Kalikose. It took effort not to wrinkle his nose in disgust at the very mention of the name. Rasp knew finding refuge in the ruins of an abandoned underground city was fanatical thinking at best. It was a silly idea made all the sillier by Hop’s assertions that the city was haunted. Ghosts or not, it didn’t matter. They’d never reach it. Rasp had only agreed to look for Kalikose because it offered an alternative to slowly walking themselves to death for nothing. At least this way they had hope, even if it was the false kind.

But false hope was better than no hope. Or worse, surrender — an option whose existence Rasp so far refused to acknowledge. Regrettably, it would only take a few more days of endless drudgery before he started to consider it. With any luck he would drop dead from exhaustion before it came to that, though.

Until then, it was all about Kalikose. A totally real city that definitely existed and was somehow a better alternative to death. Hurray!

Rasp kept his reservations to himself, naturally. There wasn’t any sense in letting the others know Faris’s plan was a crock of shit. Which was why, after another half day of slogging through the forest with death at their backs, Rasp was surprised when they stumbled across landmarks that proved they were headed in the right direction. The signs were innocuous at first, simple, unnoteworthy, easy to dismiss. The crumbling remains of an abandoned bridge here, a broken tower there, the washed out remnants of a cobbled road underfoot.

Armed with his father’s maps, some navigational assistance from Father, and the desperate determination of a dead man bent on evading his doom, Faris drove them onward tirelessly. By the end, even Rasp was beginning to believe the fantasy was real. Kalikose defied logic, sure, but the idea of salvation was a drug unlike any other, and the gods be damned, Faris knew how to peddle his shit. Every twist and turn of the forest came with fresh evidence that they were nearly there.

Salvation was at hand. They only had to keep going. A few steps more, Faris insisted. That was it. And then they would be saved, freed from the waking nightmare of being hunted for their magic.

And then it happened. They took the final few steps and arrived at the top of a slippery, fern-infested hill. The trees parted and a ray of sunshine struck down from the clouds, illuminating the lost city below. An angelic choir of pudgy-faced cherubs descended from the heavens to herald the momentous occasion, filling the musty forest air with harmonic song.

Yep. You’ve officially lost it.

Okay, admittedly, it probably didn’t happen quite like that. Especially not the choir, as Rasp was so hungry he might’ve considered eating one of the pudgy-faced fuckers. But what good was having an overactive imagination if not to exercise a little creative licensing from time to time? It’s not like he could see what the rest of the group was gawking at. In fact, had it not been for Faris’s fervent chatter, insisting that they’d found the damned place, Rasp would’ve assumed they were still stuck forest-deep amongst an endless sea of suffocating trees. The passing landscape hadn’t changed in any significant way. It was still trees, trees, and more trees, blocking out the blessed sunlight, rendering night indistinguishable from day.

“Ready?” June’s voice broke Rasp from his thoughts.

His companions each took shifts acting as his guide. He hadn’t bothered to keep track of who or when or how they decided it was someone else’s turn to walk the blind man into the nearest tree, but evidently his sister was on duty now. Under normal circumstances, Rasp wouldn’t have minded so much except, like him, her attention tended to wander. Which meant he tended to wander under her care, too. The last time he’d been left under her watch he damn near wandered off a ledge.

Rasp held his arms close to his body to keep her from seizing him by the elbow and leading him somewhere worse. “You’re actually watching where we step this time, right?”

“Why are you being such a baby all of the sudden?”

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“All of the sudden?” Faris’s mocking voice called out from somewhere below.

Rasp ignored him, focusing instead on the much closer problem at hand. “I’m not being a baby, dear sister. I’m ensuring the hands I’m being entrusted to are paying attention this time.”

“Look, I get it. You’re doing that thing where you act mad about something else because acknowledging the truth is hard, but we don’t have time for this.” June pried Rasp’s left hand away from the protection of his body. The fact that she was using only a fraction of her strength was almost as insulting as the words pouring from her mouth. “As much as I would love to stand here and assuage your feelings about venturing deep into the haunted underground city, we’ve got to get a move on. Come on now. No more dilly-dallying.”

Gods he missed the mule. “I wasn’t dilly-dallying.”

“Uh-huh, sure. Like you weren’t stalling on account of how freaky the city looks.”

“I can’t see how freaky the city looks.”

“Oh, right.” June threaded her arm through his and started off down the slippery sloped hill regardless of whether or not Rasp was prepared to follow. “Never mind then. Let’s go!”

“Should I be worried how the city looks? June? June!”

In true Stoneclaw tradition, June chose the path of most resistance and slid down the steep hillside at a pace a few steps shy of a freefall. Rasp clung to her like a babe, whimpering obscenities under his breath each time he nearly lost his footing. Eventually, after more close encounters than he cared to remember, the pair reached the foot of the hill. Here the spongy terrain was artificially flat. While it was not uncommon for forests to have flat spots, this was far too uniform to be natural. There was no denying that this part of the forest might have once been tamed by civilization.

An irritated ear flap reminded June and Rasp they’d fallen behind and that Faris and Hop were waiting for them to catch up. From Hop’s labored breathing, he probably didn’t mind the delay, but their self-appointed guide felt otherwise. “Don’t lag,” Faris cautioned as he assumed the lead once more. “This is not the kind of place you want to get separated in.”

While this was sound advice in itself, Rasp couldn’t help but wonder why Faris had felt the need to state the obvious. Getting split apart would certainly make it easier for the enemy to pick them off one by one. Had this been Faris’s sole concern, however, Rasp was certain he would have said as much.

On cue, the overactive imagination kicked in and started running with wild theories concerning the creepy, abandoned city and whatever had stuck around to haunt it. Ghost stories existed for a reason, after all. And while Rasp firmly believed ninety percent of them could be attributed to tales spun by older siblings, the remaining ten percent fell to the supernatural. As each step brought them closer to the city, and the creepy crawly sense of dread crept from the back of his neck and down his spine, Rasp couldn’t shake the feeling that the rumors surrounding Kalikose were not the product of spiteful older brothers.

The damp air dropped several degrees as they passed under the crumbling remnants of what had once been the main gates. With his left arm still hooked firmly through June’s elbow, Rasp ran his hand along the tangle of lichen sprouting from the surrounding walls. His fingertips dug deep, burrowing through layer upon layer of wet moss and scum to find stone. Rasp pulled his hand away with a grimace, concluding the walls constituted more flora than stone. The wilderness had reclaimed the abandoned city as its own.

Moss, thick and spongy like wet wool, clung to every available surface — the walls, the ground, probably the air too, in the form of invisible spore clouds, waiting to be sucked up into some unsuspecting beast’s lungs and start its life cycle anew. Rasp yanked the sweat-soaked bandana that hung loosely around his neck up over his mouth at the thought. The smells wormed their way in through the musty fabric regardless, clouding Rasp’s nose with the stench of wet leaves and sticky sweet pollen.

It took him a moment to realize why the smells felt out of place. Unlike the rest of the forest, nature here seemed blissfully unaware that fall was in full swing. It was as if Kalikose had been cut off from the rest of the territory, content to exist within its own private bubble, free of outsider interference.

Terror crawled down the back of Rasp’s neck like an invisible spider. His six sense kept tugging at him, insisting something was nearby, watching, waiting, lurking, but each time he scanned the ruins for signs of foreign magic, he found nothing at all. Something was there, though. He could feel it.

The enemy must have sensed it as well. According to Father’s report, they’d retreated back into the forest and were in the midst of a heated debate similar to one Rasp’s group had had that morning. Traipsing blindly into a haunted city brought out the superstition in even the worst of people, apparently. Rasp had to give Faris credit for that. While it wasn’t ideal, the faun’s plan was giving their pursuers pause.

It wouldn’t last though. Ultimately, the decision would come down to whom the resistance feared most: ghosts or their leader. And Rasp had a sneaking suspicion he already knew the answer.