Leonard's boots lose their hold in the slick red clay. He goes down hard, his knee smashing into a submerged stone, his chest slamming flat into the mud. The downpour pounds his back like a barrage of fists.
"Henry!"
The name tears from his throat, ruined and wet.
Through the thick sheets of grey rain, he sees the small, dark shape huddled in the hollow of the pine roots twenty paces ahead.
Leonard pushes himself up, his arms shaking under the strain.
The Creature's venom still drags at his blood, turning his legs into heavy, unyielding trunks of lead.
He lunges forward, tripping, stumbling, his hands scraping through the mire, his lungs burning with the sharp stink of sulfur and wet earth.
He reaches the boy.
Henry's clothes are shredded, thin ribbons of linen matted with mud and heavy, black-veined blood.
Three jagged, parallel furrows run across his back and shoulders, the flesh ripped open to the bone.
He lies curled on his side, his knees drawn tight against his chest, his arms locked around his head the exact, small posture of a child waiting out a beating.
"I'm... sor... ry..." Henry's voice is a dry, barely audible rasp against the roar of the storm.
Leonard drops to his knees in the mud. He slides his hands under Henry's shoulders, lifting the boy's head onto his thigh, cupping his cold, mud-smeared cheek with a trembling palm.
"Open your eyes, Henry!" Leonard's voice breaks, a jagged sob catching in his throat.
"Open them! I'm sorry... I'm sorry about everything. It was me... I walked into it..."
Henry's eyelids flutter, opening a sliver. The pupils do not focus on the scarred, bleeding face of leonard leaning over him.
Through the grey sheets of rain, the dark sky parts for Henry.
Down through the mist, a woman steps forward, her hair pinned back, her soft eyes bright and free of bruises, her lips parted in a warm, familiar smile.
A small, serene curve touches the corner of Henry's split lip. "I can finally... be with you again... Mother," he whispers into the rain.
The woman nods down at him, her hand reaching out through the light.
"No! No, no, no!" Leonard screams, his thumb digging into Henry's jaw, trying to tether him to the dirt.
"Don't say that! Keep your eyes open! Henry!!!"
The white fog surges inward from the treeline.
It glides over the mud like a physical tide, closing the space, blinding the trees, swallowing the light until the air turns solid, opaque, and cold.
Leonard's tears fall hot against Henry's face, but the boy's skin is already losing its heat. The breath stops.
The body in his arms goes slack, a dead weight against his knee.
The fog shifts.
The weight vanishes from Leonard's lap.
Leonard's hands clutch empty air. He snaps his head up, his jaw slack, his vision swimming.
Standing three paces away in the grey gloom is Rose.
She wears the pink wool dress, her red hair loose and dry against the storm. She smiles down at him, her lips curved into that sweet, patient line.
Her left arm is thrust straight forward, buried to the elbow through the center of Henry's chest.
The dead boy hangs from her limb like a tossed cloak, his chin resting against her pale shoulder, his boots dangling inches above the mud.
"Didn't I say?" Rose croons, her voice soft, carrying over the roar of the rain. "I'll make you watch as I devour your friends."
A blinding, red white heat erupts behind Leonard's eyes. The grief vanishes, burned away instantly by a raw, suffocating wave of fury. He roars a sound that rips the scab from his torn throat and lunges forward.
He drags his longsword from the mud, lifting the iron blade above his head with both hands.
"Give him back, you monster!!!"
He drives the sword down with every ounce of weight left in his body.
The Creature does not step back. It simply twists its left arm, shifting Henry's lifeless torso directly into the descending arc of the steel.
The blade stops an inch from Henry's frozen, pale forehead.
Leonard's arms lock, the iron trembling violently in his grip, his muscles screaming as he forces the blade to halt.
Tears and rain stream into his open mouth.
Rose's arm thrust through Henry's chest suddenly shifts. The skeletal, multi-jointed fingers extend from the exit wound in the boy's back and clamp around Leonard's throat.
The grip is iron. It lifts Leonard holding him inches above the red mud.
"I'm not the monster here," the creature whispers. The voice is Rose's, but the breath is sour, smelling of old graves. "You are. You abandoned your friends. He died because of your selfish desires."
With a sudden, violent snap of its arm, the creature hurls Leonard across the yard.
Leonard flies through the fog, slamming back-first into the stone well before dragging through thirty feet of red mud.
He grunts, the air exploding from his lungs, his sword sliding away into the weeds.
He pushes his hands into the dirt, his teeth baring through the blood on his chin, and forces himself back onto his feet.
He breaks into a staggering run back toward the shadow.
Before he can close the distance, the creature shifts.
The pink dress tears open down the center. The vertical seam splits from forehead to groin, and the left side of the human shape sloughs off into the mud with a wet, heavy splash.
What remains is the the vertical half.
The single corner of its mouth splits wide, expanding backward past the ear, revealing rows of thin, needle-covered bone.
It opens that half-jaw wide, the single eye rolling backward into the skull, and brings its mouth down over Henry's head and shoulder.
With a wet, sickening crunch of bone and tearing sinew, the Creature bites Henry's left side completely away.
"Henry!" Leonard's scream breaks into a bloody rattle.
The Creature flicks its arm, throwing the remaining, ragged half of Henry's corpse straight at leonard.
The impact hits him like a falling timber. The weight knocks him off his feet, launching him backward through the fog.
He smashes through the shattered wooden frame of an abandoned house, the structure collapsing inward as he crashes into the dark interior.
A sharp, violent pain explodes in his left thigh. A thick, splintered wooden beam from the wall has driven straight through the meat of his leg, pinning him to the floorboards.
Leonard screams, his head falling back against the dirt. Blood gushes from his nose, his mouth, and the deep cut across his forehead.
He forces his upper body up, his hands shaking violently as he looks down at his chest.
Henry's remaining half-torso lies across Leonard's collarbone.
The single, unmoving eye of the boy stares flat and empty straight into Leonard's face, grey water pooling in the socket.
"Argh... argh..."
Leonard shoves the weight off his chest, pushing the body to the side with a raw, desperate grunt.
He reaches down with both hands, grabbing the thick wooden stake protruding from his thigh. He bites his lower lip until the skin splits, the blood running down his chin, and pulls.
The wood slides out of his flesh with a wet, tearing sound. A fresh wave of blood floods over his pants.
Tears cut clean tracks through the mud on his cheeks, but his eyes are fixed, wide, and vacant.
The pain doesn't reach his mind anymore.
He reaches out with a trembling hand and gently presses his palm over Henry's eye, drawing the lid down over the empty stare.
He grips the hem of his shirt, tearing a long, wide strip from the cloth. He lays the fabric carefully over Henry's pale, bloody face, covering the ruin.
Leonard stands up.
His left leg buckles instantly under his weight. He catches himself on a upright support beam, forcing his spine straight, and begins to limp forward out of the ruined house, dragging his mangled leg through the dirt.
"Grace!" his voice is a broken, shivering rascal against the cold downpour. "My lady!"
The fog presses tight against his chest, offering no landmarks, no shapes, no answers.
Leonard's knee gives way completely. He drops into the red mud, his hands sinking into the mire as he lifts his blood-smeared face to the black, pouring sky.
"So you really killed everyone?" he roars into the storm, his shoulders shaking with a hollow, ruined laugh. "Just take me too, then! Take me!"
"Leonard..."
The voice is faint, muffled by the rain, coming from ten paces ahead in the white dark.
Leonard freezes.
He pushes himself up, his eyes wide as he stumbles forward, limping, falling into the clay, scrambling back onto his feet, driven by a sudden, desperate surge of panic.
"Grace! Grace!"
Through the shifting curtains of grey mist, a shape crawls through the mud toward him.
It is Grace.
Her dress is shredded, stained black with filth and deep red with fresh blood.
Three long, jagged claw marks run from her collarbone down across her pale chest.
She reaches an arm out toward him, her fingers flexing weakly in the rain.
Leonard breaks into a frantic, uneven run, dragging his broken leg behind him. "Grace!"
He extends his hand, his fingers inches from hers.
A shadow drops from the roofline above.
A short, dark blade flashes through the grey rain, driving straight down into the top of Grace's skull.
"No!"
Leonard throws his heavy frame forward, his arms outstretched to tackle the killer, but the figure moves without sound or weight, stepping sideways like a phantom.
Leonard crashes flat into the red mud, his face plowing into the wet clay beside Grace's motionless hand.
He pushes his head up, his teeth bared, his eyes bloodshot and wild. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you motherfucker!!!!"
The shadowy figure reaches up with a slow, deliberate movement, pulling back the heavy, rain-soaked hood of her cloak.
Short, silver hair catches the dull light. Cold, sharp eyes look down at the bleeding man on the ground.
"You look pathetic," she says, her voice flat, cutting through the sound of the downpour like thin iron.
"Do you know that? You couldn't even sense me. And this illusion... she wasn't real. Get on your feet, you sorry excuse for a human."
Leonard stares up at her face. The rage in his eyes flickers, dissolving into a strange, hollow relief. His lips curve into a small, broken smile as the name leaves his mouth like a prayer.
"Sylvie..."
His vision goes black. His forehead drops into the mud, and the noise of the storm fades into absolute silence.
Sylvie frowns, her gaze shifting away from the unconscious man to sweep across the empty, rain-drenched square.
The white fog clings to the base of the abandoned cottages, silent and motionless.
"As I expected. A ghost town." Her brow tightens, her voice dropping to a low murmur.
"And I am certain that creature is responsible. No wonder none of the low-tier adventurers sent to investigate ever returned."
She crouches beside Leonard's massive, mud-caked frame.
Without a word, she slides her hands beneath his shoulders and knees, lifting his weight into her arms as if he were made of light timber.
A single heartbeat passes.
Her silhouette blurs, and she vanishes from the open square.
The fog does not even shift before she reappears inside the dry, shadowy interior of a nearby cottage. She sets Leonard down carefully, leaning his back against the solid timber wall.
Reaching into a small leather pouch at her waist, she retrieves a square piece of parchment inscribed with faint lines.
She presses the paper flat against the center of the wooden door.
Sylvie closes her eyes. A low, rhythmic incantation leaves her lips, barely louder than a breath. She presses her open palm against the center of the parchment.
A soft, golden glow blooms beneath her skin. The ink on the paper writhes, extending fine, hair-like lines that crawl across the timber frame, sealing the door in an invisible, humming barrier.
Satisfied, Sylvie unclasps her heavy wool cloak and drapes it over Leonard's shivering torso. She kneels beside him, her sharp eyes inspecting his wounds.
Her gaze stops at the deep, ragged hole in his left thigh. The flesh is torn, black blood slowly oozing into his pants. She reaches into her belt, pulls a clean strip of white linen from her kit, and wraps the wound tightly, binding it until the bleeding slows.
Next, she reaches back into her pouch, drawing out a small glass vial filled with a dense, shimmering amber liquid.
She twists the cork free, hooks her thumb behind Leonard's jaw, and forces his mouth open, tilting the liquid carefully down his throat until his swallow reflex catches.
Sylvie watches his chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, then pulls her hand back with a quiet click of her tongue.
"Tsk. What a waste of a high-grade potion."
---- End Of Chapter --------
Rest in peace, Henry. You'll be remembered throughout the journey. ❤️
The chapter is here, as promised!
This chapter is being released simultaneously on both Royal Road and WebNovel. However, starting with the upcoming chapters, Royal Road will get early access, with each chapter releasing there first and arriving on WebNovel a day later.
I'd really appreciate your support on Royal Road. It means a lot to me, and I've updated everything there, so feel free to check it out!
The next chapter is scheduled for Friday, with a two-day gap between releases.
Thank you for reading and supporting the story!