The wagon was moving along the dirt road, through the trees.

There was one at the reins, driving it, controlling the horses, and another sitting beside it. Doing nothing in particular. The rest of the escorting soldiers were surrounding the wagon, riding on their own horses.

They weren't going at too slow a pace, but they weren't hurrying too much either.

Because there wasn't any hurry.

The journey had almost come to an end, without incident. Just one scenery after another.

The tranquility of nature.

Everyone was grateful for it, considering the horror they had lived through two weeks ago.

And had continued to live through. The worst could be and often was the after.

They had all been grateful to be able to get away from the capital, and not be constantly surrounded by reminders of the horrors of war, of the suffering of the people. Of their failure to protect them.

They had seen it as an opportunity.

To clear their heads, to think about something else.

And to do something good. If this went well, the queen's knight, Desmond Orosco, would regain his strength. They all, as one, hoped with all their hearts that it would go well.

Not just for the good of the kingdom.

But for their own sake. Because they needed something to go right. After all that shit, they needed a victory like a man in the desert needed some water. Even if it was just a little.

Suddenly, those in the front of the wagon heard a strange noise.

A... impact on the wood.

Something must have fallen out of a tree, the driver thought. That was his last thought. The one next to him turned in the direction of the noise, while he was thinking that.

And then nothing, for both of them.

Nothing.

Their heads were severed from their necks by their guns, killed too quickly to see anything, or feel anything.

Had Desmond witnessed this, he would have reflected on the arbitrariness and cruelty of life.

One moment they had been alive, the next dead.

Without even realizing it.

Without even being able to have a 'last moment' per se.

Since they died so quickly, those two didn't have a chance to scream either, of course. But it would still be impossible for the other soldiers in the convoy not to have noticed what had happened, and they did.

They turned to look at what had happened. All they saw were the decapitated corpses of their comrades, blood spurting from the hole in their necks.

Their attention was quickly diverted from those two, despite the horror.

One of the wagon's wheels broke.

No, it was broken. The wood flew off. And the wagon, left driverless and without one of the wheels, lost control, careening off the road.

It rolled over several times and ended up upside down.

The horses screeched like hell as they twisted their legs in the air, out of their minds. Not all the legs. They had broken at least one on impact, which was part of the fear they felt, which made them squeal like that.

Part, but not all of it. Not even the major portion.

Because animals were perceptive, more connected to nature than humans.

And as such they instantly perceived the unnaturalness of the intruder, which was like a black hole in nature.

"What the hell is going on?"

"So easily..."

"Where is he?"

The remaining eight prepared to fight, drawing their weapons and circling the site, desperately searching for the attacker. He couldn't have just disappeared.

And he hadn't disappeared. They found him quickly, despite the fear clouding their minds.

There, standing in the middle of the dirt road.

With the blood of his companions dripping from his two swords. No, not swords. What he carried in his left hand was a sickle.

But that was not what made them tremble, which only increased the fear they already had.

They were soldiers. They were used to bloodshed, to losing comrades. Though they had seen enough of both in a single day to last a lifetime, that alone would not shake their hearts.

What did affect them was the appearance of the attacker.

It was an inhuman creature, and not in the same sense as the dogs of the Empire. For these at least looked human, on the outside.

That thing, on the other hand...

They had no words to describe it.

And the horror of seeing something as far removed from humanity as possible had them frozen like statues.

Until that thing set itself in motion.

Throwing itself into their midst.

Kicking off a massacre.

——

Desmond woke up.

He hadn't had a good night's rest. He ached all over, especially the back of his head, and his body still felt heavy. The back of the wagon wasn't the best place to sleep.

He was still so tired that his eyes were closing. That his eyelids weighed him down like the slab of a tomb.

Well, he didn't usually sleep too well anyway.

His heart jumped into his throat.

Sleep? What was he saying? It wasn't that. Something had happened.

They'd had an accident, and now... he could feel the blood running down his skin, on the back of his head. Its warmth, how sticky it was.

He opened his eyes with a start.

And the first thing he looked nervously for was Abigail. He knew no one could take her away from him.

But that's what he did first anyway. Pure instinct.

He couldn't have it any other way, but he saw her quickly and as expected. That is, perfect. Nothing had happened to her. Nothing could have happened to her.

If she had been hurt during the accident, she had already regenerated.

"You're fine," Desmond said unnecessarily, breathing a sigh of relief.

Abigail looked back at him. She crawled to his side and tucked him into her arms, into a mother's warmth again.

"Yes. And you.

The horses were screeching, maddened. But they weren't the only screaming that could be heard from here, he realized. Or maybe it had started just now.

In any case, he was hearing human sounds.

Of pain. Of death.

People in agony.

It hadn't been an accident. The wagon had been attacked and apparently the bodyguards were being slaughtered outside. So they couldn't be ordinary highwaymen.

It was hard to think with how much his head ached, but they had to be enemies who knew who was in this wagon.

And they wanted to stop them from getting anywhere.

Imperials.

It had to be that, surely.

"We have to do something," Amy said. And then she crawled across....

Through what had once been the ceiling. Only then did Desmond realize that the wagon had ended up upside down. In his defense, he had hit his head.

Before Amy could get her hands on the curtains at the back to open them and see, the screaming had stopped.

When she finally opened them, they were met with what Desmond had feared.

That is, nothing but corpses.

It was hard to count the dead being in pieces and all over the place, but there was no doubt all the bodyguards had been slaughtered.

So easily. So quickly.

But then he turns his head, looking at them.

The enemies must have greatly outnumbered them to accomplish that, but even then they should have lasted longer, right? More importantly, really....

Where were they?

If there were so many enemies, where were they? He could only see the corpses.

His heart was pounding in his chest and beating faster and faster. He did not understand why. He was weak, useless. He had been reduced to less than a shadow of his former self.

More like an empty shell.

But Abigail and the others should be able to handle any force that came along easily, even without his help.

So why did he feel such fear?

An enemy, a single enemy, made an appearance. Walking across the battlefield, through and over the corpses of the people it had killed, like death itself.

It seemed to be a living shadow. He seemed to be...

But that was not possible!

They had killed him. They had pushed him into the blue fire, watched as the flames consumed him until they left nothing, nothing, nothing. So this couldn't be possible.

Was he dreaming? Was he dreaming?

He didn't want to believe it, but there was no way to deny the truth. How could there be two different creatures that looked like living shadows?

That was what he thought until the enemy turned around.

In his direction.

Staring at them, and what a stare.

Its eyes glowed, blue and cold as ice. The iris was neither black nor blue, but white.

As was his whole face, except for the crooked mouth. Which, incidentally, looked more like an ugly cut than lips. The white of his face was more like chalk than bone.

It almost looked painted, but it was not. It couldn't be.

Speaking of bones.

He could see her bones clearly, even through the cover of the darkness that rippled constantly, a sea of living darkness, violent, ready to burst.

He could see his neck clearly, his skull.

From the waist down nothing was visible, however. Nothing except the blackness of his body, which was largely painted with that chalky white, tracing strange patterns in the darkness of his body.

Carrying two weapons, dripping with the blood of his enemies.

Poor bastards who had never had a chance, who should never have been brought here, despite the consideration the princess had shown by giving them an escort at the time of the kingdom's greatest need in many years. Perhaps ever.

In his left hand he carried a sickle. It wasn't the most practical weapon.

On the right was the strangest sword he had ever seen. Blade bent in a way that didn't look too practical either, but it had clearly been very effective.

Along the blade there were like... teeth, protruding. That was the first word that came to his mind.

And, incidentally, the red that covered it wasn't just the red of blood. But also a red like that of naked muscle, wet and throbbing. Not only on the blade, but also on the hilt.

"What the hell is that thing?" Christina asked. It had taken the words right out of her mouth.

That was a question neither of them could answer. And, frankly, Desmond couldn't even answer it. He had enough problems, big and small.

He didn't need to add another mysterious leftover to that mess.

He just wanted to get it out of the way the sooner the better.

That thing hadn't even been moving. It had just been watching them silently, as if sizing them up. Or as if waiting for something to happen.

Had. Because it suddenly turned and shot off, disappearing into the woods.

Slowly and after a while, Christina emerged from the wagon, putting her feet on the ground. Amy trailed behind her. Desmond didn't move an inch, he needed time to recover still, not that he was going to go very far even after he 'recovered'.

Abigail, behind him, hugging him, didn't move either.

"Whatever it is, we're going to stop it," Amy replied.

"Yes. We can't afford to let it live. Give it a second chance to finish us off."

He understood the logic, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Quite the opposite. It was easier to get angry at things you couldn't deny, no matter how much you wanted to.

"Abigail, you.... You're not coming, of course. Forget it."

Yeah. She wouldn't part with him at a time like this.

Which wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Abigail squeezed him tighter, as if in response. Not that she needed to. Amy certainly hadn't asked a question.

Desmond was furious.

Most of all, furious with himself.

Because he was dead weight, now. Because he couldn't do anything except stand back and hope for the best. If he tried to get in the way, at worst he would die immediately, at best he would be nothing more than a liability.

It was hard to accept his condition, the reason they had made this trip in the first place, at the best of times.

But now, the first time they had faced real danger since the invasion?

Now he felt like throwing up, out of sheer rage.

But getting lost in the rage was easier than letting himself feel the fear bubbling beneath the surface. For some reason, ever since he had laid eyes on that creature's face... ever since he had been pierced by those eyes, glowing, cold as ice, cold as death....

Since then he had had the feeling that this would be the last time he would see them.

He was trying, but it was impossible to overcome that irrational fear.

He swallowed.

"Come back safely. Please."

They nodded, then set off. They had taken his words to heart and had no intention of dying, of course. They intended to keep their promise.

But, ah, how many promises were broken nonetheless.