Chapter 11

  Maldrath

  The first of the Maldrath broke through the tree line, and Sabo felt a chill crawl up his spine. They moved like living shadows given weight, a terrible wrongness in the way their bodies twisted and coiled, inky masses that defied natural form.

  The largest shade stepped into the flickering torchlight, its hulking silhouette solidifying into something that might have once been a bear. But no bear looked like this. Its body was swollen with grotesque strength, patches of black silhouette mimicking matted fur clinging to the rippling, jet surface of its inky flesh. From its back, a writhing nest of shadowy snakes emerged, their bodies moving independently of the mass, their heads snapping and twisting, each with glowing yellow eyes. They writhed like maggots feasting on a long-dead corpse, spilling over the thing’s massive shoulders.

  Sabo’s mouth went dry.

  The thing let out a guttural snarl, the sound low and grating, vibrating through the deck like a warning. The smaller shades followed close behind, spilling from the darkness like ink poured into water.

  Wolves—or at least, something that vaguely resembled wolves. Their shapes were twisted, deformed. Long limbs ended in jagged claws that dragged against the earth, leaving gouges in their wake. Their bodies were gaunt, almost skeletal, and their eyes burned with a sickly yellow glow, their hunger plain to see.

  The airship, smoldering and broken, was clearly the only source of life for miles—a beacon of warmth and blood in what had to be a frozen forest, picked dry by these miasma-born monstrosities. The Maldrath moved with singular purpose, their movements eerily silent except for the occasional snap of a twig beneath their weight. And yet, they had not been concerned with concealing their movement. Why should these predators fear such weak, pathetic prey?

  The prisoners on deck froze, their voices falling to whispers, then to silence. No one dared to breathe.

  “What are those things?” one man whispered, his voice barely audible.

  “Maldrath,” the white-haired woman said, her tone as grim as the night itself. “And they’re hungry. It must be our lucky day. Freed from the shackles of our bondage, only to run into the mouth of the umbral tide.” While it sounded like a joke to Sabo, the woman’s voice was so flat and monotonous.

  The shadow-wrought snakes on the bear Maldrath’s back released a torrent of cries. They sounded unsettlingly like the tormented screams of children.

  A man to Sabo’s left started sobbing. Out of the corner of his eye Sabo could see the man’s trousers darken with urine. Another man dropped an oar he had been holding as a weapon. The oar clattered against the deck floor as the man scurried away from the edge of the deck, frantically crying to himself as he ran to head below deck. This does not bode well, Sabo thought.

  Sabo’s pulse thundered in his ears as he scanned the horde. They moved with an almost fluid unity, the mass of wolves spreading out to encircle the wreckage while the bear-like abomination lumbered closer, its bulk casting long shadows across the deck.

  “Looks like this group have evolved some pack tactics,” the woman added, glancing at Sabo. Her apathetic red eyes locked onto his own. “They might kill the strongest first, then take their time picking apart the stragglers.”

  “Fantastic,” Sabo muttered, gripping the railing to steady himself. His body still ached from the crash and the battle with the two knights, but the sight of the advancing sea of Maldrath was enough to sharpen his senses. He had only ever seen so many of them twice in his life—when he became an orphan, and later when he lost Solstice.

  The bear-shade let out another snarl, the snakes on its back hissing in unison, this time the rattling cackles of a group of hags. One of the wolf-shades darted forward, its body rippling unnaturally as it closed the distance between the tree line and the ship. The bear monstrosity snarled again, and the wolf-like Maldrath stopped in its tracks, looping back to take its position. That’s interesting, Sabo noted.

  Sabo’s mind raced. The prisoners were too scattered, too disoriented to fight. They didn’t have weapons—hell, most of them barely had the strength to stand.

  The white-haired woman nudged him with her elbow, her red eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Got a plan, hero?”

  “Working on it,” Sabo snapped, his gaze locked on the advancing shades.

  “Better work fast,” she said, nodding toward the bear-shade as it let out an ear-splitting roar, the snakes on its back snapping toward the ship.

  Sabo clenched his fists, feeling the faint pulse of the maul within him, a familiar, unsettling presence. The voice of the entity slithered into his mind, dark and eager.

  < How convenient that they came to us! Now, my vassal, we must not let such fortuitous events go to waste. >

  Sabo swallowed hard, trying his best to ignore the voice.

  He made his way toward the side of the ship, where many of the prisoners had gathered. Most stood huddled in loose clusters, their eyes darting nervously toward the forest as the glow of the shades’ yellow eyes grew brighter in the ever-darkening forest. Others were less frozen by fear, scrambling below deck in desperate attempts to find refuge.

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  As Sabo moved, he realized what the earlier flurry of activity had been. The prisoners hadn’t been idle after the crash. Much of the damage to the ship’s hull had been hastily patched, wooden planks hammered across gaps and splits in the hull. Some areas were little more than crude barricades of broken parts of the ship and other debris. The torches on deck had been positioned strategically, their flickering light casting long shadows but keeping the worst of the darkness at bay.

  And then there were the weapons. Makeshift spears fashioned from broken railings, knives crafted from shards of metal, and even a few rough approximations of clubs. It wasn’t much, but it was clear the prisoners had done their best to prepare for whatever nightmare had followed them there.

  Near the bow of the ship, Sabo spotted a man standing atop an overturned crate, holding the warden’s sword. The blade gleamed faintly in the torchlight, its polished steel a stark contrast to the man’s rough, tattered clothing. His voice rose above the murmurs of the prisoners, sharp and commanding.

  “Hold your ground!” the man barked, gesturing toward the barricades. “Stick together, and don’t panic! If you scatter, you’re as good as dead! We must work together if we’re going to survive!”

  Sabo paused, watching the man work. He was doing a decent job, all things considered. His words were clear, firm, and practical, and while fear still lingered in the faces of the prisoners, many of them looked to him with a glimmer of hope.

  But even as the man spoke, Sabo could feel it—the creeping pressure in the air, the insidious weight that pressed down on his chest like a vice. Then, just as he expected, it crept into the back of his mind—a primal fear, one that whispered to his instincts to freeze, to stop moving, to curl up and pray the predators in the dark would pass him by.

  He swallowed hard, his fists clenching. He knew this feeling, even if not well. He’d felt it before, deep in the Green Sea, harvesting aether sap, as well as before that, near Solstice. The Maldrath exuded this aura of fear. It paralyzed their prey, made humans easy pickings for the monsters that prowled the dark.

  But this—this was stronger than anything he’d ever felt. Almost anything you’ve felt. His mind summoned images of the night Solstice had been destroyed.

  He scanned the forest’s edge, the glowing yellow eyes multiplying like fireflies. At least fifty of the Maldrath, maybe more, their forms shifting and writhing in the shadows. These weren’t the lesser shades he’d encountered before, the fragmented, half-formed beings that occasionally wandered the countryside. These were fully realized abominations, their presence suffocating, and their intent clear.

  How are there so many? Sabo thought, his heart pounding. It wasn’t normal for shades to gather like this. Not in these numbers. Not with this kind of force.

  A dungeon, he realized.

  It made too much sense. Deeps—or dungeons—were pits of concentrated miasma, cursed places where the natural order had been corrupted. They spawned monsters, gave rise to abominations like the Maldrath. If one had been left unchecked nearby, it could have festered for years, spilling out its corruption until the forest itself was crawling with horrors.

  The man with the warden’s sword stepped down from the crate, walking among the prisoners and speaking in quieter tones now. Sabo watched as he stopped to place a hand on a young woman’s shoulder, giving her a reassuring nod before moving to the next. He was keeping the group together, for now.

  But Sabo knew the truth. They’ll tear through the barricades like paper. Those weapons won’t matter. They’ll slaughter everyone. There was little mundane, non-magical weapons could do to a Maldrath.

  The aura of fear pressed down harder, as if the shades themselves knew his thoughts. Sabo gritted his teeth, forcing himself to keep moving. He needed a plan, and he needed it fast.

  Sabo made his way toward the man at the front of the ragtag group of prisoners, weaving through the clusters of frightened faces and makeshift weapons. The closer he got, the clearer the man’s presence became—a hulking figure of muscle and grit, standing firm against the fear that seemed to buckle the others.

  He wasn’t tall, not much taller than Sabo, but there was a solidity to him, the kind of weight that came not from size but from sheer determination. His wild brown hair hung loose around his shoulders, tangling with the edges of a long, unkempt beard streaked with ash and dirt. His arms, thick with muscle despite the gauntness of malnourishment, flexed as he adjusted his grip on the warden’s sword.

  The blade gleamed faintly in the flickering light of the torches, its polished steel a stark contrast to the battered shield he carried in his other hand. The shield had clearly been fashioned from the staves of a destroyed barrel, its edges jagged and uneven, but the man held it like it was forged by the finest smith. Around his neck was the unmistakable voidstone collar, its dark sheen catching the firelight.

  Sabo couldn’t help but notice it. A Soulsinger. Just like the woman with white hair.

  The man’s gaze was fixed on the hundreds of burning eyes in the distance. His face was set, his lips pressed into a hard line as he waited for the inevitable. Sabo quickened his pace, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as he approached.

  “Do you have a plan?” Sabo asked, his voice low but steady.

  The man turned his head slightly, his eyes—piercing and pale green—locking onto Sabo. There was a depth in his stare, a kind of raw, unshakable focus that made Sabo feel small despite his own growing resolve.

  “A plan?” the man said, his voice gruff, carrying the rough edges of a life spent shouting over the noise of labor. He let out a dry, humorless laugh. “I’m lucky to have enough bodies to hold the tide back for a moment. A plan would be asking for miracles.”

  He gestured toward the hastily constructed barricades, the prisoners huddling behind them with their cobbled-together weapons and trembling hands. “We’ve prepared as much as we can,” he continued. “Boarded the ship, fashioned what we could out of scraps, set up the lights. There’s nothing else to do now but wait to meet our fate, and die with one last act of defiance.”

  I think a better act of defiance would be actually getting out of this situation alive, Sabo couldn’t help but think.

  < I agree, > the entity growled. < While he seems stronger than you, my pathetic vassal, his will is weak. >

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  Sabo followed the grizzly man’s gaze to the forest’s edge, where the glowing yellow eyes of the shades burned like embers. The horde seemed to ripple and shift as one, their inky forms twisting unnaturally, almost as if testing the resolve of those aboard the wreckage.

  And then, all at once, the forest went still.

  The change was immediate and absolute. The air grew thick and heavy, the kind of silence that made every breath feel deafening. There was no birdsong, no rustling of leaves, no chirping of insects. Even the crackling of the torches seemed to dull, the light from their flames flickering weakly.

  The man straightened, his grip tightening on the hilt of the sword. His eyes never left the treeline. Sound flooded back all at once. The bear monstrosity roared.

  And then, the Maldrath charged.