A scream of pure malice tore through the air. Everyone stopped, froze mid-motion, hands suspended over wounds, breaths caught in throats.
"Dyviak!" someone shrieked.
Atama felt those sensations again. The cold weight pressing against his chest. The whisper at the edge of his thoughts. But this time, he realized something: the curse was still there, lingering beneath the surface. The deer hadn't erased it. It had only neutralized the symptoms, kept the poison from spreading, and bought him time. The root of it remained.
"Everyone, come back!" The voice was sharp, commanding, the creature that had run beside Sydney. Its red eye blazed as it scanned the chaos. "Don't go anywhere. Stick together. Don't let anyone stray."
One, two, three figures emerged from the smoke. Humanoid. Identical to the creature that had followed Sydney out of the camp. They stood at the edge of the tents, their postures coiled, their spines glowing faintly.
Atama's mind raced. Is this the creature they called Soejell?
"Mister!" A shout from inside the camp. The girl the one from the hollow, the one he had tried to calm was crying out to him, her face streaked with tears and dirt, even though she looked worse than her friend had been. "Please! Help my friend!"
The words hit Atama like a fist. He had been standing there, frozen, lost in his own dread. The memory of what he had been doing crashed back into him.
He ran.
Straightforward. Toward the danger that lurked in every shadow, behind every collapsed tent. His feet pounded the torn earth, his breath ragged, the golden string at his ankle pulsing with every heartbeat.
He reached the place where the girl had been hiding. The hollow between broken crates. The collapsed wagon.
But her friend was gone.
The smoke parted in ragged curtains, revealing nothing but more wreckage. Atama's boots crunched over splintered wood and something wet he refused to look at. The golden string at his ankle pulsed, a reminder that even in this chaos, he was still tethered, still someone's bounty.
Think. He forced his breath to slow. Where would that kid go?
Not into the open camp. Not toward the screaming. Away from the noise, away from the dyviak's screech. The treeline on the far side of the wreckage, the one place the smoke hadn't reached.
He moved.
A body lay half beneath a collapsed supply crate. Adult. Not moving. Atama stepped over it and kept going. Another twenty paces brought him to the edge of the chaos, where the ground turned from trampled mud to brittle, bluish soil. The trees here were thinner, younger, their branches not yet twisted into the grasping shapes of the deeper woods.
And there, pressed into a hollow at the base of a root cluster, was the boy.
He couldn't have been older than six. Knees drawn to his chest. Arms wrapped around his shins. His face was buried against his knees, and his whole body trembled in small, continuous shakes, the kind of trembling that came when the body had exhausted screaming and had nothing left but to wait for the end.
Atama dropped to a crouch a few feet away. Not too close. Not yet.
"Hey." He kept his voice low, steady. "I'm not going to hurt you. Your friend sent me."
The boy didn't look up. The shaking didn't stop.
Atama scanned the treeline. Nothing moved. The distant sounds of the camp, shouts, sobbing, the barked orders of the Soejell, felt like they belonged to another world. Here, in this small hollow, the silence pressed in like held breath.
"I need to get you back," Atama said. "It's not safe here. There's something in the woods."
That got a reaction. The boy's head lifted, just enough for one eye to peer over his forearm. It was red-rimmed, swollen, the pupil dilated with terror. But it was looking at Atama. Seeing him.
"The girl," the boy whispered. His voice was raw. "Is she...?"
"Alive." Atama said it fast, before the question could finish. "She's hurt, but she's alive. She asked me to find you."
The boy's face crumpled. Not relief, something more complicated. Guilt, maybe. Or the terrible awareness that he had survived while his friend had not been so lucky.
Atama knew that look. He had worn it himself.
"Come on." He extended his hand. Palm up. Open. "We go together. Fast. Stay low."
The boy stared at the offered hand for a long moment. Behind them, another screech tore through the air, closer this time. The sound scraped down Atama's spine like fingernails on glass.
The boy's small, cold fingers closed around his.
Atama didn't hesitate. He pulled the child up and into a run, the boy's bare feet scraping against the torn earth, his breath coming in short, terrified gasps. They weaved through the wreckage, collapsed tents, scattered supplies, bodies that were either too still or too loud.
Just before they reached the center of the camp, the chaos erupted directly in front of them.
A Dyviak landed in their path, all sinew and malice, its twisted limbs flailing as it fought recklessly against a Soejell and another human who could still wield a weapon. The clash was brutal, desperate, neither side giving ground.
Atama's feet skidded to a halt. The boy whimpered behind him.
He took a step back, then another, scanning for another route. His heart slammed against his ribs, but his mind was already moving, rerouting, surviving. He pulled the boy left, toward a gap between two overturned wagons.
They ran again.
But the camp was a maze of horrors. As they rounded a collapsed shelter, Atama stumbled to a stop. A wild Dyviak was crouched low, its back to them, its jaws buried in something that had stopped struggling.
The boy's fingers dug deeper into Atama's palm.
Without a sound, Atama pulled the child backward, step by step. They ducked into the nearest standing shelter, a canvas tent with one wall collapsed inward, its remaining fabric flapping weakly in the stale air. Atama pulled the boy down beside him, pressing a finger to his own lips. The boy's eyes were wide, unblinking, his small chest heaving in silent, shallow gasps.
Through a tear in the canvas, Atama watched.
The Dyviak crouched over something that had once been human. Its long, pale fingers worked with dreadful delicacy, peeling back layers with the care of a scholar unfolding a damaged manuscript. The sound was wet. Rhythmic. The creature's head tilted as it fed, those white, gleaming eyes half-lidded in what might have been pleasure or might have been nothing at all, a predator's empty contentment.
Atama's curse stirred. He felt it uncoil in his chest like a snake recognizing its own kind, pressing against the blue light the deer had woven into him. The light held. Barely. His skin prickled with cold sweat.
The boy whimpered, a sound so small it barely existed.
The Dyviak stopped.
Its head rotated with an oiled smoothness, those terrible eyes fixing on the tent. Blood, dark and thick as tar, dripped from its distended jaw. The four fangs, two up, two down, glistened in the muted light. It made no sound. It simply looked.
Atama's hand found a shard of broken tent pole, splintered wood, not much, but sharp. He gripped it until his knuckles ached. If it comes, I buy him time. Two seconds. Maybe three. Enough for him to run.
***
After Atama ran into the wreckage, the group stood amid the chaos.
"HEY!! Where is he?" Luptor's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. He stormed toward Sydney, his broad shoulders taut with fury, each step heavy enough to leave prints in the torn earth. "If that kid escapes or even dies somewhe--"
He stopped mid-stride, jaw clenched. Sydney hadn't even looked up. She was knelt beside a wounded woman, pressing a blood-soaked cloth against a gash in the woman's side, her movements calm and methodical as if the world wasn't burning around them.
Luptor's face reddened. "Hey! Look at me!"
Sydney's hands didn't falter. She pressed harder, and the woman beneath her whimpered.
"Hey, hey, Syd, answer me, goddammit." Luptor's voice rose, cracking at the edges--not with concern for the boy, but for the coin he represented.
Finally, Sydney exhaled through her nose. She tied off the bandage with a sharp tug and stood, turning to face him. Her eyes were flat, exhausted. "Just shut up. Just go help the others, alright?"
"That's our money." Luptor jabbed a finger toward the smoke where Atama had disappeared. "Don't you dare lose it."
Sydney didn't answer. She turned her back on him and walked toward the edge of the camp, where the Soejell--Laireen--stood silhouetted against the burning remnants of a supply tent. The creature's red crest pulsed low and angry, its single eye fixed on the treeline.
After a long moment, Sydney spoke. Her voice was quieter now, but no less sharp. "Laireen, what the hell is going on? Like, what the fuck? Didn't you say you put a barrier in this area?" She gestured at the chaos around them--the collapsed shelters, the wounded sprawled across the dirt, the scorch marks that still smoldered. "And where the rest of the--"
"Syd, just calm down." Laireen's voice was a low rasp, almost human but not quite. The creature turned its head, that single red eye gleaming. "I don't even know what just happened. I did tell my troops to put a spell around the area." It paused, its long fingers twitching. "And some of the barriers were dissolved."
"Just keep everybody safe, okay?" Laireen said.
"Alright."
But then a Dyviak showed up.
Humans and Soejell alike threw themselves at the creature, fighting desperately to hold it back. Blades flashed. Spells sparked and fizzled. Bodies collided, some standing their ground, others crumpling. They knew that if the Dyviak broke through, it would cause more carnage than the camp could survive.
Sydney's eyes swept the chaos, searching, calculating. That's when she saw them: Atama and the child, running toward the center of the camp.
But their path was blocked. A wall of tangled roots and debris or worse, another Dyviak cutting off their route, stood between them and safety.
But Atama was quick and had already retreated, looking for another way out.
Sydney's hand tightened around her dagger. She began to move.
Sydney's boots found their rhythm before her mind caught up. She was already moving, weaving between a collapsed supply cart and a knot of wounded being dragged toward the healers. The dagger in her hand was an extension of her arm, she didn't remember drawing it.
Stupid, she thought. Stupid boy. Stupid bounty. Stupid me for caring.
But the thought had no heat. It was reflex, the same voice that told her to check her corners and count her arrows. Beneath it, something quieter stirred, a question she didn't have time to examine.
Atama and the child had vanished behind a row of half-collapsed tents. The route to the center was cut off, she could see the obstruction now: a Dyviak, smaller than the one she'd seen before, but no less vicious, crouched atop a pile of shattered crates. It wasn't feeding. It was waiting. Head cocked, those white eyes tracking movement through the smoke like a cat watching mice.
It hadn't seen her yet.
Sydney pressed herself against the canvas wall of a supply tent and forced her breathing to slow. Her eyes swept the terrain between her and Atama's last known position. Forty feet of open ground. Scattered debris. A burning wagon throwing wild shadows. The Dyviak's perch gave it a clear view of the entire stretch.
If I go straight, it sees me. If it sees me, I'm dead before I close half the distance.
Her jaw tightened. She scanned again, and found it. A collapsed shelter on the far left, its roof caved inward, creating a narrow channel between fallen beams. If she could reach it, she could flank the creature, come at it from the side where the smoke hung thickest.
And then what? Fight a Dyviak alone?
She wasn't armed for this. Her dagger was steel, not enchanted. Her companion, Laireen, was holding the line elsewhere. She had a few spells, no blessings, no divine favor. Just speed, silence, and a growing irritation that she was about to die for a bounty she hadn't even collected.
Sydney moved.
She crossed the open ground in a low sprint, her footsteps swallowed by the roar of distant fighting. The Dyviak's head didn't turn. She slid into the channel of fallen beams, her shoulder scraping rough wood, and kept low, navigating by feel through the smoke-choked passage.
When she emerged on the other side, she was behind the creature. Forty feet became twenty. She could see the ridges of its spine, the way its pale skin stretched taut over vertebrae that protruded like knuckles. It still hadn't noticed her.
And there, beyond it, pressed into the shadow of an overturned wagon, she saw them. Atama, one arm wrapped around the child, the other gripping a splintered length of wood. His eyes found hers through the smoke.
She held up her hand. Wait.
The Dyviak shifted. Its head began to turn.
Sydney didn't think. She grabbed a fist-sized chunk of broken stone from the ground and hurled it, not at the creature, but past it, into the wreckage on the far side. The stone clattered against metal, a sharp, ringing sound that cut through the ambient noise like a bell.
The Dyviak's head snapped toward the noise. Its body followed, muscles coiling, and in that single heartbeat of distraction, Sydney waved her arm in a sharp, unmistakable gesture.
Go. Now.
Atama hesitated for a bit, felt a bit nervous and dizzy at the same time, but for the child's safety, he then pulled the child up and ran not toward the center, but along the edge, where the smoke was thickest, and the path was narrow but clear.
Then the child's foot caught a beam. The structure wobbled, groaned, and clattered to the ground.
The Dyviak's head whipped back toward the sound. Its eyes scanned the smoke, the wreckage, the shadows.
But Atama and the child had already pressed themselves into a tight crevice between two collapsed tents. Still. Silent. Holding their breath as the creature's gaze swept past them.
The Dyviak walked closer. Each step was slow, deliberate, its clawed feet scraping against the charred earth. Its twisted form emerged from the smoke like a nightmare given shape, limbs too long, joints bending the wrong way, eyes that reflected no light, only hunger.
Atama pressed himself deeper into the crevice, the child trembling against his chest. They were trapped in a dead end. Fallen beams and collapsed canvas blocked every direction except the one the creature was approaching from. If they ran, they wouldn't make it five paces before those claws found them. It would be suicide.
Both of them were afraid. Not the sharp panic of before, this was deeper, colder. The quiet terror of prey that has nowhere left to run. No escape. Only the creature, and the charred, choking smoke that stung Atama's eyes and burned his throat with every shallow breath.
Dammit. Sydney screamed, a raw, desperate sound, and raised her dagger, ready to charge, to buy them seconds even if it cost her everything.
But then she noticed.
The sound of the Dyviak's footsteps had stopped. Not faded. Stopped. She heard no rush of movement toward her, no scrape of claws, no guttural hiss.
She lowered her weapon, just slightly, and looked toward where the creature had been standing.
Empty. Nothing but drifting smoke and the dying embers of a shattered tent.
No twisted form. No eyes. No hunger.
Just gone.
Sydney's breath caught. A cold knot tightened in her chest, spreading through her ribs like frost. The creature hadn't retreated. It hadn't been called away. It had simply...
vanished.
And that was far worse than watching it come.
Because now it could be anywhere. Watching. Waiting. Choosing its moment.
"Atama… go to the center!" Sydney's shout cut through the smoke, sharp and desperate.
But Atama remained silent. The dizziness was horrible now, a spinning, lurching sickness that made the ruined camp tilt and sway around him. He couldn't answer quickly. His tongue felt thick, his thoughts slow, as if wading through mud.
And her voice, her voice sounded wrong. Distant. Warped. Like someone wearing Sydney's throat, pushing out sounds that should have been hers but weren't.
Impostor.
The word surfaced from somewhere deep, unbidden and cold. He didn't know if it was the curse lingering, the exhaustion, or something else entirely. But he couldn't trust it. Couldn't trust her. Couldn't trust anything except the small, trembling weight of the child still pressed against his side.
His legs wouldn't move.
Around them, the smoke curled and the camp burned, and somewhere in the dark, the Dyviak had vanished, waiting, watching, choosing.
And Atama stood frozen, caught between the voice calling him forward and the instinct screaming that the voice was a lie.
Then Sydney came over to Atama.
She didn't shout this time. She didn't have to. Her face was streaked with soot and sweat, her dagger still clutched in her hand, the blade dark with something that wasn't shadow. She grabbed his arm, not hard, but firm, urgent, and pulled.
"Run," she said. Not a command. A fact. The only thing left to do.
The dizziness still clawed at Atama's skull, and the child's weight pressed against his side, but Sydney's grip was real. Solid. Her hand was warm, not cold like the impostor voice had felt. He held onto that warmth like a lifeline.
They ran.
Together, the three of them, Sydney, Atama, and the boy, plunged into the smoke, away from the dead end, away from the place where the Dyviak had vanished, toward the center of the camp where the others might still be holding the line.
Behind them, something moved in the haze. But Atama didn't look back.