After 150 years in the ground, the wooden shaft was quite rotten. As the last splinters turned to dirt inside his his cold, gray flesh, Darius awoke.

He had been dreaming of men and horses. Some were fighting. Some were traveling. Many of them had died, and his dreams were full of the scent of blood.

Now the dreams were gone, slid back down into the black pit of his long, involuntary slumber. Darius smiled to himself and stretched his limbs. He could feel the sun above him. His fingers clawed like spiders, loosing the packed, dry earth around them and pulling his arms upward. He twitched his cold, stiff legs and pushed.

He could sense the sky far above him. It would take time to reach it. Hours — maybe days — of scrabbling and digging and pulling and pushing. No matter. He could afford to be patient.

Darius fell into the rhythm of the climb. He closed his eyes against the darkness and luxuriated in the sensations. Cool earth. The flow of worms and living things around him. The infinite sky just beyond his reach.

And then he smelled it: sweat of man, sweat of horse, with blood just beneath the skin. They were up there, above him, between the cool earth and the infinite sky. A shockwave of hunger ripped through him. They were getting closer, but if he wasn’t fast enough, they would pass him by. Darius growled. He gave himself over to the hunger, let it fuel his limbs as they tore the earth and pulled him upward.

Warm air breathed on his fingers, and he knew he was through. His other hand burst through the soil to join the first, and he was free, dirt streaming from his pale gray flesh.

The sun was a cruel, blinding orb. Darius couldn’t see, but lurched toward his prey, guided by the smell of blood and the sound of a screaming horse.

A crack like thunder shook his skull. He was on his back. His chest hurt. He heard footsteps, slow and steady. They sounded almost familiar. But the smell… He’d know that smell anywhere.

“You?” His voice was as dry and cracked as the desert around him. His language was from a time of empires, decadence, and capricious gods.

“It’s me,” said a voice above him, speaking his language.

Darius squinted against the sunlight. He could make out the figure of a man in a long robe or coat. He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and held metal in his hand. This was not the man with the horse. This was Julian, who had masked his scent behind the horse and its driver.

“How…?” began Darius.

“We figured you’d be poking your head out about now,” said Julian. His Latin was slow and clumsy, as if he hadn’t used it in several lifetimes.

“We have ways of tracking you people now. We have far-seers and future-seers, who can tell us where you are and where you’ll be. We’ve even got past-seers, so we can know where you’ve been.”

Darius had heard enough. If this fool wanted to make his first day above ground a battle, then so be it. He summoned what remained of his strength and leaped —

Another crack of thunder, and a god’s fist pounded Darius back to the ground. His chest burned with agony.

“And we’ve got these now, Darius. They’re better than arrows, better than crossbows, and don’t take as long to load. Oh, I know they won’t kill you, but they will slow you down.

“You’ve been gone a long time, Darius. Too long. You had your time, but now it’s over.”

Darius struggled to his feet. There were holes in his flesh, and every moment was agony beneath the burning sun, but he’d been wounded before. Julian was right; this couldn’t kill him. But he was wrong about it slowing him down. He’d fought with worse wounds, with spears and arrows and swords run through from every direction. All he needed was a little —

The metal in Julian’s hand flashed and cracked a third time. Something broke in Darius’s head, somewhere above and behind his eyes. He was on the ground again, staring up into the deep, cloudless blue of the sky he’d come to hate. His limbs were heavy and dead; he couldn’t move.

Julian stood between Darius and the sun. Darius squinted up at the other’s shadowy form, but could say nothing. Julian had put the metal away, and now held a small stick in his hand.

“Here’s something else we have that would have made our lives so much easier back then.”

Julian squatted and held the sliver of wood up for Darius to see. While Darius watched, Julian flicked the end of the the thing with his thumb and it burst into flame.

Darius hissed and tried to turn away, but his body was broken. It would heal, of course, given enough time and a steady supply of nourishment.

Julian brought the burning stick close to Darius’s gray, sunken chest. Darius whimpered and groaned.

“Mercy….” he whispered.

Zeke patted Belle’s neck and stroked her mane. She’d been even more startled than he was when the gray man had come digging out of the hill like some sort of desert badger. Of course, he’d known what to expect… more or less. The tall man in the hat had warned him that they were going to meet a man on the road who was going to look unusual.

But there was no way he would have expected this.

The gray man went up like a pile of leaves beneath the tall man’s match. He twisted and shrieked for just a moment or two, then fell to smoldering, greasy pieces. In a minute, there was nothing left but some black ash and foul smell on the air.

The tall man stood, wiped his hands on his jeans. He glanced up and down the road, then crossed over to where Zeke was waiting.

“Much obliged for your help,” he said. “If I’d had to walk out here, well… He would’ve been long gone.”

“Who…” started Zeke. He stopped and tried again.

“What was that?”

“My long-lost brother,” said the tall man.

“They’re never gonna believe me when we get back to Bolton,” said Zeke.

“Sorry,” said the tall man as he flashed his fangs. “You won’t be making it back to Bolton.”