Chapter 11 - Forward, Into the Storm

- Skarn-T'zarl's POV — First Person

The dust swirled at my feet like the thoughts of the dead—restless, unclean, clinging to the bones of the present. I felt the cold winds lean heavy upon my shoulders, and with it, the weight of eyes—my people, the Free Men, waiting on my word.

I lifted my hand—scarred, fire-blackened, ringed with iron—and their voices died like flame beneath ash.

"Zae'kez… nar akhaz. Fel'veraz tharn, threi vek'zarh—nar sharn'ur."

(We shall not be hasty. The pieces lie before us, but that is not the sign to strike.)

The words slid out like ritual—old, precise, necessary. I felt their tension under my skin. Blades longed to be drawn. Faith burned too hot, too quickly. But faith untempered is a blade without hilt—it cuts the hand that bears it.

Some bristled. I saw it. Fingers curling around bone-handled blades. Eyes twitching with the old madness—the hope that prophecy makes righteous. But they obeyed.

I turned my gaze eastward. Past the Catastrophe, past the dunes. Beyond the horizon's lie. Toward the slow-bleeding war we left behind.

"Na'drakar Leithanien… thaz velkarn'ha."

(The Goats still hunt us. Leithanien's shadow crawls at our heels.)

I heard the angry spit of curses, sharp and guttural, spoken in the old tongue of our forefathers. I allowed them to speak it once, then silenced them with a look.

"Zae'kez… nar akhaz."

(Do not... be hasty.)

I repeated the words again. I felt their echo tighten across my ribs.

"Ka'zhe tal'dak tharn, Thas'kezh nar zaleth."

(The desert will test her, whether she is the one or not.)

Prophecy always speaks only in riddles and omens. Kazdel's wastes answers plainly.

With thirst.

With heat.

With death.

And most of the times, with Catastrophes.

I turned, my cloak dragging red dust behind me like a fading trail of blood. I called out names—each are a blade honed by sun and time.

"Idal. Turok. Faroul. Jamis. Liet."

They came forward without hesitation. Warriors forged in grit and salt. Faces wrapped in cloth, eyes dark as nightshade, limbs built for long war. I trusted them like I trusted the sand—because I knew they could kill, and I knew they could die.

"Zae'vel thurn'zai. Zakarn na'zel. Ur khel vorr'dal Leithanien."

(Guard our rears. Watch the dunes. See if the Goats dare pursuit.)

"Zae'kez thurn'arz. Val'zhet karzar."

(Keep the discipline. Hold the line.)

They saluted me—horns dipped, fists pressed to hearts—and disappeared into the waste with the silence of seasoned ghosts.

I let out a breath. It came out rough. Dry. Like stone cracking under pressure.

Then I walked.

Each step carried the weight of my thousand ancestors, and behind their voices, a thousand more. It was a burden I had never refused.

I stopped before the Prince. The King's Twin Brother.

His weathered armor caught the light like the hide of a steel serpent. Behind him—

She.

The woman. in white form of suit. Head encased in a full faced helmet, with only that glass dome leaving a glimpse of her face. Flickering blue lights like the last embers in a dying fire. I see her breath struggled under it. Life seemingly held her by a thread—and even that seemed frayed.

"Prince Theresis," I said.

He turned. Regal, as always. More of a Warrior King than his gentle sister. But I saw the strain hiding in the lines of his mouth. Both bruises and the remains of blood from his nose.

Ouch, that must've been one heavy punch.

Must've wounded some of his pride.

Prideful, Hardheaded.

Exact opposite of his sister.

"How is she? Your Grace." I glanced at the unconscious woman in his hands.

"Unconscious, Stilgar."

His voice carried some pain, unsoftened.

"I punched hard. Perhaps broke some of her ribs. Her breath is ragged. We need to bring her to Kazdel. The doctors from Babel might be able to save her."

I nodded. Slowly. The motion felt like rock grinding over rock.

Ah... yes, Babel.

The fruit of the King's vision for Kazdel's survival.

They aided us a lot whenever we needed medications and healings for our many ailments.

A lot of good people and doctors there.

A shame that this organization—her vision, caused a split between the two.

I understood the idea of peace to ensure Kazdel's survival. But without the strength, the use of violence, a controlled one, as a deterrence or repression against our foes?

It is pointless.

Afterall,

If you wish for peace, you need to prepare for the wars to come.

I sighed and looked down at her. At the prophecised one in my people's dreams, wrapped in frailty on The prince's arms.

"Zae'kez tharn..."

(I believe the signs…)

But belief alone means nothing in the desert. The sand does not care for ones' dreams. The wind erases all footprints.

I looked at him again—at Theresis, the child of steel, the King who refused the Crown.

And I said what truth remained:

"Then let us walk, prince… while the Catastrophe and the dunes still allows us."

+++++++++

- Theresis' POV

The old Cyclops moved like stone shaped by centuries—slow, deliberate, unbending. Each of his steps seemed to disturb the dust at his feet, as though even the sand deferred to the man's will.

I watched him approach and could not help the thought:

An ancient man, older even than me and my sister—perhaps by centuries or more. A living relic not merely of old Teekaz cultures, but of time itself.

A witness of Kazdel's rise and fall.

A witness of Sarkaz's follies.

Among the Free Men of the South, the position of a T'zarl was considered a figure akin to myth. A warlord and priest in one, bound by their own line of prophecy and blood-oath. I had long accepted that nothing in the Southern Expanse of Kazdel could endure without faith. The very land demanded it—harsh, sun-split, and deathless. You either believed in something... or you die.

Faith, then, was not a virtue among them. It was law. And Stilgar embodied it.

Curious, I mused, watching the sun bend along the ridges of his cloak, that a man so chained to the past moves forward with such clarity, and speaks with more sense than most Southerners.

I knew of their legends. Every scholars in Kazdel had seen them scratched onto tablets, stitched into veils, carved into warhorns.

The Liches wrote that the Free Men held to their prophecy with a desperation that bordered on fanaticism. And when they spoke of it, it was always in the old tongue, thick with dust and much coarser than modern Sarkaz language even most speaks:

"Zae'kez val thurn'ur… Za'thekar niz velketh nar'harn… Zha'ruul na'vel tzarhal."

(He shall come from beyond the burning stars… His voice shall rend the stillness… And the Outer World shall speak through his lips.)

I once dismissed it. Poetic nonsense. Made by folks who lost their minds in the scorching heat of the wastes.

But now…

Now I held a woman, not a man—in my arms whose breath barely lingered in her body, and whose arrival had shaken the Free Men's faith like a storm breaking drought.

Behind Stilgar, amongst the dust clouds, I caught motion—slow, subtle, but persistent. Not all of them had dispersed. Some still lingered in the storm, clinging to whatever pretense of duty they could while their eyes pulled elsewhere.

They stared.

At her.

Some pointed—openly, boldly, as if their gods had materialized in flesh and was now cradled in the arms of a foreign prince. Their hands made frantic gestures, old ritualistic movements, not unlike signs of warding or benediction.

I tensed.

The woman—fragile as she was—is now mine to protect.

It is my responsibility now.

I shifted slightly, turning my body just enough to shield her. The movement was instinctive. Protective. And when I looked back, I let my gaze harden into something cold and sharp.

That was enough.

Stilgar turned his head. Slowly, like a man unbothered by time. He saw them—those who lingered too long.

With a single wave of his scarred hand, he sent them away. No words. Just gesture. It was enough. The sand moved, the murmurs scattered, and the remnants of the crowd dissipated into the dune winds.

Then he looked back at me.

"I apologize, Prince Theresis," he said, and his voice creaked with dry Southern warmth. "They are not used to seeing gods carried by men."

There was humor in it. Dry, like the desert's own breath. And dangerous, in the way only old men's jokes can be.

I allowed myself the faintest exhale, not quite a laughter. "I prefer not to carry gods," I murmured. "The myths tend to have them made very inconvenient demands."

He chuckled. A soft, low sound. Like gravel remembering it was once a mountain.

Slowly, I felt a shift in the wind. Not sand, not heat—but someone's presence.

I turned my gaze and saw her.

Theresa.

She moved toward us with measured grace, her cloak trailing behind like the shadow of a blade. And in her arms—cradled not unlike the way I held the other—was a second girl. Younger. A child. Asleep. Breathing gently against her shoulder.

Two figures from two different prophecies.

What does it mean?

The child's existence refers to Scareye's "A sword to slay the regent king, a spear to pierce the royal ring."

But the woman's refers to a Messiah, One that will lead the Sarkaz to a Green Paradise.

What if... they were both... connected?

Or unrelated?

Maybe contradicts each other?

...

...

*Sigh...

This is why neither me nor Theresa cares much about prophecies.

Confusing and annoying...

And it hurts my head...

"How is she?" I asked, voice low.

Theresa glanced down at the girl in her arms, then back to me with that teasing glint she had never shed—not even through all our years of living, debates, nor beneath the political frost of Kazdel's Royal court that brought forth our separate views for the Sarkaz's future.

"Heavy," she japed.

I smirked. Couldn't help it.

Stilgar snorted through his nostrils, the sound halfway between a laugh and a warhorn echoing off canyon walls.

From behind her, I sensed more than heard her.

Queen Laqeramaline Du'khanvaliz, the Banshee Queen of the Convallis, whose every movement shimmered with veiled malice and artistry both. In her hands, she carried the strange weapon—the weird long rifle that killed the Sarkaz warriors charging at the outsider and the girl.

Sleek, robust, and humming faintly with the whisper of heat.

It was not of this land.

And I can argue, not even of this world.

"She's in deep sleep now," the Banshee Queen said, her voice a murmur wrapped in ice and velvet. "Thanks to my Arts."

I shifted my weight, cradling the woman in my arms just a little closer, and turned my gaze to my sister.

"You could've given the order earlier," I said coolly. "She was wounded, disoriented. Likely in shock after that arrow grazed her. Not to mention she watched someone—perhaps her own kin—be destroyed before her eyes. You could've spared her the fear."

Theresa lowered her gaze, lips curling with practiced contrition.

"Sorry," she said lightly. Coyly. "It was… a lapse in judgment."

Her words were sugar. I'd grown immune to that long ago.

I exhaled through my nose. The beginnings of a sigh.

It was Stilgar who severed the silence.

"Your Graces," he said, voice like stone dragged across ancient flagstones, "we should not dawdle here any longer. The Catastrophe may be easing… but we are still on its threshold. The air ahead still pulses with it."

He looked up toward the shifting heavens, his eyes narrowing.

"We're fortunate. This storm is not as cruel as the one clawing deeper in. But we are exposed—and the Goats still nip at our heels."

I looked toward the western dunes where the wind hissed low and sharp. My fingers tightened around the woman's frame. There would be no peace—not here.

"Then we move," I said.

And behind me, I felt the rustling of veils and wind-torn banners as the procession turned toward the path through the storm.

+++++++++

- Inside the safe path within the Catastrophe, Nezzsalem's POV

The wind had lessened, but the taste of death still lingers in the air.

Ash, dust, and something older still clung to the edges of the wind like forgotten prayers—the smell of a world too long denied burial. We moved in silence now, trudging across the hardening sand. The pale light filtered through a thinning sky, casting long shadows that stretched like fingers seeking to drag us back into the storm's heart.

I walked just behind Stilgar and the twins. Even now, their steps betrayed nothing. The girl in the pale man's arms still did not stir.

My gaze drifted—casual, at first—behind me. Among the shuffling remnants of the Free Men.

There.

A cluster of them walked with uneven gait, burdened. They carried wrapped forms—six, perhaps seven—some slung on crude stretchers, others held aloft in linen wraps stained at the base.

The faintes of its smell told me what the cloth did not.

Corpses.

Their weight was not merely physical; it clung to the air around them like an oath unfulfilled. The dead were those warriors, those mercenaries who had thrown themselves forward—some out of loyalty to the King, others out of greed or thrill, or perhaps out of fear of showing less than the man next to them.

I pitied them.

And I respected them, too—for their final charge was not made with hesitation. They died with purpose.

But I did not absolve them.

They were brave, yes. But brave men can be fools.

They had no formation. No discipline. They rushed an unknown enemy—a lone outsider, a woman clad in white, and they died as dogs die: confused, scrambling, cut down in panic.

The mercenaries among them... ah. Therein lies my deeper ire.

As much as I would lean more to the prince's faction, I still did not—can not understand why would he allow them to be in our ranks.

They fought not for cause, but for opportunity. Opportunist, each one of them are.

They would betray us in a heartbeat the moment the enemy threw wads of cash, gold, jewels, riches—into their faces and broke ranks and discipline in the heat of battle.

Even in the midst of madness, they still carried their vices—trophy-hunting, looting, whispering among themselves what they'd pry from the enemy's corpse. Trinkets. Bones. And—yes—

Guns.

I admit, that is one strange, brutal, foreign weapon wielded by the woman—the long gun. Sleek. Metal-bodied. Faintly humming with a resonance unnatural to our age.

Hells, even my own, and before that...

Last I remembered, guns still fires projectiles.

What were those called again?

Bullets, yes. Bullets.

Not a searing bolt of light!

To them, it must've glittered like a god's own blade.

I n this world, such a weapon is rare.

Guns—real ones—are relics. Sankta-forged, most of them, and jealously hoarded. In Laterano, Sanktas are born with them; elsewhere, they are either bought, or stolen, or wrested from the cold hands of a dead saint.

To own one is to own a story. To carry one is to say: I have killed. I have killed a Sankta. Or I am rich.

That rifle in her hands… that was no mercenary's bauble. That was a mark. And I'd wager half the fools lying cold in those wraps died trying to claim it.

And now…

My gaze shifted sideways—to the Banshee Queen.

There she walked, silent and drifting like smoke through stone corridors. In her pale arms she still held the weapon—that weird long rifle—the one the outsider woman had wielded, now bereft of light but still waiting, somehow.

Hmm...

Speaking of guns...