Hadran the Northern Prince's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Prince Hadran had chased the rot for three weeks, and every trail he followed died before it led anywhere. His villages were sick behind him. Crops turned black. Wells soured. He wanted the head of the beast that spread it, because a head like that would make his name his own. But he had no true trail, only rumors, and while he guessed wrong the sickness crept north toward homes he had sworn to protect. He reined in his horse at a pig farm with timber walls and a sagging thatched roof. The smell hit him first. Not manure. Something under it, sweet and wrong. "Careful," Tallius said. His squire drew his blade. "That's the smell from the burned wheat." Hadran dismounted. In the pens stood a herd of pigs, but they were dead things walking. Their flesh hung in ribbons. Their eyes glowed yellow. They did not squeal. They only watched. A man crouched in the mud between them, thin as a rail, dirt caked to his beard. He flinched when Hadran opened the gate. "Don't," the farmer whispered. "They don't like the gate. Please." His voice cracked. "They won't let me leave. Three days I've sat here." "Who did this?" Hadran asked. "A man came at dusk. Touched the trough. The pigs died and then they got up." The farmer pointed a shaking hand past the barn. "He went that way. Toward the river." A trail. At last, a real one. Hadran felt his chest tighten with it. Then the cold came. Green vapor rolled across the pens. The pigs turned their heads as one. From the mist stepped a hooded shape, tall and thin, bones showing under a rotted cloak. Worms moved on its skull. It held a rusted scythe. "You followed the smell," the figure said. Flat. Certain. "Most run from it." "You spread the rot," Hadran said. He drew his elven sword. The edge caught the dim light. "You're the one killing my land." "I am Malachar." The necromancer did not raise the scythe. "The rot follows me. I do not command it." Hadran charged. His blade cut through the vapor and struck the cloak. The elven steel bit deep, and Malachar staggered back, hissing. Green smoke poured from the wound. But the scythe swung low and grazed Hadran's arm. It did not draw blood. It drew something worse. For one breath, Hadran wanted to drop the sword and kneel in the mud and stop. He gritted his teeth and pushed the feeling down. He swung again. Malachar's form broke apart into mist and worms, sinking into the ground before the blade landed. The pigs collapsed, still at last. The farmer wept. Hadran stood alone in the emptying fog. He had found the beast. He had wounded it. And he had learned it could not be killed by cutting mist. He wiped his blade and looked toward the river.