The main hall was a vast, echoing space—its vaulted ceiling lost in shadow.

  Tattered banners hung limply from the walls, colors faded and devices obscured by decades of dust and neglect. At the far end, a massive staircase led into darkness, its once-grand balustrade now crumbling and thick with cobwebs.

  Our footsteps seemed unnaturally loud as we advanced, reverberating off ancient stone. I could feel the weight of centuries pressing upon us—age and decay seeping from every crack and crevice.

  “Stay alert,” I whispered to my men, my voice thin in the oppressive silence. “There’s no telling what horrors may lurk in this accursed place.”

  We spread out as we moved deeper, swords and halberds at the ready, eyes straining to penetrate the gloom. The air was thick and musty—laden with mold and something else, something far more foul: a sweet, cloying odor that clung to the back of the throat and made the stomach churn.

  Then a sound shattered the sepulchral silence—

  A low, rasping moan that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

  I spun, heart pounding, searching for the source.

  The moan came again—louder this time, a wretched sound of unfathomable agony and despair. My men drew closer together instinctively, faces pale beneath flickering torchlight.

  “There,” Siegfried hissed, pointing toward a shadowed alcove. “Movement.”

  I peered into the darkness.

  At first, nothing—

  —then a shape detached itself from deeper shadow: a shambling, lurching figure moving with a jerky, unnatural gait.

  It stepped into the wan pool of torchlight, and I recoiled.

  The creature had once been a man.

  Now it was a twisted mockery of humanity.

  Its flesh was blackened and necrotic, sloughing off in rancid sheets. Weeping sores covered its body, oozing foul ichor that sizzled where it dripped onto the flagstones. But worst of all were its eyes—milky white orbs burning with an unholy hunger as they fixed upon us.

  “By the Holy Flame,” one of my men whimpered, sword trembling. “What is that thing?”

  “Plague-spawn,” Siegfried whispered, voice tight with disgust and dread. “A victim of the pestilence—twisted into an abomination by the dark sorcery that animates their rotting flesh.”

  The creature moaned again, a sound of such utter torment it sent shudders down my spine. It lurched toward us, movements growing frantic with each shambling step.

  “Stand firm!” I commanded—though I heard the tremor in my own voice. “Skewer the fiend before it can get close!”

  My men leveled halberds, bracing.

  But even as they did, more shapes peeled themselves from the shadows.

  A dozen.

  A score.

  A whole host of plague-ridden monstrosities shuffling forward with single-minded purpose.

  “There are too many!” one soldier cried, face ashen. “We’ll be overwhelmed!”

  The first wave reached us.

  Halberd tips pierced decaying flesh; foul black ichor sprayed from wounds. Yet for every one we struck down, two more surged forward to take its place—a relentless tide of pestilent horror.

  “Fall back!” I shouted, desperation sharpening my voice as I drove my blade through an eye socket of a gore-encrusted skull. “Back to the entrance! We must not let them surround us!”

  We gave ground—slashing and stabbing in frantic torchlight. The air was thick with rot, the wet squelch and crack of steel sundering rotten meat.

  A flailing, pus-covered arm caught Siegfried across the face.

  He reeled back, spitting blood and broken teeth.

  “The doors!” he cried, pointing with his gore-slicked sword. “We must bar the doors!”

  I glanced over my shoulder, relief flooding me at the sight of heavy oak doors still hanging open on rusted hinges.

  If we could reach them—

  —we could put solid wood between ourselves and that insatiable host.

  We fell back toward the doors, retreat becoming a mad scramble as the dead pressed forward, numbers seeming to multiply with every passing second. The stench of decay suffocated. The sickening crunch and squelch of halberds hewing through putrid flesh and brittle bone echoed in the confined space.

  At last we reached the threshold and staggered through.

  Siegfried and I threw our weight against the doors, muscles straining as we forced warped wood shut against relentless pressure from the other side.

  “The bar!” I gasped. “Get the damned bar!”

  Two soldiers heaved a heavy length of oak into place—

  —just as fists began hammering from the other side.

  The wood shuddered under impacts.

  For a breathless moment I feared it would splinter—that it would burst and unleash the nightmarish deluge upon us.

  But the ancient timbers held.

  The thudding became a dull, distant pounding.

  I slumped against the wall, saber slipping from nerveless fingers to clang against the flagstones. Men collapsed around me, chests heaving, breastplates dark with blood and ichor.

  In the guttering torchlight I saw Siegfried clutching his face, blood seeping between his fingers.

  “We cannot go back that way,” he said thickly, voice muffled. “Those creatures—no halberd or blade can slay them. Surely the Black Band are dead.”

  He looked up at the castle.

  I stared at him from the ground.

  “How can we be sure?” I said. “While there are a few bodies… it’s hardly been a company of five hundred. Where’s the rest of them?”

  Siegfried’s gaze turned grim, hand still pressed to his wounded cheek.

  “If they live, they are trapped in there with those… abominations. And how can we enter without condemning ourselves to the same wretched fate?”

  I wanted to argue.

  My mission was to slay—or capture them.

  But the words died in my throat.

  The memory of those shambling horrors was too raw—too visceral. The hunger in their milky eyes. The clinging reek of decay that fouled the air.

  “What evil is this?” I whispered hoarsely. “What manner of devilry could twist the dead into such blasphemous mockeries of life?”

  “The pestilence,” Siegfried spat, voice thick with dread. “Born of devilry and diabolism. I’d wager the Black Band are in the presence of a Goetian—of considerable power.”

  “A Goetian—this far out?” The words tasted like ash. “I thought their kind was exterminated.”

  Siegfried shook his head.

  “Not exterminated. Driven into the shadows, perhaps—numbers thinned. But never wholly destroyed.”

  He pulled his hand away, revealing an ugly gash weeping crimson down his jaw.

  “And now it seems one has found a new lair to work their black arts—far from the center of the Empire.”

  A chill settled into my bones.

  A Goetian warlock, here on the Empire’s edge—

  —and in league with the Black Band.

  I pushed myself to my feet, wincing as battered muscles protested.

  “We must send word to the Lord Commander,” I said. “Call for reinforcements—for inquisitors. We are ill-equipped to face such a foe alone.”

  “It is too late now,” Siegfried replied. “These minions—even an apprentice Goetic can see through their eyes. It’s likely he’s scrying on us as we speak.”

  Fear threaded his words.

  Then—metal boots stomped on dead grass to our right.

  Brother Konrad approached, weathered face grim beneath a battered helm. His hand tightened on the haft of his poleaxe as he glanced toward the barred doors.

  “What evil have you encountered within?”

  I met his gaze, seeing my horror mirrored there.

  “The dead walk,” I said softly, each word leaden. “Animated by some unholy power. They assailed us within. We were fortunate to escape with our lives.”

  Konrad blanched.

  “Necromancy? Here?” He made a sign of warding, sketching the Holy Sigil in the air.

  “There is more,” Siegfried added grimly. “We suspect the presence of a Goetian sorcerer. One in league with the Black Band we were sent to destroy.”

  A ripple of unease passed through the assembled knights—muttered oaths, whispered prayers.

  All knew the reputation of the Goetian warlocks: pacts with the Dark One, blasphemous rites, unspeakable cruelties.

  “If this is true, we are sorely outmatched,” Konrad said heavily. “Our forces are too few to challenge a Goetian and their minions directly—let alone whoever is in league with them…”

  Then Konrad’s face turned white.

  “This whole yard…” His voice thinned. “It explains everything. This is a ritual site—for blood magic.”

  He swallowed.

  “…But it doesn’t make sense. They use the blood of virgins, typically. Not of common folk. I haven’t seen a site like this for a very, very long time…”

  I followed his gaze, dread seeping in as I looked upon the place with new eyes: dead grass, unnatural stillness, the faint metallic tang hanging in the air.

  “Virgin blood…” I whispered, bile rising. “Truly, these are cursed lands.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Siegfried’s face was ashen beneath blood and grime.

  “The Goetian’s power waxes with the spilling of innocent blood,” he said. “And what purer source than untouched maidens of the outlying villages?”

  His voice shook with barely suppressed rage.

  “Raising the dead here—I hardly doubt it was the extent of the ritual.”

  “What other foul purpose could such a ritual serve?” I asked, dreading the answer even as the words left my lips.

  Konrad’s face was carved in grim lines.

  “Blood magic of this scale—fueled by the life essence of the pure and innocent… it could grant immense power. Power to twist the fabric of reality. To call forth nightmares from the abyss.”

  Silence fell over us.

  A Goetian warlock.

  Bolstered by forbidden arts.

  Perhaps allied with the Black Band.

  “We must burn this place,” Brother Wolfram stated, “and flee at once.”

  We worked double time, piling kindling against the oak doors. Men chopped trees at the swamp’s edge—

  —and a dark, fetid fog rolled in.

  It came in tendrils of sickly gray mist, writhing and coiling like living things. It swallowed trees, tumbled stones, even the muted sounds of our frantic labor.

  In moments, the world shrank to a few paces. Everything else was lost to clammy blankness.

  I shivered—though not from the sudden chill.

  There was something unnatural about this fog, something that set my teeth on edge and made the hair on my nape prickle. It felt tainted. Malevolent. As if some vile presence lurked within, watching us with cruel, unseen eyes.

  “Hurry,” Konrad urged, voice muffled and eerie in the deadening murk. “We must put the torch to this accursed place before…”

  He trailed off.

  Before the Goetian countered.

  Before the dead shambled forth again.

  Before something worse crawled from the swamp’s unhallowed depths.

  We redoubled our efforts, piling the last of the wood against the barred doors. Damp fog clung to us as we worked, seeping into clothes and skin until we shivered and shook.

  But we did not slack.

  At last, sweat and grime coating our brows, the final kindling was heaped.

  Siegfried approached with a lit torch, its flame a feeble thing in the gloom. With a muttered prayer, he thrust it into the pile.

  For an agonizing moment, nothing happened.

  I held my breath, fearing some eldritch power would snuff the flame.

  Then—

  A wisp of smoke.

  A crackle.

  The dry wood caught, and hungry flame began to lick at ancient timbers.

  “Back!” Konrad commanded. “Put distance between us and this unholy place!”

  We needed no further urging.

  As one, we turned and stumbled away, desperate to escape the blight we had uncovered.

  But the fog pressed in like a living thing—clinging, cloying, muffling our steps and clouding our vision.

  Each breath was a struggle.

  Tendrils curled around limbs like fingers, tugging at boots as if to drag us down into a lightless abyss. Nameless dread clutched my heart—certainty of doom beyond mere fear.

  Behind us, the fire was an angry red glow in the murk, painting writhing shadows into the fog. I glanced over my shoulder—

  —the old castle beginning to catch.

  As flames consumed ancient wood, a terrible wail rose within the walls.

  It was no human sound.

  A keening cry of rage and anguish that pierced the soul.

  The earth trembled beneath our feet.

  The fog convulsed as if in pain.

  “Faster!” Siegfried shouted, voice raw. “The sorcerer knows their work is undone!”

  We ran—crashing through brush, heedless of branches that tore at clothes and skin. The wailing grew louder, joined by a cacophony of shrieks and howls that chilled the blood.

  Shapes moved in fog—darting shadows gone in a blink. Glowing eyes peered from the gloom, hungry and evil.

  Fear lent speed to weary limbs.

  To falter now was to die—

  —or suffer worse.

  The ground softened beneath us, soil turning into foul mud. The swamp reclaimed its own, eager to swallow us whole. Each step became a struggle, mire clutching at boots, trying to drag us down.

  The sun was sinking below the horizon, painting the sky in lurid crimson and orange, when we finally allowed ourselves to collapse on a stretch of relatively dry ground.

  The fog had thinned with distance, but it still clung in wisps—reluctant to let us go.

  I gulped air into burning lungs, heart pounding a furious tattoo. Every muscle ached, pushed beyond endurance.

  Yet it was not only exertion that left me trembling.

  The horrors we had witnessed—the malevolent power we had felt—sat heavy on my soul.

  I looked to my companions, seeing my own haunted expression mirrored in their faces. Brother Konrad, usually stoic, was ashen beneath his beard. Siegfried had sunk to his knees, head bowed.

  The rest of the men—those who remained of the Forlorn Hope, and the Order’s own stalwart brothers—were little better. They sprawled or sat in utter exhaustion, gulping water and tending scratches and bruises earned in desperate flight.

  In their eyes I saw the same shadow that haunted my own thoughts:

  We had brushed against something profane.

  And it had marked us.

  In the distance, the castle was a pillar of greasy smoke and angry flame, spitting sparks into the darkening sky like hell itself.

  The wailing had ceased—

  —but an oppressive silence lay heavy on the land, as if even nature sensed what had been unleashed and fled.

  “What manner of devil’s work was that?” one of the Forlorn Hope muttered, voice hoarse. “Sorcery and walking corpses… I’ve never seen the like.”

  “Pray you never do again,” Konrad said grimly.

  He had produced parchment and charcoal, and now sketched rapidly, hand flying over the paper.

  “We have struck a blow against the Goetian this day,” Siegfried said, voice low but fervent. “But I fear our work is far from done. That foulness—that corruption… it spreads deeper than we know.”

  I nodded, throat tight.

  “What is our course now?” I asked, dreading the answer. “Do we press on—seek out the source of this evil?”

  Konrad looked up, eyes hard as flint.

  “We must. But first—we send word to the Grandmaster. He must know what we have found here. The threat that festers in this godsforsaken place.”

  He rolled up the parchment, mouth a grim line.

  “We must make haste back—to civilized lands.”

  As we trudged through mire, each step a struggle, my mind raced with implications.

  The Goetics—that ancient, foul order—had always been spoken of in hushed whispers, their name a curse.

  To witness their handiwork firsthand—

  —to see the depths of depravity—

  —it shook me to my core.

  Brother Konrad muttered to himself as he walked, brow furrowed.

  “The sigils, the incantations… I’ve seen their like before, in forbidden tomes. But to think they would dare unleash such abominations…”

  Siegfried nodded grimly, hand never straying far from sword hilt.

  “Aye. It is a black day when such filth walks the earth unchallenged. We must root it out—burn it like the cancer it is.”

  Even the men of the Forlorn Hope, for all their base nature, shared our revulsion. They huddled close, casting wary glances at lengthening shadows. Even the hardest among them had been shaken.

  And then—

  We saw a dozen silhouettes in the mist ahead.

  As we drew closer, the shapes resolved into men: ragged, filthy, but men nonetheless.

  A ghost from our past stood at their head.

  A specter that sent ice down my spine.

  Duclaire.

  Alive.

  Whole.

  How, I did not know. Back at Rega, they had said he was dead.

  Now a sick churning began in my gut.

  Beside him stood cutthroats and brigands, eyes glinting in fading light. They had made camp in the swamp—just ahead of us.

  We stared at each other across the misty expanse, hands twitching toward hilts. The air crackled with tension like a bowstring drawn taut.

  I broke the silence, voice ringing with shock and anger.

  “Lord Duclaire! They say you are dead—back at Rega!”

  I stepped forward, standing before my men.

  “Now you take a company of traitors?”

  Duclaire’s eyes narrowed, face a mask.

  “Kaelitz. You might have been mixed up in this sorry business.”

  His voice was low and gravelly, but there was an edge to it now—bitterness that had not been there before.

  He stepped forward, hand resting on his sword hilt.

  “As for my supposed demise—you may thank your new Lord-Commander for his treason.”

  He gestured faintly toward his men.

  “And these men are no traitors. They are loyal soldiers. True to the cause.”

  “The cause?” I spat, my grip tightening. “What cause could justify consorting with the Goetia—unleashing such abominations?”

  Duclaire looked at me with a sour, betrayed expression.

  “You accuse me of consorting with diabolists?” he snapped. “Have you gone mad? They are L?we’s pets—not mine.”

  His words struck like a physical blow.

  L?we—in league with Goetics?

  Unthinkable.

  Impossible.

  Despite my hatred for the man, it seemed far-fetched.

  Far more likely this was a ruse: lure us to the fortress, let the abominations slaughter us, and then the Black Band would flank what remained.

  “You lie,” I said. “The Empire would never tolerate such deviancy.”

  Duclaire laughed—a harsh, humorless sound.

  “Do I? Think, Kaelitz.”

  He stepped closer, eyes blazing with fervor I had never seen in him.

  “I was so naive. So foolish…”

  His face twisted with anguish as words spilled out in bitter rush.

  “I was blind, Kaelitz. Blind to the truth that was staring me in the face all along. The Empire—even this blasted Order… all of it is rotten to the core. All of it.”

  I shook my head, refusing to believe.

  “No. No. You’ve gone mad.”

  Brother Konrad spoke then, voice trembling with barely suppressed rage.

  “You speak of betrayal, yet here you stand with brigands and cutthroats. How are we to believe a word you say?”

  Duclaire’s gaze shifted to Konrad.

  For a heartbeat, I thought he might strike him down.

  Instead, he smiled—cold and predatory.

  “I would hardly think a fanatic belonging to the Order would listen to me—listen to the truths of the Low Church.”

  Cold ran through me.

  The Low Church.

  That heretical sect.

  To hear him declare allegiance openly was blasphemy.

  “The Low Church deals in lies and sedition,” Konrad said coldly. “You damn yourself with every word.”

  Duclaire shrugged.

  “I have seen the truth the High Church tried to bury. The Goetics are not some rogue element—they act with the blessing of the Church and the Inquisition itself.”

  I stood stunned, mind reeling.

  If he spoke truth, then rot and heresy reached the highest echelons of the Empire.

  It was too much to fathom.

  Siegfried stepped forward, jaw clenched, hand tight on his sword.

  “Enough of this prattle. I care not for your tales of conspiracy. All I see is a traitor and heretic in league with scum. In the Lord’s name, I condemn you to death.”

  Duclaire’s men tensed, hands flying to weapons—but Duclaire lifted a hand, holding them back.

  His eyes never left Siegfried.

  “You are a fool, Siegfried—a blind, ignorant fool, like all the rest. You cling to your precious Order, your diabolical religion, even as it crumbles around you.”

  His voice dropped, dangerous.

  “But I have seen the truth. I know what is coming. When the Goetics ascend, and the Empire is drowned in blood, I will pick up the pieces—forge a new order from the ashes of the old.”

  I shook my head in disbelief and disgust.

  “I will not hear these treasonous words,” I said. “You dishonor yourself, Duclaire. You dishonor the Empire—and your dynasty.”

  At the mention of his son, Duclaire’s face contorted with grief and rage.

  “My dynasty—no longer!”

  His voice trembled with barely suppressed emotion.

  “They are lost to me, Kaelitz. Lost to ambition’s machinations. They turned against the Lord’s truth.”

  His gaze hardened, resolve settling like iron.

  “But I will save the Emperor. I will save all of us from the rot that eats at the heart of the Empire—even if it means tearing it down and starting anew.”

  He stared at me, drew a shuddering breath, and visibly forced himself to compose.

  “I had hoped you might see reason, Kaelitz. That you might join our cause. But I see now the Church’s poison runs too deep in you.”

  His hand dropped to his sword.

  Behind him, men tensed like hounds on a leash.

  Siegfried and the others likewise readied weapons.

  “So be it,” Duclaire said softly. “If you do not join us, you will die with the rest of the Empire’s lapdogs.”

  With a roar, Duclaire’s men surged forward—tide of bared steel and feral fury.

  I leaped into the fray, saber flashing in murky light as I slashed and jabbed.

  Gunshots cracked.

  Men screamed.

  Duclaire drew his blade and lunged at me, eyes blazing with hatred and conviction. Our swords met in a shower of sparks as we traded blow after furious blow.

  Around us, the swamp erupted into chaos: clashing steel, flashing pistols, the screams of the dying.

  I parried Duclaire’s savage attacks—his swordsmanship superb, honed by years of war. But I matched him stroke for stroke, calling upon all my training.

  We danced a deadly waltz amid swirling violence, oblivious to all else.

  “You cannot stop what is coming, Kaelitz!” Duclaire snarled. “The Empire is rotten to the core—and I will see it burned to ash before I let it fester any longer!”

  I gritted my teeth, redoubling effort.

  “You’re insane, Duclaire!”

  I deflected a vicious slash and riposted, my saber scoring a thin line across his cheek.

  He snarled—then came at me harder, blade a whirlwind.

  “You blind, ignorant fool!” he raved, spittle flying. “You’re too indoctrinated to see the truth, even when it’s right before you!”

  We circled, blades flashing in guttering torchlight.

  His eyes were wide—fevered.

  And then—

  Something struck from behind.

  A man of the Forlorn Hope drove a dagger into my shoulder.

  Pain exploded through me.

  My saber slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers.

  I staggered—and Duclaire saw his opening.

  He lunged, murder in his eyes—

  But as I fell, I lashed out with a booted foot, catching him in the knee.

  He stumbled, strike going wide.

  I ripped the dagger free with a spray of blood and surged forward like a man possessed—turning on the traitor behind me.

  He recoiled, shocked.

  I caught him before he could flee.

  Steel bit soft flesh.

  The dagger plunged into his neck.

  He gurgled, choking, eyes wide as blood fountained.

  Then he crumpled.

  I whirled, ignoring the searing agony in my shoulder, to face Duclaire once more.

  He had regained footing, fury blazing as he raised his sword.

  He was upon me in an instant—

  Sword arcing down—

  I threw myself aside at the last moment. The blade cleaved air where I’d been a heartbeat before.

  I hit the ground hard, pain lancing, but I pushed it aside and rolled to my feet—snatching up a fallen pistol.

  It roared.

  Deafening.

  Duclaire staggered back, a red stain blossoming on his chest.

  He looked down in stunned disbelief—then up at me.

  “Y-you… you fool…”

  His sword slipped from his grasp and clattered into the muck.

  He pressed a hand to his chest; his fingers came away slick with crimson.

  He sank to his knees, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  Around us, battle still raged—

  —but I scarcely noticed.

  My world narrowed to the broken man before me.

  My former mentor.

  Now revealed as traitor and madman.

  Slowly, I retrieved my saber and walked to him.

  “It ends here,” I said, breath ragged with exhaustion and grief. “Your treacherous ways—your little band—it is over. I should have seen this coming, traitor.”

  Duclaire lifted his head, face ashen, eyes glassy with death—yet still burning with feverish conviction.

  “No… you’re wrong, Kaelitz,” he rasped, each word a struggle. “This is only the beginning. The truth… cannot be stopped. Even if I fall… others will rise to finish what I started.”

  A coughing fit wracked him, specks of blood flecking his lips.

  He fixed me with one last stare—ghost of his old intensity.

  “You’ll see, Kaelitz… in time, you’ll understand…”

  Then he slumped forward.

  Still.

  His lifeblood pooled beneath him in the dirt.

  I stood over the corpse, numb—crushed by exhaustion and the weight of what had transpired.

  Around me, the sounds of battle faded as the last of the Black Band fell to blades and bullets. In the distance, I heard Siegfried barking orders, securing the perimeter.

  But I scarcely registered any of it.

  My gaze stayed on Duclaire’s body.

  This man had been my mentor.

  He had shaped me into the soldier I was.

  And now he lay dead at my feet—cut down by my hand.

  Had it all been a lie?

  A mask hiding his descent into treachery and madness?

  I could not reconcile the man I’d known with the fanatic bleeding out in the swamp.

  Questions swirled—taunting, unanswered.

  What had driven him to this?

  What was this “truth” he spoke of as he died?

  Had I been blind—too trusting to see the darkness festering in him?

  I had no answers.

  Only a yawning void of betrayal and uncertainty—

  —and the faint, sickening fear that perhaps this was not the end at all.

  I pushed it aside.

  And threw myself back into the last flickering moments of battle.