Chapter 1 - The iron basin and the lantern
It is the night of the Awakening in Caelor, and every child four years of age is decreed by law to attend.
The iron basin stands at the center of the town square, red with rust and filled with last week's stormwater. Around it, the people gather - mothers clutching children, fathers and knights with hands on sword-hilts, priests in grey robes muttering their chants.
Drink, Breathe, Live.
The forty children gathered to undergo the ceremony this year line up obediently, lips quivering and devoid of any mischief. They have heard the stories all year:
Drink, Breathe, Live.
Fail, and you will be lost forever.
A dog's howl sounds from across the village and breaks the silence. Shortly after, two more are heard, each with increasing urgency. The five knights on duty exchange glances, and one nods in acknowledgement. He runs off into the night, while onlookers watch him depart with worried faces.
At 18 years of age, Brent has seen his fair share of Awakenings.
Brent stands among the squires, his hands calloused from holding a shield too long in drills. His father, Lord Darius, watches with a face carved from iron. Brent has seen this look on his father before; one reserved for whenever ill news is received.
Brent remembers his own Awakening - the taste of rainwater, the spark in his chest, the lantern flickering. He remembers the boy beside him, who failed. He remembers the gasp of the boy's mother who broke down into uncontrollable sobbing, and the gaunt stares of the other adults.
Sometimes, Caelor is lucky. But on most Awakenings, there is always at least one child who fails. Brent watches as the first of forty children steps forward. A boy, tiny and shivering in the cold mist.
The priest fills a small goblet with the water in the basin and presses it into the soft palms of the child, where it seems to grow in size. He motions for the child to begin, and hoists a lantern high over his shoulder, making it visible to all. All throughout, the dull chanting of the priests continues.
Drink, Breathe, Live.
The first child drinks.
He breathes.
The light flickers.
The crowd exhales.
Drink, Breathe, Live.
The second child drinks.
She breathes.
The light is steady.
The chants come to an abrupt halt, giving way to suffocating silence. The girl blinks and her eyes open wide. Right before her lips part, the priest covers her mouth with a softly gloved hand in a smooth, practiced motion, stifling the scream before it even begins. The priest pulls her in close and lifts her off the ground, carrying her away from the crowd and towards her parents.
A second priest emerges with a fresh lantern, replacing the first. The chanting resumes, and the line continues, pace unbroken. Brent feels his stomach twist.
As every adult in Caelor is taught, the Awakening procedure uses chanting to induce mana circulation via hypnosis. When the children breathe in ambient mana and exhibit the desire to live, they awaken their mana and the ability to cast the most basic spell known to mankind - Mana Shield.
Without the Shield, even the weakest critters in the land will detect their now mana-infused life force. The unshielded do not last long.
Brent watches the crowd disperse after the last of the children complete their rite of passage. Lord Darius, head of house Caelor and recognized as the strongest knight in its lands, gives him a thin smile.
"Let's go home, son."
Chapter 2: Sir Halric
The bells of Caelor's keep toll at dawn, echoing through the streets.
The five members of the day's first patrol gather at the edge of town, each paired with their canine companions:
Sir Halric, the Bastion of Caelor. His armor is dented from decades of service, his shield broad and scarred, but his stance steady as iron. One of Brent's earliest memories is Sir Halric and Lord Darius fighting to a draw, his father's overpowering assault staunched by Sir Halric's steady, unrelenting shield.
Two militia guards: Darwin and Jace, each armed with a spear and shield, hearthroot farmers turned soldiers for their weekly patrol duty.
Two squires on their first ever patrol: Brent, sword and iron shield strapped tight, muscles tensed. Kaelen, trying to hide the tremor in his fingers by constantly readjusting his grip on his sword and shield.
A horn sounds from the path; the night patrol is returning. Sir Halric motions for the patrol members to gather.
"Form up a square - squires up front, guards behind, dogs in the middle," Sir Halric intones, his voice deep and calm. "Stay in formation, stay on the path, and keep your weapons ready. Breathe deep, and maintain focus."
Sir Halric unsheathes his sword and walks forward. Brent takes a deep breath and exchanges a nervous glance with Kaelen. Together, the patrol marches off to fulfill their duty.
After an hour's march, the flat topography of Caelor's lands gives way to the Broken Hills, a rocky set of outcroppings that yawn with the black mouths of abandoned mine shafts. Every year, a new vein is exhausted, and the patrol's path extends further.
The moment the Hills come into view, Brent feels something change in the air. Every step feels watched, observed by something unknown. The dogs whimper and glance at their owners, but continue following Sir Halric's steady, unhurried pace.
Then the dogs freeze. Their ears flatten, tails drop. A low whine escapes.
Sir Halric raises his right hand, fingers closed into a fist. With his left, he motions to his companion, who leaves his side to join the other dogs. The patrol halts and the square formation shrinks, shields pointed outward with the dogs within.
Brent feels his heart beat harder in his chest. He breathes deep, circulating the mana in his body, preparing for an attack… that never comes. The patrol remains in position, eyes scanning the Hills.
Sir Halric frowns. He glances at the dogs, whose tails remain down but are no longer whimpering.
"Resume march," he says, motioning for his companion to return to his side once again. The patrol spreads out, and continues on the path.
Five minutes later, Kaelen the squire uncharacteristically speaks up. "S-S-Sir Halric," he says, raising a hand to point at the entrance to a mine shaft no more than 4 metres away. "There's something… weird there, on the right."
Brent turns to look - and sees a thin fog escaping from the black hole. Inside, the darkness ripples unnaturally.
"Square!" Sir Halric roars. Brent takes a deep breath in a trained reaction, channeling mana throughout his body. Stepping back, Brent's view shifts away from Kaelen and the mine shaft, just in time to see the rocks on his side of the road blur and come alive.
Twenty metres away, a long, tall and slender humanoid figure materialises in his field of view, sand coloured and almost indistinguishable from the rocks around it. As Brent watches, its already blurry outline fades as mist emerges from the air around it. Within seconds, the pale white mist expands to cover the area, looking as if it had always been there.
"Pale Stalkers," Sir Halric says. "We must dispatch them. They hunt in twos. Stay here while I lure them out. Do not break formation, and protect the dogs."
Sir Halric motions for his dog to join the pack, then turns and walks alone towards the mine shaft that Kaelen pointed out, still moving at the steady, unhurried pace of his earlier march.
Brent strains his ears to catch the sound of Sir Halric's fading footsteps, not daring to turn away from his assigned viewpoint. Meanwhile, the mist slowly spreads towards the patrol, encroaching from both sides of the path.
When the first tendril of the mist touches Brent on his forearm, he immediately feels the hit to his mana shield. A deep sense of dread assaults him, and a chill begins to spread from the point of contact. The dogs behind him whimper, bodies pressed close to the ground.
The mist shifts, and then the stalker is upon them. A long, thin appendage emerges from the mist, travelling at a startling speed towards his forehead, but Brent is ready. He raises his shield to receive the blow, bracing for impact…
Somehow, Sir Halric is faster. The veteran knight is suddenly, impossibly, by Brent's side, his sword glowing. Brent's body recognizes the skill before his brain does. Momentum strike - flawlessly and effortlessly performed. The blade cleanly severs the Stalker's limb, and a second swing from Sir Halric lops off the head.
Brent blinks, and Sir Halric is gone. Then comes a sickening, fleshy sound from behind. Turning around to look, Brent sees two halves of the second Stalker lying in the ground, half a metre away from Kaelen. Kaelen, splattered with the grey ooze from the beasts' innards, stumbles forward and almost drops his shield.
"S-Sir, thank you Sir," Kaelen splutters.
"Well done keeping formation," Sir Halric says in an even tone, taking out a small cloth to wipe his sword clean. "We rest until the mist thins, then we continue."
"That's why he's the Bastion of the Border," Brent overhears Jace whisper to Darwin.
Chapter 3 Mire ghasts
The patrol continues its march, shadows slowly shortening as the sun rises higher. Finally, they reach their destination - the active mineshafts of the Broken Hills. Sir Halric sounds the horn, notifying the miners of the patrol's arrival.
A single miner approaches the patrol, refills their water skins, and sends them back on their way to town. Sir Halric continues to lead the way with his steady, measured steps.
An hour later, the dogs stop the patrol once more. This time, they bark in unison, growling with bared fangs towards the same direction at the back of the patrol.
Brent turns around to look - from the mouth of a collapsed mineshaft, a child sized humanoid shape, grotesquely twisted, staggers forward towards the patrol. Bulging, waterlogged, eyes glowing faint green. Then another. Then ten.
The air grows heavy, damp, suffocating. Every breath tastes like swamp water.
"Mire ghasts," Jace gasps. "The unshielded children…"
"Wall!" Sir Halric bellows as he places himself firmly in between the ghasts and the others. The patrol forms into a line behind him with rehearsed discipline, with the dogs trailing behind.
At four metres from the group, the mire ghasts lose all pretense of their stumbling, staggering gait. Instead, they begin to glide en masse towards the patrol at astonishing speeds, arms outstretched.
Sir Halric meets their charge head on, his sword glowing. One ghast is cut in half, another smashed back with his shield. He fights without making a single mistake, every strike precise, every step steady. To Brent, it looks impossible - a wall of iron holding the flood. All the others have to do is catch the strays who veer off to the sides, knocking the ghasts back into Sir Halric's striking distance.
However, Brent quickly notices something wrong. "They're reforming!" Brent cries out. Sure enough, the ghasts struck down and pushed back by Sir Halric are slowly rising again, regrowing lost body parts and staggering to their feet before resuming their frenzied attack on the group.
"Hold the wall!" Halric shouts, his sword and shield a deadly blur of activity. For the next ten seconds, the patrol succeeds in doing just that. The ghasts continue to reform, but slower each time, their mangled forms taking longer and longer to stabilize.
Out of the corner of his eye, Brent sees Kaelen stumble out of line, the consequence of missing a shield strike. Sir Halric releases a surge of mana, barreling through three ghasts and pushing Kaelen back to safety. But just as Sir Halric turns around to return to the center of the line, a newly reformed ghast manages to slam one claw into his lower back. For a split second, it looks to Brent like the claw is inside Sir Halric's armor itself. But the blow seemingly glances off, barely leaving a dent. Sir Halric grunts, his shield dropping a fraction.
Brent feels Sir Halric's mana signature waver for the first time. Then, Sir Halric resumes his position at the center of the fray, and resumes his slaughter as if nothing happened.
Three minutes later, Sir Halric stands atop a small mound of corpses, the mangled forms of the mire ghasts leaking brown, putrid liquid.
Just as Sir Halric's blade culls the last of the regenerating ghasts, the dogs howl in unison. Brent spins around, only to see an all-too-familiar mist creeping up on the group again.
"Square!" Sir Halric calls out, his voice audibly weaker than before. "Pale stalkers. Hold formation while I lure them out."
The dogs bound towards their masters, and the squad takes up formation once more.
The mist tendrils wash over the group, and Kaelen lets out a loud gasp as the cold takes root. Then, the mist touches the mound of ghast corpses.
The mound stirs.
Brent watches the ghasts reform out of the corner of his eye while the sickening feeling of dread intensifies. Somehow, they are coming back even faster than before.
Brent can hear Sir Halric battling the ghasts, a plethora of stomach churning noises from the hacking and slashing of wet meat. But this time, Brent knows - Sir Halric is alone, devoid of the support of the patrol's wall. Unable to turn around to look, the unending squelching noises of violence are Brent's only indicator that Sir Halric is doing well.
The mist gradually thickens around Sir Halric and begins to thin elsewhere, as if his ghastly battle is sucking in its essence. As the mist dissipates and vision clears, a long, slender figure coalesces into being in front of Brent, one extended limb swiping towards him at a high speed.
Brent takes a deep breath and raises his shield. This time, with Sir Halric occupied, the blow connects, slamming into his shield at a downward angle. The blow is heavy - too heavy. His shield buckles with a horrible crunch but doesn't break, and Brent is forced down to the ground, breathless and kneeling on one knee.
Brent hears a crack behind him, and something flies past his left side. There is no time to look at what it is. The stalker is already raising its second limb to strike Brent once more.
Suddenly, the stalker loses its balance and halts in confusion as it realises the limb is no longer attached to his body. A moment later, Sir Halric's glowing sword sends its head flying.
Brent finally turns to look at the object on the left: Darwin's severed head, eyes open and staring glassily back at him. Kaelen notices the headless body and screams, stumbling backwards and tripping over his own dog. The formation breaks, but Sir Halric doesn't falter.
"Repel! On 3! 2! 1!" Sir Halric commands. Both dogs and humans tense, and together at the "1!" a unified canine bark and human roar combine, bolstered with mana and stunning both the ghasts and the second pale stalker, who is moments away from impaling Kaelen. Halric steps forward and brutally smashes the stalker's jaw with a shield uppercut, sending its head flying.
As Sir Halric leans forward to pull Kaelen back on his feet, Brent realizes, too late, that the ghasts are unaffected by the patrol's spell, their gliding motion mistaken for stillness. This time, Brent sees it clearly, as time seems to slow to a crawl - the outstretched arm of the closest ghast reaching deep into Sir Halric's lower back once again, where his kidneys are, somehow bypassing his armor completely.
Sir Halric's mana signature completely vanishes. He swats the ghast away with his shield, but the blow is weak, barely managing to push it away. Then, against all odds, Sir Halric draws a deep breath and the glow in his sword returns, brighter than ever. He swings his sword in a low, wide arc, immediately splitting four ghasts in two.
Brent stands, weapons ready, waiting for orders that never come. Sir Halric silently dispatches the remaining ghasts faster than he can comprehend. This time, with the surroundings devoid of the mist from the pale stalkers, none of them reform.
The moment the last ghast falls, Sir Halric coughs up blood and falls to both knees. His shield hits the rocky dirt with a dull thud.
"My mana," Sir Halric rasps in disbelief. "It's gone."
The others watch, wide-eyed, as his shoulders slump. His grip loosens, and his sword clatters onto the ground. The Bastion of the Border is no more.