The first snowflakes began to fall over the ruins of Thalrim shortly before dusk. With the coming of darkness, Ludan and Sarric finally dared to approach the destroyed settlement.

  “A suite all to yourself,” whispered Sarric as they rode through the deserted streets, dodging wooden pikes on the ground and the corpses of horses, people, and sheep alike. “As a base of operations, it’s not bad at all.”

  Although the corpses were unpleasant to look at, Ludan decided the vampire was right. He simply kept riding through what had until a few days ago been a lively town full of trade, scanning for any signs of life or potential attack, though he suspected the perpetrators of such devastation were already many leagues away.

  This was the fifth city they had found in such a state since crossing the border of Ilar.

  “You have to admit, these guys do their work well, and fast,” Sarric had said when they arrived at the third ruined city only a couple of nights before.

  Both had traveled the country many times in the past, back when they were just starting to work as mercenaries. What was once a valley full of life and commerce had become a husk infested with marauders, where not even the scavengers had survived the scourge. All around them stretched a green desert littered with wreckage.

  After the night wrapped the world in a mantle of stars, the two spies looked for the best building to hide in. In the end, they chose what appeared to have once been a temple dedicated to the feathered god of Notxac, judging by the scattered statues inside.

  Sarric placed a mana totem in the center of the hall, driving the artifact’s lower shaft into the ground. At once, the crystal sphere atop the staff began to emit a bluish aura.

  “I needed this,” said the vampire, while shards of light shimmered across his pale face. “It’s been a long day.”

  Ludan agreed with his companion and sat down in front of the totem while trying to organize his thoughts. His energy levels slowly began to rise.

  But even as his exhausted warrior’s limbs recovered, an emptiness grew in his chest. Fear, he realized. It was a sensation he had long gone without, but he could identify it clearly now. The architects of Thalrim’s destruction were masters at provoking that ancestral feeling in their enemies.

  Although the tracking orb the elf carried allowed them to avoid the murderous horde, he knew sooner or later they would have to face those people, and they didn’t seem to be ordinary opponents.

  Fortunately, they had that artifact, which granted them a special vision by which they could identify the hoofprints marked on the ground, and a greenish trail of light lingering in the air. Yet it was growing harder to avoid the riders’ paths, as they moved in small squads across the land on unpredictable roads, regrouping with overwhelming speed.

  Lord Lororin had also given them other useful toys, like the mana restorer that was now reviving them, as well as a pouch of gold coins—though those would have been far more useful if there had been merchants instead of corpses. In the bluish light of the restorer, Ludan felt as if he were on a peaceful island in the midst of so much destruction, transported somehow to his homeland on the far side of the world, where mana wells glowed among the groves.

  He closed his eyes seeking solace, but inevitably the images of the devastation caused by the Cursed Horde returned to his mind. The roads infested with corpses and crows came back again and again, the dozens of villages he had crossed with the vampire, all reduced to a sea of rubble, the cultivated fields laid waste with cruelty, annihilating the economy of what had once been a wealthy province under the empire.

  In the midst of his silent meditation, as his energy rose little by little thanks to the mana totem, he tried to see the destruction from the perspective of those who had wrought that apocalypse.

  Each razed settlement was an immense gain of resources for the nomads, as well as years of setback for the vanquished. Generations would have to pass before Ilar’s ecosystem recovered, he thought, while the images of ruined towns still burned in his mind.

  Meanwhile, the invading army had gathered resources enough never to return to their frozen steppes. Their supply of mounts and food would have snowballed, and the traces of hooves and luminous trails revealed by the tracking orb showed they were moving inexorably toward Anen—though they had circled all of Ilar first, making sure they would face no armies at their backs before striking at the very heart of the empire.

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  Ludan sighed as he opened his eyes again. His muscles were relaxed by the effect of the mana pores the restorer continued to emit. He and his companion would have much work ahead if they were to stop a cyclone like the one bearing down on their patrons. He considered abandoning them, but he had never broken a contract—unlike the rest of the mercenaries scattered across the world. Even so, he knew the most likely outcome of this venture was his death. Once an army like that gained the smallest advantage, it became as ferocious as a tiger.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve sensed fear in you,” said Sarric, leaning against one of the few shelves in the temple still standing. “You almost inspire tenderness.”

  “It isn’t fear I feel,” said the elf. “But you must be aware that our long lives will one day come to an end.”

  “Yes, but there’s no need to be pessimistic. I don’t think that time is near.”

  Ludan wasn’t so sure. He recalled a distant skirmish in which he had fought against a horde of Klurzites, at the height of the Elven Wars. Though they were difficult to subdue in hand-to-hand combat, what truly terrified about those people were their devious battle tactics.

  He remembered how they feigned retreat after retreat, drawing pursuit and inflicting terrible damage on the elf’s allied troops with their deadly accurate arrows, shot mid-flight with a precision fit for the gods.

  In the end, the elven forces had triumphed over the steppe hordes, but at a heavy cost. He had lost many brothers during that battle outside the Forest of Gold.

  “I haven’t felt fear in you since that girl left you,” said the vampire, with a mocking grin. Ludan hated it when he did that. It was uncomfortable knowing someone could read him so well.

  “Shut up. That’s in the past.”

  “Good. That’s best. Lately I feel she’s been haunting your thoughts far too much, and that could cause us problems—especially when it comes to work.”

  It was true, Ludan admitted with a sigh. Xyrna appeared in his dreams with increasing insistence, as if she were about to appear before him at any moment. He could almost remember the last time he had seen her, one night by the Eilna’s banks.

  “My thoughts will not interfere with our mission,” said the elf, unconsciously edging closer to the restorer, as if the rise of mana within him could ease the pain the memory of the elf-maiden left in his chest.

  The vampire watched him for a long time with a condescending look, like a father who perfectly understood the suffering of a wounded son.

  “Listen, brother. The first step is to accept the pain you’re feeling. What you need to understand is that women, whatever the race, hold too great an advantage over us. Yes—even over beings as old as elves and vampires. Their maturation is swift, and while the boys train with swords or hammers, the girls converse in castles and beauty halls, becoming ladies long before we set foot in the real world.

  “Nature has given them the gift of childbirth, and precisely that power forces them to open their third eye much sooner than we do. Now, if we’re talking about an elf who has lived for centuries…” the vampire sighed. “All I can say is you got off lightly. It’s time to let the past die.”

  Ludan was about to answer, to defend himself, but there was no point. The vampire read him like a book. He could not deceive him, and worse still, he could not deceive himself.

  Besides, his mercenary partner’s words were true: that woman had planned everything from the beginning, even before they exchanged a single word. An elf of such experience would have had the whole scheme in her mind, knowing when to deceive him, when to rob him, and when to leave him entirely, as if it were nothing more than a casual event of fate.

  Ludan had often thought of revenge, of finding a younger woman and playing the same game that had been played on him. In the end, he had resolved to let forgiveness fill his existence—but the wounds had not healed. The best course was to look forward and keep living.

  “The empire is lost, Sarric,” he said, burying his other thoughts with an old elven technique of forgetting. “The more I think about it, the more I reach the conclusion that neither the emperor, nor our new masters, can stop a power like the one looming over them. That is a truth more painful than anything concerning the women of this world.”

  The vampire drew closer to the restorer, though from his expression Ludan guessed he didn’t need it. Those creatures needed only a little blood to be good as new. It was the most unfair of things.

  “There’s no battle lost before it’s fought, my dear elf friend. You of all people should know that. Even if that elf woman shattered your spirit, I’ll make sure to restore it. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced nomads. They may look intimidating, but they have weak points. It’s just a matter of finding them.”

  “I don’t think this is a common enemy, Sarric. These people fight with the desperation of those who have left everything behind. They know the art of war to perfection. You’ve seen what they’ve done to every settlement in this unfortunate land.”

  The vampire looked pensive. He sat cross-legged before him and unfolded a map of the region. He studied it for a long time before replying.

  “They face an empire, Ludan—and us. Remember, we are not ordinary creatures. We have in our minds the knowledge of many centuries. We can face them. It’s just a matter of devising the right strategy.”

  The elf wanted to be infected by that optimism, but somehow he couldn’t. Yet the vampire’s words were true: any enemy, or problem, could be approached the right way—or, as he had been taught in the Forest Defense Army when he was still a child: from the flank. One only had to find that flank and strike at the right moment.

  “We’ll have to find a way to divide that army,” the vampire finally said, after studying the map of Ilar and Anen for a long time.

  “But how?” The doubts swirled in the elf’s head like a storm on an autumn night.

  “We’ll get to that. For now, we must set out. Remember, we are not ordinary beings. We have the vigor of the young and the experience of the old. Sooner or later, we’ll find something. For now, we head straight for the heels of our guests. It’s time to cut their momentum.”