We rode at dawn. A thousand riders, their armor gleaming under the first light of day, cutting through the eastern plains like a spear. This was not a campaign of conquest. This was a hunt for the truth.
The Forgotten Ones—if they truly existed—posed a threat unlike any I had ever faced. They were not rulers of kingdoms, nor generals bound by honor or ambition. They were ghosts of a past erased by the gods themselves. And ghosts did not abide by the rules of war.
The sun burned high in the sky when we reached the first abandoned village. Silence greeted us.
I dismounted, sword drawn. My officers followed suit, their eyes scanning the empty streets. Not a single body. Not a single drop of blood. Only overturned carts, doors left ajar, half-eaten meals still sitting on wooden tables.
"It's as if they simply vanished," Cassius murmured.
Eryndis walked ahead, her fingers tracing the air. A breeze stirred the dust, carrying with it something foul—the scent of decay, of something long buried but never truly dead.
She turned to me, her expression grim. "This is no ordinary enemy, Aurelian."
I already knew that. The only question was: what were we really facing?
The Dead City
Two days later, we reached what had once been a mighty fortress. Now, it was nothing more than a skeletal ruin, its walls crumbling, its towers broken. The Eastern Dynasties had built their empire upon the ruins of something older. And now, it seemed, the past had come back to reclaim what was once theirs.
Septimus, my spymaster, dismounted first. "Tracks. Human. But… not."
I knelt beside him, studying the ground. The footprints were strange. Too deep, as if made by something heavier than a man. And yet, too light, as if weightless.
Eryndis unsheathed her dagger, eyes narrowing. "They are watching us."
I could feel it, too. The cold presence of something unseen, lurking just beyond the ruins.
"Form up!" I barked, and my men immediately fell into formation. Shields locked, swords drawn. We would not be caught unaware.
A shadow flickered in the broken archway ahead. Then another. They were here.
The First Contact
The first attack came like a whisper. A blur of movement. A flash of steel. A scream cut short.
Blood sprayed across the stones as one of my scouts crumpled to the ground, his throat torn open.
"Shields up!" Cassius roared.
Figures moved in the darkness—not men, not beasts, but something in between. Clad in armor blackened by time, their faces hidden behind hollow, expressionless masks.
The Forgotten Ones.
They moved like shadows, faster than any warrior I had ever faced. They did not fight for land. They did not fight for power. They fought as if war was all they had ever known.
I swung my sword, steel meeting steel. Sparks flew as my blade clashed against the enemy's. Their strength was unnatural. Their movements inhuman.
But they bled. And if something bled, it could be killed.
"Push forward!" I roared, driving my sword through the chest of one of the masked warriors.
He staggered but did not scream. He simply collapsed, as if life had never truly belonged to him in the first place.
The Turning Point
The battle raged in the ruins, steel against steel, shadow against fire. My legions held their ground.
Then—a sound.
A deep, guttural chant, rising from the ruins. The ground trembled. The air grew thick.
And the Forgotten Ones began to change.
Their bodies twisted, their limbs lengthened. Their armor cracked and melted into their skin. The battlefield became a nightmare.
"Fall back!" I commanded, but it was already too late.
Something ancient had awoken.
And we were standing at the edge of its domain.