“Jurot,” Adam whispered.

  “Yes,” Jurot agreed, gring at the figure, who was adorned in full pte, but it was not just any full pte, but armour of the night sky, with a rge gve that almost reached the sky with its presence.

  Bael tilted his head, smelling a vaguely familiar st. The st of ash and iron, a certain sharpo the st, which filled his nostrils. ‘He must be…’

  Jarot growled towards the rge figure, while Rajin pced a hand upon his shoulder. The pair exged a look, and Jarot huffed, limping away. ‘We do not need a stranger’s help! This is a family matter!’

  Rajin wasn’t sure how to feel about this figure assisting them, but if the Chief had shirked the Rot family’s authority, it must have been food reason. However, he was still annoyed, sidering how Uwajin wasn’t allowed to e, even though she had a greater reason to fight. The amount of pints the Great Elders would receive by the end of this situation would drown them. Rajin wasn’t sure if any of the Great Elders could be forced to retire sihe Reavers were upon the horizon, but they wouldn’t be the Iyr if they couldn’t hahat little.

  While the group settled themselves in that evening, within the Iyr, preparations tio be made. While the Iyr had begun to prepare for the Reavers, one particur family still o deal with an additional worry.

  Sonarot csped her hands together, thinking deeply. Though she no longer held the position of Family Head, she still held the greatest authority in this particur matter. There was one way she could all but guarahe survival of her boys.

  The extended estate was near silent, but the woman’s steps broke the silence. She stopped, a wave of nostalgia striking her. Her eyes drooped towards a er where she had fallen and scraped her knee. Her father had rushed over to her and ed it with a cloth, though it had hurt so terribly. That evening, he cut pears for her, and spoke his tales to her, her twin sister, and her younger brother.

  “Sonarot,” called a quiet voice, the older woman smiling. She wore a simple pair of robes, and carried a pair of shortbdes at her side, that of her family’s before she married into the Gek family. “You ot sleep?”

  “I have e to speak with the Family Elder,” Sonarot admitted.

  Laygek narrowed her eyes slightly towards the woman, but instead of seeing the Sonarot that was ohe Family Head, she saw the Sonarot who would climb the nearby feo py with the goats, much to her mother’s chagrin. “Okay.”

  Laygek allowed the woman to enter, lighting the dles her husband made for her earlier in the year, before taking her seat opposite her niece. “Shall I pour some tea.”

  “No,” Sonarot replied. The pair sat in silence for a long moment, and Sonarot waited and waited. Then the woman blinked. She stared at Laygek, tilting her head slightly. Laygek made no move to go find her husband. “…”

  “…” Laygek smiled, seeing the fusion upon Sonarot’s face.

  The day, greater trouble greeted Adam and his panions, for once more, they were stopped by the ander of the fort. Tonagek passed over the pouch full of silver and gold s, and as he turned, he stopped. He turned, noting the appearance of that woman. She was easily in her sixties, her hair near silver. She wore full pte, a bde hanging at her side, but it was the amulet of the sun within the blooming flower which provided her with her greatest power.

  “I feel demons within the carriage,” Esme said, staring at the carriage with her one good eye.

  “Yes, and?” Mosen asked, almost yawning, eyeing up the nearby Order members, each also wearing an amulet with the symbol of a sun within a blooming flower. “You should step back while we are still showing you mercy.”

  “I do not care if you are on Iyrman business, I, too, am on my Order’s business.”

  Unfortunately for them all, the door of the first carriage opened, drawing in the various eyes, as an old, one legged Iyrman, stepped out of the carriage. Esme’s eyes gred at the figure, who wore more wrinkles, and though he had lost his arm and leg, he still carried with him a viciousness. Her hairs stood on end, as the darkness swallowed her vision, and she recalled the man when he was younger. Back then he wore a viciously wild grin upon his face, but that grin was o be seen today, now only a wiess full of murder was on full dispy.

  There was only one demon before her today.

  “It’s you,” Esme said, pointing her bde at the Iyrman without realising she had drawn it.

  Jarot tilted his head, closing his eyes, his neck pulsing as the heat flooded his head. “Who are you?”

  The three words had sealed their Fate.

  The purple flowers caused a chill to flow through Jurot. Esme wasn’t a nobody, indeed, she was a Grandmaster, as one might have expected. The Fate spell she used dealt greater damage to one’s mind, the only damage the Rot family could not shrug off. There was also the particur ferocity from the spell which could cause one’s heart to doubt themselves.

  Had Jarot not have grieved for his greatchildren, perhaps Esme could have mao instil within the Mad Dog a great fear, but unfortunately for her, as her bde glowed bright white with each heavy blow she brought down upon the Mad Dog, the memories returned.

  The memories of how easily the Mad Dog had beaten her so terribly all those years ago. No matter how heavily she struo matter how much her smites exploded upon his skin, the thunder rumbling out from the tip of her bde, somehow the one legged Iyrman did not step back, and his wooden stump did not crader her pressure.

  Jarot was not just the Mad Dog, or the Undying, for most others would have long fallen tleaming bde. He was a force of nature, ohat could not be stopped, even as the Order members drew their bdes, and charged forward. Though they aimed their bdes towards the Mad Dog, who tio beat their Viander with the hatred of a demon, their bdes crashed against bdes of others.

  Rajin’s heavy bde stopped a pair iracks, his entire body fshing a deep red. Mosen’s bde stopped one simirly, his own body also a deep red with rage. Gorot’s bde caught oween its shark teeth like edges, his body too, full e. Tonagek had leapt forward, even with his limp, and had caught another. Jurot did not catch the st, for the Order member had stopped before they could csh, stopped not by the form of the Iyrman, but the look within his eyes.

  “Stop this at once!” one of the members of the Order of the Floral Sun cried aloud, feeling a deep chill. The only he Viander made, was the squelg of guts and the g of bones, as the Mad Dog tio slice away at her with his axe.

  “Enough!” the ander shouted, while the Mad Dog tio carve into the Viander’s body. “Enough, damn it! Enough!”

  The soldiers watched on in horror, uo reach for their ons, for the Mad Dog tio roar and cry, using the back of his axe to bludgeon the woman until she was no longer reisable. The Mad Dog roared and shouted in the Iyr’s too the heavens.

  “Bring me another, Baktu! Another!” The old man shouted. “I will sughter them! Those who dared to kill my greatchildren! Bring them to me! Another!” Jarot then turned, his body still red hot, his eyes white as he gred at the remaining Order members. He poi them with his axe. “e!”

  “Jarot,” Rajin called, his voice quiet.

  “e!” the Iyrman switched to their tongue. “e! e and avenge your Viander! e, so that I may gift my greatsons your heads. My greatdaughter, your hearts!”

  The Order members stepped back, gng between one another, for they never would have expected they would have lost their Viander so easily, especially not to an Iyrman who limped at them with a wooden leg.

  “e!” Jarot growled.

  “trol your man, or-,”

  Rajin’s head so the ander, who stood far too closely for him to make demands of the Iyrman. “Shut up.”

  “Father,” Gorot called. “It is done.”

  “Done?” Jarot asked, gring at the man who had married his daughter. Jarot looked down at his axe, seeing it covered in red and bits of the Viaurning to look at the remains of the woman. He could see it was not the Viander he had thought, but a stranger, a woman with one eye. He turned back to face Gorot. “No. It is not done.”

  The ander shuddered, not because of his words, but because though the Iyrman had spoken such words, he limped his way to the carriage, leaving them in peace.

  “You are fortuhis day,” Rajin whispered to the ander.

  “This is madness, Iyrman.”

  “No,” Rajin replied. “It is knowledge.”

  “What?”

  “A lesson.”

  “…” The ander watched as the Iyrman with the sharktooth bde picked up the Viander’s bde, bowed his head lightly to the Order members, before slipping into the carriage. The group pulled away to Red Oak, before the ander’s eyes fell to the form of the Viander of the Floral Sun. Esme was well known as one of her Order’s stro warriors.

  Yet, just like that, she was gone.

  The scariest part was that she Crit him three times and he rolled pretty poorly to hit.