew, so did Kaleesh’s concerns. Though the captain spoke little of his worries, Arran knew what was weighing on his mind — the lives of the three thousand men and women who followed him.

Finally, Arran could allow it no more. After half a week of witnessing Kaleesh’s ever-worsening mood, he approached the captain one evening shortly after they’d set up camp for the night.

"You have to pull yourself together," he said bluntly. "Any more of this, and it’s going to be a problem."

Kaleesh gave him a morose glance. "You don’t understand," he began. "If I make even the slightest mistake, then—"

"Soldiers will die," Arran interrupted him. "As some of them will even if you make no mistakes whatsoever. But you know this already. You’ve led the Wolfsblood Company for years."

Kaleesh shook his head. "That was different. The mercenaries, they chose to follow me. But the prisoners had no choice in the matter."

Arran shrugged. "They had the choice to remain imprisoned. You’ve given them a chance to win their freedom, and I doubt there’s even one among them who regrets the decision they’ve made."

For some moments, Kaleesh remained silent. Finally, he gave a slow nod. "You’re right, of course. But even so, the weight of it isn’t so easy to escape."

"Easy or not," Arran replied, "the troops need you to look confident. The way you’ve been brooding by the fire each night, you’ll soon convince them that their graves are all but dug already."

At this, Kaleesh gave a wry smile. "I suppose I have been indulging in worry of late. Perhaps overly so."

"Perhaps?" Arran gave him a skeptical look.

Kaleesh groaned. "No need to belabor the point. I’ve already admitted that you’re right."

"Good," Arran said. "Now let’s have a drink."

In the days that followed, Kaleesh’s mood appeared to improve. And although Arran couldn’t be certain whether it was only an act, just to have the captain make his rounds among the troops each evening made a big difference to the soldiers’ morale.

Finally, after nearly a week, Arran caught his first glimpse of Sacrifice. And although it was still days of travel away, he could see that it was much like Kaleesh had said — a giant if squat mountain, standing solitary amid an otherwise flat landscape, with its peak hidden among the clouds.

But as Arran continued to look, he soon realized that the dimensions were off. The mountain was farther than he’d initially thought, and vastly larger as well.

His heart nearly skipped a beat when he finally got a sense of its true dimensions. It wasn’t mere miles across, as he’d believed at first, but easily dozens of miles, and likely even more than that. To call it a mountain almost seemed to understate its size — like calling a lizard a dragon, or a village a nation.

It was so impossibly large that even while looking it, he had trouble comprehending its gargantuan size.

But as Arran stared at the mountain, he could also Sense the Desolation itself. Or rather, he could Sense the unnatural stillness that stretched endlessly in the distance, like a vast void that held nothing but silence.

He shuddered at the uncomfortable feeling it gave him, but he knew that there was no avoiding it. The Desolation lay only a few more days of travel away, and it wouldn’t be long before he would finally cross its boundary.

The odd stillness grew stronger in the days that followed, and although Arran had initially not shared the soldiers’ unease, he now found himself growing restless at the prospect of being enveloped by the unnatural emptiness.

Yet as much as he had tried to prepare himself for what was to come, it still came as a shock when it finally happened.

He took a single step forward, no different from the thousands that had come before it, and suddenly he felt his body drained of strength and Essence alike. There was no barrier or warning of any sort — a single step, and his power was instantly reduced to a fraction of its usual level.

The sudden sensation caused him to stumble, and he briefly felt a sense of panic. Even knowing it would come, he had not been prepared for so sudden a change.

It took him several moments to quiet his racing heart, but then, he got back to his feet and took a deep breath.

He had finally entered the Desolation.