Chapter 7
Voran
Otchigen hardly stopped to rest at all on his way back to Vasyllia. Only when his legs buckled under him and his eyes closed, heavier than the lids on iron pots, did he simply fall over in place for a brief repose, sometimes on the path itself, sometimes a little way off it. He met no one, or at least didn’t remember meeting anyone. He hardly noticed anything, need driving him to move forward. Occasionally, he thought he saw the sun glinting off the steel of a spear or a helm—perhaps a scouting party from Vasyllia or a merchant guard—but there was nothing more than the glint.
He was more and more sure that he was going mad.
When the first vista of Vasyllia opened up before him, he was shocked. At first, he believed it to be a delusion. He had not even realized at what p
