The Thornback Hills earned their name from the jagged rocks that thrust from the earth like broken vertebrae. A maze of stone and shadow where the wind screamed through narrow passes and carrion birds circled endlessly, waiting for travelers stupid enough to walk these roads alone.
Riven crouched on an outcropping fifty feet above the Old Mining Road, perfectly still, watching the eastern approach. The sun was three hours from setting, painting the sky the color of old bruises. Six days of preparation had led to this moment.
Six days of studying maps, scouting positions, calculating angles and kill zones and escape routes. Six days of the void whispering in his veins, eager for blood.
Below, the road twisted through a natural chokepoint—sheer cliffs on both sides, barely wide enough for two wagons abreast. The perfect place for an ambush. The Crimson Jackals would know this, of course. They'd be watching for it.
Good. Riven wanted them paranoid.
"They're two hours out," Sylus said from behind him.
He didn't turn. He'd heard her approach despite her elven stealth—the void-enhanced senses picked up the whisper of silk against stone, the faint crackle of curse-energy that clung to her like perfume.
She settled beside him, produced a spyglass from her coat, and surveyed the road with professional interest. Today she wore practical leathers instead of silk, her white hair bound back, twin daggers at her hips that looked ceremonial but probably weren't.
"You're actually going through with this," she said. "Part of me expected you'd reconsider. Hitting a Covenant convoy is the kind of mistake people don't survive."
"I've made worse mistakes."
"Have you?" She lowered the spyglass, studied his profile. "The void's eating you faster than I thought. Your veins are darker than they were six days ago. How long do you have before it consumes you completely?"
"Long enough."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer that matters." Riven stood, rolled his shoulders, felt the void-blade at his hip pulse with anticipation. "When the fighting starts, you get to those wagons. Break the wards if you can, get the children clear if you can't. I don't care how you do it, just keep them out of the kill zone."
"And if the Jackals put themselves between me and the cargo?"
"They won't be alive long enough to matter."
Sylus smiled that knife-edge smile. "Confidence. I like that. Let's see if it's justified."
The waiting was the worst part. Riven had learned that in the Northern Ember—the stretched minutes before violence erupted, when every sound became a potential threat and every shadow held enemies. His instructors had taught him to use the time, to let anticipation sharpen focus until the world narrowed to targets and trajectories.
But the void didn't like waiting. It wanted action. Wanted blood. The corruption crawled beneath his skin like living darkness, hungry and impatient.
Soon, he promised it. Soon.
The first sign of the convoy was dust on the eastern road. Then the creak of wagon wheels, the jingle of harness, the measured cadence of disciplined footsteps.
Riven's eyes went black-on-black as void-sight engaged. The world shifted, colors bleeding away to shades of gray except for living things, which pulsed with crimson light. Heat signatures. Life-force. Targets.
Twelve lights approached. Eleven clustered around three wagons in standard defensive formation—four at point, four flanking, three at rear. The twelfth walked alone at the front, his life-force burning brighter than the others.
Vex Tallow.
Even from fifty feet up, Riven could see why the man had a reputation. He moved like violence given form—every step perfectly balanced, every glance cataloging threats, one hand resting on the pommel of a bastard sword that looked like it had tasted enough blood to develop preferences.
The Crimson Jackals were professionals. No talking. No wasted movement. They'd done this a hundred times and expected to do it a hundred more.
Riven was going to disappoint them.
He waited until the convoy entered the chokepoint. Until the cliff walls rose on both sides and the only way forward was through. Until Vex Tallow's eyes swept the rocks above, searching for exactly what Riven was about to give him.
Then he moved.
Shadow-stepping took him from the outcropping to the road in a heartbeat. No flash. No sound. Just the void folding space and spitting him out behind the rearguard.
The first Jackal didn't even have time to turn before Riven's blade opened his throat. The second managed to draw steel before the void-touched edge punched through his eye socket into his brain. The third got his sword up, blocked the first strike, and died when Riven's off-hand dagger found the gap between helmet and gorget.
Three seconds. Three corpses.
"AMBUSH!" Vex Tallow's voice cracked like thunder. "WAGON CIRCLE! PROTECT THE CARGO!"
But the Jackals were already moving, their training overriding shock. The flanking guards wheeled toward Riven while the point squad pulled the wagons into a defensive cluster. Crossbows came up. Blood-runes began to glow.
Riven didn't give them time to set.
He shadow-stepped again, appeared in the middle of the flanking squad, blade already moving. Cut. Pivot. Parry. Throat. Gut. Eye. The Northern Ember had drilled close-quarters combat into him until it became more instinct than thought. Every movement efficient. Every strike lethal.
A crossbow bolt punched through his shoulder. The pain was distant, abstract. The void-corruption dulled physical sensation almost as much as emotion. He felt the impact, registered the damage, ignored it. His enhanced healing was already sealing the wound, pushing the bolt out with strings of black-veined tissue.
Another Jackal came at him with a war-axe. Big man. Strong. The kind of opponent who expected to overpower through raw force. Riven let him commit to an overhead strike, shadow-stepped six inches left, and opened the man's femoral artery as he stumbled past.
Eight down. Four to go, plus Vex Tallow.
That's when things got complicated.
Vex Tallow stopped being defensive and became offensive. The bastard sword came free in a blur of steel, and suddenly he was there—faster than any human should be, blood-runes flaring red-hot along his arms and neck. The sword came down like judgment and Riven barely got his blade up in time.
The impact drove him to one knee. Tallow was strong. Enhanced strength from blood-magic, the kind that came from feeding the runes with your own life-force. Temporary but devastating.
"Northern Ember," Tallow growled, eyes picking apart Riven's fighting style. "I killed three of yours in the Ashen Plains. You all die the same."
He attacked again. Overhead strike feinting into a low sweep. Riven shadow-stepped backward, came out of the void ten feet away, and immediately had to dodge as two remaining Jackals tried to flank him.
This was the danger of fighting enhanced soldiers. They were good enough to coordinate even in chaos. Good enough to adapt.
One of the flanking Jackals had a spear. He thrust for Riven's gut while his partner went high with a mace. Riven twisted, let the spear pass close enough to cut his coat, grabbed the shaft and pulled. The Jackal stumbled forward into the mace meant for Riven. Skull met steel with a wet crack.
Riven killed the mace-wielder while he was still processing what happened.
Ten down. Two Jackals plus Vex Tallow.
And then Sylus made her move.
She materialized from somewhere—Riven hadn't even seen her descend—and her hands wove patterns in the air. Curse-flame erupted in a spiral, bright as phosphorus, and slammed into the nearest wagon's wards. The protective runes flared, held for two seconds, then shattered like glass.
"NO!" Vex Tallow turned from Riven, started toward Sylus.
Big mistake.
Riven shadow-stepped behind him, blade already moving for the gap between helmet and backplate. Tallow must have felt it—that primal instinct that came from a thousand fights—because he dropped and rolled. The blade missed by inches.
But while he was rolling, Sylus was moving. She ripped open the wagon's rear door and started hauling children out. Small bodies, dirty and terrified, blinking in sudden daylight.
"Run!" she shouted at them. "North! Into the rocks!"
Some ran. Some froze. One girl, maybe nine years old, just stared at Sylus with eyes that had already seen too much.
The two remaining Jackals made for the wagon. Never made it. Riven cut them down mid-stride, his blade moving through them like they were made of fog.
Which left Vex Tallow.
The man stood slowly, blood streaming from a dozen small cuts, his breath coming hard. The blood-runes were fading—he'd burned through his reserves. But his eyes were clear. Focused. Utterly without fear.
"You're good," he said. "Better than good. But you made one mistake."
"What's that?"
"You think this matters." Tallow gestured at the carnage. "You kill me, they send ten more. You destroy this convoy, they send twenty more. The Covenant is eternal. You're just a man with a death wish."
"I'm not a man anymore," Riven said. "I'm a reckoning."
Tallow smiled. Actually smiled. "Prove it."
They came together in a clash of steel that echoed off the cliff walls. Tallow fought like he had nothing to lose and everything to prove. Every strike committed. Every parry perfect. He was burning his own life-force now—could see it in the way his veins stood out, black and pulsing. Blood-magic without runes. The last resort.
He was dying to kill Riven.
Riven let the void take over. Let the corruption that had been eating him for twenty years have its moment. His strikes became faster. Harder. The blade moved with predatory certainty, finding gaps, exploiting weaknesses. Tallow was good.
But Riven was inevitable.
The void-blade slipped past Tallow's guard and opened his chest from collarbone to hip.
The mercenary captain looked down at the wound, at the blood sheeting down his armor, and laughed. Actually laughed.
"Worth it," he said. "Just to see what comes next. When they find out what you did here... the storm that's coming..." He coughed blood. "I almost wish I could watch."
Then he fell.
Riven stood among the bodies, breathing hard, his shoulder wound still sealing, void-corruption writhing beneath his skin like living shadow. Eleven Crimson Jackals. One of their best captains. All dead in under five minutes.
Sylus appeared at his elbow, her white hair splattered with blood that wasn't hers. "The children are scattered in the rocks. Most ran. Some are still too frightened to move. I'll need time to round them up."
"How long?"
"Hour. Maybe two." She glanced at the carnage. "You need to leave. When this gets discovered, every Covenant enforcer within a hundred miles will descend on this place."
"Let them come."
"Don't be stupid. You won tonight, but you're still mortal. Still bleeding. Still dying by inches from that void corruption." Her mercury eyes hardened. "You want revenge? You want to burn down The Covenant? Then you need to survive long enough to see it through. That means running."
She was right. Riven hated it, but she was right.
He moved to the wagons, pulled open the remaining two. More children. Younger than the first batch. Some unconscious from sedative herbs. All of them marked for horror.
"Get them somewhere safe," he said. "Somewhere The Covenant can't reach."
"I know places. Hidden places." Sylus hesitated. "This wasn't just about striking at The Covenant, was it? This was personal."
Riven didn't answer. Didn't need to.
He walked to where Vex Tallow's body lay and closed the dead man's eyes. A warrior's courtesy. Then he took the captain's sword—a fine blade, well-balanced, etched with runes of sharpness and durability.
Proof of the kill.
The sun was touching the horizon now, bleeding red across the Thornback Hills. In the distance, carrion birds were already gathering, drawn by the scent of slaughter.
Riven looked at the bodies, the broken wagons, the blood soaking into ancient stone.
The Covenant would find this. Would see what one man had done to their "untouchable" operation. Would understand that their empire had an enemy who couldn't be bought, threatened, or stopped.
And they would come for him with everything they had.
Good.
Let them come.
Let them send their enforcers and their assassins and their monsters. He'd kill them all. One by one. Until he stood before the Ten Pillars themselves and showed them the same mercy they'd shown his family.
None.
Riven shadow-stepped away from the Thornback Hills, disappearing into the gathering dark.
Behind him, Sylus worked among the frightened children, speaking soft words, offering gentle hands.
And in the Obsidian Citadel, hundreds of miles away, a message was about to arrive that would change everything.
The war is approaching.