Victoria stepped aside and gestured to the gallows hanging behind her. Several of Evander’s crew were already swaying on their nooses. “Welcome to the sweet, old town of Red Pond. They’ve graciously let us use their gallows.”
Evander’s eyes widened at the sight. “What have you done…?”
“I have followed the law, something you clearly know nothing about. So I will educate you. The law of the Aurous Realm is clear. Thievery is a crime punishable by death,” Victoria said.
“We stole nothing,” Evander said.
“Because we stopped your little lockpick friend before he had the chance,” Victoria glanced at one of the bodies hanging from a noose.
“Cam…” Evander whispered.
Cam was a sune. One of the few who had joined their crew. He didn’t see them as ‘outsiders’ simply because they were humans. Cam treated them as one of his own. He had been a stout man, with no hair save for his well-oiled beard. His fingers were short and stubby, yet no one could pick a lock like Cam. Where once he had two large horns, thick as a woman’s wrist, they had both broken off. His face was swollen with various cuts bleeding across the skin. They had tortured him before they had hung him.
Victoria followed Evander’s gaze. “To think a sune would side against his own kind all for a bit of coin. He deserved the beating my men gave him.”
“You fucking monsters,” Evander hissed. He tried to break free from his restraints but the ropes held tight.
Victoria noticed him trying to stand and pressed her foot down on his shoulder, pushing him back down. “Eager are we? No, no, no. It isn’t your time just yet.”
“They’ve done nothing! If you want to punish somebody, punish me.”
“Oh, I am, Evander. I am. You will pay for embarrassing me in my own home.” She yanked his hair and forced him to look at the gallows. “First, I’ll make you watch every single one of your friends hang. Then, you can join them.”
“And you call yourself a Greymark?” Evander spat at her feet. “Since when did embarrassment become justification for murder? Or are the Greymarks not as pious as they love to make themselves seem?”
“Death is sacred in all its forms. And vengeance is one of the most holy of justifications. You did not simply embarrass me, human. You brought shame to my family. And that, I will not tolerate.”
“Why? Because I flirted with you for a bit?”
Victoria looked down at him with a cold glare. “You kissed me.”
He rolled his eyes. “On the cheek, for the gods’ sakes. That isn’t reason enough to murder someone.”
“A mere human impersonating a sune noble with fake horns and forcibly laying your lips on actual nobility are both crimes. It is my sacred duty as a Greymark to bring criminals like your little gang to justice. As you can see, your scoundrel friends have already been judged by the Owls and found guilty. Well, at least some of them have.”
Victoria gave a nod to one of her soldiers who walked past her and Evander. The latter strained to get a look at what was happening. A line of men and women was bound and kneeling with cloth sacks over their heads.
“Wake up.” The guard kicked a bound woman in the stomach.
She jerked from the strike and began coughing. The guard ripped off the cloth sack, revealing a young girl with soft brown eyes. Her face was marred by a purple bruise left by whatever had knocked her unconscious.
“Grace.” Evander bit his lip. “No. Please, she’s just a child.”
“Wrong, she is a criminal,” Victoria said.
Grace met Evander’s eyes and her confusion slowly turned to horrid realization. “Evander… Why…?” she whispered in a trembling voice. “You said the information was certain! That the plan was foolproof!”
“I–I thought it was! Ori assured me it was,” Evander said.
“Aw. Did Evander disappoint you too?” Victoria clicked her tongue. “I guess there really is no honor among thieves.” She turned to a group of her soldiers, “Get them ready.”
“Yes, my lady,” they said in unison before they began to drag each of Evander’s crew members.
“Let go of me! Evander!” Grace struggled against her restraints. The guard smacked her across the face with a hard crack. Her head snapped back from the blow and her body went slack.
“Grace! No! Wait! Stop! She’s only fourteen. Please,” Evander begged.
But the guards ignored him and dragged the prisoners up to the gallows, while another cut each of the hanged corpses down, leaving their bodies to rot on the sand below.
“Oh, look. There’s one spot left. Perfect. You’ll get a close-up view,” Victoria kicked Evander’s back. “Get up.”
“Please… don’t do this,” he whispered.
Victoria placed a finger to her lips. “I suppose we could always rough them up a little first, like we did with your bald friend. Or,” she shrugged, “You could stand the fuck up and meet the Owls with your head held high. Up to you, really.”
Evander clenched his jaw and cursed her silently. Slowly, he staggered to his feet.
“Good boy.” Victoria smiled. “Up you go.”
Evander stared at the ground, unable to look at his friends as they were punched and kicked awake. His feet shuffled across the sand as his crew’s voices went from confusion to panic and fear. Many shouted his name. Evander cried softly and kept his eyes on the ground. Shame filled him like a noose squeezing his very breath away.
How had it come to this? Where had they gone wrong? They had never stolen more than they needed. Never enough to draw the attention of nobility. How had things gone so terribly wrong?
The wooden stairs creaked with every step, the planks even more so once he reached the top of the platform. He caught sight of several familiar shoes lining across the platform from his peripheral vision.
A pair of heavy hands held his shoulders still as Victoria stepped in front of him and secured the noose over his neck, forcing his head to look up. “Time to say goodbye to your friends, Evander.”
He slowly looked to his left and right. Familiar faces stared at him with betrayal and fear. Evander closed his eyes tightly as tears streamed down his face. He tried his best to ignore their voices. It was Victoria’s calm, cold voice that cut through the rest. “May the Silver Owl judge you honestly. May the Gold Owl judge you mercifully. And may the Pale Owl judge you impartially. Let the three Deaths judge you for your actions and person. If you be worthy, may Death guide you through the Soul Chasm unharmed. If not, may you be lost to the darkness for all eternity.”
Victoria stepped back and held up her arms high, “As mere mortals, we pray that this sacrifice is worthy of the Owls. Now, hold your heads up high and meet the Eldest Death with dignity and acceptance.”
As her last word fell, so did the trapdoors. Evander flinched as his crewmates’ cries were suddenly silenced by the sickening crunch of broken necks. He slowly opened his eyes and stared at his feet. His trapdoor was still there.
“I told you, Evander.” Victoria slipped a finger under his chin and forced him to look up, “I’d make you watch.” She grabbed his jaw with a jerk and forced him to look to the side, to see his friends hanging, faces blue, necks askewed.
Grace hung there, her soft brown eyes bloodshot and glazed over. Her face was frozen in an expression of terror. There was no dignity to be found nor honor. Only the fear of a child. Evander closed his eyes and wished it was all a terrible dream.
“This has been wonderful, but I still have other prisoners to execute. I’m afraid we’ll have to hurry this up. Oh, I almost forgot.” Victoria leaned over and whispered into his ear, “It was the information broker Ori that gave us the tip about where your crew was hiding.”
“What…?” Evander opened his eyes and glared at her bitterly.
“There it is,” Victoria smiled. “That’s what I wanted to see.” She patted his shoulder, “Relax, Evander. We all meet our deaths one day, it is the promise of mortality. And it is our duty to meet the Owls with a composed demeanor.”
“I swear, I will find you in the next life, and I will kill you,” he said.
“Oh, Evander.” She gave him a sympathetic look. “Someone like you will never cross the Soul Chasm.”
The trapdoor under his feet disappeared and Evander felt himself drop. The rope snapped taut and his neck broke with a loud crack. His lower body spasmed as the pain blinded him. Yet he remained conscious as Victoria looked down at him with sadistic pleasure. Slowly, his vision blurred at the edges until all he saw was white.
He was reminded of his youth, when he lived in a land of snow. A memory of his played out in his mind as his brain deteriorated. He was a child again, playing in the snow in the middle of a forest, something that seemed nothing more than a fanciful dream in the Aurous Realm.
“Evander Where are you?” called out a worried voice.
He turned and saw his mother standing amidst the trees, searching for him.
“I’m here!” he trudged through the snow as best his little body could carry him and tackled his mother’s legs. He laughed and looked up at her with a bright grin.
“Evander, I’ve been looking all over for you. Where did you go?” she asked.
“I was here. Playing with my friend.”
“Here?” She gave him a strange look and glanced around. “I could have sworn I… Wait. What friend?”
“Alei.”
“Alei?”
His smile widened. “Yeah. Aleirune.”
His mother frowned and grabbed him tightly by the arms. “What did you just say?”
“Ow! Mom, stop!”
“What. Did. You. Say?”
“Mom, you’re hurting me. Stop! Please!”
She looked him in the eyes and spoke, yet it was not his mother’s voice that escaped her lips. It was Victoria’s. “Who are you? I said who are you!?”
Evander’s vision returned and he found himself still hanging from the gallows’ noose. His body had gone numb as he swayed helplessly. Somehow, he was still alive, dangling to life by a thread.
Two cloaked figures had approached the small plaza. Victoria’s men quickly surrounded them, swords and spears drawn.
“Who are you? I will not ask you again,” Victoria said.
“Please, we mean no harm,” said one of the cloaked strangers. Her voice was clearly feminine.
“Remove your hoods or my men will cut you down where you stand,” Victoria said.
“Okay, I’m removing my hood.” The stranger raised her hands in a placating gesture and slowly pulled back her beige hood. Her skin was as red as blood with hair as black as night, and her eyes were a warm amber. “We’re just looking for a friend.”
A small collective gasp escaped the retinue of soldiers.
“What sort of manner of creature are you?” Victoria asked with suspicion and a trace of intrigue.
“My name is Tauri Veres. I am an orc. My people are native to the Scarlet Realm.”
“Orcs…? Yes. I have heard of your people. A warrior people of the Realm of War,” Victoria nodded to herself in recollection. “So, you’re a realm traveler then? Why have you come to the Aurous Realm?”
“As I said before, my companion and I are simply looking for our friend. We were hoping you might know where he is?”
“And why would we know that?” Victoria asked.
“He usually gets himself into trouble,” Tauri cracked a weak grin.
“It wouldn’t happen to be one of these criminals, would it?” Victoria asked.
Tauri craned her neck to the side and glanced at Evander and his hanged crew, before glancing at the corpses who had already been cut down. “No, thankfully.”
“I told you this was a bad idea,” muttered Tauri’s companion.
“Yes, I know, thank you,” Tauri said under her breath. “Well, thank you for your time, Miss—?”
“Captain. Captain Victoria of House Greymark.”
“Thank you, Captain Greymark,” Tauri did a small bow. “Fare thee well in all of your—” Tauri made a small face of disgust at the sight of the gallows, before burying it with a forced smile. “—Just endeavours.” She turned to leave, but Victoria’s guards didn’t budge.
“Who said you could leave? Your friend there has yet to reveal their face,” Victoria said.
Tauri whispered to her companion, who made no motion to take off their hood. “Ehehe,” Tauri laughed awkwardly. “That really won’t be necessary. We’ll just be on our way now.”
“That wasn’t a request,” Victoria said.
“I do not answer to you, sune,” said the cloaked stranger.
Victoria narrowed her eyes. “Arrest them.”
Tauri sighed and slumped her shoulders. “You just had to go and piss them off, didn’t you?”
“She wants me to remove my hood? Fine.” The stranger tossed off her cloak, revealing the most beautiful woman Evander had ever seen. Her hair was starlight and her face was a porcelain work of art. Her eyes were a mismatch of scarlet and lilac, though both held a fire in them that gave even the guards pause. She wore a white tunic and trousers, with a pair of black leather bracers.
In a single fluid motion, she drew her sword, a straight blade that seemed to glow faintly. Before the guards could react, the woman shot forward and cut down the three closest to her. The other guards stumbled back and formed a shield wall between her and the gallows where their captain stood.
“You will pay for that,” Victoria snarled. She shouted a command and the sound of a hundred boots thundered across the small town. Dozens of soldiers flooded into the plaza, weapons drawn.
The swordwoman was not perturbed. She stepped in front of the orc and took a defensive stance. “I am the Shield of Veres. Be it Monster or Man, here I stand, and I shall not falter.”
Tauri drew a mace from beneath her cloak and stepped back-to-back with her companion. “You owe me a drink after this, Gale.”
“Fair enough,” Gale said.
“Wait.” Tauri frowned and slowly looked down. The sand was shifting underneath her feet. Grains of sand slowly floated into the air all around them. “No…it can’t be…” she muttered in disbelief.
The soldiers looked around and started shouting in alarm. “Magic!” “They’re Mages!”
Victoria pointed her sword at the two women, “Attack—!” She paused, mid-shout, and stared off into the distance with a strange look of confusion. “What is that…?”
With bloodshot eyes, Evander looked at the same direction. The sun was rising on the horizon, but it was all wrong. The sky was still dark and the sunlight was neither red nor golden, but rather a silver-blue. Worse, it was rising from the south.
“Stryg, what have you done…?” Tauri muttered, eyes wide in horror.
Gale didn’t hesitate. She threw herself over Tauri and forced them into a crouch. The silver sun expanded ten times its size, blinding any who stared at it. The guards shouted in panic and confusion, and threw their arms over their faces. Suddenly, the sun collapsed and imploded. The ground shook before they all saw it; a shockwave of sand swept through the small village of Red Pond and swallowed it whole.