The shepherd spoke. Its voice sounded like a thousand dry leaves scraping together.
"The…Hearth…is…broken." It raised the staff. "G..i..v..e…u..s…the…S..Spark."
Kai didn't wait for the Shepherd to move. He knew that against a Harbinger, hesitation was a death sentence.
He stepped out of the tunnel mouth, his boots digging into the sulfur-stained mud. He swung The Scourge low, the heavy blade whistling through the air.
The Shepherd didn't dodge. The cloak of feathers shifted, the black quills vibrating as the creatures moved like a blur of ink.
The staff slammed down, the silver bells ringing a sharp, piercing note that felt like a needle being driven into Kai's ears.
The sound wave hit Kai's chest, throwing him back toward the tunnel wall. He hit the Halo Stone with a dull thud, the breath leaving his lungs in a white puff of mist.
His vision blurred for a second, the world spinning in shades of violet and grey.
"Kai!" Miri's voice echoed from deep within the pipe.
The Shepherd raised its quill-covered hand. One of the black feathers detached, sharpening into a glass-like spike.
It flickered its wrist, and the feather hissed through the air, aiming straight for Kai's throat.
Kai's hands moved faster than his mind. He grabbed a handful of raw salt from the tunnel floor and threw it up.
The feather spike hit the salt cloud and dissolved into oily smoke instantly. The white Halo worked.
"My turn," Kai growled.
He ignored the stabbing pain in his ribs. He let the Fire Mark feed. He didn't just let it glow; he let it rot.
The skin around his shoulder turned charred black as he forced the Red energy down his arm and into the iron of the sword.
The notches in The Scourge began to bleed orange light. The heat was so intense that the mud beneath Kai's feet turned into baked clay.
He lunged. This wasn't a sword fight. It was a collision.
The Shepherd raised its staff to block, but the red-hot iron of the Nodachi sheared right through the wood.
The silver bells fell to the ground, their chimes turning into flat, dead thuds as they hit the mud.
The blade bit into the Shepherd's shoulder. There was no blood. Instead, a swarm of tiny, panicked crows exploded from the wound, trying to peck at Kai's eyes.
Kai didn't flinch. He pushed the blade deeper, the Red fire cauterizing the Shadow flesh.
The shepherd's bone mask cracked. A single human-like eye peered through the fracture; pale, terrified, and ancient.
It wasn't a monster born of the Void; it was a man who had been hollowed out and filled with crows.
"End…it…" the shepherd whispered. The lead scraping voice was gone, replaced by a thin, broken sob.
Kai looked into that eye. For a heartbeat, he saw his own future: a man consumed by his power until nothing but the Mark remained.
He didn't hesitate. He twisted the blade, letting the fire consume the core of the creature.
The Shepherd vanished in a pillar of black smoke and orange sparks. The feathers that had carpeted the gully turned to ash, blowing away in a sudden, cold wind.
For a moment, there was absolute silence.
Kai dropped his sword. He fell to his knees, his left arm hanging limp. The skin was blistering, the Red having taken its toll for the kill.
He reached into his waist bag, looking for the last bit of salt pork, but his fingers couldn't feel anything.
Elara stepped out of the tunnel, her crossbow lowered. She looked at the scorched ground where the Shepherd had stood. Then she looked at Kai.
"You killed a Harbinger," she said, her voice barely a breath. "That's not supposed to be possible for one man."
The adrenaline left Kai's body like a receding tide, leaving behind nothing but the cold.
He tried to grip his sword hilt, but his fingers were locked in a claw-like shape. The Red had bypassed his muscles and started attacking the nerves.
Elara knelt beside him. She didn't offer a hand to help him up; she knew better. Instead, she took out a heavy wool blanket from her pack and draped it over his shaking shoulders.
"Don't die here, Kai. I haven't paid you enough to die yet."
"The girl," Kai rasped. His throat felt like he had swallowed hot glass. "Is she…?"
"I am here." Miri stepped out from the tunnel shadows. She didn't look at the ash on the ground.
She looked at Kai's left arm, where the skin was mottled, angry purple. She sat down in the mud next to him and simply leaned her head against his good shoulder.
Kai felt the small warmth of her forehead through his cloak. It was a tiny heat, nothing compared to the roaring furnace of the Mark, but it was the only thing keeping him grounded.
For a second, the ringing in his ears stopped.
Joram and the other guard were scavenging the area. Joram picked up a fragment of the Shepherd's bone mask. It was cold enough to frost his glove.
"We can't stay in this gully," the guard said. "The smell of that…thing's…death is like a dinner bell for Ghoul's."
"He's right," Elara said. She looked at the map in her head.
"Three miles ahead is the Weeping Grove. It's a forest of ironwood trees. The sap is thick with salt minerals. The Void beasts hate the smell. We can hole up there until Kai can walk again."
They loaded Kai into the back of the lead wagon. He lay on a pile of empty salt sacks, his breath coming in ragged hitches.
Soon, they started their journey to Weeping Grove.
Every time the wagon hit a rock, a fresh spike of pain shot through his shoulder, but he didn't make a sound. He just watched the violate sky through the gaps in the wagon cover.
The caravan moved into the Weeping Grove.