It was a miracle.
When the sun shined, lighting the dark grey fog engulfed wasteland, it bothered Nathan no more than a slight tickle.
Like a tick, something poking within his head anytime he looked up, it was nothing he couldn't handle. Yet looming shadows were followed by rapid beating hearts, and other vampyres lurked within the battlefields.
Horns bellowed, drums beat, riders hollered.
Pebbles rattle on the ground, armies marching against one another from sun up to sundown.
It was a chaos William believed he was unable to lead them through, and suggested they turn back to river.
"We could wait for Larosa and Arthur," the young father said, shaking atop his whining horse. "I don't…I don't think I'll last longer than a day here."
"You'll be fine," Dany promised, sword in hand, steam rising from her sockets. "Stay close to either one of us, preferably Nathan."
He and the young father exchanged a look.
Nathan didn't like the energy that damned star-cross gave off, but he'd fight with more care. He, like the young father, would stay dead if slain.
Not Dany.
The stump of a great oak was hidden behind a crumbled old wall, and the young father blessed the ground with as a keeper. A tiny flame was rising within a circle of rocks William assembled, and the young father said a quick prayer.
Dany moved strands of hair from her face, her hair down to her shoulders, then dismounted.
"I'll return," she said, stalking into the fog. "Before we go any further, we need to see what's out there. Feel's like every army in the world could be out here."
William didn't argue, though Nathan was itching.
"You can still die," the young father said, Nathan creeping farther away.
"So can she, if the First Sword's foolish enough to be out here."
"If she were here, we'd know."
"Then we've no reason to fear," Nathan argued.
William shook his head, throwing up his hands, knowing Nathan was being ignorant to a fault.
The young father didn't stop him, tucked away within a muddy cloak.
Another few paces or so, rising over the slope, and Nathan couldn't even see the keeper's grounds.
Upon getting down the slope, then getting a few more paces away, he didn't even know which way was which.
'Easy,' he said to himself, the darkness of Quarrath coming to mind. 'Just follow the screams.'
Not screams, he heard.
Hopeless shrills. What men and boys did when their end was at hand, the hands of a yellow-toothed barbarian or a blood-soaked rider. Wails for their mothers, something Nathan couldn't fathom, not for lack of fear, but for the fact he never knew his mother. She died of illness long before his first birthday, as father rarely reminded him.
"Good woman," was all Nordwell the stubborn old soldier would mutter a dozen ales deep. "Very good woman…"
So it was, the helpless cries of men echoed for miles.
Fires ignited the sky, miles away. Wyverns hissed, lightning bolts cracked, and something roared so deep Nathan believed his heart would shiver out his chest.
Giants.
There was no telling what else was in the Burning Lands, so much in so little time to have passed since his last ride through.
As he tried making his way back to the slope, sniffing out his jars of blood, Dany cursed.
A shadow approaching with waves of darkness behind them, her cloak flew as she ran. On either side of her, howling a few paces behind, riders swung rusty iron flails.
She spun, slashed off a horses legs in a single swipe, then took off the other's head. More riders rode her way, and she greeted them head on with hissing steel. It was a slaughter, Dany decapitating horses like one would carve out a slab of beef.
Riders foolish enough to charge her were severed at the waist or sliced open from shoulder to belly. She put a boot to the chest of a tall wiry rider, sending him at least ten pace through the air.
Nathan stood in awe, watching her turn Skull Riders away
What the hell could she have been running from?
"Get back to William!" She shouted.
He cursed, hurrying to the slope.
When they scaled down the other side, leaping over the wall, William and the horses were gone.
The white keeper's flame was untouched.
"Fuck!" Dany shouted, stomping a melon sized rock to pieces. "Why didn't you stay with him?"
"I….I had to…," Nathan said, growling while turning away from her. "I was hungry."
"You fed on a gargoyle just over an hour ago, how the fuck long could you…," she sighed, catching her breath. "….Alright. Alright, fuck it, he couldn't have gone far, but there are riders everywhere!"
"How many?" Nathan asked, urgently, thinking of Larosa and Arthur.
"At least two hundred thousand."
His jaw hung open. "T-two hundred thousand?! How's that even possible?"
"This war's only getting bigger," Dany said, wiping blood from her sword. "A dying knight in a gold suit of armor told me neither side's had any luck with negotiating. Saeve for the fireborne kingdom who's allied with wulf-bear army."
"Rorik," Nathan hissed, Isaac's cunning eyes appearing in his head.
Dany nodded. "Armies are still arriving form all over the world, and this is to be the 'war to end all wars', the dying knight's last words."
After rubbing his head, he looked around frantically.
Sniff them out, he told himself. His stomach growled, and, his veins pulsed as if to be dry with thirst. It was a different type of hunger he had, one fueled by the endless warfare of the land.
"Feed all you want," Dany said, following his lead. "There's plenty to go around."
"You don't believe I'll go mad? Lose part of my humanity and what not?"
She shrugged. "Embrace it, at this point. That's what he'd say."
Hand on his hilt, letting fiery kisses scorch his palm, he sniffed.
Hounds must drive themselves mad. Blood, smoke, wet soil, grubs, maggots, iron and steel, moldy leather and scraggly horse hairs, so much filled his nostrils at once. One sniff, and he couldn't distinguish everything at once.
Burnt silks, flags, and whatever was left of camps. Entire pavilions wiped clean.
Eyes closed, he stumbled over a rusty mailed corpse, focused so much on the air rather than the ground.
Leather bearing warbands, scavengers and looters, picked what they could, turning to he and Dany.
She charged first, cutting men in half.
Like the wind, he darted several paces in the blink of an eye. Blood sprayed like mist, his swings cutting open bellies. Blue and red guts splattered the ground, grave robbers cried, and he bit into their throats.
Dany finished the last of them, crushing a skull beneath her boot.
A small camp, yet with a tattered flame sigil flag, swords down the center.
"Larosa," Nathan said to himself, freeing his jaws from a shivering neck.
"Can you smell her?" Dany asked.
A few sniffs, and he shook his head.
"Then she's fine," Dany said, kicking over a bloody white knight's corpse. "We can hope."
This wasn't the meek little girl he's seen ducking and blushing at the slightest word.
Time in the dark land's kingdom changed her, giving her more stature and strength. He wondered what Arthur may have looked like, and he was relieved at the thought, another Ember with Larosa who grew in power with every fight.
It was sport for Dany, same as it'd been for his lordship.
Within the fog she skewered Skull horses, pummeled over entire shield walls, and drove her longsword through steel breastplates. Lances, several at once, charged with riders of Wayfork, the golden Griffiths and eagles. She parried them, like they were daggers, then sliced open sword bellies like fish.
Nathan, smiling with a burnt hand, was a red dart.
A blood-soaked Viperess, he ran between enemies faster than one could turn. He thrusted, in and out mail breasts, leaving men to choke and gargle to their knees.
It wasn't the Burning Lands where sons, fathers, and brothers marched to their doom.
It was a wretched bastard's playground.
All day, going into night, he and Dany killed, and killed, and killed, and killed. At least a few miles they left a trail of death and destruction, yet his scent was no stronger than before. Perhaps it was something he needed to train.
So much killing, steam rising from the top of their heads, they returned to the slope uninterrupted.
William was there, all three horses, a wide smile to see them safe.
Dany was pissed, like a mother who'd lost her child.
She held the young father up, one hand by the collar. "Where the fuck have you been?! You've any idea how long we've been searching for you, or how worried we were?"
Red in the face, William waved his hands. "I didn't mean to go far! It's just-Nathan left, and the horses were so restless, so I led them away from the fire. I didn't want to run the risk of-."
She dropped him, scowling both he and Nathan.
"I'm the only one who can die properly, I'll be the one to scout the area before we move and run into Arthur and Larosa gods willing."
William raised a shaky hand.
"What?!" Dany screamed before lowering her voice. "What is it, young father?"
"I-I do believe his majesty is close."
"Why?" She asked, towering over him.
He swallowed a lump of air, then said, "There were trumpets, farther north. I-I believed you and Nathan might've already known and gone ahead, but…I'll lead us there on the morrow."
She sighed, ruffling his hair. "Sleep well young father."
None of them could.
The horses whimpered, horns blew, screams echoed, and fire brightened the air. There was more fighting than within daylight, and Nathan rotated watch with Dany until midnight.
"Can you smell her?" She asked, leaned against the crumbled wall.
He was on his belly atop the small hill, sniffing every once in a while.
"A little," he replied, telling a half truth. "If I'm being honest, I think it's just my minds way of comforting me."
She examined him, her eyes sharp, yet heavy with black rings. "Whatever it takes, just keep trying."
At first light they pulled their horses by the reins on foot.
Deeper into the Burning Lands, the young father led the way, the keeper's fire withering out as they stepped off.