Part XII – The Whispers Beneath
The fog never lifted.
By morning, the marsh looked the same as it had at dusk—gray water, drowned reeds, shapes that might have been trees or bones rising from the shallows. The soldiers packed in silence. No one spoke unless they had to. Even the birds had stopped.
Luk woke to the sound of something scratching softly at the side of the cart. For a moment, half asleep, he thought it was the wind. Then came another sound—a soft, wet drag, like claws moving through mud.
He froze. Anna was still asleep beside him, face pressed into his cloak, her breathing steady.
The sound came again.
He turned his head slowly, peering through the slats. The fog clung thick around the camp. Shapes drifted between the trees—men, armor, horses—but they all looked the same in that colorless light. Nothing moved near the cart. Nothing he could see.
He reached for the knife Valen had given him, small and dull, but better than nothing.
Then the sound stopped.
–––
Delun's voice broke the silence a few moments later. "We move!" He rode past on his gray horse, armor streaked with mud, eyes fixed ahead. The soldiers obeyed without question, forming the thin, shuffling line that had become their shape through the swamp.
Valen came last, leading a horse whose rider was too weak to stay upright. When he saw Luk, he nodded once—a silent check-in, nothing more. His gaze dropped briefly to Luk's leg, but he didn't say anything. The fever hadn't reached his eyes yet, but it was close.
Luk had to grit his teeth and calmed down. He lifted Anna onto her feet. Her hair stuck to her face, damp with mist.
"Stay close to me," he said.
She nodded, still half-dreaming, and slipped her hand into his. Her palm was cold.
–––
They walked for hours through water that came to their knees, then to their waists. The road vanished entirely, replaced by boards laid end to end, some cracked, some already sinking. A few carts had been abandoned where the mud had swallowed their wheels.
Delun gave no sign of stopping. The man seemed carved from the same metal as his armor—bent, battered, but unbroken.
Luk watched him from behind, wondering how anyone could walk like that after what they'd seen. Then again, maybe Delun had simply forgotten how to stop.
At midday, the mist thickened into rain. A cold, steady drizzle that turned their breath to steam. The sound was constant—raindrops striking armor, water running through the reeds, the endless slosh of boots. It made everything else easy to miss.
That's why no one heard the first scream.
–––
It came from somewhere in the column—sharp, short, cut off halfway through. Soldiers spun, raising spears. Valen was the first to move, his blade flashing through the fog.
"Hold!" Delun's voice snapped through the ranks.
"Silence!"
Only the rain, heavier now.
Then something floated past Luk's leg—a helmet. Inside it, a piece of what had once been a man's face.
Anna's fingers tightened around his. "Luk…"
He said nothing. His mouth had gone dry.
Delun dismounted, crouched beside the floating helmet, and pushed it gently aside with his sword. The water rippled outward, revealing the body beneath—headless, armor torn open by something sharp.
"Scouts!" Delun barked.
Three men vanished into the fog at his command.
Valen knelt beside the corpse. "No goblin teeth marks. This was clean. Precise."
Delun looked up. "You think they're human?"
"I think whatever did it knew where to cut."
–––
They waited. The rain worsened. The scouts didn't return.
By the time Delun ordered the march to continue, no one protested. They just moved faster, tighter together, weapons drawn even as their hands shook from the cold.
Luk kept Anna close, knife in his other hand. His leg burned now, heat crawling upward through the muscle. The fever had set in. The world swayed slightly with each step.
He told himself the shapes in the mist were trees. He told himself the whispers he heard were just wind in the reeds.
But the words they almost formed—he could almost make them out.
"You left them at the gate."
He stopped dead. The voice wasn't loud, but it was clear. His father's voice.
When he turned, no one was there. Only the gray water, the sound of rain.
"Luk?" Anna looked up at him, confused.
He forced a smile. "Just… keep walking."
–––
By nightfall, they reached a patch of higher ground—a ruin of old stones that might once have been a bridge post. The men lit torches that barely fought the mist.
Luk sat beside Anna, shivering, his leg throbbing. His hand shook so badly he dropped the knife twice trying to clean it. Valen saw and came over, crouching beside him.
"Let me see it."
Luk shook his head. "It's fine."
Valen didn't argue. He just tore another strip from his cloak, soaked it in rum, and pressed it to the wound. Luk bit down hard on his sleeve.
The knight's eyes were steady. "You're hearing things yet?"
Luk's blood ran cold. "What do you mean?"
"It happens out here," Valen said quietly. "The marsh has memory. It doesn't like trespassers."
Luk stared at him. "Memory?"
Valen looked past him, toward the fog. "Old battles. Old blood. The ground remembers more than people do."
He stood and left without another word.
–––
Later that night, when the fire burned low, Luk woke again to whispering. This time it wasn't in his head.
He lifted himself up, peering through the mist.
At the edge of camp, Anna was standing ankle-deep in water, staring toward the black trees.
"Anna," he whispered.
She didn't turn.
He stumbled toward her, pain biting up his leg. When he reached her, he saw her eyes reflecting faint red light—the same color that had once glowed beneath the mountain.
Her voice was calm, distant. "They're not gone."
He froze. "Who?"
She blinked, and the light was gone. "What?"
He swallowed hard. "Nothing. Come back to the fire."
She looked at him like someone waking from a dream. Then she nodded and followed.
He didn't sleep after that.
–––
Far across the camp, Delun stood on a rise of stone, staring out at the fog. Valen joined him, wordless.
"Report from the scouts?" Valen asked quietly.
"None returned," Delun said.
Valen nodded, jaw tight. "You think it's the goblins?"
Delun didn't answer right away. "No," he said finally. "The goblins don't whisper."