His hand crushed through the throat of a deer, and branches and leaves rustled as he fell to the ground and landed before the falling corpse. A burst of gore flew out from the impact point and the deer's head fell to the ground with a meaty thump. Haerclus landed on his feet as he set to bring the corpse to his cave after the quick kill, returning home to cook the fruits of his hunt.

He entered his shelter, the deer’s body dragged through over the ground, bits of viscera and gore littering his trail. He hoped that the path of blood and bits of flesh would signify his new home as a nest of dangerous monsters to scare away the various adventurous night creatures, or perhaps even the thief that he still held a grudge against. Haerclus took a small sharpened stone and struck it against the ground to whittle it down even more, and went to skin the remnants of the body. He cut loose the venison, leaving its chunks stuck upon sharpened sticks, as he worked to start his fire again, the winter cold having extinguished what embers he had left remaining.

He leaned upon the cave’s walls as he rested, his eyes closed, as he felt the pain from the frosts touch his uncovered toes, what snow that had once covered it melted away to reveal his skin, the feet a waxy black, as he felt like a thousand pins and needles stuck into his flesh. The numb feeling reminded him that he had forgotten to make for himself even a makeshift amount of warm footwear to his tired mind. Haerclus bent forward, as he retrieved his spits of meat, as he chewed slowly, tried to put his mind off of his foolish blunder, and the stinging pain that came from his whitened ankles. The embrace of sleep graced his tired mind once more, as he slumped across the cave’s wall and succumbed to the soothing embrace of yet another nap.

---

A hunter slowly followed a trail of blood and gore, bow drawn and arrow strung, as soft footsteps and a weighted gaze tracking the trail of blood and dragged meats left gathered congealing upon the dirt of the ground. The hunter signed to his compatriots, his fingers held upon in a pattern, as he signaled for them to follow the trail, despite the obvious danger. Food was hard to come upon, and such a large yet inexperienced predator would be easy pickings as it moved lethargically in the winter.

“Be cautious, boy,” said an older man’s voice. “In the deep winter, for such a creature to leave its home and hunt instead of staying asleep must be a statement of its strength.”

The young hunter nodded to his mentor, the soft noise of snow under their boots just barely heard as they followed the ever more gruesome drag marks, all the way to the yawning mouth of the cave. The smells of cooked meat, greatly contrasted with the smell of a slowly rotting bear and unwashed body as they snuck around the cave, the damp and heavy air of melted ice all muggy and wet. Bloodied footprints around the size of a human’s tracked their way deeper into the cave’s depths, as the hunters stuck to the walls.

One of their numbers lit a torch, the hunting party casting a light glow across the cave interior, as they came across the skinned remains of a deer’s pelt, the creature’s open skeleton showing to the open air, as it lay at the end of the trail of gore. The headless corpse of a rotting bear lay at the back of the cave, the hunters wrinkling their noses at the display.

“Hold still,” said the authoritative one among them, his voice echoing through the cave. “Blake, go find that gluttonous bastard. Isaac, run along back to the village. If we fall against a monster that can blow a bear’s head out like the strike from a Dwarvish cannon, the village is not to be caught unprepared.”

The young hunter found the matted fur of the bear, lying upon the ground. Blake lifted it, startled to find a thin man huddled against the wall, fast asleep, his body barely covered by the ragged remains of a dress shirt. The man’s mouth was dribbled with caked blood, and right below his feet, frostbitten and on the brink of dropping straight off, his skin reddened and pale.

“There’s a starving man here!” shouts Blake, a note of surprise coating his voice. “Looks like he’s the one to scavenge off these kills.”

“No monster?” asked their leader, clearly fearful about the grisly deaths that the animals had experienced. He stood there for a while more, deep in thought, before he asked the rest of the hunters: “What say you all to bringing the man to our village?”

The hunters agreed, and they picked up Haerclus’s body from the ground, as they hauled him to their village. They had salvaged what they could from the messily left corpses within the cave, and walked off through the cold of mid-winter, as the skies began to darken, not long after the cave was left to the distance. The hunters trudged through the snow, forging their path through the thick blanket of packed snowflakes, as their leader walked just a little behind the rest along with Blake’s mentor, who covered their tracks with a few kicks at the snow around their passage. The wind began to howl, as white mists were kicked into the air upon gusts of wind, the overcast clouds thickening and growing darker.

“Quickly, men, the village isn’t that far away,” shouted their leader above the sound of the wind, as the distance showed a small wooden outcropping.

The palisade lay not too far away, the loosely tied wooden stakes lining a perimeter, its interior swept clear of snow. Their gate creaked open, and the reinforced wooden logs revealed a scene of a small village, its streets clear of most inhabitants. Flakes of snow began to fall, as a soft bit of warmth spread out from a tower at the center of the town, as small flames danced above the hands of a figure in one of its windows.

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“Thas’ some mighty fine prey you gots there, sir hunters,” shouted a snarky voice from the few guards who stayed huddling by the sides of the closing palisade gate.

Laughs erupted from their throats, merrily making humor of their huntsmen who had gone out and returned with nothing much other than yet another man hauled upon their shoulders and carrying messy furs along with it. The hunters would need to set out once more on the morrow, and they could only hope that what food they had kept stored would last.

The hunters brought Haerclus to their local inn, hoping their innkeeper would take care of the man they had picked up since none of them could. Sweet comforts of a warm hearth, the smells of freshly cooked food, and the tender care of the few waitresses they had in their employ would likely nurture the survivor up far better than the small hovels of the hunters. The hunters parted ways, their discipline dissolved into jokes and jabs as they sauntered out of the inn, the incoming storm was forgotten in their fun.

---

Haerclus woke, his eyes adjusted to the flickering light of a fireplace’s flames, as he laid upon a soft, fluffy bed. His tired eyes focused upon the scenery around him, the wooden walls, and warm brick fireplace, a low bedside table with a small candle fixture, and a window looking out upon the snow-covered village on the outside. He laid for a while more, too tired to want to move off the soft mattress, and warm blanket. Haerclus yawned, and hauled himself up, wanting to leave the room, confused as to how he had managed to get to a building in his sleep.

A sharp pain came from his legs, a stinging pain traveled up his legs, as he felt a bit of a wet stick come from beneath the covers, as two noticeable weights made their presence known from the bed. Haerclus lifted the blanket, looking for the offending objects left in his bed, his face twisted in confusion, as he looked around, and reached a hand down to try and feel around. What he found surprised him, as he saw the two, detached, forms of his waxy-black feet that bled purplish blood that had begun to congeal beneath the covers.

A confused “Eh?” was all he got out until he remembered his hunt.

Though he came to this realization, he still failed to understand how he had managed to enter such a warm inn after he had hidden inside his cave. The confusion nagged at him more and more, as he tried to feel around the bed, and even slapped himself in the face to test if it were a dream. Pain followed the slap, as what would be usual.

Haerclus pulled up the covers and revealed his two detached feet to the dancing light of the fireplace, the stained bed covered in wet blood. His only salvation was the soft cloths that helped staunch his wounds, and the pain that had come when he tore them off the still-congealing blood and his exposed flesh.

“Ey, anyone there?” asked Haerclus his voice adopting a note of annoyance, his curiosity piqued as he thought that it would have been another person; whoever they were, they would have likely been able to answer his many questions. “Whichever one o yis broke off me feet better get ta explainin’.”

The door creaked open, as Haerclus looked towards it, his eyes squinted, his feet exposed to the air. The face of a waitress peered inside, her eyes widened at the sight of the feet left upon the bed and left soon after, as she ran from the horrific sight. The grizzled innkeeper walked in behind her, his face an expression of pity as he entered the room.

“Damn foolish, stranger, forgot to wear shoes in midwinter,” grumbled the innkeeper. “Be glad the hunters found your sorry state and took pity on you.”

He turned around, and looked behind him at a person out of Haerclus’s sight, and roared as he asked for a runner. “Boy! Hey you, yes, you, run along to the healer’s hut, ‘n gettem over ‘ere. Can’t have a guest bleedin’ out can we, hmm?”

A shout came from beyond the door, the pattering of feet and the whoosh of cloth quickly draped over a body came before the creak of a door opening. A cold draft blew into the inn and a door closed, and the fire shook as the cool air passed through. Haerclus shivered, as the cold sent a lancing pain down his body, and clutched the ruined blanket closer.

Haerclus grimaced and licked his lips, annoyed, and confused to the extreme. He asked, his voice a strained sound as it exited his mouth: “Who are ye, ‘n where be this village?”

“Who are we?” asks the innkeeper, as he mocked the man who lay upon the bed, and sarcastically returned the question. “Who may you be, stranger? Doubt any man with half a brain would have the balls, or the lack of brains, to go prowl the forests while half naked.”

The innkeeper pointedly looked at the waxy feet left lying on the bed, grimaced, and motioned for Haerclus to go on. Haerclus sighed, his eyes thinned, as he lay upon the bed, the stinging pain almost all he could feel, as it starkly contrasted with the soft, and now wet bed.

“Haerclus Asmitheus, ‘n alchemist’s apprentice, ‘n a corporal in te thir’ Demon guard ‘toon,” he tiredly reported, as the innkeeper’s eyes widened, and screwed closer in a contemplative gaze. “Now who in ta abyss itself are ye?”

“A Demon, eh?” asked the innkeeper. “Not a lotta people like your kind, you know.”

He paused and took a breath. “I be Andre. Just Andre for you, and I hold this fine establishment in the middle of nowhere. Now, where be a Demon soldier coming from, hmm? Planning an invasion, are you lot? Why, you’d sell for quite the bounty if I turned you in.”

Haerclus frowned, even more confused, a flash of worry passed his mind. “Ey, didn’ ye Humans offer ta let us in when we asked fer it back then? Don’ ye even remember te destruction o’ Hell?”

“Hah!” the innkeeper laughed as if Haerclus said the most hilarious of jokes. “If that did happen we’d all be cheering already. Hell destroyed, I’d have loved to see the day we got revenge for my boy.”

The innkeeper turned, and bid Haerclus a good rest before they turned him in at the next town, and left the room. A draft of wind whirled into the inn once more, a door slammed open as the stomps of the little boy opened the inn’s front door, as he left a box of medicines and various items on the bedside table. An old lady walked in after the boy, dressed in a green shawl. Haerclus watched them take out various reagents, as he analyzed the poorly created medicines that they left at his side.

The crone took several packets in her hands, as she spread a powder upon his wounds, the torn packets left atop the table, as a globe of watery energy coated her hands. Haerclus screamed, as the pain suddenly escalated, his stumps repaired themselves slowly but surely, the agony pierced his mind as his flesh regrew, and left him still footless. He stared into the eyes of the old woman, who gazed back in disdain. The Humans that he had heard of differed far from these craven and greedy people, who looked even to profit from a man who had escaped the destruction of his home. He thought, even more, of the Humans who so clearly hated his kind, when in the past they had been welcomed as the best of allies. The thoughts haunted him, as he slipped back to oblivion, and its tender embrace.