CHAPTER 81: THE WEIGHT OF FAILURE (2)

He didn’t speak at all, didn’t challenge the obvious lie, but his silence weighed more heavily than any accusation could have.

The column resumed its journey, Soren now hyperaware of the stares following him. Kaelor’s questions had been overheard, his hesitation noted. The suspicion that had been simmering now threatened to boil over.

Near midafternoon, they reached a small clearing where a stream crossed their path. Ashgard called another brief halt, dismounting to confer with his remaining captains while the others watered their horses.

Soren stayed near Kaelor’s litter, avoiding the clusters of knights who fell silent whenever he approached. He pretended not to notice how conversations halted, how eyes followed his movements, how hands drifted to sword hilts when he passed too close.

From his position at the edge of the clearing, he watched Ashgard’s meeting. The lord stood with his captains in a tight circle, voices kept deliberately low. His face remained impassive as he listened to their reports, those steel-gray eyes occasionally scanning the ragged column as if taking inventory of what remained.

"We ride back," Ashgard said, his voice carrying just far enough for Soren to catch. "We say little. This does not leave our walls until I decide it does."

One of his captains nodded. "The story must be controlled."

"Controlled?" The incredulous voice came from Lord Trescan, who had apparently moved close enough to overhear. "Half our knights lie dead in the forest, and you speak of controlling the story?"

Several nobles drifted closer, drawn by the confrontation. Ashgard regarded them with the same impassive expression he might give to an unexpected but minor obstacle in the road.

"Would you prefer panic?" he asked mildly. "Rumors spreading unchecked through Northaven? Tales growing with each telling until Sylas becomes an army rather than one man?"

Lord Trescan’s face flushed. "I would prefer accountability! Not this... this management of failure."

A Karvath noble stepped forward, his green surcoat torn and muddied. "He wants to control the tale to make himself look blameless," he hissed to the gathering lords. "While our houses bear the shame."

Ashgard didn’t respond directly. He simply turned back to his captains, continuing his instructions as if the interruption had never occurred. The nobles bristled at being so dismissed, but none challenged him further. His authority held, though Soren could see the cracks forming in its foundation.

As they mounted up to continue, the weight of stares pressed against Soren more heavily than before. Knights who had merely whispered now spoke openly, their suspicions hardening into conviction.

"The boy should be left behind," Harrick said, his voice pitched to carry. "He’ll draw the monster back."

Several knights nodded in agreement, hands drifting toward weapons. The Trescan’s words had given shape to the formless suspicion that had been building since the attack.

’They fear what they don’t understand,’ Valenna murmured coldly in Soren’s mind. ’And they understand nothing of what happened last night.’

Soren kept his face carefully neutral, though his hand instinctively moved closer to his sword hilt. ’What did happen?’ he asked silently. ’Why did Sylas spare me?’

’Survival makes you dangerous,’ she replied, her voice like steel against stone. ’They can smell it. The difference between predator and prey.’

The journey continued, tension thick enough to cut. Soren rode in isolation, the space around him widening as knights found reasons to increase their distance.

Only Kaelor’s presence on the litter beside him offered any protection, and the Swordmaster had slipped back into unconsciousness after their brief exchange.

Late afternoon brought them to the forest’s edge. The trees thinned, revealing the northern plains stretching toward the horizon. In the far distance, the spires of Northaven pierced the sky like accusing fingers, close enough to see, far enough to make the final leg of their journey feel like an extended walk of shame.

What should have been relief instead felt like dread pooling in Soren’s stomach. They weren’t returning as hunters, triumphant with their prey.

They were limping home as failures, those who had survived when better men had fallen.

At the head of the column, Ashgard rode with the rigid posture of a man preparing for war. Not against Sylas, Soren realized, but against the nobles who would use this failure as a weapon in court. Each surviving lord already calculated how to shift blame, how to position their house to benefit from the disaster.

Behind Ashgard, the nobles whispered among themselves, faces hollow with exhaustion and fear. The proud hunt that had left Northaven now returned as a column of broken men, carrying wounds deeper than any sword could inflict.

And at the very back, isolated by suspicion and his own secrets, Soren noticed how the knights moved with the stiff gait of sleepwalkers. Their faces bore the vacant expressions of men who had witnessed horrors their minds refused to process fully. He recognized that look from the streets of Nordhav, survivors who had seen too much, too quickly.

He dismounted, feeling every muscle protest. His own reflection in a puddle startled him, hollowed cheeks, dark circles beneath bloodshot eyes, skin pale as a corpse. No wonder they whispered. He looked half-dead himself.

Around him, the camp broke apart with none of the structured efficiency that had marked their departure days ago. Horses stood with heads hanging, ribs visible beneath dull coats. Several limped, favoring legs strained from the desperate flight.

Knights moved between them, packing supplies with mechanical movements, avoiding each other’s eyes as if ashamed to witness another’s survival.

"Water reserves are low," an Ashgard knight announced, her voice flat. "Ration what remains."

Lord Ashgard moved through this grim tableau like a shadow, inspecting their diminished numbers with those steel-gray eyes that missed nothing. Where once thirty knights had stood in proud formation, now barely fifteen remained, many wounded, all haunted.

"We move in ten minutes," Ashgard stated, the words clipped and final. He offered no encouragement, no reassurances about reaching Northaven safely. Such platitudes would have rung hollow after what they’d witnessed.