The Horns of the Hunt

They came with no warning—only the horns.

Low, guttural, and unholy. Echoing through the trees like wolves howling through bone. Every beast in the forest silenced. Even the crows fell from the sky.

The Red Hunt had awakened.

Silas stood on the edge of the treeline, his chest bare, blood drawn across his torso in runes Hazel had carved herself. Behind him, Evelyn tightened her grip on the silver blade taken from the altar room. Her fingers trembled, but her eyes didn't waver.

Hazel walked ahead, barefoot and crowned in shadow, her new form both regal and monstrous. Where her feet touched the earth, the grass blackened. "He's close."

From the east, fog slithered between the trunks—thick and alive. It carried whispers and the stench of rotting flesh. The sky turned the color of dried blood. Then, through the smoke, they came.

Riders on beasts without names.

Tall figures wrapped in crimson hides, their faces covered in bone masks. Horses—or what once were horses—cloaked in stitched skin, hooves cracked and smoking. Each rider carried a spear of ash wood, stained with past sins. Their mouths didn't move, but their helmets sang—a sound that peeled bark from trees and shattered birds in flight.

Silas growled low. "They're not just soldiers. They're memories."

Hazel nodded. "He sends them to remind us what fear tastes like."

The lead rider raised his spear.

And charged.

The Hunt thundered forward—ripping through trees, tearing through reality.

Hazel threw her arms wide, summoning vines of obsidian and flame. Roots erupted from the earth, wrapping one of the riders and dragging it screaming into the soil. Evelyn slashed at another as it leapt toward her, severing its jaw with a single swing. Black ichor splattered her cheek.

"Evelyn—behind you!"

She turned just in time. Silas collided with a rider mid-air, knocking it off its beast. They rolled into the dirt, claws flashing. Silas tore the mask off, revealing a rotted face with his own eyes.

He hesitated.

It bit him.

Silas howled and snapped its neck with a savage twist, then stumbled back, bleeding from his shoulder.

Hazel's voice boomed across the battlefield.

"I am the Hollow reborn. I am the Queen of what you feared. Come to me, King of Rot, and let us finish what the blood began."

The Hunt paused.

Then parted.

And from the heart of the mist, he came.

Tall. Antlers spiraling like black lightning. Skin gray and cracked like ancient stone. His chest was hollow—literally—a gaping wound where a heart should be. And in his hand, a blade made of ribs fused into a single, jagged sword.

The Buried King.

His voice was as old as the roots beneath the world.

"Daughter… You wear my crown."

Hazel stood firm. "No. I forged my own."

A smile—slow and vile—spread across the King's cracked lips.

"Then come claim your throne."

Lightning split the sky.

The war for Black Hollow had begun.

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