“Look, Ivan! Torches! We're saved!” 

Ivan looked into the distance at his companion’s words. The darkness of this accursed grove was oppressive, but there *were* torches bobbing rhythmically in the distance. A spark of hope lit itself in his chest, but he quickly smothered it. It was a fool's hope. He looked back at Aleks, noting the hard lines in his face and the bags under his eyes. His square jawline was marked with stubble, and his once nicely-combed curly hair was in wild tangles. His eyes were once blue as the sky over Buachaille, Ivan’s home. Now they were a pale imitation, free of the hope and innocent bravery that had swam in them weeks ago.

“Aleks, do not let such rashness consume you. You have heard the stories, just as I have. The grove is infested with all manner of foul creatures. What if those torches are held by ghouls? Or what if they’re some wretched Will-O-The-Wisps? We cannot afford to deal with either. You yourself can hardly run, let alone fight.”

Aleks went silent and dropped low, Ivan following after. He was right. They had been lost in this damned place for weeks, wandering blind. After the third or so encounter with the savage ghoul patrols that made themselves known nightly. Those horrid things… he was loathe to run into them again. His hand instinctively passed over the festering bite wound on his calf. 

“How long have we been here, Ivan? This expedition was supposed to end weeks ago. You may not relate, but I have a woman waiting for me at home. A beautiful, darling little girl who calls me father. Think logically if my longing will not sway you: Those torches are not held at the height of a ghoul’s slouched and broken posture, nor do they move as erratically as those damned light-spirits. They are either giants, or men on horses, and no undead is that large or has the capacity for raising beasts. I am going, even if you do not join me. Just know that if I am to leave this place without you, I will honor your name.”

Aleks placed a hand on Ivan’s shoulder, determination shining through his grim countenance. Ivan could only nod.

Aleks stood and walked a hundred or so paces towards the light before shouting and waving his hand. It was then that Ivan felt it. A rumbling that shook both the earth beneath his feet and his very bones. Aleks felt it too, if his frantic searching for it’s source was anything to judge by. It meant that he didn’t see the sources of the lights rapidly approaching him. They were horsemen, and to Ivan’s surprise, undead. Their horses were decapitated at the neck, and as heavily armored as they were. As they approached, their necks lit up with flame, casting ghastly shadows across the forest floor and emitting chilling flame-burst parodies of a horse’s neigh.

In moments Ivan saw Aleks’ life, or at least what he knew of it, flash before his eyes. They had met in a tavern, and grouped up with some other glory and fortune seeking adventurers. The rest had died in the first days, and their pack mule had been dragged off in the night by a creature large as a house. But he and Aleks had persisted. He remembered telling him, “I’m a survivor, Aleks. I always look out for number one,” and they shared a grim chuckle and stories of their lives to relieve the stress of the situation. They had grown close over the weeks. They had grown to trust each other, more than Ivan had ever trusted an adventuring companion. Aleks had promised to show Ivan his home, to introduce him to his family. He should shout, give Aleks a warning. He was a good man, one who deserved to live and never return to this place. But yelling out would reveal himself, and he couldn’t outrun those horses.

Ivan bit his cheek and watched in horror as the horseman rode past Aleks, a greatsword bisecting him in a clean swipe. He threw himself into the shrubbery, noting that even though the horsemen were surrounding his friend’s corpse, the rumbling had continued. How many were there? Could they sense the living somehow? Was he next?

It was the smell that alerted him to the arrival of a second group of undead. Vile corpse-stench mixed with rotting meat, the kind of smell that clung to you like oil for days, the kind of smell that was impossible to forget. Ghouls. From the sound and smell of it, more than he had ever seen in one place. He and Aleks had run into a group of three and it had almost spelled the end of them. This group could have numbered in the *dozens*, maybe more. 

He didn’t dare to peak up from his hiding place as a horrible roar consumed all sound in the forest. He could hardly dare to breathe as the horde of ghouls clambered past him, sometimes brushing by the bush he lay prone in, startling him. Eventually, they had passed as the unmistakable clamor of battle shook him. The horsemen were silent, but the ghouls screeched and howled and gibbered and laughed and Ivan knew he would never forget those sounds. Ivan was never a particularly religious man, but he began to utter a prayer to any god above or below that would listen to him; for his safety, for the death of all these abominations, for an escape from this place. He did not know if his prayers were answered.

Eventually, he could tell that the battle was ending. A ghoul hollered and cried as it was set ablaze, and the smell of putrid flesh cooking and popping filled the forest. He dared to peek through the bushes, assuming their attention to be taken by the burning ghoul. He saw a group of ghouls numbering around thirty surrounding a single remaining horseman, one among them standing out among its peers. It had a sense of nobility around it, and it stood with better posture than any other ghoul he had seen. It did not twitch and peer back and forth constantly, it did not slobber and growl at imagined enemies, it did not seem the least bit cautious of the horse-mounted undead, and it was actually wearing *clothes*. The ghoul raised an arm almost lazily and pointed a gleaming blade at the horseman, and the ghouls all fell upon their prey at once. 

The battle was won, he was sure, but who was that ghoul? The dreaded Lord and King that ghouls in the Sanctuary Grove were known to babble about and pledge their allegiance to? A dreaded Nachzehrer, whose mere presence could turn a man to naught but dust? Whoever it was, it didn’t matter. He had to leave.

Just as he had made up his mind, a ghoul was sent flying into his hiding spot by a final kick from the headless horse. It’s body was mangled, the flesh on its chest sloughing off in fist sized chunks and the creature’s head held loosely to its neck by strings of sinew. As it landed, its head slowly rolled in his direction, and its empty eyes blinked once.

The ghoul tried to scream, but it could only produce gurgles as fetid blood filled its throat. Ivan worked past the surprise and buried his handaxe in the creature’s skull, stopping the slow crawl it had begun towards him, before noticing something tucked in the ghoul’s rotting loincloth - some sort of paper. Despite his every instinct telling him to run *now*, before any more ghouls noticed him, he was drawn to what he could now tell was a nearly pristine piece of parchment, stained with blood but otherwise untouched. His instincts told him it might be worth something - ghouls were known to carry around trinkets and prizes, and the fact that this scroll was untouched by time or the elements meant it might be enchanted by some sort of magic. He shoved it into his trousers and quickly rushed out of the bushes, away from the ghouls who he could now hear whooping in celebration.

Ivan made it about five steps before he ran into what felt like a brick wall, stumbling backwards in a daze. When his vision cleared, he saw before him the upright ghoul from earlier, looking down on him with a focused disdain unusual for ghouls. He - and Ivan could tell now that it was a man - looked far more *human* than any other ghoul there, but still very much like a decrepit corpse, all taut, pale skin pulled over rotting muscle, with one arm seemingly removed at the shoulder. He wore a long coat, leather pants and boots, and a tricorn hat that cast a shadow over his face. Thin wisps of shock-white hair rolled down his shoulders.

“Wel, lad? Hast thou aught to saye? It is nat often that the lyvinge bear witnesse to a grete crusade and live,” the ghoul said, with the affectation of something he might have read in a hundreds year old story. 

Ivan made to speak, but the ghoul interrupted him. “It mattereth naught. Thou art most fortunate to have crossed paths with me rather than with one of mine courtly fellows. They would have let the churlish peasantry rend thee limb from limb the very moment they had espied thee, hah!”

Ivan didn’t know what to say. He had never spoken to a ghoul. He didn’t even know they could string together sentences. This one was clearly in charge - could he convince it to let him go?

The ghoul scratched its chin with its sword, a gurgling hum escaping its decrepit throat through a hole in its cheek. “Wherefore art thou here?” it asked, “The living seldom venture so deep into the Groves.”

“We were lost!” Ivan exclaimed, “and no offense was meant by our - by my presence. My… friend, and I, have been lost for weeks, searching for a way out. Please, I only ask to leave.”

Ivan could feel a cold sweat forming on his brow. He certainly could not run from the ghouls, as they had formed a perimeter around him, and he had no misgivings about his ability to fight them off. If he couldn’t talk his way out…

The ghoul hummed again, and Ivan felt its shock-white eyes roam over his body almost casually. Like a predator eying up its next meal. He sauntered up to Ivan, circling him slightly. Ivan’s heart felt like it was ready to leap from his throat, and he couldn’t block out the image of the ghouls, whose heavy breathing all around him very suddenly felt suffocating, tearing him apart to reach it first. Suddenly, the ghoul leader was upon him, reaching into his trousers. He pulled out the pristine parchment.

“What is this now? This... penned by mine lord... how didst thou come by this? This is a greater boon than any meagre repast thy lean frame couldst offer. I shall take this artefact, and thou shalt be led forth from the Groves. Remember this grace and ne'er again venture to this place, mortal."

He held it daintily, with only two fingers, as if afraid that he would ruin the thing otherwise. His blank eyes gazed upon it with a sort of reverence, a very human kind of look. He quickly barked an order to a nearby ghoul, a bloated figure of greenish hue with a giant sharpened bone impaled through its back, and the ghoul was upon him in seconds. Ivan thought that was his death, and tried to fight back against the beast, but his axe was quickly torn from his hands and his mouth stuffed with what may have been a large intestine. His mind blanked, images of himself stuffed and eaten like a stuck pig filling his thoughts, and by the time he had come to consciousness, he was in a clearing. He looked around, realizing that he knew where he was. This was just outside of the Sanctuary Groves. Getting on all fours and kissing the dirt beneath him, Ivan promised himself two things: That he would give up the adventurer’s life forever, and that he would find Aleks’ family and inform them of his fate.