Bastian said nothing about the talk with Padraig, but his knowing gaze told Verdan that the Cleric was well aware that something was going on. The increasingly complex situation with the Mhorgain Clan wasn’t something that Verdan wanted to get Bastian involved in though.

  It was already primed to go wrong in a number of different ways, adding the representatives of gods other than Govannon into it felt like a poor choice. It wasn’t a big step to go from cultural tradition to religious tradition, especially not with the Kranjir.

  Verdan sighed and rubbed his face before firmly putting it all aside and heading for the building Padraig had pointed out. Other Kranjir were coming and going on a regular basis, so it was easy enough to flag down someone on the way out and ask for more specific directions to where Ciaran was.

  Thanking the woman he’d stopped, Verdan hurried into the relative shelter of the building, appreciating the reprieve from the wind and rain that it offered. The door stood open so the interior was almost as cold as the street outside, but it was better than nothing.

  A fire was being carefully tended in the far corner of the room by a handful of sodden Kranjir desperate to try and dry off and warm up.

  “Wyr sia. Thanr sia.” Verdan muttered the two spells back to back, drawing on the Aether in his staff as he dried off everyone in the room and tossed the water outside. A moment later the fire roared to life, shedding heat into the room like a furnace and making the closest people jump.

  Thanks rang out from the now dry Kranjir as Verdan left to find Ciaran, Bastian following in his wake as he chuckled to himself. “A mundane but pleasant use of your magic.”

  “I’m able to be more free with my magic these days, so I do what I can,” Verdan said honestly. His latest staff design allowed it to draw magic at an impressive rate, with his gathering spiral acting through it thanks to the binding Sigil. While his own reserves would always grow, at least as far as he knew, the staff had a limited capacity. An impressive one, to be sure, but limited all the same.

  Perhaps that was an excuse for him to perform small magics like that, but that hardly mattered.

  -**-

  They found Ciaran in what had once been a storeroom, where he and all the key figures of the local Kranjir, except for the Blades Verdan noticed, were gathered around a table with a map spread out across it. Markers had been placed north of the mountains to represent what Verdan could only assume was the Darjee. There were a lot of markers.

  Verdan and Bastian arriving caused a stir among those present, but once they had allayed their worries, Ciaran immediately asked what the council had said to Verdan after he had left.

  Verdan winced internally but told them all the same, which sparked off a second round of questions and arguments. Bastian had already helped Verdan begin to come to terms with what was happening, but the outrage of his allies cemented it. Ciaran and Maeve had been staunch allies from the moment he met them, well, apart from Maeve threatening to kill him, but that was water under the bridge.

  “Alright, enough!” Ciaran shouted, clapping his hands together and bringing the argument to a close. “We can all agree that the council are fools, but how to deal with them is Verdan’s decision. That said, I regret that we won’t be here to support you for much longer, as I think you’ll need it.”

  “So you’re going then?” Verdan asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

  “We are, for a number of reasons.” Ciaran motioned for the two of them to approach and gestured to the map. “If I’m being honest, I downplayed the severity of the situation to the city council by focusing on the threat to the city. I’ve been receiving reports from my father about raids all along the southern border. The Darjee are marshalling, and in force. We’ve even seen signs of Thralls with them once more.”

  “Gormagyr.” Verdan scowled at even the thought of those twisted giants. They were vile creatures, one and all.

  “Just so. With those added to the mix, any route between the city and my Clan’s territory is considered compromised. That means that we’re pulling all of our Clan from the city and heading straight for Glarn first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand.” Verdan frowned, not following that logic. “If the trip is dangerous, why do it? Why not leave the civilians here?”

  Ciaran was shaking his head before Verdan even finished speaking. “My duty as a Chosen is to my Clan and my clansfolk. Leaving several hundred of them here without protection would be out of the question. If the council were not as they are, then I would consider it if they gave us a Hearth’s Oath , but not now. No, we must risk the passage and hope that when we are attacked, our strength of arms is enough.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Not if they were attacked. When. Verdan shivered at the thought of the thought of what a Darjee raiding party would do against a slow moving caravan, even with two Chosen protecting it. Perhaps if they each had their full fifty Thearns, but they barely had more than a single complement between them.

  “What exactly is a Hearth’s Oath?” Verdan asked, rubbing his jaw. “I don’t recognise the term.”

  “It is an ancient oath, one that goes back to the days when the Kranjir were less unified. Govannon himself lay down the tenets for it, allowing us to rely on those not of our Clan to protect the innocent while we went to battle. It is the foundation of our society, and has never been broken.”

  “Then what of Clan Mhorgain?” Verdan asked, turning to Dirk and Sinead. “Could you not give this oath? Or are you leaving as well?”

  “We have nowhere else to go,” Sinead said simply, flashing him a tight, humourless smile. “This is our home now, and we must abide by its whims. We cannot give our oath to protect Ciaran’s people either. To do so would be tantamount to claiming them for Clan Mhorgain unless an agreement was reached between Keepers.”

  Verdan felt a headache building as he realised the true problem here. The honour of the Kranjir was a boon most of the time, but right now, it was going to get a lot of people killed. He couldn’t talk Ciaran out of it either, he knew that much.

  Maybe if it were just Ciaran’s honour at stake, but not when it was the welfare of the local people and his duty to the Clan itself.

  “I appreciate your concern for my clansfolk,” Ciaran said, standing tall with a steely look in his eye. “But rest assured, every warrior under my command would die before letting the Darjee take our people.”

  “That is exactly what concerns me,” Verdan said, the simple statement quietening the room. “I can read that map. Even with the Pathfinder’s people doing all they can you’ll be taking a large, obvious and slow-moving caravan through a dangerous area. There is not a chance that you won’t be caught.”

  Ciaran was silent for a time before he spoke in a weary voice. “I know that. We all know that. I’ll tell you what else we know, though. Yesterday, two of our hunters came back to the city through the eastern gate and were accosted by a mob for being ‘monster lovers’. Neither was injured, thank Govannon, but things aren’t getting better, Verdan. I can’t leave my people here unprotected, and I can’t abandon my duty to return home.”

  Verdan fought back the anger at what Ciaran was saying and tried to look at the problem objectively. “Surely there is a way to leave them here?”

  “I…” Ciaran trailed off helplessly and shook his head. “Not that I could arrange in time. Perhaps if some of the Sorcerer Sects were here in greater force, but no, the Keepers would never accept a Hearth’s Oath from such as them.”

  “For honour and duty to be satisfied with a Hearth’s Oath, there would be two requirements,” Sinead said abruptly. “The first is that Ciaran would need the oath itself from a person or organisation trusted by the Clan. In a general sense they would be swearing that they would care for all the Thrain clansfolk in the city as though they were their own. Breaking that oath would form a blood debt between the oath swearer and Clan Thrain, so it is not to be taken lightly.”

  Verdan could already see how that would be a problem. There really wasn’t anyone else in the city who could commit to that level of responsibility. He’d come to know the Kranjir well enough to understand that the threat at the end was all too real as well.

  “What is the second requirement?” Bastian asked softly.

  “That the oath swearer has the power to enforce it. That they can replace the protection of the Clan.”

  “What Sinead is not telling you,” Maeve said, breaking in with a pointed look at the other woman. “Is that this oath has been made a mere handful of times since the Clans unified their territory. We Chosen take the defence of our people seriously, and there is rarely a time when they are cut off from both us and the Clan as a whole. It only applies here because we all know that once we leave, we won’t be coming back for perhaps months, maybe a year or more, depending on how the Darjee act.”

  Verdan exhaled heavily, understanding the situation now. He could see the grim understanding of the situation on the faces of those present. “So you must leave, but is there nothing we can do to reinforce the caravan?”

  “Clan Mhorgain has offered to escort us through the first half of the journey,” Ciaran said, tapping a point on the map. “After this point, we are better served by moving as fast as possible with as few as we can.”

  “Once the escort is over, Magnus and I will lead an assault on a nearby camp to try to draw the Darjee away,” Dirk said, pointing at one of the markers. “With my Thearns and the veteran shieldguards who have joined us, we will be strong enough to crush them.”

  Verdan noticed that no one spoke of the several day journey that the Mhorgain would then have to make back to the city, potentially with several Darjee raiding parties hunting them.

  This was all desperation, he could see that. Bravery and courage being put to the test for the demands of honour. Perhaps some of the civilians would even make it past the Darjee, but Ciaran, Maeve and the rest certainly wouldn’t. Not even with Dirk’s distraction.

  The handshake and thanks from Padraig took on a different meaning now. Not an appreciation of what he’d done so much as a goodbye.

  Despair curdled in his gut as it mixed with hot fury. This was a tragedy being played out one piece at a time, and all because the council could no longer be trusted as a firm ally.

  He’d hoped that the unintended consequences of refusing to join the council would be done with, but it never ended. Such a small decision, and look what it had wrought. This wasn’t his fault, Verdan knew that, but he still felt responsible. All the power he had, and he still couldn’t stop this.

  “Wait.” The word slipped from Verdan’s lips almost without thought. “There is one person who could swear the Hearth’s Oath.”