Something circles above the Field of Broken Banners, casting a shadow too solid to be natural. Wings of corrupted stone scrape against twilight air. The creature banks lower, searching. Its head turns on a serpentine neck, scanning the ground where the dark heart once beat.

  Here to investigate its master's loss. Here to find what ended the pulse of corruption.

  Beyond the circling beast, Haven's people venture from their walls for the first time in memory. Children point at real sunlight. The elderly weep at colors they'd forgotten. Scavengers grow bold, pushing further into the field of ancient weapons to gather supplies.

  They don't see death coming from above. Not yet.

  A child's laughter carries. The sound strange after years of whispers and fear. Her mother smiles, fingers tracing patterns in the dirt to show her daughter how seeds should be planted. Others gather rushing towards rusted metal, testing weight and strength of battlefield scraps.

  Hope comes beneath a sky no longer choked with corruption's haze.

  The shadow passes overhead once more. None look up.

  The gargoyle circles lower. Its wings block sun with each pass, brief eclipse mistaken for clouds. Stone eyes narrow, sensing something wrong in the heart's domain. The corruption that once pulsed beneath Haven's walls has faded, its beating silenced by forces the creature cannot comprehend.

  It searches for answers. For prey. For vengeance.

  I rise from where ancient weapons had concealed these bones. The beast's stone eyes fix on my frame. Recognition flares, it senses the power that destroyed its kin.

  I am enemy. It knows.

  Wings spread wider than Haven's gates. Claws that could shear plate armor flex. A screech echoes, stone grinding against stone. The sound sends scavengers scrambling back toward Haven's walls.

  Children freeze, then run screaming. The elderly stumble in their haste to retreat.

  A young girl stumbles, ankle twisted in sudden panic. Her mother scoops her up, terror lending strength to thin arms. The child's doll falls forgotten in trampled grass, glass eyes staring upward at circling death.

  Rusted weapons clatter to ground as gatherers flee. An old man falls, breath coming short from exertion his fragile lungs cannot bear. Two others pull him up, drag him toward distant safety.

  The beast watches them scatter. s. Easy prey. Weak flesh. It screams again, a hollow sound. Stone wings fold as it prepares to dive.

  My bones stand between hunter and hunted.

  The hunt begins.

  It dives. I charge. We meet where rusted spears thrust up like iron thorns. My blade catches the edge of a stone wing and lodges in. The creature's momentum carries us both skyward, my sword lodged in its stone flesh, bones refusing to release their grip.

  Shouts rise from Haven's walls. Guards abandon their posts as stone wings pass too close. A child stands starring up towards sky until her mother yanks her to safety. Commander Ikert's voice yells out, ordering her people to shelter.

  "Back! Get back inside!" She bellows, voice sharp with urgency. "Archers to the eastern wall! Ballistae crews ready!"

  Panic ripples through Haven's defenders. They've held these walls against ground assault for generations, but aerial threats demand different tactics.

  Guards collide with fleeing civilians, creating chaos at the gate. Some struggle to maintain order while others point upward, faces pale with horror.

  "Demons above! The skeleton! It's fighting back!" A guard's shouts out.

  Commander Ikert shoves men aside, clearing the walls. "Move! I need clear sight lines for archers!"

  The gargoyle twists, trying to dislodge its unwanted passenger.

  Wind howls through hollow ribs. My arm separates at the shoulder, but fingers locked around the sword hilt keep these bones anchored to our prey. Height means nothing to what cannot die.

  Stone wings beat harder, each stroke sending currents through borrowed bones. We spiral higher above Haven's desperate scramble. The beast banks, attempting to smash me against a watchtower. Stone scrapes stone as we pass, missing by inches an archer on the wall.

  I hold. It rolls, plummets, scrapes us both against Haven's outer wall. Plates of my armor tear free, raining down on panicked troops below. Ribs crack and it rolls again, spinning to dislodge the blade embedded in its wing joint.

  My skeleton hangs on, borrowed fingers locked in death-grip around ancient steel. Momentum tears at hollow frame. Another rib splinters, sent tumbling through empty air. The creature's stone skin grates against what remains, searching for weakness in the bones that hold the sword in its wing.

  A young guard stumbles over my fallen shoulder plate, drops his crossbow.

  Others fire wildly, more likely to hit their own than their target. Their bolts whistle past my scattered bones, lodge in vertebrae, snap against armor plate. Some hit the gargoyle, but not all.

  "Hold your fire!" The commander calls. More bolts fly despite her order. Fear drives their fingers to triggers.

  Utter chaos erupts along Haven's battlements. Ballistae crews struggle to track the spiraling combat, massive bolts loaded with trembling hands. An older guard screams for coordinated volleys, but panic drowns his commands.

  The gargoyle moves too fast.

  "Wait for a clear shot!" Commander Ikert's takes control. "Fire on my command only!"

  The beast twists skyward again, sensing the wall's defenders might damage its stone flesh.

  Higher we climb, until Haven's walls shrink to mere lines in the distance. My skull turns, hollow sockets tracking the ground's approach on each dive.

  The gargoyle reverses direction suddenly, throwing us into a steep climb that would shatter living bones with force alone.

  These fragments feel only purpose.

  The gargoyle banks hard right, scraping more of my bones against Haven's stones.

  Armor fragments clatter across the battlements. A section of wooden scaffolding collapses, sending defenders scrambling.

  An old man falls, would have died if not for Commander Ikert's quick grip on his collar.

  "Steady!" She shouts. "Track them! Wait for separation!"

  Archers nock fresh arrows. Ballistae creak as crews adjust their aim. The gargoyle spirals higher, then plummets in a controlled dive, aiming for Haven's main gate. People scatter below, screaming as the shadow descends.

  I push. My sword arm saws, sinking the blade deeper into stone flesh. The beast howls, its trajectory thrown off by sudden pain. We miss the gate by mere feet, stone wing scraping the wall hard enough to dislodge chunks of ancient mortar.

  The impact sends my frame tumbling across the gargoyle's back. More bones scatter. These bones need not stay connected to fulfill their purpose.

  "Now!" Commander Ikert's voice rises. "First volley!"

  Arrows blacken the sky. Most miss, the beast's erratic flight confounding even skilled archers.

  Three shafts find their mark, piercing softer stone between wing and body. The gargoyle screeches, momentum faltering as pain registers through its corrupted frame.

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  A ballista bolt follows. The massive projectile strikes the creature's hindquarters, sending fragments of stone spiraling into empty air.

  The gargoyle tumbles, wing beats faltering as it struggles to maintain altitude.

  My sword arm still clings to its hilt, buried in the creature's wing joint. Each push and movement drives the blade deeper, widening the crack forming in stone flesh. Through hollow sockets I see the wing's connection weakening, fractures spreading through the rock.

  We rise again, the beast's wings straining against our combined weight. I drag myself up its writhing back, borrowing climbing skills from borrowed bones. My free hand finds purchase in the junction of wing and spine.

  I pull. Stone cracks.

  Once more I search. My fingers find the wound created by the ballista bolt.

  The stone around it has fractured, revealing a darker substance beneath. Not blood, but something older, thicker. The corrupted essence that gives the gargoyle life.

  I drive bone fingers into the crack, peeling stone away like scabs from healing wounds. The beast twists, sensing this new violation. Its serpentine neck contorts, jaws snapping at where my skull perches. Teeth designed to crush castle stone scrape against borrowed bone.

  The gargoyle screams. The sound shivers through bone and steel, shatters windows in Haven's upper towers. Glass rains down on those still fleeing below. It flies straight up, beyond Haven's highest points. Then flips backward, meaning to drive us both into the earth.

  Let it try. These bones know no fear of falling.

  "Reload!" Commander Ikert orders. "Track them! Be ready when they descend!"

  Ballistae creak as crews crank tension back into massive arms. Archers nock fresh arrows, eyes straining upward where combat continues above clouds. The beast has risen beyond their range, beyond even sight from Haven's tallest towers.

  The air thins. Not that these bones need breath. The gargoyle climbs until frost forms along stone wings, until ice crystals dance across borrowed armor. We leave even birds beneath us, ascending to heights where only stars witness our struggle.

  My fingers continue their work, prying stone scales from the ballista wound. Each fragment reveals more of the darkness pulsing beneath the creature's surface. My sword arm, still embedded in wing joint, twists the blade deeper. Ancient runes pulse along the steel, responding to corruption they sense.

  The gargoyle plummets in free-fall. Its wings fold tight against stone body, hurtling us both toward ground at impossible speed.

  Hollow sockets watch impassively as Haven's walls grow from miniature to full size in heartbeats. The impact approaches. These bones make no attempt to brace or shield. There is only the blade, the wound, and final purpose.

  "Brace!" Commander Ikert's voice carries across Haven's walls. The impact shakes foundations, sending tremors through ancient stone. Defenders clutch battlements as dust rises from the collision point.

  When vision clears, they see scattered remains. Not just the skeleton they've come to recognize as guardian, but the gargoyle's stone form broken into countless fragments across the battlefield.

  We fall. The ground rushes up.

  The impact shatters us both.

  My bones scatter across the field like thrown dice. Ribs impale soft earth. Skull goes bouncing between ancient shields. The gargoyle breaks into a hundred stone shards, each one still trying to move, to reform.

  But my sword arm, still gripping hilt of sword, also reforms. The blade remembers. Power flows.

  A soldier who had ventured out to recover arrows stops, transfixed by the sight. Others gather at gaps in Haven's walls, unable to look away as death itself rises again.

  My skull lies half-buried in disturbed earth, hollow sockets witnessing the aftermath. The sword arm, still clutching the blade, drags itself across blackened-soaked soil toward where stone fragments stir.

  The gargoyle attempts to recover, to reform its shattered mass into coherent shape.

  Ancient magic pulses through the field. Borrowed bones recognize the call, begin their slow migration back toward common purpose. Fingers pull themselves through dirt. Ribs extract from soil. Femur rolls across uneven ground, seeking its mate.

  The stone shards hang in the air, trying to reform. But my sword arm, still clutching its blade, arcs through their attempt at resurrection.

  Aeternus awakens, not light, but something darker than shadow. The blade carves law into reality itself.

  Ancient runes ignite along the blade's length, each symbol burning with purpose older than these borrowed bones. Power flows from hilt to tip, death's own decree made manifest.

  The gargoyle's fragments freeze mid-reformation. Stone grinds against stone as the pieces fight the blade's command. But Aeternus remembers what these corrupted things have forgotten, the true meaning of ending.

  "By the gods," a guard whispers, crossing himself. "What manner of power is this?"

  The answer comes not in words, but demonstration.

  The runes pulse once. Twice. A third time.

  Light erupts from the blade, not the warm glow of sun or torch, but something colder, purer. It consumes the hanging stone fragments. It expands, then contracts, the unlight that erases corruption.

  Where steel passes, the corruption binding stone together simply ceases. The gargoyle's fragments fall like dead stones, unable to remember what they once were. The power that gave them motion dissolves, cut away by edges that recall when death meant true ending.

  Silence blankets the Field of Broken Banners. Haven's defenders watch, weapons forgotten in slackened grips. A child's voice breaks the stillness, too young to understand the meaning of what transpired.

  "The bones are moving again!"

  My scattered bones begin their slow crawl back together. A child points from behind her mother's skirts as femur finds pelvis. Spine remembers its curve. Guards make signs to gods as armor plates skitter across ground of their own accord, returning to reformed frame.

  "Should we shoot?" A young archer asks, bow half-raised.

  Commander Ikert's hand presses his weapon down. "No. Watch."

  The reassembly continues, each fragment finding its proper place in the whole. A rib cage forms around hollow core. Arms reconnect to shoulders with clicks that carry across silent battlefield. Legs straighten beneath rising torso.

  Skull rolls across uneven ground, coming to rest against armored feet. The frame bends, skeletal fingers retrieving the missing piece. With deliberate care, the skull is placed atop vertebrae, completing the reformation.

  The last piece to return is my sword arm, still clutching its killing blade. Commander Ikert watches from the battlements, measuring what she sees. Others whisper, some fearful, some wondering. They watched death fight death and win.

  Let them see what guards their gates. Let them understand what walks the killing fields.

  I rise once more, whole but changed. These borrowed bones understand better now what they have become. Not holy. Not blessed. Simply death's own champion, wielding laws that even monsters must obey.

  "Should we thank it?" A guard asks, voice barely audible.

  "With what words?" Another responds. "What does death need from the living?"

  Commander Ikert silences them with a glance. "Open the gates. Let the scavengers retrieve what they abandoned."

  "But Commander, the skeleton—"

  "Is no threat to those who mean no harm," she finishes. "Open the gates."

  People slowly emerge from shelter. They gather supplies dropped in their panic, steal glances at the skeleton that fought sky and stone. A brave child approaches one of the gargoyle's fallen shards but her father pulls her back. They fear the corruption might linger.

  They need not worry. Nothing remains to taint their precious sunlight. Nothing remains to report back to its masters.

  A young girl separates from her mother's grip, running forward before she can be stopped. The cloth doll forgotten in earlier panic becomes her focus. Small hands retrieve it from trampled grass, brushing dirt from its simple dress.

  Her path takes her near where these bones stand.

  The girl looks up, cloth doll clutched tight against her chest. Hollow sockets meet innocent eyes.

  For a moment, silence stretches between death and life, ancient purpose and new beginning.

  The child offers a small, uncertain smile. Then turns, running back to her mother's waiting arms.

  I settle among the broken weapons while dust that was once a gargoyle scatters on the wind. Time stretches toward my appointed meeting at Haven's walls. Nothing else hunts here, not now. I wait where armies fell.

  Rusted swords rise from earth like grave markers, each one telling half a story. Here, a spear still pierced through decayed carapace. There, a shield clutched by skeletal hands. Every weapon, every bone, carried purpose once.

  A scavenger works up courage to approach closer than his fellows, studying my stillness. He reaches for a piece of the gargoyle but stops when my skull turns to track his motion. He retreats, but not in terror. Already they learn - death guards, but death does not harm needlessly.

  "It saved us," a woman whispers to her companion. "Did you see? It fought that thing."

  "For what purpose?" The other responds. "What does a skeleton want with the living?"

  The questions linger, unanswered. These bones offer no explanation, no reassurance beyond continued vigil. Let them wonder. Let them debate. The truth requires no audience to remain truth.

  Commander Ikert descends from the wall, approaching with measured stride. Her armor bears fresh scratches from the day's chaos, but her posture remains straight, unbending. She stops at respectful distance, studying this frame with eyes that miss nothing.

  "You fought for us," she says simply. Facts requiring no embellishment.

  My skull inclines slightly. Acknowledgment.

  "Why?" The question contains multitudes. Why protect? Why fight? Why stand between Haven and darkness?

  These hollow bones offer no answer. Purpose requires no explanation to function. Duty speaks through action, not justification.

  Commander Ikert waits, then nods as if receiving response. "Return at dusk. We have maps of the outer territories. Knowledge your... mission... might require."

  My skull tilts again. Agreement. Understanding. The fragments that compose this frame retain enough memory to recognize the value of intelligence, of preparation before confronting greater threats.

  Perhaps pieces of this frame belonged to them. A rib from a banner carrier who died protecting his standard. A femur from a scout who warned of demons' approach. A skull that once housed desperate final thoughts of home.

  I cannot know which fragments are mine, if any ever were. These borrowed bones carry too many deaths to count. Too many last stands. Too many final charges.

  The compulsion pulses stronger as shadows lengthen. Haven's walls mean nothing now. Greater monsters will follow. The corruption I destroyed beneath them was minor, barely worth notice. Darker things wait beyond the battlefield's edge. Monsters that turn forests into hunting grounds. Beasts that drag cities into lightless depths.

  Beasts that allowed Haven to exist at leisure. A plaything and hunting ground.

  My finger bones trace unnamed graves. No markers tell their stories. No monuments speak their deeds. Yet something of their purpose lingers, driving these assembled bones toward greater battles.

  The sun touches horizon. Time to gather maps, to seek paths toward darkness that needs ending. Commander Ikert waits at her post, maps in hand. She has seen what guards her walls now.

  These bones rise, answering duty's call. Death goes to learn where it must walk next.