Turning our backs to the towering headstone, we fanned out to face the dozens of graves across that lay before us. They now glowed more brightly, and identical red steam began to rise from the earth.

“Mind ye,” Bairn said as a final instruction, “these creatures will not be those we buried. What we face will be the bloodthirsty wolves that were dormant in our faithful hounds, the deadly aurochs that preceded our oxen, or unknown physical forms of the most sinister traits that may live in any of us. They are darkness, pure and simple. Strike them down before their teeth and horns and hooves can pierce yer heart.”

Just as Bairn finished, the first full form emerged a few yards in front of me. My sword and shield were already drawn, but I set my feet more firmly now. The snarling wolf, hulking to half my height, paced toward me, red teeth shining as if they had already tasted blood. My Health, Stamina, and Magicka bars all popped into existence.

I raised my shield just as it lunged toward me, but it did not fall back. Using powerful hind legs, the beast pushed against the barrier, sending my boots skidding backward in the dirt. But with it standing on two legs, its belly was exposed beneath my shield. I stabbed upward with my sword from below, feeling the resistance of skin that is neither flesh nor spirit. Still, it gave way, and the creature yelped with the cry of the living before falling to rejoin the dead.

Just then, the swish of an arrow buzzed by my ear, sending a similar yelp from an identical wolf to my left. Three more arrows let loose, all striking beasts of various types and sizes, but all hitting vital targets that put them down.

But as they fell, more creatures rose, this time dominated by a massive auroch twice my height and mere feet away. Bairn jumped between us, his axe slicing upward toward the haunch of the horned monstrosity. His blow struck, but sharp horns swung to toss the dwarf aside like a ragdoll.

Two arrows quickly hit its eyes as it set its gaze on me, sending it into a fury of blindness and pain. As it bucked like a frantic bull, I tried swiping at its head with my sword, only to have it clank off imposing horns and sharpened hooves. When it settled a moment later, it sniffed at the air and caught my scent, slowly trudging toward me while robbed of its sight.

As I raised a shield that would be little more than kindling soon, a roar rang out. While I could not reach its head or its haunches, Bairn had walked below the beast, using his stature to his advantage. A calculated swing of the two-sided axe swept across the entirety of its abdomen, sending blood and guts raining down onto the dwarf, who somehow managed to combat roll away before the animal fell at my feet. What looked now like a minotaur’s face melted back into a red puddle of spirit aura before draining into the earth.

While celebrating a moment too long, fangs locked into my shoulder, sending me spinning to knock the animal loose. A smallish jackal-like face stood before me, quickly joined by its pack. Though I could feel my blood on my back, I also knew my leather upgrade from the Hell Panther had probably saved my life. Only an eighth of health bar dropped, while my stamina bar slowly replenished.

Still, with so many foes, I looked around me for help. Unfortunately, Bairn was entangled with a jungle cat that matched him in size and exceeded him in teeth. Miguel was wrestling a fat wild boar, now using his dagger for close combat. I was on my own.

The jackals looked content to watch me make the first move, especially since the large gravestone at my back prevented them from surrounding me. For that reason, I decided to set the stage for a skirmish.

I knelt and lodged my shield into the ground in front of me, freeing my left hand. First, I pulled a Health flower from my satchel, eating half and placing the rest directly on my wound. My Health bar began regenerating much more quickly.

I also took the opportunity to extend my left arm above the shield and send several tiny embers arcing into two piles in front of me. Because I hadn’t added to my Magic, the balls of fire remained small and nearby, stacked a few feet apart, they would force the creatures to approach me in a row – forming a bottleneck I intended to use to my advantage.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

While risky, I picked up my shield, turned my back to the pack, and waited. Within moments, a single jackal pounced and sunk its claws into my reinforced tunic. With the leather trapping its claws while only slightly dropping my Health, I then spun again toward the pack and launched myself backward, slamming the jackal between me and the tombstone.

With a crunch and howl, I felt its essence give way and drip down my legs and back into the graves. It also enraged the pack enough that they filed toward me, rapidly but narrowly, allowing me to swipe my sword powerfully from side to side above them, slicing them each in half as they lunched, sending their defeated red essences into a gathering puddle below.

From there, the battle was a blur. In one moment, I was aiding Bairn, just long enough for our victory to let him dive toward Miguel while I stumbled ahead into the faces of beasts I did not recognize. Only teeth and growls and claws were clear, and they formed in a hurricane around us.

Yet, eventually, each of them fell, never landing more than a few blows. My health bar was always at least half, allowing me to focus on fighting instead of healing. When I was seemingly outnumbered or about to be overrun, arrows would fly by me and even the odds. When a particularly massive foe arrived, Bairn’s axe was quick to follow. Soon, the ground cleared, and the air fell silent.

Even then, we each held our backs at the stones, watching, waiting, wondering what would come next.

Nothing did.

Eventually, all my status bars refilled, but their presence remained. My adrenaline was not ready to subside, and I was consumed by exhaustion despite what my Stamina visual indicated. That was probably because my fatigue was not physical. The game’s mechanics would have enabled me to swing a sword or raise a shield, but no amount of programming could understand what my mind had just endured. It was if nightmare after nightmare emerged with my death its only goal, forcing me to truly feel emotions I had only experienced through simulation or dilution or both.

I had known anger but never rage, fear but never terror, retribution but never vengeance.

It was the emotional equivalent of being told you’ve been colorblind your whole life. I thought I saw depths and hues and extremes of life, but all that had come before this moment was a muted facsimile. Only by combining fiction with life was I able to completely experience something truly real.

Still processing this phenomenon, I became aware of Miguel and Bairn standing above me, covered in sweat, dirt, and blood. Fortunately, their chests still heaving, I could see that their status bars were also fully recovered. We had survived.

After Miguel helped me to my feet, Bairn led us back toward the gravestone he had surrounded with flowers. I could tell by the dirt nearby that nothing had been disturbed. Apparently, our prize was unharmed.

“What now?” Miguel asked. “Do you call whatever this is back from the dead?”

“Nay,” Bairn said solemnly. “Remember, I canna use magic.”

I stared at the headstone, its calligraphy indicated an obviously revered occupant of the earth in front of us. But without magic, how would we get…I looked more closely at the name:

Slánaigidir.

“But,” Bairn continued. “The magic of the graveyard remains. The same force that holds the spirits within these bars, it will give special rise to a single untainted beast once all the others are defeated. We need only remove the flowers.”

With that explained, he still did not move.

“Should we do it?” I asked.

Bairn paused.

“I must admit,” he said slowly, “I dunna wanna see her go, even now.”

I took several more measured breaths.

“But she is yer prize,” he admitted painfully, “and my final instruction is to make her yers.”

Something – everything – in his voice told us not to press.

“Slánaigidir was the finest mare to ever grace Walden’s Edge,” he stated finally. “She carried me grandda beyond the village long after the roads were safe. She pulled carts of food when our fields were barren, stomped on wolves when they approached our livestock, and she ran for twenty-one days and nights when we needed news of Eyverluth’s potential fall.”

Tears streamed from his eyes to his beard, but even that wasn’t enough to hold them.

“She’s yers now,” he said with a cracking voice. “And she will be neither of this world nor the next. She will appear beside ye when ye need her most, and she will return to the Fade when not called upon. She will carry all ye can place in her saddlebags, and she will guide ye through roads she still knows by heart. She will be faithful, tireless, and more valuable than ye can possibly imagine.”

With that, Bairn began gathering the flowers until he stood by the mare’s headstone. Within moments, it began to glow with the same blue light of the gate, as unlike the sinister red of our foes as any color could be.

Slowly, the most majestic horse I had ever seen – real or imagined – rose from its burial site. Its translucent blue was replaced by shimmering white, from mane to tail, standing taller and more powerful than any horse reasonably should. And everything about her presence radiated a belief that she really could be our guide and our porter through this unknown and unforgiving world.