The army marched grimly through the rain-drenched Wilderness. Their war had been lost, their queen had retreated from the world and now some of their members had started to go missing. It had started with Sessryn, an old soldier who had made the original trek out here and served in the Hallowed Company. Then they’d marched far from their original camp, leaving the secret tunnel behind. But something had followed them.

The scouts and outriders had confirmed it, finding huge clawed footprints in the mud and in one case seeing a great shadow crawling across the horizon. They had also heard chains, clinking and rattling in the quiet nights and found great tracks made by huge chains being dragged across the ground.

There were many theories and some of the oldest and wisest among them had many suggestions as to what the monster could be but it was commonly suspected that it had been chained deep underground and when they’d collapsed the tunnel it had been released somehow.

At first it had only taken outriders one at a time so they’d paired them up but then the pairs had started to disappear. Now only groups of five or more went scouting but the monster would take those as well. But it had grown bolder than that.

It was raining and Arthus struggled to keep the cold wind from reaching the card table in front of him. He had the worst seat in the table, with this backside to the outside of the tent all the rain and cold reached him most of all. What was worse was that he was losing badly at cards.

“You can’t play flowers onto tridents like that,” Ragava reprimanded him as he played a card.

“But you did it before-”

“That was in the betting round,” she snickered. “You can’t-”

They all heard it and the whole card table turned to look out into the rain and darkness beyond, where the scream had come from. Card game abandoned they picked up weapons and ran out into the campsite, splashing and sliding through the mud and rain. There were screams, more of them now, louder and more terrified coming from across the camp but worst of all there was clanging and rattling. Like the rattling of chains.

Arthus could see nothing in the dark rain and he didn’t notice the great flailing length of chain until it crashed down beside him and splashed him with mud. He stopped in shock, it was a huge chain, and it had been moving fast enough to cut him in half. Then it whipped away back into the darkness, back to the tent that the monster had attacked.

The tent was in ruins, flailing and whipping around as the dark slithering shape tore through it, devouring all inside. Arthus had no idea what he was going to do when he reached that writhing shape. His spear, that he’d trained for so long to use, seemed insignificant compared to that shape. Sliding and slipping on the mud he slowed himself to a stop. The screaming had stopped, the monster was still thrashing about, tangled in the tent and the chains. He saw a glint of something out of the corner of his eye, something shiny in the rain, moving too fast.

He threw himself to the muddy ground and felt the chain whip over him as the monster flung itself around. He heard a great tearing sound and looked up to see a huge claw rip through the canvas of what was left of the tent. Inside the tent was darkness and out of the darkness came eyes. So many furious eyes all glaring down at him from within a huge dark shape that he soon realised was merely the monster’s head, it was huge.

He lunged. Somehow lying prone in the mud facing such a terrifying being, he found it within himself to pick up his spear and hurl himself at those eyes. The monster moved and his blow was only a glancing one, but he wasn’t sure a perfect lunge would have had much impact anyway. Then one of the claws, and there were so many claws, flung at him and while he avoided the razor sharp points the creature’s great hand slapped him and the world spun around him, the air driven from his lungs. He remembered hitting something and then little after that.

The Inkdrop Queen sat in the Forest of Topaz and meditated. All around her was the comforting glow of the gemstones, so warm, so inviting. Much more inviting than the cold harsh reality she actually lived in. Here she could forget the sorceress she’d angered. She could forget the monsters and darkness of the Wilderness around her. She could forget the wound her father had given her so long ago, the wound that had taken her name.

She felt hands on her shoulders, shaking her, trying to wake her from her meditation. She didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to stay in the warmth, where Raqos could protect her. She had to stay where it was safe. Where she could forget-

Something hit her, something cold and wet and not from the Forest of Topaz. She staggered back and the world flickered away with her flickering eyelids. She groaned and slowly regained her footing in the dark dark cold world. She was back now, she didn’t want to be back.

She couldn’t see anything as her eyes adjusted to the new darkness but she recognised the shape of her sister. Ayessa had been wounded by their father too, she had the worst of it, unable to tell the truth. Yet right now the Inkdrop Queen didn’t care, she just wanted to return to her warmth.

“Did you... did you hit me?”

Ayessa grunted in response. “No,” she said spitefully.

Another figure spoke and the Inkdrop Queen realised with a start that there was someone else in the tent with them. “Your majesty,” one of Ayessa’s most trusted generals spoke. “The monster has attacked the camp, we lost a whole tent full of soldiers before we managed to drive it away with spears and bows. It is growing stronger, we must do something, we must-”

“What-” the Inkdrop Queen hissed. “-would you have me do?” She glared up at this new figure, now growing irrationally angry at being awoken from her meditation. “We have already doubled the guard, we’ve been patrolling to learn where it is but we can never find it. This monster is not something we can defeat.” She looked away and spoke more quietly. “We never should have come here.”

“Well we need to-”

“Leave me!” she shouted at the general, sitting back down on her bed. She was cold, so very cold, she missed her forest. There was nothing for her here.

The general stood there for a second and she worried for a moment he was going to disobey her. Then he left. Ayessa looked down at her, it was hard to tell in the dark but it looked like her face was full of pity.

“Get out,” the Queen told her angrily.

Ayessa spat at the Queen’s face and then turned and left the tent. Not long ago the Queen would have had her punished brutally for disrespect like that. But now she didn’t care. Now all she wanted was the warmth and comfort of her forest. She tried to achieve the peace and tranquility she needed to get back. She’d been getting better at it, the more she went the easier it became, like putting on well-worn boots. This time though, she would never make it.

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The shouts and cries outside penetrated her tranquility and while she eventually managed to tune it out by then the soldiers had finished riling themselves up and entered her tent. Dizzy and confused she did little to stop them dragging her from the tent and rising up against her. They stripped her of her crown, her tent and its contents, and all the wealth and influence she used to command the army.

They left her in the Wilderness well outside the camp with the clothes on her back, a few scraps of food, warnings of what would happen should she return, and her sword. The Cleanser of Names. No one else wanted to use the sword of black ink magic that many thought had gotten them into this mess.

She staggered through the cold wet forest, unable to tell if the water on her face was rain or tears. She didn’t know where she went in the dark, she didn’t know which way the camp was or which way the monster was. She just staggered along until she found a fallen tree and collapsed under that. Shivering and shaking she desperately reached for her forest, for safety. She found it and she slept. Within the topaz all around her Raqos stirred.

She awoke in the cold forest. The branches and leaves she’d fallen into formed something of a sheltering hole for her to rest in and through the night her body had warmed it into something resembling comfort despite the many branches digging into her. The cold still hurt though, so she reached for her forest and it burned her.

She cried out in shock as Raqos raged against her. The god of fire didn’t speak but he made her understand and he made her fear.

“You are no queen! Not anymore! You are no use to me now!”

She almost screamed as he burned her but it was over so quickly and she was lying in the Wilderness once more, trembling and cold. She lay there in shock for a long time, unable to muster the will to move. It had been taken from her, everything. She no longer had her safe place to retreat to. She just had reality. She lay on the ground and trembled for a long time.

She could think, she couldn’t move, but she could think. And everything she thought about just made her want to lie there more. She had nothing. She didn’t have an army, she didn’t have a home, she didn’t have her sister. She wasn’t even... she wasn’t... What had Raqos said? She wasn’t a-

It wasn’t a branch digging into her. She’d felt that only once before. It was the blade. Terrified she’d lose even more to the blade she leapt to her feet and scrambled out of the nest of branches and leaves, the cold forgotten, the hopelessness forgotten. She wasn’t a Queen, she wasn’t the Inkdrop Queen. The blade had almost taken even that title from her.

She looked down at it lying in the nest in the scabbard scrawled with spiralling symbols. She didn’t want to pick it up, what if it was the source of all of her problems? But it had saved her, in its own way. Without it she might have just lain there forever and died.

Still shaking from the cold she picked it up and hooked the scabbard to her belt. It was all she had. She ate the scraps of food she’d been left with and set off downhill. Walking downhill wasn’t guaranteed to lead out of the Wilderness but in general it seemed to slope down, back toward civilization. And going down was easier, she needed easy things at the moment.

She didn’t know how long she walked. Luckily it had stopped raining and the sun was out, drying the dew on the trees and drying her clothes that had been drenched last night. She was lucky to be alive. If the rain had kept on she would have definitely died out here without her forest to retreat to.

Far too quickly for her liking the sun began to set and she began to search for a place to rest. She could no longer just collapse into the bush and rely on Raqos to keep her alive, she needed somewhere safe from the rain and the elements. A cave perhaps, or some sort of shelter.

She saw a towering cliff in the distance and moved toward that. There were towering pillars of rock all around it. Surely there had to be caves or holes or something she could spend the night in. The sun had almost gone by the time she reached it and a few stray clouds were beginning to move back over the sky. She didn’t want to be caught out in the rain.

She found a small gap between two of the rocks, sheltered overhead, and crawled into it. Twisting around to face the Wilderness outside. She could see most of the rest of the cliff face and she was somewhat high up, giving her a good view over a large part of the Wilderness. As the sun set lower and lower lights started to appear out there. The lights of her army. She could see them, they weren’t that far away. She could easily reach them tomorrow, providing she lived that long. But they’d warned her not to return. They would kill her, just like everything else in this forest. She was alone.

She awoke to screams and quickly realised they were coming from the camp. From her army. The monster was clearly back and who knew how many would be lost to it this time. She couldn’t see anything from where she was save for the lights of the camp and she knew that the best thing to do was simply go back to sleep but without her comfortable forest to retreat to she’d been sleeping fitfully and now she did not sleep at all.

The screaming eventually stopped and she prayed the monster had been driven off. She prayed her army had not lost too many lives. That was all she could do now, pray.

Then all her prayers came true. A dark shape, heralded only by the sound of chains clinking on stone, slithered its way up the cliff not far from where she hid. The shape disappeared into some cave deep within the darkness of the cliffside. She couldn’t see nothing and quickly the clinking of chains quieted to nothing. She lay there frozen in shock, unable to move, barely able to breathe for fear the monster could hear her. She was paralysed with terror and the cold of night began to set in. She wanted her forest, she wanted her warmth and safety. She couldn’t be out here, mere metres from that terrible monster.

She... she... she felt it again. Something digging into her side and knowing what it was she grabbed it and moved the scabbard away from her. She’d moved, her hand had moved. She could move, she wasn’t trapped. Her heart still hammering and her breath coming in choked gasps she slowly, ever so slowly crawled out of her hole. It became easier as she crawled, as the great monster moved slowly to the back of her mind and she focussed only on crawling. Slowly her heart stopped hammering and she began to regain her breathing. Slowly she emerged from her hole and then fled back into the forest, away from that cliffside, the Cleanser of Names hanging at her hip.

She had nowhere to sleep and instead she sat down on a log in the darkness. It wasn’t raining and so she merely stared up at the cliffside, at the cave where she’d seen the monster crawl. It was there, probably eating the soldiers it had taken from her army, or maybe asleep. When did it sleep? It was never out during the day.

She sat there and thought for the whole night and slowly she started to realise things. She had no army, she had no hope, she was lost in the middle of a vast jungle slowly starving to death, but she had a sword, and maybe that sword could kill the monster. Maybe she could still be of some use to someone even if she was destined to die herself.

The forest flickered in the back of her mind, just out of reach. But she didn’t reach for it, she looked up at the night and faced reality. She waited quietly for the morning to come.

The monster didn’t sleep as humans slept. It was aware of its surroundings and so it did not fear sleeping in its relatively exposed cave. It knew when animals wandering by caught its scent and fled. It knew when the sun rose and chased away the clouds of night. And it knew when a strange human walked brazenly up to its cave. It watched her curiously as she climbed for a while. She was weak and scared and pathetic, even for a human. What was she doing here?

The monster opened its many eyes and crawled forward to look down at her out of its cave. She looked up and it could sense her fear, she reeked of it. But then she drew a sword, that sword. The sword that had taken the monster’s name. The monster had killed the wielder of that sword once but it had been injured, with a wound that would never heal. It knew not what being wounded again would do.

It fled. The Monster of the Ways, the Scourge of Meduramanth, Devourer of Medusae, Bearer of the Chain. It fled before a weak, scared human with a sword. It knew it could kill her but it didn’t know if it could avoid that sword and it wasn’t worth the risk. Not when it could leave the humans who’d almost left the Wilderness anyway. Not when it could instead hunt its favourite prey that it knew dwelt further in the Wilderness. The medusae, now lacking, apparently, their most powerful weapon.