The rain in the northern marches of Oros falls, like cold, grey needles. It turned the road into a soup of black mud and rotted pine needles that sucked at Kai's boots with every step.
Kai's right shoulder was a dull, throbbing knot of heat. It wasn't the warmth of a hearth; it was the stinging heat of a fever that refused to break.
Beneath his heavy leather cloak, the Fire Mark was pulsing, a faint orange glow visible through the gaps in his bandages.
He stopped and adjusted the strap of The Scourge. The massive Nodachi was wrapped in oilcloth, but it still felt like he was carrying a slab of lead across his back. The hilt, bound in rough sharkskin, bumped against his jaw.
A crow landed on a nearby fence post, its feathers slick and matted. It didn't fly away as Kai approached. It just tilted its head, watching him with an eye that looked like a polished black bead.
Kai reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a piece of dried meat. It was salty and hard as wood. He chewed it slowly, not because he was hungry, but his body needed the fuel to keep Mark from eating his muscle.
The silence of the woods was broken by the rhythmic slap-squelch of his boots. There were no bird calls here. The Empty Dawn, the priests always talk about felt very real here, but it wasn't beautiful; it was just lonely.
He reached a crossroads. A wooden signpost stood there, half rotten and leaning to the left. One arm was pointing towards Oakhaven, the other was blank, the wood having splintered away years ago.
Kai didn't look at the sign; he looked at the mud. There were tracks; deep, elongated ruts that didn't belong to any horse. They looked like the drag marks of a heavy tail, or a limb that had too many joints.
He knelt, his joints popping with a sound like dry twigs. He pressed two fingers into the track. The mud was still cold, but there was a faint, oily residue left behind that smelled like burnt hair and old copper.
"Fresh," he muttered, his voice was raspy, unused to speaking, and worn out.
Kai stood up and wiped his mud-stained fingers on his trousers. The oily residue didn't come off; it left a dark smear that seemed to shimmer with a faint, sickly purple light.
He followed the tracks toward a small cluster of huts visible through the treeline. This wasn't a village; it was a charcoal-burner's camp. Four hovels with sagging thatch roofs huddled together as if for warmth.
There was no smoke coming from the chimneys. In Oros, a cold chimney in the evening was a death certificate.
He walked into the center of the camp, his hand moved to the hilt of The Scourge. He didn't draw it yet, but he hooked his thumb under the crossguard, ready to clear the scabbard in a single motion.
The first body was slumped against a stack of firewood. It was a man, or he used to be one. He wasn't cut or bitten; he had been drained. His skin was the color of old parchment, pulled so tight over his ribs that the bone threatened to burst through.
Kai knelt by the man, and he touched the man's neck. It was cold, but as his hand got closer, the Fire Mark on his shoulder flared white-hot, responding to the lingering presence of the cold in the corpse.
"Hungry bastard," Kai whispered. He wasn't talking about the man. He was talking about the thing that had fed on him: a lesser Ghoul, or perhaps something worse.
A soft thud came from inside the largest hut. It was the sound of something heavy being dragged across dirt.
Kai didn't rush; he slowed his breathing, calming the red inside his mark. If he let his anger spike, the fire would burn his stamina before the fight even began. He needed to be cold to fight the cold.
He reached the door of the hut, which was hanging off one hinge. Inside, the darkness was absolute, a thick ink that seemed to swallow the faint daylight from the doorway.
A pair of eyes opened in the back of the hut. They weren't eyes with pupils; they were two pinpricks of pale, freezing light. They stared dead into his eyes without blinking.
Kai gripped the sharkskin hilt of The Scourge. The oil-cloth wrapping fell away, revealing the notched, black-iron blade. It didn't have the shine of a regular blade. It was a weapon designed to kill things that loved the dark–Ghouls.
"Why do I have to be the Hero? You know I hate being the hero from the stories," Kai said to the darkness. "Why am I talking to you?"
The thing in the dark hissed; a sound like steam escaping a pipe. And it lunged at him.
Just before it reached him, he stepped to the side, the mud splashing against his boots, and let the creature's momentum carry it past him into the dim light of the camp center.
The monster hit the mud. It was a Ghoul, its body was long and thin, like a person stretched out on a rack. Its skin was grey and looked like wet rubber.
It had no nose and no hair, only two small holes for eyes that glowed with a cold, blue light. It looked at Kai and opened its mouth. There were no teeth inside, just a dark, empty hole.
The Ghoul moved fast; it scrambled on all fours like a sick dog. Its claws dug into the mud, and it leaped at Kai's throat.
Kai moved his heavy sword; he didn't swing it like a light stick. He used the weight of the weapon; he stepped forward and met the monster halfway.
The black blade hit the Ghoul's chest. There was a loud crack as the monster's ribs broke. It did not bleed red like any other creature. A thick, black, oil-like substance leaked from the wound.
The Ghoul hissed in pain; the sound was high and sharp. It tried to grab Kai's arm with its long, bony fingers.
Kai felt a wave of coldness come from the monster; it felt like sticking his hand into a bucket of ice. His breath turned into a white mist in the air.
On Kai's shoulder, the Fire Mark began to burn. It felt like a hot coal pressed against his skin. The heat moved down his arm and into the sword.
The sword began to glow a dull, angry orange. The oil cloth on the hilt started to smoke. Kai gritted his teeth; the pain was making his eyes water, but he didn't let go of the sword.
He twisted the blade; the heat from the Mark passed into the Ghoul. The monster's grey skin began to bubble and pop; it screamed a different sound now, a sound of fear.
Kai pulled the sword out and swung again. This time, he aimed for the neck. The heavy iron cut through the rubbery skin and the bone.
The Ghoul's head flew off and landed in the black mud. The body fell limp and didn't move again.
Kai stood over the dead thing; he was breathing hard. His shoulder was shaking from the heat of the Mark. He felt weak, as if the fight had taken a piece of his life away.
He looked at his sword. The orange glow was fading, leaving the metal black and cold again. A small trail of smoke rose from his sleeve where the mark sat.
Kai looked around the camp. The fight was over, but the silence around him made him very tense. He was the only one left alive in the area; none of the humans were alive.
Kai wiped his blade on a dry patch of grass. The black oil-like substance from the Ghoul was thick and hard to remove. He had to scrape the metal until it was clean.
He walked out of the place and saw a small hut hidden behind the trees. He walked towards the hut, and the door was closed. He pushed it open with the tip of his boot.
Inside, he found a small wooden table and a bed made of hay. A small bowl of soup sat on the table. It was cold and covered in a thin layer of white mold.
Kai looked under the bed. He saw a pair of small, dirty feet sticking out from the straw, and he froze for a second.
"Come out," Kai said, his voice quite flat.
The straw moved, and a small girl crawled out. She was maybe six years old. Her face was covered in soot, and her eyes were large and red from crying.
She looked at Kai, then she looked at the giant sword on his back. She began to shake from fear.
"Are you the Ghoul?" she whispered, her eyes not leaving the sword.