Chapter 2 – Red Horse

  I did not stop running.

  My lungs burned as if I had swallowed embers. Every breath scraped against the wound across my chest, sending sharp reminders of how close I had come to dying.

  The antidote had steadied me barely, but it had not healed me. My body still felt like cracked pottery barely holding together.

  Branches whipped against my face. Thorns tore at my skin. I did not slow.

  The roar came again.

  It rolled through the forest like a living thing, deep and cavernous, shaking leaves loose from branches. My heart lurched. It was far, but not far enough. Whatever had found that battlefield had found my scent too.

  I pushed harder.

  The trees began to thin and the scent of damp earth thickened in the air. I burst through a wall of hanging vines and nearly stumbled down a small embankment. Below me, a narrow creek threaded through the dark, its waters whispering softly over smooth stones.

  I froze.

  My head turned slowly, scanning the treeline. My hearing had returned in full now, cruel and sharp. Every rustle sounded like claws. Every snap of a twig felt like teeth closing around my spine.

  Nothing moved.

  Only the murmur of water.

  Good.

  I slid down the bank and stepped into the shallow pool where the creek widened. The water bit at my skin—cold, clean, merciless. I knelt and plunged both hands in, scooping water over my chest. Dirt and blood washed away in thick red ribbons, swirling downstream like ghostly smoke.

  I hissed through my teeth as the water seeped into the blade wound. It stung worse than the sword had. I leaned back on my heels and forced myself to endure it. Infection could kill me faster than any beast.

  I washed quickly.

  When I was satisfied, I climbed out and crossed to the opposite bank, boots squelching softly. My eyes scanned the terrain until I found what I had been searching for—a low depression thick with dark clay and wet earth, the kind that clung heavy between the fingers.

  I knelt beside it and scooped up a hefty clump.

  The mud was cool and dense. I pressed it gently over the wound, packing it into the torn flesh. It felt wrong—like sealing myself in earth before my time—but the clay would draw out rot and slow the bleeding.

  My breath shuddered.

  I tore a wide strip from my pant leg, ignoring the fresh sting across my thigh. With slow, deliberate movements, I wrapped the cloth around my chest and tied it tight. Not too tight. Tight enough to hold.

  Pain flared bright behind my eyes.

  I swallowed it.

  My hand moved instinctively behind me, fingers brushing against coarse hair and cooling skin. The head was still there, tied securely to my waistline. Heavy. Solid. Real.

  My first true trophy.

  Even in the dark, I could feel the faint, residual hum from within it.

  The third eye or whatever name the lowlanders gave their spirit seed—had not yet fully dispersed. It would surely make a worthy offering.

  I adjusted the sword strapped across my back and stood.

  No more lingering. I wasn’t taking any more chances.

  I slipped back into the brush, moving low and fast. The forest felt different now. Alive. Watching. The brief respite steadied my limbs, but fatigue dragged at my joints like invisible chains.

  I moved in a straight line toward the rendezvous point at first, weaving between trunks and ducking beneath hanging moss.

  My body remembered these paths even when my mind faltered. I had been raised in woods like these. The earth welcomed my feet.

  But the roar came again. Closer.

  ‘No way...’

  My blood ran cold.

  I skidded to a halt, crouching low. That sound carried intent. Hunger. It was not blind wandering. It was pursuit.

  The water should have masked my scent. The change of bank should have broken the trail.

  Yet it was still coming.

  I could not lead it to the rendezvous.

  I shifted direction sharply, angling east toward the mountainous ridge I had scouted months ago. The terrain there was treacherous, full of stone and sudden drops. Difficult for tracking.

  I sprinted.

  My vision blurred at the edges. My chest throbbed in rhythm with my heartbeat. Still, I climbed over fallen trunks, slid down gravelly inclines, and forced my legs to keep moving.

  The rocky formation rose ahead of me like a jagged wall against the moonlight. Pale stone jutted upward, streaked silver beneath the now-unobstructed moon. Shadows pooled in its crevices.

  I did not hesitate.

  Before scaling, I paused only long enough to strip off my outer garments—blood-soaked cloth heavy with scent. I hurled them with all my remaining strength far to the west, deeper into the trees.

  The effort nearly made me black out.

  I steadied myself against the stone and began climbing.

  My fingers found familiar holds. My boots wedged into cracks. I pulled myself upward, ignoring the scream of my muscles. I knew this place. I had scouted it in quieter times. A narrow ledge lay halfway up, hidden behind thick overgrowth.

  Another roar split the night.

  Too close.

  I hauled myself over the final lip and rolled into the overgrown bushes atop the ledge. Leaves swallowed me. Branches scratched across my bare skin. I pressed myself flat against the cool stone and did not move.

  Did not breathe.

  The forest below trembled.

  Heavy footfalls crushed undergrowth. Trees swayed as if shoved aside by something massive. I felt it before I saw it—the disturbance in the air, the displacement of life.

  In the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow below.

  It moved through the moonlight in a blur of immense shape and unnatural speed. Larger than any bear. Taller than any man. Its outline warped, as if the night itself could not decide what it was looking at.

  It paused. I heard it stop.

  My heart pounded so loudly I feared it would give me away.

  Then it darted, swift and violent, toward the direction where I had thrown my garments.

  A crash.

  A snarl.

  The sound of fabric ripping apart like prey.

  I dare not move.

  I did not blink.

  I pressed myself even deeper into the stone, as if I could melt into it.

  My cheek lay against the cold rock, the chill seeping into my skin while sweat gathered along my spine. I closed my eyes and prayed—not aloud, not even in a whisper, but in the quietest part of my mind.

  ‘Sky gods, watchers beyond the veil of clouds… let this calamity pass over me.’

  I did not know what hunted below. I did not know its name, its nature, or whether it bore a third eye like men did. I did not care. I only wanted it gone.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Fabric tore somewhere to my left. A low, guttural sound followed, like a beast dissatisfied with its meal. Leaves scraped against something vast shifting its weight.

  Then silence.

  Not true silence—never that—but a thick, deliberate quiet.

  It was still there.

  I knew it.

  The forest held its breath alongside me. No insects chirped. No night birds called. Even the creek in the distance seemed to hush.

  My mind betrayed me with ill-begotten thoughts.

  It knows.

  It smells me.

  It awaits.

  I imagined it standing directly beneath my ledge, head tilted upward, unblinking eyes fixed on the bush concealing me. I imagined it smiling—if such a thing could smile—waiting for my muscles to cramp, for my lungs to betray me with a gasp.

  Perhaps it had already found me and this silence was its game.

  My fingers dug into the dirt. I forced them to relax.

  Do not move.

  Blind fear screamed at me. To climb higher. To flee in panic.

  But something older than fear anchored me in place. A hunter’s instinct.

  The same instinct that had told me to throw my garments away. The same instinct that had told me to hide rather than sprint.

  Move now and die.

  So, I remained.

  Time stretched into something shapeless. My chest throbbed beneath the clay binding. Each heartbeat felt loud enough to shatter the night.

  I slowed my breathing deliberately, counting each inhale, each exhale, until they became shallow threads of air.

  Minutes passed.

  Or perhaps hours.

  Then—

  A faint rustle.

  Not the heavy crush of monstrous weight. Something lighter. Fragile.

  A single chirp.

  I froze harder, if that was even possible.

  Another chirp answered it.

  From farther off, the tentative call of a night bird resumed, soft and uncertain. Leaves shifted—not violently now, but with the normal wanderings of small creatures reclaiming their ground.

  The forest was breathing again.

  The oppressive pressure in the air eased by a fraction.

  It was gone.

  I did not move immediately. I waited longer still, forcing myself to endure the stiffness creeping into my limbs. Only when the murmurs of insects returned in full and I heard the distant flutter of wings overhead did I dare to lift my head.

  Slowly.

  Carefully.

  I parted the bushes with two fingers and peered over the ledge.

  Moonlight bathed the clearing below in pale silver. The treeline was no longer whole. Several young trees lay snapped like brittle bones. Shrubs were flattened into the earth. Deep gouges scored the soil where something massive had dug in its claws—or hooves—or whatever limbs it possessed.

  My discarded garments were nowhere to be seen.

  Only torn fragments clung to broken branches, fluttering weakly in the night breeze.

  I scanned the shadows, searching for movement.

  Nothing.

  No hulking silhouette. No shifting darkness. Only ruin.

  A long breath escaped me before I realized I had been holding it. It left my body in a trembling exhale.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to the sky above, voice barely more than air. “For your mercy.”

  I tilted my head back, just enough to see the moon through the canopy. It hung there in full, unblinking radiance, as if it had watched the entire ordeal without concern. Its light washed over the devastation below, turning chaos into something almost serene.

  I did not wait any longer.

  The moment I was certain the creature had withdrawn; I slipped from the ledge and climbed down the rock face with reckless haste.

  My fingers slipped twice from sweat and exhaustion, but I forced myself downward, boots scraping against stone until I dropped the final stretch and landed hard on bent knees.

  Pain flared across my chest.

  I gritted my teeth and ran.

  The forest no longer felt suffocating. The air moved again. Crickets resumed their endless chorus. Somewhere to my right, an owl hooted. Normal sounds. Blessed sounds.

  No roars followed me.

  No crashing trees.

  Relief surged through me—but I did not slow. Relief was a luxury for the dead.

  I poured it into my legs instead, pushing harder, weaving through trunks and leaping over exposed roots. My bare torso stung with every brush of leaves, my clay-sealed wound pulling tight with each stride.

  Faster.

  Be gone with this night.

  The rendezvous point was not far now. I recognized the slope of the land, the subtle dip before the clearing beyond. I ran without restraint, breath tearing in and out of my lungs.

  Then—

  A body slammed into mine from the darkness.

  My vision burst white as my chest took the full brunt of the impact. I fell backward with a strangled gasp, pain tearing through me as if the blade wound had reopened.

  I tried to roll, to reach for my sword—

  Too slow.

  A knee slammed into my arm. Cold steel pressed against my throat.

  “Which warband?” a voice snapped above me.

  The blade bit into my skin. I felt the sting before I felt the warmth of blood sliding down my neck.

  My vision struggled to focus. The night swallowed detail, but I could make out a young man straddling me, his silhouette tense, sword steady at my throat. His breathing was controlled—but only barely.

  “Which warband?” he demanded again, sharper now. “Answer!”

  Red cloth caught the moonlight at his shoulder.

  Red.

  Our colours.

  “I’m a fellow Verak,” I rasped immediately. The movement of my throat pushed against the blade and I winced. “Brother—”

  “Warband,” he interrupted coldly. “Say it.”

  My mind raced.

  He didn’t know me.

  And I did not know him.

  He was young—my age, perhaps. His build lean but hardened. Blood streaked across his jaw and forearms, some of it drying, some of it fresh. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, scanning my face for deception.

  If I lied, I died.

  “Red horse,” I forced out. “Western flank.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Headman?”

  “Ravaan,” I answered without hesitation. “He’s dead.”

  The words tasted like ash.

  The sword did not move for a long breath.

  He stepped off, his stature finally slipping into clearer view beneath the moon. His red garments were darker than they should have been, soaked deep.

  Only then did I notice what hung at his side.

  Three shapes.

  Round. Heavy. Wrapped in cloth but unmistakable in contour.

  Heads.

  Three of them.

  They swayed gently from cords tied to his belt, the faint smell of blood mixing with damp forest air. One of the cloth wrappings had slipped enough for me to see a patch of green fabric beneath it.

  Mire origins no doubt.

  My heartbeat slowed—not from calm, but from realization.

  This was no stray survivor scrambling in the dark.

  He had carved through three men.

  “You’re not with my unit,” he said, eyes narrowing.

  “No,” I admitted. “And you’re not with mine.”

  For a breath, neither of us moved. The forest seemed to lean in around us.

  Then his gaze shifted lower, to my waist.

  The head tied there.

  “You took one,” he said.

  There was no mockery in his tone. Only assessment.

  I followed his glance deliberately, then looked back at the three swaying at his side.

  “And you took three,” I answered.

  The faintest twitch touched the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile.

  “My spoils of war,” he said.

  “Likewise.”

  His blade lingered at my throat for another heartbeat before finally withdrawing. He rose smoothly, never turning his back to me, sword still ready at his side.

  I pushed myself upright more slowly, suppressing a groan as my chest screamed in protest. The clay binding had held, but barely. Warmth seeped beneath it again.

  He noticed.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “Poisoned earlier,” I showed him my chest wound. “But I found an antidote.”

  He glanced toward the dark woods behind me. “You were running.”

  “Yes.”

  “From Mires?”

  I shook my head.

  “From something else.”

  That made him still.

  The air between us shifted again—not hostile now, but alert.

  “I heard it,” he admitted quietly as if knowing what had chased me. “Roar like that isn’t man.”

  “It tore through the treeline west of here,” I said. “Tracked me even after water.”

  His eyes flicked briefly in that direction, calculating.

  For a moment, I studied him properly.

  Lean frame. No wasted motion. Three heads taken, and he was still steady on his feet. No visible wounds. No trembling.

  Dangerous.

  “Name?” he asked.

  “Alikad.”

  He nodded once.

  “Dagon,” he replied.

  We stood there, two bloodied highlanders in the breathing dark, measuring each other not as enemies—but not yet as brothers either.

  Somewhere far behind us, a branch snapped.

  Both our heads turned instantly.

  No roar followed.

  Still, neither of us hesitated.

  “We move,” Dagon insisted.

  This time, it wasn’t a suggestion.