As morning broke, Kyembe, Wurhi and St. Cristabel continued their journey north to Gergorix’s city.

A man’s scream shuddered through the western foliage, piercing the dawn and echoing through the colossal trunks. Wurhi the Rat dropped into a defensive crouch. An ogre’s bellow followed. The Zabyallan’s little hand gripped a bronze sword plundered from the body of one of Eppon’s trackers. It trembled as it hung ready to strike. “What was that?”

“Shh!” Kyembe raised a hand, while the other had his sword on guard. “It seems some of Avernix’s muster might have escaped their fellows’ slaughter at the camp we passed earlier. They are being hunted.”

Another scream sounded from the east.

“Poor devils.” St. Cristabel adjusted her boat balanced over her broad shoulders. Her plate quietly clinked and the pack on her back rocked, large enough to overburden a mule. In her free gauntlet she bore her bearing sword. “Alone and wandering in these deadly lands…they do not stand a chance.”

“I hate this stinking place,” Wurhi muttered.

The Traemean adjusted her visor. “Ogres are a vicious race and slayers of men, but some can be bartered with if one speaks their tongue. Not these. Danu the Bottomless rules this great swath of forest, and she is hunger given flesh. The rest follow her mould. They will not let a single one escape.”

Oh good. They weren’t just dealing with ogres. They were dealing with especially hungry and vicious ogres. For the ten thousandth time, Wurhi cursed the moment she’d stepped foot in these lands.

“It would be good if they hunted the old wizard down,” Kyembe grumbled. “Many ogres were burned in that massacre; his doing no doubt. I am sure he still lives.” His crimson eyes narrowed as he looked around them. “He is out in the green somewhere, still after his prize.”

“Or maybe he’s waiting for us, looking for revenge,” Wurhi added uneasily.

“Perhaps.”

“Mayhaps that would be better,” St. Cristabel added gravely. “We stride into the beasts’ den. An ambush now can be reversed; an ambush in the midst of battling a tribe of ogres would bring some disquiet.”

“We will not battle an entire tribe of ogres.” Kyembe gave her a look. “Not until the egg is in our hands. Once we have its power, we could battle all of Cymorillia for all I care.”

“A battle where victory is assured?” the knight gave a deep chuckle. “And where would the merriment lie in that, Spirit Killer?”

Wurhi and Kyembe exchanged a look.

When he’d first suggested the three of them travel to Gergorix’s city together for protection, Wurhi had been happy at the knight’s acceptance. Being surrounded by ogres was much more palatable with a walking wall of metal and death at their side. Now she was starting to regret it, and she could see some of that echoed on Kyembe’s face. Not nearly enough to her liking, though.

For much of the morning they stole through the greenwood, with the Sengezian’s keen senses and forest-craft weaving them around danger. Dying shrieks continued echoing about them - the final throes of those not so fortunate. Time and again they hid upwind when the sound of great, clawed feet passed close by. St. Cristabel longed to confront the brutes, but their pleading just barely stayed her hand.

By mid-morning the ruins loomed ominously before them.

Ancient weathered structures dotted the trees: cyclopean remnants built by hands and backs ruled by King Gergorix. The blackened skeletons of burnt-out watch-towers entwined with giant firs. Statues once towering - now long-eroded by the rains of time - lay in pieces strewn across roads reclaimed by the forest. Stony antlers crowned heads of long-bearded men whose cracked fingers held broken circles woven from rope-like strands of stone. War-goddesses in stone-crested helms bore the remains of spear and shield. Wings, strangely unbroken, extended from their backs.

An old man hunched with a walking stick beside a wide-bodied woman, heavy with child.

“We are close.” Kyembe eyed a well-preserved sculpture of an ancient crone with her lips twisted in wet laughter. “Idols of their deities would protect their most precious ground.”

Thump.

St. Cristabel placed her kit by the old woman’s base and slid her hand into her shield’s straps. After a moment, Kyembe dropped his bundle alongside hers.

“What are you doing?” Wurhi protectively clutched her possessions on her back.

“We will need to move quickly now.” He gave his sword a few quick swishes through the air. “If we live, we will come back for them. If we die…well…we will be dead.”

The Zabyallan thought on this, then placed her things beside his. “When this over, I’d best be the richest woman south of the Sea of Gods.”

“But we are north of the sea right now,” Kyembe pointed out.

She gave him a look. He said nothing else.

As the idols of Gergorix’s time protected his people, they came across the effigies of the region’s current inhuman masters. Snarling faces with too many horns carved into titanic tree trunks. Branches twisted into towering monsters, capped with grinning mastodon skulls further crowned by rhinoceros horns. Bramble baskets hanging from trees, swaying and rattling with grim contents: hundreds of bones painted ghastly colours.

The echoing screams died out.

Avernix’s fleeing warriors seemed not to have made it this far.

“How odd,” St. Cristabel muttered behind them. “We are well within the bower of these beasts, yet not a single sentry watches.”

Kyembe threw her a troubled look and bent to the path. “We are still on an old road, and the footprints smother each other in the earth. They come this way often.” He looked up to the trees. “The path should be well-guarded.”

Wurhi sniffed the air and frowned. “I smell ash.”

The Sengezian swore and began to move quickly.

They came upon their answer not a hundred paces down the path. A crude watch-post had been made in one of the trees. From it hung a solid thickly woven vine leading to a branch so massive that a carriage could drive along it. A nest was built there, comfortable enough for a sentry to stay in, but no watcher lay within.

An ogre lay crumpled face-down on the earth below with one of its horns snapped off.

Kyembe examined it grimly, seizing it by its shattered shoulder but struggling with its weight. He made a noise of disgust and turned to the Traemean knight. “Why did I bother? Can you turn it?”

St. Cristabel cracked her neck. The saint planted her sword and upturned the giant’s corpse with one hand, rolling it as though it were a mere sack of grain. Its dead eyes stared emptily and ash blackened its lips, pouring down the front of its chest. Wurhi hissed, remembering how the wizard had slain a man by burning his lungs from the inside. How the terrible ember had killed with hardly a glow, hiss, or sound.

“He has arrived first!” Kyembe snarled in frustration. “We have little time! Come!”