CRACK!

"Gah!" Quill shouted.

Deckard had warned him it would hurt, but setting his nose felt just as bad as breaking it.

"It'll heal better now," Deckard said.

He handed Quill a cloth for the blood, then turned to tend to Wil, who had a deep gash across the back of his left shoulder.

The squad sat in the snow, exhausted, tending to their wounds. Yoran had it worst. He'd been stabbed in the side and cut in a dozen places. Deckard said most men would've die from the wounds, but Yoran had assured him it was "small wound" and that he would "no die." Slim had a deep cut above his eye that had already soaked through one bandage before being staunched, but he was otherwise unharmed. Everyone had small cuts or bruises piling up, everyone but Cross.

He stood with blades still dripping, scanning the tree line. He looked like he expected more, that the Hallowbound he'd slain couldn't possibly be all there was. But the danger had passed. The Crucible had been finished off during the chaos. Its giant corpse now lay still, black ichor pouring from hundreds of wounds. Quill saw no sign of the Bloodletters in the aftermath. They had done their job and vanished. 

S-22 had done their job, too. But there had been a steep price to victory. The Crucible had taken dozens and the Overseer had taken two. Quill and Slim had dragged the bodies from the battlefield. Now they lay side by side beneath a large tree.

Quill looked down at the men who had given their lives for The Order.

The hole in Trevin’s chest had stained his tabard with blood, now frozen stiff. His face was twisted with shock and fear. Vardok was unrecognizable. Quill's stomach churned as he took in the extent of the big man's injuries. He had been shredded by the Overseer's blades. His corpse was mangled, soaked entirely in dark red. One of his legs had been severed completely, and his face was so torn Quill couldn’t even make out his final expression.

"Just like that, huh?" Slim said. "Doesn't take much for a man to die, does it?"

Quill shook his head, eyes never leaving the corpses of his squadmates. He noticed something clutched in Trevin’s right hand and knelt to examine it.

"What's that?" Slim asked.

Quill held it up. It was the small cloth handkerchief Trevin's mother had made for him before she died. He'd died clutching the one thing he held dear.

“Best leave it with him,” Quill said, gently tucking it into one of Trevin’s pockets.

Wil and Deckard joined them, silent, staring down at their fallen comrades.

"Should we bury them?" Wil asked, his voice low and unsteady.

Deckard shook his head. "The snow will bury them."

Wil gritted his teeth, fists clenched. "There has to be something we can do for them."

"There is."

They turned to see Cross, blades sheathed striding north. He was eyeing a smoke signal that had risen from the center of the formation.

"We finish the fucking job." 

He hadn’t raised his voice, but it was the first time Quill had heard him curse. Was he angry the squad had failed without him—or that he hadn’t made it back in time? Either way, it was the most emotion Quill had ever seen him show. He glanced at the dead men, eyes lingering for a moment before he turned. His face never changed.

As he strode away, Cross tossed a final order over his shoulder.

"Whatever you do, make it quick. We move forward."

Deckard placed a hand on Wil's shoulder. "Would you like me to say a few words?"

Wil nodded.

The priest cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

"Today, we say goodbye to Vardok and Trevin. Men of The Order. Good men. Strange men, but good. One, a criminal who quite literally had nowhere left to go. Who found a place where he wasn't judged, or betrayed, or hunted. A place he likely didn't want to be... but a place that he belonged. The other an odd man. Hurt young. Lived a hard life. I don't know why he joined. I'm not sure if anyone did. But he was the finest archer I ever saw."

"Hear, hear," Slim added, wiping his nose.

"I don’t know if either of them ever knew it," Deckard continued, "but I held them in great regard. They never hesitated. Never complained. They helped us all, myself included. They fought tooth and nail against an incorrigible foe. I pray the Mother has seen fit to ferry them through her divine portal."

He paused, shaking his head.

"Gods know they deserve a little peace."

Quill and Wil were the last to leave the corpses, lingering a moment longer. 

"How many more of us will die?" Quill asked quietly.

Wil turned sharply, jaw clenched. "None."

Quill took one last look at the fallen men. He hadn't gotten to know either of them particularly well and now, he never would.

———

The march trudged on through silence. What could anyone say? 

The weather got colder as they moved further into the Frostwood. No man spent more than an hour without Kindleroot now, and even then, Quill shivered whenever a gust of wind blew through. 

By the time the signal came to halt for the night, they were ready to collapse into their bedrolls.

Quill volunteered to take first watch so he could write in his manuscript. He wanted to give Vardok and Trevin a proper send-off in his book. He wrote quickly, cramming in as much as he could before all light was lost. His words had grown less eloquent as the Crusade dragged on. The writing was blunt and rushed. There was no time to revise, no space for poetry. The best he could do was get it down.

Slim was the other man on watch, leaned against a tree with his pipe lit and eyes half-lidded.

"What exactly are you scribbling in there?" he asked.

"As much I can," Quill replied. "About the Crusade. About us. Did you know them well? Vardok and Trevin?"

Slim shrugged. "As much as anyone I 'spose. I think Trevin was a poacher before he joined, I think. And Vardok..."

He chuckled. "You knew Vardok the moment you saw him. Bastard would cheat at eight-card when there wasn’t even coin on the table.”

He paused, rubbing a thumb along the length of his scar. "Just didn't like to lose, I guess."

“How’d you get it?” Quill asked, nodding to the scar.

Slim coughed, choking on a breath of Kindleroot.

“Third encounter,” he said, clearing his throat. “Me and Vardok got separated from the squad in a flash blizzard, like the one yesterday. Pack of Needlemaws came at us outta nowhere. Snow was falling so thick, we couldn’t see a damn thing.”

Slim leaned forward, laughing again. "We was swinging at anything that moved. All the while Vardok just yelling 'fuck, fuck'. He even sent a swing my way once. I thought for sure we were done. But old Vardok was as strong as they come. I dropped a couple, but he was sending 'em flying with each swing."

He leaned back and took another puff of his pipe. "One got me right in the face. Thought my head was spilt right open. Still hurts to this day. But when the storm cleared up, we were still alive and kicking."

He rubbed the scar again, eyes distant. "Not like there's any ladies up here to impress anyways."

"Did you have a lady?" Quill asked, scribbling another line into his manuscript. "Before all this?"

Slim clicked his tongue. "A few, here and there. Nothing for too long, though. Hard to settle down when you're hunting bounties every day. And now it's starting to dawn on me that I probably won't have another."

A gust of wind whistled through the trees, as darkness set in. Quill set the manuscript aside, pulled out his pipe, and struck a match.

"I saw some Bloodletters today," he said. "But I didn't get to see them fight."

"Woulda made a great page in your book," Slim said with a chuckle. "Guess you'll have to settle for Melvin Cross."

"I've never seen anyone fight like that. Not in any tourney or contest. Not even in the stories."

Slim plucked the pipe from his mouth. "Nobody's ever seen a man fight like him before. I don't know what he did before he joined, or if there even was a before. But I know if you want something done, you ask Melvin Cross. Other than the Bloodletters, there ain't nobody close."

"I heard he lost his whole squad during the last Crusade," Quill said. "Then went on patrol alone. Is that true?"

"Dunno. But if there's a man crazy enough to do it— yeah, it's him."

———

The next morning, Quill dragged himself forward, struggling to keep up. He was freezing, tired, hungry, and hurting everywhere. He didn't complain though. It didn't feel fair to complain about his aches and pains. Vardok never had. Quill was still breathing and for that, he was grateful.

Wil marched beside him, face sunken and eyes hollow. Out of everyone, he was the most shaken by Vardok and Trevin's deaths. He was thinner than before the march. His gallant appearance had been degraded to that of a haunted, gaunt survivor. His skin was pale and now a patchy beard clung to his jaw.

"Are you alright?" Quill asked him.

"I yet live," Wil stated flatly.

"Yeah... me too."

"We will survive this. Mark my words well, Quill."

"I don't know, Wil. I'm starting to feel like we died as soon as we set foot in these woods."

Wil turned sharply, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him close. For a moment, he was furious.

But the anger faded. "We cannot think like that. Elsewise they died for nothing."

Quill placed a hand on his arm and Wil released him.

"I'm sorry," Wil said, dropping his head.

"I know," Quill said softly. "Just... hard to keep going."

They fell back into line, limping forward in silence.

The rest of the morning passed in eerie quiet.  No blizzards blew in. No Hallowbound leapt from the shadows. Even the sky was clear, unclouded by so much as a single smoke signal. It was as if the Hallowbound had vanished after yesterday's slaughter.

The squad marched with nothing but their thoughts for company.

It is a dangerous thing for a man so deep into a march to think. Quill's mind was filled with the horrors. Needlemaws, Grinners, dead scouts impaled on trees, the Gibbergash, Vardok's mangled corpse, the Crucible, the Bloodletters. Just a few days ago, he never could've imagined what waited for him in the Frostwood. Now he could barely remember anything else. Only days had passed, but years of him were gone.

He'd been cold so long, he couldn't remember what it felt like to be warm. Couldn't recall the sensation of walking down the cobblestone streets of Rokhov on a summer day, sun on his back.

He wondered what his father was doing right now. Or his brother. If they were still upset about his disappearance, or if they had already forgotten about him. He wondered what he'd be doing right now if he'd just married that girl.

What was her name again?

Didn't matter now. He'd never see her again. He'd probably never see any girl for that matter. He'd die a painful death next to men he barely knew. The best thing he could hope for was that someone somewhere might read his book. By the end, his account would be all that was left of him. 

Quill aimlessly trudged on, mind lost in thought. He didn't even notice that the squad had stopped until he bumped into Yoran's broad back.

"Sorry," he muttered with a cough.

The Fjorlander just looked down at him and grunted. 

Then Quill saw why they’d halted.

Ahead, the trees thinned, then vanished entirely. A clearing, but not one of the small forest gaps they’d seen along the march. This was a vast, frozen river of pale, white ice, stretching nearly a mile northward. To the east and west, it ran farther than the eye could follow. Quill knew that this river eventually connected to the ocean on either side of the continent. Across the river the forest resumed. But the trees were different, they weren't dead and bone white like the ones he'd seen during the journey, but covered in strange dark leaves and colored a deep crimson. And they were moving. At first Quill thought it was just normal rustling in the wind, but he soon realized it was more than that. Something—a lot of somethings—shifted among the trees. At least now, he knew where the Hallowbound had gone.

Everyone stood still, even Cross. They all stared across the river like it was the Weaver's divine portal. If Quill had stepped off a cliff when he entered the Frostwood, then this… this was the bottom at last.

"There it is," Deckard said, his voice a mix of wonder and anxiety. "Grelneer's Pass."