In the present framing conversation, Gabriel told vampire historian Jean-François that three years earlier, at age thirty-two, he was riding north through ruined farmlands in Emperor Alexandre’s realm. The land was blighted by Daysdeath and decades of vampire rule: empty villages, full graveyards, and a haunted landscape under grey rain. Gabriel wore his old greatcoat and carried his longblade, riding his faithful horse Justice, whom he said had saved his life many times since San Michon and whom he loved like a brother.

Jean-François pressed for clarity, and Gabriel explained the strategic devastation: bridges like the one over the Keff had been destroyed by locals to slow vampire advances because vampires cannot cross running water except by bridges or in earth, a barrier especially for newborn Dead. Gabriel, months on the road and aiming to reach Dhahaeth before night, cut cross-country through fungal woods when a pack of older wretched silently began to converge on him—first a swift, naked woman with a torn neck, then a Sūdhaemi boy, then more.

Recognizing the danger of numbers despite his lack of fear of a single wretched, Gabriel spurred Justice into a hard gallop, weaving through dead trees and giant toadstools. They burst from the woods into a foggy valley with a road and ford in sight. Gabriel praised Justice as they ran for safety.

Disaster struck when Justice’s hoof plunged into a rabbit hole, snapping his foreleg with a sickening crack. Gabriel was thrown, injuring and likely breaking his arm, though he knew it would heal by morning. Justice’s leg, however, was ruined; the horse thrashed and screamed in agony, eyes rolling.

Gabriel confronted the brutal choice as his inner companion—the sentient longblade with a silvered woman-shaped hilt and a tip broken six inches short—spoke in his mind, urging him to do what must be done before the wretched tore Justice apart. With night two hours away and Dhahaeth four hours away on foot, and unwilling to fire his wheellock and risk drawing more Dead, Gabriel chose speed and silence over sentiment.

He drove the longblade through Justice’s heart, choosing a crueler mercy over a gunshot. He cradled his dying companion in the rain and mud, cursing God and the sword as he wept. As he tried to mourn, the blade urgently warned him that the wretched were coming, ending the scene on imminent danger.