Sevha, Teresse, and Legra fled for their lives through the stone-walled alleys of the underground village. Their situation was so dire that even Legra, barely conscious, was forced to run.
“Lord Sevha! More are coming!” Legra yelped.
Sevha, bringing up the rear, glanced back. A dozen ghouls were hot on their heels, with another half-dozen spilling from the gaps between the stone houses.
“Get to the rooftops before we’re surrounded!”
The moment Sevha shouted, Legra scrambled up the wall of a nearby stone house. Reaching the top, he grabbed Teresse’s hand and hauled her up after him.
Just then, two ghouls lunged at Sevha.
He whirled, a sharp kick shattering the nearest ghoul's leg. As it collapsed, he spun into a second kick that connected with the head of the one behind it.
The ghoul’s head imploded. Grudge worms erupted from the ruin, latching onto Sevha and gnawing at his flesh.
He crushed them in his bare hand as Teresse cried out from the roof above.
“Sevha!”
He turned and leapt onto the stone house in a single bound.
“Run along the roofs!” Sevha shouted.
They raced across the rooftops, half the ghouls pursuing them through the streets below while the rest began to clamber clumsily onto the roofs.
They’re weak. Still…
The ghouls were corpses from the Mythical Age, and time had rendered them fragile. Sevha could shatter them with his bare hands. They were too weak to wield weapons, resorting to tooth and nail.
But their numbers were overwhelming. To face them head-on was to be surrounded and torn to pieces.
“Sevha! Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Teresse yelled.
This was the fourth underground village they had stumbled into.
Sevha paused, drawing a deep breath to answer her. Wind trickled in from the village's many entrances, and as it filled his lungs, he caught a trace of freshness within the stale, musty air.
His eyes locked onto a nearby tunnel—the one indicated by the map in his mind.
“An exit is just ahead.”
They leapt down from the roof and plunged into the entrance.
The moment they entered the tunnel, the footfalls of the pursuing ghouls merged into a single, thundering sound that beat against their backs.
They ran faster, desperate to escape it.
When they emerged from the tunnel, they found themselves in yet another underground village.
But Sevha felt no disappointment. Across the cavern, a fresh breeze flowed unmistakably from an entrance at the top of a wide set of stairs.
“That’s the way out!”
As he spoke, a hundred ghouls poured from the alleys onto the main thoroughfare, a tide of rot between them and the exit.
Sevha’s eyes swept over the village, instantly grasping its layout.
“We run. Stay close.”
He broke into a sprint down the main road, Teresse and Legra right behind him.
The ghouls immediately charged. The distance between them vanished in an instant, Sevha’s vision filling with their rotten faces.
But just before impact, he yelled, “To the side!”
He darted into a nearby alley.
The ghouls hesitated for a moment before turning to give chase.
We have to go deeper.
He led them deeper into the maze of alleys. Two ghouls burst from a stone house, blocking their path.
Sevha ran straight up the wall of the adjacent building and leapt. In mid-air, he kicked, shattering the first ghoul’s head. He landed and spun into a reverse kick that caved in the second one’s stomach, then sprinted on.
Deeper…
The ghouls followed, drawn deeper and deeper into the narrow passages.
Deeper.
They packed in more tightly, the echo of their footsteps closing in from all sides.
Deeper…!
The shuffling grew to a roar, drowning out the sound of their own frantic breaths.
“Jump!”
Sevha leapt onto the roof of the house in front of him, then immediately turned to pull Teresse and Legra up. The instant they were all on the roof, the horde of ghouls swarmed the base of the house below.
But Sevha was not the least bit flustered.
He yelled, “Now! Go!”
Sevha leapt to the next roof, and Teresse and Legra scrambled after him.
The ghouls reached up as they passed overhead, grudge worms writhing from their open mouths. But their grasping hands fell short, and the worms could only quiver in frustration.
“Keep going!”
They landed on one roof only to immediately launch themselves toward the next.
Leap, and leap, and leap.
Finally, with no more roofs ahead, they dropped back down to the main thoroughfare.
It was empty. Every last ghoul had followed them deep into the alleys.
“They’re coming! Run!”
They sprinted down the road with everything they had left. The entrance at the top of the stairs grew closer, the fresh breeze more distinct.
But just as they reached the halfway point, a new scent rode that breeze—a stench more ominous than any ghoul.
Sevha recognized it instantly. “Yuska!”
An arrow shot from the darkness beyond the entrance.
Sevha and Legra dodged, but Teresse cried out as it grazed her leg, sending her stumbling to the ground.
“Teresse!”
Sevha and Legra skidded to a halt. They exchanged a look—Legra’s eyes asking the silent question.
What now?
Just then, Yuska emerged from the entrance, a silhouette at the top of the stairs. Behind them, ghouls began pouring back out of the alleys, charging toward the fallen Teresse.
Sevha’s eyes darted, taking in the entire scene in a fraction of a second.
Yuska, drawing his bow.
The ghouls, rushing Teresse with mouths agape.
Teresse, struggling to her feet.
Their eyes met.
“Legra! Don’t fall behind!”
Without hesitation, he charged toward the ghouls.
The moment he swept Teresse onto his back, Yuska released his bowstring.
The ghouls fell upon them.
And Sevha plunged into the horde.
Yuska’s arrow shattered a ghoul’s head. Amid the spray of rotten flesh, Sevha scanned his surroundings.
Ghouls reached for him from every direction, a forest of grasping, decaying limbs. And in that, Sevha found himself in a place he knew all too well.
“Run!”
Carrying Teresse and shielding Legra, Sevha charged the exit, Yuska his target. He moved through the horde, using ghouls as cover, as shields.
Yuska fired again and again, but his arrows only found the bodies of the undead.
Ghouls grabbed and bit at Sevha, but he shrugged them off as if they were merely branches in his path. He tore off the arms that held him and smashed the heads that bit him, never breaking his stride.
From Sevha’s back, Teresse saw it all.
The glint of Yuska’s arrowheads. The spray of rotten flesh. The droplets of Sevha’s blood.
And then—the open way ahead.
The moment he broke free of the ghouls, Sevha charged Yuska with all his remaining strength.
With a clear shot, Yuska fired. Unable to dodge or block while carrying Teresse, Sevha took the arrow in his left shoulder, letting out a sharp grunt of pain.
Seeing Sevha’s charge didn't even slow, Yuska nocked another arrow.
Kree…!
As Sevha pounded up the stairs, Yuska drew the bowstring to its limit, determined to end him.
Kree… kreek!
As Yuska’s bowstring groaned under the tension, Teresse saw the look on Sevha’s face: grim resolve. He was going to take the next arrow and force his way through.
No. If he takes that arrow, he’ll die.
Her eyes wide, Teresse’s mind raced, processing every detail of the scene in a flash of tactical brilliance, calculating their only path to survival.
“Legra! His instep!”
Teresse ripped the arrow from Sevha’s shoulder. In a single, fluid motion, she slapped the frost hag’s poison gland she carried onto its tip and threw it underhand.
Legra darted out from behind Sevha and snatched the arrow from the air, lunging to drive it into Yuska’s foot.
To a dullahan, such an attack should have been trivial. Yuska ignored it, ready to release his bowstring.
But the moment the poisoned arrowhead pierced his instep, his entire body locked up. As if struck by lightning, his half-severed head snapped back. Grudge worms convulsed, erupting from his flesh.
Yuska’s arrow went wild, streaking past Sevha’s face.
“Sevha! Now!” Teresse cried.
Sevha and Legra scrambled past the paralyzed dullahan and into the tunnel. The fresh wind became a gale, pulling them forward.
They ran, guided by the wind, and in an instant their vision exploded with light. They saw the overcast night sky for a heartbeat before the world flipped upside down.
“We’re fall—!”
They tumbled down a steep hill just beyond the exit. When the spinning world finally came to a halt, Legra was the first to his feet.
He knew what it meant that he had risen before Sevha.
“Witch! How is he?”
Teresse coughed, scrambling to Sevha’s side.
She checked his pulse. “He’s unconscious.”
His endurance had finally given out.
Teresse and Legra hauled Sevha to his feet, supporting him between them as they ran blindly on.
They ran until they crested a hill where a fierce wind whipped at them. And on that wind, they smelled it again: the stench of rot.
Looking back, they saw Yuska standing in the distance below.
Only Yuska.
Teresse realized then what she had suspected: the ghouls hadn't made it out of the underground.
Just then, the wind intensified, and a blizzard began to rage.
The distant figure of Yuska slowly vanished behind a curtain of snow.
A moment later, he was gone. Teresse turned toward the mountains. Through the swirling storm, she could just make out the peaks.
“Witch… my eyes aren’t deceiving me, are they?”
“No. We’re closer to the summit than we were before we fell into the Maw.”
“Then maybe we can make it…?”
“Closer isn’t close enough,” Teresse said gravely, glancing at the unconscious young man she was supporting. “First, we find shelter. We have to treat Sevha. If he doesn’t wake up soon…”
She didn’t have to look back to know the truth.
“Yuska will flay us alive.”
The hunt was far from over.
Legra nodded, then paused. He finally asked the question that had been nagging him.
“But why is grandf… that undead, why does he keep chasing us? Does he just want fresh corpses?”
Teresse answered while stepping toward the distant mountains.
“There’s a reason they’re called grudge worms.”
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