The bog spat us out as it had swallowed the others—mud to the waist, lungs on fire, no time for prayer or breath. Elrik stumbled first, shoulder slamming into the trunk of a pine blackened by old fire, and I yanked him forward before the muck could seize his boot.

  "Don’t stop," I hissed, though it tore at my ribs just to speak. My legs moved like they belonged to another man, one less broken and more certain of the way.

  Behind us, the woods screamed.

  Not like animals. Not like anything God saw fit to shape. A high, breathless peal of laughter rang through the fog, followed by the wet pop of something finding its voice. The wrongborn were not fast, but they were tireless. And they sang to one another. Shrill calls and low moans, repeated phrases with no language to them—just rhythm and hunger.

  "They're close," Elrik said, voice thin with dread.

  "I know." I didn’t look back. Couldn’t. Its stink was on the wind again—sweet and wrong, like boiled sap and curdled milk. I could feel it through the soles of my boots. Not walking. Not running. Just there. Waiting. Watching. Playing.

  "They’re closer than breath," I growled, pushing ahead through the cattails like they’d insulted me. "Close enough to count our fucking teeth."

  Elrik said nothing. He didn’t have to. He heard it too—somewhere between the branches, a shuddering rasp like a child pretending to cry.

  I spat. Spittle dripping with hatred. Hatred for what followed us, hatred for the things that made it, hatred for the men who let the world become this. We were being hunted, yes—but I’d bleed it dry if it touched me again.

  Our coats were slick with filth and blood—some of it our own. More of it not. We reeked of rot and bile, the half-cooked insides of the thing we’d killed—or thought we’d killed. I still saw it when I blinked: the open belly, the cords of meat, the mouth that shouldn’t have been there at all.

  My hand slipped on the hilt of my knife. I had lost my crossbow a mile back. Elrik’s was jammed with mud.

  We moved low, weaving between dead trees and mounds of reed-choked soil. The bog wasn’t flat—nothing in this land was. It rolled and sucked, whispered underfoot, threatened to swallow every bootprint the moment it formed.

  Somewhere behind us, the laughter stopped. That was worse.

  Whatever stopped their fits would not stop us. We ran now in silence, the slap of wet boots and the grind of breath the only sounds between us. The will to live had carved out something raw and ancient in our bones, some ugly fire neither of us knew we still carried. But that well was draining. Fast.

  We crested a soft rise, only to stagger into the hollow of a shallow, fern-choked hill. Elrik dropped to a knee, panting like a dog left too long in a hot yard. He wiped his mouth, smeared more filth across it.

  "We can’t stop," he rasped. "We have to go. They’re not done, Johan. They’re never done."

  I turned on him, half-blind with fury. My hand twitched like it wanted to slap the words back down his throat.

  "Let me focus, you dredge. Unless you’d like to die shouting."

  His eyes went wide. Not with hurt—he had none left—but with fear. A different kind. The kind men get when they know they’re lost.

  "Where are we running, Elrik?" I said, voice low, teeth clenched like a dog with something sharp in its mouth. "To the maw of the whorebeaten beasts out there? You got a map folded in those shaking hands? Where the fuck are we?"

  Elrik looked around, blinking like the land would answer. He studied the tree trunks, the tilt of moss, the bend of water around stone. I knew that look. He was reading the world like old men read the stars.

  "The moss bends west," he said finally, pointing with one trembling finger. "Water slopes away behind that ridge. There’s a bend in the old river—north, maybe. If we cross it, we might reach the timber road. From there—"

  "The fort," I finished.

  He nodded. A hopeful, stupid little nod. But I didn’t slap it off. Not yet.

  "And between us and the fort, Elrik?" I asked, though I already knew.

  He didn’t want to say it. But he did.

  "The Emberwood.”

  "Indeed. The Emberwood."

  I laughed. Short. Dry. No humor in it.

  "We’re close to death anyway, Elrik. A death in there would—if nothing else—surely be quick."

  I think that somehow comforted him. A quick way out. An end. As long as the bastard didn’t actually take that route, we might have a chance.

  That’s when it came again. A scream—pure, painfull delight. Childlike. Too high. Too clean. Laughter curling through the pines like smoke through a keyhole.

  A call. Or a scent regained.

  "No more time," I growled.

  I hauled him up by the shoulder.

  "Up and go, Elrik. Draw your axe."

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I did the same.

  My axe was an ugly thing. Long and narrow, rusted at the edges, its haft slick with rot and age, the wood begging to be split as badly as the skulls it touched. But it was sharp. And it had earned its keep more times than I’d ever admit.

  Elrik drew his pride. He had told its story a hundred times—always at night, always after too much wine. The peasant-axe. His father had it forged for the village roll-call, the day they levied every man with two arms and one eye. Its head was bent, shaped like a bird’s, as if caught in mid-strike. Not elegant, but intentional.

  Etched along its spine in flaking, sacred glyphs: God gave me thunder, to slay and maim the foul.

  A beautiful piece, if you ignored the hands that had held it since. I’d only seen him use it in anger once. Maybe this would be the second.

  We held our tools in the upright strike position, two hands, knees low. Ready to fall on a closing enemy. Shoulders close, close enough to smell our stink, to guard against attacks unguided. Like the sergeant taught us, long ago.

  Laughter and screams rang out ahead, like they couldn’t decide whether life was a joy or a punishment. Sometimes the difference is thin.

  We let our breaths still. To my right, a silhouette shot past, not more than five feet away—long limbs, a head that bobbed too loosely, vanishing into the mist. To my left, a laughing echo, high and shrill. Another hound of flesh, darting past unseen.

  My axe was dark with old rust. I’d kept it poorly.

  Elrik’s was his pride. Its steel still bright, well-oiled even now. It caught the moonlight like it deserved it.

  That was when I saw them. A pair of eyes, pale and lidless, met mine in the gloom—right where the gleam of Elrik’s axe had struck a tree.

  They blinked. Once.

  And then it ran.

  One cannot imagine the sight—not clearly. I struggle to even comprehend it. But in that moment I saw it: the form of a child. An infant, even. But stretched. Elongated well beyond its human limit, joints twisting where no joints should be, skin pulled thin over too-long bones. It wore the round cheeks of a young boy, but those eyes—those lidless, glistening eyes—were not made for innocence.

  It lunged.

  We struck.

  My axe caught it mid-bound, splitting something vital, or maybe not. Elrik was already turning, his blade a silver smear in the moonlight, taking the thing’s legs from beneath it with one blow and a bark of panic.

  It didn’t fall. For a second, it danced—legs bent backward, mouth open in something between a laugh and a scream—and then it dropped like butchered meat.

  We didn’t stay to see if it breathed again.

  We backed up, slow and tight, blades raised high, tips angled for another fall if it came. The cold kissed our backs, but the warmth of blood and fire still clung to the edge of our skin. We held that strike-stance—two men molded by drill and fear, closer than brothers.

  They laughed again. One barked, one whined, one giggled like it had swallowed a child’s breath. I felt my teeth grind and my vision narrow.

  “God damn them,” I muttered.

  They cried. They laughed. Then so could I.

  I raised my axe and howled, full and loud, every curse I knew ripped loose from the base of my spine. It wasn’t bravery. It wasn’t challenge. It was the only weapon I had left.

  “COME THEN!” I roared. “TRY ME, YOU UNBORN FUCKS!”

  Elrik didn’t speak. But he moved. Stood straighter. Raised his axe. Shouted his own words—I didn’t hear them, but they were enough.

  We took one step back. Then another. Axes up. Backs to each other.

  One foot at a time.

  Toward the Ember.

  Emberwood. Rotten bastard of a wood. Stronger than steel, sharper than glass, crueler than bone. Rich men love it. Think it makes them hard. We knew better. We’d chased the lie before.

  Perfect, they say.

  Only after you’ve drowned it in rivers, soaked it in oils from trees we burned out of the old world, waited months to leech the venom. Only then will it hold your roof or your coffin shut.

  We stepped toward it anyway.

  The forest closed around us. The feral fucks had gotten wiser after a round of our insults and straightened backs. We needed to look mean for a good few paces more.

  One of them clicked from the shadows, a wet hiss rising behind it, then a scream—not at us, damn it, not at us. They were calling. Calling for more. The pack was large.

  We stamped our feet every second beat. A rhythm taught for formation, for drills, for keeping your blood calm when your guts turned to slop. Elrik picked it up instinctively, and then—clear as anything—he sang. A combat hymn. Low. Steady. Old. Something his father had taught him.

  I didn’t join. I kept cursing. Louder. Meaner. Every step was a dare. Every step said: Not today, you meatless whoreson. Not unless you want another hole in your face.

  Three pairs of eyes watched, connected to forms worth bearing or cursing—I don’t know.

  The wood got darker.

  A fourth set emerged. They were coming.

  The weak-faced cowards couldn’t be held back long. Enough added to the pack would give them the balls to try and flay us.

  The wood darkened further.

  A branch brushed my shoulder. Hard as rock.

  It hissed with a fume, and sparked.

  Emberwood.

  I looked down. A dark cone, jagged and lacquered like tarstone, lay nestled in the roots—faceted like a gemstone, heavy with spite. A seed of something old and hateful.

  I crouched, snatched it, and flung it in one motion—loose wrist, tight jaw—straight into the glint of one cursed eye.

  It landed true.

  The forest tore itself open. Light, smoke, and thunder split the trees as if God had spat fire through a trumpet. Flesh, bone, and something wetter burst in every direction. The stink hit second—burnt hair, ruptured bile, sweet like spoiled butter.

  The flash revealed the other three. For half a heartbeat, they looked like children. Frightened. Small. But then you saw the jaws. The teeth where lips should be. The fingers too many for one hand. No child ever looked like that and lived.

  I scooped two more cones. One bit my palm the instant I touched it—heat swelling like a coal under the skin. I threw it before it cooked me alive.

  Another burst—brighter, sharper. A shriek of white fire and smoke thick as linen. A burning tree split in half beside us, hissed like it was bleeding steam.

  Elrik roared—a sound of pure relief. The sound of a man who knows he should already be dead.

  So did I.

  The child beasts scattered and ran, with cries too human. Like crying for a mother that would never embrace them.

  The trees were hissing now. We’d done exactly what any imbecile would be told not to do when entering the wood: touch something.

  Sickening steam and smoke poured from a young sapling beside the smoldering leg of a child-thing. Flames would burst soon. Explosions soon after.

  We could finally turn our backs and look where we were going. Our cones had created a mess—unstable saplings and trees spread around us, splinters of wood and meat disrupting the delicate balance of the forest.

  Untold riches were about to go up in flames.

  Fuck it all.

  Time to run.