Ezer watches in disbelief as spots with four legs advance at great speed and test the defense of the knights, these were too fast to be able to distinguish their shape and to intuit what type of beast they belonged to. The only thing that was clear was that there were more beasts than swords.

However, the knights were not far behind. Their long, heavy cloaks moved rapidly in response to the even faster movement of their swords.

The combat was not a constant crossing of attacks, but rather feints and penetrating glances in search of an opening or distraction to deliver a mortal wound.

“Sir, if this continues they will surround us!” A knight with a wound on his arm responds by tightening his grip on his sword.

“It's these damned ones again... Do they want revenge!?” All of them were experienced soldiers, they weren't afraid, but they weren't reckless either.

“Buy me time.”

“Yes sir!”

The Viscount approaches the rear of the carriage where a large crate, larger than the size of a person, is found wrapped in thick chains which Boron removes.

Ezer watches their movements through another of the carriage windows. He is terrified to see what comes out of that drawer. He knew the Viscount was a wizard, one of the few in the North, but he didn't expect him to specialize in black magic, especially a forbidden one like necromancy.

A black, semi-rotten body in armor and a rusty ax, steps into the snow for the first time in a long time. It was the body of a famous soldier whose body was lost, the culprit being clearly the Viscount, they failed to replace his old equipment as it seems the body has a strange emotional connection to it.

The Viscount whispers a few words and the body begins to move holding the ax in both hands while the Viscount returns to the battle accompanied by the body.

As soon as the body sets its sights on the beasts, the atmosphere seems to cool down even more. But this was a strange cold, it seemed to touch the soul more than the skin.

At that moment Ezer realizes the future that awaits him.

“Necromancer... he's a necromancer. In the moment that I don't serve them...” He remembered the Viscount's words, he felt how the darkness along with the desperation enveloped him. He stood motionless, his mind blank and not knowing what to do.

But at that moment, as if by reflex, his hand touches the hilt of the dagger at his waist. He unsheathes it and notices the initials engraved on it, L and E.

“Mother...” He remembered her words that were in his mind as if they were engraved with fire.

“No matter what darkness you find, go ahead and walk through it, don't look for the light... be the light.” He repeated those words over and over again until a flame of life began to manifest in his eyes.

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For the first time he was completely alone, and at the mercy of other people who could decide his life or death.

“I don't want this, I don't want my future to be controlled by someone. I want to choose where to die and how, I... I want to control my own destiny.”

Ezer opens the door opposite from where the knights and the Viscount were fighting alongside the reanimated body. He takes a deep, slow breath, then looks out at the pitch-black forest and heads into it with unflinching determination.

“I'm sorry father, I will not be able to meet your expectations again.” Ezer groans, but this emotion quickly fades as the adrenaline from the exhaust rushes through his body, helping him through the thick, knee-deep snow.

Ezer heads into the unknown.

Sunbeams beat against his back as he ran through the leafless, snow-packed woods. The terrain gradually rose until it ended in a small hill that gave a good panoramic view of the area, but this slope, added to the snow, made progress difficult.

After almost half an hour he managed to reach the top. Before his eyes stretched a vast forest, beyond, the huge mountains of a range that marked the limit of humanity. There was no sign that they were chasing him, unless they were continuing to fight the beasts, they should have already noticed his disappearance.

“My home is near the mountains, if I go in a straight line... No, I would get lost and it would take days to get there. I have to find a road and follow it to a village, I'm sure I can easily get home by carriage afterwards.” Ezer was about to move forward, but he stops abruptly.

“If I go back, the Viscount will find me immediately and if by some miracle my family were to hide me... No, that won't happen either.” He wanted to see her mother and sister but the yearning for independence was greater.

“I want to control my own destiny, in my home there are only chains and with the Viscount something much worse... The only thing I can do now is continue on my own and light my own path.”

Even if he stayed in a village and hid his identity, there was a chance that the Viscount would find him. Even his family could capture him and hand him over to the Rolennar again. If they gave up their offspring once, they could do it a second time.

“I have only the shelter of the forest.” He utters those ingenuous words as he descends the hill in search of a stream so that he can move forward without so many obstacles and drink water.

But Ezer was delusional in believing that walking through the forest, much less living in it, was easy, especially in the dead of winter.

“I have to find a stream or river, with the footprints I leave in the snow they can track me, something that does not happen with the stones of the streams.” He kept going down and searching until he finally found one when the sun was almost at its highest point.

The icy water stung her lips, but the thirst was greater than the pain.

“I'm lucky the current is strong enough that it doesn't freeze.”

He sits on a nearby rock, which was slightly larger than his body, to catch his breath.

The sound of water was the only thing that broke the silence. Ezer was still wondering what to do next when the shadows of the trees and their skeletal branches lengthen and seem to focus on him. The light lost its brightness and the forest darkened.

All those phenomena that he imagined were the representation of his fear upon realizing his reality. He was alone, with no one to turn to, with nothing but his clothes and dagger in a vast forest and at the mercy of beasts.

But his mother's words saved him once again, over and over again he recited them in his mind until he managed to calm down.

“I can't stay in one place, I have to continue.”

"If he were the Viscount... how would he act to catch me?” The hundreds of books he read were useful for something, especially the military ones that his family guarded with suspicion. “I remember what was written in that book, especially the phrase. Think like your enemy.”

“What I want most now is a safe place, and the best place is my family's stronghold, so I have to do the exact opposite." It follows the course of the stream that descended towards the West, the opposite position to that of the castle.