A quick note before we begin

This is a horror piece and definitely isn't for everyone!

The main content warnings that apply to it are general zombie horror stuff (body horror, gore, 'cannibalism', death, etc.)

I've erred on the side of caution with these warnings (some things occur offscreen or are otherwise not particularly graphic), but they're nonetheless all present in some form.

Tread carefully, dear reader!

 

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“So let’s say there’s a hostage in that building that we, the good knights of the realm, want to rescue, and by we I mean just the two of you - pretend I’m not here. What’s the first thing you should do? Remember, all you know right now is that they’re in there… actually, I think a better question would be ‘what’s something important that you want to learn about the situation?’”

“Oh! I know this one! Find out where the hostage is!”

“No, Wallace, obviously you need to find out how many enemies there are and where they are! Right, Sir Renault?”

“That was a good answer, Conway, but you’d also want to know what Wallace suggested; some other important things are what their demands are and if they’re likely to dispose of the hostage if they get what they want. Depending on the circumstances it might be better -or at least safer- to take whatever monetary loss would get the hostage out of their hands, and something else to think about is…”

Sometime long after the disaster that had been working with Nergal, Renault had wandered his way into a job mentoring knight trainees in Caelin. He hadn’t exactly settled into the role quite yet and had even been wondering if Lord Hausen had set him —a total stranger— up to fail when he saw the two kids placed in his care, but those concerns were quashed far faster than he could have ever expected. Wallace may have been the smallest 12 year old he had ever met, and Conway still had to rest staves on the ground in order for them to be steady enough to cast magic, but they both displayed an eagerness to learn and a desire to overcome the limitations of their youth. This enthusiam in turn led to them making the greatest improvements among their peers in the three or four years since Renault arrived in Caelin, and he couldn’t help being impressed with Hausen’s eye for talent; not only was he able to recognize that Conway and Wallace had that potential buried deep within, waiting to be awoken, but also that Renault was equipped to nurture that talent and coax it to the surface, something he himself would've never guessed in a million years.

Training children wasn’t what he had been looking to do when he came to Caelin, but it was still, to some extent, fulfilling, even if it was a detour on the way towards finding people equipped to help him take down Nergal and right the wrongs of his past. It was also something he took seriously, too, as there was no telling when he’d need to act, and, for all he knew, in fifty years’ time he would come to rely on the two of them to get the job done.

“…I think that’s enough on the theory for now. We came all the way out here, and it would be a shame to keep wasting daylight talking when I can do that just as well back in Caelin: are you two up for an infiltration exercise?”

Both boys gave him an excited ‘Yeah!’, and Renault smiled. It seemed like going on this field trip was already paying off.

“So Conway, what’s your main priority?”

“Watching Wallace’s back!”

“And Wallace?”

“Keeping Conway safe!”

“I’m glad you two have finally managed to get that down.”

He gestured towards the two story building ahead of them, which had served as a town hall up until this region joined with Caelin a decade or so prior.

“Lead the way.”

The two boys got into formation to approach the building, with Wallace, as a knight-in-training, taking the vanguard and signaling to Conway, who followed up on the rear, that he was going to follow the trees instead of charging in head-on.

A good first move, Renault noted as he followed behind the two. The land surrounding the town hall was a flat field, so the only cover they had available was the few trees that, based off of their orderly placement, had been planted primarily for decorative purposes. He’d have to remember to praise that decision later.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone on lookout,” Conway looked up to the roof, “No archers, either.”

Conway was making some fine choices, too. He was used to it by now, but they really had improved by leaps and bounds, hadn’t they?

They drew closer and closer and Renault began to feel the growing sense that something was wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what. It was just… a vague gut feeling, like the ‘sense’ that it will rain soon, or the ‘sense’ that you’re being watched, or the ‘sense’ that the ground you’re standing on is unstable.

Renault had gotten in touch with some of the locals before they came here, and the building was supposed to be empty, but if his gut was right, what else could it be right about? There didn’t seem to be anybody in the windows, but what if they had just been out of sight?

They reached the front door and Renault had no more time to contemplate what, if anything, might go awry, so he placed a hand on Wallace’s shoulder.

“Wait out here. I’m going to check inside first.”

“Why? You said it was empty.”

“I hadn’t checked it personally, but…”

He let out a sigh.

Might as well be honest and squeeze another lesson out of it.

“I can’t say what, but something’s off. If I trust my gut and end up being too cautious, then I’ll have wasted some time, but if there’s something to be worried about and we go in unprepared, that moment of recklessness is something I can’t take back. Wait out here.”

“Okay…”

Wallace and Conway seemed disappointed that their mock adventure was getting interrupted, but they were both well behaved and Renault knew they'd follow his orders, especially since he was upfront about his intentions.

Renault walked through the front door, which took him to a hallway barely illuminated by the light coming in from the open door behind him, its sconces either removed by locals looking to use them elsewhere or thieves looking for some easy coin. There were three doors he could go through: one to his left, one to his right, and one straight ahead, at the far end of the corridor.

He chose the one on the left.

The room was as bare as the hallway outside it.

Then the one on the right.

Again, empty.

He moved back to the hallway and approached the far door, and the presence that he felt grew a little stronger, just enough for him to realize what it was coming from.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious to him what he was feeling. The way that that unnatural pressure squirmed around, he felt foolish for having forgotten what it was.

The only question that remained in his mind was why the morph that was certainly in the next room felt so weak.

Renault drew his sword —a modest steel blade, but one that would still get most any job done in his hands— and entered the main room.

The room was bare, as unfurnished as everything else in this abandoned town hall, though it was in a far worse state of disrepair than the other two rooms; the rear door on the far side of the room had fallen off of its hinges, allowing the local wildlife to freely track in mud and dirt, resulting in a light scattering of grasses growing here and there.

From the smell of it, quite a few of them had chosen to die in this room too.

More importantly, there was no morph in sight, much less anything for it to have hidden behind. While Renault hadn’t found how to get to the second floor (he may have overlooked a trapdoor in the ceiling of one of the other rooms, or perhaps there was a ladder on the far side of the building), it didn’t seem like that would be a concern: while he couldn’t pinpoint where the morph was, it was still somewhere in front of him, and certainly wasn’t anywhere above him.

But it was close.

He took a step further into the room, confident that he was, for the time being, safe. If the morph had been hiding behind the now-open door he had entered through, he would have felt it off to his side, but no, it was relatively straight ahead, which meant it was either-

schwlek

Renault's next step had found something other than the floor.

It gave way quickly, not giving him any time to register that something had been there before his boot barreled through it. It had been large, at the very least melon-sized, and while it had deformed easily, it remained slick beneath his boot, so Renault instinctively stumbled forward a few extra steps to distance himself from whatever it had been and pivoted around into a battle stance the moment he regained his footing.

But it was clear the danger was gone.

He had, by some stroke of luck, managed to step directly on the morph’s head, which had been connected to the decaying remains of its upper torso.

And it, by some stroke of misfortune, was now mostly splattered against the floor by the doorway.

It wasn’t dead just yet; from the way that the eyeball that had popped out of its socket —⁠probably dislodged by the impact to the head it had previously spent its entire life in⁠— continued to pulse, deflating as the quintessence-dense pseudo-organic chyme that filled it leaked out on the floor, the very same chyme that Renault had previously mistaken for dirt and dried mud, which had been streaked across the room likely by the morph as it tried to crawl somewhere else, anywhere else as its unmaintained body began to break down until there was little left but a head, it wouldn’t die for a few more hours.

But the morph was, for all intents and purposes, already dead.

“That’s great,” he muttered under his breath.

The morph had clearly been discarded —or forgotten— a long time ago, so he couldn’t make any guesses as to how much of a threat they’d continue to be in Caelin, or if he needed to start focusing on finding someone to help deal with them, but…

At the very least, he needed to prevent Conway and Wallace from entering this room.

He let out a deep sigh and then felt the air in the room shift. Whatever tension had left his body immediately returned as he realized that he wasn’t the only being in this room anymore.

Had this morph not been alone? It didn’t feel like the presence behind him was a morph, but—

“Hey, are you… uh… human?” A voice called out from behind him.

Unless Nergal had made some nigh-impossible breakthrough in simulacra generation, the indecisiveness in the voice was genuine, which meant the presence behind him was beyond the shadow of a doubt a human.

“I haven’t checked in a while.”

The voice behind him let out a chuckle, clearly not expecting a retort, and Renault turned around, the tension in the air dissolving. There stood a man with a shoulder-length blond hair, tied back in a short ponytail. His outfit suggested that he was a mercenary (or perhaps ex-military?), and as he deftly sheathed the blade he had pulled out to confront the unknown entity in the room, it became apparent that he wasn’t some run-of-the-mill mercenary either.

“Sorry, I guess I’m still a little too quick to act, huh?” he stuck out his hand, “The name’s Licht, I’ve been hunting those monsters for a few months now.”

Renault looked down at Licht’s hand.

He had a choice to make.

“Renault. I’m an instructor in Caelin and…”

He grabbed Licht’s hand and shook it.

It seemed almost too good to be true. He has his first reminder of his overarching mission since he came to Caelin, and immediately after finds someone whose interests aligned with his? Was this the opportunity that he was looking for, or would seizing the first chance that came by just result in another disastrous false start?

“I’ve been looking for someone like you for quite some time. Do you have a moment?”

 

---

 

“And you’re the man who is taking Renault from me?”

“Yes, and I apologize for the inconvenience that causes you, my Lord.”

They were in Caelin’s —which is to say, Hausen’s— throne room, and Renault had finished giving his report on the field exercise with Conway and Wallace; it had also acted as a trial exercise and if it went well —which it mostly had— they’d implement similar exercises in the training regimens that all of the knight trainees in Caelin underwent.

Hausen’s unpleasant brother was uncharacteristically absent from this meeting, as were most of the other folk of the court. It struck Renault as odd, but he considered it a blessing as Lundgren had taken every chance he had to undermine everything Renault had ever done and he had never been able to figure out why. The only people in the room at the moment were Hausen, Licht, one of Hausen’s aides (Gregory? Gremory?), and Renault himself, which was why there hadn’t been much of a response when he had also informed Hausen of his intent to leave Caelin.

His glare and his words made it sound like Licht was coming for his beloved daughter's hand in marriage, but, with a sigh, Hausen's expression softened.

“Well, he did tell me that this day would come…”

He turned to Renault.

“And you’re sure you won’t stay a little longer? If you’re going to travel a fair distance, I can arrange for supplies for the trip, provided you continue teaching for a little longer?”

Licht turned to Renault and raised his eyebrows, as if to say ‘that might be a good idea’.

“That’s very kind of you, sir. Would a week be enough? I was—”

“Oh, that’d be more than enough, Renault! I just didn’t want you to leave in the middle of anything you were doing with Conway and Wallace. Any idea of what you’ll need for your trip?”

Licht pounced on the chance to reply before Renault had even had the chance to start thinking about what he needed.

“Enough rations to get us to Thria, and if there are any merchants passing through heading in that direction, I’d like to send a letter to my wife letting her know I’ll be a bit delayed in returning home. I already have some camping gear and bedding for myself,” Licht turned to Renault, yielding the floor to him, “but Renault may need some…?”

“Er… some bedding for me would be nice, but I think that’ll be all.”

“Oh, of course! If you think of anything else, please, do let me know. I do believe we have some merchants heading directly towards Thria in town at the moment, so Gregmory,” Hausen turned to his aide, whose name Renault had nearly remembered correctly, “If you could make sure Licht here is able to send his letter?”

Gregmory nodded and escorted Licht out of the room.

There was a moment of silence between them.

“I’m sorry for leaving so suddenly.”

Hausen shook his head and smiled.

It was a gentle smile, but there was a hint of… sadness.

Of regret.

“Renault, I’m happy you’re leaving.”

“…I beg your pardon?”

“Ah, apologies,” Hausen was a powerful orator, which made the times he stumbled stand out all the more, “I said that wrong: I’m happy you’ve a reason to leave. I can’t overstate how much you’ve done for Caelin, but… it’s been clear that what you’ve been looking for isn’t something you’ll find here. I could tell how much you’ve enjoyed being not just a teacher, but a mentor to Conway and Wallace, but there’s always been this… hollow look in your eyes, the same look you had when we first met.

“I don’t know what you’ve had to endure, I don’t know what’s been tormenting you all these years, but… there’s a vibrance in you now, the same kind of vibrance I feel within myself when I’m with Madelyn, a vibrance that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to see in you, and I’m happy that you’ve found what you’ve been looking for, even if it’s something that we weren't able to give to you.”

“…You honor me too much, my Lord.”

“If nothing else, Renault, I want you to know that even though you may be moving on to greener pastures, you’ll always have a home to come back to here. I consider you family, Renault, as does the rest of Caelin, and we’ll always be wishing you the best.”

 

---

 

Renault’s last week in Caelin passed in the blink of an eye, and Conway and Wallace spent every moment begging him to stay. A large part of him did want to stay and continue to teach them, but…

He needed to move forwards, and staying in Caelin wouldn’t let him do that, so, with reluctance in his heart, he left.

 

Not much happened during the first four days of their journey; it was little more than a trek across a section of Lycia with a few minor settlements scattered here and there, and the region was safe enough for them to comfortably sleep beneath the stars.

On the start of the fifth day, they had just crossed the river that divided Lycia in two, and were at a crossroads just north of Laus. They could either make a beeline for Thria and cross the mountain range, which would take two days or so at the expense of all the feeling in their legs, or go around the range to the south and pass through Laus, Ryerde, and Worde along the way, a much easier but much longer journey.

“There are some cabins in the mountains where we can stop and rest, if you think you’re up for a little hiking. It’s the route I took to get here, so I’m familiar with the land up there.”

“Have you ever been to Bern?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. These are hills.”

Licht laughed.

“Is that a yes?”

“Thria’s right on the other side, right? It shouldn’t be a problem for me.”

 

 

BOOM

It had started to rain halfway through the climb up the mountain, and the distant sound of thunder made it clear that the only sane choice they had was to make camp and hope the storm passed soon. They were lucky to find a cave nearby to wait inside, and made themselves comfortable around a small fire Licht threw together with some of the firewood he had left in his pack.

“I’ve been wondering,” Renault said, relaxing a bit as they waited out the storm, “How did you know about that morph?”

“Some locals mentioned strange sounds coming from the area as I was passing through on my way home from another job, and I figured I’d take a look just to be safe. You?”

“I felt it.”

“You… felt it.”

“Yes.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It’s like… you know how you can feel that something’s off with a situation, like a job where you feel like there’s going to be some unexpected problem that'll rear its ugly head later, even if you don’t know what or when?”

“…I guess it sounds less fake when you put it that way. So how will I be able to tell when they’re nearby?”

Renault took a drink of water from his canteen, a drink he didn’t need.

“No idea.”

“Why can you tell?”

“I was experimented on by the man who made them.”

There was a long silence, smothered by the rain.

It wasn’t a lie, but it certainly wasn’t enough of the truth to stop Licht from drawing a conclusion that was all but outright false.

And all but outright to Renault’s advantage.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been honest.

Maybe he should have been less blunt.

Though it surely would’ve been a shock to Licht no matter how much he coated it in pleasantries.

“…Ah. That’s…”

Licht stumbled over his words.

“I won’t pry into that. Sorry, I… should have been more careful.”

“No, it’s just… not a part of my life I like discussing,” another not-quite-a-lie-but-close-enough-to-make-him-feel-bad, “I’m fine with talking about information, but…”

Renault took a deep breath.

“I don’t want to dwell on what’s happened to me.”

Not just because of what Nergal had done to him.

Not just because of what he had done himself.

And, of course, not just so he could hide it all from the first real ally he had come across.

“Can I just ask one thing?”

“I might not answer.”

“Are you okay? Right now?”

Another deep breath.

“…That’s a good question. I don’t know. Making progress towards my goals has helped but… I don’t know.”

Licht stretched out beside him.

“What do you want to do? What’s your endgame? Wiping out all the morphs? Stopping…?”

“Nergal.”

“Stopping Nergal? Stopping him for the sake of revenge? Stopping him because he’ll continue to churn out morphs like no tomorrow?”

He wanted to stop Nergal. He needed to stop Nergal. It wasn’t as if the morphs weren’t a part of all that, but it was Nergal who Renault had his sights on.

“You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to, I just… think it’ll help you if you know what you want. I can’t pretend to understand your circumstances, and this might ring hollow since we’ve known each other for all of two weeks, but… I’d like to help you however much I can, but if that means not talking about—”

“No, Licht, you did the right thing. I’ve spent such a long time just—”

Renault paused and frowned.

Of course there was one nearby.

“There’s a morph. It’s the only one, but it’s moving fast. What’s our plan?”

Licht shot to his feet and grabbed his sword.

“We go after it, of course! We can worry about cutting it off once we know where it is!”

Renault pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning against and shot out of the cave and into the storm, sword in hand and Licht on his heels.

“Yeah! It’s to the west, and it seems to be traveling north.”

“Got it!”

The two of them ran through the rain, thunder booming around them. It was still midday, so even with the clouds it wasn’t completely dark yet, but every shadow, every oddly-shaped boulder they passed made warning signals erupt in Renault's mind, and he suppressed them as best he could.

He knew where the morph was.

He knew where he needed to be.

He knew what he needed to do.

“It stopped moving.”

“Is it… a little bit more to our north now? Angle-wise?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh no.”

It was hard to tell in the storm, but the color drained from Licht's face.

“What?”

“One of the cabins I mentioned is over there.”

Renault didn’t want to think why it had stopped.

The answer was obvious.

But he didn’t want to think about it.

All he could do was run faster.

And he did.

 

After some time, a large, vaguely box-shaped silhouette appeared through the trees in the distance.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah!” Licht shouted.

Next thing Renault knew, he had already dashed through the splintered, shattered doorway and entered the only room in the cabin. The morph was there, hunched over the pile of meat and cloth and bone that used to be a person. And he was too late. It continued to tear into the body like a vulture, and Renault could feel its vitality grow, its life force grow, its quintessence grow as it digested its meal and incorporated it into its body, and he was too late. And it paused its feeding, and it turned to him, and its bloodshot eyes and body which was smeared in dirt and blood and flesh and mud and hair and its teeth splintered from biting down on fresh bone, all beginning to mend itself using its newfound surplus of quintessence, and he was too late and it stood up and it twitched every which way and he was too late and it took a step forward and he was too late and—

“Renault! Stay on your toes!”

Licht was beside him.

“Y-Yeah!”

He didn’t need to focus on what he hadn’t been able to do.

He just needed to do what he could now.

 

 

The morph wasn’t difficult to kill; it was hardly in any state to fight even after having engorged itself moments before.

There was no catharsis in the act, no release that came from felling the creature.

Just a dead body and a blood-stained cabin devoid of any immediate danger.

They spent the rest of the day digging a grave for the nameless, faceless victim.

They had no identification on them, nothing they could use to figure out who they were.

All that was left was an unmarked grave and a community left wondering what had happened that one time when one of their own ventured into the mountains alone.

A community, perhaps even a family that would never receive closure.

By the time night fell, they were both exhausted beyond belief, and sleep soon overtook them.

 

---

 

A day and a half later, they reached Licht’s house, a moderately sized cottage a few hours to the northwest of Thria, and the weariness from the encounter in the mountains had begun to wear away.

Licht knocked on the front door and opened it.

“Sera? I’m—”

He had barely taken a step inside before he was tackled to the ground by the fastest moving humanoid shape Renault had ever seen. His hand moved towards his sword, but upon seeing that Licht wasn’t fighting back against the playful barrage of fists raining down on him, he relaxed.

“Ohhhhh, I can’t believe you! You promised you wouldn’t take any detours this time!”

“Sera, please! We have company!”

The young woman on top of Licht looked up at Renault.

“And now you’ve brought back the person you’re having your affair with?! You’re the worst!”

“Ma’am, I can promise you that—”

Licht laughed and squirmed his way out from underneath Sera, climbing to his feet. Having accepted that her point had been made, Sera stood up as well.

“She’s joking, Renault. Sera, this is my new partner in crime, Renault, and Renault, this is my beloved wife, Sera. Now…”

He peered into their cottage.

“I see my beautiful wife, and I see my beautiful house, but where is my beautiful baby?”

“He’s in his crib, probably wondering why you’ve been making all this noise.”

Licht planted a quick kiss on Sera’s cheek…

“I love you, sweetie.”

…dashed past her with speed that rivaled a horse, and ran to a crib that lay across from the front door, where he scooped up a baby that looked to be a few months old and began to raise him up and down, as if to toss him high in the air.

“And I love you too, you little angel!”

The baby squealed in delight, somehow even happier that Licht was home than Licht himself was.

Sera turned to a mildly incredulous Renault.

“I guess he didn’t mention me to you?”

“He had mentioned he was married when he had arranged to send you a letter, but I hadn’t pried any further.”

“Well, you can surely see why I’m not afraid of him being unfaithful, Renault,” she smiled, and then gave him a slight bow. “Anyway, thank you for keeping my husband out of trouble.”

“Lucius, look!” Licht held his son up, facing Renault and Sera, “Your mommy’s being a big meanie!”

Their son gurgled in contentment, happy in his father’s arms, and Sera chuckled.

“He said in his letter that you’ll be traveling with him for some time, so please continue to keep him safe. I’m so relieved he isn’t going to be out there alone anymore.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I don’t think he needs my help with that.”

Renault let out a laugh and then with a smile, perhaps the first smile he hadn’t needed to force in centuries, turned back to Licht playing with Lucius.

“If anything, he’s the one keeping me safe.”

 

---

 

Afterword

I wrote this for Invincible Zine Server's horror and angst themed zine, Calamity's Advent. Had a lot of fun with it, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Some notes about naming:

Drang comes from the genre “Sturm und Drang”. I'm no expert on the genre itself but I am an expert at paraphrasing Wikipedia articles and translated literally from German it means “Storm and Drive”. The absence of a (metaphorical) 'storm' in the piece when Renault has plenty of 'drive' begs the question of where it might be, though since you've reached the end I'm sure you can see it brewing on the horizon.

Licht's name is German for light. It and the title both being in German was a fun coincidence (in this instance Licht came first); I was initially going to call him Lux but I felt like that was a bit... too obvious? On the nose? I don't know. They both mean the same thing but people have different gaps in their knowledge which makes these things hard to gauge :P
Anyway, Licht was your second clue towards how this piece ends.

Sera's name is twofold; it's meant to invoke the similarly named Serra (and her support line with Lucius, which discusses both Licht and Sera) and is also meant to invoke the phrase "que sera sera" ('Whatever will be, will be'). I think it comes a far too close to the end and is a bit too abstract to be called a hint but... it's there! If you got what I had been going for, congrats!

Thanks for reading!