The silence of Hollowfield was worse than any battlefield I'd ever imagined.
The wind whistled faintly between the broken homes, carrying with it the scent of ash and something coppery beneath—faint but undeniable. Blood.
Arya and I stood at the edge of the main road, staring into the desolation before us. No children's laughter, no merchants calling wares. Just empty streets and the creak of a shutter banging against a wall.
She lowered her hood and scanned the nearest alleyway.
"Not a soul," she murmured.
I adjusted my grip on the guild blade, the weight of it a small comfort in my hand.
"They didn't just leave," I said. "Something… made them leave. Or worse."
We moved forward, our boots crunching faintly on the gravel. Each house we passed told its own grim story. A chair knocked over, as if someone left in a rush. Dishes still sitting on tables, cold and moldy. And here and there, a smear of dried blood on a doorframe or along the stones.
Arya crouched beside one such streak and ran a gloved finger through it.
"Not fresh," she said. "But not more than a week old."
My stomach tightened.
At the heart of town stood a stone well, the kind you find in every village. But here the rope hung slack, the bucket shattered beside it, and the water at the bottom glimmered faintly red in the dim light.
We stopped there, listening.
Somewhere—somewhere beneath us—something moved.
It was faint, like a whisper of claws on stone, but it was there.
Arya's gaze met mine, and she nodded toward the largest building on the square—a chapel of some kind, its doors splintered and hanging ajar.
"Whatever happened," she said softly, "started there."
We advanced slowly, every sense on edge. The inside of the chapel was colder than the air outside, dark despite the light streaming through holes in the roof. The pews were overturned, and the altar had been scorched black. Symbols I didn't recognize had been carved into the wood.
And blood.
A lot of it.
In the center of the room, a long smear trailed toward the stairs that led down into what I guessed was a crypt.
Arya crouched and sniffed the air.
"Still fresh down there," she whispered. "Whatever it is… it's waiting."
My heart pounded, but I forced my hand to stay steady as I gripped the hilt of my sword.
We descended the stairs together, each step creaking underfoot, the light fading quickly as we went. The air was damp here, and something alive moved in the shadows just out of sight.
The crypt opened into a wide stone chamber, lined with ancient sarcophagi. Faint light shimmered here and there from what looked like enchanted lanterns on the walls—though they were cracked, barely glowing.
And at the far end of the chamber, hunched over a shattered tomb, was… something.
It was humanoid in shape, but its skin was mottled gray, stretched taut over bones that jutted at sharp angles. Long, hooked claws scraped against the stone as it moved, and its head jerked toward us at the faint sound of our boots.
Eyes—black, wet, endless—fixed on me.
And then it screeched.
The sound was deafening, inhuman, echoing off the crypt walls.
Arya was already moving, circling wide to the left, her dagger glinting faintly in the half-light.
I charged straight in.
The thing moved fast—faster than I expected, leaping over one of the sarcophagi and swiping at me with a claw that would have gutted me if I hadn't thrown myself aside at the last second. The stone beneath my boots cracked as it landed where I'd been, its claws sinking into the floor.
I slashed upward, steel biting into its shoulder. Dark ichor sprayed across my arm, burning where it touched skin, but the creature didn't even flinch—it just swung its other arm at me, catching me in the ribs and sending me sprawling.
Arya was already on it by then, her blade flashing in quick, precise strikes. It howled and lashed out, but she was too fast, ducking low and carving a deep gash across its thigh.
I forced myself to my feet, coughing, gripping my sword so tight my knuckles went white.
We moved as one—she cut high, I struck low, and finally, finally, the thing let out one last ear-splitting shriek and collapsed to the stone floor, ichor pooling around it.
For a long moment, neither of us moved.
Then Arya straightened, wiping her blade clean on the thing's tattered remains.
"Well," she said, voice slightly shaky despite her smirk, "that explains the disappearances."
I leaned against the wall, catching my breath.
"It's not… human," I said hoarsely. "Not anymore."
She nodded grimly, kneeling to examine what little was left of the creature.
"Guild'll want to see this," she muttered. "Proof of kill. And maybe to send a proper team down here to clear out the rest."
The thought of more of these things lurking deeper underground made my stomach twist.
But that was our job now, wasn't it?
We climbed back into the chapel just as dusk began to fall. The streets of Hollowfield were as empty as before, the silence pressing in all around us.
Arya adjusted her cloak and glanced back at me.
"You're not gonna freeze up on me, are you?"
I met her gaze, feeling the weight of the guild blade across my back, the faint sting of ichor burns on my skin.
"No," I said quietly. "Not anymore."
And together, we began the long walk back to Highridge, the wind at our backs and the whispers of the pines following us all the way home.