Chapter 184: Ashes and the Relic
Before Kellar could respond, the sound of footsteps on the floorboards shattered the atmosphere. Brak rounded the hallway corner with a scroll in hand and froze in his tracks the second he took in their position.
Helga whipped her head around, locking him in a glare of fury that made the veteran hunter take a step back, swallowing hard.
"Forgive me... forgive the interruption, Shaman," Brak stammered, averting his eyes. "Everything is set for the ceremony. The entire tribe has gathered at the main pyre, and they are waiting for you."
Kellar released Helga’s waist, adjusting her tunic with a calm gesture as the moment shifted into the gravity of his duty. Helga let out a sigh, smoothing down her posture and tightening her vest straps with a smile of resignation.
"I will be there in a moment, Brak," Kellar replied in a steady voice.
A few minutes later, the atmosphere at the center of the village was somber and quiet. The dusk light painted the clouds in purplish red as the ceremonial bonfires began to rise toward the sky. The thirty fallen lay wrapped in ceremonial linen shrouds, arranged with respect atop the timber platform. The entire tribe—families, warriors, gatherers, and new recruits—encircled the grounds in silence, punctuated only by the crackling of the flames.
Kellar stepped up onto the ceremonial dais, flanked on his right by Ignis, whose majestic runic form commanded respect among the crowd. The shaman surveyed the faces of his people, taking in the tears of loved ones and the exhausted gazes of his soldiers.
"Today we do not gather to weep for our fallen brothers and sisters," Kellar began, his voice carrying clearly across the grounds through the mana channeled in his chest. "We come to honor the heroes who stood between the complete extinction of our tribe and our survival."
Kellar gestured toward the mountain peaks looming against the horizon.
"Those who were not up on those heights cannot comprehend the horror we faced," Kellar continued with a solemn tone. "The Eagle King and its swarm were no ordinary territorial beasts. It was a devouring force that, had it descended upon this village, would not have left one stone standing upon another. They would have wiped us out entirely. Neither our walls nor our families would have survived their wrath."
A wave of realization rippled through the villagers as the surviving recruits held their heads high, their pride unbroken.
"These thirty warriors—our veterans and our young recruits—looked death straight in the eye amid talons of steel and fire," Kellar proclaimed, raising his black war club toward the flames. "They fought to their last breath so that the children standing here today may wake up tomorrow in a safe home. Every drop of blood spilled on that mountain bought the future of this tribe."
Kellar took a lit torch and touched it to the base of the central pyre.
"Their names shall never be forgotten. Their bravery will forge the bedrock of the great city we will build across these lands. May their spirits find peace, and may their fire burn forever in the heart of our tribe!" Kellar bellowed.
"For the fallen! For the tribe!" Grok and Lennis roared in unison, instantly followed by a resounding chant from hundreds of voices that shook the fortress walls as the flames consumed the platform, carrying the smoke upward into the emerging stars.
The flames danced in the center of the plaza, illuminating the solemn faces of the tribe as the smoke of the thirty fallen ascended into the night sky. Just as the echo of the collective roar began to fade, the creaking of wooden planks and the dragging of iron chains forced the crowd to part down the middle.
Four reinforced cargo wagons, chained together and escorted by twelve soot-covered gatherers, rolled toward the perimeter of the ceremonial pyre. Resting upon the transport platform lay a trophy of colossal proportions: the skull of the Eagle King.
During his feast after the battle, Ignis had focused solely on devouring the soft meat, internal organs, and mana-rich brain matter. That left the winged sovereign’s bone structure almost entirely intact. The head, as massive as a small cabin, retained its sharp, black hooked beak, its deep eye sockets—one completely shattered by the explosive ballista bolt—and its ossified crests, gleaming under the ceremonial fire with a polished ivory hue.
Grok stepped up to the platform and brought a palm down onto the monster’s bone.
"We couldn’t haul the entire body down before nightfall, Shaman," Grok said, raising his voice so the whole tribe could hear. "But we managed to secure the tyrant’s head. The bone is so dense that ordinary saws don’t even scratch it."
Kellar approached the relic, sliding his fingers along the wide fissure his war club and Grok’s axe had carved into the top. Touching the bony surface, he felt a pulse of residual mana lingering within the structure.
"Mount it at the entrance of the main hall," Kellar ordered, turning back toward his people. "Let this skull serve as the very first pillar of the great city we will build. Every merchant, visitor, or enemy who crosses our gates will know exactly what happens to any beast or clan that attempts to extinguish our tribe."
The crowd pressed in around the wagons to take a closer look at the colossal relic. The skull still retained patches of wrinkled hide and steel-hard feathers clinging to its base, starkly displaying the raw scars of the fierce battle: the claw gashes from Ignis, the deep axe notch from Grok, and the impact at the top.
A young hunter, wrapping an arm around his partner’s waist as they stared at the bone structure, pointed at the main fissure.
"That strike that killed it was delivered by the Shaman," the hunter whispered to his partner, his eyes shining with admiration. "That is how strong our leader is."
She nodded in silence, squeezing his hand as the entire tribe looked upon the proof that, under Kellar’s command, no enemy in these mountains was invincible.