The boy who was called Tefta woke to screams and fire within his skull. He pressed his palms against his temple, curling up into a ball in the woolen blankets of the bed. A fire burned within his head, molten and furious as his pulse pounded underneath his hands. He screamed, the pain shooting down his neck in jagged lines of white-hot agony. He heard more screams joining his own as he twisted and spasmed in the bed.
Arms like twisted iron grabbed him as his body contracted and shook, volition stripped from him by the pain. His head pounded as a piece of leather was forced into his mouth. He bit down, his teeth and jaw aching. He thrashed and twisted, his screams muffled by the leather bit in his mouth. Fire. Fire was all that he was. The arms held him still as someone shouted frantically above him. A crashing sound cut through the molten anguish that had become the boy’s existence, the pain retreating away as words manifested in his skull. There was no sound, but Tefta cringed into Jaret’s arm as the words imprinted themselves in his mind.
CHILD. OF. MIST.
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Seren could smell blood and smoke as he and Trissa sprinted through the trees towards the village. They dashed between trees, jumping over underbrush as they rushed silently toward the sounds of the village being massacred. He looked up, trying to find the bright burning of the beacon that would call the garrison from the fort, but found only the darkness of the night. Seren and Trissa stopped as the trees opened into the ring of fields and pulled their bows from the backs as they surveyed the village.
A building in the village square was burning, the flames flickering above the rooftops and casting dark shadows across the rest of the village. Hopefully the Rangers at the old fort would see it and send someone. Anyone would do. Screaming echoed off the old stones, mixing with that dark, thundering chanting.
Trissa led, moving quickly with an arrow nocked, her head low as they darted across the fields. Seren trailed behind her. They entered the first circle of stone buildings. Fortunately, most of the buildings in the village were made of stone, so the fire would die out soon. Unfortunately, that meant fighting the rot walker in the dark. They didn’t glow like their Mycellian brethren.
The bricks of the village street shook as the Rangers ran along the alleyways. A few villagers peeked their heads out of windows at the Rangers, their eyes wild with terror before they ducked back into their houses. The chanting grew louder as the pair entered the village square, the chaos coming into view in the light of the burning village hall.
The rot walker chanted as it thundered through the square, its ebony blade dripping blood. The light glinted from it as it swung at a lithe man in a green and black cloak dashing around its massive legs. The plates of fungus covering its body shifted and scraped together as it moved, rumbling in its horrid tongue. Its sword, easily the size of a grown man, made great whooshing sounds as it swung in wide arcs.
The coppery smell of blood filled Seren’s nostrils. The dead lay in small oceans around the square. A man lying limp against a wall, his bowels ripped open and spilling on the bricks. Another hung from the splintered remains of the library, a broken beam sprouting from his chest.
The men shouted, dashing forward with spears in hand. They stabbed at the beast, the spear tips clinking off plates of fungus as hard as stone while the Ranger dodged and weaved, slashing at its joints. Seren’s heart pounded in sync with his footsteps as he sprinted along the road, kneeling as he nocked an arrow. He breathed, the taste of smoke and copper filling his mouth as he pulled the bowstring back. The beast bellowed as the arrow found its mark behind its knee.
Seren could feel his pulse in his ears as he pulled back another arrow, the feeling of assured destruction clawing at his mind, clutching at his heart. He breathed in deeply. The world was now a black tunnel that ended solely with the raving creature of decay that thundered in front of him. He heard someone screaming his name. God’s, but his heart was pounding. The abomination was moving. He aimed for a chink in the fungus, right where its neck connected to its misshapen shoulders.
Something crashed into him, and Seren was sure that he was dead. His arrow flew off its mark as he tumbled to the side, closing his eyes as a warm mass collided with him, his head smacking into a stack of firewood. White hot light shot through his skull, and he grunted as he opened his eyes, surprisingly not dead. Trissa was on top of him, pulling at him to get up, yelling obscenities that were lost to the pounding in his ears. Where he had been standing lay a crumpled heap of blood that had once been a man, thrown with all the effort of skipping a stone.
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Raya was covered in flour and her father’s blood. The bakery, the place her family had called home for generations past, lay shattered around her. Flour covered everything from where the monster, the rot walker, had desecrated the place while Raya hid crying in the corner. Her mother had come downstairs after hearing her father yell. Her screams still rang in Raya’s ears. The rot walker was roaring as the men fought it with spears, Jeorge yelling for someone to light the beacon. Something was on fire. The smoke was making its way through the shattered wall of the bakery.
Flour was suspended in the air, covering her tongue as she breathed it in. Everything was white and red. Her father was motionless below her, his eyes bloodshot and glassy as he stared at the sky through the broken roof. Her mother was behind her, buried under the rubble and the flour. Tears rolled down her face, making streaks across her powder-covered face as she screamed, pushing at her father’s cold body, willing him to get up somehow. To save her from that horrible creature. His blood was hot on her hands and stark against the cloth of her nightdress.
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She sucked in a desperate breath and choked on the filthy air, falling back against the cold, broken stone as she cried and retched, her body spasming as she tried to draw in a breath through the thick fog of horror that surrounded her. The ground shook as the monster walked outside, each step filling the air with more dust and flour as Raya curled into a ball, sobbing on the broken floor of her home.
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Jaret was outside, fighting the monster with the spears taken from the Ranger’s outpost. Tefta could hear the men yelling as the rot walker bellowed guttural words in a tongue man wasn’t meant to witness. The pain had subsided to a dull throbbing in his temples, and so the boy watched the darkness of the room dance and beckon as Fey wept beside him, her hands clasped before her in desperate prayer.
The walls whispered to him, their breaths icy as he curled against Fey. Child of Mist. The great kings await you. He could feel hands grasping at him as his head throbbed, closing around his arms and legs before dissolving back into nothingness. Your throne. Claim your throne. You will sit amongst lords. Gods.
Fey prayed beside him, beseeching Fyrun for his mercy. The darkness shifted and moved in front of Tefta, the hissing whispers becoming louder as a tiny dot of light appeared in front of Tefta, casting shadows across furniture. The light grew, more voices joining the whispers until the sound filled the room. The mote twisted and undulated, growing into a ball of misty fire that illuminated the room. It danced and swayed, reforming and dissipating before the boy. It was beautiful like the moon itself had shed a bit of its light before him. Come with us. The whispers echoed through the room, the voices feminine and masculine simultaneously. We’ll show you what was stolen from you.
Memories of screaming and someone telling him to run filled his head as he reached towards the light, his hand washed white in the glow.
“Tefta!” Fey screamed, grabbing his arm and pulling him into her. The world went dark as he struggled against her, trying to reach the light. The whispering grew to screams as Fey held him in an iron grip, his face pressed into her shoulder. “Don’t look at it!”
Child of Mist. Child of Mist. Childofmistchildofmistchildofmistchildomis-
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The rot walker bellowed, the deep sound making Seren’s ears ring as he loosed another arrow. It clattered off its armored face. A few arrows stuck from its shoulders and legs where the Rangers had gotten lucky. The men had surrounded it, jabbing at the weak points in the joints, the town Ranger barking orders as he dodged its blade. So far, they seemed to have only made it angry.
Trissa stood beside Seren, her hood pulled back as she loosed arrow after arrow. His heart was still racing, but the certainty of death was just low enough to keep from passing out. He could still taste blood from biting his tongue. He loosed another arrow; it found its mark in its hand, the roar bringing a hint of satisfaction as he reached for another behind his back.
His hands grasped empty air. He dropped his bow, his sword rasping as he drew it from his side. The rot walker boomed out its chant, the ground shaking as it stomped and slashed with its sword, catching one of the spearmen with its black edge. He screamed and fell to the ground, his arm sheared off in a bleeding stump at his shoulder. Jeorge yelled and slashed, his sword catching the rot walker on the hip.
Seren began to run, nausea building in his throat as the creature grew larger with every step. Gods, the thing was huge. Movement caught his eye as he sprinted. From the ruins of a shattered stone home on the edge of the town square crawled a girl in a bloodstained nightdress. Her face was covered in dirt and blood and white powder as she crawled sobbing out of the wreckage, her brown hair a wild mess around her. She stumbled onto the blood-slick stones of the square, holding herself as she shook with louds.
Seren yelled, running towards her, his voice drowned out by the chaos of the fray. He yelled for her to run, to get inside, but the booming of the rot walker’s profane voice overtook his own as the girl stumbled directly towards the monster.
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The town square was cold and smelled like blood. No matter where she went, Raya couldn’t escape the smell of blood. The fire in the town hall had died down, leaving only glowing embers to give light. Men with spears rushed at the rot walker, yelling. Jeorge was there somewhere; he was always so fast. Maybe he would save them.
Tears made rivulets through the filth that covered her cheeks as she slipped and pattered along the stones, her bare feet freezing. There was something in her chest, some horrible grip that grabbed her heart with impossible force and refused to let her go. Her father was dead. Her mother was dead. She would likely be dead soon. And that awful chant kept on.
She wanted it to stop. She wanted anything but those awful, blasphemous words. The rot walker was in front of her, its eyes flaming blue in the night. Stop it. She stumbled, her foot slipping on a pool of blood as she got closer to the fighting. Stop it. She would accept anything, even that wicked black blade, if it stopped the chanting. Stop it. Her tears were hot against her face as she neared the ring of men, holding herself as she shook uncontrollably.
“Stop it,” she whispered, but something was different. Something in her mind rippled out, the air around her pulsing with her command. The rot walker froze, the chanting stopping as it straightened, its blade gleaming in the dying firelight. The men stopped their assault, their spears shaking in their nervous hands. Jeorge stood in front, holding out his hand in a steadying gesture.
The rot walker turned its head, its burning eyes stopping on Raya. Its voice boomed out, the words shaking her body and making her head throb. “DECIEVER. YOU ARE NOT FIRSTBORN.” It sounded almost contemptuous. Its fungus-covered hands tightened around its blade, and it charged, the ground shaking with every step. The men charged back but broke against the stony armor of its massive legs.
Raya stumbled back and slipped, her head hitting the ground painfully. Someone in a green cloak was yelling outside of her vision. The monster bellowed as it raised its blade, the ebony edge blending in with the black sky. Raya raised her hands and screamed. “STOP IT!”
The air pulsed again, and stones underneath the rot walker exploded. Men screamed as soil shot into the air. Roots like great arms erupted from the ground, ripping through the monster’s arms and legs like paper as they wrapped themselves around its massive body. It bellowed and swung its blade, the roots winding themselves tighter around its arm with every swing. The roots whipped around its body, pulling its arms to its side with a grinding of the plates of fungus. Its sword fell from its grip, sinking into the dirt.
The rot walker struggled against the roots as they curled around its body in complex patterns, its armor shattering underneath their grip. Its roars went silent as a root shot through the bottom of its gnarled chin like a spear, sprouting from the top of its head. The blue fire of its eyes winked out, leaving only empty hollows as the rot walker lay still.
The chanting had stopped, replaced by the silence of stunned men who stared at the twisted maze of roots that encircled the abomination. Someone fell to their knees, praying in thanks for Fyrun’s mercy. Raya shook as the horror and shock of the night descended upon her, her breath quickening as the corners of her vision darkened. Someone was shouting again. She didn’t feel the impact as her head hit the ground.