They came from the forest like a tide of black water, like death itself taking form, taking shape, taking the world.
Hundreds of them—men, women, children, all dead, all moving with jerky, unnatural motions that defied reason, that defied life itself. Their flesh was gray and rotting, their eyes empty sockets, their mouths hanging open in silent screams that made no sound but carried all the horror of death. The Iron Plague had claimed them, had turned them into weapons, into soldiers in the army of the dead, and now they claimed everything in their path.
The inquisitors turned to face this new threat, holy light staffs raised, their confidence wavering as they saw what they were facing. But the dead didn't feel pain. Didn't fear magic. Didn't care about the Church, about its power, about its light. They just kept coming, an endless tide of death that would not be stopped, that could not be stopped.
Thorne struggled to his feet, clutching his wounded side, his blood mixing with the mud, his strength fading with every heartbeat. "We have to run. Now. Before they surround us completely."
Lyra grabbed his arm, supporting his weight, her small frame trembling with the effort, with the horror of what she was seeing. "What about the villagers? We can't leave them to die. We can't let the dead take them."
"There's no time," Thorne said, watching the dead swarm through the village gates, watching them pour into Thornwick like black water, like death itself. "The village is already lost. Look at them—there's too many. We can't save them. We can only save ourselves."
Valerius and his inquisitors were fighting the dead, holy light tearing through rotting flesh, burning gray bone, but for every one that fell, three more took its place. The dead were relentless, an endless tide that would not be stopped, that could not be stopped, that would consume everything in its path.
"Go," Valerius shouted to his remaining men, his voice tight with fear, with the realization that he was facing something the Church had never prepared for, something its power couldn't stop. "Fall back to the church! Hold them there! The holy ground will protect us! The light will burn them!"
But the dead were already everywhere. They burst through doors, climbed through windows, dragged screaming villagers into the darkness, their gray hands finding purchase in living flesh, their rotting teeth tearing through bone. The village was dying, and nothing could stop it.
Thorne and Lyra ran toward the stables, dodging between the fighting inquisitors and the swarming dead, their movements desperate, clumsy. Thorne's horse was still there, the poor beast trembling with fear, its eyes rolling back in its head as it sensed the death that filled the air.
"Get on," Thorne said, boosting Lyra onto the horse's back, his movements desperate, his strength fading. Then he swung up behind her, wincing as the movement tore at his wound, as the poison sent fresh waves of pain through his body.
They rode out of the stables and into the chaos, into the nightmare that Thornwick had become. Dead hands reached for them as they passed, gray fingers seeking living flesh, rotting teeth seeking blood, but Thorne's sword cut them down, black flame trailing behind the blade, burning them to ash before they could touch.
They reached the village gates, but the dead had already blocked the way. Hundreds of rotting bodies pressed against each other, a wall of flesh and bone, a barrier of death that could not be passed, that could not be broken.
"Through," Thorne shouted, and drove the horse forward, forcing the animal to do what it didn't want to do, forcing it to trample the dead, to crush bone beneath its hooves.
The horse screamed as it trampled the dead, bones cracking beneath its hooves, flesh tearing, rotting bodies collapsing into mush. They broke through the wall of corpses and galloped into the open countryside, leaving the burning village behind, leaving the dying villagers to their fate.
They didn't stop until the village was out of sight, until the screams had faded into the distance, until the only sound was the horse's ragged breathing and the pounding of Thorne's heart.
Thorne pulled the horse to a halt and slid from its back, collapsing to the ground, his strength gone, his body broken. His wound was bleeding freely now, the poison spreading faster, and he could feel his life fading, could feel the darkness reaching for him.
Lyra dropped beside him, her hands glowing with silver light as she pressed them to his wound, trying to heal what couldn't be healed, trying to stop what couldn't be stopped. The bleeding slowed, but didn't stop. The poison was too deep, the wound too cursed.
"You're dying," she said, her voice trembling with fear, with the sight of death shadows that coiled around him like snakes, showing her the end that was coming.
"I know," Thorne said, and there was peace in his voice, peace that came from acceptance. "But I bought us time. We're alive, and that's something. That's more than most people get."
He looked back toward the village, where smoke was rising into the gray sky, where flames consumed what the Plague had spared. "Valerius survived. I can feel it. The Church's light is still burning. And now he knows you have magic. Real magic. Not the sight, not the death shadows—real magic, magic that can hurt him, that can burn him. He'll never stop hunting you. He'll never stop until you're dead, until everything you love is dead."
Lyra was silent for a long moment, her mind racing with implications she didn't want to face, with the realization that her life had changed forever, that she could never go back to who she had been. Then she said, "I saw something in the village. Before we left. Something... wrong."
"What?"
"The dead," Lyra said, and her voice trembled with the memory, with the horror of what she had seen. "They weren't just mindless. They weren't just the Plague's mindless weapons. They were... organized. Like they were being commanded. Like they were an army, not a tide."
Thorne frowned, his mind rejecting what she was saying, refusing to accept what it meant. "The dead don't have commanders. The Plague creates mindless weapons, weapons that only kill, that only consume. They don't take orders. They just kill."
"These did," Lyra insisted, her voice certain, her eyes burning with the memory of what she had seen. "I saw a figure in the forest. Someone controlling them. Someone standing on a ridge, watching the battle, directing the dead like a general directs an army. Someone in black armor, with a crown of bone."
Thorne's eyes widened, and for a moment, the pain in his side was forgotten, replaced by a colder fear, a deeper horror. "A Death Knight. The Plague has a Death Knight."
He tried to sit up, but the pain was too much, his body too broken, the poison too heavy in his veins. "This is worse than I thought. The Iron Plague isn't just spreading. It's being led. By someone who knows how to command the dead, who knows how to use them as weapons, as an army. This isn't natural. This isn't just the Plague. This is war."
"Who?" Lyra asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I don't know," Thorne said, and there was weight in his words, weight that went beyond ignorance, beyond not knowing. "But I know someone who might. Someone who remembers the time before the Plague, who knows what the world was like when the Great Dragons flew the skies, when magic was free, when the dead stayed dead."
He looked at Lyra, his right eye still glowing faintly gold, the last ember of the dragon fire that had burned the hounds, that had changed him forever. "There's a woman in the North. A hermit, living in the frozen mountains, where the Plague began. She was the one who found me when I was a child, when the Plague destroyed my village, when it killed my parents. She saved me. She might know what's happening. She might know who's commanding the dead."
Lyra helped him sit up, supporting his weight, her small frame trembling with the effort. "What's her name?"
Thorne hesitated, the name heavy on his tongue, carrying the weight of years of hiding, of running, of being hunted. "The Witch of the North. That's what the Church calls her. A heretic. A monster. Someone to be burned, someone to be feared. But she's the only one who can help us. The only one who remembers."
He looked toward the northern horizon, where dark mountains were visible through the mist, where the frozen wastelands waited, where the Plague had begun. "Her name is Morgana. And she's the last person who remembers the time before the Plague. The last person who knows what the world was supposed to be."
And Lyra knew, with a certainty that terrified her, that the path ahead led only to darkness, to answers she didn't want to hear, to truths that would destroy everything she thought she knew.