“The Hollow Village”

The Ghosts of Blackthorn

The village of Blackthorn didn't just die—it was unmade.

Alaric and Crimson Wing approached under a sky choked with ash, the air thick with the stench of spoiled meat and something worse—something metallic, like rust and old blood. The wooden palisade that had once guarded the village was now a skeletal ruin, its timbers blackened and split, as if something had chewed through them. The gates hung crooked, one hinge torn free, the other groaning in the wind like a wounded animal.

Crimson Wing's ears flattened, his nostrils flaring at the reek. He pawed the ground, muscles coiled tight, sensing what Alaric already knew:

This place was wrong.

The first thing Alaric noticed was the silence. No birds. No insects. Not even the whisper of wind through the trees. The jungle itself had recoiled from Blackthorn, leaving it in a bubble of unnatural stillness.

The second thing was the mud.

It wasn't just mud.

It was alive.

Thick, black, and glistening, it oozed between the cobblestones, pulsing faintly as if breathing. Where it touched the remains of the houses, the wood rotted in seconds, collapsing inward like wet paper. Crimson Wing sidestepped a creeping tendril of it, his hooves clicking nervously against the stone.

Alaric knelt, dagger drawn, and prodded the sludge with the tip of his blade.

It shrieked.

A sound like a dying rabbit, high and wet, tore from the black mass as the dagger made contact. The sludge recoiled, twisting away from the blade, leaving behind a patch of clean stone—but only for a moment. Then it surged forward again, faster, hungrier, tendrils lashing out like whips.

Alaric barely jerked back in time.

"Demonic rot," he muttered. "They fed this place to something."

He stepped deeper into the village, his boots sticking slightly in the sludge, the air growing thicker with every breath. The houses weren't just abandoned—they were gutted. Doors ripped from hinges, windows shattered outward, as if the villagers had tried to flee in a single, desperate rush.

Then he saw the first body.

Or what was left of it.

A man—or what had once been a man—lay half-submerged in the black ooze, his torso fused with the ground. His arms were outstretched, fingers hooked into claws, his face frozen in a silent scream. His skin had melted, running like wax, his features blurred into something barely human. His mouth was open too wide, his jaw unhinged, his throat bulging grotesquely—as if something had forced its way out of him.

Crimson Wing let out a low, uneasy snort, his breath fogging in the cold air.

Alaric's grip tightened on the dagger.

"They didn't just kill them," he said. "They turned them into vessels."

He moved deeper, stepping over another corpse—this one curled into a fetal position, its back split open like a burst cocoon, ribs splayed outward. No blood. No organs. Just an empty husk, hollowed out from the inside.

Then—

A whisper.

Alaric spun, dagger raised.

A child's voice, faint and broken, sobbed from one of the houses.

"Help… me…"

Crimson Wing's ears shot forward, his body tensing. Alaric hesitated only a second before striding toward the sound. The door was already broken, hanging by a single hinge. Inside, the walls were streaked with black veins, pulsing faintly like a slow heartbeat.

In the corner, a small figure huddled.

A girl.

No older than six or seven, her dress tattered, her skin deathly pale. She clutched a ragged doll to her chest, her wide, glassy eyes staring at nothing.

Alaric took a step forward—

—and the doll's head twisted to look at him.

Its stitched mouth peeled open, revealing rows of needle teeth.

The girl's body convulsed, her limbs snapping like twigs as she lurched upright, her spine bending at impossible angles. Her jaw unhinged, her throat swelling grotesquely as a wet, gurgling laugh bubbled up from inside her.

"You're too late," the thing inside her hissed, its voice layered with dozens of others. "We ate them all."

Then the girl's body burst.

A geyser of black sludge erupted from her mouth, her eyes, her pores, surging toward Alaric in a wave of writhing, grasping tendrils.

Crimson Wing reared, his scream splitting the air as Alaric slashed with the dagger. The blade cut through the corruption, sending it shrieking back—but more was coming. The walls wept with the stuff, the floor bubbling as more of the villagers' remains twitched and shuddered, their bodies disgorging the same black horror.

"Run," Alaric snarled, leaping onto Crimson Wing's back.

The stallion didn't hesitate. He bolted, his hooves kicking up gouts of the living rot as they fled. Behind them, the village writhed, the very earth convulsing as something beneath it—something vast and hungry—stirred awake.

They didn't stop until the jungle swallowed the screams behind them.

Shadows and Blood – Crimson Wing's Stand

The jungle was never silent—until now.

Alaric crouched beside the guttering fire, fingers curled around the hilt of the Betrayer's Dagger. The air was thick, pressing against his skin like a sweaty palm. Crimson Wing stood beside him, his massive frame rigid, ears flicking at every imagined sound.

The stallion was no stranger to fear.

His body told the story—a tapestry of old battles etched into his crimson hide. The jagged scar along his ribs, where a Vein-Touched's talon had nearly gutted him. The twisted knot of flesh on his left flank, from a demon's whip of thorns. The notch in his ear, torn in a fight against a wolf pack twice his size.

He had survived.

And he did not run.

A twig snapped.

Alaric didn't move. Didn't breathe.

The firelight cast writhing shadows across the trees—but one shadow stood wrong. Too tall. Too still. Limbs stretched like taffy, fingers brushing the ground.

No face. No eyes.

Just a smile. A jagged cut in the darkness, too wide, too many teeth.

Crimson Wing saw it first.

His nostrils flared, his breath steaming in the cold air. But he did not rear. Did not bolt.

He planted himself.

Muscles coiled. Hooves braced.

A warhorse's stance.

The shadow twitched.

Then—

—it spoke.

Not with sound. Not with voice.

The words slithered into Alaric's skull, wet and squirming.

"We remember you, Stone Emperor."

Crimson Wing slammed his hoof down.

The earth shuddered.

The shadow flinched.

For the first time, that jagged smile wavered.

Alaric rose, dagger blazing. "You don't know this beast," he growled.

Crimson Wing exhaled sharply—not fear, but challenge.

The scars on his body were proof enough. He had faced worse than shadows.

The thing in the dark hissed—then lunged.

Not at Alaric.

At the stallion.

Crimson Wing met it head-on.

He reared, hooves flashing like falling stars, striking the shadow with a sound like tearing cloth. The darkness screeched, recoiling, its form flickering like a guttering candle.

Alaric moved in a flash, dagger carving a crimson arc. The blade bit deep, and the shadow howled—not in pain, but in rage.

Then it was gone.

Swallowed by the earth.

A whisper rose from below:

"You cannot kill what is already dead."

Crimson Wing stamped, nostrils flared, his sides heaving. But his eyes burned with something fiercer than fear.

Defiance.

Alaric rested a hand on the stallion's neck, feeling the old scars beneath his fingers.

"Next time," he murmured, "we burn it."

Crimson Wing snorted.

As if to say: I'll do worse.

And Alaric believed him.

The Last Village

The village was called Lastlight.

Not for the sun that set behind its walls, but for the stubborn, foolhardy hope that still flickered inside them—despite the darkness that had swallowed the rest of the world.

Alaric saw it the moment he crested the hill—the wooden palisade, reinforced with sharpened stakes, the trenches dug in haste, half-filled with rainwater and mud. The watchtowers, manned by farmers with hunting bows and pitchforks, their faces gaunt, their knuckles white on their weapons. The fields beyond, where the survivors worked with haunted eyes and hands that shook when they thought no one was looking.

This was no fortress.

This was a refuge—one barely clinging to life.

A sentry spotted them first—a gaunt woman with a rusted sickle in her grip, her face lined with exhaustion and something deeper, something worse. Resignation. Her eyes widened as Alaric approached, her breath catching in her throat.

"By the Vein," she whispered. "You're… real."

Alaric didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the figure now limping from the gates.

Harkin.

The old priest was even more withered than Alaric remembered, his spine bent like a gnarled tree, his milky eyes clouded with age. But his grip was still firm around the ancient sword at his side—the only blade in the village, its edge dulled from years of disuse. A relic of a time when men still believed in heroes.

Harkin's lips parted. Then, slowly, he sank to his knees.

"Emperor," he rasped.

The word was raw. Reverent.

Alaric stepped forward, his voice barely above a growl.

"Get up, old man." He extended a hand. "We have work to do."

For a heartbeat, Harkin didn't move. Then, with a shuddering breath, he clasped Alaric's forearm—not as a warrior, but as a man who had waited too long for salvation.

Behind him, the villagers had gathered—farmers with calloused hands, carpenters with splintered fingers, traders with empty wagons. A child peeked out from behind her mother's skirts, her eyes too old for her face. An old man clutched a rusted holy symbol to his chest, his lips moving in silent prayer.

They were not soldiers.

They were survivors.

And they were all that was left.

Alaric met their stares, his grip tightening on Harkin's arm.

"Tell me everything."

Harkin's smile was grim.

"It's worse than you think."

The wind carried the scent of damp earth and something fouler—the lingering stench of rot, of things that had crawled from the blackened forests and never truly died. The villagers shifted uneasily, their eyes darting toward the tree line.

"They come at night," Harkin said, his voice low. "Not just the beasts. The changed. Men and women who walked into the mist and came back... wrong."

Alaric's jaw tightened. He had seen it before—the way the corruption twisted flesh, hollowed out minds. But this close to Lastlight? That was new.

"How many?"

"More each week." Harkin exhaled, his breath rattling. "We've lost the eastern fields. The well is tainted. And the dreams..." He trailed off, but Alaric didn't need him to finish.

The dreams were always the same. A voice in the dark, whispering, promising. Let go. Give in.

A child in the crowd whimpered, and the woman beside her—her mother, perhaps—pulled her closer, fingers digging into the girl's shoulder like she could shield her from the world with grip alone.

Alaric turned, scanning the defenses. The palisade was sturdy, but it wouldn't hold forever. The people were strong, but they were starving. And hope—hope was a flame guttering in the wind.

He unsheathed his sword. The steel gleamed, cold and bright in the fading light.

"Then we don't wait for nightfall."

Harkin's milky eyes widened. "You mean to—?"

"Gather every weapon you have," Alaric said. "Every man, woman, and child who can hold a blade or swing a hammer. We take back the fields. We clear the well. And when the dark comes..." He met their eyes, one by one. "We remind it why this village is still standing."

For the first time in years, something flickered in the villagers' faces. Not just fear.

Fire.

Harkin straightened, his old bones creaking. Then he nodded.

"Lastlight stands."

Alaric grinned, sharp as his dagger.

"Damn right it does."