Lastlight's Revenant #3

The forest clung to life in patches.

Here, a stand of oaks stood vibrant, their leaves rustling in the twilight breeze. There, a dozen yards closer to the Maw’s influence, the trees twisted into skeletal hands, bark sloughing off like dead skin.

Garran leaned against one of the dying ones, its trunk groaning under his weight as he tied off the last bandage.

A sudden heat prickled behind his eyes.

He frowned, probing his wounds—clean, no festering, no telltale black veins of demon-poison. Yet his skull pulsed like a forge bellows. Not poison. Not infection. Then what—

A twig snapped.

Garran moved on instinct, scattering leaves over his meager supplies before melting into the underbrush. The forest held its breath.

Then they came.

Seven Duskhounds, their spindly limbs cutting through the mist like scythes. They chittered to one another, a sound like knives dragged across bone. Garran had heard their hunting cries before, but this was different—lighter, almost giddy.

One held something in its clawed grip.

A human head.

Kael’s face was frozen in slack-jawed surprise, his tongue lolling over bloodless lips. One eye was gone—plucked clean. The other stared blankly at the canopy, as if still tracking escape routes.

Garran’s fingers dug into the earth, a cold, familiar weight settling in his chest. 'Should’ve run faster, boy.'

The Duskhounds paused, their lidless eyes scanning the trees. One sniffed the air, then let out a questioning trill.

Garran didn’t breathe.

The demon tilted Kael’s head toward its brethren and waggled it, as if sharing a joke.

The pack erupted in wet, clicking laughter as Garran gritted his teeth in silence.

Soon enough, the Duskhounds' laughter faded into the trees, their twisted silhouettes swallowed by the mist. Garran remained still, his fingers curled into fists so tight his nails bit into his palms.

He wanted to charge after them. Wanted to carve his fury into their flesh until nothing remained but flesh scraps.

But he couldn’t.

He was wounded. Exhausted. Barely standing. Even one Duskhound would be a death sentence now, let alone seven.

And Kael was dead.

The boy had been undisciplined, cowardly, and incapable of keeping his mouth shut—but he hadn’t deserved this. None of them had.

Garran exhaled, slow and controlled, the air leaving his lungs like a dying man’s last breath. The Duskhounds would return to the campsite eventually.

They’d find the Tick Mother butchered, their kin slaughtered.

They’d know someone had survived.

And then they’d hunt him.

He pushed himself up, ignoring the protest of his wounds, and gathered his supplies. His sword felt heavier now, the weight of loss pressing down on him as much as steel.

He spared one last glance in the direction the demons had gone.

Then he turned and limped into the forest, toward Lastlight.

...

The forest blurred.

Garran didn’t know if he’d walked for hours or days. The sky hung low and swollen, the trees twisting into skeletal hands that reached for him as he staggered past.

His fever had become a second pulse, throbbing behind his eyes, in his teeth, under his fingernails.

Need to keep moving.

The thought was an anchor, the only thing tethering him to the dying world.

Then the shadows spoke.

“You are the last son of House Dornblade.” His father’s silhouette, carved from smoke and memory, blocked his path. The old lord’s voice was iron wrapped in velvet. “Your brother is dead. Your sister is wed to a fool. The family’s honor rests on your sword.”

Garran tried to push past. His hands passed through the figure like mist.

“It's not so bad here...” The silhouette of Dain Holloway materialized beside a rotten oak, his armor pristine despite the decay around them. “Do you know why they call it Lastlight, boy? Because beyond its walls, there is only the Maw’s hunger. Only darkness.”

A third shadow erupted from the ground—his squire, Alric, his boyish face contorted in a scream. “I would’ve died for you! Why did you let them take me? Why didn’t you fight?”

Garran’s knees buckled. He caught himself on a tree trunk, its bark sloughing away like dead skin under his fingers.

Then he appeared.

The king.

Not a memory. Not a shade. Solid. His cobalt robes were pristine, his circlet gleaming, but his eyes—

—oh, his eyes were still molten gold.

“Was it worth it, Oathbreaker?” The king’s smile split his face too wide, needle teeth glistening. “All those vows. All that blood. For this?”

Garran’s sword was in his hand. He didn’t remember drawing it. “You’re dead.”

The king laughed, the sound like bones rattling in a hollow chest. “I wouldn't be so sure.”

He lunged.

Garran swung—

—and the world shattered into blackness.

...

Garran woke to the sting of rope around his wrists.

He lay on a bedroll, stripped to his breeches, his skin prickling under the coarse wool blanket draped over him. The tent was small, its walls taut canvas dyed a faded blue—not barbarian hides, not Repentant scraps. 

His wounds had been cleaned. Fresh bandages wrapped his ribs, the linen crisp and smelling of vinegar. No fever. No festering. Someone had tended to him with cold, clinical precision.

'Not bandits either. They would’ve left me to rot.'

The flap of the tent whipped open.

A soldier stepped inside, his surcoat bearing the crimson and gold of Vaeldrith—the ancient first city of the kingdom, its spires now ruled by a duke of royal blood. The man’s eyes locked onto Garran’s, then darted away as he bellowed over his shoulder:

“Captain! The half-dead bastard's finally awake!”

Garran’s muscles tensed. Vaeldrith’s men, this close to the Maw? No noble's soldiers had any business this close to the Maw unless they wanted something buried or stolen.

And he had no time for their games.

Lastlight needed warning. The Duskhounds’ numbers, the Tick Mother’s spawn, whatever monstrosity they’d been scouting for—

Another shadow darkened the tent’s entrance.

The captain—a broad-shouldered man with a salt-and-pepper beard and the weathered face of a career soldier—studied Garran like a butcher sizing up a side of meat. His nose wrinkled slightly.

"You stink of the Maw," he said finally, tapping Garran's branded collarbone with the tip of his sheathed sword. "And that mark says you're not just Repentant. You're an oathbreaker. So tell me—what's a broken knight doing thirty miles south of Lastlight's territory?"

Garran's head snapped up. "Thirty miles—?"

A younger soldier leaned in, whispering urgently. "Sir, he was raving about Duskhounds and dead scouts when we found him. Fever had him in its teeth."

The captain's expression shifted—not quite pity, but something close to understanding. He exhaled through his nose. "Let's try again. What happened to you?"

Garran's fingers twitched against the ropes. Every second wasted was a second closer to disaster. "My unit was sent to scout the Maw's silence. We were ambushed by Duskhounds—a full pack, working in unison. They slaughtered everyone. I'm the only one left to warn Lastlight that—"

"Untie him," the captain interrupted.

The soldier hesitated. "But sir, he's clearly—"

"Now."

The ropes fell away. Garran rose, biting back a groan as his wounds protested. "I'll need my weapon and armor back. Supplies— and a horse, if you can spare one."

The captain's mouth tightened. "I admire your devotion, but there's no need for you to report anymore..."

Garran stared at the captain, the man's face swimming in his vision for a moment before he forced clarity back into his voice.

"Then Lastlight's already been warned," he rasped. "You must be the reinforcements." A nod, sharper this time. "That's even better. Take me with you. I know these lands—"

The captain's mouth opened, then shut with a click of teeth. His fingers flexed against his sword belt—once, twice—before he spoke again.

"That's not it either..."

Garran's patience snapped. "Then what is it? Spit it out."

The captain exhaled through his nose, then turned abruptly and threw open the tent flap.

Night air rushed in—thick with the scent of damp earth and something fouler, something electric.

The horizon was wrong.

Where Lastlight's watchtowers should have stood, a pillar of sickly green light speared the sky, its glow pulsing like a diseased heart. It cast the distant hills in corpse-light, painting the world in shades of gangrenous flesh.

Garran's breath left him in a rush.

"You've been unconscious over a week," the captain said, voice hollow. "Lastlight fell five days ago."

Somewhere in the distance, something that was not quite a wolf howled.

The pillar throbbed in answer.