Episode 24 – Zhan Min and the Fallow Fields

Departure from Zihorne

The dawn in Zihorne was colored in rose and gold, a quiet mist rising from the soft grasslands surrounding the crossroads town. The sound of market bells rang faintly from the heart of the settlement, but the Roving Adventurers were already at the edge of the eastern road. Saddles creaked, and packs were lashed tight. The smells of travel—oiled leather, dry feed grain, smoked meats, citrus oils for insect repelling—mingled in the cool morning air.

Nayzungit, ever practical, oversaw the rations and poultices: powdered rice, dried eel skins, fermented bean cakes wrapped in waxy leaf, and a series of alchemical brews made to purify water drawn from stagnant puddles. Makhulim double-checked the girths and reins of the horses, testing each knot like a shipwright readying sails. Marcho had bartered with an old silk merchant to acquire a map, though half of it was drawn in swirling calligraphy none could decipher. Faylen lingered near the gates, eyes narrowed westward, already reading the winds.

“Five days to Oakey-Bai,” she said, stretching her arms. “We follow the old imperial road, yes?”

“If it can still be called a road,” Marcho muttered, pointing to the edge of the village where the cobbled path began to crumble into fine, windblown dust.

The townsfolk gave polite bows as they passed, but few offered words. Zihrone was a place of passage, not permanence. Its people had the gaze of those who watched strangers leave often—some never to return.

By mid-morning, the party had left the first terraces of rice paddies and bamboo groves behind. Hills rolled gently beneath their steeds, and before the sun reached its zenith, they came to the border where green turned to gray.

Day One: The Edge of Desolation

The Fallow Fields began not with a sudden line but a gradual fading of life. Grass thinned. The color of the soil dulled. And the wind shifted, colder, always from the south. There were no trees here, only long stretches of dried, reedy growth—amber and beige stalks that rasped against one another in the breeze. The land stretched flat toward the horizon, broken only by strange mounds and remnants of old banners, too tattered to show crest or house.

“No birds,” Nayzungit murmured. “No insects either.”

Indeed, the silence was thick.

By late afternoon, they passed an old war memorial—an arched gate of carved stone, cracked and leaning. Faylen read the inscription aloud:

“To those who bled beneath banners, may your valor never be unremembered.”

They made camp on the leeward side of a dune, setting their tented bedrolls in a crescent. No fire was lit—wood was scarce, and the wind carried strange echoes. Makhulim stood watch first, his axes near.

That night, Marcho dreamed. In his sleep, he saw a battlefield stretching endlessly, warriors with topknots and scale armor clashing with shadowy things wearing the faces of their loved ones. He saw a blade break through a heart and the look of betrayal that followed.

He woke in a sweat, whispering, “Not again… I didn’t mean to…”

Day Two: Whispers of Glory and Doom

The second day dawned gray and dry. The sun hung like a coin behind a veil of dust.

The road was no longer visible. Only their bearing kept them aligned—Marcho’s compass still spun wildly unless held absolutely still, but he’d learned how to coax it into momentary clarity. The others trusted his gut more than his gadget.

They passed a fallen standard—wooden, rotten, tipped to the side. A sigil once painted on its cloth had faded, now only the faintest hint of a golden phoenix against red.

“We are walking through the graves of an empire,” Faylen said softly.

That night, Nayzungit had a vision. He knelt by a river of blood, the water so thick with memory it whispered names. He saw a man—not unlike himself—standing atop a mound of bodies, arms raised not in victory, but in lamentation.

From the shadows behind him came a hiss. Not a serpent. Not a beast. Something older.

He awoke praying, his hands clenched around the holy symbol of Angradd. “They were betrayed,” he muttered. “And the betrayers yet linger.”

Day Three: Bones in the Dust

The wind picked up by midday, carrying grit that bit the skin. They wrapped cloth around their mouths and narrowed their eyes.

Marcho found bones—small, delicate—perhaps a child’s. He didn’t show the others, but buried them quietly. Later, he mentioned seeing a silhouette out in the haze, motionless and watching, but no one else saw it.

Makhulim was quiet. He’d been so since the second night, but now he didn’t speak at all. Only at dusk did he mutter: “I’ve seen this before. Or… a place like it.”

His dream that night showed two warriors locked in combat. One wore black, the other silver. When the silver warrior struck the final blow, the black one whispered a word. It rang like a bell, and everything around them—mountains, skies, the battlefield—shattered.

When Makhulim woke, he drew the sigil from his dream in the sand. It vanished as the wind passed.

Day Four: Brotherhood and Betrayal

The fourth day brought the broken remnants of siege equipment—wooden wheels buried in dunes, shattered bolts, rusted iron hinges. Here and there, shattered helms half-buried in earth.

Faylen paused by an old sword half-buried in the dirt. “This was no ordinary war,” she said, her voice tight. “This was hatred. Madness. And something more.”

Nayzungit blessed the blade and left it resting upright, like a grave marker.

That night, Faylen dreamed.

She walked a corridor of trees, but they had no leaves—only hands at the ends of branches. The hands reached for her, but she was unafraid. At the end of the corridor stood a man with a shattered helm. He held a scroll in one hand and fire in the other. He said one word:

“Remember.”

She woke with tears drying on her cheeks.

Day Five: Oakey-Bai

The land began to rise. Distant outlines of peaks to the south grew clearer. The wind softened. And then, all at once, the barrenness gave way to the blue shimmer of water.

Oakey-Bai revealed itself slowly.

Nestled on the southern edge of a vast inland lake, the city rose like a blossom of old-world splendor. Terraced buildings of lacquered wood and polished stone stepped down the slopes of the mountain range, their roofs curved like dragon wings. Bridges arched over deep canals where narrow boats passed silently. Gongs rang in the distance, announcing the noon hour.

Great banners of red and white hung from the watchtowers flanking the city gate, where guards dressed in shining lamellar armor greeted travelers with solemn bows.

The Roving Adventurers paused at the crest of the road, looking down upon the ancient capital.

“This place has endured,” said Nayzungit.

“But what cost?” Faylen replied.

As they approached the gates, a low tone echoed from the bell towers—deep and lingering.

It was not a warning.

It was a welcome. Or perhaps… a remembrance.