The two heavy infantrymen who had thrown the boy's corpse into the cavern of the dead stood before the camp gates.
Snow fell around them in thick, endless sheets, piling on their iron pauldrons and freezing to their eyelashes. The gate guards didn't look at them. No one offered them a warm fire or a cup of broth. They were ghosts walking through a camp of the living—unseen, unthanked, and freezing to the bone.
Toli and Gero walked through the mud without a word.
They navigated the sprawling military encampment—past roaring fires, past soldiers sharpening bloodstained swords and roasting stolen meat—until they reached the command pavilion at the center. It was a massive structure of heavy canvas and reinforced leather. The banner of the Black Dragon snapped violently in the wind above it.
Toli pushed through the flaps first.
The heat inside was immediate, smelling of expensive spiced wine and burning cedar. Lord Malach sat at a heavy wooden table. He didn't look up. His dark eyes remained fixed on a sprawling map of the northern territories.
Toli dropped to one knee, the frozen mud cracking on his armor. Gero knelt silently beside him.
"My Lord," Toli said, his jaw shivering. "We delivered the body. The boy is in the cave."
Malach took a slow, deliberate sip from his silver goblet. He didn't even turn his head.
"Good." The commander's voice was utterly flat, bored by their existence. "You are dismissed."
Toli exhaled a breath of relief and began to rise—
"But tonight," Malach added, setting the goblet down, "you will take the western perimeter. Patrol the jungle. Report anything that moves."
Toli froze. His face flushed a dark, angry red. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides. More work? After trekking through the blizzard? After hauling a murdered child into a cursed cave?
But he kept his mouth shut. He bowed stiffly, his teeth grinding together, and walked out. Gero followed like a shadow.
The infantry tent was a massive, foul-smelling canvas shelter packed with exhausted men and damp bedrolls. Toli violently threw off his armor and collapsed onto his furs, staring up at the dark ceiling.
"Why the hell should we go back out there?" Toli hissed, his anger finally boiling over. "Why us? We just did the commander's dirty work! Let someone else freeze!"
Gero sat on his bedroll. He said nothing. He simply stared at the dirt floor.
Toli sat up, glaring at the larger man. "Why are you always so damn quiet? You act like a whipped dog! They tell you to jump into a fire, and you just ask how deep! Why don't you ever fight back?!"
Gero slowly raised his head.
Toli's mouth snapped shut. The look in Gero's eyes wasn't anger. It was an emptiness so profound, so ancient and exhausted, that it made Toli feel like a child.
"Sorry," Toli muttered, suddenly ashamed. He reached into his pack and pulled out a stolen bottle of wine. He shoved it toward Gero. "Here. Drink. I'm just... I'm just cold."
Gero took the bottle. He pulled the cork with his teeth and drank deeply, downing half the bitter liquid before lowering it. He stared at the canvas wall.
"I don't talk," Gero said, his voice hollow, "because I don't believe in anyone."
Toli frowned. "What does that mean?"
Gero spoke like he was reciting the tragic history of a stranger.
"The first time I believed someone... it was my mother. I was six. She told me we were going to the market to buy me a new coat. I held her hand. I was so happy." Gero looked at the dirt. "She sold me to a slaver for five silver coins. And she walked away without looking back."
Toli stopped breathing.
"The nobleman who bought me had two sons. He told me to be their playmate. I was just a kid. I believed I had a home. We were playing by the stables, and one of his sons tripped and broke his finger." Gero slowly raised his left hand. The flesh was a mangled tapestry of horrific burn scars. "The nobleman didn't thank me for carrying his crying son to the healer. He held my hand in the forge fire. His horses lived better than me."
Toli stared at the scars, completely speechless.
"The third time... I was twelve. A pit fighter bought me for ten coins. He fed me. He taught me how to hold a sword. I thought he was like a father to me." Gero's voice finally cracked, just a fraction. "Until the day he took a contract to clear a farmhouse. He didn't want to look the women and children in the eye. So he made me do it. So he could sleep at night... and I could carry the ghosts."
Gero handed the half-empty bottle back to Toli.
"I learned the rules," Gero whispered. "Talking gets you noticed. Fighting back gets you burned. Believing anyone... gets you killed. Doing exactly what you are told is how you stay breathing."
Toli stared at the bottle in his hands. The anger was gone, replaced by a hollow pit in his stomach.
"I don't have a story like that," Toli admitted quietly. "I was just a street thief. But I was terrible at it. Always hungry. Then I heard the Prince was paying in silver, so I signed up." He gave a weak, pathetic shrug. "Just wanted some money."
Before Gero could answer—
BWOOM.
The heavy, bone-rattling vibration of the War Horn tore through the camp.
Toli and Gero snapped to their feet. Outside, the camp erupted into organized chaos. Armor clanked. Sergeants screamed orders. Thousands of men poured from their tents, flooding toward the center of the ruined village.
"The Prince is calling," Toli said, grabbing his spear. "Let's go."
Two thousand heavily armed soldiers stood in perfect, terrifying formation in the center of the slaughtered village.
The snow beneath their boots was still stained pink with the blood of the villagers. The ruined homes still smoldered. But the men stood at attention, their breath rising in a massive, collective cloud, their eyes locked on the wooden platform hastily erected in the town square.
Twenty commanding officers stood at the front. Behind them, a sea of steel.
Prince Tarek Ashen walked onto the platform. He had changed out of his bloodied armor, now wearing a pristine white coat lined with golden fur. His broken nose had been brutally set back into place, bruised purple and black.
The soldiers tensed. The commanders moved to drop to their knees.
Tarek raised a single, gloved hand.
"No need," Tarek's voice boomed, carrying easily over the silent army. "Stand. Look at me. And listen."
He walked to the edge of the platform, his pig-like eyes scanning the faces of his killers.
"We are the first."
The words hung heavy in the freezing air.
"We are the first men to ever claim this territory. The Snow Emperor could not tame this wild land. My own father—the Dragon Emperor—has never pushed his borders this far. But we..." Tarek smiled, a dark, bruised, arrogant smirk. "We just did it. With a mere two thousand men."
A low, hungry murmur rippled through the ranks.
"Some of our brothers fell today. They will have graves in this conquered dirt. They will watch from the earth as we carry their memory forward." Tarek's voice began to rise, vibrating with manic ambition. "And soon, my father will know what we have done. He will send his finest generals. He will send a hundred thousand swords. We will march on the Snow Emperor's capital and break his throne to splinters!"
Tarek paced the stage, letting the anticipation wind the soldiers tight.
"And after the snow melts... we turn south. To the Golden Fisher Empire. The richest kingdom in the known world. Cities built on gold and silk. And from there..." Tarek spread his arms wide. "...The world. All of it. For the taking."
The army erupted.
"WE WANT IT!"
Tarek threw his head back. "Do you want their lands?!"
"YES!"
"Do you want their people as your slaves?!"
"YES!"
"Do you want to return to your miserable villages with so much gold your children will never know the meaning of work?!"
"YES! YES! YES!"
Tarek laughed—a sharp, piercing sound of pure megalomania. "Then tonight, my wolves... we feast!"
The roar was deafening. Tarek pulled a sealed scroll from his coat and handed it to a hunched scribe. The scribe quickly tied the message to the leg of a massive, pitch-black raven. He tossed the bird into the air. The raven beat its heavy wings, vanishing into the falling snow, carrying Tarek's triumph back to his father.
"Break formation!" Tarek ordered. "Drink! Eat! Celebrate!"
The discipline vanished. Fires roared to life. Barrels of stolen wine were smashed open. The soldiers sang and drank, dancing on the graves of the people they had just butchered.
Right in the middle of the chaotic celebration, Lord Malach's lieutenant found Toli and Gero.
"You two." The lieutenant jabbed a finger toward the dark treeline. "Perimeter patrol. Now. If a leaf moves out there, you blow the whistle."
Toli's face burned. He looked at the roasting meat, the flowing wine. Then he looked at the dark, freezing woods.
He didn't say a word. He just picked up his spear and walked into the dark.
The jungle was a graveyard of silence.
The heavy canopy of pines and ancient oaks blocked out the moon, turning the woods into a labyrinth of shadows. Gero walked point, holding a sputtering pitch torch that pushed the darkness back just enough to see five paces ahead. Toli trailed behind him, shivering violently and muttering under his breath.
"Bastards. Every single one of them. We should be at the fire."
Gero kept his eyes on the trees. The further they walked from the camp, the quieter the woods became. It was too quiet. No owls. No wind. Just the wet crunch of their boots in the snow.
Gero stopped.
"Something is wrong," Gero whispered, his grip tightening on his spear. "The air is sick."
Toli rolled his eyes, his teeth chattering. "Don't be a coward, big man. There's nothing out here but snow and—"
SNAP.
Both men flinched.
Ten yards ahead, at the edge of the torchlight, a small white rabbit thrashed in the snow. Its hind leg was caught tight in a loop of braided rope.
Toli's face immediately lit up. "Look! A snare! Fresh meat, Gero! We can roast it ourselves!"
He hurried forward, his spear lowered.
"Toli, wait." Gero's voice was sharp. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. "Leave it. It's bait."
"It's just a rabbit!" Toli laughed, kneeling in the snow and reaching for the frantic animal. "Some villager probably set this days ago. Nothing to be afraid of—"
THWACK.
The snow beneath Toli's left foot erupted. A thick rope snapped violently around his ankle.
Before Toli could even draw breath to scream, a massive counterweight dropped from the canopy above. Toli was violently yanked into the air, hoisted completely upside down. He dangled helplessly from a thick oak branch, his spear clattering into the dark, his head swinging three feet off the ground.
"GERO!" Toli shrieked, spinning wildly in the dark. "GERO, CUT ME DOWN!"
Gero spun around, raising his spear and his torch, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Who's there?!" Gero roared into the dark. "Show yourself!"
From the absolute blackness of the trees, a tightly packed snowball flew through the air. It struck the burning pitch of Gero's torch with perfect, impossible accuracy.
Hiss.
The flame died instantly.
Absolute, suffocating darkness swallowed them both.
Gero froze. He didn't breathe. He gripped his spear with both hands, his scarred fingers slick with cold sweat. He strained his ears, listening for the crunch of snow, the snap of a twig. Nothing.
Then, a voice floated out of the dark.
It was a boy's voice. Soft. Melodic. Echoing off the trees so it seemed to come from every direction at once.
"The stars are falling from the sky..."
Gero's blood turned to ice. He had faced heavily armored knights. He had fought in the bloody pits. But this... this was the terror of a ghost story. He was being hunted.
"The fire is taking everywhere..."
Gero heard a faint rustle to his left. He spun and violently threw his spear into the dark.
He heard a sickening thud of steel hitting flesh. He rushed forward, drawing his short sword, but when he reached the spot, he found his spear buried in the snow. Pinned beneath it was the dead rabbit. A distraction.
"I am standing alone in the fire..."
Thwip.
Gero didn't even hear the bowstring snap. He only felt the agonizing punch of the arrow as it buried itself deep between his shoulder blades.
He cried out, stumbling forward into a tree. He ripped the arrow out, spinning around with his sword raised. For a fraction of a second, the clouds parted, letting a sliver of moonlight pierce the canopy.
Standing ten paces away was a boy. He held a wooden bow. And his left eye... it glowed with a sickening, necrotic green light.
Thwip.
A second arrow sank deep into Gero's thigh.
Gero's leg instantly collapsed. He hit the snow hard. He tried to push himself up, tried to raise his sword, but his arm wouldn't obey. A terrifying, freezing numbness was rapidly spreading through his veins. His muscles were locking up.
The figure stepped out of the shadows.
The song stopped.
"You are strong, soldier," Ryan said. His voice wasn't the melodic tone of the singer anymore. It was dead. Cold. "But the sap on those arrowheads is special. The hunters of my village use it for bears. It puts the body to sleep... and then it stops the heart."
Gero looked up at the boy. The glowing green eye stared down at him, evaluating his soul.
Gero knew he was dying. But as the poison froze his limbs, he didn't feel fear. He felt an overwhelming, heavy sense of relief.
The running was over. The killing was over. This was the end of the road. It was finally time to pay for the farmhouse.
"Who are you?" Gero whispered, his breath shallow, pluming in the cold air. "I don't need to know... I have done so many terrible things. I accept this. It is justice."
Gero looked past Ryan, toward the tree where Toli was still dangling, sobbing quietly in the dark.
"But please..." Gero begged, his voice fading. "Don't kill the boy. He's not like me. He hasn't broken yet. He just... he just wanted to live."
The glowing green eye stared down at the broken soldier. Ryan saw the exhaustion in the man. He saw the horrific burn scars on his hand. He saw a man who had been twisted into a weapon by the very world Ryan was trying to destroy.
"I will end your punishment," Ryan said softly. "My name is Ryan."
Gero closed his eyes. He nodded once. Grateful.
Ryan stepped forward, drew his hunting knife, and pressed the steel to Gero's throat.
One swift, silent motion.
Gero's suffering ended in the snow.
Ryan stood slowly. The green eye flared as the mist of Gero's soul rose from the body and sank into Ryan's chest. The wolf inside his mind watched the process with silent respect. Gero hadn't begged. He had died with honor.
Ryan wiped his blade clean on his leg. He turned his head, the necrotic green light illuminating the snowy dark, and looked up at Toli.
The thief was still hanging upside down, his eyes wide with absolute, paralyzing terror.
The Hunter walked toward the tree.