The assault vehicle shuddered once, coughed like a dying beast, and rolled to a groaning stop. The metal chassis creaked as it settled on its axles. Holt swore under his breath, slammed the wheel once for good measure, then turned to the others.
"That's it," he said flatly. "The tank's dry. Gas and battery both. We're not crawling another inch."
A heavy silence hung in the cabin. The wind howled faintly outside, rattling at the armored plating. Everyone stared forward as though waiting for someone to contradict Holt, to insist the machine would sputter back to life. It didn't.
Vidar broke the silence with his usual bluntness. "Then we leave it. Mark the position. We'll recover it when we can."
No one argued. They filed out into the snow, boots crunching against frozen ground. The cold slapped them immediately, sharp and biting. Brynhild tilted her face to the sky, inhaling the icy air with a grin.
"Walking, huh?" she said. "Perfect. I was starting to get soft sitting on my ass."
Runa ignored her. Elin adjusted her pack wordlessly. Solveig muttered something like a curse under her breath and trudged toward the treeline.
The group set off down the old road, long since cracked by frost and roots, the once-paved surface barely visible under snowdrifts. The forest pressed close on both sides, skeletal pines swaying against the wind. Every so often a raven's cry split the silence, echoing like a warning.
Tension hung over them like a lead weight — Vidar's grim words about The Black Bastion hadn't left anyone's mind. The thought that the Draugr might be repeating old strategies gnawed at them, and no one seemed eager to put it into words again.
But Brynhild had never been one for silence.
She lengthened her stride until she was walking beside Elin, eyes scanning her up and down in exaggerated fashion. "You know," she said, grinning, "if I die trudging through snow like this, at least my last sight will be your perfect cheekbones."
Elin's eyes flicked toward her, cool and unreadable. "You're shameless."
"Shameless and warm," Brynhild replied cheerfully, tapping her own chest. "That's what keeps me alive."
Solveig groaned audibly. "You're both insane," she muttered, pulling her cloak tighter around herself.
Brynhild only laughed, stretching her arms behind her head as if they weren't slogging through death-haunted wilderness. "Insane, yes. But admit it — it's better than walking in silence like a funeral march."
For a fleeting moment, even Elin's lips twitched into something like a smile.
Hours passed. The road widened, and the trees thinned until the group crested a low ridge. There, stretched before them, lay the ruins of Hollowfen.
Once, it had been a proud trade-town — a crossroads of fjords and forests, a place where fishermen, trappers, and merchants mingled in bustling markets. Now it was a scar across the land, burned and shattered during the wars.
Charred stone walls jutted upward like broken teeth. The skeletons of houses leaned at odd angles, roofs caved in. In places, though, someone had begun the impossible task of rebuilding: fresh timber patched gaps, smoke curled from crude chimneys, and tilled soil lay in neat rows behind cracked foundations.
Or rather, it had.
As they descend into the outskirts, it became clear something was very wrong. The new homes were abandoned mid-task. Tools lay scattered in the dirt. Doors hung open on their hinges. And the people —
The people lay dead in the streets.
They were sprawled as if struck down in an instant: a man still clutching a hammer, a woman's body bent over a basket of half-gathered roots. Children slumped beside toys, faces slack and pale.
Brynhild knelt by one of them — a woman in her early thirties, dressed in patched wool. At first glance, it was another casualty. But Brynhild's sharp eyes caught the wrongness immediately: a faint metallic gleam beneath the torn flesh of her neck.
Frowning, Brynhild brushed away the collar of the woman's cloak. Beneath, thin plating glinted, fused into the skin. Veins of faint light pulsed across her flesh like dying circuitry.
"Well, that's new," Brynhild muttered. She pressed her gauntlet against the plating, tapping it twice with a hollow clink.
The others gathered around. Runa crouched, her eyes narrowing. Her sensors hummed. "This isn't a Draugr," she said, voice tight. "It isn't human either. It's… an experiment."
Brynhild tilted her head. "I don't know what you think, but this looks to me like a test subject. Guess her body wasn't jazzed about the upgrade."
Elin shot her a look of sharp disapproval, but Brynhild only shrugged, standing. "What? Too soon?"
Solveig shuddered. "Too everything."
Before anyone could reply, a sound drifted through the air.
Metal scraping.
It came from deeper within the ruins — slow at first, then followed by faint whispers. Not human voices exactly, but something caught between static and breath.
Elin's hand went to her sword. Her eyes swept the shadows. "They know we're here," she murmured.
Holt swore quietly, his grip tightening on his rifle.
The group moved together, slipping into formation without a word. Vidar gestured silently, leading them forward between the collapsed walls. The noises grew louder: scraping, shuffling, the faint crackle of broken speech.
They found them in the square.
Children. Dozens of them.
The youngest looked no older than five, the oldest perhaps fifteen. Their bodies were twisted in ways that made the stomach knot: limbs partially replaced with jointed steel, faces marked with metallic veins, eyes flickering silver like broken lanterns.
Some dragged toys behind them, wooden horses clattering lifelessly on the cobblestones. Others clutched dolls, their heads lolling at odd angles. A boy's chest ticked with mechanical rhythm, gears grinding where his heart should have been.
They wandered aimlessly, moving like puppets with strings cut short. Some twitched, spasming as though caught between worlds.
Solveig clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. "Gods…"
One of the children stopped. A girl, maybe ten. Her hair hung in tangled strands, her skin pale where it wasn't veined with steel. Her eyes flickered once, twice, before locking in.
Her head tilted slowly, like a doll on a crooked hinge.
And then she spoke.
"Mama…"
The voice was warped, broken by static, layered with mechanical distortion.
The sound echoed across the ruins.
Every other child stopped.
Dozens of silver-lit eyes turned in unison toward their direction.
And then the children began to move.