Lastlight's Revenant #13

The moment Garran and Kaelvar stepped into the ruined streets, the sky itself seemed to shudder.

A shadow passed over the sun—vast, jagged, trailing wisps of smoke like a comet’s tail. The dragon circled high above the city, its wings tattered as old sails, its scales dull and peeling like rusted armor.

Its ribs jutted unnaturally beneath its hide, as if something had hollowed it out from within, yet it moved with terrible, unnatural grace.

Garran’s grip tightened on his sword. "That’s no living wyrm."

Kaelvar’s nostrils flared. "Nor undead," he muttered. "Its flesh still breathes. But its will..." His tattooed hands flexed around his chain. "Something has eaten its mind."

The dragon banked sharply, its milky, pupil-less eyes reflecting the flames below. For a heartbeat, Garran thought it might dive—

—then a scream cut through the air.

"Oathbreaker!"

A soldier stumbled into the square, his tabard singed, one arm clutched to his bleeding side. "The church—Ardun’s church—the demons are breaking through!" He gasped, blood flecking his lips. "Edric’s men are holding the doors, but they won’t last—"

Garran didn’t wait for the rest. He was already moving, Kaelvar falling into step beside him. The dragon forgotten for now, they sprinted through the rubble-strewn streets, the sounds of battle growing louder with every step.

The church loomed ahead, its once-white stone blackened by smoke. A desperate line of soldiers braced the doors, pikes leveled at the tide of vermin-touched clawing at the barricade. Behind them, the wounded groaned, the civilians wept—and at the center, Edric stood, his face pale with blood loss, his sword arm trembling but still raised.

Garran didn’t slow.

"Kaelvar—the flank!"

The Varekai warrior peeled away, his chain whipping out to sever a duskhound’s spine mid-leap. Garran barreled into the fray, his blade carving through rotting flesh and chitin alike.

The dragon’s shadow passed over them again.

But the demons didn’t pause.

And neither did Garran.

...

Garran wiped his blade clean on the tattered cloak of a fallen demon, grimacing as he examined the nicks and notches marring the steel. Even during his years with the Repentants—armed with rusted scrap and salvaged gear—he'd never gone through weapons this quickly.

The constant fighting was grinding his sword down to a glorified club. 'I'll need to find a proper armory soon,' he thought, 'assuming there's anything left of this damned city.'

A low, rumbling roar drew his gaze skyward.

The dragon still circled overhead, its tattered wings casting jagged shadows across the ruined streets. Garran's jaw tightened as he studied it—the way its ribs protruded unnaturally beneath its patchy scales, the milky film over its eyes that spoke of blindness or worse.

This was no proud wyrm of legend, no guardian watching over Vaeldrith as the old tales claimed. Whatever this creature was, it had been hollowed out, reduced to something lesser.

Shaking his head, Garran turned away and approached a young soldier picking through the demon corpses for salvageable arrows. The man startled at his approach but quickly straightened, snapping off a shaky salute.

"Situation?" Garran asked.

"We lost five men holding the doors," the soldier reported, wiping sweat and grime from his brow. "But we're still twenty strong. The problem is..." He hesitated, his gaze flicking toward the church. "Lord Edric."

Garran frowned. "What about him? He looked pale when I arrived, but he was standing."

The soldier swallowed hard. "He was. Then he took another hit—vermin claw to the gut. The healer's with him now, but..." He trailed off, shaking his head as if to banish the thought. "Gods willing, he'll pull through."

Garran didn't reply. He'd seen enough gut wounds to know the odds. Still, a little hope never killed anyone. Not in the literal sense anyway.

After a tense silence, Garran spoke again. "What about the elf sorceress?"

The soldier's expression grew uneasy. "She's inside the church too... showed up just before you arrived. But she's acting... strange."

Garran raised an eyebrow.

The soldier gave a half-hearted chuckle. "Strange even for one of her kind. She looks... confused. Like she's seeing things that aren't there."

Garran gave the man a firm pat on the shoulder. "Thank you. You may carry on."

"No need for thanks," the soldier said, offering a tired smile. "You've already saved my life twice—once at the walls, and now here."

Garran froze, his hand still resting on the soldier's pauldron. His eyes widened slightly as he studied the man's face—young, barely more than a boy, with a fresh scar running from temple to jaw. He should have remembered him. He would have, in another life.

But in this one, the faces blurred together.

Garran offered a stiff nod and turned toward the church, forcing down the tightness in his chest. There was no room for thoughts like that now.

The city was lost. They were surrounded. And above it all, that damned dragon circled like a vulture waiting for its meal to stop twitching.

They needed to act.

Fight or flee?

The answer should have been simple. But as Garran pushed open the church doors, the sight that greeted him made the decision far more complicated.

The church stank of blood and burning tallow.

Garran stepped through the arched doorway, his boots scuffing against stone worn smooth by centuries of prayer.

The pews had been overturned to make room for the wounded—soldiers lay groaning on makeshift pallets, their bandages already seeping red. Women huddled in the corners, clutching children to their chests, while the elderly sat silent, their eyes hollow with the knowledge that they would be the first left behind if flight became necessary.

Twenty soldiers. Himself. Kaelvar. And a half-mad sorceress.

Against thousands of demons.

Garran’s mouth twisted. There would be no victory here. No glorious last stand. Escape meant leading these people into the open jaws of the Maw’s horde, and staying meant waiting to be butchered like penned cattle.

His gaze drifted to the statue looming over the altar—Ardun, God of War, his stone sword raised in eternal judgment. The carving’s eyes seemed to bore into Garran, heavy with expectation.

'If even you are looking to me...' Garran thought, bitterness rising like bile, 'then who am I supposed to look to in these times?'

The weight of his armor—of his failures—pressed down until his knees threatened to buckle. He was so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of watching good men die. Tired of waking up each morning only to wade through fresh hells.

What was the point?

A small tug at his cloak.

Garran looked down.

A boy no older than six stared up at him, his face smudged with soot, his eyes too wide for someone who’d seen so much horror. In his hands, he clutched a toy soldier crudely fashioned from straw and twine.

"You’re a knight, right?" the boy whispered. "Daddy said knights are the strongest there is..."

Garran forced a brittle smile onto his face as he knelt before the boy. The straw soldier in the child's hands had been crafted with desperate care - the twine bindings too tight, the stitching uneven where small fingers had struggled to make it hold together.

"And where is your father?" Garran asked, though he already knew the answer.

The boy's face crumpled like parchment. "Uncle David told me he died on the walls," he whispered, clutching the straw doll so tightly its head bent at an awkward angle. "While fighting the demons."

Somewhere near the altar, a woman muffled her sobs in her shawl. The scent of burning oil and infection hung thick in the air.

Then the boy straightened, his small shoulders squaring with terrible resolve. "But that's okay... because he was a soldier." His grimy fingers tightened around Garran's vambrace. "And because you're here. You'll make the demons pay, won't you?"

The question struck Garran like a hammer to an anvil. His mouth opened, but no words came - only the metallic taste of blood where he'd bitten his tongue.

Shame rose hot and sudden in his throat.

What was the point?

The answer stood before him in scuffed boots two sizes too big, with eyes that still believed in knights.

A repentant's duty was written in blood and carved into the brand beneath his collar: Fight. Bleed. Die. So that others might live blissfully ignorant of the horrors lurking in the dark.

It was an arrogant oath, a self-loathing covenant, but it was the way of the Repentant.

Garran inhaled deeply, the stench of war and wasted lives filling his lungs. When he exhaled, something long buried rose with it - the sharp, unrelenting edge of a blade being drawn from its sheath after years of disuse.

He placed a gauntleted hand on the boy's head, careful not to let the steel pinch. "That's right," he said, his voice rough as gravel yet steady as stone. "I'll slaughter every last one of them."

The words weren't a promise.

They were a vow carved into his bones.