Lastlight's Revenant #1

Moon-pale candles crowned the inner sanctum, their flames shivering in the hush. Garran Dornblade stood at the center of the circular dais, linen tunic clinging to muscle and sweat.

The six acolytes—faces hidden beneath ivory hoods—approached in measured cadence, each bearing a gleaming plate of armor as though it were a sacrament.

The High Priest of the Radiant Court—robes stitched with gold thread, voice like hammered bronze—stepped forward with a scroll in hand.

A silver greave was braced around Garran's right shin.

"What is your pledge to Auretheon, Lord of Light and Law?"

Garran's voice rang clear, carrying to the shadowed colonnades above.

"My sight—unclouded by pride. My step—never straying from the path."

A second acolyte fitted the matching greave.

"What is your pledge to Velmara, Lady of Mercy and Compassion?"

"My body—a shield for the frail. My blood—the price of their breath."

Bronzed vambraces clasped about his forearms with a muted click.

"What is your pledge to Khorveth, Lord of Forge and Flame?"

"My will—to endure the fire of tribulations. My wrath—to scourge the unworthy."

A gleaming cuirass descended, locking across his chest.

"What is your pledge to Seravain, the Whispering Thorn?"

"My heart—stripped bare of deceit. My silence—a crypt for the dead."

Acolytes lifted broad-edged pauldrons onto his shoulders, their weight like miniature ramparts.

"What is your pledge to Ardun, God of War and Dominion?"

Garran set his jaw as the metal settled.

"My sword—for the wicked. Their blood—to quench his thirst."

Only the helm remained, cradled in the priest's hands like a newborn star. The old man's eyes narrowed, voice dropping to a solemn hush.

"And to your king, sovereign of realms and chosen by the Five—what pledge binds your life to his?"

Garran turned.

High upon the obsidian throne sat the king: robed in cobalt silk, circlet agleam, visage the portrait of noble gravity. Garran opened his mouth to swear fealty—

—and watched majesty curdle.

The king's lips peeled back too wide, revealing rows of needle teeth. Regal eyes ignited into pits of molten gold. A hush swept the hall; torch-flames bent inward as if drawn to that abyssal hunger.

Garran's words shriveled in his throat.

...

"Oi, Dornblade!"

Garran lurched upright, lungs dragging cold night air. No gold-lit hall, no shining steel—only a threadbare tent reeking of sweat and mildew. His "bed" was a burlap roll stuffed with straw; his "armor" a patchwork of cracked leather and scavenged mail links.

A silhouette stooped at the entrance, torchlight paling across a scar-cheeked face.

"Up with you—your turn on watch. And try not to live up to your title, eh, Oathbreaker?"

The man spat and disappeared with a chuckle.

Garran's pulse hammered as he found his feet. The branded sigil—blackened sun of treachery—itched beneath the collar of his torn gambeson. He belted on a nicked longsword, the blade more rust than iron, and stepped into the bitter wind.

Beyond the ragged tents, the Maw's horizon glimmered—an endless bruise against the stars.

Garran stepped toward the watch-fires, the ghost of armor heavy on his back, an oathbreaker walking a line no god would bless.

...

Garran walked through the camp like a ghost through a graveyard.

Whispers slithered in his wake:

"There goes the knight..." A chuckle, wet with malice.

"Golden boy finally got his hands dirty."

"Heard he gutted a priest right on the altar—"

Garran kept walking.

The Repentant were a tapestry of the damned—thieves huddled around stolen ale, murderers sharpening blades with too-practiced hands, runaway nobles pretending their silks hadn't rotted to rags. All bound by the same choice: the noose or the Maw.

Most wore their crimes like armor.

"Had to strangle my brother," a man with rope-burned wrists would say, shrugging. "He was gonna turn us in for the bounty."

"Stole a lord's horse," a starveling woman might mutter. "Ate it raw by the third day."

Garran was different.

They all knew the story: Sir Garran Dornblade, the Radiant Knight, who'd thrown down his sword before the king himself. No starvation, no desperate knife in the dark—just a choice, clean as a headsman's strike.

That was the sin they couldn't forgive.

To them, it was a choice to throw away a life they couldn't grasp in their wildest dreams.

A jug of sour wine arced from the shadows. Garran sidestepped; it shattered against a tent post, spraying vinegar-sharp droplets.

"Oops," drawled a voice. Rorke. "Must've slipped."

Garran didn't slow. Let them think him too proud to brawl. The truth was simpler: he'd fought enough battles to know which ones mattered.

Ahead, the watch-fires burned low. Beyond them, the Maw yawned—a valley of jagged rock and darker things, its depths exhaling a wind that stank of burnt hair and rotting copper.

Garran flexed his sword hand. Tonight's quiet was worse than screams.

...

Garran sat alone at the watch-fire, his sword resting across his shoulders like a yoke. Before him, the Maw stretched—a scar of jagged rock and unnatural shadow, silent for the first time in living memory.

Two months.

No demons. No beasts. Just a stillness that clung to the lungs like wet ash. It was why Dain Holloway, the so-called "Knight of Lastlight", had sent them here: "Watch the dark. Tell me when it blinks."

A log collapsed in the fire, sending up a spray of embers. Garran tracked one as it spiraled toward the Maw—then snuffed out midair, as if something had breathed it in.

"Still brooding over your glorious past?"

The voice was light, edged with the rasp of a man who'd laughed through one too many hangovers. Kael slumped onto the log beside him, tossing a wineskin into Garran's lap. "Drink. You look like a man counting his sins."

Garran studied him. Kael was young for a Repentant—barely twenty, with a face more suited to tavern songs than battlefields. His crime was legend: "Stole a bishop's horse, fucked his daughter, and toasted the man's health with his own wine." A liar's boast, but the boy wore it like a crown.

"No sins left to count," Garran said, but uncorked the skin anyway. The wine tasted of sour cherries and poor decisions.

Kael grinned, stretching his arms behind his head. "Ah, come off it. You're the only man here who chose this shithole. That's gotta itch worse than Holloway's sermons."

Garran's thumb brushed the brand beneath his gambeson. Dain Holloway—the only other knight among the Repentant, and the only one who'd walked into exile with his head high and his armor gleaming. No crime to repent. No sentence to serve. Just a fool's hope that he could "redeem the unredeemable."

The men loved him for it.

Kael nudged Garran's boot with his own. "Bet you five coppers the Maw's just tired of our ugly faces."

A shout cut through the night before Garran could reply.

One of the scouts stationed closer to the maw staggered into the firelight, his eyes wide as a spooked horse's. "Movement—in the maw! We're under attack, it's—"

The scout’s warning died as a blackened spear erupted from his chest, its barbed tip glistening with something darker than blood. He crumpled, the shaft still quivering—a grotesque exclamation point to his unfinished sentence.

Garran’s sword was in his hand before the body hit the ground.

"Tracker-spines," he hissed.

He knew these weapons. Knew the things that wielded them.

Duskhounds.

Lesser demons, sleek as shadows, their limbs too long and fingers fused around the hafts of those cursed spears. They rarely crossed the Maw, and when they did, they were never alone—always scouts for something worse.

The darkness beyond the firelight rippled.

Twelve pairs of lidless white eyes ignited in the gloom. Twelve Duskhounds stepped forward, their movements synchronized, their spears raised like a forest of dead branches.

Garran’s gut turned to ice.

One Duskhound was an omen of a powerful demon. Twelve meant a command-pack—an imminent disaster, considering the things they served didn’t bother with scouting parties under usual circumstances.

Behind him, the camp erupted into chaos. A tent collapsed, its canvas shredded by another spine-spear. A Repentant staggered past, clutching a wound that bled tarry black.

"Kael!" Garran barked. "The western trench—now!"

The boy didn’t move, his usual grin replaced by raw terror. "There are twelve of'em! Fuck’s sake, Dornblade, even you can’t—"

"If the trench falls, you run." Garran didn’t look at him, his eyes locked on the advancing demons. "Lastlight needs to know."

A scream tore through the night—not human, not anymore.

Something deeper answered from the Maw’s heart, a sound like stone grinding against bone.

Kael paled. "That’s not—"

"Go!"

Garran lunged as the first spine-spear flew.