The wind howled across the frozen cliffs, dragging ice and snow in sweeping gusts that bit deep into exposed flesh. The northern wastes were always cruel, but tonight, there was something else in the air—a wrongness that sat beneath the cold, waiting.

  Korrak pulled his furs tighter around his shoulders, his breath thick mist in the darkness. He had felt it all day, an itch in his skull, a pressure in his chest, as if something unseen had begun to close in.

  He did not like it.

  The mountains were silent. The usual groans of shifting ice, the distant howls of wolves—gone. Even the crows had fled.

  He pressed forward, boots crunching over the frost, his fingers brushing the worn hilt of his sword. An old habit, one he didn’t realize he did until the weight reassured him. He could kill a man with an axe. He could run one through with a spear. But a sword—a sword was a killer’s weapon, meant for the hands of a man who knew nothing else.

  And Korrak knew nothing else.

  The hunt had led him here—a raider's trail, fresh blood frozen in the snow. A good fight, he had thought. A reason to kill men who deserved it.

  Now, he wasn’t sure.

  The raiders had vanished. Their tracks led only one way—up toward the peak, into the remains of some long-forgotten ruin, black stones jutting from the ice like the bones of a dead god.

  And they had not come back down.

  Korrak reached the ruin’s entrance. A temple, maybe—once. It was hard to tell. The walls were too smooth, the angles too sharp, as if the place had been carved not by men, but by something that did not know how men built things.

  The door was already open.

  The trail led inside.

  Korrak followed.

  Inside, the air was still. Too still.

  The cold did not reach this far in, but neither did warmth. There was nothing here.

  The tunnel sloped downward, deeper into the earth, walls lined with carvings. Korrak ran his fingers across them as he passed. Old symbols, older than the sagas, older than any kingdom he had burned.

  But he did not recognize them.

  That bothered him.

  The deeper he went, the heavier the air became, like breathing tar, like the walls themselves were pressing against him. The blood trail continued, but it was wrong now. No longer footsteps, but instead long dragging marks, as if something had been pulled through the stone.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He exhaled through his nose.

  And then—he smelled it.

  Rot.

  A fresh rot, meaty and thick, too heavy in the air to be just one body.

  He pressed forward.

  And then he found them.

  The raiders were still there.

  Sort of.

  Their bodies had been arranged in a perfect circle, backs arched unnaturally, their spines snapped in the same place, limbs sprawled in the same direction, heads tilted back in a silent, gaping scream.

  Their faces were not right.

  Their mouths had been split wider than they should have been, their jaws unhinged, stretched into wide, vacant smiles.

  Their eyes were gone.

  Not carved out. Not torn away.

  Just gone, as if something had scooped them from the sockets without breaking the skin.

  Korrak frowned.

  He had seen many things in his time. Bodies broken, burned, chewed apart by beasts. Limbs missing. Heads caved in.

  This was different.

  This was purposeful.

  Someone had done this, not out of rage, not out of hunger, but for a reason.

  He stepped closer.

  And then he saw the symbols.

  Carved into their flesh, spiraling from their bellies to their throats, deep enough to scar, but not enough to kill outright. The wounds had bled, yes—but only for a time.

  These men had been alive when it happened.

  And for a long while after.

  Korrak crouched, pressing two fingers against one of the symbols, wiping away a thin sheen of frost and dried blood.

  It almost looked like a map.

  He did not like that.

  Then, something shifted in the dark.

  Not a noise—a presence.

  The hair on his arms stood on end.

  He rose slowly, his hand already at his sword. The familiar weight of it in his grip steadied him. He had never believed in gods, but he had always believed in steel.

  And steel had never lied to him.

  He was not alone down here.

  The dead were smiling.

  But something else was watching.

  Korrak turned.

  And it was there.

  A shape in the shadows, too tall, its head tilted, unmoving.

  It did not breathe.

  It did not step forward.

  It simply watched him.

  Korrak was used to fear. He had felt the weight of battle, the pulse of an enemy’s blade scraping against his ribs, the cold certainty of death looming over him.

  But this was different.

  This was old fear.

  The kind that sat beneath the skin, the kind that every man is born with but forgets until it’s too late.

  His grip tightened on his sword.

  The shape did not move.

  But he knew, somehow, that it was smiling.

  Then it spoke.

  A voice like cracking ice. Like something that had not used words in centuries.

  “You were supposed to remember.”

  Korrak did not respond.

  He drove forward, sword swinging, moving to kill before it could speak again.

  The blade met nothing.

  And when he turned—

  The thing was gone.

  Korrak stood alone.

  The corpses of the raiders smiled up at him, their faces frozen in their final moments.

  He exhaled.

  Turned.

  And left them behind.

  But as he walked, as he climbed out of the temple of wrong angles, something still sat in his chest, something he did not like.

  The voice had felt too familiar.

  The words had been meant for him.

  And the stars, far above the wasteland, looked different now.

  Korrak did not believe in gods.

  But the gods believed in him.

  And some things should never be worshiped.