Chapter 320: Ashen-Haired Barbarian of the White Snowfield (2)

The Tower Master tore open space and stepped through with Ketal at his side. They emerged at the embattled front, where weary soldiers had paused to snatch a fleeting moment of rest. As the two appeared, heads turned and eyes widened in shock.

“O-oh!”

“The Tower Master!”

“And Ketal is with him as well!”

A wave of awe rippled outward. Men and women drew closer in hesitant steps, reverence warring with caution. Ketal glanced around with a look of mild surprise.

“Most of them know me,” he murmured.

“In times like these, only a fool would not,” the Tower Master replied in Ketal’s mind.

Ketal’s name had traveled the breadth of the continent. He had fought to blunt Necrobix’s attacks, and the story had marched with the refugees and the supply trains until even backwater villages spoke of him.

“Still,” Ketal said quietly, “this is not only wonder or respect. There is another color in their eyes.”

He could taste fear, not directed at him but triggered by the sight of him, as if his presence stirred a memory of something else. The Tower Master reached the same conclusion and clicked his tongue.

“It may be a learned fear of barbarians,” he said.

“It feels like more than that,” Ketal answered, tilting his head.

They cut through the murmuring crowd, asked for the Swordmaster’s location, and followed directions to the largest hut. Inside, Arcane lay stretched on a cot with bandages across his chest, his face pale with pain. He looked up, saw who had come, and jolted upright.

“T-Tower Master...”

“You may remain lying down,” the Tower Master said.

“Ah. Yes.” Arcane sank back and, in the same movement, found Ketal. His eyes widened again. “You...!”

His hand moved on reflex toward his weapon, then halted when Ketal did not shift his weight or reach for anything at all.

“Ketal,” Arcane said, working moisture into his throat. “It is you.”

“It is,” Ketal replied.

Arcane exhaled a long breath and let his head fall to the pillow. The reaction was strange enough that Ketal cocked his head, unsure what to make of it.

“May I examine you?” the Tower Master asked Arcane.

“Of course,” Arcane answered.

Mana slipped from the mage’s fingers and threaded through Arcane.

“Your condition is poor,” the Tower Master said at last. “There’s internal damage, and it wasn’t Myst that caused it.”

The melody of mana showed organs twisted and bruised by blunt force, as if a hammer had pounded him from within. Against someone of Arcane’s caliber, that should have been nearly impossible. The Tower Master glanced toward the door.

“This healing is not mine to do,” he said. “Holy Sword, if you would.”

A young woman stepped forward, arms folded in theatrical offense.

“I do have a name,” she said. “It is Serena.”

Light the color of old gold flowed from her palms and sank into Arcane’s ribs. Warmth surged through him, knitting torn flesh and soothing inflamed tissue until the pain ebbed like a tide soaked into sand. Arcane stared at her, stupefied.

“You wield holy power without prayer,” he whispered. “Who is this girl?”

“A very fine tool of the gods,” the Tower Master said dryly. “How do you feel now?”

“Better,” Arcane said, testing his breath. “Much better.”

“Then tell us what happened,” the Tower Master said. “Leave nothing out.”

Arcane set his jaw, adjusted the blanket, and began.

“This place is the route by which the East trades with the others,” he said. “Because of that, the demons have pushed hard to break it. They sent not only named demons but those with rank and titles. I brought troops and built a fort so that we could hold the line.”

He glanced toward the map table with its peppering of colored stones.

“But the continent’s state is as poor as you know,” he added. “Necrobix has left scars everywhere. We could not be sure how long we had before he turned this way, so I chose to strike their outpost even if it cost us dearly. We made our preparations and marched. When we arrived, the outpost had already fallen... The demons were all dead.”

“Dead?” the Tower Master repeated. “Not banished?”

“Not banished,” Arcane said. “There were bodies. Dozens of them.”

The Tower Master’s eyes sharpened to points of ice. Demons did not leave corpses in the Mortal Realm unless the killing met very narrow conditions, conditions that involved godly sanction and holy power poured like molten metal. Under almost every other blow, demons were dragged back to Hell, their bodies collapsing into that pull. Yet Arcane had walked through heaps of dead.

“What did you find there?” the Tower Master asked him.

“Ashen-haired barbarians,” he said softly, his gaze sliding sideways to Ketal.

Ketal’s face twisted as if something had knifed him behind the ribs. A pulse of emotion rippled outward before he leashed it, and soldiers who had been loitering near the door went pale as chalk. Arcane himself froze.

“I need you to calm down,” the Tower Master said, looking at Ketal.

“Right,” Ketal said, forcing the word through his teeth. “My apologies.”

He did not often lose control in the open, which told the Tower Master as much as the word itself. The mage rubbed his chin with the knuckles of his thumb.

“It seems you know what’s going on,” the Tower Master said.

“Unfortunately,” Ketal replied, “I do.”

“Those ashen-haired barbarians,” the Tower Master asked Arcane gently, “were they the ones who hurt you?”

“At first I thought they were on our side,” he said, nodding. “The northern tribes have been cooperating with the other continents. More than that, there is Ketal. I assumed we stood together.”

He drew a breath that scraped like sand.

“But I was wrong,” Arcane continued. They had attacked him. They had tried to kill him. “There were three of them. The other two stayed still. Only one came at me.”

Arcane gulped again, remembering the weight on his sword, the beat traveling into his palm.

“It was a blessing that, when I tried to disengage, they did not chase,” he said. “To be precise, one wanted to chase, and the other stopped him. They argued that it would not be self-defense.”

Ketal’s expression pinched tighter. He clicked his tongue.

“They’re out...” he muttered.

***

They set out immediately for the ruined outpost. True to Arcane’s account, the place had been smashed beyond recognition. Serena paused on a ridge of broken stone and peered down at the pattern of destruction.

“The way this place came apart looks familiar,” she said. “I see it now. It resembles the phenomena you cause in battle.”

“Of course it does,” Ketal said, clicking his tongue again.

His mood had soured. Serena closed her mouth and fell into step behind him. They found the three at the heart of the wreckage not long after. Ashen-haired barbarians lounged at the edge of a crater, yawning as if boredom weighed more heavily than danger.

The sight of them made Ketal’s jaw tighten until the muscles jumped near his ear. The Tower Master watched the change cross Ketal’s face and spoke in a low voice.

“You know them?” he asked Ketal.

“Regrettably,” Ketal said.

There was hardly any need to ask. These three had the same pallor in their hair and eyes, the same cast of bone and movement, the same aura that clung to Ketal like frost.

“We will step back,” the Tower Master murmured.

“Please do,” Ketal said.

“Be careful,” Serena said, hugging her elbows.

The Tower Master and Serena retreated to the edge of the yard. Ketal let out a slow breath and walked forward.

“Who is it this time?” one of the barbarians said, hearing footsteps. They looked up with faces that mixed annoyance and laziness, then stopped short when they saw him clearly.

“Huh?”

“What...”

“Thomas. Greta. Anna,” Ketal said. “What are you doing here?”

[Quest# 790 complete.]

The three barbarians stumbled over their own surprise, then their faces split into grins filled with joy that felt almost childish.

“Oooooh—!”

“Our king!”

“It is the king!”

They rushed toward him with eyes bright and voices choked with emotion, like a family reunited after years of separation. Yet something rotten lay inside that sweetness. Suddenly, they drew axes as they ran.

“Die!” Greta shouted.

“This time, we will win!” Thomas cried.

The bloodlust rolling off them made Serena flinch, and the Tower Master mutter a curse. However, Ketal moved as if he were brushing away midges. He caught Greta’s wrist as the axe fell and snapped it with a twist. He struck his chest with the heel of his palm and folded ribs inward. He coughed up blood and dropped.

The other two surged past him, their weapons slicing toward his neck. Ketal slipped inside their arcs with fluid precision, seized both heads in his hands, and twisted sharply. Necks snapped with a crisp, sickening pop, and the bodies collapsed to the ground with two heavy thuds.

“Wait,” Serena breathed.

“Hold a moment,” the Tower Master said.

It looked very much as if Ketal had killed them. Then bones crackled like ice under a spring thaw, and all three began to rise.

Greta’s collapsed chest pushed outward. The crooked lines of Thomas’s and Anna’s necks straightened with slow, unpleasant clicks.

“Regeneration ability?” the Tower Master said. “No, it’s more than that...”

It was not a simple healing ability. It was something like a reversal, a push against the state of the body that undid it from the end back toward the cause. The three stood fully within a few breaths, eyes shining, cheeks flushed with excitement.

“We have trained, and yet you swatted us down as if nothing!” Greta said, clasping his hands with the eagerness of a child at a festival. “You truly are our king!”

“Chief!” Anna cried. “We missed you!”

“Quiet,” Ketal said.

It was all he could manage to say without swearing. These three were his tribe. Once, in the White Snowfield, he had led them—Thomas, the clever one; Greta, the brutish one; and Anna, who smiled whenever she bled.

“Why are you here?” Ketal asked. “Greta, explain.”

Greta puffed out his chest, as if a teacher had called on him and he wished to show how attentive he had been.

“We came to find the king!” he said.

“That is not an explanation,” Ketal replied. “Did you complete the task I gave you?”

“Yes,” he said at once. “We completed it.”

Ketal stared. “You actually did...”

Before he had left the White Snowfield, his tribe had tried every trick to follow him into the Outside. He had beaten them, broken bones, knocked them senseless, and still they insisted. In the end, he had thrown his hands up and set them a task meant to keep them home.

“Do not follow me. If you must, then prove you can by accomplishing the mission I set.”

He had chosen something impossible. The three Primarchs roamed the White Snowfield, beings so powerful that even Ketal thought twice before challenging them. Ketal had given the order: kill one of the Primarchs. Only then would he accept that they had the right to leave. What he had truly meant was, stay where they were.

And you killed one,

he thought,

incredulous.

He shifted his gaze to Thomas, whose face wore the calmest expression.

“Is that true?” Ketal asked him.

“Yes,” Thomas said brightly.

Ketal locked eyes with him, holding his gaze until the brightness within jolted and wavered. When Thomas’s pupils trembled, Ketal let out a sharp, derisive snort.

“You still cannot lie,” Ketal said. “Answer properly.”

“Well... We sort of killed it,” Thomas admitted.

“We nearly had it,” Greta said, rushing to fill the silence. “We drove it to the brink!”

“Which means you did not kill it,” Ketal said.

Greta’s shoulders slumped. “That is true.”

“And yet you came anyway.”

“I am sorry!” Greta said, bowing very quickly. “We wanted to see you! We could not help it!”

The three lowered their heads in unison. Ketal rubbed his forehead.

“It is fine,” Ketal said after a moment. “I did not think you would truly succeed. I expected you to try to follow me anyway.”

The frustration did not leave, but he caged it. They were here now, and scolding them would not roll time backward.

“What is done is done. For now, stay with me.”

“Yes!” they chorused.

“As expected of the king!” Anna added. “So merciful!”

They shouted their delight, loud enough to draw startled looks all the way to the gate, then quickly fell in step behind him. Ketal led them toward the spot where the Tower Master and Serena were waiting.

“Let me introduce them,” Ketal said. “These are my tribe from the White Snowfield. Greta, Thomas, and Anna. This is Serena, who travels with me.”

“H-hello,” Serena said, shrinking a little behind the Tower Master.

The barbarians gave her a cursory glance and lost interest almost immediately.

“The king always liked to watch over children,” Anna said with cheerful sincerity. “He is doing the same here. Of course, he is the king!”

“Silence,” Ketal said without heat. “This is the Tower Master. You may guess what you like, but he is my ally. Do not treat him as an enemy.”

“It is good to meet you,” the Tower Master said. “Ashen-haired barbarians of the White Snowfield.”

They had ignored Serena, but they did not ignore him. Thomas’s mouth pulled into a sneer.

“A skull-face,” he said. “So there are your kind Outside as well.”

He hefted his axe and struck for the Tower Master’s head. The mage snapped a phrase and threw up a ward. The impact shattered the spell like a pane of ice under a hammer. Force shook the air. The Tower Master raised an arm against the spray of grit and grimaced.

“Wait!” the Tower Master snapped.

Thomas did not wait. His eyes had gone flat and bright, and his shoulders rolled forward with a murderous eagerness that had nothing of restraint in it. He came in to kill. The Tower Master prepared a countermeasure, fingers tracing light.

“Thomas,” Ketal said quietly.

The air shifted, carrying more than just sound. It was as if something immense had leaned on the very fabric of the world. Thomas halted, rigid, as though an unseen hand had pressed down on the back of his neck. Greta and Anna froze alongside him, their eyes snapping toward Ketal with sudden, sharp alertness.

“I told you to stand down,” Ketal said.

“I am sorry,” Thomas said, and lowered the axe without a trace of argument.

One breath earlier, he had been coming with everything he had. At a single line from Ketal, he retreated as if he had never moved. Ketal inclined his head toward the Tower Master.

“My apologies,” he said. “They do not always listen. There is one like you in the White Snowfield. That must be why he bristled.”

“It is nothing,” the Tower Master said, though his voice had turned thoughtful.

What surprised him was not Thomas’s outburst but the power Ketal had laced through that single word. The presence in it felt like dominion. In all the time they had fought together, the Tower Master had never felt Ketal project that particular authority in the open. A single command bearing that edge had pulled a killing strike to a halt.

“So it was true,” the Tower Master murmured.

Ketal was king among the ashen-haired barbarians of the White Snowfield. The Tower Master had always known the fact and yet had not tasted its weight. Until now, there had been only one of that people in the Mortal Realm, and that man had moved like a wanderer rather than a ruler. Now three barbarians stood before him. These barbarians all had powers equal to Heroes, and they obeyed Ketal not as a colleague obeys a colleague but as warriors kneel to a sovereign. If he were to say, die, they would plant their axes in their own hearts with joy.

The phrase

White Snowfield

, the title

king

—the weight of those words finally sank in, and the Tower Master fully grasped their meaning. Then, another realization followed close behind.

Even such obedience frayed at the edges. These three loved their king enough to cross continents against his instruction. They would die at his order, yet they could not resist the urge to disobey when their longing tugged hard enough.

Calamity had slipped loose into the open air,

the Tower Master thought. He rubbed his temple with two fingers and let a quiet sigh drain from him.