Stonemourn was a city built squarely inside the colossal corpse of a petrified tree that rose over a forest of black and white birches like a fossilized ancestor. Its trunk was wide enough to swallow several city blocks whole. Its branches were bare and shattered, many broken clean off.
Three train tracks led into the protected stronghold, thick metal bars opening and closing as the trains darted in and out of the safe haven every so often.
In one such opening, a handful of soldiers sat on a raised platform cut from the stone itself, protected by a thick metal portcullis.
A clock leaning against the floor showed ten in the morning. Their shift had barely begun.
Coffee steamed from metal thermoses. Coins and cigarettes were scattered across a rough stone table where several of the soldiers played cards. A female soldier leaned against a steam cannon trained on the exit, its pipes hissing softly. She stared at the metal bars and, with a sigh, pulled a cigarette from her breast pocket.
“Why haven’t we just bricked up these tracks yet?”
“Call. Three of a kind,” said a broad-shouldered soldier at the table.
A groan answered from across the table, and a small pile of coins and cigarettes was pushed his way.
“Maybe the big shots think they’ll take Sternthal back someday,” said another soldier as two new cards were pushed his way.
Another soldier clicked her tongue and threw her cards into the middle. “I heard a horde of dog-men killed everyone and smashed the place to rubble.”
The female soldier by the steam cannon fidgeted with her cigarette. “It was way worse than that…”
Another man at the table nodded and threw his cards into the middle.
“Fold. I was there. It was a bloodbath. I’ve never seen anything like it. As soon as they breached the walls, everything turned to shit. Anyone who died turned into one of them. You can imagine what happened then.”
The woman acting as the dealer shuddered. “The two of you were there, huh?”
The woman by the cannon and the broad-shouldered man nodded.
“Norman, action’s on you,” the dealer said, pointing toward a man in uniform with a sharp mustache. He drew a thumb over his whiskers and flipped a coin into the middle.
“Heard it was Gulschak sabotage of some kind?” Norman said while leaning back in a chair made of stone.
The broad-shouldered man shook his head. “Damn Gulschaks blasted the walls. I saw it with my own eyes. But I was lucky. Got to the station early. Second train out.”
The man named Norman looked to his female colleague by the railing. “What about you… Mari?”
“It’s Yeva,” she said flatly. “I’ll tell you all about it if you lend me a light.”
Norman quickly produced a zipper lighter, flicking the top open to spark a fickle flame. Yeva leaned forward and took a long drag through the dried tobacco.
“I was on the last train out.”
The five heads snapped up from their cards.
“The last one?” the dealer asked with a look of surprise.
Yeva nodded. “We were trapped in the station. First they smashed the doors, then they swarmed us. Hundreds of them, climbing over each other as if driven mad.”
“What about the Blessed?” someone asked, flashing his cards without realizing it. “There must have been a bunch there too?”
Yeva blew out a plume of smoke and shook her head. “I won’t talk shit about superiors. But let’s just say they made a tactical retreat. Only four stayed. Hunters, from Nov Yanosk.”
“Hunters?” the dealer scoffed. “Not even army Blessed.”
Yeva flashed a grim smile. “That’s what I thought too. But the Richter Company? They were the real deal.”
The table fell silent.
“A man, handsome as hell, Captain Edmund, I think, took command and organized a defense while we waited for the last train.”
Yeva looked up to the stone roof above as she spoke. “They broke down the gate and the dogs flooded in. We funneled them with barricades into him and two from his crew.”
“Only two?” the man called Norman asked, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“I think that was the point,” Yeva said. “Make sure no one turned.”
She inhaled again. “You should have seen them. One was a woman twice my size with hair the color of fire, and the other was a gloomy kid with a wicked smile.”
“A kid?” the broad-shouldered man asked.
“If you could even call him that. They were killers for sure, both of them. But the woman… Saint… she had perfect form. Weighted, grounded. She swung a blade the size of a table, and everywhere she went, the hounds died.”
“And the kid?” the dealer asked.
Yeva tilted her head with a crooked smile. “I’ll tell you, but I need another smoke.”
The broad-shouldered man snatched the cigarette from Norman’s lips in a flash, leaning to the side to give it to her.
“Hey! I won that,” he protested.
“Closest you’re getting to a woman’s lips, private,” the man answered.
Yeva took it without hesitation, giving Norman a wink as the others passed her a lighter. Norman blushed and dragged a thumb over his mustache as Yeva continued. “The kid was just… destructive and horrifying, even more so than the dogs.”
“Details, corporal, details!” the dealer said.
Yeva cleared her throat. “There were things living inside him, moving underneath his skin. Black arms the size of logs tore through his skin. One hound almost split him in half, but he caught it halfway through his stomach. A dozen people reached out from under his coat and pulled the screaming dog into ribbons. He drank the blood.”
The dealer shuddered. “By the Saint, what happened to them?”
“Someone’s at the gate,” Norman said. The others did not seem to notice him, spellbound by Yeva’s story.
“A true monster showed up. A dog the size of a house, just as the train came into the station. I didn’t see it, but I heard it crawled up onto the last cart and they fought it. The woman and the kid threw themselves off with the beast to save the train.”
“Hello?” Norman called out. But Yeva was looking into the distance, and the others watched her expression.
“They had Blessed names, but the survivors called them Horde Ender and Little Beast,” Yeva said.
The dealer nodded. “They’re dead for sure, but at least they went out like heroes.”
Norman slammed his fist on the stone table, rattling mugs and coins. “Someone is at the bloody gate, you idiots.”
The rest of the group blinked in confusion, turning to look down at the track. The thick metal gate left only a few decimeters of space to see through. The two train tracks snaked outward. The cigarette at the corner of Yeva’s mouth fell to the floor.
A figure limped toward the gate with a steady pace. At first it was hard to tell if it was even human. Drenched in gore, clothes shredded, a lone arm cradling a bundle of flesh.
“Call the captain,” the dealer barked, shooting to her feet. “Prepare the shutters. We’re not letting anything in.”
Valves turned and levers were yanked into position. The steam cannon shuddered to life as the soldiers scrambled to their posts. Spears were thrown around, and the group approached the gate to the hum of steam and trembling pipes. Norman stood farther back, handling several heavy levers.
The figure grew closer.
Yeva went pale.
“Wait… no way,” she whispered.
“What is that?” the broad-shouldered man said, a bead of sweat running down his forehead.
“It’s a person!” said another.
Yeva’s spear chimed against the stone floor. She crashed against the gate, staring at the figure. “It’s her. The hunter with the fiery hair. Horde Ender.”
The figure came close enough for them to see her clearly. If she had fiery hair, it was now soaked deep red with crusted blood. Several lacerations covered her torso, and one arm was missing. She walked on two ground-down bone stumps where a foot should have been. In her hand was a small lump of smooth flesh, held with tender care.
“Open the gate, Norman,” Yeva called behind her.
“What?”
“That’s against protocol,” the broad-shouldered man said.
“OPEN IT,” Yeva roared.
The mustached man looked back and forth, then finally grabbed a thick lever and yanked it downward. Gears shifted, vibrating the room, and with the scream of metal against stone, the gate lifted.
Yeva rushed out onto the train tracks, into the forbidden and deadly wilderness. “I’ll help you.”
She stopped at the sight of the woman’s eyes. They were bloodshot, staring into nothing.
“Blessed?” Elenya rasped.
“They’re inside,” Yeva said. “You need treatment.”
Elenya limped past her. Yeva froze as she looked at the thing in her hand.
It was breathing, its chest rising and falling with small shudders. A ripped and flayed human torso, its face melted into a smooth surface with only a hole where the mouth should be. The lower body was completely missing, and a twig-like arm ending in knotted claws hung limp, like a disfigured newborn pup.
“What is going on here?” a voice thundered from the tunnel as a figure stepped in with heavy boots. A bearded officer with soldiers in tow, a sabre dangling from his belt.
He turned to see four spears raised toward the bloodied Elenya and Yeva, the latter desperately trying to shield her.
“What the hell is going on here?” he repeated.
“It’s her. The hunter from Sternthal!”
“The hunter? Why is the gate open?” he demanded.
The blood-drenched woman stepped toward him, the spears moving with her. His eyes traced upward, taking in the missing foot, the torn clothes, her blood-covered torso, the breathing bundle of flesh in her arm, and finally her face. By then he was as pale as his beard. He drew his sabre, and a faint red glow flickered along its edge.
“Stop,” he commanded.
She came to a halt in front of him, swaying on her one foot.
“Blessed… give… flame,” she said as her stump-like arm pulled a red and silver medallion from around her neck, spears still pointed at her from every direction.
“Your name?” the Blessed asked through gritted teeth.
“Elenya.”
The Blessed nodded, eyes narrowed, and took the medallion.
“Norman, what is your empty head waiting for? Close the damn gate,” he roared.
A yelp sounded from the side, and the rattling of gears shook the space.
The Blessed looked to the bundle of flesh as Elenya pointed at it with her stump.
“Is that…?” he began.
“Wretch…”
“Saint almighty,” he whispered, placing a hand on the ruined body. A faint flame trickled from the officer’s chest into the thing in her arms. Elenya leaned forward, whispering something into an opening that must once have been an ear.
At her call, the flesh squirmed as if a thousand worms writhed beneath the surface. Facial features pushed outward from the smooth skin. Beneath the ribcage, a spine lengthened, and flesh crept over exposed organs.
The room was silent. Then a breath came from the now recognizable human upper body.
Elenya collapsed.
“What are you pigeons waiting for?” the officer roared. “Inform upper command. And by the Saint, get a stretcher down here.”
“Yes, sir!” came the response in unison.
“Norman, I want every member of the medical team and their families at the infirmary in ten, or it’s latrine duty until you retire.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yeva, you’re on watch. Keep them under constant surveillance.”
The room became a whirlwind of movement and shouts. In the center of the tracks, Elenya knelt, her red hair falling over her face. She did not move, still clutching the upper body of the blind torso, its chest rising and falling.