At first light, Frostfang stood still, as if holding its breath. The bells tolled a solemn note, echoing through streets choked with ash and snow. Farmers and soldiers alike watched from behind half-shattered walls as Aldric and his warband formed at the city's gate.
Kaelin rode out first, her spear gleaming silver, the standard of Frostfang snapping behind her in the bitter wind. Beside her, Aldric wore only a half-plate of battered iron, a crown of copper laid aside, his eyes set hard on the marsh.
Rowena, in her cloak of green and gold, walked among them with quiet words, blessing each soldier one by one, tracing circles of protection on their brows.
"Go with the strength of the earth," she whispered to a boy who could not have been more than sixteen, shaking with fear.
He nodded, tears clinging to his lashes, and took his place in the shield line.
Behind them, Maerlyn stepped from the cathedral, draped in a robe marked with ancient glyphs, holding a staff crowned with a piece of old star-iron. Her face was drawn and pale, but her voice was iron.
"This thing is old," she told them, "but not invincible. If we break its tether to the dream realm, it will bleed like any beast."
"How?" Aldric asked.
She hesitated. "I must see its true shape first. Until then… we must hold."
The gates opened with a groaning shriek. The wind blew snow across the blackened courtyard as they marched out, a thin line of human courage against something monstrous and unseen.
Past the city walls, the land changed. Where once the marsh had been a place of reeds and shallow water, it was now something twisted. The fog was so thick it clung to their armor, seeping into cloth and skin until they felt as if the marsh itself meant to swallow them.
The smell was worse — old rot, bile, the iron tang of old blood.
"Steady!" Kaelin barked, as men and women gagged on the stench.
Something hissed through the fog. A voice, and yet not a voice, calling each of them by name, whispering things no stranger could ever know:
Your mother's last words.
The secret guilt you carry.
The face of the friend you betrayed.
Soldiers stumbled, gripping their ears, trying to shut out the sounds.
Rowena strode among them, chanting prayers of the sun, a harsh, bright light in the dimness. Her voice rose like a shield, and one by one, the soldiers steadied.
They advanced, step by heavy step, until the marsh itself seemed to open before them.
There — at its heart — a shape rose from the water.
It was not simply a beast. It was a wound in the world, a gash of darkness where no light could exist. Outlines pulsed and shifted: too many arms, a head that turned and turned but never settled, eyes that opened and closed in countless layers like a sea of candle flames.
And behind those eyes — a terrible intelligence, old and vast, bored and hungry.
Kaelin choked on a curse. "Goddess save us."
Maerlyn gripped her staff so tightly the veins stood out on her hands. "Do not look too long!" she shouted. "It will draw you in!"
Aldric forced himself to stand tall, though his knees threatened to buckle.
"Creature!" he shouted into the horror. "I am Aldric, king of these people. You will not have them!"
The thing laughed, if such a sound could be called laughter — a rattling chorus of drowned children, mad priests, weeping lovers.
We will take all, it sang in a dozen dead tongues. All your hopes, all your dreams, all the sweet music of your hearts.
A tremor rolled through the earth. Mud boiled around their boots, sucking at them. Then shapes began to rise from the water — half-human, half-shadow, their faces pale and lifeless.
Kaelin rallied her shield wall. "FORM UP!"
The monsters struck like a crashing wave.
Spears lunged. Swords bit. But these things did not bleed; they came apart like smoke only to reform moments later, clinging to flesh, clawing at eyes, trying to slip inside the soldiers' hearts.
Aldric swung his axe again and again, cleaving them in half, but it was like trying to kill a nightmare.
Rowena called on the sun, burning one apart with a flare of blinding gold light. She wept as she did it, because its face had been that of a lost child.
Maerlyn, meanwhile, forced her way to the edge of the foul pool, heart hammering. She plunged her staff into the mud, chanting words so old they cracked the air like lightning.
The thing turned to look at her, and for a heartbeat, all the world went silent.
She saw it then — its true shape. Not just a beast, but a parasite that had devoured gods before, wearing their skins, drinking their worship like blood.
Its name was unpronounceable, a note of ruin.
It lunged for her, a mass of tendrils and screaming mouths.
But Maerlyn was ready. She hurled her power forward, striking it with a hammerblow of pure will.
"Back!" she cried. "Back to the dark you crawled from!"
Light burst from the staff, searing away part of the creature's illusions. For an instant, its hearts — seven of them — were revealed, beating in foul harmony.
"Aldric!" she screamed. "Strike there!"
Kaelin cut down another shadow, face streaked with blood and tears. "Hear that?" she shouted to Aldric. "We have a target!"
He nodded, teeth bared, and charged.
One of the hearts pulsed bright as a lantern, exposed. Aldric roared, raising his axe, and brought it down in a furious arc.
The blade struck true, biting deep, and the creature screamed.
The marsh boiled around them, throwing soldiers from their feet. The thing writhed and clawed at itself, but the wound remained. Black ichor poured out, hissing where it touched earth.
Rowena rallied the others, singing out a prayer so powerful it steadied every trembling heart:
Steel of our fathers, shield of our mothers,
Hold us through the night of terror.
Let no beast devour what we love.
The soldiers roared with her, pushing forward.
Kaelin led the second strike, driving a spear into a second heart, ripping it free.
Again the creature howled, the sound nearly shattering their minds.
The illusions faltered. Some soldiers fell to their knees, weeping at the visions still clinging to them, but Rowena's voice wove through their terror, binding their courage together.
Maerlyn advanced, her power blazing so bright even the shadows dared not touch her.
"ALL TO ME!" she called. "The hearts are weak! Strike!"
One by one, the soldiers hacked and stabbed, driving steel through the pulsing organs. Each heart burst in a wash of night-colored fire, the creature buckling, staggering under the blows.
When only one heart remained, it turned its eyes on Aldric, its rage so vast the air turned black.
I will not be ended by mortals.
Aldric spat blood from his mouth, lifted his axe, and said:
"Then you will end by me."
He leapt, all the strength of a broken kingdom in his arm, and cleaved through the final heart.
The beast's scream shook the marsh, rattled bones, shattered trees for miles.
It crumbled in on itself, rotting, dissolving, collapsing into mud and water and silence.
Then, as if the world exhaled, the fog lifted. The sun broke through, gold and gentle, washing the filth away.
Aldric fell to his knees. Kaelin was at his side in an instant, helping him stand.
"It's over," she breathed.
He looked at her, then past her, to Rowena and Maerlyn and the battered line of soldiers, and finally to the city walls beyond.
"No," Aldric said. "It begins. We will rebuild. Stronger than ever."
Maerlyn nodded, tears of relief on her cheeks. "Let the world remember this day," she whispered. "When the darkness came, and we did not break."
They marched home at dusk, carrying their wounded, singing a broken, defiant song.
And in the silence that followed, the marsh lay still.
The ancient horror was gone — but the scars of it would live on, deep in their dreams.
And in Frostfang, hope rekindled.