[POV Draemyr's Third-Person] [Tense: Past]
03:40 a.m. - At Fogged Field, Eryndral Village, Aurelthorn. (11 September 2025)
Moonlight sifted through the high boughs. Cold light on wet leaves. He moved with his men like fog. No clink. No loose strap. Breath kept small. The earth smelled of rot and rain.
"Stay low," he whispered, one hand down, two fingers cutting left. "Shields wrapped. No glint."
Boots found mud, not roots. The file behind him tightened. 5,000 hearts beat steady. The fog that Draemyr laid clung to the trunks and softened their edges. Good. Let the dark keep them.
The far field carried a noise that worked at bone. Not steel. Not men. Something older. A cry rose and fell like a mountain bending. The men around him stiffened.
"Hold," he breathed. "We move. Like we plan."
A thorn hedge forced them single file. He slid through and lifted a palm. The line stopped like one thing. In the gap between two pale trunks, he saw the shadow move. Not like a beast that knows it walks. Like night that learned hunger.
"By the old oaths," slipped out before he could cage it.
"My lord," the scout near his knee barely breathed, "that is the Umbrathorax."
A cold hand took his spine and squeezed once. The tales had teeth. The shape out there had more.
"Then the gods gave us a blade," he muttered, and he let the men hear him gather himself. "Listen. That is not ours problem. Let it unmake their line. We will be the knife in their back."
A young lieutenant swallowed hard. His knuckles were white on his spear. "If it turns on us—"
"It hates dawn," he cut him off. "It binds to night. We bind to purpose. Look at me." He waited till the man's eyes snapped to his. "We are not prey. We are Aurelthorn."
A murmur moved down the ranks like wind in winter wheat. Not fear. A new set of teeth.
"Change of plans, we don't need to destroy that village anymore, everything is in our favor."
"Swordsman," he gestured two forward. "Run the ridge. Count sentries. kills them all. Surprise attack. Antlersteed charge sideways."
They slid off, part of the trees. He moved them on, up the soft rise toward the birch crown that overlooked the creek and the trampled fields beyond. Through the fog, torchlight pulsed and stuttered where the Drakensvale host reeled. Banners bent. Shields bunched. A tail smashed a knot of men flat.
A veteran at his shoulder spat into the moss. "Mercy."
"Mercy is for after," he answered. "Right now we fight."
He dropped to a knee and drew the field with a finger in the loam. Hedge line here. Cart path there. Creek cutting their retreat. "Archers, 300, along the west hedge. Three ranks. Loose in sheets, not trickles. Aim for backs, joints, any red cloth you see. Sappers, 60—caltrops down the cart path. Oil at the tight bend by that dead elm. We light only on my word."
A runner crouched for orders. He tapped his shoulder. "Find Captain Veyr. Back swordsman ready on the term. Chase. We hold the noose and close it when they run."
He bolted, low and fast.
Another roar rolled from the field. The Umbrathorax coiled and struck again. Men flew. The fog shook. Then light—thin, stingy—began to tease the edge of the world.
"Dawn," he breathed. He felt the shift run through the rank like a hidden cord. "Good. It will slow. It will slide back."
A scarred bow-captain crept close, face stone. "Do we push now?"
"Not yet," he kept his voice iron. "Let them look at the beast. Let their lord shout and choke on mud. When the thing quits the field and their heads turn to follow, we take their spine. On my mark."
He nodded once and melted away.
He stood and let his men see him. No helm yet. Let them read his eyes. "Hear me," he called low, but every ear caught it. "Our strength lives in craft and timing. We strike when it hurts most. We fight for Eryndral, for the people, for the mothers who barred doors and prayed we came. We are not many. We do not need many. We need to be fight for survivor's."
A few jaws squared. A hand found a friend's shoulder. A breath left and did not shake.
A squire held his stag-crested helm out. He took it and settled the weight. Leather bit his chin. The world shrank to the slit. It felt like a promise.
"Signal lines?" he asked.
"Set," came from the dark. "Yellow cord to archers. Red to sappers. Tug order drilled."
"Good." He lifted a fist. "Move in tight."
They crawled the last stretch to the birch crown. The ridge gave them the whole miserable sprawl. Drakensvale tried to order a retreat toward the creek. Arrows from their hedge already needled them, small and mean. Their rear ranks buckled. Horns wailed to the west—three short blasts. Aurelthorn's. surprise attack. Draemyr army.
The Umbrathorax paused in the thinning fog, turned its furnace eyes once toward the sun, then slid into trees like a wound closing.
A hush took the field that hurt the ears.
He felt his men lean forward without moving. He felt himself do the same.
"On dawn's false light," he spoke into the bark under his palm, voice for his captains and for the roots. "We fall. We break them from behind. We end their arrogance. We write our name."
His fist lowered. No trumpet. No shout. Only hands finding bowstrings and blade grips.
They waited. Patience over pride. Steel over noise. There is only cruelty given to the enemy.
---
[POV Seraphina Third-Person] [Tense: Present]
05:00 a.m. - At Fogged Field, Eryndral Village, Aurelthorn. (11 September 2025)
Morning drags itself over the field like a wounded beast. Gold leaks through smoke. Crimson clings to churned mud and broken men. The forest exhales its slumber, but the mark remains—ripped lines, snapped banners, the stink of blood and oil. Two-thirds of her host lies in the dirt. The Umbrathorax eats the night and leaves only ruin, and, to her eye, Lord Draemyr rides the antlersteed back like a hawk.
"Rally to me!" Varrik's voice cuts through the fog. "On the banner!"
Varrik's turn. A knot of shields tightens around him as he carves a lane with his blade. His face is all iron and ash.
"Form on the left!" Lyscia's braid cracks as she looses from the hip, arrow after arrow stitching into gaps.
"WHAT DID WE DO WRONG? WHAT DID WE DO WRONG? WHAT DID WE DO WRONG?"
"We'll get through this, together." Seraphina drags breath and steps over a fallen orc. Her side burns where a spear thrust under the rib. Warmth slicks her palm when she clamps the wound. "Hold the line. Push to the creek."
She watches a cohort stumble back from the hedge, eyes wide, lips grey. Aurelthorn arrows hiss from the west like a rain that hates. Men fold at the waist and never rise.
"Rear ranks—BACK SHIELD!" Varrik shoves a captain into place, then lifts his sword so the light catches it. "We break free now, or we die here!"
"To me!" Lyscia kicks a fallen pike aside and snaps to a fresh angle, quick, precise. "Shove right. Two on me. Keep the beam on their archers."
"Lyssy, steer them!" Seraphina plants her boots, blade up. "Varrik—count the living our soldiers."
Arrows streak. A spear lances through the fog and finds her side again, deeper this time. Air leaves her with a grunt.
"Damn you!!" She rips the shaft out and drives her sword into the face behind it. The man drops headless.
"Fall back!" a knight gasps, stumbling by with a dented helm and half a shield.
"Not yet." She shoulders him toward Varrik. "Move with your brothers. Don't break."
She catches Varrik reaching for Lyscia's arm, his eyes blazing. "This fight is lost. We extract the core, or the empire eats mud."
"Leave them?" Lyscia wrenches free, jaw set. "We spill more blood to cover our retreat?"
"Before we're crushed," he snaps. "You know what's at stake."
Smoke gusts, and she sees Draemyr standing there beyond the ragged gap—his men a dark blade driving home. His eyes find her. Cold slate, hungry for the end of things.
"Is that all you have, Seraphina?" His voice so clam like know the outcome of the match. "You were a crimson sword of drakensvale. Now you fade like a loser."
She walks into the teeth of it. "This battle is not over, Draemyr." Her blade points at his head. "You will never claim the spirit of my people."
"So be it," he answers, the corner of his mouth cutting up. "Your last stand."
They meet. Iron rings. Sparks spit. He rotates his wrist, tries to slip inside her guard. She slams him off with a hooked parry and surges, elbow to his pauldron, a short, nasty strike that tests bone. He yields a step, eyes sharper.
"You've got tricks," he breathes, blade tasting for the gap at her side.
"Plenty left." She feints high, rakes low. He catches the edge on his vambrace. Blood splashes dark on his knuckles.
They circle once, twice, the field groaning around them. Her lungs burn. Mersha's name gnaws behind her teeth. She bites down on it and turns the pain into motion.
"Stand back!" a Drakensvale sergeant yells, trying to keep men from piling into the duel.
"Let them watch," Draemyr murmurs, then steps in, hip twist, cut aimed to open her from belt to throat.
Steel screams. She meets it, slides, pivots, and drags a line across his thigh. "You bleed, knight."
"So do you."
He hammers her guard with a two-beat cadence, left, then a brutal right, and the spear-wound flares. Her stance falters a hair. He sees it. He presses.
"Seraphina!" Lyscia's call flares like a lifeline. "East gap open. Now or never."
"Go!" Seraphina bares her teeth at Draemyr, then slashes a bright crescent to force distance. "I finish what I start."
"You finish by running," he says, not mockery—something harder, almost respectful—then he comes again, relentless.
Varrik's horn blares short and savage. "RETREAT! BACK SHIELD, MOVE!"
"On me!" Lyscia herds a clutch of blood-slick soldiers toward the tree-shadow, eyes scanning, calculating, burning.
"Hold one minute," Seraphina growls, meeting Draemyr's eyes over the crossguard. "Then pull."
"A minute it is," Varrik answers from the fog, already turning his wedge to the forest's mouth.
She steps in to end it fast. He is a wall made of knives. Their blades lock and grind. She leans, he leans, strength against strength, wills bared like teeth.
"Next time," he says, and shoves off, clean, lethal, already turning to cut down a Drakensvale pike who lunges for his back.
She wants his head. She wants Mersha back. She takes neither. She gives the thing her army needs.
"RETREATTTTT!"
The cry tears her throat raw. Men move. The back shield crawls, line bending toward the trees without snapping. She walks backward, blade out, eyes fixed on the knight who will not chase. He lets her go, not out of mercy. But because the runes he used were eating away at his life more and more.
---
[POV Third-Person Omniscient]
Varrik bring his cohort through a seam that should not exist, then makes it exist by force. Aurelthorn steel bites dust where he is not. He takes a slash across the cheek, does not flinch, and his people pour past him into the treeline's breath, their breath braided to his command. One last rip with his sword, and the circle around them splits. He vanishes under boughs, his oath echoing in the fog that clings to the field.
Lyscia falling from her mount. Draemyr's men flood the ditch and the hedge, a closing fist around a bright, furious flame. She breaks a spear, flips the head, and uses it like a knife, three cuts in the space of one heartbeat. The ring tightens. Hands hook her arms. She kicks a knee the wrong way, nearly breaks free. Another rank crushes in.
"Stay sharp," she snaps, eyes steady, breath even in the press. "This is the result of losing the war."
The circle seals. Her sword wrenches from her grip. She lifts her chin as iron closes on her wrists. Fierce gaze unblinking, even as Draemyr's men encircle her and pull her into the captured silence where banners do not fly.
---
[POV Ryan First-Person]
12:00 p.m. - At The Village Inn, Eryndral Village, Aurelthorn. (11 September 2025)
I blink awake under a low ceiling of smoke-dark beams. Warm wood, baked bread, damp wool. It smells like a forest floor after rain. Benches scrape. Murmurs brush my ears.
"My lungs felt itchy."
Surprisingly, the smells and atmosphere he had rarely experienced were now clearer.
"The headman has woken," someone whispers near the hearth.
I lift my left hand to rub grit from my eyes. Pain flares behind my brow. My palm touches my temple. My left palm.
I stare at the fingers. Whole. Clean lines. No phantom itch. No absence.
"Hahaha" A laugh kicks out of me, bright and raw. I flex. I squeeze. I tap each fingertip to my thumb, counting like a kid. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Faces turn. A few look spooked. One old woman crosses herself at the Staglord charm on her neck.
"What time is it?"
"It is morning," a man in a patched jerkin answers, voice careful. "Sun leans high."
"Forget it, this is medieval fantasy." I muttered to myself.
I fish my phone from my jacket pocket. Screen bright, cold and familiar. 12:10 PM. September 11, 2025. Battery bar full. Like a joke.
"Gods," I breathe, half-laughing, half not. "Still charged."
"Charged?" A boy leans in, eyes big. "Is that a mage stone?"
"It's—" I stop. "Later."
I look around for a familiar face. One in particular. "Where's Jonas? I need to—"
Silence folds over the room. A cup sets down without a clink. Boots shift on rushes.
"Jonas is dead," a woman near the door says, voice steady the way a bandage is steady.
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. It feels like a floor vanishes.
"No," I choke. "No, he was with Selene and Aelric. I pulled him out. I— I saved him."
"And he should have been here that night, not on the front lines."
A younger man with ash on his sleeves steps closer. "He saved you, headman. The red-knight came for you. Jonas stood in the cut. He took the stroke. He threw up the black. Then he went down."
The room squeezes. My arm burns where a sword once bit bone. like he refuses the universe.
"You were knocked unconscious after Jonas got kill." One of the villagers said.
Another voice breaks in, gentler. "He fought like a stag. He died a man of worth."
I press my palms to my eyes until stars bloom. "So that's what survivor's luck feels like. Must've borrowed his share."
A hand touches my sleeve. A girl, maybe fourteen, soot on her cheek. "You should see Lord Draemyr. He asked for you. He waits to headman's house."
"I'll go." The words scrape.
I swing my legs off the pallet. The room tilts. I stand anyway. The door yawns open, and cold air hits like a truth.
It was strange that some things remained unchanged, such as his clothes still being dirty and his body still dirty, having just taken a bath in the Mystery House. The only thing that has changed is the notes in my notebook, the battery in my phone, and my laptop. It's like they were rushing to make a system to support the main character before it was finished.
Ryan passes a great oak where a knot of villagers hold a rite for the dead. He catches Selene and Aelric, the Dawnstars, crying for the one they've lost. It must be Jonas.
Ryan clenches his hands. "Is that my fault?"
At first he'd thought this a dream, but now he feels hauled into another world, unmoored. He still doesn't grasp what his powers are.
Ryan drifts away. "Did it bend the timeline? Did it warp the multiverse?"
He can only think in rational, scientific lines, but with what he's seen, there's no way to prove a thing yet.
Ryan draws a long breath. All he can do now is go to the headman or some lord.
"Shit! I hate bureaucracy. And worse, a medieval world with magic."