Once the shadow monster died, the effect it had on the people ended. After recovering their minds, a few soldiers were knocked out cold, and others felt their heads aching.
There were also those who were crying, wanting to see those loved ones again. Then the worst were those who were broken from what they had witnessed.
Some of the men stared at the snow as if expecting it to part and reveal the faces they had just seen.
Others clutched at empty air, whispering apologies to people who had been dead for years. A few soldiers trembled violently, their weapons slipping from numb fingers as the weight of false hope collapsed into cruel reality.
The battlefield no longer rang with steel and thunder. It was filled instead with uneven breathing, muffled sobs, and the distant crackle of frost settling over shattered ground.
Even the battle-hardened people of the north could not escape the bewitchment of the shadow monster.
