Harmodius was not searching for them. He was searching for why they were still fighting, and eventually, as Ash turned high in the air, so high that the aethereal was thin and the emperyeum began, and savaged the Wyrm of Ercch; as Hartmut fell dead; as Bad Tom stepped up onto the ruined north wall of the Royal Camp, and the last fighting tapered away…

Harmodius found Thorn.

Thorn was a small shadow—in the aethereal, he was merely the shadow of a shadow.

“I knew you must still live,” Harmodius said. “Your bound creatures are still fighting.”

The shade of Richard Plangere, once so powerful, merely whimpered.

Harmodius took him, and tenderly—almost—entered into his palace. Thorn lacked the strength to prevent even that. Harmodius plundered his memories ruthlessly, in a single heartbeat.

“Why?” Harmodius demanded.

“I tried to escape him,” Plangere said. “Please—my boy—let me go. All I wanted was the Wild. And the freedom to study.”

Harmodius studied the damage. “Yes, my teacher. What Ash did to you was terrible.” He frowned, and then hardened his heart. “But because of you, half the women of Alba are widows tonight. Go to hell, or wherever traitors go, and be accursed.”

“You know the truth!” Thorn screamed. “I betrayed no one!”

Harmodius shook his head in the real. “You betrayed us all,” he said. “And not just man. If it is any consolation: I will try and undo what you have done.”

“You will merely become me, you fool.”

“I think not,” Harmodius said. And then, like a creature of the Wild, he subsumed his foe.

High in the aether, Ash felt his puppet die. His foe was mortally wounded, but Ash had to turn and let him flutter to the ugly reaches of earth. He considered it all—the fire, the rain, the ruin, and the death.

He gazed upon Harmodius, who stood in the aethereal, untouched, and ready—deadly, powerful, and possessed of all Thorn’s knowledge, newly learned. And he looked at the others—the golden aura of the despicable Queen, tool of the false Tar, and the fallen Wyrm’s toys… He loathed them all.

But blue fire still burned, and the Wyrm had struck him twice to the bone. And that sword—some child of man had struck him with something—horrible. Even an insect bite may fester.

Ash had never been one for a reckless gamble.

So he pivoted, so high above the battlefield that only a few could detect him, and let out a long shriek of triumph and derision.

One of the two eggs, which Thorn had carried and nurtured for so long, burst open, and a cloud of black spores filled the muggy, damp air, and burst into leprous, malignant life. The other hatched.

Ash would have chuckled, but breathing was difficult and he was too high. He turned west, and began to glide. He could do so, without effort, for a thousand miles.