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Wings beating, the two lumps of rotting flesh on the bat-woman’s chest swayed with each stroke, utterly graceless, downright nauseating.
She dove in a single pass and snatched a female slave from the ground.
The poor demi-human thrashed and screamed, but there was nothing anyone could do.
Within moments the bat-woman tore her in two, blood raining down and drawing a wave of horrified cries.
The bat-woman answered with a mocking, high-pitched shriek of a laugh.
“Shoot that ugly freak down!” Field was furious.
No one needed a second order.
The crossbowmen raised their weapons and let loose with a crackling barrage, bolts and arrows pouring down in a torrent.
The bat-woman hadn’t expected ranged fire, and she paid for it immediately.
Three or four shafts buried into her body and she crashed headfirst to the ground like a thrown rag.
“That ugly piece of trash dared attack my people!
Every single one of them was bought with my own coin!”
Field grabbed a long halberd from the carriage, threw noble decorum to the wind, swung it in a full overhead arc, and caved the bat-woman’s skull into pulp.
But dealing with her had cost them.
Chaos erupted on the flank.
A massive press of Rotten Corpses, no longer suppressed by crossbow fire, came surging in.
“Everyone, move back!”
Ashina immediately channeled her power.
The black scales along the Dragon-seed Wolf’s neck began to hiss and smoke, terrifying energy coiling inward until the air around them seemed to bend and warp.
BOOM!
Ghostly blue fire erupted from the wolf’s jaws.
The heatwave hit like a dam bursting.
Blue flames swept across a vast swath of ground in front of Field, and the twisted shapes within were swallowed whole in seconds.
Field could have sworn even the gray fog thinned around them.
“So hot!” The guards were all armored, and being that close was like standing on a griddle, every man wincing and hissing through his teeth.
The foul blood of the Rotten Corpses had baked dry, crusted hard against their armor.
Ashina stuck out her tongue.
“Sorry.”
The repeated bursts of flame gutted the horde.
What remained wasn’t worth worrying about, and the group held through the first corpse tide.
Three slaves dead.
One slave guard dead.
Acceptable.
“Rest here half an hour.
Women, go collect the arrows.”
Field took a water flask from his steward and drank deeply.
The ice-cold water hit his throat like a slap, dragging him back to himself, reminding him this was real.
“Thanks to you, Ashina.” He reached over and ruffled her head.
Her face went red immediately, and her wolf tail started spinning so fast it was practically a propeller, she looked one compliment away from actual liftoff.
Ashina shook her head, doing her best to sound humble.
“It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Keep going, don’t stop!
No wonder the Northern Province was called the Cursed Land.
If the original owner had come here, no, even setting that aside, without Ashina’s help, he probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer than that.
The thought chilled him.
He pushed it aside.
New markers were closing in on his position, a cluster of red exclamation points.
Field’s brow furrowed.
“More monsters?
No.
Their formation is too clean.
Exactly nineteen.” He studied the markers a moment longer, then turned and called Ashina over, pointing ahead.
“Get into the fog and set up an ambush.
Stay ready to move on my signal.”
Cavalry Captain Connor and his men were picking their way through the gray fog.
“This fog-dispelling lamp looks like it’s dying.
Damn it, why does that brain-dead baron’s lamp have to be so huge while we’re stuck with this pitiful little thing?
The Second Young Lady is too damn cheap — she wants the donkey to work but won’t throw it a single carrot.”
“Shut up, you dumb ass!
You’ll draw every Rotten Corpse in a mile with that mouth.” The man beside him hissed.
“Something moved behind us.” A sharp-eyed cavalryman tightened his grip on his lance, visibly on edge.
“We should have killed Baron Field before we entered the Northern Province.
Not now.
Not in here.”
Connor let out a weary exhale.
“You think I didn’t want to?
Killing a noble in the open is enough to put every one of us on a gallows.”
That was the whole reason they’d said their farewells to Field and looped back around, they needed an alibi.
Finding Field’s trail didn’t take long.
Fresh foul blood and corpses scattered across the ground made for excellent signposts.
200 men left tracks that couldn’t be hidden.
“Brothers, priority target is Field.
Take him down first.
Then we run through the slaves, seize their fog-dispelling lamps, and let the gray fog do the rest.”
Connor’s plan was clean.
Perfect, even.
They arranged themselves into lance formation and brought their warhorses up to a trot.
“I can already picture the look on Field’s face.” Connor licked the corner of his mouth, grinning freely.
“Begging and screaming for his life.”
Then he saw Field.
His grin died.
Thirty fully armored guards stood in a defensive line ahead of him, shields braced, halberds leveled.
The steel tips caught the light.
The smeared filth and entrails of Rotten Corpses across their armor told the rest of the story.
These men had already been blooded today.
Two ranks of crossbowmen had their strings drawn.
One word and they’d open up on Connor’s cavalry.
Crossbows didn’t need trained soldiers, a child of three could fire one and punch through a grown man’s chest.
“Damn it.
They know we’re here.” Connor stared.
He felt like a fool.
“How?
Field is supposed to be a gutless nobody with nothing behind him, where the hell did he get a guard unit?”
Unease rippled through the cavalry.
An ambush with no surprise element was just an embarrassment.
Charge heavy-armored halberdiers in formation?
Or throw themselves at that wagon barricade?
“We pull back!”
Connor wrenched the reins.
His warhorse reared with a sharp whinny and spun on its hooves.
ROAR!
A massive black wolf materialized behind the horse, over two meters tall, built like a bear.
Connor’s mount lurched sideways in sheer fright, legs scrambling.
Connor hit the ground.
The terror knocked the sense clean out of him.
“Damn it—”
He hadn’t even reached for his weapon before a spear tip pressed cold against his throat.
A wolf demi-human stood over him, breathtakingly beautiful, watching him with an expression caught halfway between amusement and something far more dangerous.
Connor understood immediately.
One twitch and he was dead.
And she’d already lifted his fog-dispelling lamp from him.
“That’s — that’s the slave Field bought!”
It came back to him instantly.
The slave Field had insisted on purchasing.
No fog-dispelling lamp.
Moving through the gray fog like it was open air.
Every man around him went silent.
Goddess above, they’d walked straight into a Chosen One.
Who in their right mind could have guessed Field would have a Chosen One?
If they’d known, ten thousand gold coins wouldn’t have gotten them within a mile of this place.
“Why, Captain Connor!
What are you doing all the way out here?” Field’s voice drifted over, light and easy, as if he’d just spotted an old drinking companion.
His eyes moved with that familiar sly flicker.
“Were you worried I wouldn’t make it to my posting on time?
Don’t be.
Expanding the family’s lands is every noble’s sacred duty.”
Connor opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Caught between life and death, his brain had simply stopped working.
➤ Next: Within the Death Smog (Part 3)