Wincing, Sir William clutched his side, feeling the blood flowing, running over his hip. Behind him, the conflict continued. More of his soldiers had fallen today than ever before. Ahead, Baros carried their king, Mavius, up the knoll stretching into the mist. Not yet visible through the haze, the dark tower on top offered the prospect of security.

The battle had appeared easy until Mavius had taken a blow to the head. With that impact, all of the magic had collapsed. Defenses toppled and the fire had increased from out of the east. A creature, twisted and glistening in gore, rose out of the ground and Sir William felt its blade enter his side. He screamed as the being drove it deep. Sir William’s fingers gripped the steel, twisting it away as his other hand brought down his broadsword into the creature's head. It buckled with a groan.

Now the blood flowed freely, trying to wash away the poison of that blade. William watched Lord Baros trudge onward, the weight of their king light in his arms. Baros’s blue and grey tunic, burned and dirty, hung on his broad shoulders. Baros had never wavered. His strength and discipline had never failed. But, before this day, he had also never ordered a retreat.

The beasts had come out of the hills like a wave, slavering for human flesh. They bit. They clawed. They hacked. The footmen fought bravely. One after another fell screaming under the onslaught.

How many had survived? Thirty, he answered himself, out of one hundred and fifty. Their screams echoed in his mind.

Fifteen soldiers followed William toward the fortress. Fifteen more covered their retreat. The door would close with all of them still outside.

The broken ground under William’s feet shifted, dropping him to his knees. His sword rang on the stones as he dropped it. Another tremor forced him to throw out his arms to catch himself. He would need his hands to finish the climb. Picking up his sword, he slid the steel into the scabbard on his left hip. Safe, he thought, we are almost safe. There was the tower, it's black stone blocks obscured to a shadow in the fog and mist. He didn't have much farther to go but he longed to sit, to rest. His side ached. Every inch of the path, every step of the climb, held stabs of agony.

The door closed behind him with a clang, the black metal ringing an unhappy note. William fell again to his knees and drew his sword from the scabbard, relieving pressure on his hip. In front of him, Baros tended to the king.

"Is he awake yet?"

"No," Baros said. "You don't look well, William. Something tagged you."

"I'll be alright," William lied. He didn't feel alright at all. The throbbing in his side was getting deeper. His hip hurt and he rolled his left leg in the socket trying to push away the feeling. It didn't work.

Outside at the door, fifteen soldiers stood watching down the hill. With their backs turned on safety, they waited for the next threat. Climbing the steps to the tower, the rest of Sir William’s men came. Weary and beaten, the army moved to rest at the base of the tower. In all appearance and action, one would believe that they had only traveled a long march, but it was more than that. They were dead. 

Those who still had vocal cords spoke with a ghostly echo. Each man held an aura around him, as if their soul wished to leave but could not and, like the mists rolling around the black valley, their eyes glazed over in a blue fog. They did not attack the men still living. 

Those that still inhaled the stale air and mist bristled and threatened their dead comrades. They held their weapons at the ready and shouted. The dead seemed offended at the taunts and battle stance of the fifteen but they did not attack.

Behind the dead, the creatures that had descended upon them from out of the hills faded back into the blackness. The plants, the dirt, the sand, the grass; it was all black or shaded grey. William still had not gotten used to it.

"Open the door Baros," William commanded. "Let the men in. Some of them still live."

"No." It was the king speaking. He was awake, lying on his back. Mavius put his hand to his head and grimaced when he pulled it away bloody.

"They are alive!" William argued.

"For now," Mavius responded. "Many of them are dying on their feet." The King did not leave his spot on the floor where Baros had placed him. His voice, wavering at first, began to strengthen. "We need them to work together. If they are all of the same state that will be easier."

William looked at Mavius with hatred but he did not move against him. Baros would have seen it and, in his condition, he was no match for Baros.

With effort Mavius brought himself up to his knees and then to his feet. "If the men have no reason to fear each other, they will be stronger as a unit." The King looked down at the ground, feeling his head wound with his fingertips. "We heal so much quicker here," he paused, catching William’s eye, "if we are going to."

William rolled his leg in its socket again. The soreness remained. Standing, he walked to a chair and sat, hearing it creak under his weight. The room was sparse with furniture; a few chairs, some candles, a table in the corner supporting a washbasin, and a broken cabinet. There was water in the basin, but like all the water in this place, it tasted like ashes.

Mavius walked to the washbasin and, producing a rag, drenched it in the ashen liquid. He wiped at the wound on his head and the rag came away crimson with blood. Mavius’s head, however, was as clear as if nothing had happened.

"Do you see?" Mavius asked William. "If your wound was going to heal, then the pain would begin to subside. You would be as I am. But you’re not. Are you?"

William touched his side, his fingers coming away tinged with red.

"You’re dying, like the men outside." Baros said.

"It's your fault we are here." William said to Mavius. "You interfered with something you didn't understand. Why did we follow you?"

"Sir William, here there is power you cannot fathom. Do you feel it? The crackle in the air?"

"Power?" Baros asked, his voice sharp. "Was it intentional, coming here? Did we follow a fool?"

"No," Said Mavius, "it was not intentional… coming here. But here we are, and the strength that awaits us is immense."

"We’re dying." William stated.

"We’re dying here, yes. But, we do not fall, do we?" Mavius implored. "When we return home from this place we will conquer all."

"But what will we be?" William asked.

"Soldiers. Invincible soldiers."

"I have no desire to be your pawn." William answered, "Release me from my oath and I will make my own way back home."

"We are losing battles here, together with all of our strength," Baros said to William, "You would have little chance alone and wounded."

"Free me." William said to Mavius, standing from the chair.

"Do you want to know what would become of you should I do as you wish?" Mavius responded. "We are in the Under Realm. Here, souls rise above the floor of this plane. They rise to avoid the horrors on the surface. Maybe the horrors have become what they have because they were still tied to flesh, like you." Mavius opened a window and called down to the courtyard below. "Bodkin!" He called a soldier by name. "Come up here at once."

A young footman came in through the door Baros opened. The man's tunic hung ripped and bloody, stained black from the battle below, but he was not like the others outside. His eyes did not pale. His voice did not echo.

"Do you wish to return home?" Mavius asked.

The hope that filled Bodkin shone on his face. Bodkin dropped to his knee, overwhelmed by the chance of returning home. "Yes, Sire!"

"I release you from my service."

Bodkin's look of joy faded from his face as he rendered to liquid, splashing to the floor and over William's boots. Then, as William stumbled back, the grisly fluid began to coalesce, to take shape and substance. Fingers of blood held onto the floorboards and the thing that was once a soldier fought to regain shape. Shoulders formed, and a face, a face that was no longer Bodkin’s, opened its mouth in a mortal scream, teeth gnashing at anything within reach.

William drove his sword through Bodkin the beast, aiming where he deemed the heart should be. His blow fell true and Bodkin fell to the floor with a wet smack.

"Everything we fought today, those were men like Bodkin, lost here with no path for their soul and their bodies decaying. The soul escapes leaving a husk. Bodkin is gone." Mavius placed his hand over William's chest drawing forth a luminescent, spider-like, web as if he were plucking the strings of a harp. "This web, your oath to me, keeps your soul from escaping. Yes, your body may die, but you will live. This holds the magic that protects your soul. This web keeps us all together, bound to each other in this plane. We must fight as one and you must protect me. If I die while I am the center of the web, or if I release you, you will become a Bodkin."

"When the men have no fear of death, when they do not fall to the attacks of the tortured souls," Mavius met Sir William’s gaze, "the other Bodkins, if you will, we will be victorious. We can retake the door and return once again to our homes. Our attempt to keep everyone alive was our folly. Here, there is strength in death."

The soldiers from the battlefield, those who had not survived, were still returning, climbing the black steps of the hill to the tower. William, after removing the body of Bodkin, watched them from the window. The burning of the poison had moved down his leg and up his left side, spreading from the initial injury. He could now feel the creaking in his shoulder socket.

The men outside the door stood in two distinct groups. The fourteen men still living looked with fear and disbelief at their dead comrades. The dead soldiers stood separate, knowing that they would not be welcome among their luckier fellows. The voices of the dead echoed after they spoke, as if the spirit were speaking the same words a half a second after the flesh. It was unnerving.

William limped from the window, the sting in his side and hip spreading, sending spikes of torture down his leg. Should we open the door? He thought. Should we let in the men who still remain alive? Will that cause further division among them? We still need the dead. William set his resolve and walked toward the exit to unravel this problem among his men.

He opened the door and the faces of the living and the dead all turned to him. Suffering with every step, William walked among the dead, touching those he was close with, clasping hands with common soldiers, and inspecting the wounds that had ended each soldier’s life. The damage sustained in each became a badge for their new unlife. Putting his arm around a friend, Emanuel, Sir William walked with him to the group of the living soldiers. 

The fourteen soldiers who remained alive recoiled at first, but, one by one, they approached Sir William and Emanuel. They inspected Emanuel and asked him, "What is it like?"

When William reentered the tower, the men behind him, both living and dead, conversed with each other, the defining difference between them ignored by old bonds.

As he shut the door, William collapsed to the floor. His sensations of pain were subsiding. His vision was clouding. As he exhaled his last breath of life, Mavius and Baros looked on.

An hour later, when William rose again, his eyes glowed a pale blue, fading away from their former brilliance.