Fable: The Return Chapter 19

The king continues on his journey through Wraithmarsh in order to reach Bloodstone.
==Chapter 19==
Over the years, Wraithmarsh has earned its reputation as a horrifying and deadly stretch of land. The deeper marshes where Oakvale once stood are infested with monsters such as balverines, hollow men, and banshees. The creatures that dwell within live in some evil harmony with each other, fighting together and working as one unit. Their assaults on lost travelers and scum that was cast out of Bloodstone have only added to the amount of rotting bodies that litter the marshes and rise up as the armies of the dead. The situation in Wraithmarsh is only getting worse, a Hero has not ventured in to clear our the dead hordes. The number of hollow men has only grown, their numbers are enough to stage an advance on the peaceful lands of Albion, if they only had the minds to arrange it.
The king has never been into Wraithmarsh until this day, at the entrance he was greeted by the toss of a kraken. He thanks the kraken for getting him to the Demon Door, but he fears what else he will encounter as he journeys deeper within the marshes. Bravely, he ventures further and further though the thick fog that covers the marshland. The moon hangs overhead but he can barely see it. As strange as it is, the fog around him seems like it carries an ominous light with it. This unnatural fog blocks light but creates its own, the king's small flame barely creates any light in the first place.
The sounds of the dead are all around him, their bones rub against themselves, their groaning fills the air. Occasionally the king steps loudly in a puddle and he can hear the popping of necks as hollow men's heads turn to find the source of the noise. He can hear their boney feet splash in the murky waters and then disappear into the distance. He will have to fight them soon, the fog will not protect him for his entire journey. He eventually puts out his small flame, knowing that the moon and the fog would light his way and that a source of light would only attract attention. With this, he slowly unsheathes his sword and holds it out in front of himself.
The king stops, he heard something, something from deep within the fog. It was a noise he had not heard before in his life. He heard a soft but horrifying wail, and jumbled words came along with it. He heard the faint weeping of a woman, but the sound was distorted. He knew what he was hearing, and he knew why, a banshee had found him. He can now understand the words, the banshee can see his mind and is targeting his most sensitive emotions.
"You didn't save him, why didn't you save him?" It weeps. "You killed him on purpose! Oh, Walter, why did he kill you? Why couldn't he just take the darkness out of you? You gave him everything he knows, you taught him to be a Hero…and what did he do? What did he do in return for your life, Walter? He…the great king of Albion…he MURDERED YOU!" The fog covering the marsh lifts and reveals a giant courtyard full of the marshes and murky water. The king stands in the middle and is circled by three banshees.
Their combined wailing and torturing of his mind drives deep into the king's spirit. He can feel their powers diving into his brain and picking out painful memories. They scream memories of Walter, his wife's death, his son running away, releasing the Court only days ago. Their words stab at him like knives into his heart, their constant wailing fills his ears with blood about to burst. The king starts to scream, he holds his ears and falls to his knees. He must get up, he must fight them, banshees will not defeat the King of Albion.
"Silence!!" The king shouts and his voice carries for miles, his voice overpowers the wailing of the trio of banshees. "All of you! I am the King of Albion! I am a Hero, and I will defeat all evils that rise in this land. You…you monsters are creations of evil and darkness…you are criminals who torture the minds of innocent people. You kill men and women who are searching for safety. You are the very evil I was born to defeat…and you will burn!"
The banshees sigh, and then they scream. Their screaming fills the king's ears more than before, but he remains standing tall with fire burning in one palm and a sword raised in the other.
"Your screams will not harm me!"
They answer, "Our screams bring the dead." The fog that was lifted now rolls back into the marshes. The banshees fade from his view and the moans of the dead rise in full force from the ground. The earth shakes from their arrival, clawing and biting from beneath the mud, weapons in each hand. "Tonight," the banshees call to the king. "Tonight you will be massacred by the dead men, your flesh will be eaten by balverines, and your bones will rise again to join the ranks. Kill him." A massive roar is unleashed by the armies of hollow men that now surround the king, they charge.
The king focuses his energy and sheathes his sword once more. He cannot see the army of the dead that now wants his head, but he can hear them. He remembers many lessons that Walter taught him in his youth, lessons that served the king for all of his life. One of these lessons was while they caught together with Ben Finn against a similar army of the dead. Walter taught him that hollow men have a drastic weakness to fire, something that the king now knows much about. As the army comes within feet, the king thrusts both hands into the air with fire in each palm. Hellfire erupts from his hands in a giant circle, lighting the sky, burning the fog away, and igniting each and every hollow man within one hundred meters. Their bones crack under the flames and the souls trapped within die and fade away.
In only a matter of days, this is the third time an army has fallen to the king's flames. He has ended the lives of hundreds of hobbes, knights, and hollow men alike. Many were truly evil and a threat to the good people of Albion, but is he sure that all of the beings he has killed were evil? The king supposes it does not matter much now, they are dead and their lives will never return.
The banshees are nowhere to be found, yet the fog has vanished. All that remains now is the burning field he has created, the bones of hundreds of hollow men set ablaze. Through the flames, the king sees three figures walking towards him. The figures are tall and extremely thin, they wear no clothing and the fire does not cling to them. As they get closer, he sees that their skin is black as coals, and they are all three bald. He draws his sword, fire will do no good here. The Court stride through the flames, their fiery eyes glaring into his very soul. The three evil beings walk until they are few meters away from the king, the bodies they occupy even more as skeletons than the hollow men. Their bodies are only bone now, bones that are as black as the obsidian chest that bore the Queen's mask.
The king holds his sword out to the skeleton in the center, which he determines must be the Queen. She walks forward, still staring into his eyes. The king holds his sword in a straight line, pointed at her heart. The Queen still walks forward and allows the blade to pass into her body, sliding smoothly through her blackened ribs and into her heart. Dark blood pours onto the sword, but the Queen continues until her skull is inches away from the king's nose and he can smell her burnt flesh. The other two surround the king and swiftly grab his arms, their bones squeeze into his flesh and hold him tight. The Queen's mouth opens wide, almost dislodging her jaw, and a violent scream billows out.
"Hero!" Theresa's voice fills his mind through the scream. "Wake up! You must wake up!"
The flames are gone, the bodies are gone, his eyes open to see a banshee in front of him. He feels himself screaming and holding his ears, what just happened? Why s there only one banshee? Weren't there three of them before? He snaps into reality and launches a fireball into the banshee's head. The banshee bursts into flames and dissolves back into the fog. He has no idea what has just happened, was it all just a vision? Just something to torture his mind?
He does not dwell on these thoughts, he only runs. He runs through the fog and several large puddles in the marshes, passing countless groups of wandering Hollow Men. The wailing os banshees circle the air around him and he can feel them tapping his brain, shouting the painful words even more than before. He doesn't even know if before even happened, the three banshees could have been a vision created by one banshee.
As he runs away from the monsters, he trips and an overgrown root that is sticking out of the ground. His face lands in a murky puddle of marsh water, but he jumps out of it quickly. When he wipes the mud from his face, what he sees disturbs him. Resting on one of the roots is a ragged strip of cloth with red designs on it, Theresa's blindfold. The king panics immediately and scrambles to pick it up. When he looks up, he sees Theresa's feet sprawled on the ground. Her body is bloodied and mangled, a giant claymore that seems to be 10 feet long stands straight up from out of her body. The king clutches the blindfold in his hands and looks upon her face. Where the blindfold once rested is now host to an evil mask, the very one he plucked from behind the Demon Door. Black shadows form burning red eyes in the mask and glare at the king. He sprawls his hands to look for the mask and finds that it is indeed gone. How did this happen?
"Theresa…" He is at a loss for words. "No!" He looks up to see the three skeletal figures of The Court once more. Their eyes silently judging him and diving into his soul. "You…you did this! You will pay for this! All of you!" The Queen appears in front of him in the blink of an eye and screams.
The king opens his eyes and sees a gate blazoned with a giant "R." The gate is open and several of Reaver's patented mobile machines litter the surrounding area. The gate is guarded by two friendly-looking automatons painted with crimson accents.
"Welcome weary traveller to Bloodstone!" One of the automatons greets him. "We hope you enjoyed your tour of the magical and mysterious land of Wraithmarsh! Please remember, Reaver Industries is not responsible to any damages or drastic changes of the body that may have occurred within the marshes. We thank you for your patronage and invite you to please return soon!" The two machines wave at the king in unison and usher him through the gate. The fog is now behind him, but he isn't sure if this world even makes sense to him. Bloodstone lies before him, but is this just another vision? The king turns around to the gate and sees a banshee at the very edge of the fog. As soon as he lays eyes on the creature, it retreats back into the marshes and fades away.