WHEN DRAGON BLEED
Volume I — The Price of Bread
Chapter 3 — The Egg Beneath the Earth
There were places in the world where sunlight had never touched the ground.
Deep beneath the eastern mountains, beneath layers of stone older than any kingdom, there was a chamber carved into the earth.
No king had built it.
No mason had shaped its walls.
It was simply there.
Forgotten.
Waiting.
At the center of the chamber stood an egg.
It was larger than a man's head.
Its shell was pale gray, covered with thin black veins that seemed to move when no one was looking directly at them.
For centuries, nothing had happened.
Then, on a night when three kingdoms fought a war above the mountains, the egg moved.
Once.
Then stopped.
A second movement came several hours later.
A crack appeared.
Far above, rain fell over a battlefield.
Two armies had been fighting since sunrise.
The soldiers of the eastern kingdom had been pushed back toward the mountains.
Their king had ordered them to hold the line.
The enemy commander had ordered his men to advance.
By sunset, hundreds were dead.
By midnight, thousands.
No one knew that beneath their feet, something ancient had awakened.
The egg cracked again.
A thin piece of shell fell away.
Inside was darkness.
Then two pale eyes opened.
A hand pushed against the broken shell.
A man emerged.
He was naked, covered in a thin layer of black fluid.
He fell onto the stone floor.
He did not breathe.
He did not move.
For several minutes, he simply lay there.
Then his fingers twitched.
His eyes opened.
He stared into the darkness.
He did not know where he was.
He did not know how long he had been there.
He did not know who he was.
He sat upright.
His body felt cold.
Not the cold of winter.
Something deeper.
He touched his chest.
There was no heartbeat.
He pressed harder.
Nothing.
He looked at his hands.
They were pale.
Almost gray.
He stood.
His legs nearly collapsed beneath him.
He caught himself against the stone wall.
For a long time, he remained there.
Then a sound reached him.
A distant cry.
He turned toward it.
Another cry.
Then another.
Human voices.
The man walked toward the tunnel.
He found the battlefield beneath the moon.
Bodies covered the valley.
Broken shields.
Abandoned spears.
Dead horses.
Blood had turned the mud black.
The man stood at the edge of the field.
He stared.
Something inside him felt strangely familiar.
He walked among the dead.
He saw faces.
Young men.
Old men.
A boy who could not have been more than sixteen.
The man crouched beside him.
The boy's eyes were open.
The man closed them.
He did not know why.
Then he heard something.
A whisper.
"Help..."
He froze.
The voice had come from behind him.
He turned.
A soldier lay against a broken shield.
Alive.
Barely.
The man approached.
"Are you dying?"
The soldier stared at him.
"What...?"
"Are you dying?"
The soldier coughed blood.
"Yes."
The man looked confused.
"Why?"
The soldier laughed weakly.
"Because they killed me."
The man looked down at the wound.
A spear had pierced the soldier's stomach.
The soldier was going to die.
The man sat beside him.
"Who are you?"
The soldier asked.
The man hesitated.
"I don't know."
The soldier laughed again.
"Then we're both lost."
The man looked at the battlefield.
"Do you know where this is?"
"Kingdom of Edrath."
"Who rules it?"
"King Aldric."
"Who are his enemies?"
The soldier smiled.
"You ask strange questions."
"I don't know why."
The soldier's breathing became weaker.
The man watched him.
"Do you fear death?"
The soldier looked toward the sky.
"Everyone fears death."
"Why?"
"Because nobody knows what comes after."
The man's expression changed.
"Perhaps I do."
The soldier frowned.
"What?"
The man didn't answer.
The soldier's eyes closed.
His body became still.
The man remained beside him.
For the first time, something inside him moved.
Not sadness.
Not grief.
Curiosity.
He placed his hand on the dead soldier's chest.
Nothing.
Then he whispered:
"Rise."
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
"Rise."
The body moved.
The man's eyes widened.
The soldier's fingers twitched.
His head turned.
His eyes opened.
The man pulled his hand away.
The soldier sat upright.
He looked around.
Then at his own hands.
"What..."
The man stared.
"You were dead."
The soldier touched his wound.
There was no pain.
"I remember dying."
The man nodded.
"Tell me your name."
The soldier hesitated.
"Rovan."
The man looked at him.
"Rovan."
He repeated the name slowly.
It seemed important.
"Are you alive?"
Rovan looked toward the battlefield.
"I don't know."
The man looked at the corpses around them.
Then back at Rovan.
"Can they rise too?"
Rovan stared at him.
"What?"
The man stood.
He walked toward another corpse.
An old soldier.
He placed his hand against the dead man's forehead.
"Rise."
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
"Rise."
The corpse moved.
Rovan stepped backward.
"Who are you?"
The man looked at his hands.
"I don't know."
He looked at the dead.
Then at the living.
Then at the mountains.
"I need a name."
Rovan stared at him.
"What name?"
The man looked toward the night sky.
There was no moon.
Only clouds.
"Vaelor."
"Why Vaelor?"
"I don't know."
Rovan nodded slowly.
"Then Vaelor."
Vaelor looked over the battlefield.
Hundreds of bodies lay beneath the stars.
He could feel them.
Not hear them.
Not yet.
But feel them.
Like thousands of closed doors.
Waiting for someone to open them.
He raised his hand.
"Rise."
Nothing happened.
Vaelor frowned.
He walked to another corpse.
"Rise."
The dead soldier moved.
Rovan stared.
"How?"
Vaelor didn't know.
He tried again.
"Rise."
Another corpse stood.
Then another.
Three dead soldiers looked around the battlefield.
They were confused.
Frightened.
One began crying.
"I remember my wife."
Vaelor looked at him.
"You are dead."
The soldier touched his face.
"No."
"You are."
The soldier shook his head.
"No."
Vaelor said nothing.
He didn't know whether the dead should remember.
He didn't know whether this was a gift.
Or a curse.
At dawn, soldiers from the victorious army returned to the battlefield.
They expected corpses.
Instead, they found hundreds of dead men standing.
The living soldiers froze.
Nobody moved.
Nobody understood.
A young officer whispered:
"What... are they?"
Vaelor stood among the dead.
He looked at the approaching army.
He understood something then.
The living had numbers.
Weapons.
Kingdoms.
Kings.
But the dead had something else.
Every battlefield could become a recruitment ground.
Every war could strengthen them.
Every victory over them could create more of them.
Vaelor looked at the soldiers.
Then at the thousands of corpses around him.
He spoke quietly.
"Do not attack."
The undead obeyed.
The living soldiers stared.
Vaelor stepped forward.
"I want to speak to your king."
The young officer nearly dropped his sword.
"You... can speak?"
Vaelor looked at him.
"Yes."
The officer swallowed.
"What are you?"
Vaelor looked toward the mountains.
He remembered the darkness.
The egg.
The first breath that never came.
The empty place where his heartbeat should have been.
"I don't know."
Then he looked back at the battlefield.
"But I think..."
He paused.
"...I'm going to find out."
Behind him, hundreds of dead soldiers waited silently.
And beneath the earth, the broken shell of the egg remained in darkness.
END OF CHAPTER 3
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