Their feet beat out a scattered rhythm as the legionaries marched down the Sand Trail, kicking up a cloud of dust and dirt behind them. Torell felt his legs burn already from the weight of his armor, the muscles screaming out for rest even though they sun had yet to even reach halfday. They had not been given proper rest after the Gates, at least, not what many of them needed. Indeed, nearly half of those that survived were wounded in some way, from limbs to body. Torell himself was missing three of the fingers on his left hand.

He still remembered being in the shield wall, that hellish place where his heart pounded out an ocean wave in his skull with each frenzied beat. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the buzzing cloud of skal’va bearing down on him, their indistinct, insectoid dots shrouded by cold, black mist. He remembered trying to raise his shield to block them, so that the men behind him could burn them off. He remembered them clinging to his hand, gnawing at the fingers that had gone numb. He remembered igniting his sword, feeling the blessed heat sear his skin as he lopped the fingers off.

It had been a good trade. He had seen the frozen corpses of the men that had hesitated. I was fortunate.

Fortune was not what came to mind as he struggled to keep the cadence of the march, his bruised body screaming out for rest. Perhaps it was a gift from greedy gods that had overheard his thoughts, or perhaps too many of them were lagging behind, but he heard the sweet call to rest from one of the Swords. Torell had to resist the urge to simply collapse on the spot, slowly marching instead to the side of the road to give others space to pass. Then, carefully, he set down his shield and sword, loosening the straps of his armor and rolling his stiff shoulder gingerly in the socket before taking a seat in the sparse grass.

The others joined him, although none of them were keen on talking. There were too many scarred faces, too many wounded minds for anyone to dare to break the silence. Instead, the whole of the legions sat there in eerie quiet, with naught but the whistling wind to tease their ears.

Almost instinctively, Torell felt himself searching the crowds to try and spy Myron. He was hoping that he had merely overlooked his friend, that his vision was merely failing him. He did not wish to consider the other option—that Myron had been left in the rubble of the Gates.

How had he died? Torell felt his thoughts begin to wander. Perhaps he had been swarmed by the skal’va, overwhelmed as the bled in through a crack in the shieldwall, his partner too slow to stem the tide. Perhaps he had been marching back, trying to keep back the swarm only to stumble and fall, his shield—the only thing keeping death at bay—tumbling to the ground. Perhaps he had been caught when the Gates fell, like so many others, as the ground itself tore open and his body was blasted with flame. So many ways, Torell could not help but muse, feeling his heart sicken and turn in his chest. So many ways for a life to be snuffed out.

Yet the sounds of a waterboy making rounds through the ranks were enough to shake him out of his reverie. No time for wishing or delusions, he reprimanded as he absentmindedly felt the ground around him before closing in on the hilt of his sword. It was a comforting thing; he resisted the urge to trace the strange runes that covered the handle. As the waterboy came closer, Torell reached out for a cup.

The warm water was sweet and stale, but it was a welcome relief in these dry parts. Even as it coursed down his throat, he felt his stomach greedily swell to swallow more, more—but the cup was empty already. Hesitantly, Torell looked up for more, only for the waterboy to swiftly take the cup from his grasp and move over to another waiting legionary. Torell’s vision swooned, the sunlight suddenly making him feel nauseated as the water sloshed in his belly, and he fought to keep it down.

More, his body demanded of him. I need more. He had seen the demon conjuring water—the more friendly one that seemed the least likely to bite his head off. Perhaps he could ask him, could try and get some more water. His throat burned like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper, his body now screaming after it had been given just a taste of water like some abusive torture.

But as he got up to try and slake his thirst, his legs nearly buckled out from under him, and he wound up crashing back down into the dirt with a groan. His vision swooned, his ears ringing, and when he first heard the scream, he nearly did not register it.

Yet it was impossible to miss the second howl of horror to his left, that dragged on like that of a dying beast before being abruptly cut off.

Torell’s head whipped immediately to the source of the sound, spying a terrible shadow lurking in the middle of the day. It was not like the insectoid skal’va, with each piece small and making up a swarm; this shadow was like a massive worm, like a thick serpent that was wrapped around a soldier’s entire body. The unfortunate man was unable to move, the skal binding his arms to his side before slowly slithering to cover him like a blanket. The man’s screams, high-pitched and terrified, were suddenly stifled as a flap of smothering shadow covered his mouth.

Torell could see the cracks snaking up the man’s neck, like porcelain or ice slowly crumbling as the skal emitted that black mist, sapping away the man’s heat and life. The other soldiers nearby were similarly frozen, not by mist but instead by shock and terror. They were all like Torell, in a way—they had all seen the skal’va at the Gates. They had all seen their friends die. They were all afraid of death.

And so none of them wanted to creep closer to that morbid shadow, even as its sinuous form grew fatter, grew to fully encompass the person it was eating. Instead, the inadvertently backed away slowly, their arms trembling and their breathing short as the blood drained out of their faces.

Torell felt his own heart racing, felt his own arms trembling with a sudden rush of nervous energy. Was this how Myron had felt, before he died? Afraid? Brave? Stupid? It was a stupid thing that he did next, at least, for he reached to his side and felt his shaking fingers grasp the hilt of his runeblade. His thumb brushed over those carvings, traced them subconsciously as he slowly stood on aching legs.

His muscles were screaming at him to stop, but his body was moving on its own all the same. His thoughts were screaming for him to run, but his mind was empty as he stared forward, stared at that engorged shadow. Its umbral shape was indistinct under the sunlight, half-hidden by the roiling waves of mist that billowed off its body, but it was clear enough for him to see its center.

A slow breath in. A fast breath out.

Heat blossomed along the length of his arm as his runesword burst into flame, as the bottom of his vision suddenly became blinding. It was disorienting momentarily, but he stepped forward all the same. He could see the skal in front of him, even if his eyes were blinded. He could hear its crackling hiss as it recoiled from the fire. And then he slashed down in a brutal strike, feeling the faintest hints of resistance as his blade coursed through the air.

It was enough. He heard the whoosh of wind as the flame caught, as the air rushed in to feed the fire. He felt the blossoming heat as the flame spread to swallow the skal, warming his skin as he panted, muscles taut. As his vision adjusted, he saw the skal writhing pitifully, helplessly slithering and twitching in the dirt like a dying beast as its shadowed form turned to ash.

Then, letting out a pent-up breath, Torell felt his sword tumble out of his grasp, its fire guttering out. He fell to his knees, his entire body shivering with a mixture of fear and adrenaline, his underclothes soaked through with sweat.

The men around him were muttering lowly, their faces barely regaining some color as the skal died. They had done nothing as the creature feasted. They had done nothing to stop it.

Torell glanced up as a shadow fell over his kneeling figure, his eyes streaked with tears and sweat as he saw the demon offering him a clawed hand to pull him up.

He took it.

“Well done.” Joy snarled, lupine lips pulled back in a grotesque smile.