The three of them moved through the forest again, faster, much faster this time. Snow crunched under their feet as they slipped between tall pines, breath hanging in pale clouds. Faylen led with an ease that made Xavier aware of his own body the burn in his thighs, the sting of cold air in his lungs. The elf barely seemed to notice the ground. He stepped over fallen branches and slick patches of snow without breaking stride.
Xavier kept close behind, eyes flicking between the trunks. The forest had gone quiet in a way that was odd.
No night birds squawking, not even the hoot of owls. There was no rustle of small creatures and monsters in this part of the forest closer to the snowy field. Just their footsteps and the wind combing the branches overhead.
They pushed deeper into the night.
After a while, the trees began to loosen their grip. Xavier noticed it first, the wall of pine ahead fraying apart, gaps widening until a pale glow leaked through. Voices rode the wind toward them, yells, screams, the clash of something metal on something hard. The light grew with every step, and then the forest simply ended.
An open battlefield sprawled before them.
Faylen emerged from the tree line first. Xavier and Xylo followed a heartbeat later. For a moment, none of them spoke. The noise that had carried them here cut out in their heads, as if the field had swallowed sound.
The field was vast, wider than Xavier could take in at once. Snow stretched to the edges of sight, broken by the glint of steel and the dull sheen of battered armor. Weapons lay scattered as if dropped mid‑swing, swords half‑buried, spear shafts snapped clean, shields split and abandoned. Everywhere he looked, something metal caught the tower's light and threw it back in cold, jagged flashes.
And there was blood.
Not just stains. Pools. Dark, half-frozen patches had seeped through the snow, turning it a deep, rusted brown. Some were small, no bigger than a boot print. Others spread out in irregular shapes, as if someone had fallen and dragged themselves a few steps before stopping. The smell hit Xavier a moment later iron and old meat, sharp against the night's clean cold.
But there were no bodies.
No dead. No wounded crawling toward cover. No signs of anyone left standing. Just weapons, armor, and blood, spread across the field like the aftermath of a storm that had taken everything with it.
Faylen slowed first.
He didn't say anything at once. His eyes moved over the ground, over the broken lines of steel, over the dark patches in the snow. Something in his posture changed; it was subtle, but there. The easy grace from the forest was gone, replaced by a stillness that cried caution.
"There's a strange energy here," he murmured, more to himself than to them.
Xavier glanced at him. "What do you mean?"
Faylen didn't answer right away. He crouched, fingertips hovering above a pool of blood without touching it. His brow furrowed. "I'm not sure myself, all i know is that something doesn't feel right it's… wrong," he said finally. "Everything is quiet in a way that doesn't fit."
Xylo shifted beside them, boots crunching softly. "We heard fighting," he said, voice low. "Yells. Weapons clashing. It was loud enough to carry through the trees." He swept a hand at the empty field. "This doesn't match it at all, or were we by chance hallucinating?"
Xavier's gaze drifted back over the battlefield. He could have sworn he heard the clash of steel, the shouts, the raw noise of a fight pushed to its edge. But now, under the tower's light, the field was silent except for the wind and the faint creak of armor settling in the cold.
His met Faylen's eyes.
The elf's expression was unreadable, but the tension in his jaw said enough. Xavier felt the same unease tightening in his chest. They had come expecting survivors, a struggle, something living to push against. Instead, they had walked into what looked like a massacre with all the evidence and none of the dead.
"Someone had to bleed this much," Xavier said, voice barely above a whisper.
Faylen stood, gaze still scanning the field. "And yet no one's left to show for it."
Xylo took a cautious step forward, then another, as if testing whether the snow would hold. "Maybe they were dragged away," he suggested, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "Maybe something pulled the bodies off after the fight."
"Dragged where?" Xavier asked. "There's no trail. No tracks except ours."
Faylen's eyes narrowed. "Or the tracks were erased."
A gust of wind rolled across the field, lifting a fine veil of snow from the surface. For a heartbeat, the dark patches seemed to shift, as if something under the snow moved with the breeze. Xavier blinked, and it was gone just blood and ice again.
He swallowed. "We should keep moving. Carefully."
Faylen nodded once. "Stay close. And don't touch anything."
They moved forward together, walking through the stained snow. Every step felt too loud in the silence. Xavier's hand hovered near the hilt of his blade, not drawing it, just ready. His eyes kept flicking to the edges of the field.
At the center of it all stood the Black Tower.
The Dark stone pillar stood higher than anything Xavier had ever imagined. The walls climbed until the darkness above ate the top. Ancient masonry scarred its surface: grooves, cracks, blocks set at odd angles,
From its highest point, a single beam of light stabbed upward, pinning the sky. It lit the entire field beneath it, turning snow to a hammered stream of colors. Above, the aurora drifted in slow, silent ribbons, tangling with the tower's light until the boundary between stone and sky blurred.
Xavier stood still.
All of it the monsters, the blood, the nights spent wondering if morning would come collapsed into this one impossible shape. For a heartbeat, the tower didn't feel real. It felt like something he'd dreamed and then woken into.
"Xavier." Xylo's voice cut through his thoughts.
Xavier turned. "What is it?"
"People." Xylo pointed toward the base of the tower. "There."
At that distance, the figures were little more than shifts in the shadow. They moved beneath the tower's enormous silhouette, arms rising and falling against the entrance as if beating on the door.
"A group," Xylo said. "They're surrounding the door."
Xavier squinted, trying to force detail out of the dark. "They must be trying to get inside."
"Then hurry," Xylo said. "We don't know how long they'll hold."
They picked up their pace, heading for the low hill that lifted the tower above the field. Xavier's foot sank. He kept his eyes on the moving shapes at the tower's base, counting without meaning to. Four. Five. More, shifting in and out of the light.
Then Faylen suddenly slowed.
They were almost at the foot of the hill when the elf stopped. His spear came down in one smooth motion, the steel tip biting the snow, barring their path. Xavier and Xylo halted, breath puffing white between them.
Xavier frowned. "Faylen, what is it?"
Faylen didn't answer right away. His gaze stayed locked on the figures below, eyes narrowed as if he could peel the shadows back by force.
"Something doesn't feel right," he said at last, voice low.
Xylo shifted, weight rocking from heel to toe. " What do you mean? They're survivors just like us. Look here, let me show you." He cupped his hands and called, voice cracking a little in the cold. "Hello! Over here!"
The shout rang out, sharp and loud in the stillness.
For a moment, nothing changed. Then three figures stopped moving. Slowly, their heads turned toward the hill.
Xylo let his hands drop, a faint smile touching his mouth. "See? They heard us."
They started toward the three.
Xavier watched them come, a sudden unease growing behind his ribs. Their movements were wrong. Too stiff. Too heavy. The first man dragged his feet, head lolling to one side as if his neck couldn't hold it anymore. The second stumbled, arms hanging loose, gait uneven. The third was larger than the other two, broad‑shouldered, towering, probably a giant judging by his height.
Faylen's grip tightened on his spear. "Step back," he said quietly. "Look closer."
Finally, the figures broke free of the tower's shadow. Moonlight fell across their faces.
Xavier's breath caught.
Their skin stretched pale and dead over bone. Clothes hung in torn strips. Eyes sat dull and fixed, as if whatever had once looked out through them was long gone.
"What the hell is wrong with them?" Xylo asked, voice higher than he probably meant.
Their bodies moved without the coordination of living people. Heads twitched at odd angles. Limbs dragged. The same dark substance stained their lips and chins, glistening in the cold. Whatever these things had been, they weren't people anymore.
Xylo stared. "What happened to those people?"
Xavier didn't look away from the approaching shapes. "Those aren't people, not anymore."
The giant stopped.
Its enormous head lifted.
For a moment, it just stared down the hill.
Then its mouth opened.
A deep, distorted roar tore out of its throat wrong in a way Xavier couldn't name and disturbing to hear. Too many layers of sound, like several voices forced into one. The noise rolled through the forest, through Xavier's chest, through the snow under his feet.
He took a step back without thinking.
The roar hit the tower.
Every figure gathered around its entrance froze. Their banging stopped, the whole crowd beneath went still. Then, almost together, every head turned toward the three; without a thought, they ran.
The horde poured away from the tower and charged down the slope, bodies stumbling, colliding, scrambling over one another as they raced toward them. Dozens became scores; scores became hundreds as more shapes peeled out of the dark around the tower's base.
Snow exploded under their feet.
Roars filled the night, overlapping, rising, breaking.
Xavier's hand closed around his blade until his knuckles ached. His eyes widened as the mass surged toward them. "There's no way…"
Xylo stepped back, voice tight. "The undead? Well, at least we know where the bodies went." He swallowed, gaze darting between the oncoming horde and the tower behind. "What do we do?"
Neither Xavier nor Faylen answered right away.
The creatures were already halfway down the hill.
Xylo looked between them, breath coming fast. "So what's the plan?"
Faylen slowly raised his spear.
His face stayed calm, almost too calm.
"We fight."
Xavier stared at him. "Against all of that?"
Faylen didn't blink. "Yes, Against all of that."
He stepped forward, cloak snapping in the freezing wind as he tightened his grip.
"Ratha." he called. The spear trembled faintly in his hand, answering to his call. Faylen drew his arm back and threw his spear
Ratha cut through the night air, straight toward the oncoming horde.