Caladar's head is throbbing, and the hardtack and stale water do not help.
He is torn, torn in multiple directions. Duty calls him north, but this call is silenced unto nothing by the other forces that seem to duel for his soul.
One seeks to draw him south, south past the barrier, south like the fools of Irondale who sought to probe the forbidden lands, south into the waiting arms and gnashing teeth of the hordes.
They call to him with speechless tongues; they watch him with sightless eyes. Mere feet from the mysterious barrier, he could simply walk through upon a whim, straight into the pack that seem to sullenly observe from the other side. They sniff and sputter, they shuffle and pace, but they cannot cross the line.
But I can...
He could give himself to them, and be done with it all. The nightmares, the endless dread of his waking hours, all of it, over.
But would it be? That little voice of doubt nags him. Do they dream? Do they dread? Does it hurt to slowly rot to bits?
What if it's even worse than this..?
And in the end, Caladar knows he is a coward. If he was going to, he'd have done it already.
And so, begrudgingly, he knows he must heed the other call, the call of the shadows that haunt his nights and days, that have haunted him since the first night in these accursed lands.
They do not call him to death or undeath, but to life. A life of power, of accomplishment, perhaps even greatness. But Caladar is a coward, not a fool. He feels the evil that lurks behind the shadows, and he knows there will be a cost.
But he cannot fight forever, and he cannot stay here in this dying land, and he knows not what else to do.
So, protesting against himself in the back of his mind, he gathers his men and marches westward...
Yes... westward
Westward to the desert where...
And there was... of monsters and dead ones...
The... that came from the sea and then... from the sands themselves
There shall you find it, the...
In the desert of Kording where... was once law
And shall be again
And there will be...
