Chapter 4 – Lead the blind

  A fire was fed until it towered.

  Logs thicker than a man’s torso were dragged into the blaze, resin popping, sap hissing as flames climbed higher and steadier. Sparks lifted like a swarm of burning insects into the night. The moon had risen near its crest now — pale, round, and mercilessly bright.

  This was no longer celebration.

  This was invocation. Ritual.

  Erduin stood at the center beside the bonfire, his silhouette cut in gold and shadow. Around him, the warriors began to move at his command. Not in chaos — in structure.

  "Haste, brothers and sisters," Erduin rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "The moon waits for no one, and neither do the souls within those trophies. Let them dry out, and you'll harvest nothing but dust."

  Circles formed.

  One ring close to the fire. Then another behind it. Then another. Like the layered lines of a dart board, the bonfire its bullseye, each warrior seated cross-legged upon the earth, heads placed before them.

  Veterans filled the inner rings. Those less proven, including me, were guided farther back.

  Dagon sat two spaces to my right among his Red Goats, his posture straight, expression sharpened by flame-light.

  I placed my spoil carefully before me.

  The severed head rested upright in the dirt, its lifeless eyes reflecting the blaze.

  The clearing quieted.

  Even the bound prisoner beneath the tree had gone still. Though I could still feel his resentment.

  My heart pounded harder now, not from the fight, but from what lay ahead. This was my first true offering. My third eye—my spiritual seed—lay dormant within me, a quiet ember I'd felt stirring since boyhood but never ignited.

  The elders whispered that awakening it required worthy heads, and innate talent played its part. Mine? Unknown, a mystery even to me. But tonight, under the moon’s vigil, I'd either bloom or break.

  Erduin lifted both arms toward the moon.

  His voice boomed in the ancient tongue, invoking the moon as our eternal judge and the rivers as carriers of divine whispers.

  “Watcher above. Pale sovereign of night. We stand blooded beneath your gaze.”

  The warriors echoed him.

  “We stand blooded beneath your gaze.”

  He began to pace slowly along the inner ring.

  “Ancestors who climbed before us. Spirits who feast beyond the veil. Hear us.”

  “Hear us.”

  “Tonight we return what was taken.”

  “Tonight we return what was taken.”

  The chant built gradually, rhythmically, like breath before a plunge.

  Gorvan and the other headmen moved along the outer rings, correcting posture, pressing shoulders down, adjusting the placement of heads so that each face tilted upward toward the moon.

  “Mighty sky gods, hear us! We offer the seeds of our enemies, harvested in blood, to strengthen our own. Guide the worthy, shatter the weak!”

  “Guide the worthy, shatter the weak!”

  The group echoed the chant, our voices rising in a rhythmic pulse that vibrated through my chest.

  I felt the pull then—a subtle hum in the air, the moonlight thickening like mist, drawing the essence from the heads before it could fully dissipate.

  Erduin’s voice lowered, but it carried further.

  “The first act,” he said, “is acknowledgment.”

  He lifted a severed head from the ground beside him and raised it high.

  The warriors followed.

  I lifted mine with both hands.

  Cold flesh against my palms. Stiff hair brushing my wrists.

  “Raise them,” Erduin commanded. “Let the moon see what has been claimed.”

  Dozens of heads rose into silver light.

  Blood-darkened hair swayed. Slack jaws hung open as if in silent protest. The moon washed over them all without judgment.

  “Blood given,” Erduin intoned.

  “Blood given,” we repeated.

  “Strength taken.”

  “Strength taken.”

  After several breaths, he lowered his trophy.

  “Second,” he said. “Link.”

  One by one, the veterans began. Dagon pressed a head to his forehead first, his eyes closing as a soft glow emanated from his scar.

  He shuddered briefly, then exhaled, a faint smile crossing his lips—his bridge formed, his harvest complete. Others followed, some grunting in effort, their bodies tensing as invisible battles raged within.

  A murmur ran faintly through the outer rings — the rookies shifting slightly.

  Erduin’s eyes swept over us.

  “You who have not yet opened your third eye,” he said, voice hardening. “Hear me well.”

  Silence deepened.

  “The flesh is dead,” he continued. “But the spirit does not fall so easily. In every head you hold, there lingers a remnant. Rage. Fear. Pride. Sometimes greed.”

  My gaze flicked involuntarily toward the bound prisoner. His expression dark as he eyed the head in front of me.

  Erduin continued.

  “When you touch brow to brow, you do not merely take power. You enter contest.”

  A low hum began among the inner ring veterans — steady, controlled breathing.

  “If the lingering spirit overcomes you,” Erduin said, “it will damage your seed. Corrupting it. You will carry weakness or even die as a result.”

  He scanned us one last time.

  “But if you crush it—”

  His jaw tightened.

  “—you feed.”

  A ripple of anticipation coursed outward.

  “Place the head before you,” he ordered.

  I set mine upright in the dirt once more.

  “Spine straight. Breath steady. Empty your thoughts.”

  The chanting resumed, softer now. A layered hymn that rose and fell like distant thunder.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  My heartbeat quickened.

  Gorvan passed behind me, his shadow long against the firelight.

  “Do not flinch,” he muttered quietly to those of us in the outer ring. “The first resistance is always loudest.”

  "The moon will test you. Hold the head to your brow, let the link form. If the lingering soul fights—and it will—call upon the ancestors when the bridge falters.”

  I swallowed.

  I lifted the head, its weight cold and slick against my skin. The warrior's lifeless eyes stared into mine, and I pressed our foreheads together, the moonlight piercing like needles.

  The scent of dried blood filled my nose.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

  Then—

  A pulse.

  Not physical.

  Something deeper.

  A flicker of sensation behind my eyes, at the center of my mind — the place the elders called the unopened gate. My spiritual seed. Dormant.

  And from the head pressed to my brow, something shoved me through.

  Darkness swallowed me.

  Then—light.

  I stood in a vast, blank field under a colorless sky, knee-high plants swaying in an unfelt wind it was simple, unadorned, like the man's brutal life. No mountains, no rivers, just endless flatness mirroring his straightforward fury.

  Before I could question my surroundings—something rose from the plants ahead.

  A towering figure clad in tattered Mire garments, his form decaying on the left side where his arm had been severed.

  It was the same warrior I had killed, Yani. Taking the form of a soul.

  Shards of him flaked away like crumbling stone, his empty sleeve shattering into dust. In his remaining hand, a spectral sword gleamed.

  “Scavenger,” his voice rasped, fractured and hollow. “You? You think you can steal my seed? I carved five of your dogs before I fell. You finished me on my knees. You’re no warrior, only a pathetic ant.”

  He lunged. The sword arced in a blur.

  I dodged on instinct, willing a blade into my hand—a projection of pure will. It felt thin, unsteady. I was weak here.

  His next strike crashed against mine like thunder. The impact drove me back across the wilting field. Plants died under my feet, curling to ash as time ate away at his essence.

  “You’re nothing,” he snarled, pressing forward. “A lucky pup who found a dying wolf. I’ll break you and wear your soul like a cloak.”

  His blows came relentless.

  Each one landed like a hammer on glass—pain lancing straight through my mind, threatening to crack my soul-form apart. I had no plane of my own, no ground to stand on. I was trespassing, and he knew it.

  I spotted the fracture—his armless side crumbling faster, edges flaking like dry clay. I darted in, spear manifesting in my grip now, and struck where it hurt most. The tip grazed the shattering border.

  He howled. Fragments exploded outward.

  But even wounded, his skill was monstrous. He parried my follow-up without effort, then countered with a vicious slash that tore across my ethereal arm. Fire erupted in my core—soul-deep agony that burned hotter than any flesh wound, threatening to unravel me thread by thread.

  I staggered. The field blurred at the edges. Weakness clawed at me.

  Yani grinned, raising his sword high. “Begone from my seed, whelp!”

  Noting the imbalance of his swings, I dodged toward it exploiting it again, rushing in to strike where it looked unstable, my spear tip grazing more of the shattering edges. He roared, fragments falling, but it still wasn't enough.

  He blocked my follow-up strikes effortlessly before countering with a kick that bore into my abdomen, pain exploding.

  On the verge of defeat, I staggered, the field blurring as weakness pulled at me. Yani grinned, raising his sword once more.

  "Die! Unworthy fool!" he roared.

  A wave of force slammed into me—the plane itself warping, trying to eject me like poison.

  But something inside me stirred. A strange force from within—anchored me. Invisible roots sank deep into the fabric of this dying world, rejecting Yani’s banishment outright.

  And in that same instant, the rejection turned predatory.

  His own power began to leech backward—drawn to my soul form, integrating instead of rejecting.

  His eyes widened in shock as strands of his essence siphoned toward my dormant core.

  “What… are you?” he spat, voice cracking. “Some freak of the moon? You think this makes you strong? I’ll drag you down with me!”

  “Ancestors!” I shouted, voice raw with desperation.

  Faceless figures materialized at the field's edges—shadowy Verak forms, their presence a chorus of whispers. They reached out, stabilizing the bridge between our seeds, their ethereal hands weaving threads of lunar light to hold my soul steady.

  Yani snarled. “Your dead can’t save you forever, boy.”

  But he was wrong.

  The stabilization accelerated his decay as more of his shards fell away. His sword arm trembled, his weapon dismantled. The plants around us blackened and evaporating to dust.

  ”What is this!?” he cried.

  I seized his shock.

  With a roar of my own I lunged, driving my blade straight into his core. He shattered like struck glass—his final scream fracturing into a thousand hollow echoes as his form dispersed into drifting motes.

  His lingering soul was gone.

  I dropped to my knees in the fading plane, chest heaving. Remnant spiritual energy swirled free, it looked like a glowing mist of blueish light.

  It flowed toward me. My dormant seed drinking it hungrily, taking every wisp without rejection, though I already felt the cost: this gift would demand far more to push me to the next stage.

  A cool fire ignited between my brows.

  My third eye—my spiritual seed, awakened at last.

  The plane dissolved completely. New sensations flooded in: sharper intuition and fragments of Yani’s unyielding combat instincts weaving into my own like echoes of his brutal strikes.

  It was a strange sensation, as if living through foreign memories as one.

  I snapped back to the physical world.

  The head in my hands had already crumbled to dry bone.

  The nearby warriors stared. Gorvan’s eyes widened with something close to awe.

  “It is done,” he said quietly. “The moon has judged you worthy.”

  Strength pulsed through me, the night suddenly alive with details I’d never noticed before. But beneath the surge, a deeper hunger stirred.

  The hunger did not fade.

  It settled.

  Low. Coiled. Patient.

  I remained seated for a moment longer, breathing through the aftershocks as the ritual continued around me.

  One by one, rookies gasped, roared, or sagged forward in relief as their contests concluded. Some wept openly. Others laughed like madmen. A few sat unnervingly still, eyes hollow, as headmen moved to inspect them.

  The bonfire flared violently, as if fed by something unseen.

  Across the rings, several heads blackened and collapsed inward, reduced to brittle husks. Others burst into pale ash that scattered into the wind. The moonlight seemed thicker now — no longer gentle silver, but something almost tangible, pouring down in invisible streams.

  Erduin stepped back into the center.

  “Those who fed — rise.”

  The command rolled outward.

  I pushed myself to my feet.

  The world felt altered.

  Sharper.

  The crackle of sap within burning wood was distinct to my ears. I could hear breath patterns of warriors two circles away. The resentment of the bound prisoner prickled against my skin like heat from a distant flame.

  I turned my head slightly.

  His gaze struck mine instantly.

  Before, it had felt like rage.

  Now, I sensed something beneath it.

  Grief twisted with purpose.

  And something else.

  Something that did not belong solely to him.

  I looked away.

  Erduin paced the inner ring, examining warriors one by one. When he reached me, he stopped.

  His eyes did not widen. He did not smile.

  He simply studied.

  “Open it,” he said.

  I did not know how I obeyed, only that I focused inward — toward that cool fire burning between my brows.

  The sensation flared faintly.

  Erduin nodded once.

  “Stable.”

  Gorvan circled behind him, arms folded. “Strong pull for a first awakening.”

  “Too strong?” another headman muttered.

  Erduin ignored the question.

  Instead, he turned toward the outer rings where two warriors lay slumped, shaking violently. Headmen knelt beside them, pressing hands to foreheads, muttering sharp invocations.

  One rookie screamed once — short and ragged — before falling silent.

  “The weak are culled by their own powerlessness,” Erduin said evenly. “Let that be remembered.”

  The drums ceased.

  Only the fire remained.

  He lifted his arms once more.

  “The offering is accepted. The moon has judged. The ancestors have witnessed.”

  A final unified chant rose, deeper than before, steadier.

  “Blood given. Strength taken.”

  The words felt different now.

  Heavier.

  When it ended, the formation dissolved slowly. Warriors rose and regrouped into their warbands. Some clasped forearms in quiet triumph. Others dragged the failed away without ceremony.

  Dagon approached me.

  His gaze flicked briefly to my forehead.

  “You crossed,” he said.

  “I did.”

  A small nod.

  “Good. The Red Goats do not carry the blind.”