They walked west, towards the woods. It reached as far as he could see on either side. It would be impossible to outline it in a day, let alone go through the whole forest.

Unless we had superhuman speed, of course. If only there was someone better suited for this job…

He sighed.

Fucking Heroes. Same as they always were.

The sun had risen properly by the time they reached the forest, shining down its morning light.

“Right, how do we do this?” Kiren asked, peering at the tight rows of oak, beech, and birch. “Just waltz right in and hope we find the fucking thing in time?”

“Excelerate said the woodsman was killed at the edge of the forest, right?” Lace said. “If we can find where he died, we might be able to track the Beast that killed him from there.”

Kiren nodded. “Better plan than none at all, I suppose.”

They waded through the bushes and saplings into the woods proper, picked a direction, and started walking. They kept a gap of a few meters between each other—close enough that they could still see and hear each other, but far enough apart to gain a wider search area.

The air was still and fetid beneath the canopy. No birds sang. The branches pulled at their clothes, and the highest tree crowns wailed in the wind while the trunks creaked.

While there was no sign of life, some of the bushes had been uprooted, and there were deep grooves in many of the trees, crisscrossing each other. Claw or tooth marks, for sure.

“Could be the Beast that made those,” Kiren said. “Keep an eye out.”

Lace nodded. “Yeah.”

It was difficult to tell the passage of time. The branch canopy was woven so tight he could only see glimpses of the sun overhead. He kept track of his footsteps, but he lost count after a while.

They reached a small clearing where the sun shone down in a near perfect circle. The earth had been disturbed in the center, bushes ripped out of the ground and chunks of dirt thrown all over the place.

The leaves were speckled with dried blood.

“This must be it,” Kiren said. “Where the man was attacked.”

Lace walked further into the clearing. Her feet crunched on white branches. Kiren stooped down and picked up one of them.

Not branches. Bones.

Human.

Lace jumped when she saw it.

“This must be the woodsman,” Kiren said. He dropped the bone and wiped his hands on his jerkin.

“They left him here,” Lace said. “They didn’t even bury his remains.”

Kiren spotted more bones strewn around the clearing. They were picked clean, and some had been cracked open to get to the marrow. He found scraps of fabric, made stiff by dried blood. He even found teeth where they had been spat out in a neat little pile, as well as a skull that had been gingerly rested atop a pile of bones, bits of rotting flesh still stuck to the cranium.

The only thing missing was the one thing he had expected to see.

“This is… I don’t even have the words,” Lace said. She stood and faced Kiren. “We have to bury him before we keep going.”

“Forget about all that,” Kiren said. “There was no axe.”

Lace frowned. “No axe? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What kind of woodsman doesn’t bring an axe? Especially if he knew the forest was infested with Beasts.”

“What does that matter now?” Lace asked. “ He’s dead. We need to make sure he gets a proper burial. If you won’t help, I’ll do it alone.”

Kiren rolled his eyes. “Fine. Go ahead.”

Waste of time.

He watched as Lace gathered all the pieces of the woodsman that she could find. She gathered them up in the remains of what had once been his shirt and carried them to the edge of the forest. She took Kiren’s spear and dug in the dry soil until she had made a shallow pit. She placed the bones inside and filled the grave back up, then piled up a few rocks at the head of it as a marker.

Lace said a few words of prayer and handed the weapon back.

“There. Are we done now?” Kiren asked.

“Yeah. It wouldn’t hurt you to show a bit of respect for the dead.”

Kiren snorted. “If you wanted to respect the dead in the Slog, you’d be at prayer every waking moment.”

They returned to the clearing and looked around for any signs of where the Beast might have gone. Lace found some tracks, too long to be human, with toes that almost resembled paw pads. The tracks ran all over the clearing with seemingly no pattern, but they found a set that led away, deeper into the forest.

They followed the tracks, Kiren taking up the lead and Lace following behind. The tracks went cold, but they found another set close by that ran in the same direction. Hours must have passed that way, the way the sun had moved, following the tracks this way and that.

We’re running out of time. Better find this thing fast.

“Before we actually fight this thing,” Kiren said. “Do you know how to use that bow?”

“My Dad had one,” Lace said. “I would shoot it sometimes as a kid. I tried to, at least. The draw weight was pretty heavy.”

“So…”

“I’m not very good at it.”

Kiren pursed his lips. “Alright. Fair enough.”

“How about you? Have you ever used a spear?”

“Never held one before.”

“This might get interesting, then,” Lace said with a nervous chuckle.

A faint crunch pierced the silence of the undergrowth, then a series of wet snorts. Kiren stopped in his tracks and held out a hand. Lace nearly bumped into him. He put a finger over his mouth, then took his spear in both hands.

“Hear that?” he asked.

A dry slapping sound, followed by a hoarse growl.

“Are you sure it’s not just an animal?” Lace whispered.

“You ever hear an animal that sounded like that?”

A low whimper, almost human, followed by more crunching.

“Yeah, fair enough. Let’s try to sneak up on it. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Kiren nodded. He dropped to a crouch and approached through the undergrowth. He kept each step slow and deliberate, careful not to step on any twigs or berry bushes, keeping to the rocks and soft moss.

He came up to a gap in the trees by a small stream that ran over a slight, rocky incline. Next to the water sat a hunch-backed creature, its skin tinted a dark, brownish red. Its long, slender forelimbs held down a weakly struggling bird. The Beast bent down and took large bites out of the animal, tearing with an elongated, powerful jaw. Blood dripped down its chin, feathers stuck to the rough, wrinkled skin. Its spine poked through the skin, protruding into sharp, spear-like points. It had nothing between its legs except for a pouch of puckered skin.

The bird screeched and flapped its wings weakly. The Beast let out a low, rattling sound that sounded almost like laughter.

Kiren shuddered.

It’s enjoying the bird’s misery.

After a minute or two, the bird expired. Seemingly grown bored with its game, the Beast threw the half-eaten bird into the stream and stood.

Hunting for sport. Sadistic bastard.

It was taller than a man by half, with long, twiggy legs kept together with sinewy muscle. They ended in a pair of long, clawed feet.

It walked away from them down the stream on two legs. It had a gait that was nearly human, but with a low center of gravity and careful, smooth steps that reminded him more of a predator at hunt.

It was starting to blend with the trees, becoming harder to see. Kiren stalked along the treeline to keep up, but Lace grabbed him by his sleeve and held him back.

“Be careful!” she whispered. “We can’t tip it off!”

“We can’t afford to lose it, either,” Kiren said. “We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

The Beast seemed to pick up on something down the slope. It uttered a series of throaty sounds that almost sounded like words, just beyond comprehension, and took off in a hunched-over run. He quickly lost it among the trees.

“Fuck!” Kiren hissed.

He shoved Lace off of him and set off after the Beast, sprinting down the shallow slope.

“Wait!” Lace called after him. “Be careful!”

Kiren ignored her.

Can’t afford to lose this thing. Like it or not, the Heroes are the only ones strong enough to kill Father. If I can’t learn from them, I’ll never have the power I need.

He followed the stream down, favoring speed over stealth. He traced the fresh footprints the Beast had left, clear impressions in the dirt and claw marks in the moss.

They stopped abruptly. Kiren looked up, gripping his spear tightly. He scanned the treeline, but there was no sign of the monster.

“Easy prey…” a thin, hoarse voice whispered in his ear.

Kiren spun around. A cold, bony limb struck his head. His head lit up with dull pain as he staggered back. He tripped over his feet and fell backward.

The Beast towered over him, blood-mixed slaver dripping from its long snout. Its breath wafted towards him, stinking of rotting mulch and dead meat. Kiren gagged at the smell.

“Don’t worry… little birdy…” the Beast said. Its horse-like mouth moved in exaggerated motions when it spoke as if it struggled to form words. “I will take gooddd care of you.”

Kiren’s breathing quickened. The Beast leaned in closer, its mouth opening wide. The bones in its jaw cracked and the muscles unraveled, allowing it to gape as wide as a torso.

Don’t freeze. Do something! Kill it!

Kiren gripped his spear tightly and thrust it at the Beast’s elongated mouth. The creature caught the blade in its hand. It cut straight through but didn’t seem to cause the Beast any pain. A trickle of black blood flowed down the shaft.

The Beast wrenched the spear. Kiren clenched his teeth and kept a firm grip, but the shaft splintered near the blade, and he was left with only a ruined length of wood.

“Don’t fight… pretty birdyyy,” the Beast said in almost a sing-song tone.

Kiren beat it over the head with the spear shaft. Its head snapped to the side, and it let out a low growl from the base of its twisted throat. Its head swiveled back, and it threw its whole weight onto him.

A sharp jolt rattled Kiren’s insides. He looked down. One of the Beast’s clawed hands had pierced through his abdomen, fingers digging through his intestines. The shock numbed the pain, but the sensation alone was enough to make him blanch.

He growled and struck the Beast’s skinny arm with his elbow. The limb crunched, but the bone simply flexed out of the way like a muscle.

“Unmaker’s tits,” Kiren swore. “You don’t fucking fight fair, do you?”

He dug his nails through the creature’s raw, loose skin, managing to draw some of that black blood. It didn’t let up its grip.

Kiren’s regeneration was frantically trying to close up the wound in his stomach, but the Beast kept clawing it open, cackling while its open mouth lowered towards his head.

Fuck…

A gust of wind made the Beast lose its footing for a moment. Kiren brought his feet up and kicked the creature, knocking it off him. An arrow poked out of its back.

Kiren rolled onto his stomach. The pain finally hit, wrenching his abdomen. His limbs went stiff as he struggled to breathe.

Fight it.

He got onto his knees with gritted teeth, one hand on the ground and the other holding in his guts.

The bloody gap in his stomach slowly closed. He breathed in shallow rattles, every breath sending a wave of pain up through his torso.

Lace stood up the slope, an arrow nocked and drawn. Her hand trembled with the effort to keep the string taut.

She let loose and a howling wind followed, pushing the arrow forward. It buried itself deeply in the Beast’s chest. The creature let out a shuddering wail and rolled around on the ground.

“You should’ve waited!” Lace shouted.

“You were taking too long!” Kiren growled.

He had recovered enough to move. He walked towards the Beast. He bent down with a groan and picked up the spear shaft.

“Kiren, stay away! I can’t use my wind if you’re too close!”

“I need to finish this thing off.”

Kiren raised the implement over his head and brought it down on the Beast once, twice, three times. Its dry flesh crunched. He caught it good in the head, caving in one of its beady eye-sockets.

The Beast lashed out with one of its hands, knocking the stick from Kiren’s hands and drawing three gashes up his chest. Kiren growled and took hold of the Beast’s arm with both hands, putting a foot against its withered shoulder. He pulled with all his strength and the limb came off with a putrid sucking sound.

“Not fairrr!” the Beast screeched. It wriggled and kicked its long legs. Kiren jumped back to avoid getting hit. “I will… make you… my f-f-fleshhh…”

It worked its way up on its legs. Its shoulder wept tears of deepest night, tendrils of putrid, grey flesh squirming from the socket. It turned and ran, leaping over rocks and roots with a gait more akin to that of a bird than a human.

Kiren went after it, but his stomach flared with pain and he dropped to one knee. Another arrow whizzed by him, accompanied by a wind that jostled the nearby trees, but the arrow narrowly missed the creature and embedded itself in a tree trunk.

“Bastard,” Kiren muttered.

He tried to stand but fell over on his side. He gasped with pain. The regeneration working through his insides felt like someone knitting him back up with thread and needle. It made him want to puke.

“Stay down,” Lace said, crouching next to him. “You’re still hurt. Let your regeneration take care of it, then we’ll go after the Beast.”

“Fine,” Kiren growled.

“You’re too bull-headed. You should have waited for a moment to ambush.”

“Not the time.”

“Still. You know I’m right. The Beast was baiting you into a trap. We would have known that if we’d waited.”

“Sunset is almost upon us. You propose to wait until our time runs dry? Until Excelerate grows bored of us and leaves us here to rot?”

Kiren’s body was mostly healed. He went over to the severed arm of the Beast, which wriggled and grasped at the ground, fully animated. He pinned it beneath his foot and pulled the spear tip out of the hand. He gave it a few swings. It would still be decent as a knife.

“We have to make a binding circle,” Lace said. “A quick one, at least. Left alone, the Beast’s flesh will poison the area.”

“Lace, really? Now?” Kiren pointed at the sky, which had started to turn a blazing orange. “We need to kill the Beast and present evidence of the kill. Your fucking rituals can wait.”

“Fine,” Lace said. “We’ll inform the villagers once the threat is over. They can go out and construct binding circles themselves.”

Kiren nodded. “Then let’s go. Unless you have any other objections? Need to tie your shoes, perhaps? Take a leak?”

Lace’s face reddened. “At least I’m not the one who made this mess. I’m just trying to do this thoroughly.”

“Whatever.”

They followed the Beast’s uneven tracks deeper into the forest.