Whispers Beneath the Road

The gates of Cael'Rhain opened just after dawn.

Cool autumn air rolled in, crisp and dry, carrying with it the scent of pine and distant frost from the mountains that loomed to the north. The light spilled across the stone in wide beams, golden and warm—unseasonably gentle for the late season. For a moment, the world outside the city looked untouched. Peaceful.

But every one of them knew better.

The caravan moved slowly at first. A dozen wagons in total—most loaded with crates of food, rolled linens, sealed water barrels, and hardened tools. Each was driven by a city-assigned team: two handlers, one lightly armored outrider, and a warden from one of the churches assigned to rotate between the wagons during travel. Mixed among them were a few traveling clergy, their holy symbols tucked beneath traveling cloaks, and four mounted scouts who ranged ahead by half a mile.

Koda's team rode toward the center column.

Their repaired and reinforced carriage had been fitted with divine-threaded plating, the wheels newly banded in gleaming alloy. Terron held the reins, his posture relaxed but alert. Junen sat just behind the driver's seat, eyes scanning the horizon. The others alternated between walking beside the caravan and resting in the shaded interior.

The journey began on roads flanked by shallow ridges and open fields, framed by brush in fading amber and rust-red tones. Wild grass bowed in the wind, and great arcs of hawks traced overhead as if escorting them from above.

But the quiet wasn't empty.

It was watchful.

Day One.

The first encounter came mid-morning—nothing more than a ripple through the underbrush and a hiss from the lead scouts. A trio of creatures emerged from the thickets ahead, slinking low to the earth with reptilian grace. Thin and long-limbed, they bore the shape of wolves twisted into something leaner, their skin like taut leather stretched over dense muscle, their eyes too wide and faintly glowing violet.

Their tongues lolled unnaturally, not from exhaustion—but hunger.

Not of the body.

Of attention.

They circled the scouts, brushing close—never striking first, only observing. It wasn't until one lunged at a squire's horse that the soldiers retaliated.

The fight was brief.

They bled quickly.

And they smiled as they died.

Not laughter. Not satisfaction. Just the curve of lips parted in grotesque bliss.

The soldiers buried them without comment.

Day Two.

The terrain rose steadily into shallow hills. The trees grew taller now—bone-white trunks and sharp-leafed branches casting long shadows even before midday. That morning brought mist, clinging low and damp across the wagon wheels, but it cleared by noon.

Near the end of the day, they passed an old farmhouse. The stone was collapsed inward, overgrown with vine and moss—but the upper window still held its frame. Inside, a shape moved.

Not a beast. Not a spirit.

A woman.

Or the memory of one. Pale, beautiful, untouched by weather or time. She stood at the window, head tilted just so. Hands pressed gently to the glass.

When the caravan passed, she followed them with her gaze.

Not mournful. Not hateful.

Inviting.

But when the scouts doubled back, the house was empty.

No body. No trace.

Only the faint scent of perfume in the grass. Lilac. Or maybe rose.

No one could agree.

Day Three.

The hills gave way to valley paths, winding between narrow cliffs and broken shale. Rocks sometimes tumbled in the distance—unprovoked by weather, or animal, or time.

A beast attacked near dusk.

A stag, antlers branching into unnatural complexity, its fur sleek and black as riverstone. It didn't charge immediately—just approached the camp perimeter as they settled for the evening. It stood outside the firelight, head bowed slightly, as if offering itself.

But when one soldier stepped too close, the stag raised its head and whispered in a voice not its own:

"Do you want me?"

Its voice was male and female, aged and infantile, layered with echoes.

Junen stepped forward before it could say more—and drove a spear through its eye.

It did not scream.

It moaned.

Then dissolved into ash.

Day Four.

The valley flattened again, and by afternoon, the jagged shadow of the mountains could be seen more clearly—still days away, but no longer abstract. Their presence changed the wind. Sharpened it.

They passed a ruined chapel, overtaken by ivy and cracked stone. The interior still bore pews, crumbling and vine-choked—but untouched by scavengers.

At the altar sat a statue.

Of no known god.

A kneeling figure. Beautiful. Nude. Head bowed. Arms spread.

A mouth open—not in prayer, but yearning.

The clergy refused to enter. Even the Holy Mother's warden would not step near it. The statue watched them, though it did not move.

It wanted something.

And it waited.

They did not give it the chance.

The caravan kept moving.

That night, Koda sat beside the campfire with Maia and Junen. No one spoke much. The others lay quietly in the grass or against the reinforced wheels. Even the guards rotated watch without complaint.

There had been no great horror.

No consuming threat.

But each day felt thinner than the last. The veil between want and will—between comfort and compulsion—stretched tighter across their backs.

And somewhere, just beyond the range of their thoughts, something waited to pull them the rest of the way through.

Day Five.

The morning air came colder, clinging to their breath in faint wisps as the caravan advanced into a narrowing stretch of wooded road. Frost clung to the grass where shadow still covered the path, but the sky was clear.

The fifth day began in peace.

It did not remain so.

Around midday, the scouts ahead returned with stiff expressions and pale skin, one of them refusing to speak entirely. The lead scout rode to the caravan's front wagon and called for the ranking Order warden—then, wordlessly, waved for Koda's group.

They followed him down a small offshoot from the main path, winding beneath overgrown branches and thorned ivy, until the trees gave way to a glade.

And there, nestled between fallen stones and toppled banners, was a camp.

A makeshift village, really. Half tents, half wooden lean-tos lashed to bent branches and ruined fenceposts. Smoke curled lazily from cooking pits. Colored fabrics hung between trees like ribbons from a festival. There were lanterns—dozens—soft-glowing with pale amber light, giving the impression of dusk even beneath the high sun.

And people.

Dozens of them.

They were alive.

Laughing. Talking….. Touching.

Moving between one another like dancers without music.

And none of it was right.

Their eyes glistened too much. Their skin flushed too perfectly. They whispered in each other's ears with voices sweetened into poison. Bodies leaned too close, too long. The air smelled of honey and wine and sweat and rot beneath perfume. There was no sense of time, of roles, of barriers. Children played, running between the legs of moaning couples, unbothered. Some of the adults sang lullabies while others pressed their lips together with reverent hunger only to peel away and find someone else.

Maia covered her mouth, nausea clawing up her throat.

Thessa looked away, shaking.

"This isn't a camp," Junen said hoarsely. "It's a collapse."

Wren's eyes darted across the scene, lips trembling—not with fear, but outrage. "They've been hollowed."

"They don't see it," Koda murmured. "They think they're free."

They watched as a man, stripped to the waist and draped in flowing silks, cradled a stranger's face in both hands, murmuring, "You're enough," over and over as tears streamed down his cheeks.

Moments later, he said it to someone else.

And someone else.

And again.

The words meant nothing.

They were drugged into their own need.

"Can we help them?" Terron asked, low.

"No," Maia whispered. "Not like this. We'd have to rip it from their minds. Their hearts. They'd fight us."

And as if in answer, one of the villagers looked up—eyes meeting Koda's across the field.

The smile he gave was not malicious.

It was warm.

Inviting.

He beckoned Koda forward, two fingers curling slowly.

"Come," he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "You look tired."

Maia grabbed Koda's arm instinctively, her pulse racing.

Deker turned away. "We need to go."

But the villagers had already begun to rise. Not with weapons. Not with threats.

With welcomes.

Dozens of them. Soft hands reaching, voices promising ease. Peace. Rest. Love.

"Leave your burdens."

"You've done enough."

"You deserve this."

The group backed away, forced to retreat as if from flame.

And as they returned to the caravan, not one of the villagers followed.

They simply smiled.

And waited.

As if they knew.

That one day, someone would come back willingly.

They didn't speak for a while.

The trail back to the caravan was silent, each footstep heavy with the residue of what they'd seen. The air itself felt wrong—as if something had been left open, some invisible door that could no longer be closed.

But it wasn't just the glade.

Maia was the first to notice.

Her pace slowed, brow knitting in confusion. Then she stopped completely.

"…Do you feel that?"

The wind had stilled.

The birds had gone silent.

No insects.

No creaking trees.

No life.

The path behind them, winding back toward the wagons, suddenly felt miles too long. A pressure built at the edge of their awareness—like an anvil suspended above the back of the skull, moments from falling.

Then, from the east—

The roar.

It tore across the valley like a volcanic scream, shattering the brittle calm in an instant. Trees shivered. Birds scattered in panicked clouds. The very earth trembled beneath their boots.

It wasn't just rage.

It was recognition.

And then it came.

From the ridgeline above, the beast crashed down like an avalanche of meat and hate. Stone shattered beneath its landing, trees cracked like dry bones, and the force of its arrival sent shockwaves down the valley.

Wrath had returned.

But he was no longer what they remembered.

He stood nearly twenty feet tall now—his bulk impossibly dense, muscles cording beneath blood-red skin as if his entire body had been reforged by fire and fury. His lone great eye blazed like a furnace, but now it was flanked by two smaller ones—sunken, twitching independently, flicking toward movement like hunting dogs.

The air around him burned.

Pelts still hung from his shoulders—fresh now, glistening, some torn from monsters, others from… things that may once have been human. Chains wound around his arms like broken fetters, and in one hand, he carried what might once have been a cathedral bell—now warped into a brutal maul, stained black.

He did not pause.

He descended on the caravan with unstoppable force.

Wagons crumpled like paper.

Horses screamed and scattered—some crushed beneath wheels, others cleaved in half as Wrath tore through the center of the caravan like a tempest.

He did not roar again.

He didn't need to.

His rage sang with every step, and it sang in blood.

A dozen soldiers were down in moments—thrown, stomped, crushed. One warden tried to raise a barrier and was obliterated mid-incantation, his body flung thirty yards through the trees.

"Koda!" Maia's voice cracked as she reached for him.

But he was already moving.

His blades had formed before the echo of the roar had faded—twin arcs of silver will bursting from his palms like lightning sheathed in steel. He broke into a sprint, coat snapping behind him like a war banner, boots chewing earth as he shot forward.

"Terron—cover the wagons!" he shouted.

The others needed no further order.

The caravan was already retreating, some wagons tipping to avoid the shattered ones, others dragging wounded up onto the running boards. Wren and Thessa were casting suppressive flares, and Junen had raised a shimmering dome of force to block debris from hitting the horses.

But none of it would matter unless the beast was stopped.

Koda surged forward, blades alight.

And Wrath turned—slowly—like a mountain recognizing an ant with teeth.

The eye fixed on him.

And the beast grinned.

Then they collided.