Fire didn't stop a beast. It just made it angry.
The wolf-kin snarled, the burning brand sizzling against its muzzle. It didn't recoil; it snapped. Wood splintered, and sparks showered down Kael's tunic, stinging his skin. He scrambled back, his boots slipping on the slick, oil-soaked planks of the watchtower.
The beast lunged.
Kael didn't think. He threw himself sideways, rolling under the heavy swing of a clawed hand that could have taken his head off. He hit the edge of the platform, legs dangling over the twenty-foot drop.
The beast stepped closer, its yellow eyes narrowing. It smelled the fear on him. It smelled the blood from his scraped palms. It opened its jaws, a low rumble vibrating in its chest that sounded like grinding stones.
Acceptable loss, the voice in his head whispered.
"No," Kael gritted out.
He grabbed the bucket of spare oil sitting by the ledge—meant for keeping the fire going—and swung it.
Not at the beast. At the floor.
The oil splashed across the planks between them and hit the roaring pyre. The explosion of heat was instantaneous. A wall of flame erupted, separating boy from monster. The beast howled, shielding its face as its fur singed.
The tower groaned. The fire was eating the supports fast.
Kael didn't wait. He looked at the drop. Below, the shadows were moving—more beasts, prowling the wreckage of the palisade. Jumping was death. Staying was death.
He looked at the rope pulley used to haul wood bundles up. The rope was smoking, threading through a block tackle attached to the main support beam.
He grabbed it and jumped.
The friction burned his hands instantly. He cried out, sliding down too fast, the coarse hemp tearing at his skin. He hit the ground hard, rolling into the mud just as the watchtower platform above collapsed in a shower of sparks and burning timber.
The crash drew them.
Heads turned. Snouts lifted.
Kael scrambled into the nearest cover—a half-collapsed root cellar behind what used to be the baker's house. He slid into the dark, earth-smelling hole and pulled a charred wooden door shut over his head.
Then, he stopped breathing.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Heavy paws padded over the dirt above him. Snuffling sounds. The wet tear of meat.
Kael pressed his hand over his mouth, burying his nose in the dirt to stifle a cough from the smoke.
Tears streamed down his face, hot and angry. He could hear them. He could hear his neighbors. The silence from before was gone, replaced by a feast.
He lay there for hours.
Or maybe it was days. Time didn't exist in the dark. Only fear. The kind of fear that dissolves your bones and turns your blood to ice water. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to wake up and find Horek yelling at him to dig deeper.
But the smell wouldn't let him. The smell of copper and roast meat.
When the sounds finally stopped, and the heavy thud of retreating steps faded toward the North Ridge, Kael didn't move. He waited until the cracks in the cellar door turned grey with dawn light.
He pushed the door open.
The Ashlands were always grey, but this was different. The village wasn't just ruined; it was erased.
Houses were flattened. The palisade was toothpicks. And the bodies...
There were no bodies.
The beasts had taken them. Meat for the winter.
Kael walked through the silence of Hollow Creek. He found a boot that belonged to the smith. He found a broken doll near the well. He found Horek's shovel, snapped in half.
He was alone.
He fell to his knees in the center of the village square, where the market stalls used to be. The silence pressed against his ears, louder than the screams had been.
He looked South. The fortress was just a silhouette against the morning sky. The smoke from his signal fire had long since faded, joining the eternal grey cloud of the Ashlands.
They watched. They knew.
Kael dug his hands into the ash covering the ground. It was mixed with fresh soot now. The bones of his village.
"You think we don't matter," he whispered, his voice cracking. "You think we're just numbers."
He grabbed a handful of the ash. It was cold. Gritty.
He brought it to his chest.
"I swear it," he said, and the words felt heavy, like they were locking something into place inside his chest. "I swear on the blood you spilled and the ash you left."
He didn't just want to survive anymore. Survival was for prey.
"I will clear the board. I will break the banner. And I will make you say their names."
The wind picked up, swirling the dust around him. For a second, it felt like the ash was answering, clinging to his clothes, his hair, his skin. It didn't feel dirty anymore. It felt like armor.
Kael stood up. He scavenged a water skin from the mud, tied Horek's broken shovel handle towards his belt (it was sharp enough to be a stake), and turned his back on the fortress.
He couldn't go South. Not yet. The South was for Knights, and he was just an Ashland rat.
He turned West, toward the Old Woods. Ser Elric patrolled the edge of those woods sometimes. If there was anyone in this world who might teach a rat how to kill a wolf, it was the old man who guarded the nothingness.
Kael began to walk. He didn't look back. He took the ash with him.