Somewhere North — Deep in the Forest, Day
Panting echoed through the still, dense forest.
He ran — cloak whipping behind him, sword at his side, stumbling over roots and catching himself without slowing. Branches clawed at his face. He didn't stop.
When he finally reached the cottage tucked deep between the trees, he nearly slid down the steep embankment, catching himself at the bottom.
The knight standing guard outside straightened. "Did anyone see you?"
"No." He bent forward, hands on his knees, catching his breath.
"It's getting late," he added between gulps of air. "When night comes we'll be vulnerable out here."
The cottage door swung open. A woman stepped out.
Both knights bowed immediately.
"Please rest. We'll find a way through this."
"Stand." Her voice was firm, leaving no room for argument. She looked between them. "Can the horses still move?"
"No, my que—"
"Don't call me that." A sharp look. "It's too dangerous."
"Sorry, my que— my lady." The cloaked knight flustered, tripping over the word.
Idiot. The other knight kept the thought behind his teeth, though his expression said it clearly enough.
"My lady is fine," she said, stepping down from the landing onto the grass. She turned to the knight near the cottage. "Report."
"The horses were badly injured in the fall, my lady. We searched for nearby settlements to purchase new ones." A pause. "We found nothing."
She exhaled slowly, rubbing her hands together against the cold. "Then we keep moving on foot. Give me your cloak — I'll need it to stay hidden."
"Yes, my lady." Both answered at once.
Yiva. Garon. The thought settled in her chest like a stone. Wait for me. I'm coming.
The three of them moved deeper into the woods, leaving the cottage and the injured horse behind.
Night — Deep in the Forest
"Hey."
Dren's voice came from inside the iron cage bolted to the center of the wagon. Around the fire, seven Golden Cloaks sat eating supper, helmets off, talking amongst themselves.
"Hey." Louder this time.
They ignored him.
"Hey. Hey."
"Be quiet!" One of them turned, pointing. Then went back to his meal, muttering. "What was Captain Caesar thinking, keeping us with this loudmouth."
Laughter rippled through the group.
"I need ale," Dren said.
"Ale." One of them stood, jaw tight. "You're a prisoner. A traitor. You don't get to speak, let alone ask for anything."
"Bring me ale," Dren said pleasantly, "and I might save you for last when I kill your friends over there."
The laughter died. Hands moved to sword grips. A few knuckles went white.
"And how exactly," the standing cloak said slowly, "are you going to do that?"
"When I escape."
Silence. Teeth grinding. The fire crackled between them.
"I'm joking," Dren said, and laughed.
A few of them exhaled and sat back down.
"Can I still get the ale, though?"
The standing cloak grabbed a cup, filled it, walked to the cage, and threw it directly in Dren's face. His companions erupted laughing.
Across the fire, one of them reached over and wrapped both hands around Dren's massive sword, still sheathed against the wagon.
"Heavy son of a bitch." He lifted it with effort, testing the edge. "Sharp too. With this I could climb ranks — cut down enemies, demons, before they even thought to fight back."
"Demons." Another cloak looked up. "Heard there's been more activity."
"You haven't even seen one," someone else said.
"Drop it," Dren said from the cage.
The cloak near the cage turned, smirking. "I've heard a lot about you. The Drought. The living legend." He tilted his head. "Legends tend to get exaggerated over time."
"Tell me about it," Dren said, his expression unreadable.
The cloak made a dismissive sound and turned away.
Then — hawks. A sudden eruption of them overhead, scattering from the trees all at once.
"Best get some sleep," someone muttered.
A branch snapped.
Every sword came out in the same breath.
One of the cloaks emerged from the treeline, someone gripped in each hand. He was grinning.
"Lieutenant — look what I found. I was taking a piss when I caught them watching us."
The lieutenant stepped away from Dren's cage to look.
The woman from the forest. And one of her knights.
"Might've killed the other one," the cloak said, still smiling.
"Bring them forward," the lieutenant said.
He studied the woman, stepping closer, tilting his head. "You look a bit old to be wandering these parts." He reached out and touched her face, scanning her features. "You look familiar."
"Leave my lady alone." The knight behind her stepped forward.
The cloak who'd brought them slammed his forehead into the knight's face and pinned him to the ground, grinning down at him.
"Where are you from?" the lieutenant asked the woman.
"Don't touch me."
"I'm not going to." A slow smile spread across his face. "My friends here are going to have a bit of fun with you."
The cloaks behind him smirked.
"This is wrong." One of them stood, drawing his sword — but leveling it at the lieutenant. "Stop this."
"Robert." The lieutenant's voice went flat. "Sheathe that sword. That's a command."
"No." Robert's face was red, flustered. "We're here to transport a prisoner. Not prey on travelers. Where's your conscience?" He looked around at the others — some still slurping soup from their bowls, watching like it was entertainment. "Shut *up.*"
"If you touch them, I'll report every detail to Captain Caesar myself. Every detail."
"Ah, Robert." The lieutenant raised an eyebrow — just slightly.
It was a signal.
Robert's head hit the ground before the sound of the blade came. The cloak behind him wiped his sword on the grass as the body dropped, blood pooling dark and fast across the dirt.
"*No!*" The woman lurched forward.
"You've really gotten yourselves into something now," Dren said from his cage.
They all turned.
"You're not planning to turn me in, are you," Dren said.
The lieutenant smiled. "Where's the fun in that. We'll cash in the bounty on your head ourselves."
"Figured." Dren lay back, touching the bars with one finger.
"Now." The lieutenant turned back to the woman. "Where were we."
"No — *don't—*" She struggled as they forced her to the ground.
"Leave her!" The knight fought against the men holding him, going nowhere.
"Kill him first," someone said, pressing a blade to the knight's throat.
"You will do no such thing!"
Everything stopped.
Her voice hit the clearing like a struck bell. They turned to look.
She was on the ground, pinned, bleeding from the corner of her mouth — and her eyes were burning.
"My name is Seraphine Forkbeard. I am Queen of Thornhold. My husband is Sweyn Forkbeard." Her voice didn't shake. Not once. "If you touch me or my knight — even in my death — my husband will find every last one of you, wherever you hide, and he will kill you all."
Queen. The word moved through the clearing in whispers.
In his cage, Dren's eyes shifted.
"Forkbeard would pay handsomely to have her returned," he said. "You'd do well to think carefully."
The lieutenant paced. Once. Twice. Then waved his men off her.
"Hope you're who you say you are," he muttered — and knocked her across the temple with the butt of his blade.
She dropped.
"Tie them both up."
The Next Morning — The Road
They rode in a long column. The queen sat at the front of a horse, hands bound, one of the cloaks riding beside her. The wagon groaned along behind — Dren in his cage, the captured knight tied to the back boards.
They passed the queen's wrecked carriage on the road without stopping. The lieutenant didn't even glance at it.
A settlement appeared in the distance.
"Weather's turning," one of the cloaks said, squinting at the sky.
"Could rain."
"We don't stop for anything," the lieutenant said.
They kept riding.
Then — a cry from somewhere ahead. Distant. High and ragged.
"Run!"
The horses reared. One cloak was thrown clean from the saddle, his horse bolting into the trees. The column ground to a halt in a mess of shouting and stamping hooves.
"What's happening?"
"Go check." The lieutenant shoved a horse toward one of his men. The cloak rode forward and disappeared into the tree line.
At the wagon, the captured knight began working his ropes in short, urgent movements.
"While they're distracted — I have to get free. Get the queen out."
"Stay still," Dren said from the cage. "Or you'll get yourself killed."
"Don't tell me what to do."
He kept working the knot.
"He's back!" a cloak shouted, squinting down the road. "What's he—"
"What's he saying?"
"He's saying—" A pause. "Run."
"What?"
The cloak's voice came through clear now, screaming at full volume as he rode hard back toward them —
SLASH.
Horse and rider came apart in a single stroke. The head rolled. The body followed.
Silence for half a second.
Then they saw what was behind him.
Demons poured from the tree line — hounds the size of warhorses, their hides black and smoking, moving in a low, flowing mass. Behind them, giant trolls lumbered forward, each one easily three stories tall, dragging ruined earth and timber in their wake. Ahead of them, people fled from the settlement — and were crushed underfoot in moments, gone without a sound.
"Turn the horses! Turn them!"
Too late.
One of the trolls reached down, scooped up a mound of debris — broken stone, timber, earth, and what had been human — and hurled it like a boulder.
BOOM.
Darkness.
Then light, grey and cold.
Dren opened his eyes.
The cage had been torn open. The wagon was scattered in pieces across the road. Beside him, the knight was dead — completely, brutally dead, skull caved in, brain matter seeping into the dirt.
Dren stared at him for a moment.
Then he looked out.
The queen crouched behind the wreckage of another wagon, pressed flat, barely breathing. Ten feet away, a hound crouched over what remained of two Golden Cloaks, feeding with wet, grinding sounds.
One cloak was still alive somewhere behind him. Dren could hear it.
"Please—" Broken, tearful. "Please—" The cloak stabbed at the hound with a shattered sword. Sparks flew off its hide. The blade did nothing. The hound didn't even look up.
Dren caught Seraphine's eye and mouthed: Stay there.
She moved anyway.
She crawled toward him, low and fast, eyes fixed on the hound. When she reached the wagon wreckage and saw the knight — the pulped, unrecognizable shape of what had been a man — she covered her mouth with both hands.
Kreckk. The hound lifted its head, nostrils flaring.
"You're going to get us killed," Dren said under his breath.
Seraphine turned to look at him properly for the first time.
Her expression changed.
"It's you," she said. "You kidnapped my daughter."
The hound swung toward them.
Dren grabbed her and pulled her into the broken cage as the beast lunged, hitting the bars with both forepaws, metal shrieking, jaws snapping at anything it could reach.
"Where is she?" Seraphine hit his chest with both fists, voice shaking. "Where is my daughter?"
"Keep hitting me and we both die." He held her arms. "Stop."
The hound's claw raked through a gap in the cage. Seraphine pressed herself back against him, eyes wide, breath gone.
"Am I going to die here?" she whispered.
Crack.
She blinked.
The cage door hung open. Dren stood outside it, the hound's head twisted at a wrong angle, neck broken in his bare hands. He let the body drop.
He crossed to one of the dead cloaks and picked up his sword. Ran a thumb along the edge.
"Missed you," he said quietly, and sheathed it across his back.
"You're still alive."
He turned. The lieutenant was on the ground ten feet away, crawling, leaving a long smear of dark blood behind him. One leg was bent wrong. He was still trying.
"I was going to finish you myself," Dren said, drawing the sword.
"No." Seraphine stepped out of the wreckage. She pulled the sword from the dead knight's scabbard. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were not.
"This is for my knights." She stood over the lieutenant. "I hope you burn."
She brought the blade down. And again. And again — until he stopped moving and then a little after that.
When she finally stopped, she was breathing hard.
Dren was already walking.
"Where are you going?" She turned. "Where is my daughter?"
"We have to move. More are coming." He didn't slow down. "If you want to stay, that's your choice. I won't carry that on my conscience."
A beat.
"Tch."
She followed.
✦
— To Be Continued —