Blades of wheat glistened in the sunlight as they danced in the wind’s gentle breath. The immense field of shimmering gold pushed and pulled like a sea, as the sound of its rustling seemed to mimic crashing waves. As Alric rode along the pitted highway, the wagon dragged by his horse, Nocht, thudded against the dirt. Its wheels squealed at the beginning of each turn and seemed to harmonise with the clacking of his plate armour. He gazed about with the visor of his bascinet helmet raised. The weave of sights and sounds gave him something to pay attention to; it was almost like his personal bard during those long journeys. As he gently thrummed his gauntleted fingers against his saddle, he savoured the smell of wild flowers that drifted through the air. The outskirts of a village crept its way closer to him. He saw commoners tilling the fields, sowing seeds, herding cattle, and gathering fruit from blooming trees. The hamlet of Oak was so named for the single oak tree that stood in its town square. It was a wretched, greying husk with branches that jerked about at sharp angles like bolts of lightning. The tree certainly looked healthier during Alric’s last visit several years ago, but the town itself had grown much larger. Houses of wattle and daub with thatch roofs fanned outward from the central square, carefully watched over by a contingent of volunteer guards.

The knight brought Nocht to a hitching post, dismounted with quite a racket, then looped her reins onto said post. The midnight black horse huffed angrily while her rider tied the lines into a knot. Alric ruffled her mane and rubbed her cheek before setting out.

As he strode down the path, he heard footfalls culminating behind him. “Brother! Wait a moment, good Brother!” Alric turned his helmeted head to peer over his shoulder. He saw a man dressed in a gambeson and kettle hat. In his hand was a spear. “It’s not every day we see one of your Order down this way. I’m Howard, Howard Mason. Captain o’ tha guard.”

“God be with thee. My name is Alric,” he said.

Howard whistled. “It’s a pleasure, Brother Alric. What brings you down ta these parts? Nothin’ too serious, I ‘ope.”

Alric rested a hand on the pommel of his longsword which hung in its scabbard by his side. “A merchant attending a sermon of mine in Birchwood spoke of pious folk vanishing from here. All who praise the Father are under the protection of the Knights Thestor, and as such, I wish to lend my efforts to the search.”

“R-Right… Tha whole town’s been terrified. We ain’t been able ta find nothin’...some town guard we are, aye?”

The knight of Saint Thestus exhaled sharply. “All shall be as God wills it; take solace in that truth and wallow not in doubt. Tell me of the vanished.”

“Sara was a mother o’ two children. Tha father left some time ago; ain’t no one knows where ‘e went. Without ‘er, tha poor children don’t got any family. Then we got Erik, tha woodsman’s son. Fine young man, not like ‘im ta just up and disappear. Ta be completely honest, not like Sara either. A couple of tha others though, Gerome, Victor, Mary, they ain’t tha best sort. But that’s a lot of folk ta just vanish inta tha night.”

Suddenly, Alric felt something strike the back of his calf. When he looked down, he saw an inflated pig’s bladder slowly rolling away from him and towards a pair of horrified children several paces away. The older one was a girl and the other a boy.

“Liam…Josephine…what did I tell ya ‘bout being careful, aye?” Howard scalded as he planted his free hand onto his hip.

Alric knelt and waved at the two children. For a moment, he glanced up at Howard and jerked his head towards the young ones, trying to ascertain if they belonged to the missing woman. A flash of understanding gleamed in Howard’s eyes and he nodded eagerly. Alric sent his attention back to the children. “Be not afraid. Come hither,” he said as he scooped the ball up and handed it to them.

Liam cowered behind his sister as they shuffled forward. Josephine slowly grabbed the ball and plucked it from Alric’s hand. “T-Thank you, milord.”

With a laugh, Alric said, “I am no lord, child. My name is Alric; I am sworn to the Church’s Order of Saint Thestus, so thou shalt call me Brother Alric.”

“Y-Yes, mi–” she cut herself off before she said it again. “Yes, B-Brother Alric. Me mum told me ‘bout the Thestors before. Ya find tha witches and heretics and monsters and infidels. You keep ‘em from hurting us.”

“That is correct, well done. And, on occasion, we may also seek out those who have lost their way.” Josephine’s eyes lit up like stars upon the night sky. “Be there anything about thy mother thou couldst tell me?”

Josephine’s lips thinned for a moment. She glanced up at Howard, to her brother, then back to Alric. “S-She made me promise not ta tell no one.”

Alric held the girl by her shoulder. “Josephine, dost thou wish thy mother found?” She nodded. “Then perhaps consider sharing this secret with me. Thou shalt not be punished. I swear it to the Lord above.”

The girl finally decided to cooperate. “Mummy used ta go out at night to tha forest, tha Tindertwigs. She told me an’ Liam ta never tell no one.” Alric furrowed his brow. His hand tightened slightly on Josephine’s tiny shoulder. He watched her eyes twitch in discomfort. “I-I don’t know what she did out there. She never told me.”

The Thestor’s eyes narrowed as he released his grip on her. He reached into a pouch on his belt, procured four pence, and handed two to Josephine and the other two to Liam. With amazement in their eyes, the children accepted Alric’s gift as he stood back up and towered over them. Howard chuckled. “My, my, that’s a lot o’ money. Whaddaya say?” he prompted.

“Thank you, Brother Alric,” they said in unison.

Howard pointed down the road. “Go get some sweets from Gert now, will ya? And no eatin’ ‘em all at once, you hear?”

Liam and Josephine bolted down the dirt road like wild dogs, instantly invigorated by the mention of sweets. Howard bashfully scratched the back of his neck as Alric asked, “Be the Tindertwigs far from here?”

“You could walk it, I guess…but in that plate o’ yours, it might be a little drainin’. Maybe ya should doff it?”

With an irritated huff, Alric planted his hands onto his belt. “Surely thou art jesting. Such ignorance of the Order’s practices brings me to anger, Captain.”

Howard coughed into his hand. “W-Well…like I said before, Brother Alric, we don’t exactly get many of you lot in town. F-Forgive me, I can take penance if you’d wish it.”

The knight waved his hand dismissively. “If thou art willing to learn, then it can be my duty to teach thee. For now, however, I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

“Right…w-well… Lemme know if ya find anythin’ o’ note. Tha families will be mighty grateful.”

The forest of spindly black trees, aptly named the Tindertwigs by the locals, was visible from the village. It had been masked by the ghoulish embrace of a mist that had blown in after Alric had reached town. There was no path to follow, but the grass bowed lower in a line towards the trees indicating that trips to the place were not few and far between.

Clouds in the sky left blotched shadows on the yellow field that consumed almost everything in sight; everything but the legion of sickly, leafless trees that stood sentry over the village. As the lone knight drew closer to the forest, its jagged shadows fell onto him, shielding his eyes from the setting white sun. His knees, shoulders, and back ached, having been burdened with the weight of his armour for the entire day. He relished the pain as if it were a gift bestowed from up high. Before long, he had been swallowed by the trees and found himself gazing around the immediate area. The soft rustling of the evening wind through the canopy of bare branches was the only sound Alric's ears discerned. He saw nothing but dead wood.

The Knight Thestor wandered away from the edge of the forest and kept his eyes sweeping the forlorn wood for any sign of life. Eventually, he stumbled upon a clearing. Alric could imagine that the place would have looked rather stunning during the daytime, but all he could see then was a veil of shadows enveloping an open patch of darkened grass.

Amidst the open field were pieces of debris; what appeared to be a snapped signpost. A pile of some sort stood at the far end of the clearing. Alric knelt on the edge of the tree line. Despite how much he squinted, the knight could not ascertain what exactly comprised said pile…but he did perceive jittery movement near the stack of objects.

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Four diminutive creatures eagerly paced about on four legs and dragged what looked like bodies towards the pile. The creatures themselves looked like headless dogs with a single clawed-arm extending from where their missing heads should be. With those singular appendages, they handled the dead as if they were sacks of grain. Their legs scuttled about beneath them to retain their balance as they heaved the bodies through the dirt.

Alric sighed to himself with a soft shake of his head. Goblins. Being rather small and physically weak, the creatures hoarded corpses like canine vultures. It was a pile of bodies on the other end of the clearing. They possessed glands capable of covering their massive stacks of food in a strong film which allowed them to drag the lot back to their den. They were usually frightened off easily enough, but with the kingdoms of Tritham and Valtheaux at each other's throats for almost a hundred years, the sheer volume of dead seemed to have roused their tenacity. The goblin sightings had grown in recent years, as did the number of them in their foraging parties. However, as they were ill-able to protect themselves, they were always accompanied by at least one manticore. It would be unwise to proceed until he found it. Alric watched as a goblin began rubbing its mandibles together, slowly producing segments of the translucent sac that would ensnare their game. Each animal would spin but one portion of the net, then seal it together once complete.

Finally, as the knight looked toward the other side of the tree line, he spotted their guardian. The manticore stood as still as the columns of ash beside it, with its tail poised for attack. It resembled a bull, only headless just as the goblins were, with a massive rigid tail. Able to spin about in any direction, there was no escaping its sting.

The tail was incredibly dangerous, so much so that tales were told of how manticores were born of black magic; a belief that Alric knew to be true. Whatever the tail pointed at was liable to combust into smouldering embers without warning. In his experience, only a witch armed with a black magic staff could achieve similar results.

Alric wasn't eager to battle the scavengers alone, but the pack was incredibly close to Oak. The goblins could easily chase down the peasants and bludgeon them to death. For more troublesome quarry, like the town guards, the manticore could detonate them into shredded ribbons of matter without much effort at all. Alric’s Order was governed by the many chapters of the Rule of Saint Thestus, but even more important than the Rule were the Four Attestations; every Knight Thestor must adhere to them in order to prove his devotion to the one true God. The Fourth Attestation declared that all Knights Thestor must not refuse assistance to any God-fearing man or woman in need. The folk in the township of Oak had become those in need, as the pack of scavengers would surely pose them threat in time. To refuse their plight would be an act of heresy.

As slowly and cautiously as he could, Alric lowered his helmet’s visor and slunk behind the first line of trees. He kept his arms bent and his knees as straight as possible to prevent his plate armour from clanking against itself; as long as he intently focused on moving in that matter, he could be almost completely silent.

He slowly crept forth, working his way around to the manticore as the goblins continued spinning their sac. He heard only the whirring of the goblins’ legs as all four of them circled the mass of bodies in order to wrap it securely. Every step he took filled his heart with dread. He had seen people blown apart by manticores. He had been showered by insides and blood as compatriots popped beside him. As he closed in on the robust creature, he began to hear the constant rumbling of its insides. It remained completely still. The black bars of wood scrolled by Alric's already impeded vision; all he could see of the outside world with his visor shut was a narrow horizontal line immediately ahead of him.

He gripped the handle of the blade that rested on the right side of his belt. Alric had found that his rondel dagger served exquisitely against the gaps in the chitinous armour of the foragers.

The grass swayed, following the cadence of the sparse foliage above. Alric's surcoat was brushed by the same wind. All the while, the tailed behemoth did not shift, not even slightly. Its tail slowly swept over the defenceless goblins, like the eyes of a wary cattle farmer over his herd.

Against all the sense within him, Alric emerged from cover and approached the manticore as he unsheathed his rondel dagger. The weapon's blade was as long as his forearm and tapered down to a tiny point which made it exceptional at piercing mail, gambeson and tendon alike.

Alric tore into a sprint and leapt at the manticore while its tail was pointed away. As soon as he did, his armour rattled like a chime. The beast’s tail twirled around in lieu of the racket that signalled Alric's stride. A blinding burst of sparks consumed the knight's vision as a jet of starlight erupted from the tail. He fought back the crippling fear as he lurched sideways at almost too late an interval.

Searing heat washed across his body and the resulting explosion of a tree behind the knight caused his helmet to reverberate like a struck bell. A fraction of a second passed and Alric's sight returned to him. Fighting the disorientation, he slammed into the manticore's side and slid his dagger into the small gap near its hind leg's shoulder. As the blade pierced the soft matter protecting the manticore's joints, strings of iridescent black fluid pulsed outward from the wound. Pushing with every ounce of force he could muster, Alric wrenched and twisted the weapon to maximise damage.

The manticore's internal whirling grew louder, and its shoulder began clicking and snapping with every move it made. Its tail furiously rotated back and forth in a desperate attempt to fix upon Alric, who was much too close to be targeted by the dreaded thing.

Alric yanked the dagger back out. In an uncoordinated stupor, the manticore, with its leg deeply wounded, lost its footing and tumbled onto its side. He pressed his body against the stem of the tail, searched for the thick artery upon it, and drew his dagger across the vein. Once again, shimmering paste flowed out from the wound as the tail twitched several times before slamming into the ground, entirely limp. The manticore continued struggling to right itself, but Alric knew that it was no longer a threat to him. When he turned to the pile of bodies, the entire flock of goblins already encircled him.

Alric panted ragged breaths as he pressed his dagger firmly back into its sheath and snatched the grip of his longsword. He pulled the thing out haphazardly, still physically taxed from downing the manticore. The aggressive gesture caused the goblins to startle and scamper backward several steps, but after allowing a few seconds to assess the situation, they slowly and surely began pacing forth once more.

The knight held his sword at the ready, backing away. With immense vigour, Alric snapped forward, screaming as loud as he could. No longer certain of their continued safety, the goblins simply spun on their four legs and scurried away like frightened rats, leaving the disabled manticore to flail about in the dirt helplessly.

Alric was glad that they hadn't the gall to swarm him. Seeing as he was ill-armed to deal with their chitinous shells and they outnumbered him greatly, the goblins could have succeeded in overpowering him with sheer mass. Then, once he was toppled, it was only a matter of pulling his helmet off and cracking his skull with a well-aimed strike. They were much more agile than the manticore, so striking a weak spot with a bladed weapon would have been much more difficult.

With the immediate danger dealt with, Alric cautiously paced towards the mound of bodies, sword still drawn. Having placed more distance between himself and the manticore, its strained groaning became muted and the sizzling of what remained of the ash tree that it had fired its curse upon had outgrown its pained throes.

What Alric initially thought to be a snapped signpost was definitely nothing of the sort once he had a closer look. The bottom end of the thin wooden shaft was still pinned into the dirt. What would’ve been the upper portion had fallen into the grass. Stowing his sword, Alric dropped to one knee and reached for the object. His leather-bound fingers wrapped around it and brought it closer to his face as he lifted his visor. Tied to the wooden pole with tattered rope was a human skull, a pair of crows’ wings, and a horse’s skull.

Dread seeped into Alric's core as his fingers began to shake. He felt as if the totem bled darkness straight into his heart. The lifeless sockets of the human skull stabbed his flickering irises and flooded his every fibre with bubbling terror. Alric dropped it immediately and pushed to his feet with a start.

When he averted his eyes from the totem, he noted there were at least fifteen bodies wrapped within the translucent film of the goblin sac. It was incomplete, so Alric could still see through the stuff. A fully-spun goblin net resembled several centimetres of ice; one could barely make out the details of what it held behind its layers. However, Alric realised that he could hear something reverberating through the net. Something eerily close…yet distant. He slowly approached the sac and felt his heart stop when he realised that it was writhing from within.

With haste, Alric once again brandished his dagger. The knight gripped the film with one hand and carefully slid his blade down its surface. As the seal was broken, the stench within the net blew forth all at once. Alric gagged and jerked his head away from the hole, fighting the urge to vomit. The screams also billowed forth, raw, desperate, and wordless.

Alric stowed his dagger. “The danger hath passed.” After pushing several corpses off of the survivor, he was able to drag the him out and onto the grass. The man broke into tears and howled. “Explain thyself,” Alric pressed, his mind wandering back to the twisted totem of bone. “What occurred here?”

The survivor trembled as he sat upright. His face immediately drained of colour. “I was…”

Alric gritted his teeth and hissed, “Speak!”

“We are nothing but ore and lightning forged to serve the whims of the Devil.” Albeit calm, his tone was wispy, perhaps indicating that his grasp on reality had not yet returned. In his groggy state, he clearly did not realise that Alric was a Churchsworn knight…otherwise, he would have held his tongue and saved himself. In the face of Alric’s continued silence, the man stared aimlessly into the distance. He had spoken some line of foul, blasphemous dribble. The man was a demon worshipper and those who died there were certainly of like minds. They congregated to preach heresy...to denounce God and instead embrace the Devil. The profane totem suddenly made sense. With a sigh, Alric retracted from the pile. “Sara and Erik. Be they among the dead?”

“N-No, they…they escaped.”

It seemed that his charge had changed from rescuing the pious to punishing the wicked. “Where?” The man’s eyes suddenly focused on Alric and the holy symbol that was emblazoned upon his surcoat. It was then that the man realised what he had gotten himself into. He shook his head in silence. Alric snatched the man by his scalp and leaned into his ear. “Thou dare to forsake Him despite all He hath given thee? I shall enjoy watching the flesh slop from thy bones.”

The Knight Thestor dragged the man through the grass by the back of his neck as his shrill and fruitless pleading drifted through the air.