The Lord of the High Reach

Chapter 63: "Failure is a disease,"

"Mormaer," the man said, his voice tight, swallowed by the sheer terror of reporting to the man before him. "The vanguard has cleared the western ridge. The victory is ours, but... a small fraction of the Morvayn rearguard managed to break through our net. A few scouts escaped into the forest brush before the hounds could catch their scent."

Hadrin didn’t move. He didn’t blink. The only sign the kneeling man had that Hadrin had heard him was a slight, subtle tightening of his grip on the Morvayn warden’s throat. The dying man let out a choked, desperate gurgle.

"Go on," Hadrin murmured. His voice was a low, smooth purr, like a heavy blade being dragged slowly across coarse whetstone. It was a terrifyingly calm sound that made the man’s shoulders visibly tense.

"Our stalkers from the lower valley just returned," he continued quickly, his words rushing out as he tried to maintain his composure. "House Morvayn... aren’t retreating, milord. They have assembled every single one of their Lord Wardens. Every Yellow-tier commander they possess, even most of those gathered around the Morvayn Lord, has been gathered. They are mobilizing their entire army." fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

"By the looks of it, they are marching towards the eastern area of the forest, straight towards Caer Affalen. We have sent scouts to track their movements and report back as soon as something happens."

For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound in the valley was the wind and the wet, dying gasps of the Morvayn soldier dangling from Hadrin’s fist.

Hadrin slowly turned his head. His dark eyes shifted downward, finally landing on the kneeling man. The body language was subtle, but the predatory focus shifted entirely, pinning the subordinate to the mud.

"A full-scale battle," Hadrin mused softly, his expression settling into a cold, cruel mask of quiet amusement. "Hmph! They gather their troops once their city is broken and think that numbers will win them this war? Without Godarwin, there’s nothing stopping me from killing all of them and taking control of the whole region."

Hadrin adjusted his weight slightly. He tilted his head, his sharp features catching the last gleam of the fading twilight.

"Five days ago," Hadrin said, his tone dropping an octave, becoming entirely devoid of inflection. "One of our Blood Thane’s was given a singular task. Supposedly the beast assassin we had, he was supposed to kill Godarwin in his weakest state... he couldn’t even do that! He allowed himself to be detected, and he fled like a scolded cur back into the pines."

The kneeling Thane swallowed hard, his hands clenching into fists against his knees. Cold sweat mixed with the rain-dirt on his brow. "Yes, Mormaer. Thane Varek." freewёbnoνel.com

"Where is he?" Hadrin asked.

"We... we do not know, milord," the Thane stammered, his voice trembling slightly despite his best efforts. "He has not returned to the holdfast. We have scouts searching the lower ravines and forest areas, but there has been no sign of his aura. He may have bled out in the wild, or—"

"Failure is a disease," Hadrin interrupted, his voice sharp and sudden, cutting through the Thane’s explanation like an iron wedge. "It is a parasite that breeds in the minds of those who think survival is an option when a command is broken. If he is alive, he hides because he knows what I do to weak flesh. If he is dead, the mountains saved him the agony of my lesson."

Hadrin finally looked down at the Morvayn High Warden hanging in his hand. The warden’s eyes were bloodshot, staring up at the Mormaer with a mixture of raw hatred and fading consciousness.

"You are a High Warden of Morvayn?," Hadrin said directly to the dying man, his thumb pressing hard into the side of the warden’s neck, cutting off the last traces of his internal energy flow. "Built to be a pillar for your house. But a house built on mud cannot stand. Haha! Too bad you won’t be there to see your house fall."

With a sudden, sickening crack that echoed loudly against the stone walls of the pass, Hadrin snapped the High Warden’s neck with a casual, single-handed twist of his wrist. The warden’s body went entirely limp, the light instantly vanishing from his wide eyes.

Without a shred of emotion, Hadrin tossed the massive corpse aside. It landed with a heavy, wet thud in the muck, rolling into a pile with the other Morvayn dead.

Hadrin reached down, casually wiping the warden’s blood from his leather-gloved palm onto the tattered fur of his cloak. He turned his full, terrifying gaze back to the kneeling Blood Thane, his posture straightening until he seemed to tower over the entire bloody field.

"Let them gather their army," Hadrin commanded, a dark, bloodthirsty spark finally igniting deep within his black eyes. "Let them pull every Lord Warden they have from their walls. They think they are marching to a war. They are simply marching to the slaughterhouse."

He drew his black-iron greatsword from the earth, the heavy, dark metal scraping against the stones with a sinister hum.

"Signal the hold," Hadrin rumbled, turning his back on the Thane and looking toward the high mountain paths that led toward the northern valleys. "We move the main force by dawn. If House Morvayn wishes to empty their halls to meet me, I will ensure none of them live to see the winter."

***

The sound tore through the thick, heavy fog settling over the gatehouse of House Osric, where the screech wasn’t a weapon being drawn or that of a dying beast, but the groaning protest of a rusted iron winch being forced to hoist a thousand-pound deadweight.

The two-hour storm of beasts had finally run completely out of breath, leaving behind a silence so heavy it felt entirely suffocating.

The high alpine air, once crisp and sharp, was now a stagnant, foul soup of black primal fluids, sulfurous mist, and the bitter, grey smoke of campfires drowned in wet slush.

In the center of this quiet carnage stood Bramm.

He looked less like a triumphant victor and more like a weathered oak tree that had barely survived a lightning strike. He stood rooted at the gatehouse, his boots buried ankle-deep in the crimson-soaked mud.