Crush them all.
Wait for them to brighten, he told himself as they snickered within the darkness.
If they weren't behind him, they were above, and he held his breath, counting how long until the smoke shined. Between two and three seconds, sometimes less. When he swung up, his throat was cut. When turning around, hammers rang his head to the point he couldn't stand straight, then a blade would take his throat or a spear head plunged through his helms eye sockets.
Worst of all, whenever he woke in the inn, he was kicking and screaming, and several weeks into his struggle against the spirits the innkeeper came knocking on his door.
"Are you alright hun?" She asked, keeping her voice down.
"I'm fine," he mumbled, scrambling to get his cloak on.
She creaked open the door, peeking inside, and he sat on the bed hunched over, wiping sweat from his forehead.
"A long night?" She asked, touching a copper star beneath her collar. "Would you like me to pray for you?"
He shook his head. "Need ale."
She nodded slowly, and after arriving at the bar he drank himself numb before returning to the woods.
Within the first few hundred meters twigs snapped and branches swayed.
He spun around swinging his flail. Nathan shouted, falling back with a hand up, and he slammed his flail down inches from the lad's head.
"Please, sire-er, sir! I didn't mean to startle you!"
"Then what the fuck are you doing?" He boomed.
Nathan rose to a knee, no longer reeking of piss, wearing an iron mail with a pair of swords strapped to a gold buckled belt.
"No!" He spat, turning away.
"I know you said you don't need a squire, but if you're journeying into the dark lands Marryvia, you'll need more than just a flail," Nathan said, pulling a silver sword cross from beneath his collar. "The spirits are weakened in the presence of a true believer, and my family has worshipped the Lord of War for ages."
He snatched the cross from Nathan, examining it before stuffing it in his waist.
"You've my thanks. I accept this token as the debt for saving your hide during the massacre within the Graves, now piss off."
Nathan frowned. "Were you even listening? A true belie-."
Again, he tied the boy up, made for the nearest barn, and searched for a pile of hay to shove him in. While shoving Nathan into hay beside a pile of horse shit, a farmer demanded his business.
"Don't take kindly to disgraced kings guards, but you'll not be leaving him here again, my lord," the farmer, a white haired tall man said.
He left Nathan hanging halfway out the pile, and handed the farmer a palm full of coin. The geezer's eyes lit up, and welcomed the lad to stay buried in shit for as long as needed.
"Keep him here a week," he said, pointing his flail at the lad, "and unspoiled."
The farmer waved him off, then emptied a bucket of water or piss, he was too far to tell, onto a squirming Nathan.
Within the woods, passing through the towering grass, he listened as other adventurers screamed.
Grave robbers scuttled nearby, a few dozen paces away, with loot from those fallen to the spirits. He paid them no heed, as some ended up right where he was, faced with bright smoke before the shades of the damned split them open.
As the last twitching robber bled out, he kept his shield low, almost considering to put it away.
They circled him, hoods at the brim of their eyes, snarling with smiles, their fangs stained with blood. Something was different, as none made a move within several minutes, and he started making his way through the woods before smoke rose beyond the trees.
Then they started, soaring round him faster than before.
Hammers rang his head, spears bludgeoned his back, and he tucked his chin.
Steel tried to take his throat, but he was tight, and he swung an elbow back cracking a spirits face. It wailed, still bright, covering its nose. He slammed his flail down, crushing it with a single blow.
The others hissed, scattering farther from him, and he stayed crouched with his shield.
Was it the trinket he took of Nathan? Probably not, but he wanted to get a hand on it while he had the chance.
The moment he slipped his arm from his shield's straps, a pair of ghosts brightened, sifting above him. Unable to raise his shield in time, hammers knocked him onto his back. Rings bled his ears without pause, then a spear drove through his neck.
He cursed, coughing up blood, touching Nathan's cross.
Nothing happened.
Death took him.
Roosters cawed as he gasped waking up.
The innkeeper yelped, covering her mouth with a red face. "I-I'm sorry hun, but you were screaming so much! I-I had to see if you w-."
He put a hand on her bony shoulder. "Thank you."
Face still red, she nodded before whispering beneath her breath, a hand on her star. She told him there would be a chicken and ale waiting for him whenever he was ready, and after she left he stayed in bed for almost an hour.
No hordes, screams, or wicked smoke.
It was too quiet.
No progress, and all he had to show for getting deeper into the woods was a silly name lovers supposedly called one another. Why, in the gods' black earth, would anyone want to be called Babe? What did people call their mothers and fathers, Lucky Fucker?
Once his armor was on he felt somewhat whole, as one dead spirit over the course of almost two months was pitiful.
Flurries whitened the roads and roofs, and with a belly full of ale and bird meat he marched for the woods.
Another few days passed, and he slew two ghosts within a battle instead of one, both who tried taking his back. Whenever he absorbed blows with his shield, raising it high, his throat was cut. If he didn't block his head rang, stunning him for over a minute, then his throat was cut. If he swung mad, daring the bastards to attack, getting lucky on one occasion and spilling a ghost to smokey smithereens, he tired, then his throat was cut. When he pulled Nathan's cross out, holding it up in place of his shield, the ghosts howled with laughter, then his throat was cut. When he woke up in the inn he kicked over the nightstands and punched a hole in the wall, then he returned to the woods and his throat was cut. If there was memory to be gained for getting his throat cut he'd have the lifetimes of Allison, Arthrik and whoever the fuck the other bitch was written for the ages to know.
So what the fuck was he to do against an enemy that he couldn't touch?
He stormed out the inn dry, an empty stomach, and parted a crowd of citizens singing before a pine tree wrapped in gold ribbons. Whatever the fuck was going on in the snow ridden town was beyond him, some horse shite holiday.
The ghosts were talking to him, even as he'd yet to take a step into the wood line.
'We're going to keep you here forever, cursed one! Ye of no memories, are a brute long for a wretched destiny!'
He punched a great oak, shattering it apart, cursing aloud as icicles fell, along with a hundred meter tall trunk.
"My lord," Nathan said cautiously, the oak's crash booming within the woods.
He turned to face the lad, who scowled him with a cloak up, cold winds swaying it as flurries fell.
"I'm no sire, and fuck's sure no lord," he muttered. "You can have your necklace back, it's no good."
He held it out to Nathan, who was slow to take it back.
"You don't believe in the gods?" The long faced lad asked.
"Not the good ones."
"You must," Nathan insisted. "It's the only way to slay them."
Bone thin, thin eyes, and a scar tarnishing what little looks he head, he was a persistent lad, and he believed there was a reason he survived amongst Fat Carl's party. His swords were good, steel with trimmed hilts, something only a skilled fighter would have, and yet he was so young, possibly younger than the innkeeper.
"You made it to see another day," he explained, putting a hand on Nathan's shoulder. "That's plenty more than most can say, and you best not tempt what little grace your gods have given you."
While Nathan held the sword cross, examining it before tucking it away, he made his way into the woods.
Flurries became white thick bands, winds howled, snow piled up to his ankles, and thunder illuminated dark clouds. It was a storm unlike any he'd seen since fighting on the mountains, but he didn't rest for a moment, not until arriving at the towers of grass. Coughs turned him around to see Nathan, still following him, struggling through knee deep snow tucked within a ragged thin cloak.
He lit a fire with his lantern, handing it to the lad with a simple command.
"Don't freeze."
Nathan, one eye shut, the other bloodshot covered in frost, nodded.
It was too thick, blades of grass like towers of swinging ice, and winds roared, nothing visible beyond arm's reach. Though his armor was pelted without end, becoming more of an ice coffin than anything, he was free of being soaked. Nathan shivered, dropping the lantern several times before he at last dropped his shield.
He cleared a dozen paces or so for them, knocking down frozen blades of grass with a few swings of his flail.
Lantern tucked within Nathan's legs, who sat cross legged tucked over it, he kept it ablaze with his tinderbox.
"Whenever this dies down we're moving again," he said, keeping watch.
Nathan said nothing, snot dripping from his nose and tears in his eyes.
Snow lasted for hours, well until the following morning. He dozed off, against his wishes, waking up to find Nathan with a fire made from roots. Though he was wide awake and ready to move, he looked up to the cloudless sky, stars dim, but still flaring, and he laid his head back down.
Around dusk Nathan woke him up, and they pressed onward, smoke lingering in the air.
'Cursed one….Cursed one….Cursed one…..'
His flail hand shook.
A few steps forward, parting the grass, and he froze upon sight of smoke filling the woods like a wild fog. It surged like a river, flowing between trees with red flickering lights, and he tried catching his breath while lowering his flail.
Nathan put a hand on him, whispering, and a sudden warmth took his chest.
"All mighty Lords, gracious Lords, see us through this night," Nathan chanted, drawing his sword. "Be our swords, shields, and armor, and aid us to smite our enemies!"
Fangs stained with blood, likely some poor travelers who went too far, they rose from among the white waves, cloaks swaying with the current.
Eyes like hot coals, raging against the shadows, their gaze heated his armor's plates. Swords, spears, axes, and hammers, they howled with laughter, then came deeper cold chants.
Light shined behind him, Nathan's cross in one hand, sword in the other, both glowing like a golden star.
Around them the spirits swarmed, so fast he couldn't keep track, but they kept their distance. He must've been hallucinating, as they seemed to be getting further.
"Press on!" Nathan commanded, and he did with his shield up.
They were farther from the grass than he'd ever been before, and there was a break in the trees revealing a bridge.
A rickety wooden piece of shit, so old he believed one step would've broken apart moldy boards, but it held. Smoke brightened along the bridge, on both sides of them, one cloaked ghost wielding a staff on the opposite end, the other donned in armor wielding a great axe from whence they came.
Nathan kept chanting.
The cloaked spirit's staff rang with dark red light, then his cross started to wither.
"Keep going!" Nathan shouted, and he charged.
The cloaked spirit brightened, and the warrior closed the gap with them.
He ran over the cloaked spirit, pummeling it through the bridge as reverted to its transcendent state. The great axe came down and he didn't have time to block it.
Nathan's sword ignited, as did the cross, and he parried the axe free of the spirits hand. It howled cursing, then he followed up thrusting into its thigh. It flickered, between bright and smoke state.
He rained down his flail, bashing the warrior's skull open. It slipped beneath the bridge, and ropes snapped on all sides.
"Hurry!" He shouted, and they leaped.
With seconds to spare, they cleared the collapsing moldy boards.
There was no way to tell how far down it went, but falling wood and rusty iron echoed for almost a minute until silence fell. They walked along a slosh ridden trail, snow ankle deep, then rested upon sight of an old hut, nothing inside but a few frozen crates.
"We're entering Marryvia now," Nathan said, a tight grasp on his cross, the lantern between them. "Those spirits may be back. They'll do anything to keep us out of their masters' palace."
"What's there?" He asked, sharpening spikes on his flail.
Nathan shuddered, then replied. "She of the Swords, the First Sword, the last of the lord of the vampyrium."
"Vampyres," he said, cracking a small grin. "I see."
Nathan shook his head. "We shouldn't be here alone."
"We'll be fine. Besides, no going back now."
"I'm not a Soulless like you. If I die, I-."
"You won't die. Have some faith."
Nathan frowned. "You're deliberate if nothing else."
He sighed, examining Nathan's rigid eyes and scarred sword hand. "You fought well."
He said nothing else, leaning his head back against the wall, and Nathan whispered prayers before sharpening his own blade.
Vampyres.
The mere thought of it returned the familiar thrill.