In a haze of snow, a white rabbit jumped. The small woodland creature rushed between rocks smoothed by millennia of subjugating wind and ice.
The creature stopped, digging with its two paws to reveal red grass growing among skeletal remains.
In the white blur behind it, a dozen eyes lit up. Naked hands reached slowly through the storm, white spiderlings crawling on bluish, pale skin.
The rabbit was none the wiser.
Just as the hands lunged, a screech of metal cut through the air. The rabbit darted away, vanishing into the snow. The creature in the storm grabbed nothing but a handful of snow and blood-red grass. The dozen eyes looked up into the chaotic snowfall.
A metal leg descended, crushing rock and rumbling the earth. Something was crawling through the storm. A colossus moving in a hymn of rattling cogs and roaring engines. A procession of machines lingered in its wake.
In the distance, down the treacherous slopes and glaciers, stood a ruined fortress across a bridge, its ancient walls marked by fresh wounds.____
Far from the chaotic mountains, two figures moved over the dunes, leaving twin trails in the scorching sand. One was far smaller than the other, dressed in simple trousers and a bloodied shirt, barefoot, with a tail whipping lazily behind him. Around his neck hung a tiny spiked cross threaded onto a strip of ripped linen.
The other figure was taller, clad in armored boots that reflected the morning light through layers of scratches and dried stains.
It had been four days since they left the black city in haste. By day, they walked through the dunes. By night, they hid from the ravenous crows, huddled together in whatever shelter they could find. Each night grew colder. Wind gave way to rain, and rain to a raging storm that tore the heat from their bodies but gave them enough water to survive.
Even on this side of the black fortress, the lightning figures fought against waves of crows at the edges of the dunes. Their battle kept them awake and sent tremors through the ground. Gradually, their surroundings changed. Hardened cliffs replaced the dunes, and the ruins were exchanged for rock outcroppings, growing in size with every kilometer between them and the strange city shuddering somewhere over the horizon behind them.
They walked with dragging steps and raspy breaths, but neither voiced any complaint. They just walked.
The cliffs and dunes ended in a sudden upward slope that curved around the dunes, stretching into the distance on both sides—the edge of the strange, desert-filled crater.
In silence, they walked up to the cliff. “Do you need help?” Wretch asked as he turned to Elenya.
She was starving. If anyone could tell, it would be him. Her skin was tightly wrapped around her frame.
“Yes.”
That simple answer spoke volumes from someone like her. His eyes lit with fire, and two large, ashen arms grew out of his already ruined shirt. Elenya grabbed onto his back before he climbed the cliff with relative ease, setting her down at the top as the arms disappeared back into his flesh.
At the top of the cliff was a rocky crag. Tiny birches clung to gray and white rocks stretching for miles. To the west rose the mountain ranges, the Scar Spines. They had grown more distant since the last time he saw them.
Wretch drew in air through his sensitive nose. “I think I recognize this area,” he said, turning to hold Elenya’s arm and pointing forward.
She looked at him, her eyes widening in realization. “You do?”
“Yes, yes. The train passed through here on the way to Sternthal. It was not far after we left that stronghold underground.”
“Stonemourn,” Elenya filled in.
Wretch nodded as Elenya exhaled deeply. “Steak and potatoes, wait for me,” she said, looking up toward the sky.
“And the shower. Do not forget the shower,” Wretch said, rubbing his hands together with an expression of pure greed.
He turned around and waved. “So long, sand. You will not be missed. Actually, I would go so far as to say—”
He stopped as he looked out over the dunes.
“No bloody way,” he muttered.
“You thinking about a bed? That would be nice too,” Elenya said with a smile as Wretch stared into the dunes behind them with gritted teeth.
She followed his gaze, and as quickly as it had appeared, her smile faded. Far in the distance, their trail snaked up and down hills and around columns of stone. Something walked along it, dragging its matted and bloodied fur through the sand.
“You have got to be kidding me. Grendel’s damn pet,” Elenya said.
A name washed over his mind, one he recognized.
Vishnii, eyes in the mist.
Wretch turned quickly. “It saw us. We have to go. Now.”
They took off, sprinting along the cliffs toward the west.
“Can we fight it?” Elenya asked over her shoulder.
“It is a Blaze. I have fought it once and wasn't even close,” Wretch said, jumping over a rock. They stumbled on quivering legs through the low brush, their lack of strength apparent even to Blessed like them.
The trees grew thicker and the vegetation denser. Wretch took the lead, jumping over bushes and weaving between branches and thorns while Elenya barreled straight through.
A rustle ahead made Wretch skid to a halt. Elenya collapsed to her knees behind him, gasping. He crouched and raised a finger to his lips.
Birds burst from the low canopy ahead. Then came a sound, a high-pitched clicking and shifting of limbs. A howl answered from behind. Through the mesh of leaves and branches, something moved. Something as large as a carriage, with chitin that caught the light of the suns. It extended its upper body over the trees, revealing a head reminiscent of an oversized grub.
Elenya held a hand over her mouth while Wretch sat still as a statue, his heart beating in his chest. Another howl rang out behind them. The grub moved, crashing through the underbrush on a myriad of legs.
Wretch and Elenya looked at each other. “Let’s go.”
The unmistakable sound of wood breaking echoed through the thin forest, and the howl mixed with strange clicks.
They dashed forward, moving between rocky outcroppings and thin birch trees while a thunderous battle grew in the distance. Soon, the forest returned to its eerie silence.
“Maybe it lost?” Wretch said.
A piercing howl from behind proved him wrong.
They pressed on, thorns and stone tearing at their skin. Soon the light grew dim, and twilight illuminated the white and black trees. Occasionally, a laugh or a howl echoed through the forest.
When it became too dark for Elenya to see, he led her by the tail. His feet had become bloodied by the rocks, and he fed tiny flickers of flame into the torn flesh to keep moving.
Suddenly, he came to a stop. Elenya slammed into him, and they both tumbled, not onto earth but onto cold metal.
“What is happening?” Elenya asked, looking around in the dark.
“Tracks,” Wretch said, poking the metal with a claw. “They are even real.”
“If we follow them south, we will reach Stonemourn,” she said, reaching toward his voice and hauling him up to his feet.
“We keep going,” he said.
He saw her glance behind them in the dark before turning back and nodding as his tail slithered around her wrist. They quickened their pace, their bodies fueled by the promise of salvation.
They rushed through the night, hours bleeding away to the sound of their hurried breath. When dawn illuminated the sky, Elenya’s clothes were caked in mud, sweat drawing lines through the dirt on her skin, and Wretch’s feet were bloodied and swollen.
The two strange figures hurried along the tracks. The forest grew dense, filled with the chirps of birds welcoming dawn.
The first rays of the sun peeked over the Scar Spines to the east. Far in the distance over the canopy, a stone carcass of a massive tree with broken arms reached towards the sky.
“I can see it!” Wretch exclaimed.
A rustle came from behind them, and they both turned, Weary-eyed and breath caught in their throats.
Nothing was there, only swaying leaves.
There's no wind.
The sound of shifting air brushed against his senses. It was barely audible even to his improved hearing. Wretch reacted instantly, throwing himself into Elenya and slamming them both onto the tracks as his skin squirmed. A claw the size of his torso tore through the space they had occupied a heartbeat earlier.
Arms twitched out from under his skin, reaching toward the ground and Elenya like the legs of a hatching insect. His nails shredded against the coarse gravel beneath the tracks as he bolted back the way they'd came.
Another strike whizzed by, sending a tremor through the earth and filling the air with the screech of metal. He crawled at furious speed for a few dozen meters before jumping and pivoting in the air to make sure they both landed on their feet.
Elenya landed in a wide stance, the Blinking Blade in her hand, looking around wildly. A low, inhuman laugh came from the tracks.
“It is her,” Wretch growled.
Vishnii stood before them in her larger form, towering and hunched, her fur matted with blood and the discolored innards of some freshly slain Blessed. A long snout jutted from the tangled mass, mist puffing from her breath. Where eyes should have been were stitched slits, but beneath the fur, a dozen other fiery eyes watched them. Fewer than before, more than half torn or pressed shut. In the distance behind it, the silhouette of Stonemourn looked on with indifference.
Elenya released the cleaver strapped to her back and swung the Blinking Blade in a few practice strikes.
“It is hurt,” she said as her eyes lit and shades of red danced across her skin. "We can do this."
Wretch ripped the black cross from his neck, his eyes lit as the relic elongated to the size of a warhammer. "We have a trick up our sleeve and knows it's Blessings."
“It can turn into mist unless you grab or attack it,” Wretch continued, his teeth exposed and his skin squirming. The hound took a step toward them, a long tongue licking its snout.
“This larger form is another Blessing. It seems great at tracking, which could be a third, and the fourth is probably all those eyes.”
“We blind it and hack it to death?” Elenya said, inching toward the lumbering creature as it stretched its razor-like claws.
“We have won with worse plans,” Wretch replied.
“A lot worse,” she agreed.
The three figures stood still, poised under the rising suns. A bird hopped onto a branch, the glow of the sunrise reflected in its eye as it rustled its minuscule wings. It chirped once—
And all three hurled themselves forward in a frenzy of blessed fire.