“Just think of this as repayment,” the older man said, “for staying in my cave… Oh, right. I’m Belezan.” He didn’t even make the effort to look at Kieran. Instead, he started limping out while holding the chipped sword. “Come on… We don’t,” he took a breath, “have much time… They’ll check this place soon I’m sure.”

As if on cue, voices, though faint, carried through the forest. Kieran attempted to take the lead but after the initial burst of adrenaline wore off, his tenderized feet sent crippling pain up his legs. He was still in better condition than the man, Belezan, and could take him down even if the sword upped his danger level. However, as he was now, there’d be no way he could carry a corpse. Cutting Belezan’s arm off and running wouldn’t work either. The sword was dull and might take too long if it even worked at all. Secondly, if he made it to The Union of Mist with a severed arm connected by a chain, they would most likely kill him.

Maybe if he cut his stomach open…

Fuck.

“If you’re gonna chain me up with you, at least let me choose where we’re going,” Kieran said, pulling the shackles that connected them.

“Where are you planning to go?”

“The Mist Mountain.”

The older man scoffed as if the suggestion was insane. “You believe those zealots are going to welcome us?”

“Who else will?”

That simple question shut him up. The further south they went, the thicker the vegetation seemed to grow. They already skirted the edge of Khoenyth’s territory and few villages or towns would be set up near the mountains. In exchange for the forest’s safety, they’d have no relief.

Belezan pulled him under a minor overhang where they rested for a few minutes. Then, they went back to a hurried pace until they felt comfortable enough hiding for another moment. When night came, the sounds of their pursuers had disappeared. Even with this seeming peace, Kieran didn’t stop.

“Slow down,” Belezan complained. “If you’re going to keep dragging me along, then I’ll just have you carry me.”

He sighed and shortened his gait which also served the dual purpose of relieving his sore feet. Belezan, who he learned was in his mid fifties, led at first, guiding them through the forest expertly until their third rest. He lived in O’keen village for his entire life and knew the surrounding area fairly well. However, past a certain point, Belezan became unusually cautious.

They argued on who should take the lead and despite the older man’s threats, Kieran insisted. It was settled when he agreed to Belezan’s idea of sleeping in shifts and taking the first one. Settling down on a ditch with a stream, Belezan curled into a ball while clutching onto the stolen sword. What good would that do if the person holding onto it was asleep?

“Shouldn’t you at least hand it over so I can protect us?” Kieran asked.

“No,” he snapped. “I’ll hold onto this. If something happens then you can just wake me up. You would wake me up anyway, right?”

Kieran clicked his tongue and nodded. As Belezan drifted off into sleep, Kieran found himself staring into the small stream. It flowed westward, away from the mountains and toward Kheonyth Kingdom. It likely connected to the Salmart River, a river that had no end to its number of distributaries and provided life to numerous villages. It reminded him of his dream. A river so grand it was as if it enveloped the entire world. And, from it, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of little streams flowed.

This one looked like the one where he and Teal made up…

He slapped himself, turning to see if Belezan had woken up. With a sigh, he laid down, staring at the stars until his eyes grew too heavy to keep open.

Kieran gasped as cold water was thrown over his face. He glared at the Belezan who wiped his wet hands on his tattered clothes. “What the fuck?”

“The shifts,” Belezan said.

“Yeah, okay, I forgot but you think that makes it okay to throw cold water on me? My sleep’s been shit for the last week!” It took all that he had to stop himself from blasting him with a shadowbolt.

“I threw water on you to wake you up.” he answered. “Let’s go. You’ll get used to sleeping on the dirt soon enough. It won’t bother you at all soon.”

Goosebumps ran down his arms. They slowly disappeared as they trekked further south. It wasn’t long until the enormous Mist Mountain appeared over the horizon. Its peak was obscured by a minor cloud, hence its name. Though its people didn’t live anywhere near the top, ventures to their land was still dangerous without guides. Would he just have to hope he met someone when he reached the base?

Lost in thought, he bumped into Belezan, knocking the brutalized and aging man over. Right as he was about to apologize, the chain attached to his wrist tightened. Pointed rocks dug into his palms but the pain was drowned out by the intense shock in his left arm. The makeshift splint did nothing to protect it from the impact.

Kieran rolled on the ground, clutching his arm as he writhed. Cold steel pressed against his cheek and drew blood. “If you try another pathetic sneak attack like that again,” Belezan gasped, “I’ll fucking kill you.”

He spoke through gritted teeth. “I wasn’t trying to attack you, you crazy old man.”

“Call me crazy again! Do it! Do it and see what happens.”

A shadow from beneath Belezan grabbed his leg and pulled him off his feet. Kieran wrestled for the sword. Bony fists hammered his injured arm. With a cry, he pried the sword free and struck Belezan with the pommell. “If I wanted to kill you then I would have when you were sleeping!” Saliva flew everywhere as he held back his anger. “I could have cut your stomach open and taken the key, but I didn’t. If you want-”

The chain was once again, yanked. He prepared for an attack but Belezan held a shaky finger to his lips. The delusional look in his eye was replaced with bottomless terror. Shivers ran down the back of his neck. As he gazed up, he saw the deep wounds to the trees’ cores, the jagged snapped branches, and the blood that dripped from a pair of squirrels impaled by pure black fingers.

Their tiny forms contorted, wriggingling, twisting, as if they were struggling for their lives. But they were already dead. Still, their bodies moved on their own until the structures hidden behind their furry exterior were irreparably broken and their skin and muscles were all that kept them together. Then, slowly, they shrunk. Like some kind of bulging hose from a children’s cartoon, the squirrels were sucked in, absorbed, devoured, by the fingers that pierced their chests.

The writhing black body that clung onto the tree seemed to grow ever slightly larger. Two beady eyes, one the size of an owl’s, the other as small as the murdered squirrels, turned to them.

The Corrupted was looking at them.

It shot at them from the tree. Both were frozen, unable to react. From the ground, shadows rose like a wall, blocking the monster. Kieran regained his senses and dragged Belezan along as he sprinted through the forest. Adrenaline and fear kept his pain in check. He could feel the hands from his nightmares constricting around his neck, bounding his arms and legs as they smothered him.

“S-Stop…” Belezan gasped.

The sound barely registered and he kept running.

“I-I said stop…!”

Belezan yanked the chain. It was clamped around his left wrist and the sudden force sent mind numbing discomfort up his arm. Kieran groaned as he clutched his injured arm. Belezan dropped to the ground, gasping for air as saliva dripped from his lip. He’d kick him right now but then he’d just be carrying dead weight for the next however many days it’d take him to get to Mist Mountain.

They spent the meagre time they bought going at a pace that let them catch their breaths. Occasionally a shadow would dart across the forest or there’d be a rustle in the grass, but otherwise, there was no sign of the Corrupted. Maybe it found another pair of squirrels to chase. Maybe it caught wind of their pursuers and went after them instead. As long as he could get away from it, he was glad.

I hope they end up killing each other.

Night came and Belezan insisted on sleeping first. He slept with the sword once again as if it were a teddy bear. While Kieran was taking a leak, Belezan snuck up behind him and stole it. He threw his head back in exasperation, knowing that making a fuss would waste his energy. Whatever. If the delusional old man wanted to hold onto the crumbling sword, why not let him? Neither of them were in any condition to properly wield it.

The first half hour of his watch was easy in the sense that he wasn’t tired. No, he was tired. Drowsiness crept up on him from every direction, it was only due to his encounter with the Corrupted earlier in the day, the fear that lingered, that kept him awake. But fear couldn’t win against sleep. His eyes grew heavy and his head bobbed.

“Let’s switch,” Belezan said. He sat up. “You can sleep first.”

“Is this your apology for earlier?” Kieran asked with a snort. The pain in his arm wasn’t unbearable if he didn’t move it too much but it got much worse thanks to him. “If it is then it still isn’t enough.”

Belezan stared straight into the darkness surrounding them, “It isn’t-” he coughed. “I just couldn’t sleep. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you in your sleep. I won’t wake you up early either.”

He wasn’t sure how much he believed that but he laid down anyway and closed his eyes. Something was clearly bothering the old man but now wasn’t the time to inquire about it.

Belezan shook him awake. It was still nighttime. He prepared for his half of the watch with his eyes still glued shut when his ears perked. Somewhere not too far away was a hooting owl. His skin crawled when he listened closer. It was long and drawn out with a sizable pause in between. The tone was messy, inconsistent. It shifted from the shrill cry of a child to the rasping gasps of a man an inch away from death.

It was no owl.

Constantly, as if taunting them, the Corrupted would circle around and mimc an owl. Did it know they were there? Was it hunting them, waiting until they were too tired to fight back? Belezan's body looked on the brink of collapse but his mind remained steady, as steady as it could be after beatings and lack of rest.

“Why is a Corrupted wandering around here?” Kieran asked. Corrupted weren’t natural. They were monsters that came from the other side, the world of the spirits where the gods banished themselves after The Sundering. Alexandra refused to teach him anything about them, saying that it wasn’t relevant to his duties as a prince and so he had to do research by himself. Books on them were scarce, and most of what he found were reports of them lurking at the country’s borders. If it weren’t for Teal he’d have never learned anything about them.

“I don’t know.” Belezan answered as his eyes darted around.

“Wha-”

“I said I don’t know!” He swung the sword at the air.

“Have you gone mad?”

“I told you never to call me that! We’ll be bound for the rest of our short lives if I hear it one more time do you understand? I’ll throw the key away!”

Kieran threw his hands up, “Look, we’re both low on sleep and we’re being played with right now. Do you really want to be eaten by that thing? Let’s work together, alright?” His words seemed to calm the old man.

“There’s a shack the village uses when some of us hunt somewhere up ahead. I was planning for us to stop at it in the morning but it should have something we can use to protect ourselves. We can at least hide in there…” he said. It was the most cooperative tone he had since they first met. “You can use shadow magic, can’t you? Protect me while I lead us.”

Under the thinnest of crescent moonlight, a body darker than the deepest reaches of the forest shot from tree to tree. Perhaps his eyes, still weighed down by exhaustion, were playing tricks on him. If that was the case, his ears must’ve been doing the same. Mutilated mimicries of an owl followed wherever the shadow went.

By the time they reached the little shack, he’d grown accustomed to the Corrupted and its form. Compared to the one that attacked him when he was younger, it was significantly smaller but kept the beast-like arms. In the darkness, it observed them like a leopard ready to pounce. Belezan pulled him into the shack and shut the door. Kieran was hesitant to take his eyes off it until a ruckus audible through the entire forest startled him.

Belezan fumbled with a dustlined blanket, forcing it free from a box filled with books and scrolls before diving to the ground. One shelf below were a dozen useful tools, ropes, wooden hammers, and knives. A peek at Belezan revealed the old man’s attention was elsewhere and Kieran shifted through the items as if they were wares in a store. Almost no dust was on the tools. In reality, the village wasn’t far away at all. They were simply slow because of their injuries. It made sense that anyone hunting would use these tools often.

Among the items on the shelf, one knife stood out not because of its quality or shape, but because of the hardened red on its tip. Whoever used it never cleaned it. Either it slipped their mind or they were preoccupied with something else. For poor villagers far away from the nearest town, one would think they’d take better care of their tools.

“Hey.”

The voice derailed his train of thought.

“I don’t think it’ll come inside. It’s just waiting. You still had a little bit more time. Why don’t you take a nap?”

“No thanks. I’m wide awake now,” Kieran replied. “You go ahead.”

Belezan shook his head. “I’m the same as you. Dawn is only a few hours away.” He pulled his skinny legs close to his body and shivered. Though it was early summer, the nights still varied widely in temperature.

“Why don’t you use the blanket?” Kieran asked, kicking the edge with his foot.

Belezan dived toward the spot he kicked up and flattened it. “The floor is dirty…” he faked a cough, “I can’t stand sleeping on dirt anymore.”

“I thought you said you get used to sleeping on dirt.”

“I never said that.”

They eyed each other in silence. In an instant, Kieran grabbed the blanket and yanked. His strength had waned from lack of food and the sudden pressure was too much for his arm but he didn’t let up. Belezan rolled off and underneath it was a three layered circle laced over a hexagram. It was drawn unevenly with blood that had long dried.

“What is this?”

Then something knocked on the door.