When he stirred, Willem felt a dull throbbing in his head. The light that filtered in through his eyes was disorienting and painful, the world around him spinning on its axis. Dried blood had crusted in the back of his throat, and it flaked into his lungs as he dragged in a deep breath.

Coughing hard, he struggled to rise. He was inside of some tent—legion, perhaps? He was uncertain, and his current condition was not conducive to deductive work. “Blood and bones.” he swore, the words ironically apt for the situation. He struggled to remain conscious; every fiber of his body wanted nothing more than to collapse and return to a state of blissful ignorance. But this was important. Joy needed to know what had happened.

What had happened?

He groaned as he tried to remember, his thoughts and memories jumbled up like a bookshelf that had been knocked over. There… there had been skal around the horses… He struggled to try and remember. The horses… And he remembered the men that had ran over, their bodies speared on the skal. And he remembered… he remembered fire. Glorious, brilliant fire. And yet as he pressed further, his head throbbed with pain.

Willem tossed his head gently, feeling the blood boom off the sides of his skull like waves crashing onto rocks. Later… think about it later. He stood up, swaying on the spot as balance eluded him. His ears were filled with the poundings of his own heart, yet faintly he could also make out the sounds of something outside the legion tent.

Bracing himself, he slowly trudged over and pulled back the flap, feeling the glaring sunlight strike him like a spear. He blinked hard, his eyes watering in reflex and his ears caught off guard by the sounds of talking.

As his vision cleared, Willem made out the legions all sprawled out of the field, over two thousand men dotting the grasses. They were busy talking, their faces clearly marked with concern and lingering fear. There was an air of uneasiness about the entire congregation, their eyes flickering every so often as if they were afraid that the skal would come again. It was a curious thing, the minds of men—they worried so deeply about something they had no capacity to change. Should there really have been skal in the shadows, they could neither fight it nor run from it in this crowd.

He stumbled over next to one of the legionaries that was gathered, moving noisily so that the man would not be startled. A look of mingled surprise and mild fear crossed the man’s face, but he did not try to run away.

“W-what’s going on?” Willem gasped out, his vision still swimming as if he had been struck across the temples. “Why is everyone here?”

The man seemed shocked that the demon could talk, but he got over the surprise relatively quickly. This was a place for strangeness, after all. Speech was hardly the oddest thing to have happened as of recently.

“They told us to gather here after what happened yesterday.” he shrugged.

“And just what happened yesterday?” Willem asked.

The soldier raised his eyebrows, about to answer only for one of his friends to tap his shoulder. They whispered something to each other before the other man backed off. “There was something that killed the horses and ten men as well. Some of the men that were watching said something about shadows moving, but no one could really make out much.” he explained. “By the time any of the Swords could get there, a fire had broken out somehow. Some idiot managed to set half the plains on fire; lost two more men putting it out.” He shrugged and Willem felt a small pang of guilt.

“And now? Why are we here?” Willem snarled out, trying to push the other thoughts aside. What was done could no longer be changed.

Again the man shrugged, as if words were some rare commodity. “Probably logistics or something. With the horses dead, someone else’s going to have to haul supplies. Those catapults we broke ourselves over making aren’t going to move themselves, after all.” He smirked at that thought, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “I’d hate to be the one that draws that short straw.”

Willem opened his mouth to ask another question, but the air was suddenly punctuated by a loud staccato of roars and shrieks from the demons that had gathered. Squat throats rumbled out and sharp beaks cawed as the wind itself seemed to be half torn apart by the noise. The legionaries stopped their chatter, clutching at their ears with gloved hands as they looked around for the cause of the commotion.

At the head of the crowd, standing atop the crest of a hill, some figures slowly emerged. Even from this distance, Willem’s eyes could make out Joy standing tall, along with Mors in the back. What are they doing? He wondered, only for Joy to interrupt him.

“Legions!” the demon called out, his voice amplified by ribbons of mahji that seemed to dance in the wind. “I would speak, and you would listen. You have all heard, no doubt, of the tragedy that occured only yesterday. You should know that it was no myth, no folktale, that killed those men. The living shadows are truth, and they are called skal.”

At this, a low current of murmurs rippled through the crowd, but Joy ignored them and continued to speak. “They come from the heart of Malifor. They are what killed the late king. They are what will cover this land, if we let them.” That was enough to quiet the crowd, although it was fear that seemed to have settled over them instead.

“The skal can be killed!” Joy shouted, as if to shake the terror out of their bones. “Fire can burn them to ash. It is this fire that is in your new blades and shields. But know that fire itself will not be enough, not without the heart to wield it.”

His voice got softer, although still easily audible over the silence of the crowd. “This war will not be easy. I say to you now that none of us may live. And this is a war—a war for your lands and your people. If we fail, night will cover the ground. If we fail, your bones will be scattered like dust. We must not fail.”

What are you doing? Willem could not help but think desperately. This is not how you inspire people! How is this meant to stir their hearts?

“I ask you now, legions, will you fight? Will you fight, knowing that your blades carry the future of this land behind them? Will you fight, knowing that you will die on this field. Will you fight regardless? Or will you cower and wait for the skal to spear you in your sleep?” His words hung heavy over the air, no one daring to reply.

The first noise was a low rumbling as some of the demons beat their fists against their chest. Others began to stomp on the ground in a slow cadence, and before long the entirety of the demons were beating out a rhythm. But the human legions stood there, still as silence.

Until finally, a single legionary beat his fist against his armor.

It was a sharp sound, the scrape of a gauntlet against steel, and it carried easily over the tremors of the demons. Willem glanced over at the man, and he realized with a moment of shock that it was the wounded soldier that had first came to him for aid. The men next to him joined in, the motion spreading through the legions like a plague, until finally the air was filled with the noise of a thousand steel heartbeats pulsing with resolve. There was no mahji in the wind, but it still tingled with electric energy.

Willem felt the urge to join in as the men began to cheer, but his gaze was suddenly distracted by a familiar figure off in the distance. He saw Kha talking with another human—was his name Jhossa? Nevertheless, they seemed intently focused, completely ignoring the cacophony next to them as they hid in the shadow of—of…

Willem blinked in surprise, his vision blurry and his thoughts growing muddled. It was as if something wanted to push him away, wanted to steer him away from thinking of that thing they were hiding next to. He pressed onwards, the sensation like trudging through mud, and he finally made out what seemed to be an old wagon, its exterior covered with an expanse of chains.

Why could I not make that out? He wondered, feeling an inkling of fear at the thought. Had he not been actively thinking of it, his thoughts would have flickered over that wagon as if it was not even there.

Willem made his way through the crowd even as the soldiers were banging their swords against their shields and making all manner of unholy noise. What are they doing? Why are they hiding? Slowly, he crept closer until he could finally hear them talking—could hear Kha’s raspy timbre carry over the wind.

“—and take this… wound the dark god… burn his plots and restore this world to the light.” he whispered, handing something to the soldier. The man took it swiftly, hiding it away in some pocket before nodding. Then Kha closed his eyes and began to chant, the words low and rumbling as Willem felt a strange tugging sensation in the pit of his stomach. It was as if his own mahji was fighting to burst out of him, and he struggled to resist the urge. Yet he was further surprised as he saw cords of purple coiling out of the wagon.

And the air was suddenly pierced by an agonizing scream from inside that chained wagon. It stabbed at his ears, hauntingly—hauntingly… familiar?

The mahji coiled around Jhossa, wrapping the man in a sheath of purple before glowing with a brilliant light. The very air seemed to ripple before folding inwards, and all of a sudden the man was gone. All that was left were the screams.

None of the other soldiers seemed to have noticed what had happened, only Willem. He was breathing hard in shock and mingled terror as Kha opened those slitted eyes to focus on him. Those reptilian lips muttered something swift, and then Willem felt an immense pressure bearing down on his mind.

It was as if there was a mountain on his thoughts, crushing them slowly out of his mind. He fought to fight back, to press away, but the effort was futile. He could feel the memories slowly being pulled out of his mind as he merely stood there, helpless to control his own thoughts.

And the only thing he felt was a vague sense of familiarity, as if this had happened to him before.