Lastlight's Revenant #14

Garran's boots echoed against the stone floor as he approached the makeshift infirmary. The corridor was dim, lit only by a single flickering torch that cast long shadows across the worn tapestries of Vaeldrith's past glories.

At the entrance, Kaelvar sat hunched on a wooden stool, his tattooed fingers working methodically at a piece of dark oak with his bone-handled knife. Wood shavings littered the floor around his boots.

Garran paused. "What are you doing here?"

The Varekai warrior didn't look up. "Came to see the duke's whelp after hearing of his injury." The knife flashed, peeling away another curl of wood. "My people know a thing or two about healing."

Garran raised an eyebrow. "And?"

Kaelvar's lips curled in a humorless grin. "The healer barred me. Said a 'savage who worships dead spirits and hasn't felt Velmara's warmth' wouldn't know the first thing about proper medicine."

Garran pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply. "Forgive his ignorance. He doesn't understand your ways."

"Heh." Kaelvar held up the half-carved figurine - the rough shape of a wolf emerging from the wood. "Nothing to forgive. I don't understand how your 'civilized' folk worship abstract concepts while spitting on the ancestors who built everything they take for granted either."

The knife bit deeper, the blade whispering through grain like a confession.

Garran let out a weary sigh. "I'm not here to debate religion, Kaelvar." His gauntleted hand rested on the door's iron handle. "Right now, the only thing I believe in is killing demons and keeping people alive."

Beyond the door, someone moaned in pain. The scent of blood and burning herbs grew stronger.

Kaelvar finally looked up, his dark eyes reflecting the torchlight like still water. "That's something we can agree on, oathbreaker."

The wood in his hands took shape - not a wolf after all, but a hound with too many teeth.

Garran opened his mouth to speak when the door creaked open. The healer emerged, his robes stained with blood and sweat, his face drawn with exhaustion. Two soldiers flanked him, their expressions grim.

Garran stepped forward. "How is he?"

The healer didn’t meet his eyes. He simply shook his head and brushed past, his silence more damning than any words.

Garran’s jaw tightened. He turned to Kaelvar. "Come on. It’s your turn."

One of the guards stiffened. "The healer said no one is allowed inside. The young lord needs rest."

The other eyed Kaelvar’s tattoos, his lip curling slightly. "No offense, but if even a priest of Velmara couldn’t help him, what’s a..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the Varekai’s ancestral markings.

Garran’s voice turned to steel. "He pulled me from the rubble after the walls fell. I had one foot in the grave—now I’m standing here. He knows what he’s doing."

The guards hesitated. A silent exchange passed between them before one finally relented, stepping aside with a grudging nod.

Garran pushed the door open. "Move."

Kaelvar followed, his expression unreadable.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of blood, herbs, and something fouler—the creeping taint of infection. Edric lay on a makeshift cot, his skin ashen, his breathing shallow.

The bandages around his torso were soaked through, the wound beneath pulsing an unnatural shade of black at the edges.

Kaelvar moved swiftly to Edric’s side, his fingers probing the wound in the young lord’s shoulder with clinical precision. The puncture was clean—a duskhound’s spine-spear had gone straight through, leaving jagged edges where the barbed tip had torn free.

"Wound was cleaned properly," Kaelvar muttered, tracing the darkened veins spiderwebbing from the injury. "But not the poison."

Garran hovered close, his voice low. "Can you help him?"

Kaelvar didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned his attention to the bandages around Edric’s stomach, carefully peeling them back.

What lay beneath made both men freeze.

Three deep gashes—claw marks—rippled with corruption. The flesh around them had turned an ugly shade of black, the edges crawling with squirming, pale maggots that seemed to pulse in time with Edric’s ragged breaths.

Kaelvar recoiled slightly, his face hardening. "Nothing can be done about this."

Garran’s grip on his sword tightened. "What about the medicine you used on me?"

Kaelvar shook his head. 

"That was no common remedy. It was moonbloom—harvested under the black sun, distilled with ancestor rites. My village might have another dose or two, but..." His eyes flicked to Edric’s ashen face. "He’d be dead before I crossed the first ridge."

A strained silence settled between them. The only sound was Edric’s labored breathing, each exhale shallower than the last.

Then—

A weak cough. Edric’s eyelids fluttered, his cracked lips moving. "D-Dornblade...?"

Garran leaned in. "Save your strength."

Edric's hand trembled as he brushed the festering claw marks on his stomach. "Saw what did this..." He shuddered, a rattling breath escaping his lips. "Just... a damned vermin-touched. A walking corpse." 

His fingers curled into fists, knuckles white with frustration. "Some warrior I am..."

Garran leaned forward, locking eyes with the young lord. "There's no shame in that. I've seen great warriors choke on their own blood from a single rat bite in the Maw. Such is war."

Edric's smile was a bitter, broken thing. "I know... but even still..." His voice cracked. "I didn't expect my end to be so... miserable."

"Whatever fate awaits you," Garran said, his voice rough but firm, "people will remember you stood fighting when lesser men fled. Every noble in this city is either dead or hiding in a wine cellar somewhere."

A weak chuckle escaped Edric's lips, dissolving into a wet cough that sprayed dark blood across his chin. He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. "

Then I can... look my father in the eyes when I'm gone... Tell him I was... the best of his sons." He exhaled sharply, his gaze sharpening through the pain. "Enough self-pity. You're here... for a reason."

Garran took a deep breath. "We're in a bad position. Too many civilians to protect, not enough soldiers to hold. We can't fight, can't keep hiding, and running is suicide."

Edric barked a laugh that turned into a grimace. "If you expect... a half-dead man to solve this... you're asking too much."

"I just need a nudge," Garran pressed. "You're the Duke's son. Lived here your whole life. There must be something—hidden passages, a shelter, anything."

Edric’s breath rattled as he shook his head. "If you’re asking this... then you clearly don’t know House Vaeldrith." A bitter smirk twisted his lips. "We come from a long line of arrogant fools who didn’t believe in defeat. None of my ancestors ever built hidden passages or secret shelters."

Garran’s jaw tightened. Even Kaelvar’s usual stoic expression flickered with unease.

"But..." Edric coughed, flecks of blood dotting his chin. "This city is the oldest in the kingdom. Rebuilt so many times over the centuries... there are rumors of another city beneath our feet. Or at least its ruins."

Garran’s eyes sharpened. "We can take shelter there if we find it. Do you know how to get down?"

Edric shook his head weakly. "I don’t. But if the ruins exist... start with the oldest buildings. The ones that survived every siege." His hand trembled as he pointed toward the church’s altar. "There are places in Vaeldrith with foundations... older than the kingdom itself."

Kaelvar’s fingers brushed the stone floor, his tattoos pulsing faintly. "The ancestors whisper of hollow places below us. They remember what men have forgotten."

Garran turned to Kaelvar, his voice low. "Will your ancestors kindly point us to the entrance?"

The Varekai warrior shook his head, the bones woven into his hair clacking softly. "They remember the places, not the paths. We must find the way ourselves."

Garran exhaled sharply, his gaze sweeping over the ancient stonework of the chapel. "Then we start here. This place has stood longer than the kingdom itself."

Kaelvar's fingers traced a crack in the flagstones. "And if it isn't here?"

"Then we're in trouble," Garran admitted, rubbing his temple. "We'd need to search other old buildings. And somehow move the wounded and civilians through open streets once we find it."

The image of duskhounds pouring through the shattered gates flashed through his mind.

Kaelvar's hum was grim. "The Maw's children would descend on us like starving wolves."

Then—a thought. Sylrithiel's face surfaced in Garran's memory, her strange eyes glowing with power. "Not necessarily," he said slowly. "The elf sorceress... she might be able to conceal us. At least long enough to reach safety."

Kaelvar studied him for a long moment before nodding. "Far from certain hope. But a start."

From the cot, Edric stirred weakly. "Seems... you'll be busy." Blood speckled his lips as he forced a smile. "Go."

Garran hesitated, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. "I can ease your suffering."

"Don't waste time," Edric rasped. "I still need... to make peace with the gods anyway."

The words hung between them - not a plea, but a lord's final command.

Garran straightened, offering Edric the only tribute a warrior could give another at the end: the truth. "You fought well... my friend."

Then he turned away, following Kaelvar toward the shadowed alcoves of the ancient chapel, where the secrets of a buried city might yet save what remained of Vaeldrith.