As the witch predicted, the night was indeed sleepless, and the army of Slither-withers took much of it to pass. Tildy measured the hours by Lun’s slow drift overhead, a poor distraction from the murmur and susurration beyond the walls of the secret chamber.

An annoying voice between her ears – the one that warned against bad behavior or predicted the worst possible outcome of her choices – kept reminding her to forget about Mum’s Dreddendow tale. As usual, it had the opposite effect, and her fears piled upon themselves like an avalanche thundering down the mountainside. Her anxiety hit its highest point when one of the creatures found the empty chest that they’d abandoned. A greedy skirmish ensued, filled with hissing voices and the thumps of bodies against the room’s outer wall. Tildy saw her own worry reflected in the faces of her companions: Marklin more than the witch, of course, but she knew her adoptive mother well enough to read her expression. At last, order was restored, and the army continued on its way.

After a sleepless night, Marklin boosted Tildy so she could peer over the wall – her adoptive mother insisted that she remain grounded until they knew the Eslavanaash were gone. They were. The trampled swath through the grass, and the befoulment along it, were unmistakable signs they had slithered west. The companions breathed sighs of relief. Their own path headed north.

Tildy and Marklin helped each other climb out of the secret room. “Bye!” he called down to the skeleton. The witch gave the chamber one last inspection. Tildy suspected she was trying to disprove the story of her escape. Good luck, she thought with a smile.

Outside, the witch knelt amongst the Slither filth to inspect the crushed highgrass. “A single track breaks away from the main passage of the army, though it is difficult to tell because the Eslavanaash have two tails.”

After inspecting the spot, Tildy understood her interest. “We’ve seen these tracks before, though I didn’t know what they were.”

“Yes.”

“This is why you avoided some places we could have camped?”

“Yes,” her adoptive mother repeated in her maddening, even tone.

“You knew Slither-withers roamed the wilds?” Marklin asked, incredulous. Tildy knew they had no choice but to take this journey, but this added level of peril worried her, too.

The witch raised an eyebrow. “Knew? No. There were hints, but they were less than rumor. And that may as well be folktale. ‘Irresponsible is the person who jumps from the cliff before discovering she can fly.’”

Tildy rolled her eyes at the adage that advised exploring the mundane before considering the impossible. “But they have literally slithered from legend into daylight.”

“Aye, we have learned that, but even the very wise would not have attributed these tracks to a people long vanished from the world.

“People?” Marklin asked. “They aren’t people.”

“As you define the word, you mean ‘Human’,” the witch said sharply. Tildy winced. “I, and many others in the world, define it otherwise.”

“They’re monsters.” Marklin crossed his arms.

“Monsters exist in every race. The outer features being the least reliable determining factor.” The witch sighed. “In this case, we are both correct. No story has ever described the Eslavanaash as anything other than loathsome enemies of the good peoples of the world. But now is not the time for philosophy, it is time for breakfast!” she laughed, reaching up to put both hands on his shoulders. “Be a good lad and fix us one of your wonderful breakfasts whilst Tildy and I view the lands from the hilltop.”

This changed Marklin’s demeanor, and soon he was retrieving their belongings from the secret room.

* * * * *

Leaving him to his task, they ascended the hill, finally climbing a broken stair to stand upon the remains of the rampart. Cerulean skies greeted them in every direction, reminding Tildy of home.

Northward lay the Hearkenfell Mountains, which Tildy had only seen on maps: deep grey and purple shadows with peaks of white. She had never imagined anything could be so, well, ‘massive’ and ‘majestic’ weren’t impressive enough words.

“Did you see that mark on the creature’s banner?” the witch asked as she turned to study the western horizon.

“At a distance,” Tildy replied, hearing an unpleasant note in the question. “A vile symbol, I thought.”                                                            

“It looked to me a black hand amongst other evil characters, though I could not be sure. It has been long years since that device has been seen in these lands. Long, long years. I fear to consider the significance.”

“What does the mark mean?”

“It is the Black Hand of Delosh.”

“Like the curse? Fietha used to say that because you didn’t like other swears.”

“Hmph. As in the symbol borne long ago by the armies of the Evershadow.” The witch spat on the ground. “There was a time, ages ago, when the name of the Delosh would cause any creature to quake with fear, be it Human, Elf, or Dragon. As Its power waned, so did the terror, until the Shadow was all but forgotten, Its name reduced to a mild obscenity.”

“Its Servants wander freely in the land?” Tildy asked.

Before responding, the witch contemplated the southwest skies, beneath which Dappledown lay, unprotected against whatever may cross the lands of Empyrelia. She sighed. “Have we not heard of others already? Orklins, Oggles, and Meer-in-dowan? Of old, they were all thralls to Delosh. And there are fouler names of blacker servants that I will not repeat with enemies so close. The Eslavanaash have indeed returned, dark creatures gone for ages of the world. All good peoples are in greater peril than their ancestors’ ancestors had known. If the Dark Storm Itself were to fall upon these lands,” she paused, her face drawn with concern as she looked at Tildy, “it would be the end of many things.”

* * * * *

They descended a few minutes later. Marklin had skinned and spit a large forest squit or squirrel – Tildy couldn’t tell them apart – for their breakfast. Beneath it, he roasted a vibrant assortment of vegetables in an enameled cast-iron pan that he jostled occasionally. The witch had her sit down beside him. “Tildeneth, Marklin,” she began. “We need to catch our breath. We have been on a precarious path since before the Sarsenith arrived, and with this army so close—”

“But they were going west,” he interrupted as he shifted the pan’s contents with a shake of his arm.

She cut him off with a glare before continuing. “West they may be headed, but they are searching for Tildeneth, if you remember.” Tildy swallowed as Marklin looked at her. They’d both forgotten. “We are alone in the wilderness, and we need shelter and protection. It’s not far. We might have ended up there anyways, but I believe we have no choice any longer.”

“Where?” Tildy asked.

“I think we can reach it by the Midsummer Starfall. At least, when it normally occurs.”

“Mother, where?”

“The Last Shard.”

Marklin and Tildy sprung up and talked at once.

“But your friend said they wouldn’t help!”

“There’s naught but bad tales from them walls!”

“What if they turn us away, too?”

“What if those Slither-withers catch us first?”

“Is there nowhere else we can go?

The witch held up both hands. “Mercy! You two would make a nimble-tongued Fairy ask you to speak slower.” She rested her hands on their shoulders. “Yes, I am also concerned about how we will be received. However, we have but two choices: wait for something bad to happen to us or act to prevent it. Which would you prefer?”

“We can’t wait,” said Marklin.

“We have to go,” said Tildy.

“Good,” replied the witch.

A whistling caught their attention, and they turned in time to see the roasting animal hissing with steam. Then it exploded.

The witch picked a meat chunk from Marklin’s hair and ate it. “You have to cook squit over a low fire lest you overheat the air sacks that help them float between trees!” With a chuckle, she went to the pan and served up the vegetables. Within half an hour, they had eaten – albeit a smaller breakfast than Marklin intended – cleaned up, and departed.

* * * * *

Several uneventful, yet vigilant hours lapsed with neither sound nor sight of any enemy. As the lunch hour fell behind them, notably marked by Marklin’s gurgling stomach, they found a grove of nuts and berries. The witch insisted they wait while she inspected every tree, though she refused to explain herself. Marklin snuck a berry.

The witch emerged sometime later with several small sacks in her hand. “Fill these to bursting,” she said, handing them over. “And you can have seconds,” she added, wiping berry juice from Marklin’s chin.

Over the following three days, the prairie and treelands faded behind them and rolling hills lay ahead. Somewhere beyond sight, a babbling stream ran its course. The Whitway widened and Tildy’s eyes followed its bright path up a steep slope that she dreaded climbing. Before they proceeded, however, the witch knelt beside the road to wipe dirt from a rectangular slab in the ground. When revealed, they saw it was broader than a wagon and sunk deep into the earth. Marklin and Tildy looked at each other, and both shrugged.

The witch stood and presented the cleared stone. “We enter the former realm of the kings of Southershard,” she said. “This used to be an encircling wall that stretched from one part of the Hearkenfell Mountains to another, intending to protect every hill and valley within.” Tildy saw many similar stones that led away in both directions. Most were broken and partially overgrown or buried.

Marklin turned, his eyes following the imagined path of the wall. “It must have taken a hundred years to build such a wall.”

“Aye,” said the witch. “For generations, paranoid kings of House Caederen feared their realm would fall and their line would end. The Shervengard, as they called it, would make their children invincible.”

“I expect it didn’t,” Tildy said, reading her adoptive mother’s face.

“No. A wall is not a demonstration of strength. To the conqueror, it is a sign of weakness. And to the bold ravager, a clear sign that the lord has more gold than soldiers. But the people here fell to neither of those. At least, not at first.” She returned to the Whitway, and they followed. Tildy hadn’t been wrong about the steepness of the road but the hills themselves became sheer and near impossible to scale. It occurred to her that they had ignored this natural defense in favor of building a testament to their family’s house.

The witch agreed. “The Kings Caederen wasted too many lives and too much gold, blind to the signs of discontent within their own wall. People starved, disease ravaged the population, and when the revolt came, the final king fell beneath the iron and steel of his own subjects, not some enemy from without. The Shervengard itself was never completed, and the people vowed to destroy it stone by stone.”

“That sounds foolish,” said Tildy, puffing from the climb. “Without a monarch, they could have used the protection. Wouldn’t they be ripe for conquest?”

“And it must have taken near as much effort to destroy as create,” Marklin added, taking similar deep breaths.

“Correct on both counts,” said the witch, unaffected by the climb, “although simply having a monarch does not make one safe, as the people of Empyrelia learned twelve short years ago when the Lost Royals fell.

“As for the impoverished people in the Valley, they despised the wall that served as constant reminder to the folly of kings. On the other hand, its destruction would not solve any of the problems that caused them to rebel. Bickering and a generation of indecision led them to the exact fate House Caederen had wanted to prevent. Again and again they were conquered, and the ravaged population was nearly annihilated. They became diminished in quantity and grace, unrecognizable in their squalor. Five centuries ago, the Stonewards descended the mountains, and their rule brought the people back from the brink of extinction. They have reigned since, and it was they who finally dismantled the Shervengard, using its remnants to construct a smaller wall that stands to this day.

“And whilst they are a smaller noble house, with little to offer Empyrelia, their occupation of the Last Shard has allowed a certain impunity that the monarchs of Evereign long allowed. I expect that has increased in the twelve years since the deaths of the Lost Royals. We should watch our manners. And we shall use our different names,” she added as a casual afterthought.

Marklin turned to Tildy. “I don’t even know her real one.”

Tildy smiled in return. “I’m not sure I do, either.” He stopped in his tracks, and she giggled as she skipped after her adoptive mother.

* * * * *

Their long climb nearly over, they welcomed the arriving breath of the distant mountains. As Tildy watched fuzzy bizbees flying from flower to flower, she wondered if autumn came earlier to the highlands. When they finally crested the steep hill, they were greeted by a spectacular view of the valley below. Below the sharp cliffs that crowned it, terraced fields stepped down from the highest points. Crops of various kinds grew there, creating a stained-glass mosaic across the valley. A jeweled thread of water cut across the plain like a dew-kissed strand of spider’s web.

Marklin gasped and Tildy looked wide-eyed at the witch, noting that even her well-traveled mother seemed impressed. In the center of all, like the remaining core of some solitary mountain that had crumbled to ruin, rose a pinnacle of stone that towered over the low hills. And while these earthen uplands would grow in height and majesty to become the southern end of the Hearkenfell Mountains, here they were but the sloping shoulders beneath a nobler brow. The tower appeared both natural and constructed by mortal hands, too immense to have been built, yet shimmering pinpricks of light suggested windows within the stone. Had she not spent weeks imagining fantastical stories beginning here, Tildy might have thought it ugly: a misshapen stone cast away for its unloveliness, lodged and forgotten in the dirt.

Warm sunshine illuminated the same grey rock of the mountains, creating shadows of indigo tinge. Tildy thought the jagged top of the tower suggested that it had once been taller. “The Last Shard,” announced the witch. “Of old, named the Southershard. Raised by Human hands two ages of the world ago. Or as other stories say, conceived by them, but crafted with the hands of Dwarves and the words of Elves. The true tales are lost to time, but by any language, the stories are roughly the same: this is the last of four stone citadels built to protect the lands of Empyrelia in every direction.

“With Evereign in the center?” Tildy ventured.

“Very good, Tildeneth,” said the witch with an approving nod. “Each Shard was to be the vanguard, the first line of defense, for Evereign.” Following that preface, she led them into the Valley of the Last Shard. “With mountains ruled by Dwarves and forests by Elves and Fairies,” she explained, “Humans felt exposed living in the fields and plains. So evermore have they needed strong walls, bastions against the dark, you might say. And always did they forget that strongholds create deep shadows themselves.

“Alas, for the betrayals in Westershard three centuries ago! Had that tower yet stood, perhaps Kher Gargan and his barbarians might have been repelled as they crossed the Treacherant Sea. Instead, they laid waste to Empyrelia and ended the line of monarchs. Perhaps the Lost Royals would have lived, instead of perishing within the walls of Evereign.” She looked at Tildy for a moment before bowing her head to honor those who died. “Since erected, the Shards have played pivotal roles in the wars of Humans. Indeed, many battles were fought within the shadow of the Eastlenshard before it fell to a mountain-quake.”

“What about the one in the north?” Tildy asked, intrigued by the history lesson.

“I know not,” the witch replied. “Few written accounts come from the lands of the Frozen Blight. I have read no tale describing the fall of Iceshard, though all lore says it is gone. I think Southershard would not have the epithet ‘The Last’ if the northern one remained.” Here the witch smiled. “I have always wanted to visit one of the famed Shards! Let us make haste, and not forget the perils at our backs!”

* * * * *

The road led them down a gentler slope than their ascent, and it was well-tended and in good repair. Noticing they were only two, Tildy paused to look back. Marklin had not moved. “A long journey,” he said, staring back the way they’d come. “I’ve nearly lost track of the steps and the days since I left Grey’therton.”

“Me, too,” she said walking back to him.

“I’ve been wishing I had a map. Might help me understand how far we’ve come.” He turned to her. “I’ve always liked maps. They showed me where else I could be, even if they made me feel very small in a big world.”

Tildy had never thought of it that way. Perhaps because she’d always been a traveler, and always – until this trip – knew where she was. She did understand his affinity for maps, however. “I’ve always liked them for the possibilities they promised.”

“I’ve hardly had time to think about where I’ve been or what wonders I’ve seen so far. Or,” he paused, looking back, “what I’ve lost.”

Atop a sunny hill, where all the possibilities of Empyrelia spread out below them, Tildy felt nothing but hope. From her own experience with loss, she knew that sometimes the pain resurfaced, even on the happiest days. And Marklin’s grief was so very near. When it happened to her, she usually looked east, feeling that old desire to follow the Eastwen road to discover her family’s intended destination. Yet she found herself on a northern road, having discovered no further insight to her past.

A cloud passed, putting them in shadow for a time. Her thoughts couldn’t help but follow. Their journey had seen more than its fair share of dark days: the attacks on Greywetherton and other villages, the disappearance of Marklin’s family, and the abduction of the crofter and her friend Fietha, the person to whom she’d entrusted all her childhood secrets and fears. For the first time in months, she realized, she recalled the lost pin she’d given him. She doubted she’d ever learn its secret. It was such a small thing in a world full of larger concerns.

It hadn’t been all bad, of course. They’d seen wonders, too. From monsters like the Sarsenith or the Slither-withers to meeting amazing beings like the Dryad in the Willowwacks. Not to mention, visiting Alarune where she found the magnificent Mumnambulen. Such things weren’t enough to outshine their horrible experiences, though she supposed the opposite was also true. She wondered whether a sorrow’s wounds ever truly healed. She thought they usually did, leaving nothing behind but scars to remind a person of the pain. But sometimes, they simply scabbed over, mended, but not healed, ever threatening to tear open for any tiny reason.

With so much to consider, she felt she’d crammed a Giant’s memories into a Fairy’s head. She wanted to tell Marklin the pain went away but knew she couldn’t. She decided to be strong for him instead. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he faced her. She said, “I will help you find them, you know. We’ve come too far together, and I’ve watched this journey take its toll on you. We shall find your family, I promise.” He offered a sad smile, but Tildy thought she could read something more upon his face.

 “I said ‘haste’,” came the witch’s voice back up the hill. Marklin laughed, a wet snort that was half sob, and wiped his face. Together, they followed her down the Whitway on the final run of its northward journey. The sun returned, and with it, Tildy’s spirits.

* * * * *

While the Shard itself stood on a flat plain on the valley floor, it was guarded on all sides by low hills. Their road cut straight through the earth and stone, remaining flat and level as it traversed the hilly countryside.

“The ruin of Human builders,” the witch said with derision as they passed through a deep cutting in the rock. “Always needing to assert their mastery over the landscape. How much longer it must have taken to carve their way through the stone than to simply go over it.”

Marklin looked at her skeptically. “They must have thought it provided a strategic advantage.”

The witch snorted in response and gestured over her shoulder at the valley wall. “Strategic advantage. Against other Humans, mayhaps. Always making war with each other. Always forgetting there are other enemies in the world that care not for stone walls.”

From the rear, Tildy craned her neck to see beyond her companions. A fortification stretched across a wide space in the rock not far ahead. As they approached, she could see a wide timbered door in the center. Streaked with grey, it appeared to be ironwood, held together with bands and bolts of metal. With some skill, she observed, the wall had been constructed to serve as an extension of the hills that had been cut away for the road. She also noted that while the gate ahead looked strong enough, the battlements atop the hillocks were crumbling.

“Harsef, the cudgel-guard at Grey’therton always said ‘The danger today is greater than the danger tomorrow that might never come.’” Tildy heard the witch say something about ‘short-sighted men’, but a trumpet drowned out the rest of her grumbling.

They looked above the gate where three banners flew atop the wall. The witch pointed them out in turn. “There in the center, highest of all, the Standard of the Lost Monarchs: two flying eagles, now a shattered silhouette upon a field of white. Those loyal to the Lost Royals have flown it for twelve years in honor and grief.

“To its right, the Standard of the Steward: a white staff on a field of dark blue. To the left and at a height equal to the Steward’s, the Standard of the Baron: a grey fist against black mountains, all upon a field of darker grey. At least we learn where their loyalty lies,” she finished as they approached. “Or where they claim it to be.”

Armed figures patrolled the top of the wall, visible beyond its crenellated edge. One hailed them. “Halt! With the voice of the Captain of the Guard, I say: You have entered the domain of Baron Stoneward, loyal servant of the Last Monarchs and Keeper of Locks and Light of Southershard! Announce yourself!”

The witch continued a few more steps, but Tildy and Marklin stopped immediately. She had read about the secret markers used to measure distance and saw that her mother stood within range. Archers atop the wall drew back their strings and waited.

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