Walking with Shadows: Part II, Chapter One
Captain Meydoka
The head of the guard swung down from his horse before it had fully stopped.
“Buckets!” Captain Seth Meydoka barked. “Forget the bodies. Put that fire out before it spreads!”
The wagon burned halfway down the alley, flames licking at the upper stories of the surrounding buildings. Guards hurried past him with sloshing buckets, smoke stinging their eyes as they formed a ragged line toward the well.
Only then did Meydoka look beyond the fire.
He stopped.
Bodies.
Dozens of them.
Some lay where they had fallen. Others were piled against walls as if they had tried to crawl away. Moonlight shimmered across pools of blood that crept between the cobblestones.
No one spoke.
Even the men carrying water had fallen silent.
Meydoka stepped over the first corpse.
The soldier’s sword remained sheathed.
The second still clutched a crossbow.
Another had both hands wrapped around his own throat, his face frozen in terror.
Not one of them looked ready for a fight.
“What happened here?”
No one answered.
He crouched beside one of the dead.
The man’s armor had been torn open as though by the claws of some enormous beast.
Yet there were no claw marks.
Only impossibly clean wounds.
Meydoka rose.
“This wasn’t a battle.”
A lieutenant looked up from the wounded.
“No, sir.”
“This was slaughter.”
A few nearby soldiers instinctively snapped to attention and saluted.
Meydoka glared.
“For the love of the Eight…” He pointed toward the burning wagon. “Grab your buckets, you idiots. You can salute me later.”
The men scrambled to obey.
He shook his head.
“…Preferably before I have you discharged.”
The faintest nervous laugh escaped someone.
It died almost immediately.
The alley had a way of swallowing sound.
Meydoka continued deeper between the buildings.
Something felt wrong.
Not the blood.
Not the smoke.
The silence.
It pressed against his ears until even the crackling fire seemed far away.
He looked up.
The rooftops.
Dark.
Still.
Watching.
A shout shattered the quiet.
“Captain!”
He turned.
A strange sound sliced through the night.
WHURZZZZZ.
Something flashed silver.
A guard beside him jerked backward.
Steel burst through his forehead.
The man collapsed without a sound.
Another WHURZZZZZ.
The soldier on Meydoka’s opposite side crumpled, a blade buried deep in his throat.
For half a heartbeat…
No one moved.
“TAKE COVER!” Meydoka roared.
“Rooftops!”
Panic exploded through the alley.
Archers fumbled for arrows.
Crossbows were hastily raised toward empty rooftops.
Another whistle.
Another flash.
A guard spun to the ground clutching his neck.
Then another.
Blood sprayed across the cobblestones.
“Return fire!” Meydoka shouted.
The first volley disappeared harmlessly into darkness.
Nothing answered.
No cry.
No silhouette.
Only another shrill…
WHURZZZZZ.
A blade struck an archer square through the eye.
Another punched through a man’s shoulder and pinned him against a wooden post.
The alley dissolved into chaos.
Men abandoned formation to drag the wounded.
Others fired wildly into shadows they could not see.
Some simply froze.
Meydoka searched every rooftop.
Every chimney.
Every window.
Nothing.
No movement.
No target.
No enemy.
Only death arriving from the darkness.
His stomach tightened.
Whoever had done this…
…wasn’t trying to win a fight.
He was finishing one.
“RETREAT!”
His voice echoed off the stone walls.
“Inside! Move! Drag the wounded! Fall back!”
No one argued.
The survivors stumbled toward the nearest buildings, carrying whoever still breathed.
Meydoka remained where he was for one heartbeat longer, staring into the empty rooftops.
Someone was still out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
And for the first time in his career…
Captain Seth Meydoka realized he had no idea how to fight what hunted his men.
