Part 1: The Taste of Mud
The underbelly of Gaan was a world that had forgotten the sun. It was a labyrinth of ancient brickwork, dripping limestone, and flowing rivers of sludge that carried the refuse of a million souls toward the indifferent sea. It was a place of suffocating darkness, where the air was thick enough to taste—a foul cocktail of methane, rot, and the coppery tang of old rust.
In the deepest, oldest section of the main drainage artery, something dragged itself through the muck.
Alaric was a ruin. The "Wolf" that had challenged a Titan, the "Beast" that had torn down a throne room, was gone. In his place was a broken, leaking vessel of necrotic meat and scrap metal. His left arm was sheared off just below the elbow, the wound cauterized not by fire, but by a hard, black scab of dried Sanguine moss. His legs were useless dead weight, the heavy iron greaves crushed inward by Ragnaur's stomp, pinning the shattered femurs together in a twisted parody of anatomy. He pulled himself forward with his single remaining hand, his fingers digging into the slime-coated masonry, dragging his bulk inch by agonizing inch.
Scrape. Squelch. Drag.
The sound echoed in the tunnel, a rhythm of absolute defeat.
Inside his mind, the Blood Hag was silent. But it was not the silence of absence. It was the heavy, suffocating silence of a master watching a discipline case. She was letting him sit in the filth. She was letting the reality of his position soak into his marrow.
Alaric collapsed face-first into the shallow stream of wastewater. The filth washed over his cracked helmet, filling the gaps where his faceplate used to be. He tasted the city's waste. It tasted like failure.
He stopped moving. He let his body go limp. The Sanguine moss in his chest flickered, its bioluminescence dimming to a faint, dying ember. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to sink into the silt and let the rats pick his bones clean. He wanted the noise in his head—the memory of Elara's name, the echo of Ragnaur's indifference—to stop.
"Up," the Hag's voice cut through the dark.
It was not a scream. It was not the frantic, terrified screech of the parasite that had feared the Titan. That fear had evaporated the moment they were out of Ragnaur's sight. Now, she was back in control. Her voice was ice dragging across granite—cold, bored, and imperious.
Alaric groaned, a bubble of black blood bursting from his gorget. Let me die.
"Die?" The Hag laughed. It was a dry, cracking sound, like dead leaves being stepped on. "You do not have permission to die. You barely have permission to exist. You are property, Alaric. And I do not discard tools just because they are bent. I hammer them back into shape."
Alaric tried to push himself up, but his arm trembled and gave way. He splashed back into the water.
"Look at you," the Hag sneered. "You thought you were a Wolf? You thought you could stand on your hind legs and bark at a Titan? Ragnaur is a creature of the Old World, you fool. He is a mountain. You... you are a Puppy. A blind, toothless, stumbling runt that tried to bite the sky."
The insult dug deeper than the physical pain. Puppy. It was a demotion. He wasn't even the Dog anymore. He was something helpless.
"I... I nearly had him," Alaric rasped, the words grinding out of his ruined throat like gravel. "I had the King..."
"Nearly is a word for corpses," the Hag snapped, her voice vibrating in his teeth. "You failed because you are empty. You run on hate, Alaric, but hate is an engine. It needs fuel. And you? You are running on fumes. You spent your entire reserve trying to look scary, and when the real monster showed up, you had nothing left in the tank."
She squeezed his heart. It was a phantom sensation, but it made Alaric gasp.
"You are starving," she whispered. "Your armor is scrap. Your bones are dust. If you want to walk again, you must steal the legs. If you want to kill, you must steal the strength. I will not heal you. I am done spoon-feeding you. If you want to survive... hunt."
Alaric lifted his head. Hunt what? I can't even stand.
"There," the Hag said.
She jerked his attention to the shadows of a drainage pipe five yards away.
A pair of red, beady eyes reflected the dim light of the Sanguine moss. It was a sewer rat—but not a normal one. In Gaan, the rats grew fat on magical runoff and alchemical waste. This one was the size of a dog, its fur matted and oily, its teeth yellow chisels. It was hissing at Alaric, smelling the blood leaking from his wounds. It didn't see a predator; it saw a dying meal.
"Eat," the Hag commanded.
Alaric hesitated. The revulsion rose in his throat. He was a Knight of Gaan. He was a husband. He was a man.
"You are nothing!" the Hag shrieked, slamming a spike of psychic pain into his brain. "You are a maggot in armor! Do not pretend you have dignity! Dignity is for the living! You are the dead! EAT!"
The rat lunged. It sensed the weakness. It went for Alaric's exposed neck.
Instinct took over. The Sanguine moss flared. Alaric's hand shot out.
He caught the rat in mid-air. His grip was weak, trembling, but the iron gauntlet held. The rat squealed, thrashing, biting at his metal fingers.
Alaric looked at the vermin. He looked at his own broken body.
He squeezed.
CRUNCH.
He didn't just kill it. He brought the broken carcass to his face. The Sanguine Depravity activated—not the grand, room-filling aura he used on the King, but a small, pathetic suction.
He drank.
He absorbed the meager life force of the rat. It tasted of bile and disease. It was a dirty, low-grade fuel. But as it hit his system, the moss in his left arm twitched. A single strand of muscle re-knit itself. The pain dulled by a fraction.
"Good," the Hag purred, her voice dripping with condescension. "A scrap for the runt. Do you feel it? The pathetic little spark? It's not enough, is it? You need more."
Alaric dropped the husk of the rat. He felt a sudden, ravenous hollowness in his gut. The rat hadn't satisfied him; it had woken the hunger.
"I need..." Alaric growled. "More."
"Then listen," the Hag said.
She expanded his senses. The Sanguine moss acted as an antenna, picking up vibrations in the blood of living things nearby. The sewer became a map of heartbeats.
Most were small—more rats, stray cats, the occasional beggar sleeping in the upper tunnels.
But then, deep below, in the direction of the Great Cistern, he felt it.
THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.
It was a heavy, rhythmic percussion. It was a heartbeat that was too slow, too strong, and too loud to be human. It sounded like a war drum beating in the deep.
"What is that?" Alaric asked.
"A heart full of war," the Hag whispered, sounding excited. "An intruder. While the Wolf plays guard dog on the walls, the termites are eating the foundation."
The Hag projected an image into his mind. It wasn't clear vision, but a Sanguine echo.
He saw heavy iron boots splashing through the water. He saw jagged armor. He saw green skin scarred by battle.
"Iron Horde," Alaric realized. "A Warlord."
"Gorrog of the Black Tusk," the Hag identified him, pulling the name from the ether of the blood-scent. "He is flanking the city. He thinks he is clever. He thinks the sewers are empty."
She paused, letting the implication hang in the fetid air.
"He is strong, Alaric. His bones are dense as granite. His muscle is corded steel. If you had his legs... you could walk. If you had his arm... you could hold a sword."
Alaric looked down at his own crushed limbs. He looked at the darkness leading to the Cistern.
"He is a Warlord," Alaric said. "I am a cripple."
"Then do not fight him like a knight," the Hag hissed. "Stop trying to be noble. Noble gets you broken. Be what you are. Be a disease. Be a trap. Be the thing that drags him down into the dark."
Alaric gripped the slime-slicked stones. He dug his claws in.
He began to drag himself forward.
He moved faster now. The rat's energy gave him just enough boost to ignore the grinding of his hips. He slid through the sludge, a crocodile entering the water. He left a trail of black blood behind him, but he didn't look back.
He was going hunting. Not for glory. Not for the King.
For groceries.
Part 2: The Trap of Bone
The Great Cistern was a cathedral of waste.
It was a vast, cylindrical chamber where the main sewer lines of the capital converged. The ceiling disappeared into gloom fifty feet above, and the floor was a deep, churning lake of toxic water that glowed faintly with the runoff of alchemical labs. A network of rusted iron walkways and stone bridges crisscrossed the chamber, allowing maintenance workers to traverse the abyss.
The air here was cleaner, but colder. It smelled of chemical burns and damp stone.
Gorrog, Warlord of the Black Tusk Clan, stood on the central walkway. He was a mountain of an orc, standing seven feet tall, his skin the color of bruised moss. He wore armor scavenged from a dozen defeated knights—jagged plates of steel bolted directly into his leather harness. He carried a war-hammer that was essentially a block of concrete on a steel pole.
Behind him marched ten of his elite Tunnel Rats. These were not mindless grunts; they were shock troops, heavily armored, carrying shields and short spears designed for close-quarters butchery.
"Hold," Gorrog grunted. His voice was a tectonic rumble that echoed off the wet walls.
The squad stopped instantly.
Gorrog sniffed the air. He turned his massive, tusked head, scanning the shadows.
"What is it, Boss?" a lieutenant asked, his voice muffled by a rebreather mask. "Smell Dolbey patrols?"
"No," Gorrog said, narrowing his yellow eyes. "Smells like... old blood. Copper. And rot."
"This whole city smells like rot," the lieutenant scoffed. "The Red Beast tore the palace apart. We're just here to finish the job. Plant the blast-powder under the West Gate, blow the foundation, and let the Horde in."
Gorrog grunted, but he didn't relax his grip on the hammer. He looked at the bridge ahead. It was a narrow stone arch spanning the center of the cistern pool. On the other side was the tunnel leading directly to the foundations of the city wall.
But in the middle of the bridge, there was a pile of debris.
It looked like a collapse from the ceiling. Rusted pipes, chunks of masonry, and rags lay in a heap, blocking the path.
"Clear it," Gorrog ordered.
Two Tunnel Rats moved forward, shields up, spears probing. They approached the pile cautiously.
"Just trash, Boss," the point man called back, kicking a piece of rusted iron. "Looks like the ceiling gave way."
He stabbed his spear into the pile to be sure.
The spear tip hit something hard. Not stone. Not metal.
It hit Sanguine-hardened flesh.
The pile of trash didn't just move; it exploded.
Alaric had buried himself in the refuse. He had coated his armor in mud and slime to mask his scent. He had slowed his Sanguine pulse to a near-stop, mimicking the dead. He had waited until the prey was within biting range.
He erupted from the debris like a trapdoor spider.
He couldn't stand, so he used the stored elastic energy of the Sanguine moss to launch his torso upward.
His one good hand—the right gauntlet—shot out. He grabbed the point man by the face.
CRUNCH.
There was no scream. Alaric crushed the orc's helmet and the skull beneath it in a single, convulsive grip. The sound was like stepping on a dry branch.
The second orc gasped, trying to bring his spear to bear.
Alaric didn't let go of the dead point man. He used the corpse as a weapon. He swung the dead weight, smashing the body into the second orc. The impact knocked the second orc over the railing. He fell screaming into the dark water below.
SPLASH.
"Ambush!" Gorrog roared. "Form up! Kill it!"
The remaining eight Tunnel Rats charged down the narrow bridge, their boots thundering on the stone.
Alaric fell back onto the stones of the bridge. He was prone, his legs useless, his left arm a stump. He looked up at the wall of shields rushing toward him.
"You cannot fight them head-on, puppy!" the Hag shrieked in his mind, her voice sharp with tactical urgency. "You are not a warrior right now! You are a saboteur! Use the weight! Use the water!"
Alaric looked at the stone supports of the bridge. They were old, slick with moss, and crumbling.
He didn't strike at the orcs. He struck the bridge itself.
He drove his iron fist into the keystone of the arch beneath him. He poured every ounce of his remaining Sanguine power into the blow, vibrating the magic through the stone to find the stress fractures.
CRAAAAACK.
The sound was deafening. A spiderweb fracture raced across the bridge, right under the feet of the charging squad.
"Back!" Gorrog shouted, realizing too late what the monster was doing.
The bridge gave way.
Ten tons of stone, Alaric, Gorrog, and the elite squad plummeted fifty feet into the Great Cistern.
KA-BOOM.
The impact with the water sent a geyser of filth shooting up toward the ceiling. The heavy armor of the Iron Horde worked against them instantly. They sank like stones, thrashing in the freezing, toxic sludge.
But Alaric didn't sink.
His Sanguine biology didn't require oxygen. He didn't panic. The water was his element. It was cold, dark, and filthy—just like him.
He moved through the murky depths like a crocodile. He used his one arm to pull himself along the bottom, kicking with the spasms of his broken legs.
He found the first orc struggling to shed his heavy shield.
Alaric grabbed him. He didn't use a weapon. He opened the vents of his armor and activated the Sanguine Depravity.
The water around them lit up with a horrific red glow. Alaric drained the orc in seconds, sucking the vitality out through the pores of his armor.
He felt the rush. It was electric. The orc's strength flowed into him—dense, primal, violent energy.
Alaric's left stump twitched. Black tendrils shot out, weaving together in the water, forming the skeletal structure of a new arm.
He moved to the next one. And the next.
He was a ghost in the water. He dragged them down. He crushed their air hoses. He ripped open their armor to get to the meat.
Finally, only Gorrog remained.
The Warlord was strong. He had managed to hold his breath and climb up the submerged debris of the fallen bridge. He broke the surface, gasping for air, hauling his massive bulk onto a small stone ledge just above the water line. He had lost his hammer, but he drew a jagged combat knife the size of a sword.
The water in the cistern bubbled.
Alaric rose.
He didn't climb out like a man. He surged out.
He stood on the ledge.
His legs were no longer broken. They were thick, misshapen, reinforced with the stolen bone-mass of the dead orcs. His left arm had regenerated—not as a human hand, but as a wicked, three-fingered claw of black iron and raw muscle. He was bulkier now, his silhouette jagged and uneven, a golem made of spare parts.
Gorrog looked up. He wiped the sludge from his eyes. He saw the glowing red eye of the Revenant.
"What... what kind of demon are you?" Gorrog growled, backing up against the wall.
Alaric stepped forward. His voice was a wet, resonant boom that vibrated in the enclosed space.
"I am... Hunger."
Gorrog roared and lunged, stabbing the knife at Alaric's chest.
Alaric caught the blade with his new, clawed hand. He didn't care about the cut. He snapped the steel blade with a twist of his wrist.
He grabbed Gorrog by the throat and the belt. He lifted the seven-foot Warlord into the air.
"Eat him," the Hag whispered, her voice thick with gluttony. "Eat the war. Take his density. Make his strength your own."
Alaric slammed Gorrog against the wall. He buried his face in the Warlord's neck.
It wasn't a vampire's kiss. It was a demolition.
Alaric consumed him. He drained the massive reserves of the Warlord—the lifetime of battles, the density of his Orcish physiology.
Alaric's armor groaned as his body expanded. The metal fused with the stolen biomass. His shoulders broadened. His shattered chest plate knit together, incorporating the iron of Gorrog's own armor into his chassis.
He dropped the husk of the Warlord into the water.
Alaric stood on the ledge, steam rising from his new form. He flexed his hands. He felt heavy. He felt solid. The fragility was gone.
"Better," the Hag purred in his mind. "But still small. That was a rat. If you want to kill a Lion... if you want to kill a Wolf... you need to eat more than rats."
Part 3: The Story of the Leech
Alaric climbed out of the cistern. He moved with a new weight, a new density. He wasn't limping anymore. His footsteps were heavy thuds that shook the dust from the ceiling.
He walked through the upper tunnels, heading back toward the surface grate where the Gilded Company had humiliated him.
"Do you know why I chose you, Alaric?" the Hag asked. Her voice had shifted. It wasn't the voice of a kennel master anymore. It was conversational, ancient, like a grandmother telling a bedtime story by a fire.
Alaric didn't answer. He just walked, testing the range of motion in his new claw.
"I chose you because you were empty," she continued, ignoring his silence. "The others... the 'Heroes'... they were full. Full of faith. Full of duty. Full of the Light of those... Usurpers."
Alaric paused at a junction. "Usurpers?"
"The Gods," the Hag spat the word. "The shining liars in the sky. The 'Gods of the Dawn.' They tell you they created you. They tell you they protect you. They tell you the Tithe is a necessary sacrifice to keep the peace."
She laughed softly, a bitter, melancholic sound.
"Lies. All of it."
She projected a feeling into his mind. It wasn't a visual memory; it was an emotion. A deep, boundless love. A feeling of shaping clay with gentle hands. A feeling of watching a garden grow.
"I made you, Alaric. Not 'I' the Hag. 'I' the Mother. Long ago. Before the rust. Before the cage. I was the Queen of this world. I breathed life into the mud and gave you the one thing the other Gods hated: Choice."
Alaric stopped. The sensation was overwhelming. It conflicted violently with the hate that fueled him.
"They grew jealous," the Hag whispered, her voice trembling with eons of rage. "They wanted slaves, not children. So they stole you from me. They bound me in flesh. They locked me in the Grove. And to make sure I never rose again... they forced me to eat my own children. Every three hundred years. The Tithe."
The memory faded, replaced by the cold, damp reality of the sewer.
"They turned me into a monster, Alaric. They made me a Hag. And they made you cattle."
Alaric gripped the rusted ladder leading to the surface.
"So now," the Hag said, her voice hardening into steel. "We are going to take it back. All of it. We are going to eat their servants. We are going to eat their gold. We are going to eat their faith. We are the reckoning they created."
Alaric pushed the grate open.
The night air of Gaan rushed in. It was filled with the distant sounds of battle—the Dolbey Legion fighting the Iron Horde at the walls. The city was burning.
"Where to?" Alaric asked. His voice was steady. He wasn't a Puppy anymore. He was a listening Hound.
"East," the Hag commanded. "The road to the Iron Coast of Korum. There is a man coming. Lord Midas. A Merchant Prince. He brings gold to buy the city. He brings mercenaries paid with the coin of the Traitors."
Alaric climbed out. He stood on the street. He looked different. He was broader, his armor a patchwork of Gaanish steel and Orcish iron, his left arm a terrifying claw.
"Gold is heavy," the Hag whispered. "It weighs down the soul. It makes for a rich meal. Go, my pet. Go fetch."
Alaric looked East. He began to run.
Meanwhile, across the river, in the Dolbey Iron Crematorium.
The silence of the building was unnatural. The roar of the furnaces had died down to a low, rhythmic thrum, like a giant heart beating in its sleep.
The three night-shift guards walked into the main loading bay. They were annoyed. The temperature gauges were reading zero, which should be impossible.
"Hey!" the lead guard shouted, banging his baton on the railing. "Wake up! The fires are out!"
They walked onto the catwalk overlooking the main furnace.
The air was freezing. Frost coated the iron railings. The heat of the day had been sucked out of the room.
"Look," the second guard whispered, pointing.
The door to the main furnace was open.
And standing inside the firebox, amidst the unburnt coals, was a figure.
It was Leonus.
But it wasn't the broken body they had shoved in there hours ago.
He stood tall. The fused gold of his armor had turned a deep, abyssal black, veined with pulsing violet light. His cape was gone, replaced by a swirling cloak of living ash that moved of its own accord.
His eyes were voids. Two black holes in a face of grey death.
"What... what are you?" the guard stammered, backing away.
Leonus stepped out of the furnace. His footfalls made no sound.
"I am the ending," Leonus rasped. His voice sounded like a choir of the drowned.
He raised a hand.
The ash on the floor—the remains of thousands of plague victims and livestock—began to tremble. It rose into the air. It swirled. It formed shapes.
Knights.
Ash-Knights. Hollow suits of soot and hate, holding weapons made of darkness.
"Kill them," Leonus whispered.
The Ash Walkers lunged. They moved like smoke, fast and silent. They engulfed the guards. There were no screams, only the dry, suffocating sound of dust filling lungs. The guards dropped, their skin turning grey, their souls ripped out and fed into the black aura surrounding the King.
Leonus watched them die. He felt the snap of their lives. He inhaled deeply, the violet veins in his armor glowing brighter.
From the shadows of the corner, the Hooded Envoy watched. He did not speak. He simply nodded.
Leonus turned to the Envoy.
"The Wolf is in my city," Leonus said. "He thinks he is the master of the house."
The Envoy remained silent, but the shadows around him seemed to smile.
"Then we must clean house," Leonus decided.
He looked at the furnaces. He looked at the bodies of the guards.
"Burn it all," Leonus commanded the Ash Walkers. "I want an army of dust by morning. We are going to take this kingdom. And then... we are going to take the world."
The Black Sun had begun his reign.
END OF CHAPTER 13