Freya crept forward, tracking the trail left behind by the dead orcs.
Her body was low to the ground, like a prowling cat.
The damp underbrush muffled her movements, and the canopy above scattered moonlight in trembling patches.
Grant followed silently behind her, with surprising grace for a creature made entirely of bones.
Soon, the jungle thinned, and through the veil of foliage, she saw it—a crude wooden watchtower stabbing upward from a clearing like a rotten fang.
Two orcs lounged at its base: one gnawing on a strip of dried meat, the other sharpening a cleaver-like blade on a rock.
A third paced above, silhouetted against the starlit sky, a huge bow slung across its back.
Freya froze in the shadow of a twisted tree root. Her crimson eyes locked onto the patrol tower, watching the lazy rise and fall of the sentry's steps.
She counted them—five paces to the left, five to the right, pause, turn.
"Clockwork," she whispered.
She sniffed the air. Smoke. Oil. Blood. Faint sounds trickled from the outpost beyond the watchtower—guttural voices, the clank of armor, distant laughter.
A camp. Didn't sound crowded. Maybe it was smaller than she'd expected.
Freya lowered herself further, lips curling into a feral grin.
Three orcs. One tower. No alarm yet.
She raised two fingers to Grant, then pointed to the sentry above.
The skeleton tilted his skull with a dry creak, acknowledging the order.
With a flex of her will, dark mana surged through her body—sharpening her senses, stealing warmth, and driving her body to its deadly peak.
Then they moved.
Freya slid through the underbrush like a wisp of smoke, flitting from root to shadow, her bare feet never snapping a twig.
The two orcs at the base were too absorbed to notice.
One spat gristle onto the ground, grunted something crude, and burst into laughter.
The other scraped his blade in long, distracted strokes.
Perfect.
She stopped just ten feet away. Waited. The pacing above paused.
Now.
A muffled thunk echoed through the air as Grant cannonballed Freya upward with a push of his shield.
The watchtower sentry barely had time to gasp before his face was split clean in two by the Reaper's Scythe.
The two orcs below stood dumbstruck for a heartbeat.
Grant burst from cover.
The orc with the cleaver turned just in time to catch a bone blade in the throat. He gargled, staggered back, arms flailing—then crumpled with a thud.
The second orc shouted and grabbed his axe—but Freya was already on him, dropping from above, crimson eyes pulsing, the Reaper's Scythe raised high.
The orc ducked under the swing, but Grant followed with a brutal knee to the gut. Then, with an upward slash of his blade, the orc's head went flying into the night—trailing a crimson halo beneath the moonlight.
Freya landed light as ash beside the fallen orc, her blade slick with fresh blood. The clearing had gone still, save for the gentle creak of the watchtower swaying in the breeze.
Then she caught it.
A scent.
Not the stench of orc sweat or the iron tang of spilled gore—no, this was different. Sweet. Rich. Almost… inviting.
Her head snapped upward, nostrils flaring. The scent drifted from above, thick and warm and maddening.
She turned and leapt, scaling the ladder of the watchtower with inhuman speed. The wood barely creaked under her weight.
At the top, the orc's bisected corpse slumped awkwardly against the railing, half his face still frozen in shock. A pool of blood had formed beneath him, dark and glistening, soaking into the planks.
Freya knelt beside it.
Her pupils narrowed. Her breath hitched.
It was intoxicating. The kind of blood that sang—a warrior's blood, adrenaline-spiked, filled with strength, hatred, pride. It shimmered faintly in her vision, mana-saturated and wild.
She dipped a finger into the pool and brought it to her lips.
Velvet heat bloomed across her tongue. Power thrummed through her veins like a drumbeat in the deep.
"This is good stuff," she murmured, licking the crimson from her finger. "More than good—this is level-up stuff."
Freya didn't hesitate.
She sank her fangs into the orc's neck, just below the jaw where the blood still pulsed faintly from ruptured arteries.
The flesh offered no resistance. Warmth flooded her mouth, thick and heady, the tang of iron beneath that rich sweetness.
Each swallow sent ripples of power through her limbs. Her fingers curled involuntarily, toes gripping the wood beneath her as mana surged through her system in intoxicating waves.
Her vision sharpened. The sounds of the forest below came alive—every leaf rustle, every insect buzz rendered in razor detail.
This one had been strong. A hunter. A killer. His blood held the story of battles fought, beasts slain, victories savored.
She drank it all—greedily, reverently—until the flow began to slow and the body went slack.
Only then did she release him.
Freya wiped her lips with the back of her hand and exhaled, a soft moan of satisfaction escaping her.
"Delicious," she whispered, her voice husky. "Michelin three stars."
She slung what remained of the orc's mangled corpse over her shoulder with a grunt and descended the tower.
Her movements were lazy now, almost languid with the afterglow of feeding.
Her strength was swelling. She could feel it—bones tightening, muscles twitching, senses humming.
Grant stood at the base, waiting, soul-fires locked on her as if trying to figure out what she was doing.
"I brought takeout," she said, and tossed the corpse at his feet with a wet thud.
The skeleton stepped forward and knelt beside the body. With the same eerie silence he always moved with, he pressed one bony palm to the orc's chest.
Dark mana pulsed outward in a ripple.
The flesh withered, darkened, peeled back.
Bones cracked and split, reshaping as they were claimed by the necromantic current.
Freya watched with idle fascination as the skeleton absorbed the orc's remains—not just consuming the bones, but learning them.
Reinforcing his frame, thickening his limbs, sharpening his edges.
The arm he'd used to kill earlier elongated slightly, now ending in a jagged elbow-spike. His chest thickened with reinforced ribs.
His jaw, once narrow, now boasted tusk-like protrusions.
A warrior's bones for a warrior's servant.
"Damn, Grant," Freya said, eyes widening. "You look like you're gonna make Freddy Krueger pee himself."
The skeleton turned its head slightly, as if acknowledging that as a compliment.
Freya's gaze drifted back to the jungle beyond the watchtower. Faint campfire glow flickered between the trees.
The scent of more blood lingered on the air, but thinner, more distant. She wiped her blade clean on the dead grass.
"Well then," she whispered, stretching her limbs like a cat, "let's go see who else is on the menu tonight."
She turned, Mr. Wolfie's hide fluttering behind her, and melted back into the shadows—Grant close behind, his new bones creaking with power.
The jungle swallowed them once more.
Freya moved first—low, silent, her blood still thrumming with looted power.
The shadows seemed to cling to her, wrapping around her like a lover's embrace.
Grant followed with predatory calm, the creak of his reforged bones barely more than a whisper.
They pushed onward, navigating through underbrush and roots like spirits in the night.
Crickets chirped in rhythmic pulses. Somewhere overhead, an owl called once, then fell silent.
The damp loam muffled their steps as they climbed, slow and deliberate, each movement practiced and efficient.
Freya held up a hand.
They stopped.
Up ahead, the trees thinned again—and the ground sloped downwards.
She crept forward, keeping to the shadows of moss-draped trunks until her hand brushed rough bark at the edge of the hill.
Then she lowered herself onto her belly and crawled to the ridge.
And there it was.
The orc outpost.
Beneath them, in a cleared depression ringed by makeshift palisades, a crude cluster of structures sprawled like an infection—tents of stretched leather, half-built huts of bone and wood, fire pits glowing with lazy embers.
Smoke curled upward in thin columns. The scent hit her—charred meat, unwashed bodies, stale blood, and something fouler beneath it all. Something darker.
Freya narrowed her eyes.
The camp was alive with movement.
Orcs wandered between fires and tents, their silhouettes hulking and restless.
A few gathered around a roasting spit, laughing raucously. Others sparred in a crude circle near a stack of broken weapons.
She counted heads.
"Eleven… twelve… no, thirteen," she whispered.
A beat passed.
"No—fourteen. There's one in that pit."
Grant crouched beside her, his skull cocked. His soul-fires burned low and steady, casting a faint blue glow over the moss.
Freya tilted her head, tapping a finger against her chin. "This isn't just a war camp," she muttered. "This is a forward post."
She pointed with the Reaper's Scythe toward the largest structure at the center.
It was stitched together from furs and rusted plate armor, with thick tusks jutting from the roof like a crown.
"Command tent," she murmured. "And see that pit? They've got something caged down there."
She sniffed the wind again. The rich, intoxicating scent of blood still lingered, but it was thinner here—spiced with other, stranger aromas. Ash. Brimstone. Old death.
She frowned.
Something felt… off.
Not dangerous, exactly. But charged. Like a thunderstorm waiting to break....