Chapter Fifteen: Ash and Claw
The road to the Forest of the Dead was supposed to be
desolate.
That was what Helena had told them that no living soul
dared pass through the lands that bordered it. But barely a day into their
march, the wind shifted. It carried something thick, biting. Not the usual
scent of decay or iron, but something fresher.
Smoke.
Not the kind born of hearths or cooking fires. This was
wild, feral, consuming. A whole village was burning.
Ethan stopped mid-stride, nostrils flaring. His claws
flexed, though he remained in his human form. Behind him, Rufik snarled.
"That's not a raiding fire."
Helena, pale from their last encounter beneath Narnish
and the forest, lifted her hood against the heat in the wind. "This wasn't done
by humans."
The pack broke into a run.
---
The village came into view through the
trees,half-standing, half-ash. Flames licked the ruins of stone walls. Shadows
danced between them, moving too fast for normal eyes.
But not for Ethan.
He surged forward with his vampiric speed, claws
bursting from his fingertips. He blurred through broken gates and past the
first burning home.
The scent of blood hit him first,sharp and recent.
Then came the screams.
"Spread out!" he barked over his shoulder. "Find
survivors!"
They weren't prepared for what they saw.
Villagers hung on wooden pikes, drained and discarded
like husks. Creatures with elongated limbs and skin like black parchment
scuttled through alleyways. They looked like vampires,but moved wrong, as if puppeted by something darker.
Rufik tackled the first one, his full wolf form smashing
it into the wall.
Ethan leapt into the fray, half-shifted,fangs bared,
claws slicing like sickles. He ducked low beneath one attacker, then sprang up,
his claws carving its spine clean in two.
But they kept coming.
Dozens.
One lunged at Helena.
Before it could touch her, Ethan was there, appearing in
a gust of wind, driving his claw through the thing's face. It didn't scream,it simply convulsed and collapsed.
Rufik roared, his voice echoing across the village.
"These are no mere spawn!"
Helena's face drained of color. "They've been
twisted… by Strahen's bloodcraft."
"What does that mean?" Ethan growled, cutting another
down.
"They can't be killed by silver or sunlight. Only
heart-rending or blood-severing works now. They're becoming something…
worse."
More screams erupted deeper in the village. The wolves
scattered, each of them engaging the nightmarish beings. But they weren't
fighting to conquer.
They were holding them back.
Suddenly, a deep tremor shook the ground.
The flames faltered, flickering unnaturally.
Then they saw him.
A creature stepped from the shadows,twice a man's
height, cloaked in flesh-colored armor that pulsed like it was alive. His eyes
burned red, his mouth filled with serrated bone-teeth.
He wasn't a vampire.
He wasn't a man.
He was like a harbinger.
Or should we say Another breed of harbinger.
One of Strahen's ancient creations.
Helena gasped as its chestplate shifted, revealing a
crimson sigil etched like a scar into its flesh-armor. "That mark…" she
whispered. "It's the Glyph of Red Womb. They used to brand harbingers with it
during the First Reign. When Strahen still walked the blood-mists. They were bred from prisoners and fed corrupted vitae until they forgot what it meant to
be human."
It moved with terrifying grace.
Ethan lunged first, claws slashing for its throat. But
the creature caught his wrist mid-strike and hurled him through the side of a
burning house.
Wood splintered. Fire engulfed him.
Pain lanced through his ribs as the wreckage closed over
him. For a heartbeat, he couldn't breathe. Not from the blow,but the memory.
He'd seen this before. Not this village, but this ruin. In dreams that weren't
his. In blood-soaked glimpses of a future no wolf had survived. If we fall
here… there won't be a second stand.
Rufik howled and charged, but even his full-wolf form
barely dented the creature's hide. It shrugged off the bites, the tearing
claws.
Helena raised her hands, glyphs spiraling into the air,
but the harbinger turned and threw a bolt of dark red energy that shattered her
spell and sent her crashing backward.
Ethan emerged from the wreckage, singed, breathing hard.
His eyes burned gold.
He didn't fully shift.
He didn't need to.
His body blurred, his speed matching a bullet's flight,
and he vanished into the harbinger's blind side. His claws struck true,piercing beneath its armor. The beast roared in pain.
But it didn't die.
Instead, it retaliated.
A massive arm came down on Ethan's shoulder, cracking
the earth beneath them. The hybrid twisted, caught the arm, and in a single
brutal motion, severed it with a scream of sinew.
The creature fell to one knee.
That was enough.
Rufik and the others surged in.
Fangs sank.
Claws slashed.
Ethan drove his hand into its chest and yanked out its
heart,black and steaming.
The harbinger let out a choked cry, and then the flames
consumed it entirely. Ash poured from its mouth like a final breath.
Silence fell.
The village was gone.
But one girl remained.
A child, hiding beneath a broken cart, her skin scorched
but eyes wild with life.
Ethan knelt. "You're safe now."
She looked at him. "The forest… screamed."
He frowned. "What forest?"
She raised a shaking hand.
"East. Where the dead sing at night."
Helena joined him. "The Forest of the Dead. It's begun."
Rufik sniffed the wind. "Then we're running out of
time."
Ethan rose, heart pounding, blood still wet on his
hands.
They couldn't afford to delay. But something had set
this blaze… not to kill the town,but to draw them.
A trap.
They had walked into it and barely survived.
Ethan turned toward the horizon where the trees of the
Forest of the Dead loomed like ancient sentinels.
He spoke low.
"We move at dusk. No rest. No more surprises."
Behind them, the ash of the village blew like whispers
across the ruined path.
But something unseen watched from the trees,tall, pale,
and grinning.
The blade of Severance remained hidden.
And death was only just beginning its hunt.