CHAPTER 223: PROMISE OF DEATH

Once outside, they sat staring at the tunnel’s entrance, hoping to see something emerge even though they knew there was little chance that creature would ever step into daylight. The sun, pale and distant, felt insulting after the absolute darkness they had just crossed. It lit the scene with a raw, miserable light: their faces smeared with dust and soot, their armor scratched, and the small group of survivors gasping for breath, cut to half its number.

They had lost much in this battle. Several soldiers had been killed, dragged away by the beast. Their muffled screams still echoed in the silence that now followed. The air, though fresh, was heavy with the scent of churned earth, sour sweat, and fear.

And then there were Inès, Armin, and Rony—practically useless. Inès, the crossbow-woman, clutched her weapon like an amulet, her fingers trembling. Her eyes, usually sharp enough to strike at a hundred paces in broad daylight, were bloodshot, widened by the strain of trying to pierce a darkness no human eye could conquer. Armin and Rony, one with his longsword, the other with his spiked club, had neither the space nor the sight to use their weapons. They had stood back, powerless, mere spectators to a nightmare devouring their comrades.

"We... we can’t stay here," stammered one of the soldiers, his gaze fixed on the tunnel’s black maw as if it might vomit horror at any moment.

No one moved. The morbid fascination of fear held them in place. Maggie could still feel the cold of the creature’s flesh through the haft of her maul. What she felt most of all was a strange fatigue, not of muscle but of essence, as if some part of her very life had been drained away.

Zirel sat on a stone, head in his hands. His arms trembled uncontrollably, less from exertion than from the shock of that voice whispering in his ear. "...finished... at last..." The words circled in his skull, carving a furrow of pure terror, far worse than the fight itself.

It was Élisa who broke the spell. With a sharp gesture, she recalled her weighted orbs, which wound back around her wrists like bracelets of dead lead. The metallic clink made everyone flinch.

"He’s right. It won’t come out, but we’re not safe. Gather what’s left. Quickly."

Her voice was neutral, practical. A shell. Maggie knew that beneath that coldness, the young woman was already calculating losses, blind spots, the next threat. She was their rock, their anchor against madness.

They began to move, slowly, like sleepwalkers. They didn’t even have bodies to carry. The creature had kept everything. Their dead had been stolen from them twice over.

As they withdrew, Maggie cast one last glance behind. The tunnel mouth was nothing but a blot of ink on the mountainside. And yet she had the fleeting impression that the darkness inside was thickening, condensing into a vague, deformed silhouette that watched them leave. She blinked. Nothing was there.

But the sensation persisted, a coldness on her nape that had nothing to do with the wind. The creature would not pursue them physically. It didn’t need to. It had planted a seed in them. A seed of nightmare that would sprout in the dark corners of their own skulls.

They had survived, yes. But now they were bound to it. And somewhere, deep in the silent galleries, it waited. It had tasted their fear, their lifeblood. It now knew their flavor.

And a hunger that has found its favorite meal is a hunger that never forgets.

The reality of their situation fell back upon their shoulders, heavier than the terror itself. The relief of survival was a lure, a brief truce in a storm far from over. They had withdrawn, but not escaped. Not truly.

And the worst part was that they had no choice but to return.

The mission. Always the mission. It weighed like a shackle. The Count had sent them to map those forgotten tunnels, to find a safe passage through the mountain and strike the enemy by surprise. Failure was not an option. To abandon the task would doom the larger strategy—and perhaps much more. The creature, that "Silent Reaper," was only a monstrous obstacle on their path. An obstacle to overcome, bypass, or destroy.

So even if they had retreated, it was only strategy. Next time, they would enter with a plan.

They set up camp at a respectable distance, yet close enough to keep the cursed entrance in sight. No one could have slept. The fire they lit seemed pitiful, a small ember of rationality against the vast night they had just escaped—and to which they would soon return.

Sitting around the flames, the silence was different now. No longer the paralysis of terror, but the heavy quiet of those weighing their odds of survival.

"We can’t fight it head-on," Maggie began, her hoarse voice breaking the hush. She was cleaning the black, viscous residue from her maul with an oily rag. "It feeds on our energy. Every strike strengthens it."

Zirel lifted his head. His trembling had stilled, replaced by a cold, grim resolve. Fear had been burned away, leaving only icy anger. "It has a weakness. That glow. Amber, like an eye—or a heart. That’s what we have to strike."

"In the dark? With that thing slipping everywhere?" Armin growled, tossing a stick into the fire in frustration. His longsword leaned against a rock, useless as a dead limb. "My blade didn’t even scratch its hide."

"This isn’t about brute force," Élisa interjected. Her fingers stroked the lead orbs on her lap, rolling them slowly. "It uses darkness, sound, fear. We need light. A lot of light. And noise to drown its whispers."

All eyes turned to Inès. The young woman started, as though accused of some crime. Her wide, bloodshot eyes blinked in the firelight.

"Inès," Maggie said more gently, "you couldn’t use your crossbow in there. But in the light, with some room..."

Realization lit Inès’s battered face. "The phosphor bands. The signal bolts. They burn hot and fast. We could fire one, light the way... and burn its eyes."

"Exactly. We blind it, we drown its voice in noise. We create a distraction." Maggie pointed toward the tunnel’s mouth. "We’re not going in to fight. We’re going in to get through. We hit it with everything we’ve got, disorient it, and we run. We don’t stop."

A fragile hope, thin as a blade, began to thread its way through their despair. They were no longer helpless prey. They were soldiers preparing a counterattack.

"And if it blocks the passage?" Rony asked, skepticism weighing in his tone.

"Then we bring the tunnel down behind us," Zirel said flatly. "Élisa’s orbs can weaken the vaults. We’ll trap it in its own lair."

Thus the plan took shape, word by word, around the fire. Every weakness turned to strength. The uselessness of Armin and Rony in the dark became their role as torchbearers, drummers to make an infernal racket, and spare arms to carry supplies. Inès would be their marksman, their artillery. Élisa, both their weapon and siege engineer. Maggie and Zirel, the spearhead to guard the group if the creature drew near.

They spoke, argued, prepared. The fear was still there, coiled in their guts, but now it was channeled, transformed into fuel for strategy.

They still stared at the black entrance, but not with the hunted gaze of prey. Now, they looked at it with the cold eyes of hunters studying the den of their quarry.

They would have to go back. But this time, they would not be victims. They would be a wildfire.

And yet, behind the firmness of this plan, they all knew it rested on a thread. A desperate improvisation, stitched with cunning and rage. But sometimes, that’s all that separates the living from the dead.

The fire crackled, throwing sparks into the night. Each of them followed the sparks as if they were fragments of their own future—brief flames lost in the immensity of shadow.

"We can’t sleep," Maggie declared. "Not tonight. We take turns on watch. Let it know we’re waiting for it too."

Silence followed, not of revolt but tacit approval. They were too aware of the weight of that promise: to return into the black entrails, with their torches, their drums, their meager weapons, to confront an ancient hunger.

At last, Zirel raised his head, his eyes fixed on the tunnel as if he already saw the lurking creature. His voice was a rasp:

"It thinks it has marked us. But we’ve scarred it too. Next time, it won’t be the one to choose the hunt. We will."

A low growl of approval rose, quiet but real. Not yet the cry of war, but no longer the whimper of survivors. Something had shifted in the circle of flames.

They were no longer bound to the creature by fear alone.

They were bound by a promise: to return, and turn the abyss into a blaze.

And in the silence of the mountains, the tunnel’s black mouth seemed to curl into a strange smile.