I stood, dumbfounded, at the foot of the stone walls for quite some time before I thought to start looking for an entrance. I walked around the outskirts of the fort for a while, sticking to the treeline so that I could blend in with the forest, and catching sight of a few men and women on the parapets with bows at the ready and quivers at their backs. Their clothing was different from what I was used to seeing in the wastes. The styling of it reminded me of what I’d seen on different fantasy book covers. After I’d walked what I assumed was halfway around the fort I found a gate. It was made of the same black wood that surrounded me, and above it stood three lookouts with bows at the ready, all of them keeping a close eye on the worn path leading up to the gate.

It had become clear to me as I’d walked around the fort that I wouldn’t be able to sneak in, at least not without considerable danger to myself, so instead I did what I’d done so many times before as a Postman. I made sure all my weapons were holstered, double checked my face covering, raised my hands above my head, and walked straight toward the gate at a slow, but deliberate pace. When I was about halfway to it, I saw the guards begin to react to me. Pointing in my direction while also yelling back and forth to one another. When I’d made it about two thirds of the way here, they finally chose to address me.

“Halt! Who goes there!?” yelled the woman standing in the center. She had blonde hair braided into a kind of crown at the top of her head and her bowstring was drawn halfway back, with an arrow pointed in my direction.

“Name's Donovan. I’m here looking for someone.”

I saw the three guards lean toward each other and begin a conference of whispers until eventually the woman spoke up again.

“Are you with those called the Iron Horde?” she asked.

“They gave me the job, yes.”

“You’re some kind of mercenary then?”

I shook my head. “No, a lawman. Looking for a missing group of people.”

There was more whispering, and one of them broke off from the others. The woman turned her attention back to me. “Why do you cover your face?”

“I’m a deadman. Don’t want to frighten anyone.”

“A deadman? What’s that?”

I adjusted my hat a bit. “You may have a different name for us, depending on how long you’ve been isolated from everyone else. Rotter, ghoul, knew one wild settlement that called us big tooths. ”

“We hadn’t seen anyone from outside these woods since our ancestors left the catacombs many years ago. Until we found those odd ones in the forest a few days ago, and now you”

I shook my head. “Really? You’ve never had anyone else show up here aside from the Horde patrol?”

She lowered her bow a bit. “Well, sometimes we find a body of someone we don’t recognize, someone killed by a ursan, but never anyone alive.”

That made sense. Followed the legends that had sprung up around the woods, as well as the information I’d gathered since hitting the forest’s border. It wasn’t too unusual for isolated settlements to seemingly appear from nowhere, and they usually had their own odd eccentricities from being away from other people for so long. This was on a whole other level though, and I was very curious as to how they could’ve survived such a harsh environment as long as they had, particularly without firearms or any serious tech, at least not that I’d seen so far.

I was about to ask another question when a now familiar scent filled the air. A powerful, beastly musk that was growing closer, seeming to move directly toward me. I looked back up to the guards.

“Any chance we could discuss this inside? I think we’re about to have company and I’d really prefer not to be stuck out here when it arrives.”

“Company? You have friends nearby?”

“No, I certainly wouldn’t call what’s coming this way friendly. It’s one of those monsters in the woods, it’s heading this way. Can you please let me in so I don’t get torn to pieces?”

I saw the woman’s eyes widen. “I… I’m sorry, but if what you’re saying is true I can’t possibly open it now. We, we can’t risk that.”

“Fuck” I muttered. I looked left and right, searching for somewhere to run, or to hide, but I didn’t have enough time.

A roar tore through the air behind me, and I whipped around, drawing my rifle as quickly as possible and aiming it in the direction of the sound. In spite of myself, I found myself briefly frozen. Another of the massive bear creatures, or perhaps the same one from before, was behind me. It was so large that the shadow of it from the edge of the treeline nearly reached where I was standing.

I held there for a moment, gun aimed and watching the creature. I had a faint hope that it would stay where it was, at the treeline, and not come out into the open. From what I’d seen of them so far, they preferred to stalk their prey rather than attack it directly. Unfortunately, I wasn’t having a lot of luck so far, and this encounter was no different..

The creature charged me, moving half the distance between us in the blink of an eye. I let off several shots, aiming for its head, but in spite of the fact that all of them struck true, the creature just kept on coming.

Just before it reached me, I dodged to the right, hearing its claws tear through the air where I’d just been standing. I rolled, tucked my rifle under my arm and drew my pistol in the other hand, firing behind myself as I desperately ran to gain some distance from the creature.

It whipped around and charged me again. Its long strides allowing it to quickly close in on me as I pelted it with 9mm rounds. I tried once again to dodge just before it could reach me, but it was ready this time, seeming to have learned from its previous mistake. I caught the full force of one of its paws and was sent flying for the walls of the castle. I slammed into them hard, losing my breath and my weapons in the process.

The beast closed in on me a third time, and reached out with its massive jaws to behead me. No matter how good my ability to regenerate had gotten, I was fairly certain a beheading would do me in. Just as I was starting to feel the creatures hot breath on my face, I heard a thunk, and the creature reared up and roared at the wall above us. I looked up at its face and saw the shaft of an arrow sticking from its right eye.

Seeing its exposed stomach, I swiftly drew my machete and drove it, with all my strength, directly upward. I felt a hot spray of blood splash against me, and the creature again slashed at me, I could feel claws tear through my chest and send me flying back into the open. There was a cracking sound, and I felt my machete’s blade break off in the creature's stomach, the force of its blow too much for the well worn tool to handle.

I rolled across the ground, a mess of blood, slashes, and broken bones. The creature approached me again. I thought back on all that I'd done, all the times I’d fought to survive. My owner’s throat hot in my mouth after he’d threatened to kill me for the last time, my near lynching by a town just for passing through with the wrong kind of face, the thirty raiders I killed at Boon. No, I wouldn’t go down like this. I pulled the knife from my boot and dragged myself to my feet. I tore what remained of my face coverings off and barred my teeth.

The creature paused. Perhaps sensing I was more dangerous than it expected, or possibly because of the metal currently digging into its stomach.

“Come on!” I yelled. “It’s my turn to try and take a bite out of you!”

The monster continued to hesitate, and in that hesitation, arrows and bullets began to rain down on it. I risked a glance up at the walls, and saw a number of Iron Horde men and women firing their weapons down, joining in with the bowmen native to the castle to give it everything they had.

The creature stumbled. The sheer amount of wounds it had accumulated and the barrage combined to finally cause the damage to show. It began moving back toward the treeline, but it was trailing blood as it went and slowing. It collapsed just before reaching it, a whimper leaving its maw, as its last breath was let out.

I followed its example and collapsed to my knees. Listening as the gate behind me finally opened.