Prince Lucien: The Silent Pursuit

They reached a stream cutting through a shallow dip in the ground. Callum threw up a hand and the group collapsed toward it, not stopping so much as falling into a staggered crouch. Lucien slid off Jerimiah’s back and nearly went down again, catching himself on a wet rock. His fingers shook as he cupped water and drank. It tasted like stone and cold metal. It tasted like life.

“What… whe,” he tried, throat raw. He swallowed and tried again. “What were those?”

Callum’s eyes stayed on the trees as he answered, voice low and hard. “Abyss Hoppers.”

Ingrid’s head snapped up. She looked half-dead with exhaustion, hair plastered to her face, armor smeared with blood that was not all hers. The moment she heard Callum say it, something in her seemed to harden into anger just to keep her standing. “Demons,” she repeated, and there was fury in it now. “What kind of hell are you bringing us to?” She turned on Callum, then jabbed toward Jerimiah with a trembling finger. “He is no noble. And that boy is no attendant. Now demons are involved.”

Jerimiah opened his mouth to speak. Lucien cut in before he could. His voice came out steadier than he felt. “The journey wasn’t supposed to be this dangerous.” He looked at Callum, at Fenric, at Rowena. “How could demons get so close to our capital?” Lucien demanded, and hated how thin the question sounded compared to what he meant. How could Lumisiel let this happen, how could my father?

Fenric wiped blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “Stragglers,” he said, words clipped. “Rogue demons that evaded capture.”

“But that many?” Rowena’s gaze kept flicking to the treeline, as if she expected the fog itself to lunge. “No. That felt organized. Like a nest.”

Ingrid made a sound that was almost a laugh, almost a sob. “A nest, a swarm, a hive. Call it whatever you want. There are demons nearby.”

“Near here, the only thing near here is our capital,” Lucien snapped. The thought of traitors to humanity living in his capital.

Rowena’s voice lowered. “There’s a village on the other side of the mountain.”

Lucien started to speak again.

“None of that matters,” Ingrid cut in, louder now. “There are demons nearby.”

Callum’s jaw tightened. The anger in the group had shifted from fear to directionless blame. He did not let it fester.

“Iron Fangs,” he said, voice hard. “take those knights and sweep the perimeter.” His tone didn’t invite argument.

The Iron Fangs did not look pleased. They were still breathing hard. They tightened straps, checked blades, and moved.

They vanished into the trees.

For a moment, the stream clearing felt too open.

Lucien watched them go, then turned back toward the remaining knights. The tension had not eased. It had only shifted. They stood together, battered and hollow-eyed, something unspoken passing between them.

Callum stepped forward and watching the horizon. As it started to glow orange.

“we need to renew the Oath before the sun fully comes out,” he said simply.

“what of the knights out on patrol?” Lucien asked.

“those were ones already out of spell cast,” Rowena replied.

They formed a loose half-circle facing the paling horizon. The sky was still more shadow than light, the sun not yet risen, but close enough that the air felt expectant.

They knelt.

Callum spoke the first line of the Oath, voice low but steady. The others followed, their repetition measured and deliberate.

“I kneel before the Crown of Stillwater. I pledge my life to its defense and my loyalty to the king and his blood. I will guard your people as my own, carry out your command without hesitation, and stand between you and all harm. By my honor and by the coming sun, I bind myself to this oath.”

The words were not loud. They did not need to be.

Lucien felt it as the final line left their mouths.

Something settled.

Not heat. Not light. A tightening. As if invisible threads had been drawn from each kneeling knight and fastened quietly to him. To the crown. To the line he would one day inherit.

They had spent their cast.

He knew it as surely as if he had watched the spell leave their hands. The choice was deliberate. One spell, gone, not for battle or healing or defense, but for him.

For obedience.

If he spoke a command and shaped it with magic, they would follow. Not because they wished to. Not because they agreed. Because they were bound.

The weight of it pressed against his ribs.

The horizon brightened. Soon the sun would crest, and those who had not sworn would feel their magic return.

But these men had already given theirs away.

Callum bowed his head once more. “It is done, Your Highness.”

Lucien inclined his head in return, careful, measured.

The first rays of the sun crested the ridge and spilled across the clearing. Before it reached him Lucien cast a spelling on himself.

A warmth against his face. A quiet stirring beneath his ribs. The sensation of something returning. Like breath after being held too long.

Magic.

It refreshed not with sound, not with flash, but with certainty. The momentarily hollow place inside him filled. The single cast he had guarded like a dying ember flared back into readiness. Around him, shoulders straightened subtly. Fenric exhaled in visible relief. Matthias closed his eyes for half a heartbeat, as if confirming the renewal.

For a brief, fragile moment, it felt like balance had returned. Like the world had righted itself. The sun had risen. Their vows had been spoken. Their magic had returned.

Maybe the night had been an anomaly. Maybe the demons had only passed through.

Boots pounded back toward the clearing.

The Iron Fangs emerged from the trees in staggered pairs, panicked.

Kipp broke from formation and moved quickly toward Callum, breath sharp.

“Look.” He pointed. A flock of birds moved in the distance, dark specks crossing between the trees.

“So?” Callum asked, voice thin.

Kipp did not look away. “No sound.”

Lucien focused.

Lucien’s mouth went dry. The birds flapped. They wheeled. They scattered. And the forest did not give them a single rustle in return.

The strength that flooded them gave them more confidence, but it felt thin. Borrowed.

Callum turned first. “We cannot keep fleeing blind. The outpost is hours away if we keep pace. But it requires us to use magic just to stay ahead.”

Aldric adjusted his spear and gave a sharp nod. “Which means we may as well use it offensively, rather than burning it on running.”

Rowena’s wand hovered near her shoulder. “We don’t know how many there are. Or if there’s a nest nearby spawning more.”

“If it is a nest,” Lucien said, forcing calm into his voice, “we would see the signs. Corruption. Scars in the terrain. They would not chase us this far from it. They would guard it.”

He hoped he was right.

Ingrid pushed into the circle beside Doran, hammer resting against her shoulder. “We signed for escort,” she said her earlier anger still clear in her voice. “Not a demon hunt.”

Doran’s armor shifted with a low groan as he folded his arms. “We were told mountains, beasts. Maybe bandit. Not denizans of hell.”

Fenric let out a rumbling scoff. “Demons bleed like anything else.”

“They don’t though” Matthias cut in quietly.

Kipp swallowed but held his chin up.

One of the royal knights spoke from the edge of the formation. “We should fall back to the outpost. Regroup with walls at our back.”

Another added, “The prince’s safety is priority.”

The word hung there.

Prince.

The Iron Fangs went still.

Lucien felt the weight of their understanding settle over him. There was no sense denying it. The Knight had let it slip.

“I am Prince Lucien of Stillwater,” he said. Holding himself high.

Shock rippled outward.

Ingrid’s eyes flicked to Lucien. Slowly. Measuring. “Prince?”

Vessir’s voice slid from the shade of a tree. “I thought he was a Baron”

“huh you did?” exclaimed Kipp.

Kipp’s eyes widened. Doran straightened. Ingrid’s grip tightened on her hammer.

Aldric’s head snapped toward the knight. “Mind your tongue,” he muttered under his breath, low and furious.

Matthias did not bother lowering his voice. “Disgrace.”

The knight lowered his head in shame.

“You are under royal contract,” Callum said evenly. “You stand in service of the crown whether you realized it or not.”

Ingrid exhaled sharply through her nose.

Jerimiah was not here to smooth this.

Lucien stepped forward.

“If we run,” he said, meeting Ingrid’s gaze, “we will spend our strength and arrive at the outpost diminished. If what hunts us is small, we waste time. If it is large, we bring it to the walls.”

He paused. “I will not drag danger to my people if I can end it here.”

Rowena watched him carefully. Fenric’s jaw tightened in approval. knights began to protest again, but Callum cut them off with a glance.

Callum’s gaze sharpened. “Set an ambush.”

Now every eye turned fully to him.

“We choose ground. We force them into it. We break them. If it is more than we can handle, we fall back to the outpost.”

Lucien gave a single nod.

They moved until they found a clearing wide enough to work with. The ground dipped slightly toward the center where rainwater had once pooled, leaving the soil softer than the surrounding forest floor.

Aldric went back with his remaining hound, to keep track of the demons.

Callum began moving the knights into position Shields forward. Spears angled low to catch the leap. Rotate positions so the front line doesn’t get tired.

Matthias was demonstrating quick hand signals to Kipp, as the archer he would be able to have a birds eye view of the battle and could give Kipp directions.

Below, the terrain began to change.

Rowena and Fenric knelt opposite each other and pressed their hands into the soil. Magic pulsed through the ground. The earth groaned upward in long ridges that rose along both sides of the clearing. At first the mounds were uneven, but they continued rising, stretching into walls of packed soil and roots.

The open space slowly narrowed. What had been a clearing began to resemble a shallow canyon carved straight through the forest.

Ingrid planted the head of her hammer into the ground. She mouthed a silent phrase and drove the weapon deeper. The soil shuddered.

Mud pushed upward through the cracks in the rising walls, sealing weak points and thickening the structure. Loose earth compacted into something closer to stone. The walls grew taller and steeper until a man could no longer climb them quickly.

The corridor now stretched forward between two long earthen cliffs. Five men wide. Doran stepped into the center of it. He lifted both gauntleted hands. Boulders tore themselves free from the surrounding ground, ripping upward through soil and roots. They floated for a moment before sliding into place inside the corridor. The first two stones slammed down near the entrance, leaving only a narrow passage between them.

Two men wide. Farther down the corridor, he placed another pair of stones wider apart, opening the path again. Five men. Then another choke point.

When Doran finished, the open clearing was gone.

In its place stood a carved channel of earth and stone cutting through the forest floor.

A canyon where none had existed before.

The corridor twisted between those stone barricades like a jagged throat. Any creature entering it would have to slow, turn, and squeeze through the narrow gaps while the defenders waited behind perfect cover.

Callum walked the corridor slowly, testing each choke point with his shield. He stepped into the narrow sections and ordered for the second rank to stand there. Then he moved back to the wider sections and signaled where the first line would rotate back.

Matthias shifted in the branches above and studied the entire structure from his perch. After a moment he raised a thumb toward the ground.

Lucien looked down the length of the newly shaped battlefield. The corridor curved slightly between the walls, the stone barricades forcing the path tighter and tighter toward the center where Rowena and Fenric would wait.

Now they only had to wait for Aldric to return with the Hoppers.

And somewhere beyond the trees, something moved toward them without making a sound.

They waited. Lucien waited by the center with Rowena, Fenric, and Jerimiah as defense.

4 knights and Callum stood at the entrance blocking it with the rest of their knights waiting behind them, the iron fang were placed at the ending, Callum hadn’t believed they would hold against the demon horde. they were given the safest spot. Their contribution was done.

The forest sounds were all cut off at once. The heavy breathing of his allies still moved their chests, but no sound followed it. Leaves stirred above them, branches shifting in the wind, yet the air carried nothing.

Leaves trembled. Aldric burst through with his hound, he ran into Callum at the entrance, and mimed some information to him, one of the knights moved back and Aldric took his place.

Less than a minute went by before shapes burst low through the undergrowth. The first Hopper cleared the brush in a single bound. Lucien barely had time to register the shape before Matthias moved. Matthias’ arrow struck before it landed. The shaft punched through its throat and pinned it to the dirt. Good placement, Lucien noted automatically. Through the neck. Fast. Clean.

Two Hoppers vaulted over the fallen body. Callum’s shield snapped upward. One slammed into the shield wall. Its flesh burst apart with a wet splatter, sliding down the metal in a dark smear before collapsing into the dirt at their feet.

Aldric stepped forward half a pace and drove his spear upward. The blade slid between ribs and burst out the second demon’s back. He twisted the shaft, braced his foot against its chest, and kicked the corpse free before the next one landed.

Lucien watched the rhythm form almost instantly. Shield. Spear. Rotate.

More shapes burst from the trees. One of the creatures stumbled as it ran, its skin splitting along the flank as if the flesh had grown faster than it could hold. Lucien’s brow furrowed.

Enhancements rolled through the line like a silent wave. Muscles tightened. Reflexes sharpened. Shields shimmered into existence as layered arcs of force.

The funnel worked. The corridor of earth and stone forced the creatures to approach in a narrow line. One after another they slammed into where Callum and the forward knights held the choke. Blades flashed.

Lucien found himself studying it the way his instructors had forced him to study battlefield diagrams. Angles. Pressure points. Lines of engagement.

One Hopper rebounded off a shield and spun directly into Aldric’s spear. The strike drove it into the ground hard enough that its spine folded sideways. Another cleared the shield wall entirely. It landed past the formation.

Lucien’s pulse spiked. Then Vessir appeared behind it like a shadow resolving into shape. His blade slid under its jaw and tore sideways through the spine. The demon collapsed before it could twist. Lucien exhaled slowly.

Two boulders flew over their heads and shot forward through the corridor like thrown spears. Doran’s work. They smashed into the pack of Hoppers, a wave of blood flying into the air. One Hopper lost its hind leg mid-leap and crashed violently into the earth wall.

Fenric slammed his palm into the soil. The ground ahead of the funnel erupted upward, forcing two incoming creatures to stumble. Aldric’s spear and a knight’s blade ended them before they recovered.

The ambush was working. They were winning.

Not just winning but dominating. Lucien felt the realization settle in his chest. This was what trained soldiers looked like when everything worked. The first line moved behind the second to catch their breath, the rotation clean and efficient. They still had plenty of room to fall back if needed. Lucien watched the line move like a practiced machine.

Shields rotated forward and back as strikes landed. Knights stepped aside and replaced each other without needing to speak. Signals passed through quick gestures, fingers flicking, hands tightening, shoulders shifting.

Even without sound the formation communicated perfectly.

Two Hoppers fell within seconds. A third lost a limb and dragged itself forward anyway until Callum stepped in and removed its head with a clean downward strike. The corpse began to soften almost immediately, dark fluid seeping into the soil as if the body were already starting to collapse. Lucien noticed that too. The demons were dying too quickly.

Another tried to vault over the barricade. Lucien felt a fierce surge of pride as Matthias’ arrow caught it midair and spun it sideways into a tree trunk.

Fenric continued tripping them with his spell. The creatures were fast. Violent. But predictable. Another Hopper lunged through the funnel.

The first line was up front again. Callum angled his shield, redirecting its momentum sideways where a waiting blade pierced through its ribs. The body twitched and went still. The remaining Hoppers froze. Lucien felt the shift before he understood it.

Lucien felt it through his boots before he understood it.

The earth shifted beneath him. Not enough to knock him off balance. Just a slow, heavy roll in the soil, like something deep below had pushed upward. He stilled.

A few heartbeats passed. Then it happened again. The ground flexed beneath the formation, a dull pressure traveling through the dirt and roots. Lucien felt it climb through the soles of his boots and into the bones of his legs.

He looked down. The earth wasn’t shaking. It was answering weight.

Another pulse moved through the soil. Closer this time. Lucien’s breath caught. Something enormous was walking toward them. And with every step, the forest floor felt it first. Lucien’s stomach tightened.

This was not the Hoppers.

The earth wall they had raised burst outward as something enormous forced through it. Both lines raised their shields, blocking the blast of earth and stone. Lucien recognized the shape instantly. His blood ran cold.

He had seen the drawings in his studies. He had read the descriptions of battlefield formations broken by creatures like this. But drawings had never shown the scale. Never shown the weight.

The demon’s front-line fighter.

A Behemoth stepped into the clearing between both lines. For a moment Lucien forgot how to breathe. Six limbs drove it forward, each one gouging trenches into the earth. Its horns caught the light of the morning sun. Its faceless head tilted slowly as if tasting the air.

It was enormous, easily the size of a large carriage.

Lucien understood in an instant why armies feared them.

The remaining Hoppers jumped on the front line, preventing them from assisting. The Behemoth’s front limbs struck the second shield wall with crushing force. The second shield line shattered. Two knights were lifted off their feet and thrown backward into the wall. Their bodies hit the ground hard enough that they began to silently spasm.

Lucien cast without hesitation on one while Jerimiah cast on another.

Healing surged through both men in rapid succession. Bone knit. Blood sealed. Breath returned in ragged movement. They rolled to their knees, stunned but alive.

Lucien forced himself to breathe. Alive meant they could still fight. A magic barrier erupted over the shield of the remaining three knights. The Behemoth struck again. The barrier held.

The creature adjusted. The Behemoth turned its faceless head toward the center of the formation. Toward the mages. Toward him.

For a moment Lucien had the terrible sense that it understood exactly where the formation was weakest. Then the creature surged forward. It pushed through the funnel, smashing through the boulder like a battering ram through thin timber.

Lucien felt the balance of the fight collapse. Doran hurled two more stones directly into its skull. The impacts staggered it half a step but did not slow its advance.

Fenric waved his wand, and a burst of wind smashed into the incoming demon. Ingrid started lifting stone and rocks from the ground. They caught in the wind, flying toward the monster as shrapnel. Rowena raised her wand. A ridge of earth rose violently beneath the Behemoth’s forward limbs.

For a moment its weight shifted awkwardly.

Jerimiah lunged forward and drove his blade into the exposed joint. The strike caused a miasma to pour out of the wound. The Behemoth did not react.

Lucien felt a chill. Its rear limb swung sideways. The impact caught a knight in the ribs and sent him flying toward them.

Lucien cast his second spell. Healing light sealed the worst of the damage before the man even landed on the ground.

The formation tightened. The battle had changed. This was no longer an ambush. This was survival.

Jerimiah slashed at the creature’s flank and withdrew instantly before the counterstrike crushed the earth where he had stood. Ingrid drove her hammer down beside its forelimb, collapsing the ground again in an attempt to destabilize its stance.

Matthias shifted position in the branches above and loosed another arrow.

The shaft bounced of the Behemoth’s shoulder uselessly. The creature’s head turned upward. Lucien felt dread crawl up his spine. A moment later a massive boulder flew through the air. The tree trunk exploded as Matthias was thrown sideways through the branches. He hit the ground hard, blood spreading across the roots.

Lucien quickly healed him. Though Matthias did not get back up. The healed knights moved to stop the demon.

Lucien froze for half a heartbeat. One spell left.

Heat flooded the corridor as Fenric raised his wand, a fireball swelling in his palm. The Behemoth struck again. The shield line collapsed backward. Two knights went down hard, their shields torn from their hands.

Fenric did not release the spell. He twisted his wrist. The blazing sphere shifted color, orange fire draining into a harsh green glow. The spell streaked past the Behemoth and struck the fallen knights instead. Flame crawled across their armor. The wounds burned closed. Both men gasped as shattered ribs knit and torn muscle sealed. They rolled to their knees and raised their shields again just as the Behemoth smashed forward.

Callum lifted his shield high above his head. The signal cut through the formation instantly.

Withdrawal.

Doran and Ingrid tore a slab from the ground and slammed it down behind the first line.

Callum, Aldric and the knights got on top of it, and Rowena and Fenric both cast spells causing the slab with the knights in tow to fly above the behemoth towards them.

Magical barriers flared in sequence as the second line disengaged. Two grabbed Matthias while others stepped backward in measured retreat. The Behemoth struck the barriers. The earth shook.

Aldric’s hound circled the retreating line, nose low, ensuring no one strayed from formation. Vessir appeared briefly behind the monster and drove a blade into the tendon behind its rear limb before vanishing again into the trees.

The Behemoth staggered.

The humans pulled away through the forest. Behind them the creature tore through the last wall of earth in a spray of roots and soil.