The journey began in silence.
Goburo followed Watabei west, away from the ruins of the village, away from the market square, and away from the thing that stood rooted in its centre. He did not look back. Looking back invited the hope that something was watching him leave, that the blue-green eyes might flicker, that the voice might speak his name.
But the connection was silent.
It was not the comfortable silence of the bond they had shared in the greenhouse. It was not the quiet of the territory-of-language, waiting for a thought to be transmitted.
It was a wall.
The Reintelligence state had not simply muted the connection. It had bricked it over. Goburo reached out with his mind, searching for the familiar presence—the warm, chaotic tangle of Kenji's thoughts—and found only a smooth, impenetrable surface. Cold. Indifferent.
He was walking alone.
They reached the border of the Wasty Sade by late afternoon.
The transition was stark. The lush, aggressive green of the forest hit a wall of sterility. The trees here did not reach for the sky; they crouched, twisted, their branches clawing at the ground as if trying to escape the soil. The air smelled of dust and old iron.
Watabei consulted her map.
"We're looking for the Exile Mound," she said, her voice low. "It's a sinkhole about two kilometres in. Legend says one of the Ancient Goblins was cast out there centuries ago. If he hasn't died of old age yet, he'll be the only one who knows where the civilization went."
Goburo nodded. He didn't ask how a goblin could live for centuries. He didn't have the energy. The weight of the massacre in the market square sat on his shoulders like a lead yoke.
He walked with his head down, watching Watabei's boots kick up puffs of pale dust.
His eyes drifted to her pack.
It was an old thing, made of treated hide and reinforced with iron studs. But it was the corner of a book poking out from the flap that caught his attention. The leather was pale, almost grey, and bound with a specific weave of dried vine—a knotting technique he had seen only once before.
He stopped.
"The grandmother," Goburo said.
Watabei stopped but didn't turn. "Walk. We can't stop here."
"The Moss Hag," Goburo pressed, his voice rasping. "She had a book with that same binding. The vine... it's a memory-keeper's knot."
Watabei's shoulders stiffened. She adjusted the pack strap, covering the book with her hand.
"We need to keep moving," she said, her tone clipped.
"Are you her granddaughter?" Goburo asked.
The wind howled across the barren plain, kicking up a spiral of dust.
Watabei turned her head slightly. Just enough for Goburo to see the tension in her jaw.
"Drop it, goblin."
"But—"
"I said drop it." Her voice was sharp, slicing through the air. "The past is dead. Focus on the present. We are exposed."
She turned back to the path and started walking faster.
Goburo stood still for a moment. He felt the absence of the archive's commentary. He should have felt an urge to optimize, to calculate. But the archive was gone, sealed behind the wall in his mind. He was just Goburo now. A goblin with a twisted ankle and a knife.
He ran to catch up.
They moved deeper into the Sade. The light began to fail, the sky turning a bruised purple.
They were crossing a flat expanse of cracked earth when the figures appeared.
They rose from the ground as if the earth itself were vomiting them up. Four shapes, draped in rags the colour of the dust, their skin grey and desiccated.
The Ungrateful.
They didn't speak. They didn't threaten. They simply moved.
The leader, a towering wraith of a man dragging a massive iron mace, stepped into the path.
Watabei stopped.
"Get behind me," she said.
Goburo didn't argue. He stepped back.
"Food," the leader rasped.
Watabei sighed. It was a sound of pure exhaustion.
"I don't have time for you," she muttered.
She shifted her grip on the hammer.
The leader lunged.
It was a clumsy attack, slow and telegraphed. Watabei sidestepped with the ease of someone who had fought much faster things. She swung the hammer in a tight arc.
The impact was sickeningly loud. *CRACK.*
The leader dropped. He didn't get up.
The other three didn't flinch. They didn't care about their fallen leader. They saw an opening, and they took it.
Two rushed Watabei. The third bypassed her entirely, sprinting straight for Goburo.
Goburo's hand flew to his knife. He didn't have the archive to tell him where to strike. He didn't have the analysis of weak points. He only had fear.
The Ungrateful slammed into him.
They went down in a tangle of limbs and dust. Goburo drove the knife into the man's shoulder, but the creature didn't scream. He just kept grabbing, gripping, trying to bite.
"Get off!" Goburo grunted, shoving a dusty palm into the man's face.
Suddenly, the weight was gone.
Watabei had grabbed the man by the back of his rags and thrown him aside. She stood over Goburo, breathing hard, the hammer dripping something dark.
"Get up," she barked. "We have to run. There are more."
Goburo scrambled to his feet. He looked back. On the ridge behind them, more silhouettes were appearing. A dozen. Maybe more.
They ran.
They ran across the cracked earth, their footsteps pounding a frantic rhythm.
Goburo's lungs burned. His ankle throbbed. He missed the archive. He missed the optimization. He missed the cold, efficient calculation that would have told him exactly how to pace his breathing.
He was just flesh and bone, and flesh and bone were failing.
They reached the edge of a ravine. A narrow path led down into the shadows.
"Down!" Watabei shouted, grabbing his arm and pulling him over the edge.
They slid down the scree, stones rattling around them, landing in a heap at the bottom.
It was darker here. The walls of the ravine pressed in on them.
"We... we lost them?" Goburo gasped, leaning against the rock wall.
Watabei was looking up at the ridge, her chest heaving.
"I think so."
She turned to look at him.
"Are you hurt?"
"No," Goburo lied. His ribs ached where he had fallen.
Watabei nodded. She reached out a hand to help him up.
"Good. We can't stop. We need to find the Mound before—"
She stopped.
Her eyes widened.
The sound was not a sound. It was a feeling. A vibration in the air.
A *thwip.*
Watabei jerked.
She looked down.
A black shaft was protruding from her shoulder. An arrow.
She didn't scream. She just looked at it with a confused expression, as if trying to solve a math problem.
"Watabei?" Goburo whispered.
She slumped forward. The hammer fell from her limp hand.
Goburo spun around.
Shadows moved at the top of the ravine.
And then—
*Thud.*
Something struck the back of his head. Hard.
The world tilted violently. The ground rushed up to meet him.
He tasted blood.
He tried to push himself up, but his arms wouldn't respond.
Through the blurring vision, he saw boots. Polished black boots, completely out of place in the dust of the Sade.
A figure crouched down.
Goburo couldn't see the face. It was just a blur against the darkening sky.
"Target acquired," a voice said. It was smooth, cultured, and utterly devoid of emotion.
Goburo tried to reach for the connection. He tried to scream for Kenji.
*Kenji! Help!*
But the wall held. The silence answered.
Nobody was listening.
The boot came down.
Darkness followed.
TO BE CONTINUED...