Chapter 11: Embers in the Dust
The morning after the victory at the Hollow Ravine dawned cold and gray. Low-hanging mists clung to the slopes and hollows like a funeral shroud, veiling the blood-soaked earth. Carrion birds circled high above, patient and silent. What had once been a quiet expanse of thornbrush and shale was now a broken field littered with bodies, pikes, and shattered shields.
Lorien stood on the edge of the battlefield, his cloak still spattered from yesterday's storm and slaughter. The cold wind tugged at the hem, snapping it like a banner. Around him, the Ashen Vanguard moved in grim silence, collecting the wounded, piling the dead.
"Casualty report," he said without turning.
Marshal Dahrin approached, gauntleted hands clasped behind his back. "One hundred and thirty-seven dead. Just under three hundred wounded. The barbarians lost more than a thousand."
Lorien's eyes swept the field. "They died hard."
Dahrin nodded. "Their chieftain led from the front. Our spears broke him. The Emberborn say it was deliberate. A binding ritual of some kind."
That caught Lorien's attention. He turned fully. "They confirmed that?"
"Aye. Agent Kael returned last night with the other three. All Emberborn accounted for."
That was no small thing. The Emberborn were not mere scouts; they were his shadow blades, half myth among the men and wholly feared beyond his borders. Lorien had forged them in silence and secrecy from the most disciplined cultivators he could find, drawn from the wreckage of fallen garrisons, exiled disciples, and the frontier's forgotten bloodlines. They were not expendable.
"Then I'll speak with Kael directly," Lorien said. "Where is he?"
"Setting the burn perimeter."
The ground commander of the Emberborn was lean, weathered, and pale-eyed. When Lorien found him, he was kneeling beside a carved circle in the dirt, surrounded by arcane-looking symbols made from ash, charcoal, and pulverized bone. He rose smoothly.
"Warden," Kael said, offering a salute that was more ritual than formality.
"You saw the chieftain's ritual?"
Kael inclined his head. "We witnessed the blood-forge rite. Their shamans fed captives' lifeblood into a shrinestone. It bound their warriors in frenzy and pain. They don't expect to survive such battles."
Lorien folded his arms. "How far does this belief spread?"
"Not all tribes. Just the western hills. But it's spreading. They see you as a storm sent by the Empire."
"Good. Let them fear it."
Kael offered no smile, only a short nod. "We found something else. A northern banner—folded and hidden in the chieftain's tent. Worn, but it bears the sigil of the Red Snow Clan."
Lorien narrowed his gaze. "That clan was broken a decade ago."
"Not all of it, it seems."
The implications burned in Lorien's mind. The Red Snow Clan had once been the largest unified threat to the Empire's northern reach. It had taken three legions to crush them, and even then, the survivors had vanished into the wastes. If they were stirring again, this campaign had only begun.
Later that evening, Lorien convened his command staff within the blackened hall of a ruined longhouse overlooking the ravine. Smoke still clung to the timber. Firelight from braziers cast long shadows across the faces of his war council.
"They called the ravine sacred," said Ardan, a veteran sergeant promoted to officer rank in Lorien's early reforms. "We burned their altar. That will draw them."
"We should fortify the ridge line," Dahrin added. "Let them come and die on our pikes again."
"No," Lorien said. "We push west before they regroup. Hit their outposts, force them into fragmented resistance."
"We've claimed two provinces in six months," Marshal Dahrin said carefully. "The Council will notice."
"Good. Let them."
Silence followed. Even among his most loyal, speaking against the Council was dangerous. But Lorien was not like the others. He had no seat in the capital, no lands to lose, no legacy to guard. Only the frontier, and the raw flame of ambition.
"They sent me here to die," he said quietly. "I'll give them something else to remember."
The war council dispersed into night duties. Lorien remained alone for a while, watching the dark horizon. The wind carried the scent of charred earth and cold pine. Somewhere out there, another tribe gathered spears, sharpened blades, whispered of vengeance.
Let them come.
By the second week, the Ashen Vanguard marched west, cutting through valleys dense with pine and fog. They took three more tribal outposts with minimal losses—each one reinforced and turned into a waystation. Discipline was ruthlessly enforced. Lorien demanded exact rotations, night patrols, fire discipline, and integrated Emberborn scouts at every pass.
Word of his advance reached the edges of Thornvale. Locals fled ahead of his forces, but a few defected. One such man—a broad-shouldered guide named Gorik—had once served in the Imperial Border Guard, discharged for insubordination. He bent the knee at Blackhold Keep.
"I know the rivers, the hills, the old smugglers' paths," Gorik said. "The tribes trust me."
"Then earn your place," Lorien said. "Lead us to the next war camp."
By the end of the month, they reached the edge of Red Hollow Basin. Intelligence from the Emberborn revealed a gathering host—at least four thousand barbarians, fragmented but emboldened.
"They're drawing from old clans," Kael reported. "Ones thought dead. They share tales of a blood curse. A prophecy."
"What prophecy?" Lorien asked.
Kael's voice was even. "That the fire of the Empire would return to burn the north once more."
The officers exchanged glances. Lorien said nothing for a long moment. Then he stepped to the map table and drove a dagger into the basin's center.
"Then we become that fire."