The tax captain's corpse froze.
Thick red blood pooling from his severed neck hardened into ice crystals in a matter of minutes. Luka stood staring at the chopped head near the ruined wooden cart wheel. His breaths came in ragged gasps. White vapor spewed fast from behind his dull bandages. The defective soldier's heart inside his chest pumped excess heat. He tightened his grip on the rusted sword hilt.
Remaining tax forces lingered in the surrounding villages. He could smell their filth carried by the wind. He had to chop them all. Pulling these oppressive weeds straight to the root.
A hand caught his left wrist. Cold. Firm.
"Hold your wrath, My Lord."
Rhea stood beside him. The maid's gray eyes stared straight. "Slaughtering pawns will not reclaim the throne. Ulric will only send more dogs. Your hands are too valuable to clean street filth. We need a wolf pack."
Luka growled. His neck veins throbbed.
The woman was right. His physical strength possessed limits. His right arm mutation still throbbed beneath the skin, demanding a massive soul energy toll if kept unleashed. Wasting his remaining breath here was a tactical stupidity. His target was the dragon's head. Not its tail.
He lowered his sword. Scraping the rusted blade against the corpse's clothes to discard the filthy blood, then sheathing it rough.
"Wrap your arm," Rhea commanded. "That appearance will draw arrows from a distance."
Luka stared at his right arm. The thick-scaled dark red flesh smoked amidst Oesteria's freezing temperature. He pulled a coarse cloth from the supply bag behind his cloak, wrapping it tightly, starting from the palm up past the elbow, burying his monster form behind layers of worn fabric and hiding his fangs from the world.
His leather boot steps shattered the ice layer. They walked, leaving the bloody courtyard and piercing a narrow dirt path that cut through the dead hills.
Dusk descended, bringing The Crimson Hour.
The giant Red Ring above the horizon radiated a dense orange light. The sky spilled filthy blood onto the snow, turning the ice expanse into a blinding red sea. Copper-scented wind blew, slapping the face and creating an optical illusion as if every footstep they took left a slaughter stain.
Along the dirt path, gaunt shadows peeked from behind iron-nailed window gaps. Ghost villages. Bald thatched-roof houses stood slanted enduring rot. Devoid of intact civilization. Only remaining breaths forced to survive under the terror of freezing air and empty granaries.
A small shadow blocked the path ahead.
Luka halted his steps. His left hand moved on reflex to his sword hilt.
Not an elite soldier. Not a mercenary.
A young boy stood trembling, challenging the wind. His clothing was merely a thin burlap sack holed haphazardly. His cheekbones protruded sharply, piercing his bluish-pale skin. On his hunched back, he carried a little girl.
The girl's eyes shut tight. Her lips turned severely blue. Her breaths were extremely thin, barely exhaling white vapor from her nose. Her small body was dying, sucked dry by the cold air.
The boy stared at Luka. His eyes descended toward Luka's right arm wrapped in thick cloth smeared with fresh blood. An executioner's mark.
The child did not run. He lowered his body, letting his trembling knees kiss the frozen mud. His cracked gaunt hands raised facing upward, whimpering and begging for remaining life.
Luka's gut cramped in an instant. The foul stench of poverty and rotting flesh slapped his nose, triggering a nausea twisting his stomach. His butcher instinct was suppressed by force by the foul smell of starvation and the sight of protruding ribs behind the thin burlap sack before him.
Luka stepped forward. His boots stopped right in front of those trembling hands. He reached into his supply bag, pulling a whole piece of rye bread and a chunk of hard jerky, then dropping them into the child's palms.
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The child did not eat it himself. He turned his head, bit the bread's edge, and fed it lip to lip to his nearly frozen sister. Forcing his sister to swallow.
Luka looked away. His jaw hardened. His molars ground rough.
"Look at them, My Lord." Rhea stepped from behind. Her voice flowed extremely quiet, slipping past the wind's roar. Planting poison right upon exposed empathy. "Look at what that tyrant did to your kingdom."
Luka's single eye glared sharp toward the horizon.
"He squeezed this land dry," Rhea continued. The lily scent swept away the filthy mud stench. "Pulling all the wheat, forcibly chopping firewood, collecting every copper coin for his territorial expansion war at the border. Letting the people scavenge the ice dirt. Ulric kills them day by day. Letting them rot while he sleeps on a silk bed."
Luka's breaths hunted. Thick vapor spewed fast from his gauze gaps.
The hearth at his solar plexus spewed fire straight to his throat. He clenched his left fist. This vengeance was no longer merely about a one-sided stolen throne. This was about embedding a rusted blade into Ulric's throat, severing his veins, and watching the tyrant choke on his own blood. Ulric had to fall. Whatever the cost. Even if he had to sell his humanity to a demon.
"We walk," Luka cut in. His voice was hoarse and gritty.
He stepped again piercing the red wind. Leaving those two wretched children behind.
The journey continued devoid of sound. Their boots treaded the rocky path growing steeper. The Red Ring's light began to dim, swallowed inch by inch by the night shadow crawling from behind the hill.
At the edge of the final settlement boundary, a stone church stood rotting.
Its tower cracked long. Its stained glass shattered, leaving rusted iron frames. Lacking any ringing salvation bell. In the church courtyard, an Ash tree grew curving unnatural. Its bark peeled entirely eaten by the weather. Its branches gaunt and bare pointing straight toward the sky resembling skeleton fingers demanding a god's accountability.
Beneath that skeleton tree, a rough scraping sound tore the ears.
Scrape. Thud.
Luka halted his steps.
An old man hunched over the hard dirt. His priest robe tore severely at the bottom, patched haphazardly using remaining burlap cloth. His hands were full of thick calluses. His fingers gripped a rusted shovel hilt. He raised the tool, plunging it hard into the stone mud dirt, forcing himself to dig a hole on a surface already frozen into ice.
At his side, lined three mounds of burlap mats. Their shapes protruding bones from the inside. Three corpses of starvation victims. Their flesh entirely eaten by the Oesterian weather, leaving pale skin clinging rigid to the skeletons.
The priest stopped digging. He embedded his shovel into the dirt. His breaths were heavy and sounded slitting.
The old man twisted his waist a fraction toward the dirt path. Facing Luka's position.
Luka stared at the priest's face. The man's left eye was covered by a thick white membrane. Permanent blind. His left hand reached into his robe folds. Rubbing worn wooden rosary beads. Rubbing them without end until the wood surface wore shiny.
The man, Kaelen, held no weapon. His body hunched.
Kaelen's remaining functional right eye stared straight. Piercing Luka's black cloak and medical bandages. The old priest's gaze descended, locking onto Luka's thick-wrapped right arm. The cloth covering a slaughtering monster's flesh, still wet with soldier blood from the previous village courtyard.
Kaelen did not bow. He took one step forward approaching the church fence.
"Blood drips from your cloak," Kaelen's voice cleaved the storm's roar. Hoarse. Trembling enduring the cold. "The scent of death follows you wherever your feet tread."
Luka did not respond. His left thumb pushed the sword guard, exposing the rusted blade one inch.
Kaelen raised his rough hand. His filthy index finger pointed toward the gaunt corpses beneath the Ash tree. "This world is dying. This land stops giving life. Humans prey on humans just to see tomorrow's dawn."
Kaelen's single eye glared sharp, as if skinning the hero mask Luka wore and piercing straight to the lie behind it. "Do not let suffering turn you into a demon, Young Man."
That sentence struck like an iron sledgehammer.
Luka's gut contracted hard. His jaw tensed. The scaled red muscles behind his arm cloth twitched wild. His monster flesh thrashed, feeling threatened by the blind stare that seemingly could see its true form.
Rhea's boots shifted piercing the snow. The maid pressed against Luka's back.
"We are running out of time, My Lord," Rhea whispered near his ear. The lily scent swept away the graveyard dirt smell. "That giant mountain waits ahead."
Luka severed eye contact with Kaelen.
He pivoted his heel. Stepping away without replying a single word. Leaving the old priest standing alone beneath the dead tree. Yet Kaelen's sentence had already embedded becoming a thorn inside his head. Do not let suffering turn you into a demon.
His left hand crushed the cloth wrapping on his right arm containing scaled flesh. He had eaten hearts. He had siphoned souls. He let this arm mutate defying natural laws.
Luka quickened his steps.
In the distance, the silhouette of a giant jagged-peaked mountain pierced the filthy clouds. That stone wolf's jaw opened wide tearing the sky. Waiting in the shadows, ready to swallow them alive.