The growls of celebration seemed to slowly disperse as the sun set. The skies above painted themselves in shades of red, a rather haunting reflection of the utter and complete carnage that sprawled beneath, as if nature itself mourned the violence that had just transpired. Amidst the chaos, a lone figure, a young lad whose ragged garments bore the rips and stains of relentless conflict; The blood, however, wasn’t his.

He opened his eyes. Surrounded by an ungodly field of dead fellows, he was still too afraid to move even a single muscle: He feigned his way out of the same fate, and it was not time to risk it. Doing his best to hone his senses, he tried to listen to the surroundings, and even heard a few rare heavy, laborious breathings here and there; In the name of his sanity, he decided to believe that one of those belonged to his liege.

The sky’s hue deepened with each passing moment; The last rays of sunlight, casting shadows across the battlefield, slowly fading away almost in unison with the few heavy breathings from before. As the night started to unfurl, the apprehensive young lad finally felt brave enough to turn his head and observe his surroundings: He anticipated a slaughter, and yet, the sheer number of fallen Christian brothers surpassed even his grimmest expectations. Amongst the sea of lifeless bodies, he pondered if others, just like himself, were merely cloaking their living bodies with blood of their comrades…

Torn between fury and fear, a storm of emotions agitated his soul. From every single point of view, he felt like he has failed spectacularly: as a squire, as a devout Christian, as a son, he has fallen short. At the same time, however, a visceral yearning intensified, an urge to cast curses upon Count Ebles, the pope, and everyone else who had sanctioned this stupid, clearly ill-fated venture. Could their misfortune, however, be divine punishment, a consequence of the arrogance that weakened their bond with Christ? A harsh retribution for their hubris, perhaps. In a burst of sudden bravery, clinging to the smallest fragment of hope, refusing to believe he was the single living soul there, the young lad decided to creep around the labyrinth of fallen brothers, on the lookout for any beating heart other than his.

Not so far from him, difficult breaths scraped the air. Guided by an almost instinctive pull, he followed the haunting tone, threading through the gory field. Following his senses and instincts, he soon found the source: Amidst all the dead flesh and putrid entrails splattered around, he found another man; His form was now marred by a horrific gash, a savage slash crossing through his heavily damaged armour. Amidst the macabre scene, a faint glimmer of familiarity — the Omois crest, azure background and a castle quintuple-towered argent, obscured yet recognisable, woven into the man's blood-soaked garments: His liege! He crawled closer, making his way through more lifeless bodies. Finally, his hand brushed the tattered fabric of the warrior's apparel: “My liege,” he said with a faint but hopeful voice, edging closer, reaching for him, “it is me, Julien.”

The defeated lord tilted his head in the young lad’s direction, a feeble flame of life still flickering in his eyes. His lips parted, as if he was wrestling against the eternal silence, yet the only sound that emerged was a disturbing rattle, a nearly mute requiem to his impending demise: Julien had not failed as a squire, at least not yet, nor as a son. Gathering strength from deep within his soul and using the shroud of darkness as disguise, he slowly stood up, and being as careful as he could, he lifted his liege off the ground as well; His moves now had a sense of purpose, a motivation to power through difficulties: Though uncertainty still clouded his thoughts, a staunch conviction guided his steps. With his liege held close, Julien set forth into the already-dark horizon, driven by the utter necessity of just leaving that cursed place.

Soon into the seemingly aimless journey, a disturbing silence bothered Julien: his liege’s breath was now weak, and growing rarer as time went by. His body also grew heavier with each step, a strong reminder that death was tightening its grasp on them both. Doing his best to defy the questions threatening to devour him, however, he pressed on: The weight upon his shoulders, both physical and metaphorical, failed to crush his unbreakable spirit. Amidst the struggle, the horizon painted itself in faint, reddish hues, like small smudgy spots scattered across a dark canvas: A village! Julien's heart quickened, a renewed surge of hope infusing his tired body as he saw those tiny beacons. The help he so desperately needed might be, after all, within reach.

As Julien lumbers through the village’s narrow alleys, the body over his shoulders now weighing more than ever before, the very few people strolling around seemed to actively ignore their presences as if they were ghosts. The even fewer he dared to approach offered him nothing but bewildered looks, clearly not quite understanding what he had to say. As anguish started to consume his mind, a raw and desperate cry erupted from his dry throat, reverberating through the streets, with what was possibly his very last drop of energy: Just like his liege, he was, too, doomed to fall; He was a corpse, indeed, ironically carrying another corpse.
The young lad gently laid his liege’s dead body to rest upon the cold dirt street, almost like a last funereal ritual, and then slowly sat down by his side, his back against the wall of a rustic house; A tortured sigh escaped his lips, a lament for the shattered hopes. The shadows of despair crept closer and closer, the already faint embers of his spirit now dwindled, his light fading away. Exhaustion was finally there to take its last toll, and with each batting of his exhausted eyelids, the line between consciousness and oblivion grew blurrier. The crescent moon and stars, now shining up in the sky, all bore witness to his utter and complete surrender to the cold embrace of death: He closed his eyes.

"Good eve, struggling warrior," a worn-out male voice greeted Julien, a hint of weakness woven into his words. The Latin flowed effortlessly from his lips, but was decorated with the rather unusual melody of a strong rhotic accent. "Do you seek aid?"

The young lad hesitated, his voice faltering in the face of this unexpected situation. "Yes," he finally managed to answer.As he slowly reopened his eyes, they fell upon an elderly figure. The man, strongly marked by the passage of years, stood before him – time had carved lines upon his face, and the dusky hue of his skin hinted at a life spent beneath the sun. His hair and beard, cascades of white, fell like drapes from his face, barely lit by the moonlight. With an extremely thin shape and a small hunch, clad in nothing but humble rags, the stranger conveyed a compassionate, but eerily unusual, aura.

The mysterious man’s stride was clearly slowed down by his advanced old age. Beside him, a tired Julien carried not only his own weight but also that of his liege, barely able to keep his pace; A silent plea escaped Julien’s lips, a yearning for the elder's aid, but he knew his frail form offered little to no promise of assistance. Through the village's heart they slowly moved, going through a path that cut through its very centre.

"Where are you taking us?" Julien posed the question with a dim whisper, his voice a fragile thread of curiosity.

The elder's eyes creased kindly. "To my humble dwelling, young lad," he responded gently, his voice imbued with an odd warmth, "it awaits not too far from this village."

As they left the confines of the village and darkness once more enveloped them, a stream of sudden and unsettling thoughts coursed right through Julien’s mind: “What if this is just a treacherous ruse, a mere snare to throw us even deeper into the cruel hands of fate?” He wondered. “What if this seemingly gentle old man’s only aim is to kill me and reap the spoils of my demise?” The humble greave he wore on his right foot was, indeed, worth more than everything the old man was currently sporting. Yet, he felt trapped to this situation out of sheer necessity: Without this faint glimmer of hope, he would probably be as dead as the corpse he carries with him.

Emerging from the inky blackness of the night, an extremely rudimentary makeshift shack materialised, its feeble glow standing out against the deep dark. The elder paused at its threshold, gesturing with a fluid, but somehow unnatural, flow. "Enter, young lad," his voice extending a warm invitation.

Julien and his silent companion, then, entered the abode, their passage marked by somehow reverential yet laborious struggle; The entrance, a door so low that one needed to arch their back to pass through, was a cruelly ironic testament to his absolute weariness. Once inside, the view was frankly quite surprising! Nestled within those unassuming simple walls, the room held a charming composition of modest furniture and enigmatic adornments, and all seemed to whisper tales of lives prior, hardships endured, and threads of connection that wove them all together.

A curious blend of comfort and disquiet settled upon Julien within those walls, but at that point, his exhaustion was blinding any reservations: He immediately, yet still gently, laid his liege’s lifeless body upon a weathered chair. He, too, found respite on another seat, the weight of his dual burden at last lifted. It seemed like years passed since he last knew such comfort.

Following a brief pause, the man crossed into the humble shack as well, and immediately starts to sift through some rustic shelves. He finally picked a vial-like object, containing a viscous fluid of a sinister crimson shade, and then poured it into a simple-looking wooden goblet. The transfer of liquid, a dance of purposeful precision, occurred without a single uttered word, the elder’s focus unwavering, like an apothecary working on one of his concoctions.

“Drink this,” the elderly man instructed, his wise gaze fixed upon Julien as he hands him the goblet, “Let us mend you first, young lad, and we may then attend to your friend.”

Julien was confused, but way too exhausted to contemplate further on what exactly was happening. His nearly dead state rendered him unusually receptive to whatever lay ahead. In that moment, the prospect of drinking was met with a sense of almost surrender, a willingness to embrace whatever fate had to offer – whether it be healing elixir, or a deadly venom, or even a potent brew to drown the sorrows of his pitiful reality.

After a moment of fleeting hesitation, he yielded to the goblet and brought it to his parched lips. As he took the first sip, an immediate gag reflex was triggered: His body involuntarily recoiled, a visceral reflex of his body's rejection. The taste was a nightmarish amalgam of rotten flesh, cesspool water, and rancid blood, foulness enough to evoke a strong surge of nausea. Yet, his flagging strength betrayed him, rendering him powerless even in the face of repulsion. With no energy left to even vomit, he simply drooled the vile fluid off his mouth.

“Drink it,” the old man commanded with a rather strong and authoritative voice, “the bitterer the medicine, the sweeter the cure.” He then took the goblet firmly into his own hand and guided it towards Julien’s lips. With each forced swallow of the nefarious liquid, a wave of revulsion surged through him, the urgency to expel the unsettling fluid only getting stronger. Julien gagged uncontrollably, yet the relentless stream continued, as the elder appeared undeterred by the young man's torment.

With the last few dark droplets drained from the goblet, a sudden torrent of sheer energy took control of Julien: An energy as raw as it was tainted, bestowing him with an unsettling vitality akin to the macabre throb of life within a fresh corpse. His world was plunged into an abyss of pure darkness, but his irises were an eerie milky white. Intense power seemed to surge through him, but his limbs ironically quivered in almost complete surrender. And there Julien stood, at the crossroads of those dichotomies – a vessel of newfound vigour yet a symbol of death. He was both the sweet innocence of youth and the bitter echoes of mummified souls. Consciousness swelled within him, as intricate as a feverish dream, leaving him suspended between realms, hovering over the world of the awakened and yet ensnared within the dominion of the asleep.

Slowly risen to his senses once again, Julien found himself alone in the makeshift shack, save for the corpse behind him, both laying sprawled on the earthen floor. An ominous pond of an even darker and more viscous substance marred his face, dripped from his open mouth, to taint his right cheek. The feeling was a confusing mix between the aftermath of a drunken stupor and the searing pain from an enemy’s lance piercing clean through his cranium. And yet, he was alive, unmistakably alive: His head was torturing him, but he could rather easily rise, walk, talk to himself… His was still wearing his full set of armour, too, just like his liege, remarkably.

As Julien stepped out of the makeshift shack, he was momentarily blinded by the intense daylight. When his vision cleared, his gaze fell upon the old man, amidst an improvised garden, tending to some plants: it was a comforting sight, starkly contrasting with the turmoil he felt inside. “What have you done to me?” Julien questioned, with impatience and steadiness permeating his now lively voice.

“I provided you with aid,” the old man replied with a veil of enigmatic tranquillity over his voice, not losing sight of his small garden for even a quick moment, “just as you told me you needed.”

Julien’s patience quickly wore thin with the elderly man’s response: “Don’t play dumb with me, you know what I mean,” he said, stepping closer, anger seeping into his words, “how did you cure me?”

“You may not realise it yet, young man,” he now locked his gaze towards Julien, “but in due time, you will.”

With those ominous words, he stood up and started his departure into the unknown, but not before offering a few parting words: “Find your way back home. Live your life. When destiny deems it right, all shall be revealed,” his intense green eyes now seemed to pierce through Julien as he added, “and then, you will pay off your debt.” He left.

Stunned by the bewildering events that had just transpired, Julien stood there, silently watching the old man vanish into the horizon. Uncertain of his next steps, he charted a new path in the opposite direction, in the hopes of maybe finding another village. Before embarking on this new odyssey, however, he returned to the shack. A sudden sense of malicious purpose now shaped his intent, more than willing to ransack every single tool, weapon, or supplies the old man had that could be used to ensure his survival: Moral quandaries started to make their way into his mind, as stealing was not exactly in line with his Christian beliefs, but the exigencies of the journey ahead called for a pragmatic resolve.

Once inside, Julien gasped in absolute shock at the sight in front of him: The corpse of his liege stood up there, in an upright posture, like a soldier waiting for further instructions. An overwhelming surge of emotion took control of the young man, tears of incredulous joy tracing his cheeks. He embraced the figure before him, urging a swift departure, and yet, it remained there: No noise could be heard, no expressions or reactions could be noticed.

Confused, Julien hastily left the shack without stealing a thing. The resurrected figure silently followed him.