⚠️ Content Warning: Violence & Blood
This chapter contains scenes of monster combat, mild gore, and bloodshed that may be unsettling to some readers. Please proceed with care.
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The sky had turned a deep, bruised violet, and a hush fell like a veil over the village.
Then — a sound. Foul and foreign. It slithered through the cracks in the broken wall like oil sliding on stone.
A low chitter. Then a rasp. Then something screeched.
The guards froze. Mavie stepped to the breach, hand on her sword, brows knit in a warrior's frown. A strange scent curled in the air — bitter, like wet iron left too long in shadow.
"Do mine ears deceive me," muttered a guard beside her, "or doth the night now breathe?"
"Nay," Mavie said, voice firm, low. "That sound hath breath indeed — and hunger with it."
Another screech echoed, louder. This time, closer.
The villagers had begun to scatter, parents clutching children, pulling them toward their homes. A cow shrieked in a far paddock. Someone dropped a lantern, and fire licked across the straw.
Then they saw it.
Just beyond the breach, the moonlight caught something... wrong. A silhouette not born of man nor beast. It was tall — taller than the highest roof — hunched, with limbs too long and skin that gleamed like stretched tar. Its head twisted once, then again, as if sniffing the air.
And when its face turned toward them — toward the heart of the village — the firelight revealed it.
It had no eyes.
Only a mouth.
And when it opened that mouth, it let out a scream that made even the stones flinch.
Mavie gasped. So did the guards.
"By the old gods..." someone whispered. "What creature walks yonder?"
"Hold the line!" Mavie roared, sword drawn, voice cracking like thunder. "Sound the bells! Ring them till the sky breaks!"
Aurelia bolted toward the chapel steps, heart pounding, cloak flaring behind her. With both hands, she seized the bell rope and pulled. The first clang rang out, sharp and mournful. Then another.
And another.
It was the sound of alarm. Of ancient warning.
The creature moved. Slow at first. Then quicker.
It stepped through the breach.
Each footfall left cracks in the cobblestone.
Guards raised shields.
Children screamed.
Mavie turned to the nearest captain, breath tight. "Gather thy strength. Ready thy archers. This beast shall not have our kin."
The monster gave one more growl, then lunged forward with impossible speed.
And so, the first night of siege began.
Not with fire — but with fear.
Donnggg… Donnggg…
The bell tolled like a hammer upon the heavens. Its sound rolled down the cobbled streets and across the rooftops like a storm yet unseen.
Donnggg…
Aurelia gripped the tower's ledge, hair lashing in the wind, cloak flaring behind her like torn wings. Her voice rose above the din — not shrill, but clear as silver.
Aurelia: "Seek shelter, all! Make haste! To thy homes — bolt thy doors!"
She turned from the bell, eyes scanning the streets below where chaos already brewed. Children clung to mothers, carts overturned, lanterns swung wild in fleeing hands.
Donnggg…
Aurelia: "Do not linger!" she cried again, one hand cupped to her mouth. "Gather thy young, thy old — take to the cellars and hollows! Be swift!"
From below, guards glanced up at the tower, and one crossed himself with trembling fingers. "The witch's call," he whispered. "By flame and blood, it begins."
Aurelia turned back to the bell rope, gave it another mighty pull.
Donnggg… Donnggg…
Down in the square, Mavie's boots skidded across loose stone as she spun toward the guards behind her.
Mavie: "Three of ye — run to the castle. Wake Lord Theron. Tell him the gate is broken, and we face a beast not seen in any man's reckoning."
"Aye, m'lady!" one answered, already sprinting, the others close behind.
They vanished into the torchlit haze, shouting warnings as they ran.
The bell tolled on.
Above it all, Aurelia pressed both palms to the stone as the tower shuddered beneath her.
The wind carried her last call over the rooftops like a warning writ in fire.
Aurelia: "Monsters walk again."
And in the valley beyond, the clouds began to move against the stars....
Aurelia stepped back from the great bell, its final donggg… still humming through the stone beneath her feet. Her hands trembled as she reached beneath her cloak, drawing forth her spellbook with a practiced flick of her wrist. The leather cover fluttered open, and parchment glowed faintly in the torchlight as she flipped through page after page, the ancient ink whispering in a tongue older than her breath.
"Come now… give me something," she muttered, eyes darting across glyphs and sigils. Her gaze flicked up for a moment — through the tower's high arches, she could see the courtyard below.
Mavie fought like a storm.
Blade flashing in the firelight, hair slick with blood and sweat, she drove her sword toward the beast's flank, shouting orders even as she dodged another swipe of its gnarled claws.
"Hold the line!" Mavie roared. "Archers, loose thy shafts! Strike its eyes — keep your distance!"
The monster reared back, snarling. Black ichor dripped from wounds along its side, but it was far from defeated. One of its tusks struck a stone cart and shattered it to splinters. A guard was knocked aside, armor clanging, his cry lost beneath the beast's thunderous growl.
The archers held their ground upon the balconies, bows drawn tight. Arrows hissed through the air — thwip, thwip, thwip — some glancing off its hide, others sinking into softer flesh. The beast howled, stumbling, but still it pressed forward, crushing cobblestones beneath its clawed limbs.
Aurelia's breath caught. "Valthurien… no. Too slow. Ah!" Her finger landed on a page inked in silver.
"Here," she breathed, steadying herself. "This shall do."
Below, the guards fought with grim resolve, rallying to Mavie's voice, but the weight of the monster's blows grew heavier. One stumbled, another lost his spear, and still Mavie stood fast at the front, eyes blazing, sword raised high. She would not yield.
Far across the square, three guards sprinted through narrow lanes and crooked alleys, boots thundering against the ground. Past closed doors, past weeping villagers hiding in corners, they ran toward the castle's towering gates.
"Make way!" one bellowed. "Open for the guard!"
The ironwood doors creaked open just enough for them to slip through, and then they were pounding across the marble halls, past startled stewards and oil-lamp flames flickering in their wake.
They did not knock.
They burst into the lord's chamber, where tapestries swayed and golden candlelight danced.
Theron stirred from his desk, half-curled over a parchment, still in tunic and boots. He turned, a furrow already deepening in his brow.
Theron: "My lords," he said, calm as ever. "Why do thy faces bear such dread?"
Guard: "The gate," gasped one, clutching his side. "A beast — great and terrible — has breached the wall. Lady Mavie holds the line, but the tide may turn anon."
Theron did not speak. He rose, slow and sure, brushing crumbs from his shirt.
Theron: "So be it," he said. "Rouse the rest. Bar the south hall. And send word to the watchtower: if the moon bleeds red afore the hour ends, ready the signal pyres."
He reached for his sword — not one of courtly gold, but a plain blade, blackened at the hilt.
Theron: "Let no man say we slept whilst our walls fell."
With that, he strode from the chamber, the guards behind him, and the doors swung wide to let in the roar of a world unraveling.
The castle's corridors echoed with urgent steps. Torches flared as servants and squires cleared the path. Theron strode like a man who had seen this before — or dreamed it too many times to be startled now. His eyes, calm but alight, caught every detail: the fear, the confusion, the storm building beyond the gate.
Outside, the courtyard was firelit ruin.
Mavie crouched behind a shattered cart, sword dripping with the beast's foul blood. Her chest heaved. Nearby, two guards limped, helping a third who bled from the shoulder. The archers above readied another volley.
The creature — black of hide and hunch-backed like a mountain grown teeth — staggered near the bell tower. Half its face was burned from the spell Aurelia had unleashed earlier, but it still snarled, still clawed at the stones, its guttural growl rolling through the air like thunder on a low moor.
Aurelia, high above, gripped her book with white-knuckled fingers. Her lips moved in a steady murmur, old syllables sliding past her tongue like water drawn from a forgotten well.
"Enthalae drav soln... velthae runn di'mirn…"
The spell twisted the air around her. The torches near the bell flickered, then extinguished entirely.
With a crack, blue light erupted from the book — runes spiraling out like smoke and then diving toward the beast below.
The magic struck like chain and shadow — spectral vines that lashed at the creature's limbs, forcing it to stagger again, just as Mavie rose to her feet.
"Now!" Mavie bellowed. "Strike whilst it is bound!"
The guards lunged with spears, striking the joints behind the legs. The beast shrieked, dropped to one knee, and thrashed wildly — but its strength was fading. A final volley from the archers landed clean: one arrow pierced deep behind the ear.
The creature swayed, groaned low — and collapsed with a shuddering crash. Dust rolled over the square. Silence followed.
But it did not die.
Its great chest still rose, slow and ragged, and one eye still gleamed, yellow and hateful beneath the gore.
Theron stepped into the square just as the last echo faded. His boots crunched over broken tile. He surveyed the scene — the wounded, the wreckage, the half-dead monster twitching at the base of the tower — and gave a soft breath, almost a sigh.
Theron: "My thanks," he said, voice carrying clear through the stunned air, "that thou held the line, Lady Mavie."
Mavie turned, panting. "Didn't plan to let it through, my lord."
Aurelia descended the tower, pale but resolute, book still glowing faint in her grip.
Theron approached the beast's unmoving form. It was enormous — taller than any steed, broader than any ox. Black blood oozed from a dozen wounds. Its breathing was wet and irregular, like the sea dragging its own lungs.
"Does it speak?" Theron asked.
Mavie shook her head. "Not with words we know."
Theron knelt beside the beast's ruined face. For a long moment, he simply looked.
Theron: quietly "Thou art not the first of thy kind I've seen. But thou art different."
The beast groaned again, weakly. Its eye rolled to him.
And then — in a rasp like stone grinding on stone — it murmured one word:
"More."
The hair along Theron's neck stood on end.
Mavie's fingers tightened on her sword. "What did it say?"
Theron stood slowly, never taking his eyes from the beast.
Theron: "There are more," he said. "This… was but a herald."
Aurelia drew in a sharp breath.
The monster gave a final twitch, then went still at last — not with the stillness of death, but of waiting.
Theron turned to his companions, eyes shadowed.
Theron: "Gather what healers we have," he said softly. "And wake the seers."
He looked toward the dark treeline beyond the crumbled gate.
Theron: "We have not seen the worst. Only its whisper."
Mavie stood still, breath ragged, sword slick with dark blood. Around her, the square lay in ruin — shattered stone, broken carts, and the soft moans of the wounded. The creature had fallen, its bulk sprawled across the street like a toppled tower.
Mavie: "It be done," she muttered, lowering her blade. Her voice cracked like old wood. "At last..."
Theron stepped beside her, brushing dust from his cloak. His gaze rose to the sky, where the moon glowed cold and bright, casting silver across the bloodied ground.
Theron: "A fair moon to mark a grim night," he said softly. "Almost makes one think the heavens were watchin'."
From the high tower, Aurelia descended swiftly, skirts lifted, her spellbook still warm with spent magic. She sprinted across the square, boots splashing in shallow pools of blackened ichor.
Aurelia: Are you whole?" she called to them, eyes wide.
"Still breathin'," Mavie answered with a grim nod. "The beast's breathin' less."
All around, doors creaked open. Faces peered from shuttered windows. Lanterns blinked to life as townsfolk crept from hiding, drawn by the silence. Mothers clutched children close. Men walked with blades in hand, unsure whether to sheathe them.
Then, without warning—
Rrrrggghhhh...
A vile, drawn-out groan split the quiet.
The creature's chest heaved. One great claw scraped against the stone.
Its massive head lifted — slow, trembling, yet alive.
"No…" Aurelia's voice was barely a whisper. "It lives still."
The villagers froze. A babe began to wail. A man dropped his lantern.
Theron's hand went to his belt. "I thought we felled it…"
"Apparently," Mavie growled, eyes narrowing, "we merely angered it."
The beast's face twisted toward them, ruined but filled with wrath. It drew breath, shallow and rattling, and let out a broken roar that still sent the birds fleeing from the trees.
Mavie raised her sword once more.
Mavie: "Hold fast!" she barked. "We finish this—no half-measures!"
The guards rallied behind her. Arrows were nocked. Spells reignited.
And in the pale light of the moon, the second battle began.
(TO BE CONTINUED)