The group moved in silence, broken only by the occasional rustle of wind through the trees or the rhythmic clop of hooves on packed earth. No one spoke of the execution. They all carried the memory of it in their expressions—tight jaws, furrowed brows, haunted eyes.
By midday, the sun had risen fully, casting long shadows as they approached a fork in the road. Sir Eric raised a hand, halting the group. His steed neighed softly beneath him as he addressed them.
"We rest here for an hour. Eat, drink, and tend to your feet. We march hard after this."
The men dispersed, some collapsing in the grass, others taking small bites of dried meat or gulping water from flasks. Siege sat beneath a twisted oak tree, the bark rough against his back, and looked out across the plains. His legs ached, and his mind wandered.
Edwin plopped down beside him, face damp with sweat, but still managing a smirk.
"Hell of a first morning, eh?" he said, trying to sound lighthearted but failing.
Siege glanced at him. "That wasn't war. That was slaughter."
Edwin's smirk faltered, and he looked out at the others. "Yeah. But maybe it's better we saw it now. At least we know what kind of man we follow."
Siege said nothing. He didn't know what to think of Sir Eric. A knight, sure. A leader, definitely. But also something colder—something carved from steel and old grief.
Aldur approached, quiet as always, and tossed a piece of hard bread at Siege.
"You'll need energy," he said flatly. "This won't get easier."
"Thanks," Siege mumbled, chewing thoughtfully. The bread was stale, but it grounded him. Anchored him to the moment.
He watched the older men. Some huddled together in hushed whispers, others sat alone. The air was heavy with uncertainty, and still, no one dared voice doubt. Sir Eric's message had landed deeply—obedience, or death.
As the sun edged westward, the knight stood again and barked the order to move out. Siege rose with the others, hoisting his pack and falling into step behind the horse.
The group marched through the long hours of the day.
They stopped only briefly to chew on hard jerky and stale bread from Sir Eric's provisions, washing it down with gulps from cracked leather flasks. The sky above was a pitiless blue—no clouds, no birds, not even the whisper of wind. It felt less like a sunny day blessed by fortune and more like one cursed by stillness.
Siege, in spite of himself, found the journey strangely captivating. His life had been boxed in by the sterile boundaries of the Citadel—its chrome walls and flickering screens his only experience of the outside world.
But this? This was ancient. Untamed. It bore the silence of a world older than men.
Yet within him, a knot of unease tightened. He turned the thoughts over like sharp stones in his mind.
*Killing a dragon... is that even something mortals can do?*
Even to the new gods, dragons were more legend than flesh. The greatest among them rarely faced such beasts and lived. Dragons, it was said, were not merely creatures, but remnants of primordial chaos—things too vast to be slain, only survived.
As they walked, the rolling hills yielded to flatter land, and lonely trees rose like skeletal sentinels from the earth.
Siege stared up at them in wonder—colossal towers of bark and time, their trunks wide enough to consume eight men with arms outstretched. In their height they dwarfed even the Citadel's highest spires, and they carried the weight of forgotten centuries in every gnarled limb.
Soon the trees thickened, and the world transformed into something darker. The forest of Mortar stood before them, its threshold marked by an eeriness that settled deep into the bones.
Sir Eric turned, his voice grave. "We now enter the forest of Mortar. Stay close. The things that dwell here... do not forgive stragglers."
A shiver passed through the group. Siege's heart began to beat slower, heavier. It was not fear that gripped him—but the presence of something watching. As if the forest itself possessed eyes behind bark and soil.
Their boots crushed dead leaves. Shadows stretched and twisted unnaturally as the canopy swallowed the light.
Though birdsong accompanied their entry, it had a dissonant, almost mocking tone—notes just slightly off, like a hymn played backward.
Their pace slowed. Tension was to much to bare, so chatter rose to banish it.
A sandy-haired teen named Godfrey turned with a spark of false excitement. "Think we'll meet the king?"
An older man with a deep scowl—Gallan—scoffed. "The king? Boy, we're not here to meet royalty. We're here to die. The dragon needs meat before the main course."
Another man, younger but worn—Ludwig—snarled. "Speak for yourself. Maybe you're content to die, but I've got a wife and daughter waiting."
Gallan sneered, but behind the venom was despair. "Then grieve them now. Because you'll never see them again."
The tension snapped like a wire.
"Silence!" Sir Eric's voice cut through the air, cold as iron. "Loud mouths attract hungry things."
A hush fell. But rage still simmered in Ludwig's eyes as he glared at Gallan.
Siege exhaled. *All of this... is an illusion,* he reminded himself. *But a convincing one.*
He turned to a rat-faced man nearby, lowering his voice. "What do you know of the king? Beowulf, right?"
The man, who introduced himself as Wigalf, brightened at the question. "The king? Aye. Heard he once crossed the sea to Denmark and slew a beast called Grendel—barehanded, they say. When its mother came for vengeance, he sent her back to whatever abyss she crawled from."
Siege raised an eyebrow.
"They say he's strong as thirty men. Never lost a fight in his life." The reverence in Wigalf's voice bordered on worship.
Siege exchanged a few more words, then withdrew into thought. *Rank 2 strength at best*, he mused. *Still not enough. Especially now... at his age.*
The sky grew heavy with dusk. Shadows thickened. After a time, Sir Eric called a halt. They found a narrow clearing hemmed in by bark walls and dying light.
He handed out the last of the rations and gestured to the dark horizon. "We'll come across a river tomorrow. Refill your flasks then. Tonight—we sleep lightly."
As the men settled in, Sir Eric produced a pouch of white powder and iron shavings. Without ceremony, he began tracing a circle around the camp, murmuring as he worked.
"Salt and iron," he said. "Keeps out the fae and worse. If you break the line, I won't have to kill you. Whatever's out there will."
A chill ran through the group. No one spoke.
Siege lay on his back, staring up. The stars here were endless, cruelly beautiful—burning eyes from an ancient tapestry. Somewhere in the trees, crickets chirped. An owl called. Then silence.
Without knowing when, Siege slipped into uneasy sleep.
---
Siege awoke in darkness.
Moonlight washed the forest in ghostly silver. The clearing was still, almost serene—until he noticed Sir Eric standing.
The knight was facing the treeline, sword-hand tense. His body language betrayed nothing—but something had found them.
Siege followed his gaze, and at first saw nothing. Just black trunks rising into deeper blackness. But then the realization struck him like a hammer.
*There was no sound.*
No insects. No birds. The forest had gone utterly still, as though even the wind dared not breathe.
Panic pressed against his ribs. *Something is wrong. Deeply wrong.*
He squinted into the dark... and saw it.
A shape—almost hidden behind a massive tree. The head of a deer, peeking out.
Innocent enough.
Then it moved.
What stepped forward was not a deer.
Its forelimb was not a hoof—but a grotesque hand, thick with black hair, nails long and curved like sickles. Another step—and its head shifted.
Not a deer's face, but a wolf's. Four yellow eyes glowed, unblinking. Two pairs of twisted ram's horns curled from its brow. It smiled—too human in its expression.
Its body was an abomination. The front half was man-like—if one could call a man stretched, warped, and covered in coarse fur a man. Its arms dangled too long, claws brushing the earth.
But the back... was that of a deer. Graceful, yet dead. Upon its tail grew another head—a pale, eyeless deer face, mouthing silently.
It advanced slowly, deliberately.
Then it spoke.
Its voice was not sound. It was presence—a pressure in the skull.
"Who bleeds within my forest?"
Sir Eric drew his blade, knuckles white.
"Stay behind the line," he hissed.
The creature smiled wider, its twin sets of eyes glowing like lanterns in the void.
"So eager to defy the old laws. Mortals forget quickly... but the forest remembers."
It crept closer. Siege, trembling, realized the thing was not merely a predator. It was wrong—a thing from before reason, wearing flesh like clothes.
Sir Eric did not move. The circle of salt and iron shimmered faintly as the beast stepped to its edge... and stopped.