The Battlefield. The Breaker's Shadow.
The red took over.
Grog felt it happen like watching from far away—a door opening inside him, a flood of power and rage and something ancient. His body moved without his command. His sword sang without his thought.
The Breaker's claw came down.
Grog's hand caught it.
Bare-handed. Stopped it cold.
The monster's red eyes went wide. Impossible. This shouldn't be possible.
Grog squeezed.
Bones cracked. The Breaker screamed—a horrible sound, high and raw, that cut through the chaos of battle. Its claw hung limp, broken.
Grog stood.
The world was red now. Crimson and scarlet and the deep, wet red of fresh blood. Sound was distant. Pain was nothing. There was only the rage and the power and the need to kill.
He pulled.
The Breaker lurched forward, off balance, its massive body stumbling toward him. Grog's other hand found its throat.
Lifted.
Twelve feet of nightmare, lifted off the ground by a man who should not have been able to move it.
The monster thrashed. Its remaining claw raked his chest, his arms, his face—deep wounds, terrible wounds, blood pouring from a dozen gashes. Grog felt nothing. Felt nothing but power. Nothing but rage. Nothing but the red.
He threw it.
The Breaker crashed through a cluster of Vargr soldiers—bodies flying, bones breaking, screams cut short. It landed fifty feet away in a heap.
Grog walked toward it.
Not ran. Walked.
Each step left a footprint in the frozen ground—too deep, too powerful, the earth itself cracking under his weight. Soldiers scrambled out of his path. Vargr fled. Even the hunters, watching from their black tent, took a step back.
The berserker was here.
And it was hungry.
---
The Breaker tried to rise.
Its leg wouldn't hold. It collapsed, snarling, claws digging into the earth as it dragged itself away from the thing coming toward it.
Grog reached it in seconds.
His hands found its head—one on the jaw, one on the skull. The monster's red eyes blazed with terror. Real terror. For the first time in its existence, it understood what prey felt like.
It tried to speak. Tried to beg. Only gurgling sounds came out.
Grog pulled.
The Breaker's neck snapped with a sound like breaking branches. Its body went limp.
Grog held it for a moment longer. Felt the life drain out of it. Felt the power still surging through his own body.
Then he dropped it.
Stood over the corpse.
The red blazed.
And it wasn't done.
---
He turned.
Toward the black tent.
Toward the hunters.
Kazik's smile had vanished. For the first time, the hunter looked afraid.
"The berserker," he whispered. "Fully awakened."
Grog walked toward him.
Vargr soldiers threw themselves in his path. They died. More came. They died too. Nothing could stop him. Nothing could even slow him.
Aldric's voice, somewhere behind him: "Grog!"
He didn't hear.
Lira's arrows, raining down on Vargr trying to flank him: he didn't notice.
Mirena's spells, clearing a path: he didn't need them.
There was only the red.
Only the hunters.
Only the need to kill.
---
He reached the edge of the clear space.
Ten yards from the black tent.
The hunters stood before it—three translucent figures, flickering, barely real. But more solid than before. More real. The Breaker's death had strengthened them somehow.
Kazik raised a hand.
"Stop."
Grog didn't stop.
Kazik's power lashed out—a wave of force, of cold, of something that should have knocked any man unconscious.
Grog walked through it like it wasn't there.
The red protected him. The berserker was older than these hunters. Stronger. It remembered things they'd forgotten.
"You can't—" Kazik started.
Grog's hand closed around his throat.
Solid.
For the first time, the hunter was solid. Real. Touchable.
Kazik's eyes went wide.
"How—"
Grog squeezed.
Kazik's body convulsed. Flickered. Tried to fade, tried to escape, but Grog's grip held him in place. The berserker's power anchored him to this world—and made him vulnerable.
"You've been watching," Grog said. His voice was wrong—deeper, rougher, layered with something ancient. "Waiting. Playing your games."
Kazik clawed at his arm. Useless.
"Now you die."
He pulled.
Kazik's body tore.
Not like flesh—like smoke, like shadow, like something that had never been meant to exist in this world. It shredded in Grog's grip, dissolving into darkness, into nothing.
The other two hunters stared.
Then they ran.
Back into the black tent. Into whatever waited beyond.
Grog followed.
---
Aldric's voice: "GROG!"
The red paused. Just for a moment.
Grog turned.
Aldric stood at the edge of the clear space, sword drawn, face pale. Behind him, the battle raged on—but slower now. The Vargr were faltering. Without the hunters commanding them, they were just soldiers. Just enemies. Just dying.
"Grog." Aldric's voice was steady, but his eyes were terrified. "Come back."
The red roared.
Kill, it demanded. Finish them. All of them.
Grog took a step toward the tent.
"Grog."
Another step.
"Please."
The word cut through.
Grog stopped.
Turned.
Looked at Aldric.
The boy stood there—young, scared, determined. The hero he was becoming. The friend he already was.
Behind him, Lira was fighting her way closer, cutting down Vargr with cold efficiency. Mirena's spells flashed in the darkness, protecting soldiers, driving the enemy back.
They were still fighting.
Still alive.
Still worth protecting.
The red hesitated.
Kill, it demanded again. But weaker now. Less certain.
"No," Grog said. His voice was his own again. Rough, but his.
The red retreated.
Slowly. Reluctantly. But it retreated.
Grog stood in the blood-soaked snow, breathing hard, the berserker settling back into its sleep.
Aldric reached him.
Grabbed his arm.
"You're back."
Grog nodded.
"The tent—"
"Later." Aldric's voice was firm. "The battle's not over."
Grog looked around.
He was right. Vargr still fought. Soldiers still died. The black tent still loomed.
But the hunters were gone—one dead, two fled.
And the Vargr were breaking.