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The path back to Hearthhaven felt longer and the air seemed to Seamus to grow colder with every step. As they emerged, the dim light of day filtered through the miasma, pale and sickly, more like a muted glow than real daylight. It clung to the ground like a mist and cast distorted shadows across the trail ahead.
Kara walked slightly ahead, her steps as light as a whisper on the dirt pat and her attention piqued, more than it had been on their way here. Seamus followed, the unease that had been gnawing at him earlier now creeping more urgently into his bones. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, the kind of wrongness that clung to the edges of his vision, just out of reach.
“Kara,” he muttered, his voice barely louder than a breath. “Something feels... wrong.”
Kara slowed, her hand drifting toward the shortbow slung over her shoulder. “I feel it too.” Her amber eyes flicked over the trees, scanning the shadows. “We’re close to the farmstead. Can you hear anything?”
Seamus’s shook his head. Where there had been gentle clattering of farmwork this morning, was now filled with a gulf of silence. His grip tightened on the hilt of his sword, and he felt a familiar thrumming course through his arms. He didn’t know why the air was so thick, or why his pulse was quickening, but the moment they stepped through the last line of trees and into the clearing, it all made sense.
The farms lay ahead, or at least what was left of it. Across the yard, the stone farmhouse was intact, but its door hung open, torn almost entirely off its hinges. A thick, dark trail of smoke curled from the roof, heavy and acrid, as if the air itself was choking on it. The once tidy fields around the house were trampled, torn apart as though some wild beast had ripped through them. Seamus thought of the boar. But that wouldn’t explain the bodies.
The farmer. His wife. Their child.
His stomach lurched at the sight. The farmer lay sprawled on the ground, blood pooled beneath him, his face frozen in the terror of his last moments. His body was twisted, broken, and long, jagged cuts had been carved into his skin. The girl’s small hand clutched a blood-soaked stuffed toy, and her mother lay motionless nearby, her eyes wide, staring at nothing.
Seamus felt the blood drain from his face. His throat tightened, nausea clawing its way up, threatening to spill over. He’d never been so intimately acquainted with death. Hadn’t even seen a dead body, let alone anything like this.
Before he could speak, Kara’s voice cut through the stillness, low and urgent. “Hollow Wretches.” She said, pulling him down behind a low stone wall.
Seamus blinked, trying to pull his mind from the horror in front of him. “Wretches?”
Kara pointed toward the far end of the yard, where dark figures moved among the wreckage. They were hunched, twisted, their dark, bluish skin slick and glistening in the murky light.
They moved with a violent, predatory gait, their footfalls sharp and jerky, and they carried crude weapons—jagged blades, maces, and other dark, twisted tools of violence, forged from a dull, blackened metal. Seamus’ eyes widened in horror as he took them in. Their skin shimmered with the look of wetness, and their eyes—deep-set and hollow—glowed faintly, reflecting the dim light like animals stalking in the dark.
But it wasn’t just their appearance that sent a chill down Seamus’s spine. It was their voices. The low, resonant grunts, deep and thick, that seemed to echo and blend together in a hellish cacophony. Occasionally they appeared to use language, communicating to each other in some monstrous tongue— guttural, twisted but with an uncanny refinement. But when they chirruped, sharp, trilling and bird-like, it was as though the air itself vibrated in response.
Seamus’s breath hitched. They were unlike anything. Anything.
“They shouldn’t be here,” Kara whispered, her voice tight, urgent. “Wretches never emerge this close to the surface.”
Seamus swallowed hard, his pulse hammering in his ears. “What do we do?”
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Kara’s gaze hardened. “We kill them.”
Before he could respond, she was gone, slipping into the shadows, her shortbow already in hand. She moved like a wraith—silent, invisible—blending into the fog as though she were formed of it. Seamus watched as she drew her bow, her movements fluid, deadly. The Wretches were utterly unaware of her presence.
The first arrow flew.
The low rattling of one wretch was cut short as the arrow pierced through its neck, its malignant form crumpling to the ground in a twitching heap. The others froze, their dark eyes scanning the clearing, a chorus of monstrous chirruping rising in alarm. Another arrow flew, and another—each one precise, lethal, dropping the creatures before they could react.
But the Wretches didn’t panic. They didn’t flee. They moved with a strange, fluid coordination, their voices echoing between them in their percussive tongue. One of them, larger than the rest, let out a sharp, metallic trill, and the others followed, their calls bleeding into a discordant symphony that made Seamus’s skin crawl.
And then they charged.
Seamus had little time to react before one of them was upon him, wielding a dark, jagged blade, lunging at him with a fierce swiftness. Its movements were brutal, and chaotic, the blade coming down in a vicious arc aimed at his throat. He raised his sword just in time, the impact jarring him to the core.
The Wretch snarled, cracked lips curling over gnashing blackened teeth as it swung again, its blade scraping against Seamus’s with a metallic screech. The creature’s movements were wild and unrestrained, but there was a terrible strength behind them. Seamus could feel the tremor in his arms, the panic clawing at his thoughts. He needed to run, but he knew if he turned the thing would gut him in an instant.
It swung again and again, faster every time with Seamus barely having the time to dodge, sensing the edge of its blade slicing through the air where his neck had been a second earlier. His heart pounded, his breath ragged.
The Wretch let out a sharp, resonant grunt—a signal, a call—and Seamus felt a cold chill shoot down his spine. This wasn’t just some dumb creature. It was far darker, possessing an intelligence he couldn’t decipher.
He swung back, his sword clashing against the creature’s weapon with a brutal force. The Wretch snarled, its dark eyes locking onto his, filled with a terrible anger. Seamus gritted his teeth, his muscles screaming as he forced the creature’s blade aside.
But it didn’t stop.
The Wretch lunged again, its blade aimed straight for his chest. Seamus’s instincts kicked in and he hurled himself backwards before jumping toward his foe. He swung once more, wide and clumsily, but caught the creature across its side. Black ichor sprayed from the wound, thick and oily, staining the ground.
It shrieked—a high, keening sound that made Seamus’s ears ring. But it didn’t relent.
Suddenly, Kara appeared from the shadows, twin daggers flashing in the dim light. She moved with the grace of a accomplished predator, slipping behind the Wretch before it could react. Her blades flashed once, twice, and the creature’s throat was open, a small torrent of black gushing over its torso as it crumpled to the ground.
Seamus stumbled back and fell to the ground, his chest heaving, his vision spinning. The Wretch lay at his feet, twitching in its final moments, its dark eyes still locked on his, still filled with that awful rage.
Kara wiped her blades on the creature’s ragged clothes, her face cold, unreadable. “There could be more, we need to move.”
Seamus nodded, his breath still coming in ragged gasps, but managed to pull himself to his feet. He looked back toward the house, toward the bodies. The blood. The horror.
More guttural calls echoed in the distance, faint but with that same piercing resonance. They were more of them, and they were headed this way.
Kara glanced down at the twisted bodies of the farmer and his family, her expression hard but wincing in disbelief. “We need to get back and inform the Guild. Something’s wrong. This can’t be happening.”
Seamus swallowed, his throat dry, his pulse still racing. “What do you think it means?”
Kara’s eyes darkened. “It means its shifting.”