In a fluid motion, the center of the bridge sagged. The men on the planks didn’t even have time to shout before the world dropped away beneath their feet,the horses , already safely on the far bank shrieked and neighed in fear for a harm that was not their to feel.

Then came the roar of the splintering oak and iron nails shearing through ancient wood. The entire span caved in, a Great Maw opening to swallow everything above it like some greedy monsters of the depth.

Latio watched, frozen and powerless, as the murky waters from the October rain and the strong currents of the Zauern claimed his soldiers.

It just happened....all at once?

One instant, they were a column of proud, heavy iron marching ahead; the next, they were a chaotic tumble of flailing limbs and splashing water. He saw arms thrashing above the white foam, fingers clutching at the empty air for a heartbeat, and then, nothing. The river simply smoothed over, dark and indifferent to the meal it had just had.

Only the planks of wood now resurfaced onto the brown and musky-white water.

Most of the men he had led, had been raised in land-locked villages, born in the dust and the wheat fields of the interior. They had no business with water, except for drinking it.

Of the thirty or forty souls who had plunged into the depths, not a single one managed to fight the weight of their own armor or the pull of the current. Not one reached the muddy safety of either banks.

They had all drowned...

A cold, bitter laugh would have bubbled up in Latio’s throat, if he weren’t so horrified by what just had happened.

He had spent his youth preparing for the glory of a proper battle, yet in this godsdamned campaign, he had seen everything but a fair fight. He had seen hangings, starvation, mists, and now a bridge that had simply given up itself to the ghosts.

He had seen the worst man could do and yet the nominally worst part of war was still missing. This had been his first campaign, which had lasted barely some months and yet he had his fill for his entire life.

So many horrors in the name of war.

He knew death always rang in war and yet...he was close....two minutes behind and he would have been the one down there.

He looked down at his armor.The bull so proudly emblazened raging on his breast.

He would have never made it across either.

He would have drowned in that cold brown water.The notion scared him shitless.

He was almost ready to convince himself that the gods had cursed them, that the Five had turned their faces away from the Bull of Kakunia, that the Sea-God had clasped hands and reached for their death, gods only ironically enough knew how many of his soldiers would think that, but he knew better.

There was no divine wrath here, only a human hand. Someone was to blame for this.

He must have remained in that trance for an eternity, for the world only returned when a violent hand clamped onto his shoulder and yanked him back toward reality.

"Ser Cleo?" the young man stammered. The silver horns of his helmet pointed toward the weeping cracked grey sky, framing the face of a boy who had just cheated the grave by a hair’s breadth.

He was just that, not a commander , not a warrior, not a prince. Just a boy that missed his father.

But this was war, and of those boys that missed home there were countless.

"Wake the fuck up, lad! The troops are awaiting orders!" Cleo hissed, his voice a somehow loud murmur right against Latio’s ear.

Latio turned his head. The knights and the handful of footmen who had made it across the bridge were as pale as he was, their eyes fixed on the churning brown water that had just devoured their brothers. But there was a difference between them and him: they were the followers, and he was the commander.

Orders.Yes,he had to give orders. But the words felt like dry ash in his throat. What was there to say? What could he possibly do with a bridge of splinters?What orders could be given?

Cleo saw the uncertainty flickering in the boy’s eyes and stepped into the vacuum. Somehow Latio saw in his eyes that he expected this.

And I wanted to lead an army against my cousin, he would have laughed if only that would not have been disrespectful to the dead.

"Make a perimeter!" the old knight roared as if he were dealing with a run-away chicken. The rough, seasoned authority in his voice acted like a bucket of ice water, snapping the soldiers out of their horrified-induced daydreaming. "Ser Bor! Take two of your men and scout the surroundings. Now!"

A man Latio didn’t recognize, a stout knight with a green surcoat, hesitated. "Ser... which way? There is nothing out there but the mist."

"Pick a direction, damn you!Each of you take one and ride..." Cleo barked. "Ride until you find a village or until half the sun is gone. If you find nothing, turn back. Move!"

Before Ser Bor could protest further, shouts drifted across the water from the far bank. The fog still shrouded the bulk of their forces, but a dozen men had been brave enough to crawl to the jagged edge of the broken span to peer into the depths for survivors.

They found only floating debris and the silence of the drowned.

"Ser Cleo!" a voice called out, a rider, invisible in the grey gloom. "Is the prince’s son safe?"

The old knight shouted back a confirmation of the young man’s safety, probably the only good thing that had come out of this, before demanding a report on their situation.

"Nothing strange here... yet," the voice,which Latio now realized belonged to Sir Miriol, replied. "But we have all the carts. All the food is on this side of the Zauern, Ser. What are your orders? We could try to lash some timber together, try to get some grain across for—"

"No!" Cleo shouted back, his expression turning more sour than Latio had ever seen it.Somehow he knew the man felt just as anxious as he did, and yet he still did not waver "We can last a day without a meal. Follow the river downstream. There has to be another crossing, a bridge or a shallow ford, somewhere in the south. Take it and make your way to Eurediolo. I’m giving you command of the rear, Sir Miriol. Get those wagons moving along with the whole host; you will be two days too late, so make haste..."

"And your intentions, Ser?"

"We will push forward on this side," Cleo replied firmly, though not without a hint of doubt in his tone.

Miriol said nothing more after that. The mist swallowed his silhouette as he turned away from the stranded army, but Latio somehow felt the weight of the man’s hesitation. He looked like he wanted to argue, to plead with them not to wander into the fog alone , but the orders had been given.

Somehow in the silence Latio thought the fog had become stronger...if that was even possible.

To the sound of clinking, he turned to see Noros pushed his horse forward, the squire’s armor to blame for the clattering. "Should we not follow the river too, Uncle? If we stay on the bank, we can at least keep them in sight. We could reassemble the force at the next crossing and make way together...that would be a much deal safer"

Cleo shook his head, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "I don’t like the look of these woods, nephew. The road is crawling with bandits and gods-know-what else. Moreover, I don’t trust that the bastard who cut this bridge isn’t lurking somewhere in that mist, waiting for us to dally.It is worrisome to think of how this happened, doubted the wood suddendly got moldy enough to fall on us now, but we ought to fear the worst if we don’t want to suffer it."

"But isn’t that a better reason to stay with the main force?" Noros countered, his voice rising with a touch of panic. "We’re some ninety men on the wrong side of the water with no food!"

Cleo turned on his nephew, his face darkening with a reprimand that looked like it might involve a gauntlet to the teeth, which in his youth, he along with his cousin, had suffered quite often when they were taught the sword.

The old knight opened his mouth to say something, but the words died in his throat as Latio suddenly spoke up.

"Ser," he asked, his voice somehow coming out choked as if he were inhaling fire-smoke instead of fog. "The scouts we sent ahead three days ago... did they all come back?"

The knight turned irked at being interrupted , but he answered. ’’Yes..and they reported nothing, if that is your worry.Though you are right, we ought to send some more scouts futher inland. I don’t like this mist one bit. But in the mea-’’

’’Ser’’ once more Latio’s voice rang out, somehow this time more icy than the autumn air.He thrusted a finger ahead. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

’’There is a man in the mist....’’