The bodies are warm. In the freezing air, thin trails of steam drifts from the ragged wounds.
Henry drops to his knees in the mire. His stomach rebels instantly, a violent spasm tearing through his throat as sour bile hits the red clay. He dry-heaves into the dirt, his frame shaking.
"Ugh... fuck... fuck, fuck," he rasps, spitting the bitter taste from his mouth. He lunges to his feet, swinging his boot blindly into a loose stone.
The rock thuds into the mist, vanishing. "This thing... it's too fast. How do we even touch something that moves like that?"
He forces his gaze back down to the three heaps of meat, then tears his eyes away, his chest heaving. "They just walked through the gate. They died for nothing."
Leonard stands over the remains, his face carved from grey stone. The yellow glare of the burning oil pools reflects in his wide, unblinking eyes.
"Pull yourself together, Henry," Leonard says, his voice drop-forged and low. "Every monster has a seam. A weakness. We just haven't found the edge of the blade yet."
He looks up into the white wall of the fog. "It's treating us the same way it treated the little girl.
It's playing with its food. It wants us frozen by the spectacle before it closes the trap. We are going back inside."
Leonard kneels beside the first corpse.
His boots squelch in the pooling blood as he unbuckles the heavy leather travel sacks from the dead men's shoulders.
The frozen metal buckles click loudly in the dead quiet.
"We take their rations and their gear," Leonard commands, tossing a heavy pouch toward Henry. "It keeps us alive another day. We bury them when the sun comes up. I don't want Grace looking at this."
Henry catches the pack, his fingers slick with someone else's blood. He hoists two of the heavy sacks over his shoulder, his teeth grinding.
They turn back toward the house. Leonard holds the iron lantern high with his right hand, his left palm pulsing beneath the tight bandage.
From somewhere deep within the white fog behind them, a faint, rhythmic clicking sound rises, followed by a low, dry chuckle that drifts through the timber structures.
Leonard's knuckles turn white around the lantern handle. He doesn't look back.
When they reach the porch, the door is already ajar. Grace stands in the narrow opening, her silhouette framed by the faint amber glow of the hearth.
Her eyes track the heavy bags in Henry's hands.
"What happened?" her voice is a thin whisper. "The people... where are they?"
"Dead," Leonard says, stepping past her into the dry chill of the kitchen. "The creature took them before we could bridge the distance. We cleared their packs for the provisions."
Grace clamps a hand over her mouth, a harsh, dry cough escaping her throat. "Oh god... what is this place? What is happening...?"
Leonard places his hand firmly on her shoulder, the damp linen leaving a faint copper trace on her woolen tunic. "Don't dwell on it.
Your job is the princess. Stay upstairs with her. We will find the path out."
Grace looks down at the thick cloth wrapped around his palm, the dark red stain spreading through the center. Her brow tightens. "Your hand. What did you do?"
"Nothing," Leonard says, his face a mask. "I got reckless with my hunting dagger while clearing the brush."
The lie hangs between them, clumsy and thin.
Grace stares into his eyes for a long moment, the skepticism hardening her jaw, but she doesn't push.
She draws a ragged breath and steps back toward the stairs. "We have to break this loop, Leonard. Soon. The princess... she's slipping. This nightmare is eating her alive."
Henry walks past them without a word, his boots dragging. He drops his gear in the corner and flings himself onto the bed, rolling onto his back and slamming his forearm over his eyes to shut out the room.
Leonard watches Grace ascend the steps until the latch clicks above. He turns the heavy iron bolt of the front door, the metal groaning as it seals them inside, then walks over to the side of Henry's bed.
"Henry."
Henry doesn't move his arm. His mouth is a straight line. "Why did you lie to her, sir?"
"She doesn't need the weight," Leonard says, sinking onto the low crate.
"She needs the truth," Henry's voice rises, thick with friction. "You're hearing the voices now. It is targeting you. We're supposed to stand together, but you're locking her out in the dark."
Leonard lets out a slow, heavy sigh, the exhaustion finally pulling the corners of his mouth down. "She is a noblewoman, Henry. She has never seen the marrow of a battlefield.
Look at her—she's holding onto her composure by a thread. If I tell her the entity can take the strings of my limbs, she breaks. And if she breaks, the princess has no one."
He reaches out, his hand hovering over the dark room. "This thing... the blood and the steel... it's our weight to carry. We are the shield."
Henry slowly pulls his arm away from his face. His eyes are hollow, deep shadows circling the sockets. "Sir... to be honest with you... I don't think we're walking out of Budsle alive."
He looks at the ceiling boards. "Those men... they were torn to pieces in three heartbeats. It's like trying to fight the wind. It's impossible."
"That is exactly what it wants you to say," Leonard says, his voice dropping into the registers of a commander. "It feeds on the surrender. It wants you to lie down in the dirt before it even touches you.
I told you before—every beast has a throat. We will find this bastard's weakness, and we will carve it out for every soul rotting in this town. Stay whole, Henry. I need you."
Henry looks at Leonard's face, then shifts his gaze to the bloodied bandage. He draws a slow breath and sits up, swinging his legs over the frame.
"You take the bed, sir," Henry says, his voice flat. "Get off your feet. I'll take the watch. I'll sit right by the bed. If i hear anything, I'll have you awake before the wood creaks."
Leonard doesn't argue. His body is a bruised weight. He unbuckles his sword belt, lays the steel within arms' reach, and lies down on the mattress, his eyes closing before his head hits the wood.
Henry pulls his chair. He draws his blade, resting the bare iron across his lap, and sinks his chin into his chest. He closes his eyes, but the dark brings no relief.
Every time his breathing slows, the wet, tearing sound of canvas and flesh echoes in his ears.
He sees the sheared ribs. He hears the gurgle in the dark. He folds his arms over his knees, burying his face in the leather of his bracers, counting the slow, heavy seconds as the hours bleed away into the deep night.
A pale, greasy grey light slowly replaces the blackness in the windowpanes. The fog outside doesn't vanish; it simply thins, turning into a low, drifting vapor that hugs the damp soil.
Henry stands up. His joints pop in the silence. He looks back at the bed, where Leonard's chest rises and falls in a deep, unbroken sleep.
Henry catches the handle of the iron spade near the hearth. He lifts the door bolt with millimeter precision, slipping out onto the porch without a sound.
The morning air is cold, smelling of wet soot and old moss.
He walks to the clearing, where the small mound of the child's grave sits beneath the wooden cross.
His face is a blank slate, devoid of expression, the skin tight and numb. He drives the edge of the shovel into the red clay.
*Thud. Scrape.*
He works in silence for two hours. The spade bites the earth, heaving the heavy, wet clods into three separate mounds.
His shoulders ache under the armor, but he doesn't stop until three shallow trenches line the grass beside the little girl.
He drops the shovel. He walks down the main path toward the collapsed structure of the tavern, his boots leaving dark tracks in the frost. In the courtyard, an old, two-wheeled wooden cart sits tilted against a rain barrel.
He grabs the shafts, muscle straining as he rights the frame, and drags the creaking wood down the road toward the northern archway.
The stone entrance is a slaughterhouse.
The clay is stained a deep, gelatinous crimson that hasn't dried because of the dampness.
The remains of the three travelers lie exactly where they fell, their pale skin turned a blue-grey in the morning light.
Henry stops the cart.
He steps into the blood, his boots making a wet, sucking sound. He reaches down, grabbing the first man by the leather collar of his jerkin, and hoists the half torn man into the wooden bed of the cart.
As the weight shifts, the dead man's head strikes the side rail. The impact jars the left eye from its torn socket; the wet, white sphere pops free and rolls into the dark mud beneath the wheel.
Henry freezes. He stares at the empty, red cavity in the skull, then looks down at the dirt.
He drops to his knees. His fingers search the cold mire until they close around the firm, slimy shape of the eye.
He wipes the grey grit from the lens with his thumb, his movements slow, mechanical, and meticulous. He climbs into the cart, leans over the body, and presses the sphere back into the skull, his thumb holding it there until it settles.
"Oh god..." he mutters, the word a dry rattle in his throat.
He loads the remaining two split bodies, his hands covered in a dark, cold grease.
He wheels the creaking cart back across the square, the wooden axle screaming in the quiet town.
One by one, he carries the heavy, halved remains into the trenches. He arranges them as best he can, pulling their torn shirts over the exposed white rows of their ribs.
He doesn't have coffin boards, so he clears several heavy pine planks from the old fence line, laying the wood directly over the flesh before he throws the wet clay back into the holes.
When the earth is packed flat, he sinks three rough wooden stakes into the head of the mounds. He stands there, his hands resting on the pommel of his sword, his breath rising in white plumes as he whispers a brief, fragmented prayer for the dead.
Henry turns back toward the house, dragging the iron spade behind him through the red mud. His face is flecked with grey grit and dark spatters of dried fluid.
He uses the back of his sleeve to wipe a thick streak of crimson from his jaw, his gaze lifting as he nears the steps.
Leonard is standing on the porch, his cloak pulled tight against the wind, watching him in silence.