Kane wiped the blood from his sword bde on the matted hide of the fallen ogre.

  Bck ichor slid down the steel in long, heavy drops.

  The monster twitched twice more—convulsively, as though trying to draw breath through its torn-open chest—then went still. The massive carcass settled into the mud with a wet squelch, kicking up a cloud of ash and the stench of charred flesh.

  The vilge around them was no longer a vilge.

  It was a graveyard.

  Charred house skeletons jutted upward like broken bones. Smoke rose slowly, zily, as if even the fire had grown tired of killing. Bodies y everywhere—in unnatural poses, twisted, torn apart.

  Men—with severed arms, faces pulped into bloody ruin.

  Old men—simply crushed, as though stomped ft by a boot.

  Children—small bundles, burned or skewered on spears.

  Women had fared worse.

  Kane forced himself to walk past one of them.

  She y against the wall of a burned-out barn, dress ripped open to the waist, legs spyed apart. Between her thighs—a pool of blood and semen mixed into filthy sludge. Her face was smashed, eyes open and empty. Deep blue finger marks ringed her throat. Nearby y scraps of undergarments, soaked in blood and dirt.

  They hadn’t killed her right away.

  First they used her.

  Then, when everything that could be broken was broken, they simply left her to die.

  Kane looked away.

  He had seen this hundreds of times.

  And each time something small and human inside him died a little more.

  This was not war.

  This was sughter—in which demons didn’t merely kill. They defiled, shattered, reveled.

  For the past month the bordernds had become a sughterhouse.

  The demons had come suddenly—bck tides pouring from rifts, from cracks in reality itself.

  While the kingdom tore itself apart in civil war, they carved through vilge after vilge like wolves through a flock of sheep.

  And the neighboring barons and dukes waited only for the moment to sink their teeth into the weakened pieces.

  Kane spat onto the ground—thick saliva mixed with ash.

  “To hell with this politics.”

  He yanked the sword free from the ogre’s corpse.

  The bde came out with a wet sucking sound.

  The ogre had been enormous—nearly twice a man’s height—but for Kane this had long become routine.

  He had served on the border since he was nineteen.

  Too long.

  Seen too much.

  “Looks like no one survived, Captain.”

  Kane turned.

  Lohan.

  His nephew.

  Nineteen years old.

  A trace of childish softness still clung to his cheeks—something the war was trying hard to scrape away with a knife.

  Tears stood in his eyes.

  Young.

  Not yet used to it.

  Kane exhaled heavily.

  “Don’t worry, Lohan. We wiped out another pack.”

  He nodded toward the dead demons—twisted bodies, joints bent backward, bck blood soaking into the earth.

  “Sooner or ter they’ll run out.”

  Lohan suddenly shouted—voice cracking, hoarse.

  “How is this even possible?! Why did our king allow this?!”

  Kane stepped forward and seized him by the colr so hard the fabric tore.

  “Quiet.”

  He gnced around.

  The soldiers were rummaging through the ruins, looking for anything of value.

  But words could cost a head.

  Kane leaned in close, almost to his ear.

  “Our king is a mad whelp who should have been put down long ago.

  But these days they hang you for less—even without a trial.

  So shut your mouth.”

  Lohan dropped his gaze.

  Kane was about to let go when he froze.

  A sound.

  From the forest.

  A short, desperate child’s cry.

  And a dull thud—as though a body had hit the ground.

  Kane snapped his head up.

  “Lohan. Corin. With me.”

  He was already moving toward the trees at a fast stride.

  The tracks were fresh.

  Blood on the leaves—bright, still uncoaguted.

  Broken branches.

  Small barefoot prints.

  A child.

  Kane clenched his jaw until his teeth ground.

  Another death. They were te again…

  He had seen too many.

  But when they stepped into a small forest clearing—Kane stopped dead.

  Before them stood a boy.

  Eight or nine years old.

  On his knees.

  In his hands—an axe far too rge for him.

  The bde glistened with fresh blood.

  In front of him y a goblin.

  Or rather—what was left of it.

  The head was smashed to pulp—skull bones jutting outward, brain leaked in a gray-pink puddle.

  Chest and abdomen hacked dozens of times—ribs exposed, entrails spilled out, intestines y in loops on the ground, still twitching faintly.

  Blood had soaked the earth into a bck-red carpet.

  The boy was covered in blood—face, hands, clothes.

  A fresh ragged scar ran across his cheek—deep, bleeding, from temple almost to chin.

  Corin let out a quiet breath.

  “Holy…”

  Kane raised a hand.

  “Boy. Drop the weapon.”

  The boy slowly shifted his gaze.

  And Kane felt as though ice water had been poured down his spine.

  He knew that look.

  He had seen it in people who had walked through hell and come back no longer human.

  In those who had nothing left to lose.

  The boy suddenly raised the axe—sharp, furious—and charged forward.

  But his strength sted only two steps.

  He colpsed face-first into the dirt.

  Lohan gave a nervous ugh.

  “Damn… what a look in his eyes.”

  Kane nodded slowly.

  “Yeah. I’ll give you that.”

  Corin walked over and lifted the boy in his arms—he was light as an empty sack.

  “Take him with us?”

  Kane was silent for a long time.

  The army had long ceased to be an army.

  After the civil war they took anyone—thieves, murderers, escaped convicts.

  Half his squad wasn’t worth the rope it would take to hang them.

  And here—a child.

  Covered in someone else’s blood.

  Axe still in his grip.

  Kane exhaled.

  “Yes.”

  He looked at the boy—at the pale face, the empty eyes, the scar.

  “Until we reach the nearest vilge.”

  He turned to Corin.

  “Take him to my tent.”

  Corin nodded.

  Kane shifted his gaze to Lohan.

  “Take some men.”

  He gestured toward the vilge.

  “Dig a pit for the people.”

  A pause.

  “And another—for the demons.”

  His voice turned to ice.

  “And burn them.”

  He stepped closer to Lohan.

  “And God help anyone who decides to dump them all in one hole again.”

  He looked straight into his eyes.

  “They’ll go in after them.”

  Lohan struck his fist to his chest.

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Kane turned and walked back.

  The work wasn’t finished.

  It never was.

  The smell of ash, blood, charred flesh, and death filled the air again—thick, sticky, familiar.

  Like the breath of this world.