Ashwalker:Blood in the Wind

They walked without speaking for hours.

The trees changed.

Less twisted. More sparse.

Then the trees disappeared entirely.

⸻

They stepped into a dead field where ash lay like snow, untouched by wind.

The girl paused, lifting her boot.

It didn't leave a footprint.

"What is this place?" she whispered.

The Ashwalker knelt and sifted a handful of ash through his fingers.

"This was once a kingdom."

She looked around at the emptiness.

"There's nothing left."

He nodded.

"Exactly."

⸻

Far in the distance, she saw the tips of jagged stone.

Not natural.

Not sacred.

Just wrong.

Like bones that had grown in the wrong direction.

⸻

They made camp at the edge of a broken ridge.

The girl tended the fire while the Ashwalker knelt in quiet prayer.

But it wasn't to a god.

It was to memory.

He placed a single iron token in the dirt — a coin etched with the shape of a hand missing two fingers.

She recognized it.

"You said that's the mark of the silent dead."

He didn't open his eyes.

"They're never silent for long."

⸻

That night, the girl dreamed.

Not of monsters.

Not of battle.

But of a crown.

Floating in blackness.

Made of twisting ash and breath.

And inside it — a name.

Her name.

Whispered in reverse.

⸻

She awoke gasping.

Sweat cold on her skin.

The fire was out.

The Ashwalker stood at the edge of the camp, blade drawn, back to her.

She opened her mouth, but he raised a hand.

"Don't speak."

She obeyed.

⸻

Then she heard it.

Not a growl.

Not footsteps.

A rattle.

Like armor.

But not worn.

Dragged.

⸻

Beyond the ridge, something moved through the ash.

Not one thing — many.

Figures cloaked in soot, no faces, just veins of glowing silver stitched across their bodies.

They didn't walk.

They glided.

The Ashwalker whispered, "Nullbrands."

The girl's throat tightened.

"You said they were a myth."

He shook his head.

"I said they were forgotten."

The Nullbrands drifted in a slow, unnatural procession.

Their heads turned together, as if tethered by thought.

One by one, they passed below the ridge, glowing veins pulsing in rhythm — a heartbeat not their own.

The Ashwalker didn't blink.

He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear:

"Do not speak. Do not breathe loud. Do not think of your name."

She froze. "Why—"

He cut her off with a gesture.

He wasn't being poetic.

He meant it literally.

⸻

The Nullbrands fed on identity.

They didn't kill in the normal way.

They unmade.

Unstitched names.

Unthreaded memories.

Turned flesh into ash, not through fire, but through forgetting.

⸻

The girl gritted her teeth.

She could feel one of the things turning toward them.

Not fully — just… lingering.

She pressed her palm to her thigh.

The scar from the naming still faint.

But she could feel it burning.

⸻

Below them, one of the Nullbrands tilted its head.

Another followed.

Then another.

The glow in their veins began to pulse faster.

She swallowed hard.

A sound escaped.

Click.

Her molars grinding.

Too loud.

Too named.

⸻

The closest Nullbrand twitched.

Then it floated upward.

No footsteps. No climb.

Just a vertical drift, like a corpse lifted by invisible strings.

It was coming for her.

⸻

The Ashwalker didn't move.

Didn't draw his blade.

Instead, he reached into his cloak and pulled out a small black token — carved bone inlaid with two thin lines of gold.

He crushed it in his hand.

Silence.

Real silence.

Not just the absence of sound.

The murder of it.

Even her heartbeat vanished from her ears.

⸻

The Nullbrand froze mid-air.

Its head jerked unnaturally — like a doll whose strings had been cut.

Then, slowly, it lowered.

Turned.

And glided away.

⸻

The Ashwalker exhaled.

She could hear again.

Her breath.

The wind.

The chains of the past.

Everything.

But the girl fell to her knees.

Her voice hoarse. "I almost—"

"You didn't."

"I almost."

"But you didn't."

⸻

He turned to her, eyes cold but not cruel.

"That will happen often. You will fail. But never when it matters."

"Why not?"

He looked toward the fading trail of the Nullbrands.

"Because I won't let you."

⸻

The girl looked down at the scar on her hand again.

It still burned.

But now, it pulsed in time with something else.

Something deeper.

A rhythm she didn't know she'd been keeping.

A name being rewritten.

The Nullbrands vanished into the valley.

No tracks.

No scent.

Not even displaced ash.

It was as if the world was relieved they were gone.

⸻

The girl sat by the fire again, legs crossed, arms tight around herself.

She had seen monsters before.

Even fought one.

But this was different.

These didn't hunger.

They waited.

⸻

"What were they?" she asked.

The Ashwalker stirred the fire with the blunt end of his blade.

"Remnants of an older silence."

"That doesn't mean anything."

He nodded.

"That's the point."

⸻

She looked at him, frustrated.

"You always speak like that."

"And you always want answers that fit in your mouth."

He tossed another dry twig into the flames.

"They were once wardens — custodians of the forgotten. But their names were taken by force. They became hollow. Bound only by the echo of authority. Now, they exist to erase what should have been erased long ago."

She thought for a moment.

"Like you?"

He stopped stirring.

The fire cracked once.

He didn't answer.

⸻

Instead, he reached into his cloak again and pulled out another token — this one smaller, circular, not bone but iron.

Etched with three rings.

He tossed it to her.

She caught it.

"What's this?"

"A silence token."

"I thought you just used one."

"That one was mine. This one's yours."

⸻

She stared at it.

It was heavy.

Not in weight — in meaning.

"I'm not ready."

"You never will be."

⸻

That night, she didn't sleep.

But for the first time since meeting him, she didn't speak either.

Not out of fear.

Not out of shame.

But because the silence had weight now.

And for the first time, she knew how to carry it.

⸻

Far in the distance, deep beyond the reach of sight or sound, something began to stir in the dead kingdom.

Chains moved.

And a voice long buried remembered her name.