Radviken awoke several hours later, his face tender and bruised. His father had gone too far. Even if the boy had deserved a lesson, the beating he received accomplished nothing. The way he felt upon awakening included no remorse, only hatred for the man who tried to pound out respect.

His eyes blinked open, badly swollen and painful to look through. Beyond the hurt he found his mother’s face staring lovingly down on her son.

“That was foolish,” she said. “Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time you challenged him?”

“Where is he?” the boy asked, looking around. They sat under a tree several strides from the carriage. The driver was there, and so were two knights, but he did not see his father or the other four. They had unhitched the horses and tied them off nearby. The carriage itself was lifted up into the air, its hind quarters resting on a log.

“He had to return to Norgaard for another carriage. The driver pulled the brake so hard it snapped the axle, and now we’re stuck here.”

“Why don’t we all just ride on using the horses,” Radviken asked logically.

“Because I’m with child,” his mother replied with a sheepish grin.

“What?” He sat up, forgetting his pain for a moment, and placed a hand on her belly. “Why didn’t you tell me? When is he due to arrive?”

“She is due in about four months.”

A girl, Radviken thought. Good. Father won’t beat his daughter like he does me. He looked up at the sky, judging time by the position of the sun. It was late afternoon. They had wasted the day far into the afternoon. “If Father doesn’t return soon, we’ll not make it by dark.”

“He’ll be back soon,” Alana promised, “and then we’ll go on to Midlandis.”

It’s all my fault, Rad realized. Had I not exercised in the yard, or taken my bath… Then another thought caused his stomach to turn. Had I not caused the driver to break the axle, we would be in Midlandis by now. He had to do something so he stood and walked over to help the driver and two knights finish unloading the carriage. By the time they unloaded the final trunk, riders could be seen on the road.

Riders, but not another carriage, Rad realized. There was a sixth horse and rider along with Ronan and his knights, leading a mule laden with tools and lumber.

“We’re back,” the lord announced, “but no carriage was available. Every other one is already in Midlandis for the festival.” He notably avoided making eye contact with his son.

“Who is this, then?” Alana asked. She pointed to the additional rider. He was dressed commonly and didn’t speak to anyone but the driver. Those two immediately began unloading tools.

“Bah! He’s a wheelwright. The best we could find on short notice. But he swore he can work quickly and get us in Midlandis before sundown.” Ronan finally acknowledged his son. “Go help him, boy. Fetch whatever he needs.”

“Yes, Father,” Rad complied, eager to please his father. He hurried over to the carriage, finding the wheelwright and driver deep in conversation. Neither were happy about the waning hour.

“I brought a blank,” the wheelwright told the driver, “but I need to set up a block plane and form it here. None of those idiotic nobles knew the dimensions of the stupid thing, so I had to bring whatever I had on me. How did this happen?”

“Lord Ronan caused it himself, that fool! He made me pull the brake just so he could beat his own son. I swear, if night falls and Shadow attacks, I’ll trade his soul to the Síth!”

“Trade who to the Síth?” Rad asked as he approached, giving them both scornful looks. Had they not been racing the sun, he would have chided and thrashed them both properly. Perhaps his father would join in, and they could have a nice father and son bonding over the beating. But there had been enough violence for the day, and he allowed their embarrassed faces to serve as lesson enough.

“Uh… No one, Master Radviken,” the driver insisted. “I was just saying I pulled the brake too hard and I caused the whole thing!”

Radviken ignored his lie. “My father sent me to help. What do you need?” Both the driver and wheelwright eyed him suspiciously, well aware of his usual attitude toward commoners. Perhaps Mother was right, and I need to treat servants better, he wondered.

The wheelwright spoke up. “I suppose you can find us some pitch. My jar of it must have shaken free of my satchel during the ride south. Pine resin will do if you know where to look.”

“I know where to look!” Rad lied. He picked up a trowel and satchel and stormed off into the forest. Of course he had no idea where to look. All he knew was resin came from the bark of trees.

There were few pines in this part of the forest, but he eventually found a small grove. He looked high and along the needles and cones before finally noticing several spots at the base of a few trunks. These were lighter in color than he expected, a golden sap that seemed to ooze from the bark. Using the trowel, he scraped these off until every tree was clean.

He looked in the bag, measuring the amount in his mind. The wheelwright would need to cover two places where he put on the wheels, and this seemed to be enough. He turned to head back to the road but paused.

How long have I been out here? he wondered. The sun had dipped low but was not yet setting. He tried to regain his bearings, having forgotten which path he had taken to the grove. Finally, he chose a direction and walked, knowing he would eventually reach the road. He trudged along, walking as swiftly as he could along the dense forest floor.

This gave him time to think about squiring for Prince Rashmere. Perhaps he could help make a warrior out of the scholar. Last time in Midlandis, the prince had followed Radviken around like a puppy dog, stealing away his privacy with that tiresome entourage. Everywhere Rad went the prince and those sycophants followed. Had it not been for some sporting fun at their expense, the entire visit would have been a bore.

Thankfully, his guessed path paid off and he emerged a few furlongs from the carriage. The wheelwright had affixed the axle and just finished hammering on the wheel pins. It appeared they had finished loading as well.

Good, he thought. We’ve got time to make it to Midlandis before nightfall! After another nervous glance at the sun, still on its evening path, Rad quickened his pace and jogged toward the carriage.

“Radviken!” Lord Ronan called to the woods, facing the west and not seeing his son jogging south along the road. “Blast him!” the nobleman finally cursed. “He can stay out here for all I care!”

Rad started to open his mouth, to cry out and let them know he was coming as fast as he could, when his eyes opened wide with fear and his feet skidded to a stop.

About twenty paces beyond his father, a Shadow rift abruptly opened.

The rift was a tear in the air itself, a thrumming darkness where there had once been trees. Like a wet sheet hung out to dry, that darkness fluttered and snapped on some unseen breeze. The space, torn asunder by nothingness, hovered as a gap between realms.

Rad quickened his pace, now sprinting toward his family. None of them yet saw the rift, nor did they see the evil begin to pour forth. All eyes were on him sprinting toward them. Behind the knights and out of the nothingness poured Draugar, more than two dozen armed and armored specters. These were ancient soldiers, dead and gone from some other time or place, forever warriors and controlled by a ravenous desire to kill. The deafening screech of their battle cry turned every head in the makeshift camp.

Rad watched with muted apprehension as his father and his knights drew their weapons. They were more accustomed to mounted combat but could hold their own on the ground just as easily. But as only six against more than twenty, the living found themselves outnumbered. The driver and wheelwright helped Alana into the carriage, climbing inside to hide with the woman.

The boy had to reach the battlefield. Even one extra soldier could turn the tide, and so he sprinted faster than he ever had dared. The bag of resin slowed him, swinging wildly at his side, and so he cast it aside. By the time he reached the carriage, two knights dropped, overrun by Draugar and pinned to the ground. Lord Ronan and the others held. Having dispatched three each, they moved to help their fallen comrades. The injured men cried out in agony as the enemy bit at skin and pierced their bodies with rusted blades.

“Form a line!” Ronan shouted, pulling two Draugars off his sworn protectors. He stared down at the wounded men, their faces staring blindly at the sky. Though they should be able to fight, they refused, paralyzed by the terror they had endured. “Get up!” he ordered.

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Rad picked up a sword from one of these fallen, moving in close to stand beside his father.

“Get in the carriage with your mother!” the Lord of Norgaard commanded.

“I can fight, Father! You know I can!”

“You can cheat in a duel but know nothing of actual combat!” the nobleman spat. He glanced once more at his useless and dying comrades and relented. “Fine! Stay close and do exactly as I say!”

“Yes, Father!” Radviken beamed inside, emboldened by the chance to finally prove himself.

The line of living pushed back against the dead, each knight protecting the flank of the man beside him. Lord Ronan gave command and each soldier responded as a unit, cutting down and driving the enemy toward the rift. The Draugar became clumsy, confused by the precision with which the living moved, and some even stumbled and fell. Radviken dispatched one of these, plunging the tip of his blade where its heart should be.

The rush of it filled him, his first real kill, and Rad yearned for more. It was time to show his father what kind of fighter he truly was. Breaking ranks, the young man charged the Draugar.

“Get back in line!” Lord Ronan commanded.

But Radviken ignored the shout. Without armor he found extra speed and agility, moving fast to get behind three enemy charging the line. As if on the training field he saw an opportunity for one of his tricks, sliding under their wild swings while drawing his blade across three sets of hamstrings. Grinning broadly, he sat on the ground and waited for them to fall.

“You idiot!” his father accused. “They don’t die like normal men!” He was right. The specters appeared unfazed, still moving toward the line of knights, intent on reaching their target. And now Radviken sat alone, cut off from the aid of the other knights. His smile dropped, replaced by worry.

Two more Draugar moved behind the young man, forcing him to scramble to his feet. He roared, invigorated and surging with battle lust. Emboldened, he took on three more, evening the odds to one against five. He pushed them back with blinding speed, further away from Ronan and his knights and closer to the carriage.

Watch me, Father! he thought. Witness the fighter I’ve become!

Radviken loved being on the offensive. The thrill of danger flooded his muscles, pushing his heart to its limits as he made certain to land only killing blows. Necks and spines, he realized. Sever those and they crumple like rags! Severing limbs and heads, he found, prevented the dead from rising once more. Once he had the hang of it, fighting Draugar wasn’t difficult at all! All five Draugar piled into a heap of writhing uselessness.

The boy turned, grinning ear to ear to see how his father and his line of knights fared. That smile fell away at once, the moment he realized Lord Ronan was not impressed. They held, but the Lord of Norgaard’s eyes were angrily fixed on his son. “Get back in line!” he roared, disgusted by the young man’s display.

Anger replaced the thrill of battle, a dark resentment toward this man Radviken called Father. He reached his free hand upward, pointing an accusing finger at the bruises on his face. The Lord of Norgaard was good at placing these on his wife and child, but Rad was no longer a boy. The time had come, he realized, to openly proclaim himself a man. Good, he thought, I have your attention.

Lord Ronan curiously watched his son’s accusation, parrying and deflecting his attacker’s blows with indifference, wondering what the defiant child would do next. “What will you do, boy?” he shouted over the sounds of battle. “Will you teach me a lesson in front of my knights? Will you take this opportunity, while I’m pinned down in battle, to betray me like the coward you are?”

“Coward?” Radviken laughed. “You call me a coward? Only a coward beats his wife and child!” He felt the urge, that need to kill this man while the battle lust still surged in his veins. Resentment pushed him to step forward but paused to listen. A guttural howling echoed through the shimmering opening.

“Hellhounds!” Lord Ronan warned his men, each stepping closer to brace the line. “Stop being a fool,” he growled at his son, “and rejoin the line!”

Radviken heard the howls but never looked away from Lord Ronan. Seventeen years of violence, of burying his head beneath a pillow to drown the whimpering and crying from his mother’s chamber. He raised his sword and pointed it in challenge. “Step out of that line,” he urged the man, “and answer for your sins!”

Then something moved behind Ronan.

Radviken’s first kill, that Draugar which he had pierced through the heart, had shaken off death once more and rose silently behind the line. Abruptly the boy was sorry, regretting his challenge and sickened by the thought he was almost ready to kill his own father.

“Behind you!” the boy cried, but his warning fell unheeded. The Lord of Norgaard and his knights had seen enough of his son’s tricks, watching instead the rift and its ever closer howling.

With a single plunge, the tip of an ancient sword emerged from Ronan’s chest, coated by blood that once belonged to kings.

The sight of their fallen lord shook the mettle of the knights but courage held. They spun around to face those which had fallen, now rising to join their rotting brethren.

Radviken watched with horror as all but three of his father’s protectors were overrun. Screams of pain and torment filled his ears as the Draugar plunged their blades over and over, undead and unfeeling, driven by the need to add to their numbers.

“Ronan!” Alana had witnessed her husband’s murder, forgetting for a moment his heavy hand. Foolishly, she left the safety of the carriage, holding her skirts as she rushed to her husband’s side.

Radviken rushed forward as well, severing the head from the Draugar as it turned to face Alana. “Circle around the lady!” he ordered the three remaining knights. They hesitated, remembering the boy who challenged their lord and caused his death. But duty won out and they joined his side, forming a ring around their fallen lord and his grieving wife.

The Draugar, despite they could not tire, stepped back and lowered their weapons. Their role in the battle had ended and made room for a frightening foe to enter the field. Six hellhounds arrived, snarling and growling while bounding toward the meager company. The air around them shimmered with heat and filled the forest with the caustic stench of sulfur. The beasts leapt as they attacked, easily overpowering the men.

Radviken anticipated the nearest hound, dispatching it quickly. Only the weight of it proved unexpected, knocking him aside and off-balanced. As he righted his stance he turned to find his father’s knights had dropped three more, but two had reached Lady Alana. She was like a ragdoll to these beasts, caught in their jowls and flung about.

“No!” he shouted, charging forward to aid the knights in freeing his mother.

By now the Draugar had rejoined the battle, mercilessly catching the knights unaware. All three fell beneath a pile of undead. Radviken ignored the slaughter, entranced by the burning eyes of the hellhounds about to devour Alana. They growled and stepped forward just as the Draugar charged his flank.

Abruptly the forest erupted with a flash of light. The brilliant eruption scattered birds for miles and the hounds howled angrily at the interruption. The Draugar abruptly fell to their knees before Radviken, dazed by the flash and stricken immobile.

The young man, so intent on saving his mother, never saw the arrival of the newcomer.

“Begone!” a deep voice commanded the hellish animals.

Radviken could tell they resisted but were soon overwhelmed by compulsion and turned their tails and returned to the safety of their portal. As soon as they entered, it shook and shimmered before closing. By now the entire forest had darkened. The Draugar, both those which had fallen and those frozen and left behind by the hellhounds, crumbled into ash. Even their armor and weapons were rendered to reddish dust and blew away on the winds.

Radviken stared up at the newcomer, casually approaching on four paws. This thing, neither beast nor human, transformed before his eyes. At first more forest cat than man, it briefly seemed both at the same time. It arrived upon two feet, with naked skin covered by a thick layer of dark fur. On his chest stood out a white spot in the shape of a diamond. Standing over the broken body of Alana, the Lord of Beasts licked its lips.

“Are you Cat Síth?” the young man asked the creature.

“Síth Morkur, to be exact,” the newcomer proclaimed. He knelt beside Alana and reached out a human hand. The claws of a cat retracted just before touching her skin, and he turned her dying eyes toward his.

“Get away from my mother,” Rad pleaded, pressing the tip of his sword against the crook of the thing’s neck.

“She is dying and promised her soul to me,” Morkur stated without emotion.

“She didn’t mean what she said in the carriage!” the boy explained. “She was angry and only said those things to be hurtful! She never even completed a trade! Now back away! I won’t let you have her!” He pressed the tip deeper giving the creature a forceful nudge.

Morkur growled, turning his head and baring sharp teeth. At the same time, hundreds of tiny creatures hovered all around, swarming like bees around their master. Radviken recognized these from the old stories, those told to frightened children before bed. These were pixies, known in the fae world as Ganshee.

When Morkur next spoke, they bared teeth of their own—sharp, needle-like fangs set in row after row like those of a shark. “Whether she meant the pledge or not,” the Lord of Beasts explained, “her soul is now mine.” With the wave of his hand the tiny pixies flew at Radviken, biting at his skin and driving the tip of his sword away from their master. As he swatted and ducked he heard Morkur add, “And freely given tastes sweeter!”

“No!” Radviken begged, pointing at the lifeless form of his father. “Take him instead!”

“I cannot. He is a mere husk devoid of life, his soul claimed by Shadow, as your mother shall be soon if I do not consume her posthaste.” The creature paused, then added words meant as a mercy. “It is best I take her soul in this way, before she, too, is condemned to that under realm of Shadow.”

Radviken watched in horror as the creature bent over her body. Whether it meant to feed off her, to consume her flesh as well as her soul, it was never clear. The sound of hoof beats on the road caused Cat Síth to lift up his head and snarl.

“You’ll pay for this interruption,” he growled and abruptly vanished into thin air. As soon as he evaporated, so did his Ganshee.

Rad rushed to his mother. It was too late. In that fateful moment she had fallen to Shadow.

“Boy!” one of the riders called out. “What happened here?”

Radviken jumped to his feet, squinting hard in the twilight at these men, trying to identify them by their heralds.

“My gods,” one of the knights remarked. “It’s Lord Ronan and his wife! Did you do this, boy? Have you gone insane?”

Radviken looked around. No trace remained of the Draugar or fallen hellhounds, and only he held a bloody sword. He stood alone over the bodies of twenty knights and the Lord and Lady of Norgaard. Clutching the sword as tightly as he could, Radviken, the last of his bloodline, spoke the only words that came to mind. “Shadow took them,” he said. “Shadow took them all!”