Vlad's eyes were still fixed on the head. The brown hair, the twisted mouth, the hollow stare. His stomach turned. A tremble worked its way down his spine, and he tasted something metallic in the back of his throat.
Lex made a choked noise behind him. Not a word, just air catching in disbelief.
Vlad's fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword. He hadn't even realized he was gripping it tight enough to cramp.
"No…" Lex whispered hoarsely. His voice cracked, barely audible over the constant dripping of blood hitting wet leaves.
Crunch!
A sudden shift in the leaves–faint, close–sent a jolt through Vlad's entire body.
He froze. Shivered.
His eyes snapped upward.
There, just beyond the headless corpse emerged a silhouette, half-swallowed by the fog. Towering, hunched, with limbs stretched too far, too thin. Its shoulders twitched as it slowly stepped forward.
Just my damned luck!
Vlad stepped back slowly, and reached out with one hand, gently patting Lex's thigh without turning his head.
Snap!
The sound of something breaking–wood, thick and sudden–ripped through the trees above. Both Vlad and Lex flinched, heads jerking toward the hill they'd come tumbling down from.
It's already here too!?
Vlad turned sharply, eyes cold. "Move," he hissed under his breath.
They didn't run.
Instead, they began to retreat diagonally downhill, their feet careful, steps slow. Each motion deliberate, muffled by the layer of dead leaves beneath. The slope was slick, but gentler now, just steep enough that it pulled them forward, deeper into the mist… and away from death.
Then a noise.
It made both Vlad and Lex freeze mid-step. Vlad couldn't tell what it was but he wasn't willing to find out.
Not a breath. Not a sound.
He just prayed silently that it wasn't for them.
The wind picked up and muffled every noise as if a silent help from nature.
Then something came flying through the mist.
A whirling blur, barely visible in the gray, struck Vlad's cloak mid-motion. The fabric flared from the impact. The jolt sent him stumbling sideways.
His body hit the slope with a thud, the breath knocked from his lungs. He slid fast, leaves and dirt exploding around him in a spray. His left hand clawed desperately at the earth, fingers raking through cold, wet soil. But it wasn't enough.
The slope dragged him faster.
Finally, his hand caught something.
A low-hanging branch.
He gripped it tight, bark biting into his palm as the momentum jolted to a stop. His arm ached, muscles screaming from the sudden tension.
A rasp tried to slip out between clenched teeth, but he held it in.
One of his eyes squeezed shut as dirt scattered into it. He blinked furiously.
How did it hear us?!
He looked down–part of his cloak hung in tatters. The torn fabric fluttered weakly in the air. Whatever hit him had shredded straight through it!
He hadn't even seen what it was.
Slowly, he looked up toward Lex, still standing a few feet above. Lex hadn't moved a muscle. His sword hung loose in his grip, eyes wide with fear. Cold sweat clung to his exposed skin–beading, dripping–even in the bone-deep chill.
Vlad turned his head in the direction the projectile had come from and froze.
A shape loomed in the mist, just beyond the blur of trees.
A fiend.
Its shape was nearly identical to the ones before. It was thin, hunched, grotesquely long-limbed. But there was one difference.
This one had a nose–sharp, pointed, constantly twitching.
It could smell.
And they were both bleeding!
The fiend stood unnaturally still in the mist but its right arm was raised, long fingers curled around something jagged, its long clawed hand pulled back in a poised, perfect throwing stance.
Vlad's heart surged with panic.
"Move!" he shouted, flailing his sword wide in Lex's direction like a frantic warning.
Lex turned to him–confused, hesitant, eyes still locked on the mist below.
Then something slammed into his back.
"GUHK–"
The sound tore from Lex's throat, raw and wet, as his body was flung like a ragdoll, limbs flailing wildly through the air. He crashed several meters downhill, bouncing once before skidding across the slope. A thick spray of blood splattered the foliage in a messy trail behind him.
"Lex!" Vlad's head snapped up.
Too late.
Vlad pushed off the branch he'd been gripping and threw himself downhill just as another sound tore through the fog.
WHSHT!
Something flew through the trees. A massive branch hurled like a spear. It whipped through the air and smashed into the trunk of the tree Vlad had just clung to.
The branch exploded on impact and shattered into countless jagged fragments.
One sharp splinter caught Vlad across the left hand tearing his glove.
Pain bloomed across his knuckles like fire, blood mixing with the dirt already smeared across his skin.
But he didn't stop.
Didn't look back.
Vlad's boots slid on the wet leaves, gravity pulling him faster. Just ahead, a branch jutted out low from a crooked trunk.
He lunged.
His hand latched onto it, the bark rough against his palm tore patches of his woolen gloves. With a sharp twist of his body and a grunt, he swung his legs underneath himself and planted his boots hard into the earth.
In one motion, he was standing.
Breath ragged. Muscles trembling. Sword slick with damn earth and foliage.
But upright.
He ran–heart pounding, sword clenched, the scent of blood in the air and a monster that could smell it hunting him through the thick fog.
Then finally, Lex came into his view.
Sprawled across the ground, arms limp, no sword in sight. His body was twisted awkwardly, and far too much blood stained the leaves around him in a wide, dark bloom.
A chunk of his lower abdomen was missing, torn out like meat from an animal. The wound was jagged, raw, and still leaking. His white shirt had been shredded around the injury, now stained a deep, ugly red. What was once a fitted black vest hung in tatters, ripped open and soaked through with blood. The fabric clung to him like wet paper.
Shit… shit! Vlad's thoughts spiraled, panic choking his chest. Did I fail?!
Something sliced through the air.
A sharp, high-pitched whistle like metal screaming.
Before he could turn agony exploded through his right side.
"AGH–!"
Something gutted into his right flank, a hot, brutal stab that twisted his whole body sideways before slamming him face-first into the dirt.
For a second everything blurred.
His ragged breaths blew stray leaves away from his face as he struggled to stay awake. Hot blood seeped across his ribs, soaking into his shirt, and he felt it, really felt it–wet, hot, and spreading fast.
His body curled in on itself as a rusted and jagged steel rod protruded clean through his right side, skewering flesh and muscle with brutal precision, tearing through his own white shirt and black vest.
His vision swam. The pain screamed.
For a moment, he didn't feel anything except the weight of the earth on his chest. Then came the heat. Hot blood poured out in rhythmic pulses, soaking into his shirt and pooling beneath his ribs.
Damn it. Get up!
He tried to rise. His elbows dug into the cold ground–arms trembling, muscles barely responding, boots sliding, teeth gritted against the pain. But the jolt of pain from his side made him squeal through gritted teeth.
He gasped, eyes dropping to his wound.
The bloodied rod still in him. Every twitch sent fresh agony blooming outward.
He got partway up, just enough to see the mess of leaves and dark liquid spreading around him.
Fuck…
One hand reached instinctively for the rod, but he stopped himself. He knew that pulling it out would just bleed him out faster and kill him.
"Run…"
A voice spoke faintly, cutting through the haze. Guttural. Broken.
Vlad's head snapped sideways, sweat dripping from his brows.
Lex's head was turned just slightly toward him. One eye buried beneath a mat of dirt and leaves, the other barely open, its sclera soaked red.
"Get away…" he rasped. His voice was hoarse, wet, rattling.
A cough. A twitch of blood from his lips.
"…Save yourself."