I move within the hamlet towards business unfinished. The taste of blood lingers where it shouldn't.

These borrowed bones remember more.

Strange sensations flood through my skeletal frame. A phantom pulse beats where no heart exists. My eye sockets track movement differently, shadows sharpen, depth becomes precise.

The scents of fear and sweat from the remaining twenty-two targets drift through non-existent nostrils.

I smell yet cannot smell. Memory and something more, magic, guides me.

I flex reformed fingers, watching claws extend and retract from bone. The beast's hunting instincts settle into borrowed memory.

Their way writes itself into these fragments.

And beneath that, a hunger.

Aeternus hums against my spine, rejecting parts of the transformation. The sword's purpose is my own, leaving only the hunting prowess of the bones.

My duty remains uncorrupted.

These new senses will serve Haven's protection.

I shake off the sensation, moving back through streets now quiet save for the drip of blood on silent stones. Purpose pulls me toward the cellar where instinct from new bones senses heartbeats echoing through thick wood.

I pause, considering my appearance. Wolf-skull fragments mesh with yellowed bone, forming a muzzle filled with predator's teeth.

The lock hangs heavy. I break it.

Heartbeats move away as I approach.

Iron hinges groan as the cellar door opens. Darkness rises from below, thick with wrong scents these borrowed bones shouldn't recognize.

The balverine fragments now part of my frame know. Not children below, but things between.

There is no innocence.

Stairs disappear into shadow. My transformed frame moves on bone-claws. Wolf-skull fragments grafted to jaw sample tainted air.

Eight distinct scents.

Eight half-formed monsters waiting in darkness.

They try to hide when they see what enters, a skeletal horror wearing parts of their fallen pack. Bone-tail scrapes the wall as I descend.

The cellar holds no exits, no escape routes.

The adults chose their hiding place well.

Yellow eyes reflect what little light reaches. As these eyeless sockets need no light, neither it seems do they.

They huddle in corners, forms caught between human young and beast. Too young to fully change, but old enough to hunger.

Their partially transformed limbs scrape stone as they press against walls.

One, braver or more desperate, steps forward. Its malformed limbs drag across stone as twisted muscles ripple beneath patchy fur.

"The others will come," it says through half-formed fangs, saliva dripping from a muzzle caught between human and beast. "The great pack will kill you."

The words emerge as much growl as speech, a promise it cannot keep.

The borrowed bones bring knowledge. These young ones cannot control their forms like the adults above.

Dawn brings no relief to their partial transformations.

The pack kept them here not just to hide their existence, but because their bodies betray their nature even in daylight.

My new wolf-skull fragments recognize the signs - patches of fur that won't recede, elongated limbs that crack and reform without pattern, claws that extend at random.

Their changing mixes human and beast without reason.

They cannot control the transformation.

Understanding breeds no mercy. It simply guides the blade's path.

My blade moves before the creature finishes speaking. Aeternus finds its mark with practiced efficiency, separating half-formed head from twisted shoulders.

The body drops as others scramble back, claws scraping stone.

These bones know what must be done. Each strike serves purpose, not revenge. Swift cuts end their existence before pain can register.

No flourishes, no hesitation, just the clean arc of steel through corrupted flesh.

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One tries to leap past. My free hand catches it mid-air, borrowed wolf-claws piercing deep.

A quick twist ends its struggles.

Three remain, pressed against far corners.

Two rush together, thinking numbers might save them. Aeternus proves them wrong, a single stroke taking both.

The last one cowers, more human than beast in this moment.

These bones feel no pity.

The blade completes its work.

Eight bodies cool on stone. No sounds escape the cellar.

The borrowed wolf-bones in my frame feel no satisfaction. This was necessity, nothing more.

I gather their remains, ensuring nothing can rise again. The balverine bones I add to my own form might serve Haven's protection.

The rest will feed cleansing fire when this work is done.

Fourteen targets remain above. These new hunting senses track their movements through the hamlet's streets.

They still believe their trap holds prey, not death.

These bones remember fallen warriors who died protecting their young. But these were not children.

Not anymore.

Just monsters that had not yet finished becoming.

I climb the stairs. The cellar door closes with final weight.

Some duties bring no joy. Some tasks require dead hands, for living ones might hesitate.

The dead have no such burden.

Purpose drives these bones back through blood-soaked streets. Not to count the dead. That task stands finished.

Something else waits discovery.

The Alpha's final question lingers: "Why?"

These borrowed senses reveal new secrets. Scents tell stories bones alone would have missed.

I enter their homes one by one, enhanced jaw sampling air thick with old gore and darker things.

Behind loose boards, letters written in steady hands. Supply counts. Maps marked with routes far beyond Haven's known territories.

Names of settlements I thought lost to corruption, some marked 'claimed,' others 'to be visited.' Some remain as I knew them.

Simply destroyed.

This was no random pack.

A ledger reveals more. Dates, numbers, carefully maintained records of their hunts.

Too organized.

Too planned.

These weren't simple beasts, but something worse. Monsters and civilization set within and bordered to demon lands.

In the Alpha's quarters, hidden beneath floorboards, I find older documents. Correspondence with other packs. Territory markers.

Breeding records.

A grand design takes shape through yellowed pages. Systematic expansion, coordinated hunting grounds.

Haven is not alone. Other human places persist.

And the balverines hunt from some, but not all.

My borrowed wolf-skull traces scent trails through empty rooms. Each space holds a fragment of larger truth.

The 'great pack' the young ones mentioned was not the twenty-three already dispatched.

A final letter, partially burned, speaks of gathering strength. Of numbers growing.

Of plans for when they become strong enough to assault real walls, not just isolated travelers.

More letters reveal deeper truths. Territory markings show conflict zones where balverine packs clash with other monsters.

Their careful records detail skirmishes against walking corpses to the south, territorial disputes with something called "deep dwellers" elsewhere.

A map catches my attention. Red ink marks regions where demon lords rule, but black lines show monster territories pushing back against infernal control.

The balverines coordinate with other changed beings, things that were once human before corruption took them.

Not allies, but parallel forces carving out their own domains.

My borrowed wolf-bones recognize names scratched in margins. Packs that fell to stronger creatures.

Settlements lost not to demons, but to things that crawl from beneath.

No further details remain.

The world beyond Haven's walls fragments into countless small wars between countless dark things.

These monsters don't simply prey on humans. They battle among themselves.

My wolf-skull fragments twitch at familiar scents. Names of packs I've encountered before, now revealed as part of larger hunting grounds.

They span regions I thought empty of all but demons.

The corruption spreads, but it does not spread evenly.

These borrowed bones have shown my chosen bones many things.

I gather oil-soaked rags and kindling from earlier preparations. Blood and death, organized predation.

My claws scrape against Merik's bone-sack as I adjust it.

I pour the last oil trail leading out from the Alpha's quarters. The documents within will burn first. Maps, letters, breeding records.

Better they become ash than risk other dark things finding this knowledge.

The carefully maintained ledgers of death will fuel the first flames.

Why don't I take it back to Haven?

I pause, claws hovering over the documents. My borrowed wolf-skull fragments catch scents of ink and aged paper.

The knowledge contained here could serve Haven. Maps of territories, records of monster movements, details of how these creatures organize and spread.

My wolf-skull fragments twitch, processing scents of ink and parchment. These borrowed bones speak of knowledge, of tactical advantage.

Haven could use these maps, these territory markings.

Commander Ikert's strategies could adapt. Patrol routes could shift.

But deeper bones, older fragments, point to caution. The breeding records, the logs, the careful documentation, all wrong.

I see Haven's walls in memory, feel the weight of frightened eyes watching darkness.

Their hope remains precious, fragile.

They cannot handle this knowledge.

My claws sort through pages, separating simple maps from darker knowledge. Territory boundaries, safe routes, demon-claimed lands, these might serve.

But the rest, such knowledge serves only to deepen fears.

These borrowed bones remember fallen warriors who chose to carry burdens alone.

The dead carry burdens the living cannot.

I roll selected maps carefully, securing them within Merik's bone-sack. The rest I arrange beneath oil-soaked timbers.

Better they burn here, their knowledge returning to ash and shadow.

Haven's walls stand stronger on a foundation of hope than fear.

My wolf-skull nods, agreement reached between old bones and new. Some duties require careful balance.

The living behind Haven's walls need maps to guide, not nightmares to haunt.

Commander Ikert leads well by focusing on immediate threats. These documents reveal too many enemies, too vast a darkness for a single fortress to face.

Such knowledge would fracture their resolve, divide their efforts, weaken their walls.

I gather the chosen maps close, these fragments of knowledge deemed safe to share.

The rest will feed the flames.

My purpose remains protection. Sometimes protection means keeping darker truths from those who must focus on survival.

I gather the papers. Oil soaks the edges.

These records will burn with the rest of this false haven.

Better they become ash than burden Haven's defenders with horrors they cannot change.

The borrowed wolf-bones agree.

It is time.

No monsters lurk in shadows.

Only the dead wait here now.

I strike flint against steel. The spark catches. Fire races along oil trails, spreading through prepared paths.

Smoke rises as flames claim wooden walls. The heat grows, but these borrowed bones feel nothing as I watch the blaze spread.

Let it serve as beacon and warning both. Let any who see the smoke know that death came here with purpose.

The fire reaches the bell tower. Support beams crack.

The structure groans, then collapses inward, sending sparks skyward.

Soon nothing will remain but scorched stone and blackened earth.

I turn north, finally toward Haven.