Chapter 146 Pledge To The Darkmoon

Chapter 146 Pledge To The Darkmoon

CHIEF SHUMA'S LONG HOUSE, AYASHA TERRITORY

"Will he show up at all?"

Heth's whisper barely carried, but Chief Obed heard it anyway.

He stood like carved stone, expression unreadable, eyes glowing red as he stared into the dim, unmoving predawn air.

The fallen Warchief's longhouse was filled past capacity: Wolf Kin and Selkaharin shoulder to shoulder, a queue still stretching out into the dark beyond the doors.

Even a chamber built to hold a thousand felt too small tonight. It seemed every clan in the territory had come, drawn by the same need: to witness the one who might yet save mankind.

The land had been caught between daybreak and dusk for hours now, the dread of a sun that might never rise again sinking deeper into every chest than even the terror surrounding them.

No Draugr. No leviathan. Not since the night the Darkmoon had first manifested.

The silence should have brought relief. Instead it kept every warrior on a blade's edge, no one certain whether this was mercy or the stillness before something far worse.

The borders held anyway — Vikings and Selkaharin warriors stationed along every path, weapons drawn, ready.

Inside, Chief Obed stood with the High Fathers, Mother Aressa and her kind beside him, all of them waiting on a god who might never come.

"Let's hope they will," Obed said at last, eyes never leaving the entrance, as though he'd already seen what was coming and simply hadn't decided whether to believe it.

"It's been hours, Chief. Not that I'm complaining, but..."

"You're complaining, mighty Heth." A dry note crept into Obed's voice. "I won't ask you to be at ease. None of us are. I'm on the same edge as you. Our lands are already unraveling. Sunrise feels like a rumor now, I don't even know if it will rise again. He may simply be late."

"A god is neither late nor early, Lord Ashman." Mother Aressa cut in, calm despite the strain visible at the corners of her mouth. She, too, stood at the edge of her patience. "They arrive at their own convenience, at their own pace." Her expression softened, warm despite everything. "The concept of lateness doesn't apply to them."

"Well said, Aressa."

The voice came from behind them like thunder rolling down off a mountain.

Then the presence followed it.

The crowd parted before anyone chose to move, murmurs and gasps threading through the room like wind through dry grass.

It wasn't the Darkmoon alone. Trivia walked at his side.

The air warped, grew heavy, charged, too dense, suddenly, for anyone to breathe properly.

Knees hit the floor and heads bowed before instinct could be questioned.

Wolf Kin murmured. Selkaharins hummed low in their throats.

"It's Trivia."

"The Darkmoon manifests."

"I can't breathe..."

The murmurs braided together as Zuri and Yuna crossed the hall, light trailing off the hem of Yuna's gown, until the two of them stood at its center.

Outside, the crowd surged toward the doors, desperate for a glimpse of the gods of the Darkmoon.

Chief Obed swallowed hard. Whatever Mother Aressa had been about to say died in her throat. Nothing had prepared either of them for this.

"All hail the Darkmoon!"

A Selkaharin voice broke first.

"All hail the Darkmoon!"

"All hail Trivia!"

"All hail Trivia!"

Then silence, total, unbroken, not even a cricket daring to fill it.

"I greet you all, folk of the living realm." Zuri began, every trace of his old careless manner stripped away. Those who knew him well felt the awe of it settle over them, too afraid to speak a word back.

"This is the best thing you've done, setting aside your differences, banding together against a threat that has no patience for old grudges. None of what comes next is possible without every one of you." He inclined his head, a bow from a god to mortals. "I greet you again."

A ripple of disbelief ran through the hall, then silence again. Then...

"Ahem. Sorry... could someone find me mead? My throat's been parched for a thousand years." He pulled a face, almost boyish.

The shock on every face in the room was plain.

But within a breath, Chief Obed was already barking orders for the finest wine and ale their breweries could produce.

"My Lord." Obed bowed low, hand resting near his hilt out of old habit. "Please, accept this. It is the best we have to offer. It's nothing compared to the distilled essence of the spirits you're used to, but offered with a full heart."

"It is accepted, Lord Ashman Obed Izenov. I won't forget this kindness." Zuri's smile nearly undid the man where he stood.

Yuna, finding the whole display faintly ridiculous, tugged at his shoulder, her expression a small storm cloud.

"What? It's been ages, Trivia. Let a god have his moment." He cracked a barrel open himself.

On any ordinary day, the room might have laughed at that, a joke told for an audience.

But this was a Darkmoon's joke, delivered with a Darkmoon's weight, and no one dared risk being wrong about whether it was funny.

They simply waited, patient, as Zuri emptied two barrels before the room managed three collective breaths.

"Peace be with your kin, Odin." Zuri said, setting the empty barrel down. "Wherever you're watching from, I'm proud. Watch me purge this nightmare from your lands."

Any other man, Obed would have corrected by now.

But not the Darkmoon.

He simply waited, like everyone else, and wished, not for the first time tonight, that the old Warchief were still alive to stand in his place.

Yuna watched the whole performance over the rim of her own cup, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes, not quite contempt, not quite fondness. Perhaps both, worn thin by exhaustion and love in equal measure.

For one heartbeat her gaze softened entirely, and no one but Zuri seemed to catch it.

"My spirit is full now." Zuri set the barrel down, and the sound he made, somewhere between a groan and a belch, wholly undignified for a god, startled a nervous laugh out of no one at all.

His godhood settled fully into place, the air bending again around him.

"I'll be brief, because there isn't much time left to spend on speeches. Reality, as all of you understand it, is being unmade. Gods are dying. Spirits are vanishing. Pantheons and thrones stand empty, swallowed by the cold reach of the Primordial Darkness, enemy to everything that breathes. Your sky bears its mark. Your corrupted waters, your hunted woods, no less. Beings from the lower planes now wage open war in its name against the living. This is no longer a war for mortals alone, the spirits have been drawn into it, and we have been provoked."

His eyes swept the room, finding Asah's, startled for what looked like the first time in his life, then Heth's, then Makena beside Oma, then Commander Aldrich, who had said nothing all night, only watched.

"We have answered. The Darkmoon takes this fight as our own. Trivia and the whole of my army march against the Darkness, to end this."

His gaze finally settled on Yuna.

"We no longer ask you to fight. This is our fight now, you may rest. I ask only that you stay together. That you hold your faith. That you be your neighbor's keeper, and pray this works. I don't ask for your prayers, or your submission, only your faith, and your will to endure. Be steadfast. The Darkmoon will prevail."

"My Lord."

Lord Arro, head of the High Fathers, stepped forward, swallowing down whatever fear still lived in him.

He stood before Zuri, met the burning weight of his eyes, and did not look away.

He crossed his hands in the old sign and bowed low. "I speak for the Wolf Kin, Sovereign of the Darkmoon." His voice did not shake. "And we shall serve the Darkmoon."