After a short moment, Eliana noticed the orb was broken where the King Centipede had collapsed.
"Hey, did the castle contact you? What did they say?" Lia asked Marcus, who was sitting on the Void-Rot mud of the forest floor.
He remembered it then, looking around before spotting the shattered crystal. "Damn it," he said, holding his forehead as he realized he'd ignored what could have been an emergency. "I don't know. When I answered it, that stupid insect just popped out of the ground."
"You think something happened?" Kaelen said. "One of us should teleport back there."
"You think?" Rhys replied. "Hey, weirdos in the air, I forgot to ask—can we carry someone if we teleport?"
[ADMIN A: WEIRDOS? HURTFUL—]
[ADMIN B: SHUT UP, A! I'LL ANSWER THIS. HEY, YOU—HANS MARTIN—CALL US WEIRDOS AGAIN AND WE'LL BLOCK YOUR SYSTEM ACCOUNT!!]
"Can you even do that? Aren't you seem less powerful than the System itself?" Rhys snarked.
"Right, these weird talking shits," Kaelen added.
[ADMIN A & B: …]
[ADMIN A: AHEM. ANYWAY, WE WERE RAISED NOT TO FIGHT WITH MERE HUMANS. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, AT YOUR CURRENT LEVEL THE ONLY ADVANTAGE YOU HAVE IS YOUR COMBAT POWER AND 'SLEEK' MINDS. BESIDES THAT, YOU ARE TOO INCOMPETENT TO CARRY SOMEONE DURING TELEPORTATION. IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE SYSTEM, YOU COULDN'T EVEN PULL IT OFF. HA!]
[ADMIN B: HEY…]
The faces of the siblings turned hazed with unadulterated annoyance.
"So petty," Lia muttered.
"It ate you alive," Kaelen said.
"Stupid. It insulted us all," Marcus grumbled.
"Maybe you should go back there, Marcus," Lia said, returning to the pressing issue.
Havec and Tomas, who had just finished scraping the remains of the King Centipede, finally joined them where they sat on the ground as if it were their living room.
"It's alright, Your Grace. The bell didn't ring—it covers almost half of the North, so I'm pretty sure we would hear the distant ring if there was an attack," Tomas said. "They probably just contacted us because they were worried. After all, we didn't have enough time to keep them updated earlier."
"If you say so. Then, shall we keep moving?" Lia asked.
"Wait. We've been moving endlessly. We should rest for a bit longer somewhere… I don't know… safe? And recover our strength," Kaelen said.
"I agree," Havec rumbled. "I, too, am in a rush to see my pack, but we must rest as well."
"Alright. Then, Havec, lead us to 'somewhere safe,' if such a place exists," Marcus said.
The siblings stood up, stretching their aching bodies, and started to move again, led by Havec.
"This… is what you call safe?" Kaelen said when they stopped at the riverside. "Why do I feel like an evolved monsteric mermaid is gonna jump out any second?"
"Fret not. As you can see, the soil is clean. This place is monster-safe. They are afraid of these waters," Havec explained.
"Can you drink the water, then?" Tomas asked.
"You can," Havec replied. "If you want to die."
"I'm going to shoot this—" Tomas began, but Kaelen stopped him from reaching for his arrow, gesturing for him to let it go.
"Havec, why are they afraid of the waters?" Lia asked as she leaned back against a tree, sitting like an exhausted soldier. She took off her helmet and shades. Her face was clean but damp with sweat.
"We don't know either, but we think this is the only river they fear. It is toxic, and the waters look like the Void-Rot ground," Havec said.
"Hmm," Rhys murmured, summoning the holographic map.
"Whoa… what's that, my lord? It's similar to what showed in Her Grace's eyes when we surveyed the fortress walls," Tomas said around a mouthful of bread.
"You can see this?" Rhys asked, pointing to the floating hologram in front of him.
"Yes! It's really cool! It shapes like the way your weapons appear, too. Your Grace and Lordships are wizards, right?" Tomas asked innocently.
The siblings looked at each other. "Well… if they can see the weapons, it makes sense," Eliana said.
[ADMIN A: AH, RIGHT. THEY CAN SEE THE THINGS YOU MERE HUMANS SUMMON. THE ONLY THINGS THAT AREN'T VISIBLE TO THEIR EYES ARE SYSTEM INTERFACES OR OURS. WE CAN ALSO CHOOSE WHETHER TO SHOW THEM TO OTHERS OR NOT, SO—]
"So, they can see it," Marcus stated, and the siblings nodded, ignoring Admin A's explanation.
[ADMIN A: @!$%&!!!]
"Havec, why don't you eat this, too?" Lia said, handing him three pieces of bread. "I'm sorry we can't offer you meat. We're still stabilizing the supplies from the capital's merchants."
"It's alright. I am already receiving too much help," Havec said, sitting next to Lia. "Thank you, Eliana. I will gladly eat this."
Lia just smiled and nodded softly.
The rest of the group started to eat their rations. For a few minutes, there was only the sound of chewing and the eerie, gentle lap of the toxic river. Then, as the immediate edge of survival wore off, the familiar, chaotic rhythm of their bond reasserted itself.
Kaelen, sitting with his back against a rock, groaned dramatically. "Rhys. My back is killing me. That shove into the wall earlier felt like getting hit by a troll."
Rhys, meticulously checking the charge on his Banshee, didn't look up. "Sounds like a you problem, Lester."
"Come on, you little shit. You're the medic. Do your job. A little massage. Some of that weird chiropractic crack you do."
"I'm an engineer and a sniper, you meathead. Not your personal physio."
"Exactly! You know about leverage and pressure points. Now get over here."
"You get over here."
"I'm injured!"
"You're whining."
Marcus, sharpening a knife with a smooth, practiced motion, cut in without looking up. "Both of you, shut up. We're in a hostile zone. Save your energy."
"See? Even the old man agrees I need attention," Kaelen said, grinning.
"I did not agree—" Marcus began, but he was cut off as Kaelen lobbed a small, moss-covered pebble at Rhys. It bounced harmlessly off his shoulder.
Rhys's head snapped up. His eyes narrowed behind his visor. "Did you just throw a rock at me?"
"Maybe. Now come fix my back."
In answer, Rhys planted a boot squarely in the middle of Kaelen's back and shoved, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to send him face-first into the soft, toxic moss.
"FUCK! You little—!"
"I fixed it. You're welcome."
"That's it!" Kaelen scrambled up, grabbing for Rhys, who dodged with a yelp, sending them into a brief, graceless scuffle of half-hearted swipes and curses.
"ENOUGH!" Marcus barked, finally looking up, his voice slicing through their noise. "Act your age! We have a mission, not a playground!"
They froze, Kaelen with a fistful of Rhys's collar, Rhys with a hand twisted in Kaelen's armor strap. They looked at Marcus, then at each other, and broke apart, identical smirks on their grimy faces.
"Sorry, Mom," Kaelen muttered, slumping back against his rock.
"Tattletale," Rhys shot back, brushing himself off.
Lia watched the entire exchange from her spot by the tree, a faint, tired smile on her lips. It was the same ridiculous dance they'd performed in barracks rec rooms and safe houses across two lifetimes. The bickering was their normal. The chaos was their comfort. It meant, for a moment, they weren't lost in a monster-infested forest. They were just siblings, exhausted and annoying each other, which meant they were alive and still themselves.
Tomas watched, wide-eyed, biting his lip to keep from laughing. Havec observed with a tilted head, as if trying to decipher this bizarre human pack behavior.
[ADMIN B: …ARE THEY ALWAYS LIKE THIS?]
[ADMIN A: WHY ASK IF YOU KNOW ALREADY. IGNORE THEM. IT'S HOW THEY CHECK IF EVERYONE IS STILL BREATHING. PRIMITIVE, BUT EFFECTIVE.]
The moment passed as quickly as it came. The siblings settled, the professional tension seeping back into their postures. But the air felt lighter, the fear momentarily pushed back by the solid, annoying, undeniable fact of each other's presence.
Havec's ears twitched, then flattened against his skull. His entire body went still, a statue of silver and tension in the gloom. The low, constant growl that had been rumbling in his chest since they'd entered the forest cut off so abruptly the silence felt loud.
"What is it?" Marcus asked, his hand drifting to the pistol at his thigh.
Havec didn't answer for a long moment. He was trembling. Not with fear, but with a strain so profound it seemed to vibrate the air around him. His nostrils flared, drinking in scents only he could parse.
"…They're here," he finally rasped, the words choked. "My… my pack. I can smell their fear. Their pain. The blood… the young are crying."
The siblings were on their feet in an instant, all traces of exhaustion and bickering burned away by a new, urgent focus. They grabbed their helmets, sealing themselves back into their faceless, black-armored shells. The shift was terrifying—from tired humans to a single, lethal unit.
"Lead," Lia commanded, her voice filtered and cold through her helmet speakers.
Havec didn't need telling twice. He was a silver streak in the perpetual twilight, moving with a desperate, silent speed they struggled to match. They ran for another twenty minutes, the terrain growing more broken, the air thickening with the sweet-rot stench of Void and something else… something metallic and coppery. Blood.
Havec skidded to a halt at the edge of a rocky depression—less a cave, more a jagged wound in the earth, sheltered by a collapsed overhang of slick, black stone.
And there they were.
The Silver Wolf pack.
It was a vision of utter devastation. Maybe forty wolves in total, though it was hard to count the ones huddled and trembling in the shadows. Their famous silver coats were dull, matted with black mud and crusted, dark blood. Every rib showed. Flanks were hollow. Eyes that should have held the light of the Great Sun were instead pools of exhausted terror and feral defiance.
At the mouth of the hollow, five gaunt but massive warriors stood guard, their lips peeled back over fangs in silent, continuous snarls. Their legs shook with the effort of standing. Behind them, the scene was worse. Wolves lay panting, wounds glistening—ugly gashes from centipede mandibles, legs bent wrong, one with a weeping, poisoned-looking gash across its flank. And in the very center, shielded by the bodies of the adults, was a huddle of shivering, mewling pups. Their soft cries were the only sound besides the wet, labored breathing and the low, warning growls.
The arrival of Havec and the four black-clad figures triggered chaos.
A unified, bone-deep snarl erupted from the guardian wolves, a sound of pure, last-stand desperation. The pups' cries sharpened into shrieks of terror. The wounded tried to struggle up.
"HAVEC! TRAITOR!" A furious, younger voice boomed from the pack. A slightly smaller but powerfully built silver wolf—a male with a fierce scar over one eye—shouldered his way to the front. His golden eyes blazed with betrayal. "YOU BREAK THE FIRST LAW! YOU BRING THE SHADOWS FROM THE STONE LINE TO OUR LAST DEN! THE LAW IS CLEAR: DO NOT CROSS! DO NOT BE SEEN! YOU HAVE DOOMED US!"
This was Varric, Havec's younger brother. His snarl was edged with heartbreak.
Havec stepped forward, his own growl one of command and desperate pain. "THE LAW IS FOR A WORLD THAT STILL EXISTS, VARRIC! LOOK AROUND YOU! THE FOREST IS CORPSE, THE VOID IS THE HUNTER NOW! THESE HUMANS… THEY FOUGHT THE SILENT KING! ITS BLOOD STILL SMEARS THEIR SHELLS!"
"THEY ARE SHADOWS!" Varric shot back, the pack's growls rising in a fever pitch of agreement. "THE ANCIENT ONES WARNED: THE STONE WALLS MEANT SEPARATION. THEIR PEOPLE MEANT THE END OF THE OLD WAYS. WE DO NOT GO TO THEM! THEY DO NOT COME TO US! THAT IS THE ONLY TRUTH LEFT!"
"I WAS DYING IN THE SNOW!" Havec roared, his voice cracking. "CRUSHED BY THE KING'S BROOD! THE SMALL SHADOW FOUND ME. SHE CARRIED MY RUINED BODY TO SAFETY. SHE FOUGHT WITH SUN-FIRE TO SAVE BREATHING AIR FOR YOUR PUPS! SHE IS OF THE STONE WALLS, YES… BUT SHE IS NOT THE END! SHE IS A DIFFERENT KIND!"
The theological argument was lost in sheer, primal fear. The pack saw only four faceless demons of black armor, standing with their alpha. The Law was breaking before their eyes, and terror was the only result.
The four black shadows stood motionless during this exchange. Then, the one in the center moved.
Hiss-click.
The sound of the helmet's environmental seal breaking was shockingly loud. Lia pulled the sleek, black dome off, letting it drop to the moss with a soft thud. Her blonde hair, plastered to her scalp with sweat, tumbled free. The cold, foul air hit her face. Next, she reached up and peeled off the opaque tactical shades.
The transformation was absolute.
The faceless soldier was gone. In her place stood a young woman, her face smudged with grime and exhaustion, her blue eyes tired but utterly, unmistakably human. And in those eyes was a look the wolves understood in their bones: not the hunger of a hunter, but the grim resolve of a protector who has stared into the same abyss.
She took one deliberate step forward, past Havec, placing herself directly in the line of sight of Varric and the snarling guardians. She was unarmed, her hands open at her sides.
Her voice, when it came, was clear, steady, and cut through the growls.
"I am Eliana Javier."
She let the name hang. It meant nothing to them but 'human from the walls.'
"I do not know your First Law. I do not know why the stone line was meant to separate us." Her admission was blunt, disarming. "I only know this: the thing that hunted you is dead. I killed it. Havec is my ally. Your forest is dying, and my walls are the only shelter left."
She slowly, carefully, unslung her magitech backpack. Keeping every movement visible, she opened it and pulled out the remainder of their rations. The dense journey-bread, the wrapped strips of dried meat. She placed the small, pathetic pile of food on the ground in front of her. Then, she took two steps back.
"You can stay here, hold to a Law whose reason is lost, and let the Void take what little was left. Or you can break it with us. Cross the line. See what is on the other side. The choice is not between right and wrong. It is between death, and a chance."
For a long, breathless moment, nothing happened. The only sounds were the pups' whimpers.
Varric's snarl died in his throat. He stared at her face, then at the food, then at his brother. It wasn't about ancient oaths or forgotten pacts. It was about a face, not a shadow. Food, not weapons. A chance, not a decree.
The elder wolf with the grey muzzle slowly, painfully, stood. She nudged the pup beside her, then limped forward, past the guardians. Her ancient, clouded eyes fixed on Eliana. She sniffed the air, then the food. She looked at Havec, who gave a single, slow, definitive nod.
The elder wolf turned her gaze back to Eliana. She didn't take the food. Instead, she dipped her head. "The Law kept us alive when the world was whole," she whispered, her voice like dry leaves. "But the world is broken. A new Law must be written. We will… cross the line."
It was the crack in the dam.
Varric looked away, a low whine escaping him—the sound of a world ending and a terrifying new one beginning. The fight drained from the guardians, replaced by a bottomless exhaustion.
Sharp hiss-clicks sounded from behind Lia. Kaelen, Marcus, and Rhys removed their own helmets, revealing their human faces—bruised, tired, but no longer faceless horrors.
The faceless death squad was gone.
Havec let out a shuddering breath. "They will follow," he said.
Lia nodded, picking up her helmet. The immediate standoff was over.
Now came the impossible part.
Marcus's voice, cool and analytical, cut through the emotional stillness. "The main gate is a seventy-foot wide choke point directly facing the forest. We'll be a slow-moving, vulnerable column. It's a gauntlet."
Kaelen groaned. "So we just fought a giant metal bug to become monster bait on a parade route?"
Rhys summoned his holographic map. "We need a distraction. Something to draw any nearby threats away from the gate's line of sight."
"How long will it take to open the gate, even ajar?" Lia said, biting her thumbnail.
"Hmm, we only use the sally port built into the main gate itself. Are we really going to try and open the main gate? That giant thing?" Kaelen asked.
"You saw Havec barely fit through the sally port earlier. Tsk," Marcus pointed out.
Rhys, who was busy manipulating the fortress holographic blueprint, finally spoke up. "The main gate itself hasn't been opened for a hundred years. That's why they built a sally port into its lower section—twenty feet tall and wide. If we're going to open the actual main gate… yeah, it's not practical. The original gate is two hundred feet tall. It is the wall."
He zoomed in on the map. "However, looking at the Void Forest chart from the family archives… There's a long tunnel about a kilometer from our current position. We're on the north side of the forest; the gate is on the west. This tunnel stops… fuck… it stops halfway to the open ground in front of the forest."
He looked up, his expression grim. "We need a diversion, then. A big, noisy, delicious one."
The silence stretched, thick with the weight of broken wolves and a ticking clock. The death of the King was a dinner bell ringing in the Void.
Rhys's holographic map glowed, a stark blueprint of their dilemma. "The old mining tunnel. It gets us under the worst of the open ground. But it spits us out here." His finger tapped a point on the map. "Five hundred yards of dead ground between the tunnel exit and the sally port. A killing field with no cover."
"And the sally port is a twenty-foot iron slab on gears that haven't been fully engaged in a decade," Marcus added, his mind already calculating friction and manpower. "Even with warning, it'll take Gareth's men a good five minutes to winch it fully open. We can't be caught in the open during that."
"So we don't come out until it's open," Lia said, her voice flat. "We hold the tunnel exit. We make our stand in the mouth, where they can only come at us a few at a time."
Kaelen cracked his knuckles. "A bottleneck. I like it. But we need to tell the castle when to start cranking. Too early, they waste stamina and leave the gate open as a welcome sign for every other monster. Too late, we get swarmed outside."
"Which means," Marcus said, his gaze settling on Rhys, "you teleport to the castle the moment we secure the tunnel exit. Not before. We need you here until then. The tunnel itself could be infested."
Rhys nodded, his usual levity gone. "Understood. I'm the messenger. But I go only when we have the exit locked down."
"Then our phases are clear," Marcus laid out, his voice the calm at the center of the storm. "Phase One: Fight our way through the tunnel to the exit. All hands. We clear it, secure it. Phase Two: Rhys teleports, delivers the order to open the sally port. He gives us the signal via Party Link the moment the gate starts moving. Phase Three: We hold the exit against whatever's gathered outside, for exactly as long as it takes that damned gate to open. Then we run for it."
He looked at the pack—the wounded, the starving, the pups. "The pack moves with us in Phase One. We protect them in the column. When we hold at the exit, they stay behind us, in the tunnel."
Havec, who had been listening intently, rumbled his agreement. "We will fight if we must. But we will not slow your blades."
"Good," Lia said. She looked at her brothers, then at Tomas, whose face was pale but set. "Then we move. Now. Kaelen, you're point. Rhys, left flank. I'm right. Marcus, you and Tomas are the core with Havec, protecting the pack. We move fast, hit hard, and we do not stop until we see daylight."
No more debate. The plan was a brutal, simple list of terrible tasks.
The exodus into the tunnel began. It was a river of misery flowing into the dark. The wolves moved with a pained, lurching determination. The siblings formed a moving perimeter around them, helmet lamps cutting beams through the oppressive black.
The tunnel was a graveyard of an older world. Rusted rails, collapsed timber supports, and the bones of long-dead miners. And it was not empty.
Scuttling sounds echoed ahead. Pale, blind things with too many legs skittered away from their light. Kaelen's rifle coughed twice—BRRT-BRRT—and two beetle-like creatures the size of dogs exploded in bursts of ichor.
"Contact forward, minor. Keep moving!" he called back, not breaking stride.
They pushed on, the tunnel descending slightly. The air grew colder, smelling of damp earth and a sharper, acidic tang. A deeper chittering came from a side passage.
"Left!" Rhys yelled, swinging his Banshee. A stream of mana-fire lit up the tunnel, revealing a swarm of rat-like creatures with crystalline growths on their backs. They squealed and scattered, but not before several were vaporized.
The pack flinched at the noise and light but kept moving, driven by Havec's low, commanding growls.
Lia's side ached with every step, her ribs a burning reminder of her limits. She ignored it, her Stinger rifle sweeping the shadows to the right, her finger on the trigger.
They were an island of light and violence moving through an ocean of dark hunger.
After what felt like an eternity of tense, step-by-step advance, a faint, grey light appeared ahead. Not the greenish glow of fungi, but the real, filtered light of the shrouded sky.
"Exit in sight!" Kaelen called back.
"Form up!" Marcus commanded. "Lia, Kaelen, secure the mouth. Wide perimeter. Rhys, get ready. The second we have it clear, you go."
They burst from the tunnel mouth into a narrow, rocky gully. The fortress wall loomed in the distance, a grey smudge across a barren, snow-dusted field. The sally port was a dark slit in its base. Five hundred yards. It might as well have been five hundred miles.
The gully provided some cover, but it was a trap waiting to spring. Already, dark shapes moved at the tree line a hundred yards away, drawn by the commotion or the lingering scent of the King's death.
"Exit secure for now!" Lia yelled, dropping to a knee behind a boulder, Winter's Howl already deployed on its bipod, pointing towards the gathering shadows.
"Go, Rhys! Now!" Marcus barked.
Rhys didn't hesitate. "ADMIN B! MAPS! INITIATE TELEPORTATION TO THE CASTLE!"
[ADMIN B: MARK LOCATION CONFIRMED! INITIATING TELEPORTATION CIRCLE IN 5 SECONDS. BRACE FOR MOTION, RHYS.]
…5….4….3….2…1…
"Don't die before I get back," he muttered, and the world around him shattered into blue cubes.
He was gone.
In the castle courtyard, standing amidst worried soldiers and a tense Gareth under the fresh morning, Rhys Javier materialized in a flash of silent, blue light, his helmet and shades clutched in one hand.
Everyone jumped, hands flying to weapons. Gareth's eyes widened. "Lord Rhys! Thank the Sun! Where are the oth---"
"No time," Rhys cut him off, his voice sharp with the urgency of the field. "Listen carefully. My siblings and Tomas are half a klick out, in the gully by the old mining tunnel. They have… refugees. Non-hostile. They are making for the sally port right now."
Cris, who had run up, gasped. "Refugees? In the Void?"
"Open the sally port," Rhys commanded, ignoring the question. "Fully. Now. Get every archer you have on the wall above it. Covering fire. They will be coming in hot, with pursuit. Do you understand?"
Gareth, to his credit, didn't question. The order was insane, but the man who gave it had just teleported and had the eyes of someone who'd been fighting in hell. "Yes, my lord! Men! To the winches! Archers to the west battlement!"
As the courtyard exploded into activity, a smooth, unfamiliar voice cut through the chaos.
"Lord Rhys. What a… dramatic entrance."
Rhys turned. Two men stood nearby, their clothes fine but travel-worn, their expressions a mix of shock and deep, calculating curiosity. He didn't recognize them.
"Who the fuck are you?" Rhys asked, his patience at zero.
The younger one smiled, a thin, diplomatic thing. "Deitre Wykenight. This is Jill Teleston. We're envoys from my brother, Duke Alistair. We brought the Duchess's dowry." He gestured to the stacked supply wagons. "But it seems she's… busy."
Wykenight. The name hit Rhys like a physical blow. His face, already grimy and hard, went utterly cold. Every instinct screamed. But the mission came first.
"Listen, fuck o---" Rhys was cut off when the warning bell atop the watchtower shattered the morning with a deep, urgent BONG… BONG… BONG…
His head snapped toward the sound, as did Jill and Deitre's, their faces paling.
"LEVEL C! STONE MUD CRAWLERS! LEVEL B ACID-SPITTING FROGS! LEVEL D NON-MUTATED PIG HORNS! SHIT, THERE'S A LOT COMING! PROTECT THE WEST GATE!!!" a soldier screamed from the battlement.
"FUCK! FUCK! HEY, ANSWER ME, MARCUS! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!" Rhys yelled, running for the battlement stairs, trying to connect via the Party Link. The green holographic interface shimmered uselessly in the corner of his vision—silent.
–To Be Continued…–