Chapter 2 The Blood Field

Rhen lunged forward, boots slipping in the gore-soaked mud. "Aldric! Get to me, now!"

The Light burned everything. Not with fire, but with a cold, pulling hunger that ripped at the soul. Men who should have died screaming their last breath instead writhed on the ground, bodies arching as glowing threads tore out of them. Their eyes stayed open. Their mouths kept moving.

"Captain!" Aldric's voice cut through the madness, raw and desperate. He staggered toward Rhen, one arm hanging useless, blood pouring from a gash across his chest. "What the fuck is happening? My legs... I can't feel my legs!"

"Hold on!" Rhen roared, shoving past a dying soldier whose skin was already turning to ash under the descending circles. He grabbed Aldric's good arm and hauled him close. "Stay with me, brother. We push through this. Remember Black Pass. We always push through."

Aldric clutched Rhen's armor, fingers digging in hard. His face, that familiar scarred jaw twisted in agony, was inches away. "The boys... Tomas is gone. Mira too. They took them slow, Rhen. Not like steel. This Light... it's eating them from the inside. I can feel it pulling at me. Why us? We followed every damn order."

Rhen's throat tightened. He scanned the field, searching for anyone still fighting. A few shadows moved, but most of his legion lay sprawled, twitching as the ritual circles tightened overhead. "I don't know. But we're getting out. You and me. We'll drag whoever's left."

A high-pitched wail rose from nearby. It belonged to Jarek, the old veteran. The scream stretched on and on, far longer than lungs should allow, echoing unnaturally across the blood field like it was being fed back through the Light itself. Other voices joined in, a chorus that drilled straight into Rhen's skull.

"Make it stop!" someone begged, voice cracking. "Captain, please... I got kids waiting..."

Rhen tried to move toward the voice, but his boots felt heavier. The Light had found him too. A tingling pressure spread through his chest, pinning his muscles. "Fight it! All of you, fight the pull!"

Aldric coughed wetly, spraying blood across Rhen's shoulder. "Too late for that. Listen... if I don't make it, tell my sister... tell her I died cursing the king, not praying to his Light." He managed a weak grin, teeth stained red. "You always said we'd go together, you bastard. Looks like you might actually have to do this one alone."

"Don't talk like that," Rhen snapped, gripping him tighter. His own voice shook. "You're not dying here. Not like this. I need you, Aldric. The legion needs you."

Aldric's eyes flickered. The glowing threads grew brighter around his body, wrapping his limbs like chains made of starlight. "The legion's already gone, Rhen. Look at them. Listen to them. This wasn't war. It was..." His words cut off in a sudden gasp. His back arched violently as the Light yanked something invisible and vital out of him.

"Aldric!" Rhen shouted, trying to hold him up. "Stay with me! Say something, damn you!"

Aldric's mouth opened, but only a prolonged, gurgling scream came out. His eyes locked onto Rhen's, wide with terror and something deeper, betrayal maybe. The scream stretched, joined the awful chorus, lasting impossibly long as the color drained from his face. His grip on Rhen's armor slackened.

"No!" Rhen's roar tore from his chest. He tried to shake Aldric, to slap life back into him, but his arms grew heavy. The Light had him now, a crushing weight pressing him down to one knee. Around them, the field had become a nightmare of living corpses. Men clawed at their own chests, mouths open in endless wails that echoed and overlapped, feeding the ritual circles above.

Rhen's vision blurred. He could still see it all. Tomas's small frame curled up not far away, fingers twitching as the last of his essence streamed upward. Mira lay on her back, spear still clutched in a white-knuckled fist, screaming without pause. Hundreds more. His found family. The only people who ever mattered.

"Why?" he whispered, voice breaking as the pressure forced him lower. His sword slipped from numb fingers. "We gave everything... for this?"

The screams rose to a deafening peak, a wall of sound that pressed against his skull. Pain exploded behind his eyes, phantom agony that wasn't just his own. He tasted blood, felt the echo of every wound, every terror flashing through the legion at once.

Rhen collapsed onto his side, face pressed into the cold mud mixed with the blood of his brothers. He couldn't move. Couldn't even turn his head. All he could do was watch as the final threads ripped free from Aldric's body. His second's eyes went dull, but the scream... the scream continued for several heartbeats longer, as if the Light refused to let the soul go quietly.

Tears mixed with the blood on Rhen's face. His chest heaved with silent sobs he couldn't fully release. The weight crushed him, soul-deep, pulling at something vital inside. This was his legion. His people. Gone in the worst way possible.

As darkness crept in at the edges of his sight, a new sound cut through the fading screams. A voice, calm and ancient, slithering directly into his mind.

“You survived. That makes you useful.”

Rhen's eyes widened in the last moment of consciousness. The voice wasn't his. It wasn't any of his men's.

Darkness swallowed him completely.