From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 103: Seeded Shadows

The ride northeast was quiet. No words, only wind and hooves. Trees passed in a blur—tall, skeletal things that rustled without leaves, their branches scratching the sky like claws.

Leon led the way, Mira and Tomas close behind. The ground sloped downward into a valley half-shrouded in mist, and the stench reached them before the ruins did.

Burned wood. Old blood. Something fouler.

They dismounted at the crest of a ridge. Below, the remains of the refugee camp lay strewn in disarray. Tents shredded. Carts overturned. Fires long dead. No birds, no buzz of flies—only stillness.

Mira drew her dagger. Tomas nocked an arrow. Leon signaled them forward.

They moved in tight formation, every step cautious. The moment they entered the camp proper, the air changed. Heavier. Warped.

"Magic was worked here," Mira whispered. "Not just blood. Something ritualistic."

Leon knelt beside one of the ruined tents. Symbols had been carved into the dirt—spirals inside triangles, intersected with claw-like strokes. Not from any known school of sorcery.

Tomas crouched beside a broken wagon. "Bodies are missing. Too clean. Dragged, maybe. Or taken."

Leon straightened. His eyes scanned the camp.

The markings weren’t random.

They formed a pattern.

"It’s a summoning circle," he muttered. "But incomplete. Interrupted halfway."

"Interrupted by what?" Mira asked.

"Fear."

They followed the lines toward the largest tent at the camp’s centre. Inside, the air pulsed. A low thrum, like a heartbeat beneath the earth.

A hole yawned in the ground—narrow, jagged, clawed open from below. Leon dropped a torch inside. The flame tumbled and vanished.

No sound. No impact.

Just darkness.

"They’re not gone," he said. "They went down."

Tomas spat. "You want to follow that?"

Leon didn’t look at him. "We don’t have a choice."

Behind them, the trees creaked.

And from the mist came a voice.

Not loud. Not near either. But close enough to chill the bone.

"Witnesses. Again."

They turned in unison.

Nothing moved.

But the wind had teeth now.

And the forest watched.

Leon raised a hand—halt. Mira froze mid-step. Tomas’s arrow stayed drawn but lowered. The voice had vanished, swallowed by the mist, but its echo remained. Not in the air. In the mind.

his eyes swept the treeline. There were no tracks, no shadows breaking through fog. But that didn’t mean it was gone.

"Sounded like the one from the ridge," Tomas whispered.

Leon nodded. "Different tone. Same presence."

Mira touched the hilt of her dagger, knuckles white. "It’s watching. Not testing us. Not yet."

They backed toward the main tent. Every step felt heavier, like the ground didn’t want to let them go. Leon moved first and slipped inside the canvas walls. The others followed.

The circle on the floor was clearer now. Whatever had been carved into the dirt had bled deeper—lines fused with a crusted black residue, half-melted into the soil. Something had burned from beneath, not above.

Mira traced the outer edge with her fingers. Her voice was quiet. "This isn’t just summoning. It’s anchoring. Something was trying to stay."

Leon crouched beside her. "But it didn’t finish."

Tomas knelt by the far edge of the tent, running a hand over a discarded cloak. "This was fresh," he muttered. "No rot. Whoever wore it was here... hours ago."

Leon looked toward the pit. "Then they’re still close."

The ground beneath them shifted—subtle, like the flex of a muscle deep below the skin of the world.

Mira jerked back. "Did you feel that?"

Leon’s hand went to his sword. "Something’s moving under us."

They backed out of the tent, steps measured. The mist outside was thicker now, creeping higher like a tide. Tomas kept scanning the treeline, arrow nocked again. Mira whispered a ward under her breath, tracing a rune in the air. It glowed faintly, then fizzled.

"Something’s eating the magic," she hissed.

Leon grabbed a stick, lit it with a spark from his flint. The flame hissed blue for a moment before settling. He dropped it near the edge of the pit. Still no sound. Still no end.

"We go down," he said.

Mira stared at him. "Leon—"

"No delay. If it’s spreading, we stop it now. If it’s anchoring, we sever it before it roots."

Tomas grunted. "There’s no rope."

Leon unslung his cloak, pulled a compact coil from the side pouch. "There is now."

They lashed together a line. Tomas drove a spike into a rock and tied the rope tight. Leon tested it once, then twice. It held.

Without another word, he hooked it to his belt and slipped over the edge.

The descent was slow. The pit wasn’t natural—dug by something with claws, not tools. The walls were streaked with veins of blackened earth, warm to the touch.

Halfway down, the rope jerked once.

Leon paused.

He didn’t look up.

The flame above dimmed.

The silence below deepened.

He kept going.

When his feet finally touched solid ground, it was cold. The air had changed. Not thick with mist, but dry. Still. Too still.

He unhooked the rope and moved aside just in time for Mira to descend beside him. Tomas followed seconds later, landing with a grunt.

They were underground now. The walls pulsed faintly, like breathing stone. Runes etched into the sides glowed dimly. Not magic they recognised—older. Simpler. Hungrier.

A narrow corridor stretched ahead.

Leon moved first. Sword drawn, steps silent. The others followed.

They passed what looked like an altar—cracked, half-shattered, splattered with dried blood and bones. Not human bones.

Not all of them.

Mira whispered again. "This isn’t a lair."

Tomas glanced at her. "Then what is it?"

Leon didn’t stop walking. "It’s a passage."

"To where?"

They rounded a corner.

And saw the gate.

It wasn’t a door. It wasn’t even metal or stone.

It was a frame—half-formed, spiraling inward like a whirlpool of smoke and red-glass shards. Floating. Incomplete.

Alive.

Leon stopped, blade rising an inch. "A shard gate."

Mira’s breath hitched. "But it’s still building."

Tomas looked at the edges. "Not for long."

And then they heard it.

Footsteps.

Not from behind.

From beyond the gate.

They weren’t alone.

The footsteps echoed unnaturally—too loud for the space, too slow for any living man. Each step landed with a scrape, like bone on stone, followed by a drag, as though whatever walked beyond the gate didn’t move with purpose... but with hunger.

Leon raised a hand. Tomas and Mira stopped behind him, silent. No one breathed.

Then came a second sound. Not footsteps this time.

Breathing.

But wrong. Deep, strained, wet—like a dying thing trying to remember how lungs worked. Mira pressed herself against the nearest wall, eyes wide. Tomas lowered his bow slightly, squinting into the shifting air.

"There’s more than one," he muttered. "I count at least two. Maybe three."

"No," Leon whispered. "Just one. The others are echoes."

"Echoes?" Mira asked.

Leon nodded, stepping forward slowly. "Residuals. Like smoke after a fire. They’re bound to the gate."

The red-glass shards began to spin slowly. Whatever energy pulsed from the frame had grown steadier, deeper. Mira flinched as the nearest rune on the wall flared, then blinked out.

"It’s drawing from the old magic," she whispered. "Feeding."

Then the thing stepped through.

It wasn’t large. Barely the size of a man. But its shape was wrong—twisted, bent backward in places where it should have been forward. Bone jutted from skin. Its face was covered by a mask of fused metal and flesh, runes etched across its forehead. No eyes. Just that breath—wet, laboured.

It tilted its head toward Leon.

"Thorne," it rasped.

Tomas’s bowstring creaked. "It knows you."

"Hold," Leon said.

The creature took another step.

"You severed the trial," it said, voice bubbling like it spoke through blood. "You woke something beneath."

Leon stepped forward, blade still down. "What are you?"

"Seed," it replied. "A memory. A warning."

Mira hissed. "You’re not a memory. You’re a puppet."

The creature turned toward her. "Then cut the strings."

It lunged.

Leon moved faster.

His blade met bone, the clash ringing sharp in the narrow corridor. The creature shrieked, not in pain, but in protest. Tomas fired, his arrow sinking into its side. It didn’t flinch. Mira threw a ward rune—it shattered on impact, useless.

Leon drove his knee into its chest, forcing it back. It twisted, fluid and jagged, and slammed both fists down—missing Mira by inches as she ducked under.

"Nothing vital!" Tomas shouted. "It’s not bleeding!"

Leon pivoted, slammed his blade into the creature’s side, and tore it free. Black mist hissed from the wound.

The creature stumbled. Twitched.

Then laughed.

"You’re late," it gurgled.

And with one last breath, it fell backward into the gate.

The red-glass shards screamed.

Leon tackled Mira as the gate burst in light. Tomas dove the other way.

Energy erupted from the frame—a wave of heat and cold at once. Not explosion. Rejection.

The gate shuddered, then cracked down the middle, the spiral collapsing inward. A moment later, it imploded, dragging the creature’s body—and all the residual echoes—into itself.

Silence returned.

But the damage remained.

Cracks laced the walls. Two of the etched runes had gone completely dark. The air thinned, like the earth itself had stopped breathing.

Leon rose slowly, pulling Mira to her feet. "Everyone alright?"

"Define alright," she muttered, brushing dust off her coat.

Tomas limped over. "I’m fine. But that thing wasn’t a scout. It was a message."

Leon nodded. "And the message was received."

He looked toward the ruin of the gate. The shards still floated in the air, dim and lifeless—but not gone.

Mira touched one gently with her dagger tip. "Still warm. Like it didn’t close... just paused."

Leon sheathed his sword. "Then we leave nothing behind."

He drew a rune from his pouch—a detonation seal. The old kind. Dangerous. Crude.

He stuck it to the wall beside the gate remains.

"Time to go."

They climbed back the rope in silence, each glance over their shoulder heavier than the last.

Above ground, the mist had begun to thin.

But the wind carried a new sound now.

Whispers.

Hundreds of them. Scattered. Moving.

And far behind them, beneath layers of stone and scarred dirt...

The last shard pulsed once.

The wind never stopped.

Even as they crossed the camp again—past torn tents, crushed wagons, and the clawed earth where once families had huddled—the whispers followed. Low, disjointed, crawling between trees and ears like veins of smoke.

Leon didn’t speak. His jaw clenched as they rode, faster now, up the ridge and away from the valley. His eyes scanned the forest constantly, sword unsheathed across his lap. Mira rode just behind him, lips tight, her fingers flickering subtly with warding signs that refused to light. Tomas brought up the rear, scanning their tracks, one hand always at the bowstring.

At the crest, they stopped for breath.

Mira swung off her saddle and crouched, breathing hard. "It’s not done."

Leon nodded, not turning from the tree line. "It won’t be. Not yet."

Tomas looked back down the valley. "The seal—was it enough?"

"It’ll slow it," Leon replied. "But it wasn’t a full gate. It didn’t need to be. The opening was symbolic. A breach. That was all it wanted."

Mira stood. "A breach into where?"

Leon finally turned. "Not just a place."

His voice lowered.

"A memory. A pocket of something sealed long before any kingdom had a name."

The wind rose again, kicking up ash from the ruined camp. Bits of canvas fluttered across the valley floor.

Tomas spat. "If that was just a memory... What’s the real thing look like?"

Leon didn’t answer.

Instead, his gaze shifted—northwest now, to where the woods darkened further, thickening into old-growth timber long untouched by road or torch. There was something pulling him there. No sound. No signal. Just the weight of unfinished purpose.

He mounted again.

"Let’s move. We can’t stay exposed."

Mira followed, but Tomas hesitated. "Where to now?"

Leon looked ahead.

"To the next ruin."

Because this hadn’t been the only site.

And whatever was stirring below wasn’t finished calling its children home.

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