Crows wheeled overhead, black specks against a bruised dusk.Talon trudged through the knee‑high ferns, humming a tune so out of key it barely resembled music. The battered gourd swung from his hand, sloshing faintly with whatever cheap spirit he'd scavenged.
Behind him, the carcass of a boar dragged along the ground, tied with a vine. Its tusks caught on roots. Talon grunted and kicked it free, still humming, still swaying with every step.
The Hollow was alive with whispers. Leaves rustled though no wind stirred them. Trees hunched over the narrow paths, roots clawing at the soil. Any ordinary man would have prayed or fled.Talon didn't care. He just wanted meat and sleep.
He reached a clearing where stones ringed a crude firepit. Dropping the boar with a wet thud, he knelt, drew the short blade from his hip, and began to work. Blood splashed over his hands, slick and warm. His expression never changed.
Soon thick slices of flesh sizzled over the small fire. Talon sat cross‑legged, swigging from the gourd, the smell of roasting meat curling into the night air.
"Drink… eat… sleep," he muttered, as though repeating sacred words.He bit into a strip of half‑cooked meat and laughed—low and rough.A tune came to his lips, ragged and slurred:
"Through the Hollow I go…where no one should go…singin' songs no one knows…"
The laughter echoed in the trees. Something large and unseen rustled far off; Talon didn't bother looking.
Days blurred together.
Sometimes he hunted.Sometimes he lay drunk for hours, staring at the sky, mumbling half‑songs to the ghosts of the Hollow.Sometimes, in his stupor, he carved strange marks into the bark of trees—meaningless or forgotten even to him.
Then, one night…
Talon sat on a moss‑covered rock, tearing strips of meat from a deer's leg bone, when the forest itself seemed to shiver.
The wind shifted. The Hollow's whispers fell silent.A foul stench rolled through the trees—smoke, sulfur, iron, and something older.
He froze mid‑bite, jaw working slowly, eyes narrowing.
Through the distant branches, shapes moved.Not one. Many.
Tall, crooked silhouettes. Some hunched and dragging clawed arms through the leaves. Some slithering low, bodies made of shadow and spines. Others lumbered, shoulders armored in bone, their footsteps sinking the earth. Faint glows pulsed in their chests, red and orange like smoldering coals.
The pack of demons moved as one, cutting through the Hollow on some unknown errand. Birds fled in a frantic storm, their cries splitting the night.
Talon chewed, swallowed, and took a long pull from his gourd.
One of the demons—its face a jagged mask of molten stone—paused. Its head turned, slowly, toward him. A dozen others followed, hollow eyes gleaming.
For a long moment, man and monsters stared across the dark.
Talon blinked. "Tch," he muttered, wiping his mouth. "Too many of you."
The lead demon's claws flexed, and a low growl rumbled through the pack. But after a beat, they continued their march, slipping deeper toward the borders of the kingdom. The ground trembled faintly with their passing.
Talon watched them go. His lips twitched, not quite a smile.Then he spat a shred of meat onto the dirt, dropped the bone, and staggered back to his favorite oak trunk. He sank down against it, the gourd still in his hand.
"Not my problem," he said softly, almost fondly, as though to the Hollow itself.
He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and let sleep take him.The whispers of the forest returned, covering him like a dark lullaby.
Unknown. Unnamed.The man beneath the oak snored as a pack of demons crossed the night, heading for blood.