Chapter 25: Ash and Echoes

  "Isolde!" Edmund knelt beside her, gently turning her over. Her face was deathly pale, beaded with cold sweat, her body trembling uncontrollably. The dark, vein-like lines beneath the glove on her arm pulsed with a sickening violet light, stark against her skin even in the dim twilight. She was unconscious, her breathing shallow and ragged.

  Borin was there instantly, his usual gruffness replaced by alarm. "Stone take it… the backlash from the ritual, her own magic use… it's aggravated the taint." He touched her forehead briefly; she was burning with fever despite the cold wind whipping across the hillside. "We can't stay here. That miasma… even if it doesn't reach this far, the energy signature might draw… things."

  Edmund nodded numbly, carefully gathering Isolde into his arms. She felt terrifyingly frail. The memory of the miners they'd left behind clawed at him, a raw wound layered over the exhaustion and the horror of the ritual's catastrophic end. We survived… but look at the cost.

  Borin scanned their surroundings, his gaze sharp despite his own weariness and grief. "There. That cleft in the rocks. Defensible. Some shelter from the wind."

  They half-carried, half-supported Isolde to the shallow rock overhang Borin had spotted, perhaps a hundred yards from where they'd emerged. It offered minimal comfort, but it was concealment. Edmund eased Isolde down onto the driest patch of ground, using his own cloak as a pillow, while Borin built a small, smokeless fire using skills honed over a lifetime underground.

  The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by Isolde's pained gasps and the mournful howl of the wind. Edmund sat beside Isolde, watching the terrifying light pulse beneath her glove, feeling utterly helpless. Borin stared back towards the blighted valley, now a churning cauldron of purple-grey miasma under the rising moon, his face a mask of stone, but his knuckles white where he gripped his pickaxe haft. My home, the Duergar's thoughts likely raged, a silent scream against the desolation. Generations of craft, lifetimes of kin… gone. Twisted into that… obscenity.

  As the fire cast flickering shadows, Edmund tended to their injuries—his own cuts and bruises, Borin’s scrapes, and most importantly, Isolde. He carefully unfastened the wrappings on her arm. The dark lines had visibly spread further up her forearm, no longer faint traceries but thick, pulsing veins of corruption that seemed almost alive, radiating a palpable heat. Where the energy backlash had struck near the broken ward on her tunic, her skin was blistered as if by extreme heat.

  "How bad is it?" Edmund asked quietly, his voice hoarse.

  Borin leaned closer, examining Isolde’s arm with a grim expertise. He pulled out his "Stone" Interpreter"—the handheld runic dial – holding it near her arm. The runes on its interlocking discs glowed erratically, spinning with a discordant hum. "Bad," Borin stated bluntly after a moment, tucking the device away. "The corrupted energy surge… it resonated with the taint already within her. Fed it. Stirred it up like kicking a hornet nest." He met Edmund's worried gaze. "She pushed herself too hard, aye, but this… this is worse than just overuse. The taint is active. Aggressive now."

  Isolde moaned softly, her eyelids fluttering. Her eyes opened, unfocused, glazed with pain and fever. "Ed… mund?" she whispered, her voice barely audible.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "I'm here, Ms. Isa," he said gently, offering her a sip of water from their nearly empty waterskin. "Rest now."

  She managed a weak nod, her gaze drifting towards her exposed arm. She stared at the pulsing dark lines, a flicker of fear crossing her face before exhaustion and pain pulled her back under.

  Later, after Isolde’s fever seemed to break slightly and her breathing evened out into a troubled sleep, Edmund and Borin spoke in low tones by the fire.

  "Did you see it?" Edmund asked, staring into the flames but seeing the horrors in the mine. "How fast it spread? That Blight… it wasn't just decay. It was… consumption. Like the rock itself was being devoured."

  "Aye," Borin grunted. "Felt it through the stone before we even saw it. Like the earth itself was screaming." He picked up a charred stick, snapping it fiercely. "The Shepherd didn't just unleash the Blight; he unleashed something in the Blight. Something hungry." He fell silent, the grief for his lost home, his lost kin, etched deeply onto his rugged face.

  They checked their supplies. A handful of dried rations, less than half a waterskin, dwindling lamp oil for Borin's lantern, few arrows left for Edmund's bow. Their situation was precarious even without Isolde's critical condition.

  As dawn approached, Isolde stirred again. The fever seemed lower, but the pain lingered in her eyes, and the dark lines on her arm, though no longer pulsing violently, seemed starker, more deeply embedded. Borin checked her again, his expression grave.

  "The flare-up's subsided," he reported quietly to Edmund. "For now. But the deep energy… it's fundamentally unstable now. That surge from the ritual pushed her taint past some kind of threshold." He looked directly at Isolde, who was now sitting up, leaning weakly against the rock wall. "Lass," he said, his voice unusually gentle but firm. "Ye need to understand. Another shock like that? Another significant drain on your magic, maybe even just prolonged exposure to strong corrupted energy… could trigger a relapse. And the next one…" He hesitated. "Might not be survivable. Or it might… complete the corruption."

  The stark prognosis hung in the cold air. Isolde closed her eyes briefly, absorbing the blow. Her quest for the Duergar runes wasn't just important anymore; it was potentially a matter of life and death.

  "Then we must find the other settlement," she said, her voice weak but resolute. "Borin… you mentioned another outpost?"

  Borin nodded slowly. "Aye. Kaelen's Deep. North-west, maybe ten days' hard travel from here, if the Blight hasn't claimed the passes." He looked troubled. "But… word travels, even among scattered kin. News of Oakhaven… the disaster… it might have reached them. They might not be welcoming. Especially if they hear earth-kin were involved, even as captives." He looked pointedly between Isolde and Edmund. "Or if they hear outsiders were present when it fell."

  Edmund considered this grimly, glancing at Isolde's pale face. "Ten days' hard travel… Isolde, can you make it? In your condition?"

  "I must," she stated simply, though a flicker of doubt crossed her features.

  "We'll travel slow," Edmund decided. "Take safer routes if possible. Avoid settlements. Our priority is getting Isolde to Kaelen's Deep." He looked at Borin. "Can you lead us?"

  Borin gave a curt nod, his expression set. Perhaps it was the need to warn other kin, perhaps a desire to preserve what little Duergar knowledge remained, or simply the shared bond of survival, but he was committed. "Aye. I know the paths."

  Gathering their meager supplies, extinguishing the fire, they prepared to leave the temporary shelter. Edmund helped Isolde to her feet; she leaned on him heavily, the simple act clearly costing her. They were fugitives, injured, running low on everything, facing an escalated, terrifying new form of the Blight, with one of their own balanced on a knife-edge of survival. As they set off into the bleak Mercian dawn, the path ahead was shrouded in uncertainty, ash, and the echoes of failure.