Chapter 25

  Brothers In Arms

  The ground beneath Bartholomew’s boots stretched

  wide, a warped expanse of fused marble, obsidian, and moonstone. Cracks

  spiderwebbed across its surface, time’s cruel hand etched deep into the stone.

  Once, this had been a garden—lush, vibrant—a sanctuary at Camelot’s heart. Now,

  it was hollowed and broken. A graveyard of forgotten memories and nameless

  tombs.

  The air hung heavy with rot, yet the soil around

  the graves lay untouched, as if even death refused to settle here.

  Ahead, the Inner Ward loomed. Its towering gates

  pulsed with a sickly glow, thick with necrotic energy. Shadows writhed along

  the edges, twisting like wounded serpents. The wind carried the distant wails

  of trapped souls—long, hollow cries that refused to fade.

  Then, they appeared.

  Ossuary pillars jutted from the courtyard, their

  stone slick with age, carved with countless hollow-eyed skulls. Empty, yet

  aware. Each eye socket burned with a cold, blue flame, the flickering light

  casting distorted shapes across the broken ground. It felt like the dead were

  watching. Waiting.

  Bartholomew’s grip tightened around his sword.

  The weight steadied him—something real in a place that felt anything but.

  Around him, his companions shifted, weapons drawn. Their breaths came shallow

  but controlled. No words. Only the tense silence before a storm.

  The air trembled.

  Cold pressure pushed down, seeping into their

  bones. The blue flames flared brighter.

  Something stirred within the Inner Ward.

  The Elder Lych drifted forward, tattered robes

  floating as if caught in an unseen current. The air recoiled from him, thick

  with ancient dread. Empty eye sockets, burning with ghostly fire, fixed on

  them.

  His voice cut through the stillness—deep, hollow,

  and cold.

  “Who dares disturb my domain?”

  Bartholomew’s jaw tensed. His heart thudded hard

  in his chest.

  A deep horn bellowed through the misty night, its

  mournful cry rolling over the hills like the breath of an ancient beast. The

  wind carried the sound to the battlements, where a lone figure walked the

  parapet. His armor glinted under the pale crescent moon, each step slow and

  deliberate. Automaton Knights shifted aside as he passed, saluting in rigid

  silence. Even the dead parted for him.

  Bartholomew, Steward of Camelot, pressed forward,

  his heavy boots scraping against cold stone.

  Ahead, shrouded in shadow, stood the Lych.

  Tattered robes drifted in the wind, fraying edges curling like dead leaves. The

  air thickened with the scent of damp earth and decay. Yet Bartholomew didn’t

  draw his sword. He stopped a few paces away and bowed his head.

  “St. Benedict,” he said, voice firm but heavy

  with sorrow. “It’s been too long, old friend.”

  The Lych tilted his skeletal head. Cold fire

  burned within hollow eye sockets. Silence stretched between them—thick, heavy

  with old ghosts—until a voice broke it, deep and distant, like a whisper from

  another world.

  “Bartholomew,” the Lych rasped. “I thought you

  long gone.”

  “A steward doesn’t abandon his post,” Bartholomew

  replied. “And a knight doesn’t abandon his comrades.”

  The Lych chuckled—a brittle, crumbling sound.

  “Then tell me, Steward... is it true? Has Arthur returned?”

  Bartholomew’s jaw clenched. He shook his head.

  “No. The one you seek is Grant Calloway. He bears Arthur’s blood, but he’s no

  king reborn.”

  Benedict stiffened. The cold fire in his eyes

  flickered, doubt creeping in. “No... that cannot be. The prophecy—”

  A violent shudder seized him. Bones cracked as

  unseen forces clawed at his form. A guttural snarl tore free.

  “Benedict?” Bartholomew stepped forward, a thread

  of hope in his voice.

  But the Lych convulsed. His clawed hands slashed

  at the air before he lunged—unnaturally fast.

  Bartholomew barely raised his sword before the

  first blow struck.

  "Royal Guards! Positions!"

  Bartholomew’s voice cut through the cold night air like steel on stone—sharp,

  commanding, final. There was no room for doubt.

  Genevieve stepped forward, gripping her battle

  mage staff. Silver filigree glinted in the torchlight as magic coiled around

  her, alive and hungry. It surged forward, latching onto Bartholomew’s armor,

  layering him in invisible chains of will. His spirit steadied, bolstered

  against what was coming. The air thickened with ozone and the sharp bite of

  charred mana—raw power crackled in the dark.

  To his right, Eileen whispered a prayer, her

  words lost to the howling wind. Light bloomed at her fingertips, golden and

  pure, spilling across the stones in curling ribbons. Where it touched, the

  creeping decay peeled away like dead skin. But the rot resisted, clawing at the

  edges, fed by the Lych’s lingering presence. The stench of damp earth mixed

  with death hung thick in the air.

  Crispin and Cindy flanked Bartholomew, moving in

  perfect sync. They dropped into low, balanced stances, swords buzzing with

  energy as lightning crawled in jagged arcs up their blades. In their off-hands,

  spells flickered—half-formed, restrained, waiting. Cindy’s emerald gaze flicked

  to Bartholomew, sharp and questioning.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He gave a single nod.

  Wind tore across the battlements, heavy with the

  scent of wet soil—and something older. Something wrong. It clawed at their

  thoughts, whispering things best left buried.

  The Lych moved.

  Pale fire flared in hollow sockets as the

  creature tilted its head. A guttural whisper slipped from its ruined lips—words

  from a language time had tried to forget. Shadows twisted at its feet, dark

  shapes rising, jagged and hungry.

  Then chaos.

  Magic slammed into darkness. Steel howled against

  bone. Bartholomew surged forward, blade high, heart heavy with what had been

  lost. He met the Lych head-on—a blinding clash of light and death.

  The air trembled, locked in a silent battle of

  wills. Bartholomew felt it—Theia’s light and Chamalun’s dark, the forces of

  balance, clashing against something else. Something older. Something wrong. And

  yet, it felt disturbingly familiar.

  The ground quaked beneath his feet, cracks

  spiderwebbing across the ancient ruins. Deep within the stone, something

  stirred—rising, clawing its way toward the surface.

  Then, laughter.

  It echoed through the Inner Ward—shrill, jagged—a

  woman’s voice, wild and cracked, howling like a storm. It scraped against the

  mind, cold and cruel, twisting shadows into writhing shapes.

  Bartholomew stiffened, his porcelain frame

  locking tight. Metal fingers clenched the hilt of his sword.

  Before him loomed a towering sarcophagus,

  obsidian veined with moonstone. Its surface glistened with age and malice,

  slick as oil. A thin crack split its face. Then another. The fractures spread,

  glowing with a sickly, pulsing light.

  The earth recoiled.

  With a thunderous crack, the sarcophagus

  shattered.

  From dust and shards, a figure rose—draped in

  darkness.

  “St. Benedict is no more…” The voice twisted,

  thick with hate. “There is only MALAK!”

  The Lych shrieked.

  It was a raw, tearing sound. His skeletal form

  spasmed as shadowy tendrils lashed from the broken coffin, sinking deep into

  his core. His clawed hands flailed, grasping at nothing, his once-commanding

  form now writhing—helpless.

  Bartholomew didn’t move. He didn’t need to

  breathe. Didn’t feel cold. He was porcelain and magic—immune to the frailties

  of flesh.

  But grief pooled within him.

  St. Benedict—was gone.

  Truly gone.

  The battlefield held its breath.

  Then Malak’s hollow gaze snapped to him. Pale

  fire burned in the Lych’s sockets, cold and endless.

  The fight was inevitable.

  Malak stepped forward. His black vestments

  billowed, liquid shadows trailing behind, dripping necrotic mist. In one

  skeletal hand, he held a staff, its length carved with writhing sigils, pulsing

  with eerie green light. At its peak, a fractured soulstone glowed—like a dying

  star. Its jagged surface crawled with anguished faces.

  Bartholomew stood firm, the Lych’s sickly light

  gleaming off his polished frame.

  The air thickened, heavy, as if the world itself

  strained beneath Malak’s will.

  He had faced horrors before—creatures torn from

  the abyss.

  But this… this was different.

  Malak’s sockets burned brighter, the pale fire

  deepening into something worse than hate—certainty.

  “You stand before eternity’s reckoning,” Malak

  intoned, his voice fractured, layered, as if the dead spoke through him.

  “Kneel, and I may grant you the mercy of oblivion.”

  The wind screamed through the ruins, carrying

  whispers of the lost. Their cries clawed at Bartholomew, unseen fingers curling

  around him, cold and desperate.

  Behind him, his companions shifted—blades humming

  with magic, spells flickering at trembling fingertips.

  No one spoke.

  No one dared.

  Bartholomew tilted his head, studying the thing

  before him. Malak—what was left of a man who once stood for something greater.

  He gripped his sword tighter. Took a step

  forward.

  “St. Benedict would never offer mercy through

  destruction.” His voice rang clear. “You are not eternity’s reckoning, Malak.

  You are its mistake.”

  For a beat—silence.

  Then the soulstone flared.

  And the courtyard erupted with screaming shadows.

  With a deafening crack, Malak slammed his staff

  into the chamber floor. Death magic surged outward in a rippling wave—Necrotic

  Pulse. The air trembled as black veins of decay spread across the stone,

  twisting it into jagged, contorted shapes. A searing cold washed over the

  raiders, thick with the stench of rot.

  Eileen and Genevieve reacted instantly. Golden

  light burst from their hands, cutting through the darkness, burning away the

  corruption before it could spread.

  “St. Benedict!” Bartholomew’s voice

  echoed, firm and commanding. He stepped forward, his porcelain frame reflecting

  the sickly glow of the soulstone. “Snap out of it! Have you forgotten your

  oath? We are instruments of light and justice—not weapons of war and death!

  The Lych shrieked—a sound beyond mortal

  comprehension, a wail that tore through the very fabric of reality. His

  skeletal fingers clenched tighter around his staff, ghostly fire seething in

  his hollow sockets.

  “I am... OBLIVION!” Malak’s voice boomed,

  layered with the tormented cries of countless lost souls. “I am The Judge.

  The Jury. The Verdict. The Sentence! I AM JUSTICE INCARNATE!

  Above him, the air shimmered. A rift tore open in

  the heavens, spilling blinding light into the chamber. From the rift, a golden

  spear descended—divine judgment made flesh. It plunged into Malak’s chest,

  piercing both bone and shadow. His form cracked, the darkness within him

  twisting as it splintered and writhed in agony.

  Eileen lowered her staff, her hands trembling. “Forgive

  me...” she whispered, her voice barely a breath, lost in the echoes of

  Malak’s death cry.

  Bartholomew turned to her. Grief marked her

  face—pain, guilt, the weight of decisions no one so young should carry. She was

  still too young for this. Too young to bear such burdens.

  A sharp ache twisted in his chest.

  “I should feel ashamed,” he murmured. The

  words sounded hollow, distant.

  His fingers tightened around his sword hilt. Holy

  energy crackled along the blade, divine auras forming into halos of burning

  light. The time for mercy was past.

  His Friend, his mentor… was gone.

  This... thing

  Bartholomew’s posture stiffened, his resolve

  hardening. There was no place for grief now. No place for hesitation.

  The Paladin would finish this.