The Misadventures of Rhask - Chapter 4
*Advisory! This story contains abuse, deity worship, murder, torture, and cannibalism. Self-Descretion is advised.
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Rhask stirred with a slow groan, his tongue flicking the air before his eyes even opened. His scaled body ached in places he didn’t remember injuring. He lifted himself onto his elbows, gently peeling himself off the shield that was clinging to his chest, beneath him. He rolled onto his side, caked in ash, charcoal crunching beneath his weight. The charred grassland stretched in all directions, curling smoke like offerings to the sky. Overhead, clouds churned, heavy, gray, waiting. A hot breeze tugged at the scorched ends of the tall grass, carrying the scent of charred dirt and burnt feathers. He raised a clawed hand to it and hissed through sharp teeth as he brushed against the scorched skin. He felt the pain before he saw the wound, raised and tender. Branded into the tough scales of his breast were two moons, overlapping at the edges. The twins. Her mark.
Rhask’s breath caught. The pain shifted into something sacred. Reverent. He laughed, low and crackling, a sound like fire still smouldering in his throat.
“Witness Me,” he whispered, voice ragged with smoke and awe. “For I am chosen.”
Rhask dragged himself upright with a snarl, one hand gripping the dented rim of his shield. It was streaked with soot and charred until it no longer bore the gilded glyphs of Barasea’s moons, now etched into his flesh. The wooden brace and leather straps used to secure it had burned off, and the metal was twisted and warped.
He pressed a hand to the brand again and smiled, teeth yellow and jagged. Behind him, something cracked in the blackened grass. Rhask ignored it. His gaze turned Eastward, toward the cities of men, where his next offering surely waited. He knelt beside the blackened remains of the tree, clawed fingers sifting through scorched feathers, twisted bones, and the debris of his fight. His weapons hadn’t fared well; the iron of his sword warped by the heat, now bowed and brittle like a burned branch. He hefted it, testing the weight, and the edge flaked in his grip.
He sneered. “Still sharp enough… ”
A voice called out, faint but growing louder, carried on the wind.
“Hello? Is someone there? Are you alright?”
Rhask’s slit pupils narrowed. A man was cresting the rise, one hand shielding his eyes from the overcast glare. His clothes were simple, a leather armour over a tan tunic, patched trousers, and leather sandals caked with road dust. He smelled of sheep and sweat.
“Gods,” the man muttered, taking in the scorched field. “Was it a lightning strike? Is anyone hurt?”
Rhask gave him a toothy smile and raised one clawed hand in a lazy greeting. The man hesitated only a moment, then jogged forward, concern writ plainly across his face.
Rhask turned away, pretending to examine the warped sword blade. He gripped the brittle sword by its hilt, testing the give of the half-melted metal, then let his hand fall to his side casually.
“More coming?” he asked as the man drew near.
“What?” the man blinked. “More what?”
“People,” Rhask said, his voice low and warm. “Surely you didn’t come alone?”
“I—well, no, I saw the smoke from the village and—”
The moment the man reached his side, Rhask struck. With a sudden lunge, the brittle sword punched through the man’s gut and cracked clean in half, the blackened blade shattering as it hit his spine. The man’s breath fled him in a single, wheezing gasp. His eyes widened in stunned disbelief as he looked down to see the jagged stump of the sword still buried inside him. Rhask leaned close, nose brushing the man’s temple, forked tongue flicking to taste his fear. “Then we have time,” he whispered.
The man fell in stages, legs buckling, knees hitting the ash with a soft thump before his body slumped sideways, twitching in the soot. Rhask crouched beside him, tilting his head. “... for breakfast,” he murmured, dragging a claw along the man’s face, tracing the warmth as it drained.
Rhask left the blackened edge of the field dressed in the villager’s loose-fitting trousers, clean leather jerkin, and cloak, each a poor fit over his angular, reptilian frame. His tail flicked behind him, brushing against the hem of the tunic. The man’s dagger rested comfortably on his belt, next to a small, hand-crossbow with a worn strap.
The Druid’s Grove was thick and unfamiliar. Enormous, thousand-year-old trees, some with trunks 30 feet across, stretching hundreds of feet into the sky. The air beneath the trees was cooler and carried an older scent, damp moss, wood rot, and sap. The ground here was softer, quieter. Rhask moved with ease, silent but unhurried, letting the loamy hush swallow him whole.
He walked for hours, weaving between expansive pine trunks and gnarled cedars, passing through a cedar that looked to be nearly 50 feet across. The tree was so large that someone had carved an archway through it, faded and overgrown footpaths winding around either side. The woods were filled with the faint rustle of animals scurrying through the underbrush, the mating calls of finches, a woodpecker somewhere thudded out a rhythm, and distant, droning bees buzzed about wildflowers.
Always, Rhask’s hand returned to his chest. The branded sigil still throbbed there, an angry welt in the shape of the twin moons, scorched into his scales by the heat of a sacrificial pyre and the night’s whispered prayers. The pain was not unbearable… but it was persistent. A reminder. A gift.
“It is your mark now,” he hissed to himself as he passed beneath a curtain of vines. “She sees you. You were chosen.”
The forest darkened further as the canopy thickened, blotting out the light. It was ancient here, older than any village, older than the Grove’s name. The bark of the trees bore spiral patterns like sigils, and half-swallowed stone pillars rose in overgrown clearings. The pulse in his chest beat louder now, in time with his steps.
He paused once to drink from a still, green pond. His reflection stared back up at him, reptilian eyes, a bone ridge along his brow, and now the twin moons scorched red and blistered across his chest. As he knelt at the shore, one clawed hand resting in the cool water, he heard the distant clang of wood on stone. Voices, muffled but drawing nearer, filtered through the underbrush, followed by the unmistakable crack of axes and the rhythmic groan of logs being set into place.
On the far side of the pond, through a stand of willow and alder, a small group of villagers were erecting some sort of longhouse. Rough-hewn beams were lifted into place with grunts of effort, notched and lashed with rope. Children darted between the builders, handing up tools or gathering sticks. Someone laughed.
Rhask’s eyes narrowed. Without a sound, he slipped into the pond. The water swallowed him whole, warm as bath water, green and murky enough to hide his sinuous shape beneath a layer of lily pads and algae. He waited like a shadow just beneath the surface. Silent. Patient.
The men worked into the late afternoon, laying beams and roofing thatch. As the light grew golden, a handful of them sat down on stumps or overturned crates, wiping sweat from their brows and reaching for canteens and sacks of food. One of the women, a slender one, with Tephes-darkened arms and a red kerchief wrapped around her head, approached the pond, balancing a wooden tray of flatbread and dried meat. She knelt to wet a cloth in the pond, only a few paces from where Rhask’s slitted eyes broke the surface.
Like a snake, he struck. The splash was quiet, swallowed by the reeds. The tray fell sideways, bread scattering into the pond. The woman gasped, barely, before his clawed hand closed around her throat and pulled her under. Her legs thrashed, kicking up mud and bubbles as Rhask held her beneath the water, his fingers stopping the blood flow to her brain, his cold stare unblinking. It was over in less than ten seconds.
Then, when she’d stopped struggling, he floated her limp body through the reeds, back to the far side of the pond where moss and roots offered shelter. He laid her gently on the ground, turning her face to the side so she wouldn’t choke, then crouched beside her, half-wrapped in shadows. A firm slap on the back started her breathing again, though she remained unconscious for some time.
He bound and gagged her as he waited. Across the water, he could hear the men still laughing and working. They would finish at dusk. They would leave. And when they did… He licked his lips. The fire in his chest pulsed softly beneath his scales. His goddess was watching.
The woman remained unconscious through the crossing. Rhask held her half-submerged body close, almost intimately, letting the pond ease their passage back toward the unfinished longhouse. The surface of the water shimmered with golden light as Tephes dipped lower, casting long, dancing shadows across the clearing.
No one remained at the worksite. The villagers had left as the day died, their laughter fading into the forest beyond. Rhask moved silently, slipping into the skeletal longhouse like a shadow. He laid her in the center of the dirt floor for a moment, just long enough to gather what he needed. Then he lifted her again and tied her wrists together, tossing the coarse rope over the support beam above. Her body suspended, feet brushing the dirt. Still, she did not stir. Not until the first nail pierced her feet. The crack of the hammer echoed like thunder in the hollow frame of the unfinished house. Her eyes flew open, wide with pain and confusion.
Rhask stood to look her in the eye, but he did not speak; he merely tilted his head as if examining a puzzle.
He watched the terror in her eyes when she met his gaze. The woman thrashed against the bindings, her voice muffled by a wad of cloth from her house dress. Her breath came in nasal gasps, tears already streaking down her face. He tilted his head the other way.
"Yess," he said in a voice smooth as oiled steel, he placed his palm on her chest to feel her heart race, "You will make an excellent gift."
He rose and turned, vanishing for a moment into a dark corner of the structure. Behind him, Tephes bled into the horizon, staining the inside of the longhouse red. The ritual had begun.
The sky hung heavy with the colour of ash; the first pale hints of dawn barely curled along the eastern horizon. Rhask moved through the forest like a wraith, slick with drying blood. It flaked at his joints and cracked across his knuckles. The scent of iron clung to him, warm and sweet, a perfume of triumph. His belly was as full as the woman’s had been. A delicacy he had not expected. His Goddess was pleased.
He didn’t smile. Rhask did not waste muscle on such platitudes, but there was pride in the quick, deliberate motion of his gait. His claws flexed idly, dragging across bark and bramble as he walked. He licked them clean only once.
Several miles from the longhouse now, he came upon another pond, smaller than the last but no less still. A rim of reeds framed it like lashes, and beyond, nestled in the rocks, was a shallow, partially collapsed cave, open only to the water, but shadowed and dry. He crouched at the water’s edge, peering into the black-glass surface. Nothing moved. Not frogs. Not fish. Not insects. Rhask flicked his wrist, casting a stone from the forest floor into the center of the pond.
Plunk.
A perfect, rippling echo. Stillness remained. He watched the ripples fade, eyes narrowing.
“Empty,” he murmured, voice barely a whisper. Good. That made it his. Rhask slipped into the water, wading silently forward until the cool liquid licked at his chest. He gritted his teeth as it touched the raw, scalded brand carved over his heart, the sigil of his Goddess, her sign of approval. The pain only pleased him. He dove beneath the surface. The water closed over him like a lid. Rhask’s eyes adjusted to the murk as he swam to the mouth of the cave, claws pulling him deeper, belly scraping silt and stone.
He broke the surface with a quiet breath and hauled himself onto the narrow ledge inside. The cavern here was barely taller than he was, wide enough to lie down in, the stone slick but dry farther back. A pocket of safety. Hidden. His. He curled himself into the curve of the wall, tail wrapping around his ankles. One claw rose to trace the burn on his chest, its edges raw and weeping. He did not wince. This pain was his.
“Yha'ro,” he rasped, sure of the name but not its origin. “I am coming. I am ready.” Then he slept, seeding his dreams with the fading echoes of screams and the stink of blood, still thick in his nostrils.
The world was no longer quiet. Rhask’s eyes snapped open. Voices, muffled by distance, but clear. Humans. Several were pushing through the underbrush.
“…tracks lead this way…”
“…Gods, all that blood, what kind of animal does that to a woman?”
“…Do you think they stole the baby, or …”
Rhask’s breath slipped out slowly and controlled as he pushed himself up from the stone. His scaled chest still raw with Brothellad’s mark, throbbing in sync with his heartbeat, as though the brand itself hungered.
He crept to the pond’s edge, sliding silently into the warm water. His eyes were just above the surface, nostrils flaring, the rest of him submerged, motionless in the weeds. The cave behind him was invisible, and so was he. They were close. He could see them moving through the trees, four villagers, two with spears, one with a bow, one carrying what looked like a holy symbol. A priest, perhaps, or worse. They moved cautiously, scanning the underbrush. With practiced care, Rhask extended a foot, pressed it against a submerged rock, and splashed. It was subtle, deliberate. Enough to mimic a startled animal. Enough to bait curiosity.
“Did you hear that?” one of the spear-men said.
“Over there!” the archer replied, already moving.
“No, wait—what if it’s—” the priest started, but too late. Two of them peeled off toward the pond, spears gripped tightly, stepping cautiously through the reeds. Rhask sank deeper, his eyes narrowing. He rolled a flat stone between his fingers and flicked it into the trees. It zipped into the underbrush with a hollow crack against a tree trunk.
“What was that?” one murmured. The other crouched near the water, never saw it coming. Rhask surged upward with reptilian force, drawing the dagger across the spearman’s throat in a single, clean stroke. The man's eyes went wide, mouth open in silent panic, as blood sprayed the reeds. He crumpled into the tall grass without a word.
The other was still scanning the trees, drawn by the false sound, blade drawn, tense. Rhask moved like oil across wet stone, rising from the pond on silent feet, water trickling from his scaled form. His tail shifted silently behind him. His eyes gleamed. The swordsman turned. Rhask drove the dagger into his chest, sliding it between his ribs with deadly precision. The man gasped, pain replacing his instincts. Before he could even scream, Rhask leaned in, his jaws unhinging just enough to bite, a wet, tearing crunch as flesh and cartilage gave way. His scream never came, only a gurgling wheeze as half his face was torn away.
He dropped, twitching, to the mossy ground. Rhask crouched over the remains, savouring the taste of his work, his dagger still gripped in one clawed hand. He dragged the two bodies into the water. The blood cloud settled beneath the reeds like a bloom of ink, and the pond fell quiet once more.
The forest behind him still reeked of blood and fear, but Rhask moved like a shadow, silent,
invisible. He didn’t like the way the birds had stopped singing, or how the wind seemed to change direction with each breath. The Druid’s Grove had become alert. Rhask circled back toward the longhouse.
Tephes was fully up, and the day was growing increasingly humid when he started to recognize the area. As he crept closer to the edge of the forest, toward the humble path that wound by the village clearing, he saw a lone figure approaching. It was a man in his mid-thirties, perhaps, with blonde hair tousled beneath a feathered cap. Blue eyes, red and tired, cheeks stained with the signs of grief. A modest coat hung from narrow shoulders, and a long, pale scar ran the length of his forearm, faded but deep. He looked like a man who had fought once, maybe even won, but hadn’t known peace since.
The man saw Rhask’s hooded frame and exhaled with relief.
“Oh! Thank the Grove. They sent you back to find me?”
Rhask lowered his head and didn’t answer.
The man nodded, eyes glistening. “Did they—did you find him? The one who violated my wife?” His voice cracked on the word. “Did you get him?”
Rhask stepped closer, silent. He smiled. It wasn’t a kind smile.
“Yess,” Rhask whispered, voice like stone sliding over steel.
The man blinked. “You… You did?”
Rhask’s arm flashed. The dagger arced low, curving up through the man’s tunic, slashing across the abdomen in a wicked, sweeping strike. The man gasped, a wet, guttural sound, as his innards spilled steaming into his hands. He stumbled in the grass, staring back in shock and betrayal.
Rhask locked eyes with his as he whispered, “You found him, meat.” Rhask didn’t let the man fall. Not yet. “You were her mate, yess?” Rhask whispered the question into the man’s ear. He nodded, staring down at the innards in his hands. “You should be with her.” With one clawed hand wrapped around the back of his neck, the Reptilian walked him down the winding trail toward the longhouse. The man whimpered, trying to hold in his intestines with shaking arms, feet stumbling like a broken marionette.
The longhouse creaked as he opened the door. Early Tephlight spilled through the cracks in the walls, illuminating dried blood stains from the night before. The memory of muffled screams still lingered here like echoes. Rhask pushed the man inside, then stepped in with him, and… released.
The man collapsed to his knees, his hands twitching weakly as a hot tangle of guts spread across the wooden floor like spilled rope. He gurgled, but there was no scream, his lungs too wet to make noise.
Rhask heard a footstep and a gasp. From the side door, a woman appeared, middle-aged, careworn, a pail of soapy water clutched in her hands. Her eyes widened as they took in the horror splayed out before her. She opened her mouth to scream.
Rhask, predator-calm, raised a single blood-slicked finger to his snout. “Scream, or run,” he said, voice thick with the promise of violence, “I will murder everyone in this village. I will carve their names into your bones before you die.”
She froze, pail trembling in her hands, face pale, lips parted in terror. The scream never came. Her breath caught in her throat, and her legs locked beneath her.
Rhask smiled. Terror, with a side of fruitless hope, was his favourite flavour. He stood over the spilled man, dripping in gore, savouring the weight of his presence in the room. The woman had not moved. He tilted his head toward her, lips curling around sharp, wet teeth.
“Call for another,” he said simply
The woman swallowed hard. Her eyes were still locked onto the mess of a man strewn across the stained floorboards. The pail slipped from her trembling fingers and thumped softly against the blood-soaked floorboards. But then… she straightened.
“No.”
The word landed like a stone. Rhask blinked once. Her eyes were clear, wide with fear, but behind them stood a will that did not bend. She took a single step forward, her voice shaking but her posture unyielding.
“You won’t hurt anyone else,” she said. “Not in my village. You’ve done enough.”
Rhask’s grin soured. “I’ll do what ...”
She met his eyes. “No.”
He stepped forward, a snarl curling in his throat, but she raised her hand, not in fear, but command.
“The men will return shortly. If you want to live, you’ll leave now. I’ll walk you out myself, but you will not disturb another soul here.”
For a long, trembling breath, Rhask stared her down. Then… he smiled. Not his usual razor grin, but something colder. He saw it now. Her strength wasn’t in the body. It was her choice, that defiant conviction.
“Your men are dead,” he said, testing her conviction. “I hung them from the trees by their innards.” The woman didn’t respond, but her eyes welled as she fought to maintain her composure. “But I like you,” He stepped away to allow her space to move. She turned sharply and walked out the back door.
They walked side-by-side, her shoulders tight, every breath measured. They walked around the pond, and the trees gave way to open ground. From their narrow trail, they could see the village just beyond the trees, where children played in soft dirt, and women gathered in mourning circles draped in brown and gray shawls. Smoke curled from the chimneys. Life continued. Grief and hope stitched side by side. Rhask glanced toward them, his branded chest stinging in the breeze.
“What did you do with the baby?” She spoke, low and wary.
Rhask didn’t answer at first. His jaw worked, tongue flicking briefly out over his cracked lips. When he finally spoke, it was with reverence.
“She was perfect,” he whispered. “Unspoiled. Pure. The fire inside her was barely formed.”
The woman’s breath caught. She turned her face away, eyes shining with horror.
“Why?” she asked. “Why would you… ? ”
He lifted his head slowly and licked his lips.
The woman flinched, but then her brow furrowed. Her hand drifted upward from her chest, a slow, reverent motion, passing from her heart toward the sky. Her fingers splayed in open silence as if offering something unseen.
Rhask froze. He turned to look at her, his scales glinting faintly in the daylight.
“Why…” he rasped, head tilted, nostrils flaring, his jaw tightened. “Do this?”
“It’s a symbol.” She hesitated, “Offering my soul to the Gods to protect.”
Rhask’s face contorted in confusion. “She does not protect, she devours.”
“Who?”
Rhask repeated her gesture, holding his hand to the tender burnt scales of his chest, then raising it, fingers splayed, to the moon.
“You worship… one of the Nine?” She looked at him more carefully, studying the clawed fingers, the darting flick of his pupils.
“What is ‘The Nine’?”
“The Nine Gods?” She looked at him with confusion. “ … They protect our realm?”
Rhask started walking again. “Yha’ro does not protect.” He repeated. “She devours.”
“Yaro?!” The woman thought for some time. “What… ?” She paused, choosing her words. “What domain does she command?”
“She is the moon of migration,” Rhask repeated her gesture once more, placing his hand on his brand and lifting his open palm to the moon. “The tooth and the claw, the taste of survival.” he looked the woman deep in her eyes. “She is life devouring life.”
As they rounded a bend in the narrow road, the trees parted just enough to reveal a splash of colour. A brightly painted hand-drawn merchant’s cart sat at a crooked angle where the path dipped toward a shallow ditch. The cart’s front handle was shattered, and a stout, Tephes-bronzed man was crouched beside it, trying to lash a sturdy branch into place with a length of fraying rope. Boxes of dried herbs, bundles of wool, and glazed clay jars rattled with every tug.
Rhask tensed beside her, nostrils flaring.
The man looked up, eyes narrowing with suspicion, until recognition softened his face.
“Amra?” the man said, surprised.
She smiled, small but genuine. “Darel. I thought you were heading east.”
“I heard Vampires took Gorkil, so I thought I’d head up to Huianio,” He gestured to the cart with a sigh. “Wheel caught a root, handle cracked. Been trying to jury-rig it for the last hour.”
Without asking, Amra stepped forward. “You’ll never get it to hold with that cord. Here, let me help.”
She knelt beside him, as though she weren’t escorting a serial killer, and pulled a coil of leather from her belt pouch. Darel blinked in grateful surprise, then glanced over her shoulder at the long, lean reptilian figure watching them from the road.
“And... your friend?”
Rhask said nothing. He only stared, eyes unblinking, body still, the brand on his chest hidden beneath the stained leather jerkin.
“He’s... passing through,” Amra said without turning.
Darel hesitated, sensing something just beyond his understanding. But he nodded, and together they began securing the new handle into place.
Rhask stood at the edge of the road, his yellow eyes narrowing as he watched the two humans work. Their hands moved with quiet purpose, passing tools, securing knots, nodding in silent agreement. No threats. No snarling over dominance. No sharp crack of claws to prove who deserved the larger share. It was foreign to him. Wrong. This Darel, this soft-fleshed, Tephes-browned man, smiled when Amra offered help. He thanked her. Let her touch his broken things. Rhask’s tongue flicked out, tasting the air, no scent of blood. No tension. Only the dull stench of human sweat and ripe herbs. This was a weakness.
Amra crouched under the cart, holding the leather tight around the splintered handle. “Rhask,” she called, glancing back. “Lift the front, would you? Just a little, I need the angle to tie this off.”
Rhask moved silently. No response. Just the soft crunch of boots on dirt.
Darel, still kneeling, looked up with a grateful nod, just as Rhask stepped in close. There was no ceremony. The dagger slid into the back of the man’s neck with practiced ease. A wet pop as the skin pierced, then a stifled gurgle. Darel’s body twitched once and slumped sideways, hands to his throat, leaking blood into the dry leaves.
Amra jerked out from under the cart, eyes wide. “What did you—!?”
“Too slow,” Rhask said simply. He turned his head toward the woods. “We go now.”
Amra stood, her face tight with fury and horror, her hands clenched into fists. Her mouth opened as if to scream or argue, but her gaze dropped, unwilling to provoke him again. Not yet. She stepped around the body of Darel and resumed walking. Rhask followed, licking the blood from his dagger before slipping it back into its sheath. Behind them, the broken cart sat still, its fragile repair nearly finished.
They walked in silence at first. Not a peaceful silence, but a strained quiet, like the steaming pot just before it boils. Amra’s eyes burned with unspent rage, her steps brisk and stiff. She didn’t look at him. Her voice, when it came, was low. Controlled. Like a scolding a child might earn for breaking a sacred heirloom.
“That man wasn’t a threat.”
Rhask’s gaze flicked toward her. She kept walking at a brisk pace, her hands clenched at her sides. Her eyes were fixed on the ground before her. “Why did you kill him?”
Rhask didn’t answer right away. He exhaled slowly. Not a sigh, but a breath to calm the heart before a hunt. Finally, he said, “I saved him.”
Amra did stop, then. Her heels planted in the dirt. She turned to him, aghast.
“Saved him?!?”
Rhask stepped up beside her, tilting his head. “He was slow and weak. He would not have survived.” His voice was even.
Amra’s lips parted in disbelief. “Wouldn’t have survived what?”
Rhask narrowed his eyes. “The world we are making.”
Amra stopped cold, mouth open in horror. “The what?! Who, the fuck, is we?” She stepped toward him, anger flaring through the fear. “I’m not part of this, ” She paused, looking the reptilian in the eyes for any sense of guilt or shame. “Whatever this is.”
Rhask’s hand shot out faster than she thought possible. In an instant, he had her by the throat, claws pressing into the soft skin beneath her jaw. Not hard enough to break it, just enough to silence her. To remind her what he was. He leaned close, his breath hot and sour with old blood. His voice was quiet, even.
“You are going to be my Witness, Amra.” He said her name almost mockingly. “You will choose my sacrifices.”
Her wide eyes met his. No struggle, no scream, but her breath shuddered through her nose as she stood trembling in his grasp. Rhask held her there a heartbeat longer. Then let go.
She staggered back, coughing, clutching her throat. “I will not!”
He turned and resumed walking as if nothing had happened. “Then go home, if you wish, I’ll find another village.” He said without looking back, “Hmm,” He sniffed the air, “Is that smoke? Must be a village nearby. Plenty of younglings, I'm sure.” He licked his lips.
Tephes bled low across the horizon, casting the world in long shadows and deep gold. The road was quiet now, just the occasional chirp of crickets and the brittle rustling of dry leaves shifting in the breeze. The heat of the day clung stubbornly to Barasea, but the stifling humidity had finally broken. Dust rose with each step, clinging to their boots and bare skin.
“There it is.” Amra’s voice broke the silence. She pointed toward the slope where the terrain tilted and fractured. A cluster of jagged stones spilled across a low ridge, and just beyond them, half-shielded by a leaning tree, gaped the mouth of a small cave, like a wound in the ground. Rhask said nothing. He adjusted the crossbow on his belt and made for the entrance without hesitation. Amra followed more carefully, brushing her fingers along the stone as she ducked to enter.
The tunnel inside was narrow and low, forcing them both into a crouch, and roots dangled from the ceiling. Dirt crumbled beneath their feet. A recent collapse, perhaps, chunks of stone and dirt littered the floor. Rhask pushed forward without pause, his claws scraping the walls as he pressed through the crumbling corridor until the space opened. They stepped into a cavern, long and narrow like a throat. The air inside was cooler, but thick with dust and the faint coppery smell of old soil. Three tunnels branched off from the chamber, each one choked in shadow.
Rhask sniffed once, his nostrils flaring, his eyes flicking to each exit in turn. Something had passed through here. Not recently enough to stir the dust, but the scent lingered, thin and strange. A musk, like dried blood over old sweat, baked into the stone. Perhaps some kind of beast.
He rolled his shoulders and took a slow, calming breath, his tongue flicking the air once. The pain beneath his armour throbbed faintly. A hunt, then.
He turned to Amra and pointed, first at the leftmost tunnel, then the center, then the right, his clawed hand floating like a ritual blade above a sacrifice. He waited, not out of caution, but curiosity. He wanted to see what choices she would make in the dark. She didn’t budge.
“I’m not going first,” she said flatly, her voice low and clipped. “You’re the killer, here.”
Rhask bared his teeth in what might have been a grin. He lowered his hand.
“Choose.”
Amra scowled, weighing her odds, then nodded toward the leftmost passage. “Fine, that one.”
The tunnel narrowed quickly, its ceiling dipping low. They moved in silence, crouched, side-stepping a partial collapse where the walls bowed inward like a dying lung. At the end, the tunnel opened, just barely, into a chamber rimmed in loose shale and hanging roots. Rhask ducked inside, eyes glinting in the dim.
Crack.
The floor under his foot shifted, stones tumbling away into an unseen hollow. He froze. The cavern ahead was small, shallow, and fragile. The walls shimmered with damp cracks, and one whole corner had already given way, spilling rock like broken teeth.
He hissed low in his throat and backed out the way they came, each step deliberate, measured. The dust behind them swirled faintly, as though something had breathed on the stone.
Back in the main cavern, Rhask straightened and rolled his neck.
“Your turn,” Amra muttered.
The next tunnel curved wide and low, stone slick beneath Rhask’s claws. Behind him, Amra walked in silence, her hand pressed against the narrow cave wall to balance her steps. The air was close here, thick with age, damp with things long dead. They reached a fork in the dark. Rhask paused, tilting his head toward the leftmost passage.
Quinn says left.
The memory flickered across his mind. Quinn, filthy and half-mad, grinning through broken teeth, crouching in a limestone tunnel, the air thick with the smell of wet stone and bat droppings. Giggling to himself, "Keep your claws to the left wall, you’ll find the way out, or something worth eating."
He died in a barrel trap, Rhask recalled. Still, they turned left.
A few steps down the path, the floor gave out with a shattering crack. Rhask dropped, the stone splitting beneath him. Amra’s scream followed after him. He hit hard, shoulder first, rolling into a thud that stole the breath from his lungs. A deep throb started in his hip and echoed up his spine, and bruises were already blooming.
Amra struck the ground a second later with a sharp cry. She twisted as she landed, then lay still, clutching her ankle, her face twisted in pain.
Rhask snarled softly as he rose, licking a bead of blood from his cracked lip. They had fallen into a wide, still cavern, the ceiling barely visible above, its teeth of stone hanging low. The chamber smelled of damp soil and iron. The kind of place where sound didn’t echo, it was swallowed.
“My ankle,” Amra groaned, trying to sit upright.
Rhask didn’t answer right away. He scanned the edges of the room and sniffed, his eyes narrow, his jaw clenched. “Quinn was a fool,” he thought. “But he wasn’t wrong about one thing.” Something was down here, and it had heard them. From somewhere beyond the stone and shadow, a low snort echoed, wet and guttural, the sound of something massive inhaling the air Rhask had just exhaled. A huff, like breath through a throat lined with gravel. Then another.
Amra froze, wide-eyed.
Rhask, by contrast, inhaled slowly, nostrils flaring. His lips curled back, not in fear, but in fascination. He turned toward the only visible exit, a tunnel half-choked with roots and collapsed stone, its mouth hanging like the parted lips of a corpse. As he moved, Amra hissed behind him.
“Don’t you leave me here,” she growled, voice sharp and tight with panic. “I swear, if you—”
Rhask glanced over his shoulder and lifted one clawed finger to his lips in a silent, amused gesture. Then she heard it. The low rumble again. Close. Closer. She froze, trembling. Rhask slithered away without a word, vanishing into the mouth of the passage.
The tunnel narrowed quickly. Hanging roots trailed like fingers, brushing his snout as he pushed forward. The collapsed stone had formed a natural barricade, one even his scaled frame struggled to navigate. But through the gaps, he saw it. A beast. Its hide was thick, its paws almost as large as its head. Brown fur matted and streaked with clay, shoulders rising like hills as it paced the other side. Its small eyes caught the glint of Rhask’s scales.
It stopped. Then let out a roar that seemed to shake the world. The cavern trembled as the beast charged, ramming the stone-held root blockage with such fury that dust filled the tunnel, and roots snapped like twigs. Rhask didn’t flinch. He studied the collapse and the animal’s rage with a hunter’s eye. Calculating. Testing.
Far behind him, Amra dragged herself along the cavern floor. Grit bit into her palms, her sprained ankle a twisted, screaming weight. She didn’t know what that sound was, but she was sure it would kill anything in its path. She pulled herself into the deepest corner of the cavern, cloaked in shadow and silence. Her back pressed to stone, her breath shallow.
“I hope you kill each other,” she whispered, eyes closed, waiting.
Rhask crouched low in the narrow tunnel, eyes flicking from the thick roots above to the monstrous form snorting behind them. He had never seen a bear, not in Blackfin Mire, not in the swamps of his youth. To him, it looked like a fat, rabid otter, or an angry beaver, snarling and rage-filled. He knew one thing for certain: it was in the way. The only path forward, out presumably, was through this howling wall of fur and fury.
He looked down at his arsenal, a worn dagger, chipped at the hilt, and a pistol-style crossbow with only half a dozen bolts left. His tongue clicked thoughtfully.
Agravate it, he thought. Let it clear the path. He loaded the crossbow, raised it with steady claws, and took careful aim through the twisted roots. The creature reared back, still roaring, its head angled just enough—
Thwip!
The bolt sailed through the air and buried itself with a meaty thunk into the beast’s eye. The bear screamed, a sound like thunder in a cavern, and slammed its shoulder against the barrier. Roots snapped. Rocks shifted. Dust rained down.
Rhask’s eyes gleamed. He reloaded. The second bolt flew, glancing off a shivering root and clattering somewhere behind the creature’s mangled face. The bear didn’t care. It exploded through the wall, a living avalanche of muscle and madness. Stones shattered, roots whipped through the air, and the tunnel was suddenly full of its presence.
Rhask didn’t wait. He turned and sprinted down the passage, the creature’s bellow close behind. Back in the wide cavern, he drove to the left, sliding into the natural shadow near the entrance, becoming a shimmer of scales and silence. He licked his lips. Let the beast tear the woman apart. He would take it from behind and feed on them both. He peered toward the center of the room. Amra was gone.
Rhask hissed, quiet and furious. He turned his eyes back to the beast. It was confused now, its head whipping side to side, one eye a leaking ruin, the other wild with rage. It sniffed the ground, locked on the scent of blood and heat, and took a lumbering step forward. Rhask raised his dagger. His pulse was steady. He lunged from the shadows with the hiss of a striking serpent, landing hard on the bear’s back. The beast let out a thunderous snarl as the dagger punched into its collarbone, sliding in deep between muscle and bone. Hot blood spurted onto Rhask’s clawed fingers. He struck again, this time with his teeth, jaws clamping down on the thick muscle of the bear’s neck. Its fur was dense, wiry and tangled with mud. His fangs scraped uselessly against the hide, unable to get a proper grip, and couldn’t taste the sinew.
With a violent shake, the beast reared up and tossed him. Rhask hit the ground with a grunt, barely catching his footing as he skidded back, knees bending under the impact. His vision swam. Then came the paw, in a single, brutal swipe.
Whack!
He flew sideways, his shoulder smashing into a pillar of stone, the bear’s claws ripping ragged slashes through his leather armour. The air burst from his lungs.
He barely had time to right himself before the bear came again, another swat, this one catching his ribs and sending him tumbling end over end across the cavern floor. Stone tore at his scales. His vision flashed white with pain.
The bear roared, massive jaws open wide, the stink of blood and saliva pouring from its maw. It charged.
Rhask rolled. Just in time. The beast bit down where he had been, teeth snapping shut with a sound like splintering bone. Dust and shards of stone burst from the ground.
Rhask rolled into a crouch, breathing hard, blood dripping from his side. He stared at the bear, this unholy titan of fang and muscle, and grinned through the pain.
“You will make a fine gift,” he rasped. “For her altar.”
His dagger was small, his armour torn, but he was still alive, and he was not dead yet.
Amra limped toward the far edge of the cavern, her ankle screaming with every step. She kept low, clutching the wall, teeth clenched. The roar had frozen her mid-step. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t anything she’d heard before. Not in her quiet village. Not even in her nightmares. She hadn’t waited to find out what it was. When Rhask left the cavern, she had gone the opposite direction, crawling behind a low cluster of boulders veiled in shadow. Her hope had been simple: whatever thing was roaring down that passage, may it eat him alive and die choking on his bones.
Then came the crashing. The splintering, stones being torn away, roots snapping like bones. She heard Rhask’s feet clawing back across the stone, then silence... then something else.
Growling. Snarling. And then…Screaming. It was animalistic. Both of them, monster and reptile, locked in some kind of primal rite. She peeked out, careful to remain low, just enough to see. What she saw made her stomach turn.
The bear was immense, its eye socket a pulpy ruin, blood painting the snout and fur. Rhask leapt onto its back like a demon, dagger flashing. Then, gods above, he sank his teeth into the beast’s neck. She covered her mouth to keep from crying out. The bear buckled. Its body convulsed, tried to rear, then dropped like a felled tree. The sound of its last breath was like dying thunder.
She wanted to move. To crawl away into the darkness and never look back, but her body refused. She was frozen by fear, by fascination, by something deep and sharp in her belly. She watched as Rhask rose slowly, crimson slick across his face and armour. His chest bore the dark sigil of some moon-goddess she did not understand. He knelt beside the beast, and then he cut it open. Like a ritual. Like an offering. The heart came out steaming, massive in his hands. And he lifted it to the dark ceiling of the cavern, as if presenting it to some unseen presence, and then bit into it.
She looked away. She had to. The sound of him chewing, the low murmur of something like prayer, was worse than the violence. It was worship. She crouched lower behind the rock, covering her ears, her body shaking. That thing she had followed out of desperation… it wasn’t a man. It was marked. And it had no fear.
The taste of the bear’s heart still lingered on his tongue, metallic and warm. Rhask wiped the slick remnants from his jaw with the back of his hand and let out a long breath, eyes slitted, nostrils flaring. She was close. He turned his head slowly, scanning shadows that clung like wet silk to the cavern’s edges. She thought she was hidden, but her fear stank like sweat, sour and trembling. His forked tongue slipped between his lips, tasting the air.
“Still cowering in the dark?” His voice slithered through the space, soft and sharp as a knife. “Did you witness me, little lamb? You breathe so loudly when you’re afraid.”
A rustle. A shift behind the boulders. He turned his back on her and began walking toward the jagged exit at the far end of the cave, his feet squelching through blood-soaked stone.
“Come,” he said, not looking back. “You won’t last a night here.”
Her voice snapped out behind him. “I… I sprained my ankle. I can’t—” She hesitated, then finished bitterly. “I need your help.”
He stopped, spine stiffening. The word landed in his ears like an insult. He turned. Walked back toward her slowly.
“You... need,” he repeated, tasting the word with disdain. “Help?” A smile crept across his scaled face, not warm, not kind. “You creatures love that word. Always so quick to offer it. To beg for it. As if mercy were your birthright.” He reached down with a sudden jerk, seizing her arm just above the elbow, his claws pressing just shy of skin. “You want mercy?” he hissed, dragging her upright with a strength that made her wince. “Then earn it.”
She steadied herself, barely. Her weight leaned into him, and he shrugged it off like a dead limb. When she stumbled, he did not catch her. “Cross on your own,” he said, voice flat. “Or stay and rot.”
The wide cavern’s shadows yawned open before them, broken roots and slabs of stone turning the ground into a minefield of ruin. She limped across the worst of it alone, teeth gritted, gasping through pain. Rhask watched, bemused, until she reached the narrow passage leading to the next chamber. There, her pride cracked.
“I need you… Here,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “These roots, and … stones.” Her voice tapered off.
He gave an exaggerated sigh, then took her abruptly by the elbow, slipping into the narrow passageway. His fingers brushed the walls, claws anchoring in crevices as he maneuvered. Behind him, he heard her breath, fast, strained, afraid of tripping. Together, they descended into the next great hollow, the ceiling fractured and sagging, moonlight slanting down in threads through broken openings in the stone above. Rhask inhaled deeply. New smells. Old bones. And something else.
The second bear came out of nowhere. A thunderous roar ripped through the cavern. Amra flinched as it slammed into Rhask with the force of a falling tree. He flew across the stone like a tossed doll, his body skidding and spinning until he crumpled near the wall, motionless but not silent. He groaned, and the bear was already on him, jaws closing over his midsection, lifting and shaking him like prey caught by the spine.
Amra dropped to her knees behind a jutting stone, eyes wide, breath trapped in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. The scene played out in slow motion, blood in the bear’s teeth, claws carving deep into the leather armour she’d mocked just hours ago. Is he dead? she thought. Is this it?
Then, on the far side of the cavern, in the faintest light, she saw them. Two small forms huddled near the far wall, frightened and whining. Amra’s eyes darted between them and their mother, this massive, raging creature, tearing Rhask apart. No wonder she fought so viciously. She was protecting her children.
Suddenly, so was Amra. Her hand reached for the floor, dirt, warm and moist. She closed her fingers around a clump of it, felt the heat of life still lingering there. She raised her hand to her lips. One breath. Steady and warm. She blew into the soil. A shape began to form, crude at first, a lump of packed dirt, trembling like a newborn. Then limbs, soft and furred, took shape. Pebble eyes blinked once. A bear cub. A golem of breath and dirt and mercy.
“Go,” she whispered, barely audible.
The creature turned and, with a little yap, padded across the stone floor toward the others. The real cubs saw it, noses twitching, and after a moment’s pause, they followed it, entranced at first, then eager. The golem-cub led them back toward the broken passage they’d entered from.
The mother bear froze. Her massive head lifted from Rhask’s bloodied form. She saw the line of children slipping away. Let out a sound, not a roar this time, but a rumble, low and urgent. Then she dropped Rhask like meat and thundered after them, crashing through the jagged mouth of the passage they'd come through.
Amra, breathless, crawled to the opening as the last bristle of fur disappeared into the stone throat. She reached out, pressing her fingers into the damp soil. Her fingertips glowed faintly, roots curling beneath the surface, stitching through cracks and breaks. The roots tangled themselves, slow and deliberate, not sealing the exit… but slowing it. The mother and her cubs could find their way back out, with some effort, but probably not tonight.
Amra collapsed against the wall, trembling, relaxing the hand still pressed to the ground. Her breath came hard and fast. The beast was contained. Rhask… might still be alive. She wasn’t sure what she hoped for, but she didn’t check on him. She could still hear his ragged breaths scraping the stone like sandpaper, torn and wheezing. If he were alive, he’d kill her before he died. She knew that.
The cavern was quiet now, eerie, hushed. The roots behind had stopped growing, somewhere beyond them, the guttural grunts of the mother bear gathering her cubs. The bears hadn’t been starving. They weren’t trapped. That meant there was an exit. She just had to find it, but here? It was just her, just the dark, and her breath, and the ache in her ankle.
Her fingers found the rough wall. Grit slipped beneath her nails as she pulled herself upright. No light. No guide. She limped forward into the pitch, her hands tracing the damp stone. Up the narrow tunnel, back toward the cavern where they'd first entered, where the roots had hung like curtains and Rhask had demanded she choose. She didn’t stop to rest. She didn’t make a fire. Didn’t cry. Only when she reached the first cavern, when she could feel the air shift faintly warmer near the crevice they’d crawled in from, did she pause. She sat on a flat rock, panting, and tore a strip from the hem of her work dress. Her fingers trembled as she wrapped it around her swollen ankle, tightly.
Then, gritting her teeth, she climbed back out into the dusklight. The road was a deeper gray now, bathed in the last wisps of day. Her arms were scraped, her hair wild, her leg throbbed, but she walked. Limped. Endured.
By the time she reached the next town, two hours later, maybe more, her lips were dry and cracked. Her whole body buzzed with pain. A friend answered the door. Familiar eyes widened with alarm. Questions came, but Amra didn’t answer. She just collapsed into their arms.
They tended her wounds in silence, bandaging her ankle with clean cloth, pressing salve to the torn skin across her shoulder and jaw. A blanket. Water. Something warm pressed into her hands. A dark room. A bed. Amra sank into it like a stone. Sleep claimed her not with comfort, but with necessity. She fell through it, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. But she was safe, for now.
Rhask lay still as stone until the last of the bear’s roars vanished into the winding caverns. Amra had vanished, but her scent? Still warm. She had escaped.
He tasted copper as he rose, his blood slick on his tongue, the bear’s heart still pulsing in memory behind his eyes. His ribs screamed with every breath, and his left arm hung heavy from the bite. But he moved. He followed.
An hour behind her, perhaps. But the forest was still, and Amra’s passage was clumsy. Her sprained ankle dragged in the dirt like a ribbon, and her scent, fear-sour, thick, clung to every bent stalk and broken leaf. He crested a hill just before Tephes began to rise, and there was a village. A squat, quiet place tucked between trees, chimney smoke rising in the gold-pink light of dawn.
Rhask found her in a house near the edge. She was seated inside, half-silhouetted in lantern glow, leg bandaged and shoulder draped in linen. Two women fluttered about her—sisters perhaps, or kin—pressing cloths to her brow, whispering comforts.
He watched from the trees for a long while. Then the younger woman, brown hair, thin braids, nervous fingers, touched Amra’s hand and led her to a back room. Amra didn’t argue. She walked with the limp of a cornered animal. When the door closed, the two women remained in the front room. He could hear them from his place beside the garden:
“They said she vanished for days, the village was half burned.”
“Demon worship, they said. Sacrifices in the longhouse.”
“No—Amra wouldn’t. You know her. She must’ve been kidnapped.”
“Then why didn’t she say anything?”
“Grief makes people strange.”
Rhask moved noiselessly through the garden. Past the trellis and over the sill of a window. Inside was a small bedroom. Wooden toys were strewn about a young boy in a cot. He didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe. Only stood in the darkness, watching the sisters' shadows flicker beneath the door. Their murmurs were low and mournful, their words wrapping softly around his hatred. They were unworthy, but the boy he could save.
Amra woke to an eerie silence. She shuffled slowly toward the cabin’s kitchen, her ankle stiff, her head thick with sleep. As she stepped into the room, her breath caught.
Blood painted the walls in erratic, chaotic arcs. The table was overturned, legs splintered, and the clay teapot lay shattered in a dark red pool. On the floor lay one of the women, eyes wide, her face frozen mid-scream. His sister lay next to her, torn open at the belly. The boy was naked and missing half his throat.
Amra staggered back, choking on her breath. Then she screamed, the air sharp in her lungs. She woke in bed. Still wrapped in a blanket, her ankle throbbed, her limbs slick with sweat, her heart beating like thunder in her ears. Morning light crept in through the slats of the wooden shutters. She could hear shuffling in the kitchen, like someone setting the table for breakfast. Amra shuffled to the edge of the bed. She used a staff, leaned against the footboard to ease herself to her feet and moved tentatively toward the door.
In the kitchen, blood painted the walls in chaotic arcs. At the table sat Darel’s wife, her head cocked toward Amra, eyes wide, her face frozen mid-scream. Her sister sat opposite her, flayed open. Their organs were laid out on the table, arranged in a bizarre breakfast setting. Rhask sat at the head of the table, motioning for Amra to join them.
As she approached, she saw strange symbols scratched into the table’s wood surface. She sat shakily. Before her, a human heart sat in the center of a clay-fired plate. Rib bones, covered in drying blood and sinew, were placed to either side of the plate like cutlery, and a mug of thick red blood rested above the plate. Rhask sat before a similar setting.
“The boy… ?” Her voice cracked before she could finish the question. Rhask raised a finger to his lips and motioned toward the other room.
“We should eat before he wakes.” He hissed.
Amra looked down at the plate and the nearly drained heart at its center, then back to Rhask. Tears welled in her eyes.