"You filthy bastard!"
The man, bare-chested and broad as a bull, his body stained with grime, clutched a sword still wet with blood—the blood of some poor drunk he had split open inside the tavern.
The place that should have been a refuge had become a brawling pit, a stage for ruin.
Tables lay broken, chairs toppled, and the reek of liquor mixed with iron in the air.
He was thrown out the door like refuse, rolling into the dust beyond the threshold.
"You break my tables, strike down my patrons—what did you expect me to do? Offer you a drink?"
"I'm a patron too, damn you—"
The sword came from nowhere. A sound like cloth tearing, followed by a wet, choking gasp.
The blade burst through his back, jutting from his chest, the shock freezing him where he stood.
The knight, cold and wordless, lifted the dying brute high and slammed him down as if laying a sacrifice upon stone.
Then, with the calm of a priest, he drove the sword through the man's mouth.
Silence.
No one clapped. No one thanked him.
The townsfolk only watched, eyes dull, as if they had seen this a hundred times before.
Death had become an errand of the living—ordinary, unremarked.
"Sir Knight!" a boy called out.
He held a stick, pretending it was a sword, his eyes alight with the fantasy of glory.
"How can I be like you someday?"
The knight looked down. His voice came low and steady, as though rising from the ground itself.
"Heh. A little knight, are you?
Knights, warriors, scholars—they all have someone to look up to.
But not us, boy. We're no examples to follow.
We're the sum of our sins, walking.
One day, they'll forget we ever lived.
Tell me, little knight—do you want to be forgotten?"
The boy said nothing. He just watched as the armored man turned away, dragging the corpse through the street.
The helm he wore was shaped like a stag's skull, a single antler jutting from one side—a mark of those who had served in war and repentance.
His sword gleamed faintly in the fading light.
The body left a dark trail of blood behind him that steamed in the cool air.
People stepped aside. Not in fear. Not in disgust.
But out of respect—for duty, for the man they called Trux, keeper of the gate, warden of the forsaken gaol beyond the city walls.
"Sir Trux! I'll send over the next cask of ale, alright?" a woman shouted from behind.
Trux didn't answer. He just raised his sword-hand slightly in acknowledgment, still dragging the corpse along.
"Wrong way, isn't it, Trux?" a deep voice called out.
"Careful now. Those girls at the gate might start chanting 'Sir Trux, oh Sir Trux!' before long. Hah!"
The voice belonged to a giant of a man, wrapped in a cloak of thick animal fur that brushed the ground.
He was taller than Trux himself. His laughter rolled heavy and dry through the air.
The sun hung low, orange and weary. The moon rose pale above it—as if day and night had agreed to share the sky, if only for this hour.
In that strange twilight, the two men met as though called by fate.
"Shouldn't you be at the watchtower by the river cliff, Helm?" Trux asked.
"I could ask you the same," Helm grunted.
"You vanished from the chapel—no word, nothing.
Then I hear you've taken to guarding the gate like some hermit saint.
Drinking yourself stupid in that tavern, sleeping among the dead.
You're a marvel, Trux. A damn miracle."
Helm wore a helm of bone too, carved in the likeness of a stag's skull—but with a single antler longer, more twisted, like the horn of a beast from some forgotten dream.
A great bow hung across his back, cumbersome yet light in his grip, and at his hip, the ever-present flask.
"I felt something," Trux said. "A pull.
That I had to leave the chapel. Stand here. Watch over something—though I don't yet know what.
Maybe it's a vision. Maybe just madness.
I can't tell anymore if my sight is as clear as when I served the Unholy Church."
Helm chuckled. "You're insane, that's what you are.
Now burn that corpse before the carrion birds beat you to it.
I've got patrols to run."
Trux only smiled faintly. "You saw it too, didn't you? The light in the sky.
A sign, maybe—from the King himself."
Helm paused. He reached into his cloak and pulled out an arrow.
The shaft was black and knotted, the head etched with twisting lines like a labyrinth.
Its fletching wasn't feather or hide, but scaled skin from something that crawled and hissed.
"This," Helm said, "is what I found by the cliff.
I saw the same light you did.
And whatever it means—your instincts aren't wrong, friend."
He handed the arrow to Trux. Then, without ceremony, tore the eye from the corpse and ate it whole.
Neither man spoke after that.
Helm turned and disappeared into the gathering crowd, swallowed by smoke and the coming dusk.
Trux stood there, the arrow in one hand, his sword in the other.
He whispered quietly—
"My King… if you still live, then maybe I'm not lost after all."
Then he turned and dragged the body onward.
People stepped aside again—not from fear, nor hatred,
but respect for the man who guarded the gate,
the one who turned his back on peace so that others could still believe in it.
The sky dimmed.
Night came, heavy with memories.
Something in the air began to stir, old and restless.
The peace they knew was not peace at all,
but the silence before the storm.
A war was coming—
and this time, it would not end.
In the forsaken valley once scarred by war — in Tesorah — thunder split the heavens.
"CRACK!"
Lightning howled across the desolate sky.
Upon the barren clearing of a bygone age, the ruins of a colossal castle stood, grand and broken, amid a field stripped bare of grass and life.
The surrounding mountains, swallowed by dusk, blended with the horizon until their edges dissolved.
All was veiled beneath a stench of char and decay — the air thick with the reek of things long dead.
Through that mire walked Chennel, clad in blackened steel.
Each step sank into the mud, dark and glistening as crude oil, yet it carried the stench of blood — so dense, so ancient, that even the carrion beasts would not come near.
"No soul has crossed this land in ages," he murmured.
"The scent and taste of the lingering spirits are gone. This is no eternal graveyard."
He surveyed the wasteland.
Broken armor, the splintered shafts of forgotten banners — no sigil remained to tell which kingdom had once stood here.
He pressed on, weaving through shattered stones.
The muck clung to his greaves, cold and biting; its corrosion gnawed at the metal, yet he did not falter.
"A light at the end of the path," he whispered.
"A single body… and spirits without thought. Empty vessels. Is that what you've become, my son?"
Then he found him.
The soul he had sought — now void of scent, void of light.
It was the body of a man, unclothed, his skin caked in filth.
He did not scream.
In both hands, he held weapons — a sword and an axe — and his hollow gaze fixed upon Chennel without movement or breath.
"My son," Chennel said softly, "this is no place for you.
Nor is there any place left that will welcome you.
Yet I shall remain here — to receive you.
Whether you follow or not, that is for you to decide.
I am not your judge. I bring only words.
Now you are mindless — stripped of reverence, of hunger, save for the filth and blood you drink like a beast.
Look at me, my son. Decide."
The figure did not blink.
His grip upon his weapons never loosened.
Overhead, a single light burned — a sun turned away, its radiance defying the abyss below.
Then silence fell, vast and suffocating.
Only death remained — and it spoke for both of them.
"The black feather I bear shall guide you," Chennel said.
"Whether you follow me for your will or another's, I cannot tell.
Take it, and in time… you shall find what you seek."
The man gave no answer.
His frail body merely stared as crimson lightning cleaved the sky once more.
The air shuddered. The land groaned.
And though no tears fell — it wept.
Not through flesh, but through the very spirit that had already perished.