Prologue Continued: The Voices That Never Sleep (Part II)
Writing style: Nakamura — dark, poetic, melancholic
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The forest — the one the southerners called Thal'Karûn, the Haunted — no longer frightened Wyllen Lyr.
But tonight... tonight it whispered secrets too old to be forgotten.
The wind came from the north, carrying with it the laments of dead ages. Trees groaned like cathedrals of bones. The smell of ice was metallic, like rusty blood.
They had been riding for nine days now, skirting hills and crossing valleys where the sun never set. They followed in the footsteps of brigands—savages, they said. But something about the trail was wrong. Each day grew emptier, colder. As if something was erasing them, not just killing them.
And that day... was the worst.
Gárelth, still standing firm, was trembling.
Wyllen felt—more than saw—an invisible presence watching them from the recesses of the forest. Not ordinary eyes, but dry, motionless orbs. As if time had carved them there to watch.
And then, when Sir Vaymor Rhoss finished questioning the young hunter and turned his eyes to the sky as if waiting for an answer from the stars, the unexpected happened.
The air froze.
The forest went silent.
A knock. Like the sound of metal on ancient wood.
And then... he appeared.
Emerging from behind a crooked tree, as if the forest itself had birthed him from the darkness: Huguel, the Angel of Locks.
His skin was as pale as the light of the dead moon.
Black wings, with feathers as long as blades, stretched silently from his back.
His shirt was black, with a white drawing of a skull with sharp teeth grinning on the chest. His pants were equally dark. A leather eyepatch covered his left eye, and the other — his right — seemed to see nothing... and know everything. His feet did not touch the ground. He did not walk. He glided. "You feel... don't you?" he said, his voice hoarse, like contained thunder. "Something broken in time. Something... released." Sir Vaymor pulled his horse back. Gárelth raised his hand to the hilt of his sword. Wyllen just watched, fascinated and terrified. "Who are you, specter?" Rhoss demanded, his voice too echoing for a single man. Huguel ignored the question. His eyes — or rather, the eye that saw — turned to Wyllen, as if reading his soul in words written on old paper. "The Kingdom of the Zombians is growing." — They march with shadows and reanimated corpses, led by the fallen daughters of the night.
"And among them… the forbidden bloodline of the Xcimi."
"Xcimi…" whispered Gárelth. "Werewolves of red blood."
"They were sealed in the Treaty of El'révan. That was ages ago…"
"Seals break," Huguel said sadly. "Entire villages now lie in ash near the Bridge of Saint Gronjlik. Families devoured. Children transformed into heralds of the eternal howl."
"This is no task for three men of the Dark Watch. This… demands the Wardens."
The name fell like a stone into a deep well: Wardens of the Supernatural Breeds—an ancient order, formed by blood pacts between the founding species of Zerk.
Sir Vaymor hesitated. He was young, proud, but not stupid.
— Calling the Guardians is not simple. The Codex demands proof.
— Proof comes with blood, Huguel replied. — And if you do not run with the wind tonight... the blood will be yours.
Silence.
Then, only the leaves whispering. When they looked up... Huguel was gone. As if he had never existed.
But something had changed. The air was thicker. Time, slower.
Wyllen was certain—for the first time in his life—that they were facing something much greater than a band of brigands.
The prologue ends with the three knights facing each other under the light of the crescent moon. The decision hung in the air:
Retreat to call the Guardians... or advance into the darkness that now sang with the voices of the dead?