Lastlight's Revenant #22

The last of the demons vanished into the distance, their shrieks fading into the cacophony surrounding Thalassar. Garran had watched them go—had even locked eyes with one of the twisted creatures as it sprinted past the barricade.

The thing had barely glanced at him, its hollow, pupilless gaze sliding over the church and its survivors as if they were nothing more than stones in its path.

"Thalassar was a beacon of life, once," Sylrithiel had said, her voice distant. "Everything the Maw-spawn despise. Even corrupted, it still draws them like moths to a pyre."

Garran had no reason to doubt her. His understanding of magic began and ended with the crude, practical spells of a knight—wards to seal wounds, sigils to harden steel. The deeper mysteries were Sylrithiel’s domain.

He exhaled, shaking away the thoughts, and turned to face the gathered survivors.

"It’s time to leave this stone-walled coffin," he called, his voice cutting through the murmurs of the crowd.

Heads turned. Faces, gaunt and shadowed by weeks of fear, stared back at him. Some were wide-eyed with hope. Others trembled with doubt. A child clutched her mother’s skirt, her fingers knotted in the fabric.

Garran didn’t soften his words. "Some of you are afraid. Some of you are wondering if this is a mistake. It doesn’t matter. Whatever the demons have planned for us, we won’t give them the chance to act on it. We flee. We survive. One day—" 

His gaze swept over the ruins of Vaeldrith, the shattered homes, the bloodstained streets. "—This city will return to its rightful owners. But for now, we march."

A beat of silence. Then—

Kaelvar barked a laugh. "About damn time. I was starting to think you’d grown fond of this place." His tattoos flexed as he rolled his neck, already moving to the front of the group.

Tomas, ever eager, scrambled to his side. "We’re really doing this? No turning back?"

"No turning back," Garran confirmed.

Tobin shuffled forward, his fingers twitching at his sides. "March. Yes. March is good. New place. New purpose." His lips moved silently, repeating the words like a prayer.

Sylrithiel said nothing. She stood apart, her silver eyes fixed on the distant silhouette of Thalassar, her fingers curled around the transformed heart at her belt. But when Garran met her gaze, she gave a single, shallow nod.

The soldiers fell into formation without protest, their discipline outweighing their exhaustion. They flanked the civilians, the elderly, the children. The injured were carried on makeshift stretchers, their breaths shallow, their bandages dark with old blood.

And among them—

Edric.

The young lord lay motionless on his stretcher, his skin gray as ash, his lips parted around ragged breaths. The veins beneath his flesh had darkened further, creeping up his throat like roots seeking sunlight.

Garran stared at him for a long moment. Then, without a word, he turned away.

"Move out, and keep your eyes peeled. Anything can happen."

The survivors of Vaeldrith stepped into the dying light, leaving the church behind.

Above them, Thalassar roared—and the earth trembled in reply.

...

Thirty minutes into their march, the streets grew unnervingly still.

The group moved in tense silence, their footsteps echoing against the cracked cobblestones as the sky deepened into a bruised twilight.

They had encountered stragglers at first—a duskhound trampled by its own kind, twitching as its mangled limbs stitched themselves back together; a legless vermin-touched dragging itself toward Thalassar’s distant roars with single-minded hunger. Each had been dispatched quickly, efficiently.

But now?

Nothing.

The street they walked was eerily quiet. No shrieks, no skittering claws, not even the distant howl of the siege beasts. Just the whisper of wind through broken windows and the ragged breathing of the survivors.

Garran’s fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword. Too smooth.

Then—

Thud.

A figure lunged from the shadows, moving faster than anything so large should. A soldier in the rear guard barely had time to scream before the thing had him—a faceless demon, its leathery hide stretched taut over a frame too gaunt, too old.

It wrenched the man backward with unnatural strength, its maw splitting open vertically, rows of needle-teeth glistening like a worm’s gullet.

The soldier thrashed. The demon bit down.

A wet crunch silenced his cries.

The survivors whirled, weapons raised, as the creature dropped the corpse with a wet thump. Blood dripped from its lipless mouth as it turned to face them, its featureless head tilting.

Then, impossibly, it grinned.

"Humans…" Its voice was a guttural rasp, syllables forced through a throat never meant for speech. "Knew… you… escape…"

A shrill chuckle rattled from its chest.

And then the shadows moved.

Vermin-touched slithered from alleyways, from gutters, from the hollowed-out husks of buildings. Their milky eyes gleamed in the dim light, their twitching limbs clicking against stone. Garran counted fifty. Maybe more.

He shot Sylrithiel a sharp look. "Your distraction isn’t working properly."

She didn’t flinch. "Thalassar rouses the basest instincts in the Maw-spawn—the urge to destroy life, to devour it. But those with clear minds can resist, and command demons with lesser wills." 

Her silvered gaze fixed on the faceless demon, her lip curling in utter disgust. "And this one has lived long enough to form a will beyond the Maw’s hunger. Beyond its baser instincts."

The faceless demon’s grin widened.

"Run…" it hissed. "Run… little rats…"

"Run…" the faceless demon hissed, its voice like rusted nails dragged across bone. "Run… little rats…"

But it didn’t attack.

It just waited.

The vermin-touched skittered forward, their malformed limbs clicking against the cobblestones, saliva dripping from jagged maws. Yet the faceless demon remained still, its grotesque smile widening as if savoring their hesitation.

Garran’s grip on his sword tightened. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t step back.

"We have no time to waste on these vermin," he growled. "Take a detour through the alleyways. I’ll hold them back."

He turned toward Sylrithiel, already opening his mouth to demand another enchantment for his blade—

"No."

The word was weak, frayed at the edges, but it cut through the tension like a knife.

Edric.

The dying lord lifted his head from the stretcher, his sunken eyes burning with something beyond pain. "I will do it." His voice was a whisper, yet it carried. "Let me down."

Garran turned slowly, his glare sharp enough to flay flesh. "This isn’t the time for heroics, your lordship," he spat, the title dripping with venom. "That ship has long since sailed." 

He drew his sword, the steel singing free of its sheath. "Stop being a selfish bastard. Let your soldiers carry you away so you can rot in peace—like you wanted."

He didn’t wait for a reply. He moved, his blade a silver arc in the dim light, cleaving the first vermin-touched in two. Black blood sprayed the stones.

Behind him, the survivors stood frozen, their shock palpable. Not at the demons. Not at the danger.

At Garran’s words.

Edric only smiled—a bitter, broken thing. "So that's what you think of me... I can't blame you, but I beg to differ," he murmured. 

"There’s a reason I’ve survived these wounds as long as I did…" His trembling fingers curled into the blanket draped over him. "And this is it."

Garran whirled, teeth bared. Just what in the Five Hells was this spoiled whelp prattling about while their lives hung by a thread? Rage coiled in his gut, hot and vicious. For a single heartbeat, the thought of cutting Edric down himself flickered through his mind.

Then Edric reached into the folds of his blanket.

"Put me down. Quickly," he ordered the soldiers.

They hesitated, but when Garran didn’t countermand him, they lowered the stretcher. Edric’s breath hitched as his body met the cold stone, but his hand didn’t falter. From the folds of his ruined clothing, he withdrew a vial—small, unassuming, filled with a liquid blacker than the void between stars.

Without hesitation, he drank it.

The battle raged around them, steel clashing against chitin, screams swallowed by the hissing tide of vermin-touched. But Garran’s gaze remained locked on Edric.

The young lord convulsed as the black liquid slithered down his throat. His body arched off the ground, tendons standing rigid against his snow-pale skin. The veins in his arms swelled—black as tar, pulsing like live wires beneath his flesh. With a ragged gasp, Edric tore open his shirt, exposing the festering wound in his stomach.

It moved.

Worms—slick and glistening—writhed from the corrupted gash, spilling onto the cobblestones. The blackness spread like spilled ink, devouring what little healthy flesh remained. His eyes, once bright with defiance, darkened into bottomless pits.

Then, slowly, Edric stood.

Garran’s breath caught.

Without a word, Edric wrenched a sword from the nearest soldier’s scabbard. His movements were no longer human—fluid, predatory, a specter given form. One moment he was there; the next, he was gone.

A vermin-touched exploded in a shower of gore, split clean down the middle.

Edric moved through the horde like a scythe through wheat, his blade a silver blur. Every strike was precise. Every step, lethal. But Garran saw the truth—the way his body trembled, the way his jaw clenched against the agony that must have been eating him alive.

Shame curdled in Garran’s gut.

He’d thought Edric weak. A coward clinging to life out of selfishness. But this—this was a man who had endured the rot, the pain, the slow gnawing death, all for this moment. A single, defiant act of devotion to the people he’d failed.

A voice cut through the chaos, raw but unwavering.

"Garran Dornblade."

Edric stood amidst the carnage, his blackened eyes fixed on Garran. His sword dripped with demon blood, his chest heaving with stolen breaths.

"Outbreaker. Repentant." A pause, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. "One who called me friend."

Garran’s throat tightened. He knew what came next.

"The fate of my people… my city…" Edric’s grip on the sword tightened. "I leave it in your hands."

For a heartbeat, Garran closed his eyes. The weight of those words settled on his shoulders—not as a burden, but as a vow.

When he opened them again, there was only steel.

"Don’t let the young lord’s sacrifice be in vain!" His voice boomed over the battlefield. "Civilians and injured—to the alleyway! Soldiers, form ranks!"

The survivors moved as one, their fear sharpened into purpose.

And as the vermin-touched surged forward, Edric turned to meet them—a lone figure against the tide, his blade raised in silent farewell.