The Order of Ashbinders part 3

Rekindling the Flame
We returned to Greenthorn’s Rest a week later, carrying more ashes than supplies. Marta was waiting, just as before — though this time she stood straighter, her limp less pronounced, as if the Hollow’s news had set something right inside her.

I placed the Ashbrand Seal on the table. The relic glimmered faintly in the candlelight, its runes humming like distant thunder.

Her hands hovered above it — not touching, almost afraid. “So, it still breathes,” she murmured. “After all this time.”

Bren crossed his arms. “You never said what we’re supposed to do with it. It’s not exactly a weapon.”

“It’s a start,” Marta said. “And starts are rarer than victories.”

She looked at each of us in turn — the blacksmith with arms of iron, the deserter with eyes like blades, and me, the fool who’d gone chasing burned sheep and found the end of an age.

“The Order is gone,” she said quietly. “No banners. No armies. No faith left in us. But if dragons rise again, someone must remember what to do.”

She gestured toward the Seal. “You three — you’ll rebuild the fire. I’ll guide you, if my bones hold long enough.”

We found our new sanctuary two days later — a ruined watchtower half-buried in ivy and stone at the edge of the plains. It wasn’t much: one leaning wall, a roof that leaked when it felt like it, and a cellar full of rats with territorial ambition. But it was ours.

Tira set about clearing the courtyard, muttering about “defensible perimeters.” Bren repaired the forge with scraps of wagon metal and prayer. And I, for reasons I still don’t understand, spent hours polishing the broken emblem of the Ashbinders that we’d found in the rubble — a ring of flame etched into old bronze.

By nightfall, we lit the first fire in that tower in centuries. The smoke curled upward through the shattered roof, and the Ashbrand Seal began to hum softly in response — a low, steady rhythm, like the world exhaling after holding its breath too long.

Marta visited a few days later, wrapped in her traveling cloak. She moved slowly, but there was pride in her eyes — the kind a soldier hides until she’s sure it’s earned.
“Not bad,” she said, surveying our mess of tools and half-fixed walls. “You’ve built worse with better hands.”
“Still standing,” Bren grunted.
“For now,” she said, then turned to me. “Have you reforged it yet?”

I unwrapped the Ashbrand Seal. Its surface had changed — faint cracks filled with molten light, veins of gold through black metal. We’d spent the week channeling holy oil, molten steel, and raw mana through it, reforging as best as we could.

When I placed it in Marta’s hands, it pulsed once — brighter than before. She smiled, faint but real. “The seal’s alive again.”
“Alive?” Tira asked. “That’s one word for cursed.”

Marta ignored her. “With this, we can find what’s left of the old sanctums. The runes respond to draconic resonance. When it glows, it means the world remembers.”

Then she straightened, leaning on her spear like a scepter. “We are not the heroes they were. But we carry their burden. Dragons rise again, and so must we.”

That night, we celebrated — in the only way a half-dozen misfits could. Bread. Cheap ale. Laughter that came too easily. Tira told a story about stealing a horse from an Imperial captain. Bren tried to fix the roof mid-drunken bet and nearly fell through it. Marta laughed until she coughed.

It felt… human. And in that fleeting warmth, I realized something: This wasn’t just a club anymore. Not a memory.

It was a heartbeat. Faint, fragile, but alive.

When the fire burned low, I stepped outside. The night stretched wide, stars flickering like sparks scattered across the dark. Far off, thunder rumbled again — that same hollow sound I’d learned to listen for. But this time, I didn’t flinch.

I looked toward the mountains and whispered, “Let the dragons wake. We’ll be waiting.”

In the forge below, the Ashbrand Seal pulsed once — a single, answering glow.

And so, the Order of Ashbinders rose again. Not in glory. Not in number. But in will.

And for now, that was enough.

The Ashen Oath
We left the watchtower before dawn — four of us in total, counting Marta, though she could barely hide the limp anymore. The Ashbrand Seal hung from my belt, warm against my thigh, as if it knew before I did what waited ahead.

Marta briefed us by the roadside fire the night before. “The cult has taken an old Imperial fortress,” she said. “They’ve built their altar atop one of our ancient binding sites. If they finish the ritual, they won’t only summon Nahasuul — they’ll feed him.”

“Feed?” Bren grunted.
“Dragons don’t just wake,” she said. “They grow. On fire. On faith. On fear.”

She didn’t need to explain further. We all felt it — the pressure building beneath the world, the faint tremor in every flame. Nahasuul wasn’t sleeping anymore. He was hungry.

The fortress loomed ahead at twilight — once an Imperial bulwark, now a heretic shrine. Its towers burned like torches. Draconic runes crawled up the walls, pulsing with molten light. And from within, a roar rolled across the valley — deep, ragged, alive.

The kind of sound that makes the bones remember fear.

“That’s no specter,” Tira muttered. “That’s a dragon.”
Marta’s jaw tightened. “Lesser form. For now.”

The battle began before we were ready. Cultists poured from the gates — masked, chanting, blades glowing with dragonfire oil. Bren’s hammer broke the first line like thunder. Tira cut through the second before their blades found her shadow.

But the fortress itself trembled as we fought, stones raining from the ramparts. Above the altar, something vast stirred — Nahasuul, in flesh and scale.

He was smaller than the legends, yes — half the size of the titans described in the old texts — but still enough to eclipse the courtyard. His wings hung torn and incomplete, his body lean, like a beast half-born from the grave.

He watched us with molten eyes, slow and contemptuous, like a god waking to find its worshipers unworthy.

“Ashbinders…” His voice was not sound — it was vibration, shaking the air itself. “You burned my kin. You chained my soul. Now I burn yours.”

Then he exhaled.

Flame rolled like a wave, swallowing the courtyard in white fire.

We scattered. The heat tore breath from my lungs. Stone melted. Tira screamed something I couldn’t hear and vanished behind a pillar.

“Marta!” I shouted.

She was already moving — limping, but fast, her spear glowing black where dragon blood had once touched it. She hurled it with a shout, and the weapon struck true — embedding in Nahasuul’s flank.

The dragon roared, wings unfurling — tattered no more. Each beat shook the earth. His scales darkened from ember-red to obsidian gold, healing as we watched. He was growing.

Marta’s face went pale. “He’s drawing from the altar — from the seal beneath it! He’s feeding on the magic!”

Bren looked at me. “Then we stop the feast.”

I ran. Through fire, through falling debris, through cultists too dazed to stop me. The Ashbrand Seal throbbed in my hand like a living heart.

Nahasuul turned, his eyes locking onto me — recognition in them, and hatred. “You bear the mark,” he hissed. “You carry my cage.”

Then he struck. A wing sweep sent me sprawling. My ears rang. My ribs screamed. But I crawled forward, dragging myself toward the altar. The runes pulsed like veins, funneling molten energy into the dragon’s chest.

I slammed the Seal down.

Light erupted — not gold, but white, blinding and pure. For a moment, the roar became a scream — both dragon and ritual colliding in one impossible sound.

The energy snapped. The altar cracked in half. Nahasuul staggered, his wings faltering.

But even as the surge died, his laughter filled the ruin.

“Too late, little warden. The fire remembers its shape.”

And then he rose.

Fully.

The wings spread wide, whole and vast, each scale burning with molten light. A true greater dragon — Nahasuul reborn.

He tore free from the fortress, the walls collapsing beneath him as he ascended into the storm. The sky itself caught fire.

We barely survived the collapse. When I woke, the fortress was nothing but char and rubble. Bren was coughing blood beside a half-buried shield. Tira’s daggers lay broken, but she was alive. And Marta — she sat slumped against a wall, her spear gone, her side bleeding.

I crawled to her. She looked at me through the haze, smiled faintly. “He’s whole again, isn’t he?”

I could only nod.

“Good,” she whispered. “Better to face him awake than dreaming.”

She reached for my hand, closing my fingers around the Seal. It was cracked now, smoking, but still warm.

“Remember what you saw,” she said. “Remember what he was before you kill what he’ll become.”

Her eyes softened. “You’ve taken the Oath now, whether you meant to or not. Fire for ash. Ash for flame.”

Then, quieter — “Don’t let the world forget again.”

We left her there, beneath the broken tower — the last watcher of the old age, guarding the ashes of her fire.

As we climbed down into the valley, dawn broke — but the light was wrong. Red. Flickering.

Nahasuul’s shadow passed once across the sun, and the ground trembled in reply.

The Dragon Wars had begun again.

That night, I carved Marta’s words into my blade’s hilt:

Ash for flame.

And when I held the Seal, cracked and glowing faintly, I could still hear him whispering — not mocking, not angry, but promising:

“The cycle turns anew.”

Wrath of Nahasuul
We tracked Nahasuul to the mountains where the world still bled fire. The locals called it the Ember Crown — a ring of black peaks that smoked even in snow. Old maps warned of veins of molten stone beneath the ridges, ley-lines older than nations. To dragons, it was sacred ground. To us, it was a grave.

Bren said nothing as we climbed. Tira walked ahead, silent, eyes hard. None of us mentioned Marta. Her spear rested across my back; its haft still scorched from the last battle.

The Ashbrand Seal pulsed with every step, dim light spilling between its cracks — a heartbeat struggling to hold together. Each pulse pointed upward, toward the heart of the mountain. Toward him.

We found Nahasuul perched atop the caldera at dawn. The sun had not yet risen, but his wings caught the glow of the molten fissures below — great sheets of black glass edged in gold. He no longer looked like the broken creature from the fortress. He was magnificent. Terrifying. Whole.

When he spoke, the sky seemed to echo him.
“I am flame’s memory. You are its shadow. Why do you still resist?”
“Because someone has to,” I said.
He laughed — a sound like worlds cracking. “Then burn, shadow.”

The battle shook the mountain. Bren charged first, hammer blazing with runes carved from dragonbone. His blow struck true, ringing like a cathedral bell, but Nahasuul’s tail swept him aside as if swatting dust. Tira followed, scaling the cliff face and leaping for the dragon’s eye — daggers flashing. She landed the strike, but the blade melted in the heat of his breath.

Then it was my turn.

The Ashbrand Seal burned in my grip, fusing with Marta’s spear until both became one shape — steel laced with light. I drove it deep into Nahasuul’s chest.

He roared. Flame poured from his wounds, pure and white. The world blurred. We fought across stone and sky, through smoke and memory.

Each strike tore more of him apart — and more of me with it. When at last I stood over him, both of us bleeding light, I realized how quiet it had become.

No wind. No sound. Only the mountain’s slow heartbeat.

Nahasuul looked at me with something like regret.
“You bind the fire again… but you do not understand it. You cannot. Every chain you forge, the world will break.”

His last breath came out not as a roar, but a whisper:
“The cycle turns.”

And then he fell — a burning star sinking into the molten heart of the mountain.

We didn’t cheer. We didn’t speak. We just watched the volcano tremble, half expecting him to rise again.

He didn’t. But something else did.

When the shaking stopped, the air changed. The wind carried embers that didn’t die out, drifting east, west, across the horizon. Bren frowned. “You feel that?”

I nodded. The Seal was cold now — dead. Its runes had gone dark.

Somewhere below us, the cult’s chant echoed faintly through the cracks — distant, triumphant. While we’d been fighting Nahasuul, their survivors had reached the old sanctum beneath the mountain and undone what the Ashbinders once built. The Ashbinding Seal — the ritual that bound dragon souls to mortal flesh — was gone.

The cycle of magic had restarted. Dragons would rise again. Not all at once, not as an army — but slowly, scattered like sparks waiting for kindling.

By the time we returned to the watchtower, the sky had changed. Clouds shimmered with faint, shifting colors — auroras where no aurora should be. At night, the stars pulsed like eyes opening.

News spread from travelers and traders:

A mining crew in the north found a cave that breathed smoke.

A merchant ship was lost at sea after “something with wings” rose from the water.

Farmers whispered of their plows striking warm stone that beat like a heart.

The world was remembering.

Bren reforged the weapons. Tira trained the new recruits who still believed the Order mattered. And I kept the Seal — cracked, cold, and silent — as proof that victory is only ever borrowed.

Sometimes I think I hear Marta’s voice in the wind, the way she sounded when she was still alive and tired and proud all at once.

“The world thinks dragons are myths again. Let them. We’ll be waiting — as long as fire remembers ash.”

I whisper back, every night before sleep:
“It remembers.”

Because the embers never died. They’re out there now — in caves, in storms, in hearts — waiting for breath.

And though we won the battle that day, I know what comes next. The small wars. The ones fought in shadow, village by village, sky by sky.

The Dragon Wars have begun again — not as legend, but as truth reborn.