The room smelled of blood and old stone.

  Silas had served Mathew for nearly a decade, and he had seen Mathew in a new light ever since the mantle of Commander passed onto him. Every single day since the thrice-blasted attack from the filthy bastards of the cult, Vienna has transformed into hell.

  Silas looked at his commander. Much had changed in these few days of hell, but the most changed was the commander. He shivered involuntarily, seeing the coldness of Mathew’s gaze.

  He'd never seen him like this.

  Primes bless — Silas prayed before stopping as cold fury burned. The gods were the same. They willingly forsake Vienna and the thousands of souls within it.

  He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders and focusing on the task at hand. This mission has claimed four of their trusted men.

  It was a success, one we desperately needed. Silas chanted in his mind.

  A single lamp hanging from the ceiling cast everything in a sickly yellow light. The chamber they were in was small, but it was reinforced and inscribed with enough ward-work to bankrupt a minor noble house.

  Four people occupied the room. Commander Mathew sat in a chair with cold fury suppressed despite the injuries covering him from head to toe. His armor was shredded, entire plates torn away to expose bloodied flesh beneath. His right eye was swollen shut, blood crusted black around the socket. His right arm hung at his side, flesh threaded in ribbons that barely held together, bone visible through gaps in the meat.

  He should be unconscious. Should be dead from blood loss alone.

  Instead, Mathew sat there, his eyes boring into the person in front of him.

  Across from him, strapped to a chair bolted to the floor, was a man in an equally wounded state, bloodied and wearing rags, but despite his fate, the man’s face was twisted with fanatic devotion and something worse.

  Silas knew it — the signature look of superiority that those pesky nobles wore.

  Silas stood to the cultist's left, hand resting on his sword hilt. Verra mirrored him on the right, face hard as steel. He respected the women, young enough to be around his daughter’s age, but instead of books and scrolling through their phones, she was standing tall with the resistance, facing monsters and monsters wearing human skins.

  A gruff and gravely voice disturbed the silence of the room. "You think this frightens me? You think chains and darkness will break an Underlord of the Everdark?"

  Silas spat at his foot. “Bloody cultist cocksucker.”

  The cultist head snapped to Silas, and with fury, he snarled, “You dare!”

  Even under the extensive suppression effects, the presence of an underlord radiated from him.

  "I have walked through the sacred night!" He said, voice laced with contempt, "I have bathed in the blood of the unworthy! Your pathetic city burns at our command, and soon the great work will—"

  Mathew nodded and slowly reached out and grabbed the cultist's left hand.

  He caressed the hand. Shivers raced down Silas’s neck as he gazed at the madness and fury in his eyes.

  Blood dripped from Mathew’s hand as his fingers closed around the cultist's pinky finger.

  The cultist kept talking. "You think you can torture me into betraying the faith? I am beyond your primitive—"

  Mathew tilted his head slightly. Then pulled.

  The finger came away with a wet, tearing sound.

  The cultist's words cut off mid-sentence, replaced by a scream filled with agony. His body convulsed against the restraints.

  Silas didn't look away. He'd learned that lesson years ago—looking away meant you weren't committed, and uncommitted men got people killed. Besides, a good part of the wards amplified pain and introduced vulnerabilities in the target mind.

  This was a cultist, one of high rank, who took pleasure in killing innocent people and children.

  The cultist panted, sweat already beading on his forehead. But his eyes... his eyes still held that light, that absolute faith that made zealots so dangerous.

  Mathew set the finger down on the table beside him. His expression didn't change.

  "You think... this much pain... is enough to break me? You may have done things, but it’s all useless." The words came out ragged but defiant. "I have endured the sacred rites! I have been reborn in darkness! You are nothing but—"

  Mathew moved to the next finger.

  "How many of you are hiding among the civilians in the shelter?"

  The cultist spat. Blood and saliva hit Mathew's ruined armor and slid down to join the rest.

  "I am Darkness!" Laughter bubbled up from the cultist's throat, high and manic. "I have been blessed by powers beyond your—"

  Mathew pulled.

  Another scream. Louder this time. More desperate.

  The finger joined its companion on the table.

  "How many of you are hiding in the shelter?" Mathew asked again. Same tone. Same inflection. Like he had all the time in the world.

  The cultist's breathing came faster now, but his eyes... still that fanatic certainty. "You are already dead! All of you! When the Veil descends fully, when the final convergence—"

  Third finger.

  This time, the scream was pure agony; the pain was slowly stripping away the bravado. The cultist thrashed against his chains hard enough that Silas heard metal groan under the strain.

  Mathew waited. When the screaming subsided to whimpering gasps, he repeated the question.

  "How many of you are hiding in the shelter?"

  "Your soul would become my lord’s personal toys! I, in his kingdom, will make you suffer till the end of eternity!" Blood flew from the cultist's mouth. "The Darkened One will feast on your—"

  Fourth finger.

  Fifth finger.

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  The cultist's left hand was a ruin now, blood running freely despite the wards designed to keep him conscious and aware. His defiance cracked around the edges, his voice, or rather his threats, going higher, more desperate.

  Mathew shifted his grip to the cultist's right hand. His fingers, still covered in gore, traced across the intact hand tenderly.

  "Funny thing, mantles are."

  The cultist froze. First time he'd stopped struggling.

  Mathew's voice was conversational. "All my life, I wanted mine to grow. Wanted it to become a true bastion. Making sure none of my men went out without my aegis." He paused, gripping the cultist's thumb. "But one week in this hell, and my mantle took a very different path."

  The cultist's eyes went wide. For the first time, Silas saw something other than fanaticism there.

  Fear.

  "What—" The cultist's voice cracked. "What did you do?"

  Mathew pulled the thumb off.

  The cultist screamed. Really screamed, something different from before. Panic bled through the pain now, raw and animal.

  "Where is my Lord Spark?!" The words came out strangled, desperate. "What did you do!"

  The color drained from his face like water down a drain. His essence signature, already suppressed by the wards, flickered. Wavered.

  Guttered like a candle in the wind.

  "Four hundred and seventy-three," Mathew said quietly, moving to the next finger. "That's how many men under my command died in the eastern district when your cult collapsed the support pillars. Thousands of civilians."

  He pulled.

  "Hundreds of children in the orphanage. Crushed when the ceiling came down."

  Another finger.

  "Seventy-two men and women suffered fates worse than death when your abominations dragged them into the sewers. We found what was left three days later."

  Another.

  "Hundreds more lost their families. Lost everything. Because you and yours decided their lives were worth sacrificing for your 'great work.'"

  The cultist thrashed now, all pretense of superiority gone. His essence signature kept dropping, fragments of power bleeding away into nothing. Into Mathew.

  Silas felt it, even through his own limited essence sense. Felt Mathew's mantle working, pulling something fundamental out of the cultist's core and claiming it.

  Not just power. Identity. Purpose.

  The thing that made an Underlord an Underlord.

  Mathew gripped the final finger on the cultist's right hand.

  "I’ll ask again, for you were an Underlord, and that deserves some recognition, twisted as your path is. Tell me how many cultists are hiding in the shelter?"

  The cultist just screamed. Pure animal terror now, faith and fanaticism burned away under the weight of something worse than death. His presence guttered lower. Lower.

  Mortal rank. Then nothing.

  Mathew shook his head. "For someone who said he wouldn't be broken. Ha... how pitiful."

  He pulled the last finger.

  The cultist collapsed forward as far as the restraints allowed, sobbing. Not from pain—though that was surely there. From the hollow emptiness where his power used to live.

  Mathew leaned back in his chair, face still expressionless. Blood and injuries gave him a menacing quality that sparked fear in Silas before curbing the feeling, and respect replaced that.

  Mathew's smile widened. Blood on his teeth made it look feral.

  "That's what I wanted to see."

  He gestured without looking away from the cultist. "Verra."

  Sergeant Verra stepped forward. Her face was hard as steel, cold as winter stone. The lamp light caught her eyes and made them flat. Dead.

  "This is Verra," Mathew said. "Very talented specialist… a specialist your horrors helped in creating.”

  The cultist's eyes focused on Verra… on milky haze surrounding her, and for the first time, genuine panic bloomed across his face.

  Mathew leaned forward, and in his ruined hand, something condensed.

  A small orb containing a dark crimson fire, which thrashed around trying to break free. Each time it tried, more of its power was absorbed by the orb.

  The cultist went absolutely feral. Straining against his chains hard enough to tear skin, eyes locked on the flames burning in Mathew's hand. "How?! Those are—that's impossible! Those are my Lord's sparks! You can't—no one can—"

  Mathew's bloody smile widened. The gore covering his face and the missing eye gave him a look straight out of nightmares.

  "Didn't I say before?" His voice dropped lower. "My mantle took a very wrong turn."

  Verra moved forward, milky white light gathering in her hands. The glow reflected off the cultist's wide, terrified eyes.

  "Pray to your gods," Mathew said. "One last time. Not only will I have my answers, but I'll make sure you become a devout hater of the cult. I'll have you blaspheme your own god."

  “You will fight for Humanity till the end of your days!”

  "No—NO! You can't—I am faithful! I am—"

  Verra placed her hands on the cultist's temples.

  His screams took on a new quality.

  Then silence as her magic dove deep, rewriting certainty into doubt, faith into horror, loyalty into betrayal.

  Silas watched it all. He'd remember it later, in the dark. Would remember the moment he realized the man he'd followed for a decade had stepped past some fundamental line.

  Would remember being grateful he'd done it.

  ???

  The great hall of Frostspire Hold was carved from mountain stone, walls adorned with banners showing white bears and crossed axes. Torches burned in iron sconces, casting dancing shadows across faces weathered by northern winters and northern wars.

  Lord Tormund Hadien Valkar sat in his ancestral chair, fingers drumming against the haft of his great axe.

  Great didn’t even do justice to the massive weapon, forged from the blue steel from beyond this world, etched with caricatures of the legends of House Valkar.

  Grey streaked his hair now. Lines were carved deep around his eyes and mouth. But the muscle under his furs and robes hadn't softened, and his hands still remembered the weight of that axe.

  A knight knelt before the dais, head bowed. His armor gleamed, full plate polished to a mirror finish, but the man inside looked exhausted and defeated.

  "M'lord." The knight's voice was rough.

  “Ser Grimnar.” The lord acknowledged.

  "It is as you feared. The Crown has given those despicable bastards the…" Grimnar's voice was tight.

  Lord Valkar’s hand tightened on his axe.

  "And for good reason!" Maester Aldric stepped forward, his long grey beard trembling with agitation. The old man had served House for years, first as a soldier, then a scholar, and now an advisor.

  "We must not forget how important it is to keep fate's thread linear!" Aldric slammed his staff on the stone floor. "Any fracture would invite the True Beings of Chaos through!"

  The knight's head snapped up, fury blazing across his face. He surged to his feet, steel boots ringing against stone.

  "You are a pig who just stays holed up in your damn office!" Grimnar surged to his feet, steel boots ringing on stone. "Not on battlefields where real blood spills! Hundreds of thousands of innocent souls just snuffed out like candles! And you call it acceptable?!"

  "A small price—"

  "Small?!"

  "—to pay for keeping fate intact! If those Things slip through the cracks, these losses would be nothing! The entire world would—"

  Grimnar's fist crashed against his breastplate. Once. Twice. Steel on steel, loud as bells.

  The sound echoed through the hall. Conversations died. Soldiers along the walls turned to look.

  “Not again…” Aldric sighed, rubbing his temples.

  Grimnar's voice rose, not in anger but in something older. Something that came from deep in the chest where memory and purpose lived.

  In elder days, when darkness came

  And winter froze the burning flame

  The men of north stood side by side

  Though ice had claimed their flesh with pride

  Every Northern-born soul knew this song.

  Their bodies turned to frozen stone

  Their blood ran cold, their warmth had flown

  But deep within their chests still burned

  A fire that no death could turn

  Grimnar's voice grew stronger, pulling other voices with it. Guards along the walls. Servants in doorways. Every man and woman who'd grown up with snow in their blood and ice in their bones.

  They held the wall when gods had fled

  Protected those who huddled, fed

  By courage that no cold could break

  By oaths that even death won't shake

  The outer dark came howling down

  To claim the north, to take the crown

  But met instead with steel and song

  And men who'd stood there all along

  So let them come with void and hate

  Let chaos gather at the gate

  The north remembers, north will stand

  With frozen heart and burning hand!

  The final words crashed through the hall like thunder. Fifty voices. Sixty. Every soul present.

  Silence fell after, heavy and expectant.

  Lord Valkar looked out over his hall. At soldiers who'd followed his father. At young recruits who'd never seen war but understood what Northern blood demanded. At Grimnar, still standing straight in armor that had been cleaned of blood a hundred times and would be again.

  At Aldric, who looked tired and old and afraid for all the right reasons.

  "Then hear my call." Lord Valkar’s voice carried to every corner. "The North remembers, and we will not let this pass." He lifted his great-axe, feeling its familiar weight settle into his grip. "If death comes for us, let it be known—"

  He slammed the axe head down on the arm of his throne hard enough to crack stone.

  "—We welcome them with open arms!"

  “The Crown can play its games all it likes; we stand for humanity! WE STAND FOR HONOUR!”

  The roar that answered shook the rafters.

  Consider them "Hardcore Larpers" courtesy of one of the readers "Daseagle"

  PS: Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon, you can read upto one month ahead... It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

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