As such were his orders.

"I'm talking about the valuables, Truman." Said the most foolish of all present, more self-centered even than the so-called capable commander who had ordered a fire on the barren Suttone Hill—essentially waving a death flag in honor of their inevitable fate. That stranger, bruised, pitiful thing was none other than Penelope Horne.

"Not a soul was the wiser." Truman nodded, proud.

"Good," the woman replied, trying her best to focus on the Sinomian Knight. Her very best effort was put into ignoring her growing sense of impending doom, the vaguely familiar whisper of horror creeping up on her.

"So, what do you say, Lady Prisoner?" Truman's senses, perhaps dulled by the crackling fire or his innocent greed, hadn't caught onto anything unusual. "Shall we seal it with a handshake?" A faint smile played upon his lips.

The campers' laughter echoed across the hill's quiet, as a backdrop to the lady and knight's trivial conversation. More foolishness brewed within the tents: a cold-tempered maid quickened her steps toward the fire, paranoia gripping her as she sensed a man's footsteps following incessantly. Faint snores mixed with the crunching of glass underfoot.

The soft rustling of the short, grey grass, shadowed by mist and seasoned with crackling flames, interwove with the distant discussions and the soft scream arising from within the chest of the single person who unknowingly knew.

Whether by miracle, denial, or sheer stupidity, no one on that hill sensed the approaching doom. No one standing on that hill of the Fokchick Estate heard the millions of tippy-tappy sounds forming a wave around them from afar, climbing the hill and heading almost religiously towards the bundle of fire intruding upon their nightly world. None saw as the hundreds of black, twisted silhouettes closed in on every horizon surrounding them. Not a soul could smell it; the horrendous stench of death embodied in the silhouettes' pure, monstrous desire for blood.

"-recruited with great haste, as were many in this company, doubtless due to His Highness's newfound leniency," Truman's voice was a mere rasp against the loud pounding in Penelope's ears. Her breathing quickened, her senses dulled amidst the eerie quiet. "That Prince proved himself to be far more merciful than many had anticipated." Truman nodded, his expression rather blank.

"Merciful," Penelope chuckled bitterly, shaking her head off the insipid feeling she must have been wrong in having. "Mercy is the last trait I'd peg that stuck-up, ruthless bastard for."

Those were words the prince would not appreciate. Thankfully, he was not there to ear them.

Instead, his Highness was in Pershema, Yilderen’s capital, safely ensconced within his palace.

Kendrick sat at his desk in a dimly lit chamber. Not a single sheet of paper before him. Only a flickering flame on a lemon and lavender scented candle, and the quiet of his own thoughts wrapping his being. He gazed upon the window on the wall facing his desk. His hands rested neatly on the sparkling wood, the ghost of a sickly grin curling his lips.

"Treacherous words," Truman's voice woke Penelope from her stupor, making her realize the weight of her statement. Her eyes widened. "'Tis fortunate only I was privy to this," Truman said matter-of-factly, nodding. "And I am no gossip."

Kendrick, checked his pocket watch once more, his grin growing wider as his violet eyes glimmered in the dark.

"Deal," Penelope muttered, her breath hitching as she clutched the bandages around her neck, struggling to breathe. "I'll trust you with helping me out in the future," she lied, already crossing his name off her mental list.

The silhouettes were now mere meters from the campsite, leaving a trail of bloodied coachmen’s corpses in their wake.

I should've known I wouldn't be able to trust anyone, as trustworthy as they might seem. Penelope thought, ignorantly attributing her presentiment to Truman's very presence.

Truman smiled faintly, his golden eyes narrowing in satisfaction as he extended a palm to shake her hand.

Penelope gritted her teeth, the strip of fabric around her neck stopping her from drawing a breath.

Clink. Kendrick snapped his pocket watch shut, his teeth showing through his grin, the wide portrait of a red-headed beauty hung on the wall behind him.

A sudden wave of chills raced down Truman's back. His smile faded into a sharp frown, and his right hand twitched. At the same time, Penelope ripped the bandages from her neck, letting go of the fabric and letting it flutter in the air as she took in a hitched, needy breath.

Her eyes rose from the ground where the bandages now lay, and unfortunately, only then did she know.

Her heart stilled. Her soul shuddered.

In an instant, the hill, their empty surroundings, all of it was swarmed by hundreds of wicked, blood-eyed silhouettes. Facing her and Truman was an entity Penelope knew all too well.

Death.

Shadows of a similar, terrifying scene flashed before her eyes—blaring horns, blinding lights, and the cold whisper of death.

Screams erupted all over the campsite. What had been an empty, grey hill moments ago was now a blood-soaked massacre, overrun by monsters.

Penelope and Truman stood before a dozen of the short, twisted creatures, glaring with open, drooling jaws filled with sharp, jagged teeth.

Gruesome. That was the only word for these Vamlins.

Two were swinging their claws at the blonde woman who stared at them so lifelessly it was unsettling.

Penelope's inner world had fallen silent.

Everything had gone quiet at the reminder of her past. Her instincts went numb. She was defeated in the face of her fear.

Truman gritted his teeth, casting a worried look upon the lifeless thing as he grabbed his dagger in a breath and dodged the creatures attacking him, reaching out to Penelope.

"WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!" A distant voice screamed. Penelope flinched, her nightmare momentarily broken. "ALL KNIGHTS, TAKE UP AR-ARGH!"

"NO! COMMANDER!"

"Ah..." Penelope muttered, as a Vamlin bared its teeth at her, breathing heavily against her face.

"Vampire Gremlins," Truman muffled the words, taking in a swift breath as he stomped out of the trajectory of the Vamlin's attack, generating enough momentum to throw his dagger onto the cranium of the Vamlin facing Penelope.

The creature slumped to the ground, and before he could try and retrieve his weapon, or even tell his newest partner to get her spirits together, a Vamlin among the ones he left behind him rebounded from its missed attack and latched onto Truman's unarmored shoulder, biting his flesh.

He grunted, turning to fend off more attackers.

"Lady Penelope!" He called, but the woman was shivering all over, the cold and lonely whisper of death enchanting her. "PENELOPE ASHDOWN!" He screamed, ripping the bloodsucking Vamlin off his shoulder and hurling it at the others attacking her with such momentum it swept up three of its kind and thrashed onto the farther grass.

That wasn't her name.

"TAKE MY DAGGER AND RUN!" Truman's injury bled a fountain, but he spoke those words with composure.

Yet it made Penelope realize she wasn’t dead. Not yet.

"O-Okay," she squatted and luckily evaded a Vamlin's lazy swing at her. She tried to rip the dagger off of the dead Vamlin's head, but it was firm against her grip.

SKRELF. The creatures near her snarled, their senses enchanted by the sweet smell resonating off of the woman's soul. It was less perceivable, but much more enchanting than the blazing fire in the distance because of which they came.

Penelope focused on taking the glass dagger out of the creature's head, but from the corner of her eye, she saw a grinning creature going in with both upper limbs to grab onto her neck.

"Above you!" Truman warned.

Adrenaline surged through her. She ripped the dagger free and flung herself backward, narrowly avoiding the creature’s grasp.

Penelope's blue eyes shivered as she scanned the area, taking in the chaos. The herd of Vamlins, covered in rot, crawled, walked or ran across the hill, getting lost in the mist. Some approached the two of them, but most swarmed toward the fire.

In front of her, a plane brimming with slimy shadows, giving off the ever so nauseating stench of metallic red, and telling of nothing but death. Around twelve or thirteen creatures swarmed her and Truman's space. Two were dead. Most were racing to get a taste of Truman's bloody shoulder and a couple were interested in Penelope's flesh.

Penelope stood back up, attention on the monsters gouging her degree of threat on them. That and they were speculating on the way to get ahold of her skin.

Penelope backed off cautiously, a bloodied dagger shaking in her fist.

She needed to get to the forest—the only place the creatures seemed uninterested in. She needed safety.

Without a spare glance at Truman, who grabbed the skull of two of the monsters looking to attack her, adding them to the group he needed to fend off, Penelope bolted toward the woods, some monsters trailing behind her.

She hadn't heard Truman's words as he yelled for her to find refuge and wait for him.

Penelope's mind, no longer empty and fear-ridden, coddled a single thought as she half-unconsciously sped towards the woods, a trail of creatures following in her wake.

I'm still alive. Penelope reminded herself on loop.

~

Quiet returned to the Fokshick Estate's grey hill once more.

No, grey was no longer an accurate description.

The grass was painted red and black, littered with the corpses of both humans and monsters, though the former's quantity was much more prevalent.

Still in the dead of night, not a whisper arose from the hill's misty air. Not a breath could dare intrude upon its eerie stillness.

Most of the monsters had gone back to their holes, having lost limb and kin. But at least the annoying fire had been extinguished, and their bellies were full.

The caravan had been reduced to smithereens. The people's remaining blood trickled out of their injuries in careful streams, staining the grass red. No remnants of the grand fire were to be seen, not even the wood on which it was summoned. Carriages were knocked over, their insides ravaged and bloodied.

The tent area had been destroyed, cloths on the ground, shredded into naught, covering corpses, materials, and concealing a sliver of life. 

Under the cloth lay a barely breathing maid, eyes tightly shut, breaths controlled and slowed as to sparingly use her oxygen. Alice's idea of hiding under the cloth soon as the disaster hit had been nothing short of pathetic. She hadn't thought of the children, of the workers, of warning the knights. She thought to save herself, and that she did.

Now, having barely made it, she sat in the quiet she wished for all her life. Her mind was clear of noises, and no uninvited thought pestered her. So why, just why did the fulfillment of her wish have to be so heart wrenching?

The stench of murder hadn't infiltrated her safety just yet, but she would soon be exposed to it once the approaching, surviving knight found her body amongst the dead.

It was toothless Fars, who was quick-witted enough to cover himself in the horses' shit and play dead as soon as he heard the clamor. The attack had hindered his exciting plans for the night, but perhaps this calamity was in fact a blessing in disguise, which would allow him her heart at last...

In the used-to-be bonfire area, the pile of corpses shuddered an umpteenth time under the silent tears of Blert, who dug into the horror in search of a single boy.

How Blert managed to survive was a question for the ages. His neck was bitten, and so was his leg. One of his eyes had gone missing, and keeping his chest heaving and breathing was but his sheer desperation. The spell that concealed his being a mana-blessed man was broken, and so with his remaining blue eye, and bruised, blood-painted arms, Blert Blach dug through the bodies for his nephew...

Right.

The only grey area left was the narrow woods.

And atop a measly trees sat an anxious woman. She avoided looking down, or thinking back on how in the world she even managed to climb this tree.

The only thing Penelope needed to think about was how in the world she could get out of this forest alive, being that a swarm of excited, blood thirsty monsters were awaiting her fall with bulging eyes, having caught a sweet whiff on her that urged them to taste her blood.