Chapter 3

Within five minutes my body was ready to fold in on itself. Pain radiated through me in a constant dull wave, accentuated by sharp spikes every time my feet hit the ground - my back, my legs, my lungs, all staging their own small rebellions. ‘Come on, Seth,’ I told myself. ‘Pain is just an emotional response to an external stimulus. Shut it out. Push through.’

Yeah. Right. Easy to say when the “stimulus” wasn’t a three-hundred-plus-pound corpse draped across my shoulders like a rotten weighted blanket.

I wasn’t built for this. I had a desk job. I didn’t go to the gym - like ever. I was too old, too fat, too out of shape to be hauling whatever this… this nauseating meat-heap was.

The thing’s scattered mouths pressed against my skin, their dead teeth poking through my shirt. Coarse fur rasped against my neck and arms, irritating the sweat-slicked skin until a patchwork of angry red welts bloomed underneath. Every jolt of movement made the creature’s body shift and grind into me. I hated the feel of it. I hated the smell of it even more.

Every nerve in my body was begging me to stop. Sit down. Drop the thing. Quit.

But this was the only shot I had. The only leverage available in a world that made no sense. And I’d said I could keep up. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it - even if it kills me. Maybe especially then.

So I walked. Head down. Mouth shut. One agonizing step at a time. No talking. No complaining. Not even the dignity of a coherent thought left in my brain. Just a grim, mechanical mantra: left foot, right foot, don’t fall, don’t fall.

‘When shit needs to get done, you get it done.’ It was something my father used to say. A blunt tool of a philosophy, hammered into me until it stuck. He’d been stronger than me. Smarter. Harder. But I’d kept that one thing.

And so I kept going.

She stayed ahead of me the whole time - sometimes close enough that I could hear branches snap under her boots, sometimes so far ahead she was just a flicker of movement between the trees. But she never slowed. And I never stopped.

Minutes blurred into hours. My shoulders went numb. My legs trembled. The sun dipped lower, bleeding gold through the canopy as the forest deepened into shadow.

Still, I kept walking.

* * *

I got lucky. That human showed up at the right moment, useless as he was. Mother Hunger was starving. She went for movement over threat. His flailing bought me just enough time to land the first blow. Even if he did almost get me killed in the process. And made me break my favorite axe.

I’ll make the smith earn his coin when I get back to town. This bounty will cover the axe and keep my belly full for a while.

But spirits curse it - what in the Hells is a human doing this deep in orc lands? How did he make it this far? He’s soft. Weak. There’s no chance he survived ten days of wilds dressed like… whatever that outfit was supposed to be. Pristine white shirt. Shiny little shoes. Fabric that would tear on a bush, let alone a briar patch. He didn’t walk here. Someone dropped him. But even a wagon would have put some dull in that blindingly bright shirt. Sweat, dust, something would have dirtied him. He was just too… clean.

And now he’s following me. And worse, I’m slowing down so he can keep up.

Idiot behavior on both our parts.

Best outcome? He wanders off, starves, and the scavengers take him before he suffers too much. Worst? Slavers catch his scent and drag him to market. A human fetches good coin if he’s pretty enough, and he’s got just enough softness in his face for some trader to get ideas.

He’s an idiot. A scared, stumbling idiot. That stunt he pulled with the swarmling proved it. Charging into a hunt with a twig. A twig. Even our whelps know better. Even human whelps know better. He was lucky I didn’t take his head off when I turned.

Whatever. It’s none of my concern. He’s none of my concern. I just need to keep walking. And if he falls behind, that’s his problem.

* * *

“Here,” she said - more like declared - and I almost ran straight into her back. I hadn’t noticed she’d stopped until just now. At some point she had set the mangled corpse off to the side. How long had she been standing here?

I blinked around stupidly. It was getting dark. Not full night, not yet, but that miserable gray-blue half-light where everything looks like it’s wrapped in fog and shaped wrong.

I let the thing on my back slide off. Or… I tried to. The tangle of teeth snagged my shirt and dragged me with it. I toppled backward and landed on the corpse hard, then my ass hit the rocky ground beneath it. A jolt of pain fired through my muscles - every tendon screaming in betrayal now that they no longer had to haul a three-hundred-pound nightmare.

I sucked in air like a drowning man. My lungs burned. My ribs hurt. My spine felt like it had been rung like a bell. For a moment I wasn’t sure I’d ever move again, and honestly, I didn’t hate that idea. This was as good a place as any to die. Quiet. Foresty. Minimal paperwork. No emails or meetings.

Sure, the ground was uncomfortable and a root was jabbing directly into my left ass cheek. And yes, the thing under me smelled like a shit and roadkill pie baked on summer time asphalt. But still. Peaceful enough.

“God dammit!” I yelled, because the universe deserved to know how I felt. I twisted around and punched the meat sack.

Instant regret. Pain shot through my knuckles as I hit… I don’t even know what. A stray skull in this thing’s side? I rolled away from it, nursing my hand. Was it broken? I don’t know. I’d never punched anything that hard before. But it sure hurt like hell. That seemed to be the theme of today.

Meanwhile, the woman was rummaging in her pack like nothing unusual was happening - no collapsing man, no self-inflicted hand trauma, no emotional unraveling. “Go gather wood,” she said without looking up. Her eyes flicked to me for a heartbeat - unreadable - and then back to her things.

I rolled onto my hands and knees, still gasping, still trying to convince my lungs air was not optional. I glanced at her again just in time for her to look away, expression enigmatic in the dim light.

I pushed myself upright. Nearly toppled. Caught myself on a tree. Then staggered into the forest in search of firewood, hoping trees didn’t bite here too.

* * *

I used to be a Boy Scout. Not for long, not good enough to earn anything even close to Eagle. Or was it Tenderfoot? I couldn’t remember. Probably just a ploy to get me out of the house.

Still, I remembered enough: look for dry wood. Old, brittle sticks that snapped under pressure but burned hot. I gathered every twig I could carry, a pathetic amount, sure, but better than nothing. The bark and broken branches dug into my palms as I hauled them back to where she stood.

I went back out a second time and got more. When I returned she had a fire going - small, uneven, but alive. The third time I came back, the palms of my hands raw and burning, she told me to stop.

I collapsed on the far side of the flames, trying to find a way to sit that didn’t feel like torment. Probably hopeless, but I tried anyway.

She pushed a bowl of thick, steamy stew toward me. My stomach grumbled so loud I nearly jumped. I sniffed it cautiously — rich, meaty, smoky. I drank. First hesitantly, but as that warm fluid hit my lips, I realized I hadn’t had anything to drink since morning. My sip turned into a gulp. I nearly choked.

Halfway through the bowl I finally remembered manners. “Thank you,” I croaked, pausing long enough to inhale in ragged gasps. Then I drank more, ****.

Her eyes flicked to me, but otherwise she didn’t react.

Now that I wasn’t being chased, now that the world wasn’t collapsing, now that I wasn’t lying under a pile of rotting flesh, I could finally look at her. Really look.

She was a bit taller than me — maybe six-three to my six-even. Muscular, but not bulky and sinewy like a bodybuilder. Powerful, lean, her form more lived-in than overbuilt. Her abs were defined but not carved; her biceps rounded and strong, her thighs thick with hidden strength.

In the firelight her skin glowed olive-green, darker near the scars and tattoos that traced patterns over the skin I could see. She wore a heavy leather top, cut off just below the ribs, reinforced at the shoulders like crude armor. A skirt of leather strips hung below, like those ancient warriors in the movies. Her black hair was in thin braids, which were in turn pulled back with a leather tie, framed a face that, by any normal standard might have been striking. But two lower teeth jutted up over her lip like tusks, oddly orcish, if that was a thing. Strange, dangerous, beautiful all at once.

“I’m Seth,” I said, swallowing hard. “Thanks again. For saving me. And for the food. I—”

But she cut me off with a low, tired voice. “Sleep now.” She rolled onto a leather mat and stretched out as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

I cleared my throat. “Should one of us keep watch tonight?”

“Sleep,” she said. “The smell will keep animals away.” Then she closed her eyes.

The stench of the beasts still clung to me. The sweat, the dried blood, the bile of panic and fear - I’d probably carry it for days. My clothes were ruined and I thought how simple it would be to burn the clothes off my back and pretend everything started now. It wasn’t hyperbole anymore - these clothes needed to be destroyed in a fire.

But I sat. For a while. The fire crackled. My breathing slowed. The soft wind caused the trees to creek and groan, and each sound set off a little flash of panic in me. Part of me wanted to stay alert, stay ready. But the rest of me was so tired I could taste sleep.

Eventually I laid back, limbs stiff, back popping under the shift. The soreness receded from screaming to throbbing. And somewhere between the crackle of the fire and the unsettling forest night, I drifted off.

* * *

“It’s morning,” someone said, right before a boot slammed into my foot hard enough to yank me out of unconsciousness. My eyes felt like they’d been glued shut with sand, and they really didn’t want to open. When I finally pried my lids apart, the sky was still more dark than light. Dawn’s first hint, sure, but nowhere near what I would call morning.

I tried to go back to sleep anyway, but the rocks stabbing into my spine had other ideas. I shifted, tried to roll to my side, only for a nest of roots to jam straight into my hip. I hissed and flinched.

“This is why I hate camping,” I muttered.

Sitting up took two tries, and each attempt lit my body up like every muscle I owned had suddenly learned how to scream. The woman was already rolling her leather sleeping mat with her usual cold efficiency. When her eyes flicked toward me, I threw up a hand. “I’m up. I’m up.” That didn’t mean I wanted to be up.

Another thirty seconds passed before I actually managed to stand, and when I stretched, the resulting series of pops and cracks sounded like something dying. Probably me.

She hoisted the beast’s corpse onto her shoulder like it weighed nothing. Just a casual morning chore. Then she started walking.

I grabbed the smaller carcass, braced myself, tried to sling it onto my back… and failed. I tried again. And failed again. I lost count after the tenth attempt, but eventually I managed to get the damn thing balanced across my shoulders.

My knees nearly buckled under the weight. Every step felt twice as hard as yesterday’s, like my muscles had finally realized what I’d put them through and were staging a revolt.

But I didn’t stop. The thing felt like it was collapsing my spine, but quitting wasn’t an option.

‘When shit needs to get done, you get it done.’