I clung to Hutra’s neck while he bucked and reared to get the extra weight of his armour and me off. The fear of ghouls had been trained out of him, but he didn’t regard the creature looking down on us as one of the pale things he could kill with a kick. The gargoyle sent him into outright panic, bringing the great axe clutched in the steel gauntlet down in an overhead chop. I felt the enchantment inside activate as Hutra bolted.
The long curve of the axe emitted its effect before burying into the ground. It was supposed to extend the attack by echoing the edge’s sharpness, similar to my wind blades. However, when the attack caught up to us, it felt like a light breeze on our backs. The ghoul and the gauntlet were pulling away most of the mana, so the inscription was limited in what it could draw from.
I leaned to the side and shot an arrow behind me in its general direction. I didn’t see where it landed as Hutra veered around a corner. Calming him down was impossible; the gargoyle had given chase, and Hutra wasn’t listening to reason. I wanted to watch our backs, but the ghouls ahead needed my attention. I hit those we couldn’t avoid with an arrow or awakened their inner self if it was dire, but we passed most without giving them time to respond.
“We’re going the wrong way! Tames is behind us.” Invoking his rider’s name brought the horse back under a semblance of control. Hutra slowed and wavered at the junction we rode into, unsure how to reach his rider.
“Left,” I said, tugging his reins to the side. The route would put less distance between us and the gargoyle but was the quickest path to the gate. I was confident there were still rows of disjoined buildings between us. Hutra refused to move where I wanted and stood still with his ears perked up. Trusting the horse’s instinct more this time, I followed where his attention was. The helmet’s limited vision annoyed me as I scanned the rooftops and spun to look down each street.
“We can’t stay here,” I pleaded, keeping track of the ghouls moving to surround us.
I finally sensed what he had: the gargoyle lurking behind a two-storey gazebo. Hutra backed away as a wingtip protruded over a thatched roof, followed by an axe embedding in the straw ridge. The gargoyle heaved itself up, only for the supports to buckle under its weight and cause the structure to collapse. Hutra refused to run past despite the opening, so I turned him to the north, further away from the city.
We dodged discarded belongings and barreled through ghouls, who barely had time to notice us before Hutra galloped past. The structures became less sturdy and organised, with tents collapsed and ghouls wriggling under the thick leather. I let Hutra run until he couldn’t hear the gargoyle anymore, and we stopped long enough for snowflakes to build up on our shoulders.
As we waited, I shot the approaching ghouls, counting down the arrows I had left in my quiver. “Do you think it knows to follow tracks?”
Hutra huffed and rudely demanded I remain silent. I left his ears unflicked since he needed them to keep track of our stalker. They swivelled about, not having a target to concentrate on, while his breath came out in thick clouds of mist from lugging his armour and me through the snowy streets.
I reasoned the ghoul couldn’t handle the mana needed or carry any more artefacts. Both hands were full with the shield, gauntlet and axe. The ring may not work, being so close to its skin, and the cloth it had pulled over its head was damaged and only functioned as a ripped mantle. The best option for me and the 2nd was if it went back to stay in the auction house until Tometh could devise a plan to kill it—perhaps let it hoard artefacts until it couldn’t stand.
Hutra’s ears snapped towards the street we’d come down. My breath was shaky as I looked back to find the gargoyle stepping into the street with thatching still clinging to it. I reached to the side for my quiver without taking my eyes off it and pulled an iron arrow out. Hutra reluctantly turned to face the creature as I drew back my bow.
It hadn’t hesitated at the turn, already knowing which street we had gone down, and for the first time, I saw what a ghoul looked like while fatigued. It was too used to the abundance of mana in the castle and had added needless strain on the limited supply out here, yet the gargoyle's long strides still carried it quickly towards us.
I loosed my arrow and reached for another, opting for quickness rather than accuracy. The ghoul made a clumsy attempt to swat it away with the shield but missed—instead, the opaque haze of a mana shield projected from the artefact to block the projectile. However, the iron broadhead punched through without issue and struck the gargoyle in the shoulder. The enchantment in the shield struggled like the axe, barely scraping together the mana to activate.
It didn’t react to the wound. My second arrow tore through the thin membrane of its wings and drew a screech from the creature. Hutra didn’t wait for me to shoot my third, the arrow flying off into the distance as he spun around to run. The ghoul swung the great axe horizontally, stumbling from the continued momentum it failed to consider at the end of its swing. The slash hurled from the edge carved into the side of the buildings, flinging stone and splinters at us with the burst of wind.
The gargoyle fell to its knees, leaning on the axe like a walking stick. The ring managed to scrounge together enough mana to function, knitting the membrane of its wing back together. I groaned, assuming it was the same healing ring I’d seen inside the glass case back at the auction house.
I steered Hutra further outside the city, slowly cobbling together a new plan. The 2nd could likely take down the creature, perhaps separate it from the artefacts. It wasn’t as bulky or powerful as the one we killed outside the auction house, and the enchantments hardly performed. Regardless, I worried about casualties from the undertaking and didn’t want to be the person to bring the threat to them.
Hutra ran further to the point where the streets turned to frozen dirt, and the residencies consisted of scarce cabins and tents. He couldn’t tell where the gargoyle was, and I doubted it could find us through the twists and turns. I hoped it would get lost in the outskirts and stay there until things inside the city were under control, freeing the captains to take care of it.
The woods I’d been transported into were a few hundred yards from us, across open fields with a mismatch of crops and crisscrossing canals. An overgrown road led through to the needle-leaf trees, but roots had shoved the cobblestones out of the way and blocked the path. Ghouls on our sides out in the distance entered the tree line, moving towards the Riker Duchy and those who evacuated.
Hutra’s ears again betrayed the gargoyle’s approach, swivelling to the side. Its head and wings bobbed above the shorter buildings in the city's outer reaches. It wasn’t behind us anymore. The gargoyle wasn’t using Hutra’s hoof prints in the snow to follow us and had manoeuvred around as if to block our way back to the 2nd.
Ghouls threatened mages since they swarmed mana sources; they were terrifying to the non-mages because of their inability to sense the ghouls’ approach. The sharp teeth, soulless eyes, and claws also played their part. I usually considered myself an exception, perhaps overconfident in my magic and stealth.
The gargoyle wasn’t scouring for us or following our tracks. It had taken a separate path and turned the corner as if knowing where we would be. All the ghouls at the edge of my senses and spread across the field collapsed in on our position, the gargoyle alerting them with its presence. The way back would likely leave us trapped within the narrow streets. More ghouls filtered through the gaps in the tents and cabins.
Hutra didn’t need my urging to lurch into a full sprint towards the woods. I didn’t bother shooting as he snuck between openings and outran any pursuers. After ages of being surrounded by stone blocks, dead logs, and cities devoid of wildlife, I would have been overjoyed to be back amongst the comforting whispers of the woods. If not for the circumstances.
The fur-like leaves on the low-hanging branches scraped against us as Hutra squeezed through the gaps, jostling off delicately balanced snow. Behind the lofty trees of the woods, the already darkened skies faded away. We moved too quickly, surrounded by too much living flora for either of us to track the danger that could be lurking behind each trunk.
Hutra hesitated when there wasn’t an easy gap to slip through and considered turning back. Leaves were no more than an arm's length away on all sides, and my view was completely obscured just a few yards ahead. I still had an arrow ready despite the close range. My bangles slowly morphed into claws, prepared for a brawl if more than one ghoul encountered us.
Wood fractured in the distance, and after a long series of creaks, a tree crashed to the ground. Birds took to the skies across the woods, soaring away from the disturbance. Going by the high-pitched chirps of warning, there were chickadees among them, some of the few birds who stayed behind during the winter back in my forest. They had nothing useful to pass along, merely responding to the sound and not seeing the source amongst the trees.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” I hissed as Hutra panicked, wishing he could escape with them. “We’re fine here. That thing shouldn’t be able to track us anymore.”
I slid off his back and held onto the reins in case he decided to bolt, not that I had the strength to stop him. I pushed branches out of the way, unwilling to risk using mana to have them move, and led him between the tree trunks. The forest was alive despite the piling snow, and it was comforting that the burrowing critters felt safe enough to hop across the surface instead of hiding away.
I brought us through a gully carved into a hill, which was likely a stream during any other season. I crouched down and encouraged Hutra to settle beside me. It didn’t feel as safe as scurrying up a tree, but I didn’t think he would appreciate me abandoning him on the ground. We could have slogged through the snow and reached the other side of the woods, where the settlements did most of their farming. But I didn’t know how far it was to the other side, only knowing the farmland existed from conversation.
My eyes stuck to Hutra’s ears as they faced each new chirp and twig snap. Footsteps trailed past us on the gully’s ridge, ghouls hobbling through the frozen brush and scaring the critters back into their boroughs. The lesser ghouls didn’t find us amongst all the sights, smells, and senses in the woods, and I rested my bow across my lap, placing the arrow back in its quiver.
The critters ventured out again, resuming their foraging. Another tree was struck down, further away than the last, and I eased my posture to lean back into the dirt. However, I forced my eyes to stay open, uninterested in sleeping while surrounded by danger. I dug through Hutra’s packs, finding most of them empty, but Tames had left a few things behind, not expecting to lend his horse out.
I shared the pouch of dried fruit with Hutra, though he made sure I knew he preferred the fresh variety. The beanie was pointless since I didn’t feel like removing my helmet or chainmail hood, but the spare gloves were appreciated.
A spike of pain jolted me to my feet, and I dropped my dried apricots in the snow. An animal died from teeth or talons clamped around its neck in a heartbeat. It was a normal part of life in the forest I’d once been used to. My heart settled, and I apologised for spooking Hutra.
I went to sit back down before realising I couldn’t tell who the predator was. I swapped between the thoughts of every animal around us, no predators or others perceiving the danger nearby. Hutra’s ears lay flat while I scanned the ridge above us; his only curiosity was me standing.
A fluctuation in the ambient mana drew my attention, and a coat of white fur slinked into view, almost indiscernible from the snow on the ridge. A bloodied snout came next, followed by a pair of yellow us. The tundra wolf bared its teeth in greeting. Hutra had never encountered a wolf before, nor had I outside of books, but he recognised a predator when it presented itself. He stood and pressed into me to distance himself from the danger.
I sighed, uncertain whether or not being a true wolf would be more fortunate. “Alp, I’ll turn you into a coat if you don’t trot off.”
The wolf settled down to lie on his paws and lick his chops. Hutra was confused as to why we weren’t running away from the predator, but he at least stopped pushing me into the ridge.
“So tricky to find,” Alp said, spooking the horse more by speaking than the long, bloody canines. “So easy for you to sneak past. Alp is… envious? Could have helped, could have fetched the headdress.”
He tipped his head back and howled before I could respond. Hutra was out of patience and courage, his training pointless in the face of the creatures he’d come up against today. Holding onto his reins and calling for calm didn’t break through the panic clouding his mind. Hutra bolted down the gully, almost yanking my arm out of place again and pulling me off my feet through the snow and mud.
I held onto the reins, turning on my back as the curve of the gully jostled me about. The horn atop my helmet caught a patch of frozen dirt, and the reins were ripped from my hands. My neck crunched, and my spine flared with pain all along my back. I riled on the ground, unable to comprehend which way was up, clawing the ground just to check I could still move all my limbs.
I twisted onto my stomach, then got to my knees and tore my helmet off in time to watch Hutra disappear around a bend. Alp howled again before stalking towards me along the high grounds.
“Poor pup,” he whined. “All alone. Alp knows the feeling well.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
I crawled back to my bow, dragged with me partway through the short journey. “I’m not helping you with the bloody headdress. Go away!”
Alp ducked behind the ridge as my arrow flew overhead. “No need. Alp has found others to help. Others more capable than the little pup.”
A tree slammed to the ground close enough to throw snow into the gully, and I turned my attention to the approaching gargoyle behind the wolf. “You… you’re helping it find me?”
“No, only helping Alp,” the wolf said, using a mana art I vaguely recognised. I scrambled out of the way, but he wasn’t aiming for me. A breath of frigid air hit the gully ahead, turning the snowy ground icey. I pulled my helmet on, not bothering to test if my boots could handle the tricky surface. I threw my bow up to the opposite ridge and climbed the embankment. Alp snickered as I lost my grip and had to throw away Tames’ gloves to make handholds in the dirt.
The gargoyle pushed over a tree to get through to us, letting the lesser ghouls poor in ahead of it. They ignored Alp, instead leaping over the gully. They didn’t make it, falling short or their chest hitting the edge while their hands searched for a hold. I stomped on one such hand as I drew my bow, shooting one close enough that the fletching barely left the shelf.
“Get the intruder,” the gargoyle said, slurring his words like he didn’t have a tongue to pronounce the syllables.
“Alp did the job asked.”
Its axe swung in my direction, or was it Alp’s? The attack landed on the edge of the ridge, throwing up snow between us. I heard a wolf yelp behind the powder and used the distraction to run after Hutra, hoping he waited for me.
…
Yistopher
“Elite 170 yards out! Need ballista support over here… 150… 130.”
“Call your targets! I don’t know where here is.”
“Left flank! Left flank! LEFT FLANK!”
The portable, hastily assembled ballista clunked as the bolt was thrown across the farmland, impacting the chest of the inhuman abomination running through the fields of root vegetables. It flew back into the previous field of tall, barley stems that had turned yellow from the lack of upkeep on the growth enchantments.
We had set up the wagons on a raised embankment between two plots of farmland. Ahead of us was a shallow canal carrying water to the fields, with tall reads on either side and few crossings. Ghouls poured out of the woods in the distance, down a slope and into the barley field, hidden from us in the tall stems until they reached the closer plot.
“Elite, right flank, 90 yards!”
“Can’t! Too close. Call them sooner,” said the operator assigned to aiming the cumbersome weapon.
The knight resolved to casting a stone spear at the monster instead, wasting precious mana. The ghoul fell back, only to get up with a slight imbalance from the spear in its chest. “You can’t sense the fuckers till you can see what they had for breakfast!”
“Well, I can’t depress the aim more than it already is!”
The knights' widespread crankiness could be attributed to sleeping in cramped wagons and on horseback as we rode through the night. We’d encountered the first ghoul as a corpse inside the last stop between the duchy and the region generally considered under the remnants' control. Civilians from the settlements had taken refuge in the small village, only known as a layover for merchants, and had warned us of the troubles ahead.
Faraya had promised the troops that if they pushed through the evening without dinner, they’d rest under a roof in the village that night.
The commander learnt not to make promises she wasn’t assured she could keep. The leadership met and decided it was best to push through the night before the ghouls could spread. Half the contingent would sleep on the wagons while the remaining acted as escorts. Suffice it to say, we ran into more ghouls along the road in the dark. The constant shouts, light spells, and attacks along the stretch of the procession kept the half supposed to be asleep wide awake.
The command position had become more administrative in the years during and after my term. We needed to determine how many and which squads to send out to each threat in the duchy rather than how to command the entire order as a cohesive unit. Faraya was learning the hard way how to manage the captains all at once on a journey filled with many fears and ambitions.
We’d all heard the stories our grandfathers told to lament the fall of the once great kingdom of Werl and the ghoulish tales our mothers told us, so we behaved as children. Or perhaps it was different with the new parental generation of the young knights and captains. Regardless, we expected the pale bodies, sharp claws and haunting eyes, but as mages, we didn’t expect to struggle against them unless in overwhelming numbers. As the best mages in the kingdom, knights famed for their spellcraft, we didn’t expect to struggle at all.
The first several waves were easily dispatched, as the fleeing civilians asserted. They were difficult to sense in the dark, close to how the elven Amari and their mounts could suppress their mana. However, it was luckily nowhere near as terrifying as what Valeria could do. We relied on lantern light and a rotation of orbs to see and kill them before they hit the caravan.
It was midnight when the first elite hit—appearing as a mage to our senses and approaching faster than the others. It threw the knights almost at the end of their rotation into confusion. The horrid thing tackled a horse and its rider to the ground, pinning her leg under the animal. It gouged out the space between her plate armour and was only brought down when she stabbed it enough times to bring down a griffon.
The young woman was fine but would have to do without her left eye until we reached an experienced healer. The healers amongst the knights' were excellent… at keeping people alive and nothing much else. It was our first casualty if you didn’t count a sprained ankle. It was also not our last since the elites appeared more often until they became the majority, hitting harder and faster than their precursors.
Each new injury Faraya had to watch slowly sew back together worsened her mood. And to finish off the nighttime trek, Knight Selio lost his arm to infection after keeping the injury a secret from us, resulting in shouted directives to the whole order not to be incompetent fools.
We grew more confident handling the terrors, and their numbers dwindled as the night progressed, but our naming convention proved naive. A stronger variant hit us at dawn, so we had to change the designations to elite, standard, and inferior. It was a rude awakening for us who thought all the ghouls were feeble, even capable of being killed by looters.
From our defensive position on the embankment, the order handled the inferior with melee weapons at the channel crossings, the standard in pairs, and the elites called out for the ballista, archers, or spells to deal with. Faraya had been alarmed by the injuries of the night before and wasn’t using her forces as effectively as she could, preferring multiple long-range engages rather than the trusty sword.
“How long until you can rotate them out?” I asked Commander Faraya, her eyes narrowing at the breakdown of communication. She leant against the small stone wall on the embankment, which denoted property lines more than security, focusing on her magnification spell.
“Peyser! Go help on the bridge; a group of seven just left the woods.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She’d called off any further push toward the settlement beyond the woods. Our primary objective was ensuring the duchy’s safety, our secondary was securing Valeria from whatever trouble she’d gotten herself into, and our tertiary was assisting the rems. We completed the first by creating a defensive line along the embankment and spreading half our seventeen squads across the horizon. However, the decision made the next two impossible until the army caught up with us in the next few days.
It was a sound strategic decision, if not frustrating, being unable to help the girl. I worried about where she was held up and if the settlements still stood since the ghouls were streaming past in such numbers.
Faraya checked her watch, and took longer than usual to decipher the time. “I told Leonarda he and his half could have until mid-afternoon, technically now.”
The centrepiece of our defensive line had the only ballista we brought along, so only one squad of six was garrisoning. The other eight awake squads were split into pairs and arrayed on our flanks, close enough to help but only able to communicate through pulses.
“Did I hear my name?” A half-dressed Leonarda asked, stepping out from behind a wagon. I didn’t know how he dealt with the cold, wearing only a vest. “Afternoon, commander, Yistopher.”
“You did, is your team—”
A thunderclap rolled through the plains, and we turned our attention back to the woods the ghouls rushed out of.
“We’re getting a storm on top of the snow?” Leonarda complained.
“No, that was a spell at ground level,” Faraya said, directing her magnifying spell to the woods. The ghouls had stopped appearing from between the trees, attracted by the mana used behind them.
“Ma’am… lightning spells don’t produce thunder. ”
Since the commander was slightly older than the young captain, she had a reasonable response. “They used to. It's a really old version, though.”
“No need to add the really,” I said, having learnt the inefficient version when I became a knight.
“A rem in the woods then, commander?” Leonarda asked, keeping his chuckle contained. “Those hard-liners don’t like changing their ways; maybe they still use spells from before The Fall?”
“If there’s one thing you can say about the rems, it's that they will do anything to gain an advantage over these abominations,” I said. “Thunder is the furthest thing from that.”
Another thunderclap echoed through our lines, closer than the last.
“Horse! We have a horse on our right side exiting the woods,” Captain Oteli said from the bridge, focused on the ghouls ahead rather than our conversation.
“Understood, captain,” Faraya said. I cast my own magnifying spell and found the horse circumventing the barley fields on the thin strip between two different plots. It was in full tack with a thick gambison covering chainmail armour. “Got it… huh, the beasty is better armoured than us.”
The barley shook as ghouls ran beneath its peak, changing their course to intercept the tired animal. “Should we go get it?”
“No, we’re not risking our knights for a horse. Let it come to us.”
It reared back as a ghoul emerged from the stems ahead. I couldn’t sense the threat level from so far out, but going by the musculature and stature, it was a standard variety, though I wasn’t confident in that discernment. The horse dropped, crushing the ghoul’s skull beneath its hoof.
“Fuck, can we teach ours to do that?” Leonarda asked, taking up a position beside us. Our steeds had been relegated to the back lines, not doing particularly well with the ghouls.
“I’d rather not assume we’ll be making a habit of this,” Faraya said. “Think the rider is dead or responsible for the thunder?”
“Twenty roe on the thunder,” Leonarda said, earning him a harsh glare from the commander.
“Sorry, commander. Tired, forgot my company.”
“You shouldn’t be gambling on our allies' lives regardless of being in my earshot or not.”
The horse galloped past its kill, aiming for the bridge stationed by Captain Oteli and collecting more pursuers along the way. I withdrew my freshly cleaned sword, the black blood a pain to remove from the steel. “I’ll go assist. Perhaps we wake the others?”
“Appreciated. No need; as far as I see it, the horse is helping us.”
The whole excursion was an exercise in not stepping on toes. Most of the current captains had been knights or apprentices when I had the command and couldn’t help but glance to me for orders when Faraya wasn’t in sight. I always directed them to the commander, not wanting to mess with the relay of orders that went through the leadership structure.
Almost always. I locked eyes with Leonarda and tilted my head toward where the teams slept. He nodded in understanding and, hopefully, went to wake his team in case things got overwhelming.
I vaulted over the wall, took two careful steps down the snowy decline, and jogged to the wooden bridge. Oteli and one of her knights guarded it while two of her team members were on the ballista, and the remaining were acting as lookouts or killing the few who didn’t go straight for the mages on the bridge.
Oteli preferred the spear, piercing the next visitor through the roof of its mouth and pivoting them off the bridge into the water so the bodies didn’t pile up. I stayed back until I was needed, my curved blade not the best at dealing with the quick-healing creatures. The shallow cuts it was made to inflict closed in seconds, sometimes trapping my blade in the thick skin.
The horse reached the bridge, barging through the ghouls. It didn’t slow as it crossed. The captain and I dodged out of the way, but her junior plunged into the water with the bodies.
“Woah, woah. Easy… easy,” I cooed, slowly reaching for the reins of the panicked animal turning about on the bank. “Aren’t you an impressive one? Not a scratch on you.”
A shivering knight extracted himself from the water and pushed through the reeds, still dripping wet. “Think I could fit into that chain? Seems better than my plate.”
“Oh, dry yourself off before you freeze to death, son. We’re not that lacking in mana.”
“You have a few horse-like qualities, but I doubt it’ll fit,” Oteli said.
A warm breeze blew through his clothes, dispelling the freezing water. “Which qualities exactly, ma’am?”
“Archer on the tree line,” a lookout called. “Wearing a… royal guard uniform?”
“Where?” Faraya asked. I also looked for the rider but couldn’t find them over the crop stems.
“They took a tumble down the hill. They’re in the barley right now. I think a whole hoard is chasing them.”
Oteli scoffed. “Of course, they’re being chased, throwing around spells lightning spells in the middle of this chaos.”
“Ah, a wolf just followed them. Commander, did you catch that?”
“There are no wolves in these woods,” I yelled up to them, seeing only a blur of white fur from this distance. “Not for centuries.”
“No, that was a wolf,” Faraya said. “A tundra wolf. It just froze a section of the farm our rider ran into.”
“Ma’am—Commander! The tree line!”
I didn’t need a magnifying spell to see the fur tree crash to the ground and slide down the hill. A being stepped through the cavity, one a deranged artist would create as a rendition of an obscure cave painting. Where ancient humans would depict innocent wishes of having wings to fly with the birds, the artists would turn into grotesque nightmares, arguing they were warnings of creatures yet to be discovered.
The squads on our flank sent out warning pulses as they spotted the monster from their position and changed the designation of an elite in our coding system once more.