Flight Lieutenant Lucile led her windstorm griffin familiar—aptly dubbed “Little Lucy,” for how darn cute she’d been in her infancy—through yet another sweeping circuit.

  Biting her lip as, from nearly a kilometer up, all things told, she and her team scoured the ravaged tundra for any signs of their missing rift spawn.

  Lucile, sensing the tension in her familiar—as she no doubt picked up on her own mounting distress—ran an absent hand down the old girl’s plumage. Though, whether it was purely for the sake of Little Lucy or herself, she couldn’t entirely say.

  That had been… an enlightening experience to say the least.

  It was as if she were witnessing a clash between two legendary figures of old. Myths that’d suddenly sprung to life. Duking it out right there in front of her, and in truly spectacular fashion no less. As was to be expected of living legends, she supposed. Plucked as if from the dogeared pages of her childhood story books. Walking around, as if it weren’t the darnedest thing in the world.

  “I mean that last attack! You’ve gotta be kidding me, right? It was like…! Boom! Pow! Crack! Just… Wow. I mean… just… wow.”

  Lucy gave a quick snort of agreement. Or was that annoyance? She could never tell which.

  “And the way the clouds parted near the end there? To reveal that single beam of radiant sunlight glinting off that big colossus of an axe? Awe inspiring. Like… truly, genuinely breathtaking.”

  And, strange as it sounded, the fact that they had such a powerful rift born familiar working on their side…?

  It filled her with an invigorating sort of hope, the likes of which she’d never experienced before. A hope for the future. An end to this interminable war. With power like that at their disposal, it was easy to start believing anything was possible. Which was ultimately why she was so filled with unease at their continued inability to findthe lost familiar.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine. He’s fine, right? No, what am I saying?! Of course he is. I mean, you saw that last bit. A more one-sided battle than that…? Well, honestly, one doesn’t even really come to mind. And that has to be a good sign. Right?”

  Lucile also had the bad habit of talking far too much when anxious, a fact for which her griffin companion was woefully familiar. Lucy once more snorted her annoyance. Lucile took that as her cue to keep on talking.

  Until, that was, one of her junior officers excitedly waved her over.

  Instantly, she let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. It would appear they’d finally found him. Azure Queen be praised. She felt all the tension that’d been building up during the search suddenly release, feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders.

  Unfortunately, those feelings of relief only lasted until they touched down, and the true severity of the damage was made known.

  “I’m sorry, he’s what?!”

  “He’s… well. He’s dead, ma’am. Or, for all intents and purposes, he should be, at any rate.”

  “Yes, I heard you the first time, but what does that mean exactly?”

  “My official diagnosis? First things first, there’s his skeleton. It’s been fractured, completely. In fact it would be more accurate to say its been shattered into a million different little pieces. Punctured lungs, organs, arteries, you name it. Torn muscle, ligaments, tendons, all the way through. From his crown down to his toenails. Though, if I might speak candidly lieutenant, none of that really does what I’m seeing with my soul sight justice.”

  Lucile waited. When the healing specialist seemed hesitant to go on, she insisted.

  “Go on then.”

  “Well… quite frankly ma’am, his bones should be powder! His muscles a stringy paste! His heart has clearly been bisected. Bisected! Sheered straight on through an uncomfortable number of times! And the same goes for all the rest of his body. Put simply, I do not know how he is still in one piece, let alone how he’s still standing. If I might reiterate? He should be dead!”

  “But… he looks… fine. Almost nothing like a… what? A jiggly mound of flesh goo?”

  Lucile flicked her eyes back over to the glowing golden figure currently palming a handful of seeds to one of the griffins, just outside of easy hearing range. As if feeling her gaze, the familiar turned around and waved, a childlike grin crinkling the corners of his eyes. Lucile waved back. The woman to her right merely looked on impassively.

  “That is what worries me. Whatever boosting abilities he used to win that last fight… they were costly. I’m unsure as to how the long-term effects might manifest themselves, nor the extent to which they might inhibit his… ahem, uniquely suited abilities, once they do.”

  “And you’re sure there need to be long term effects? Can’t you just patch him up? Problem solved? Good as new?”

  “I can make it so he doesn’t fall to pieces on the spot,” the woman deadpanned. “But…” she shook her head, a sorrowful expression crossing her features. “Damage like that has a way of lingering in the spirit. There is very little I can do when the damage runs that deep.”

  A grim look darkened Lucile’s own expression then, the crippling weight of an impossible decision suddenly pressing down on her.

  Although, on second thought, it was really no decision at all, was it? It was out of her hands. Armies had already been issued their marching orders. Supply lines established. Entire cities emptied to bolster the militia.

  The Queen had bet everything on this one, final push. If they didn’t win this war, it was very likely all would be lost. To win, no matter the cost, was paramount. Everything else was just sentiment, easily ignored. Lucile turned away from the happily grinning demon child, her mouth hardened into a firm line.

  “Well, do what you can then. Patch him up doc. Then, let’s see about crossing off another big bad monarch from that damnable list.”

  The woman locked eyes with her Lieutenant for several long seconds, before, with a solemn nod and a crisp solute, she trudged over to do just that.

  Little Lucy whistled a soft note of rebuke. Of sorrow and disapproval in equal measure. And this time, much to her chagrin, Lucile found she understood her familiar’s meaning all too well.

  Beneath the twisted canopy of the grim dark forest, light is a fickle thing, madness is catching, and death is a near constant companion.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  When they’d first enlisted, most enlistees had likely done so with the implicit understanding they’d be scything down rift spawn by the cartload.

  Storming fallen keeps and grand bastions. Compounding success on top of grand success. Taking back long-lost heritages, one big fistful of plundered treasure at a time.

  It was likely none of them had predicted their now grim reality. Or really, that anything of the sort was even a possibility. After all, what do you do?

  What do you do when there is no enemy to fight?

  When the ground at your feet actively wishes you ill?

  The very air you breathe is poison more often than not?

  When the glorious extermination you once so eagerly signed up for is not nearly the same as you’d imagined. One fought valiantly, against hordes of hideous, slathering, half crazed rift spawn, each no smarter than simple beasts. And were instead faced with nothing less than martial impotence.

  A one-sided war waged futilely against the twice damned, thrice accursed forest itself.

  Every day spent beneath the rustling canopy a grindstone.

  Slowly wearing away at one’s sanity, morality, innate sense of self.

  Jumping at shadows, suspecting one’s neighbors, peering out into that impenetrable dark until something finally peered back. Mutiny and madness held dark communion, hopelessly entangled in clandestine conspiracy.

  In those first days, they lost more women to infighting than they did the hated enemy.

  Differences turned to factions, and from mounting tensions and tightly bottled terror was born bloody rebellion. Daggers flashing in the night. Warring among themselves, even as the forest drew them in, ever closer. Deeper. Further. Towards its putrid, pus-filled heart.

  After the initial turmoil had settled, and a new kind of order was reached, only then did the vile forest begin to show its true colors. Those that survived the coming days learned to adapt fast. The others never lived long enough to curse their ill fortune.

  In that way, they learned that the dangers of the forest were manifold.

  Plentiful as they were varied.

  Different in all ways but one.

  Their propensity for administering as much cruelty as was inhumanly possible.

  Pit traps lined with spikes smeared in excrement, tainted streams, pressure traps. Snares, darts, and always, always, the lingering fear of daggers in the dark. Barbed arrow tips dipped in poison, warped monstrosities the likes of which no sane mind could conjure, nor reasonably withstand.

  It was well then that, by that point, most had well and truly gone insane.

  Death stalks the eternal night in all its myriad forms.

  Always out there. Somewhere. Watching. Ever vigilant. Patiently waiting beneath the cover of dark. Anticipating the perfect moment to strike. To leap out from where even the torchlight fears to tread.

  Paranoia, shock, and terror followed them even into their dreams. The slender hands of the twice cursed alchemist ever slinking about the periphery.

  Twitching, wriggling with unrestrained anticipation. Peeking, kneading, gently plucking at their minds. Tuning them as a bard might a poorly strung instrument. Toying with their internal make up, their immortal souls.

  Warping them to better reflect the endless depths of her own sick and twisted depravity.

  Fire.

  It really didn’t take very much, as it so happened.

  The licking tongues of orange flame. A treat. A distraction. When they weren’t eating or sleeping, they were sat around a campfire. Watched. Watching—blank eyed and blank of mind—as it crackled and popped, almost merrily in its consumption. The occasional burst of embers soaring high into the sky.

  Not that it helped much.

  Nothing ever seemed to help, she thought. She even figured it might be true. Unnamed infantry woman, thirty second platoon. She’d long since forgotten her actual name. Lost it somewhere in the brush, maybe. Didn’t matter. She was a soldier now, and that’s all she’d ever be.

  The flames. Right. That was right.

  They didn’t seem to help. Not with the terror. Not with the dread. The flickering firelight a cold sort of comfort.

  And yet?

  When all was said and done, and you had either that, or the grim horror to keep you company?

  Crippled. Crippling.

  But she was still here. Still there. There. Always there, near the edges. Wriggling. And yet no matter how fast you turned, it was always too quick to see.

  Well, you’d be surprised how quickly one learns to adapt.

  How fast one clings tightly onto what little one has. The flames. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you wouldn’t hold dear. Hold on. Hold on for dear life. The flicker of the flames. Dancing merrily. Merrily. Jumping enough to make a person smile.

  Or, the sane ones do, anyway. Watch and wait. Firelight. Eyes glistening. The ones not completely gone.

  Dead skin walking.

  There were always a couple. The ones who stayed. Refused to move, even as the rest of the platoon packed up camp and made to leave.

  To march on. Ever onward.

  Their comatose bodies stiff and clammy. Most sat, some stood. Right there, as they had been, ever since their minds fell apart. Everyone knew, of course. You could always tell a dead skinner by the way they stared openly into the beyond.

  You never stared directly out into the darkness if you could help it. Not unless the great beyond had taken a personal interest.

  Claimed you as their own.

  Unless you’d given yourself over to the dark completely. And, eventually they were, at that. Slowly consumed by a growing tide of blackness as the torchlight bleeding from their slow procession gradually receded.

  Some came to their senses. Most did not.

  Either way, you didn’t look back. You never looked back. There were enough nightmares to be had in this place, free of charge, without seeking them out on purpose.

  Well, no dead skinners tonight, at least.

  She pondered whether or not this was a good thing. Fewer people, after all, meant fewer smells. Many scents layered atop one another to smother their little ramshackle camp in a noxious perfume.

  Death and decay, mostly. So, nothing new there.

  Almost all of their healers had been lost during the first ever culling. Only after the fact—following the blood and the burning; the long nights of feasting and ecstasy—would those who rose to usurp high command, question why, out of everyone, their healers had been the worst affected. When everyone generally agreed that they were the least offensive and the most in need.

  Further time to reflect leaving room for many to speculate whether the rebellion had ever truly been their idea whatsoever.

  In retrospect, it felt more like sabotage than self interest.

  And for many, this explanation was good enough. As for what she personally believed? Well, perhaps it hadn’t been their idea to begin with, this nameless soldier allowed, though they’d gone along with the killing merrily enough once it had begun.

  They all had.

  To say otherwise would be an outright lie, plain and simple. That is to say, the scents of old cuts gone septic, rancid gut wounds, and dysentery permeated the camp.

  The long ears rarely killed.

  Instead, they crippled and maimed, leaving the dilemma of what to do with the dead weight for command to grapple with.

  Or the new new command at any rate.

  Decide whether it was best to watch their people die, put them out of their misery, or leave them for the hunters and their unique brand of creativity. To be displayed like some macabre effigy. A morbid ornamentation. Strung up and still breathing despite all evidence to the contrary.

  Well. It wasn’t all bad.

  Tonight, at least, there was plenty to eat. The unnamed soldier cradled her upturned helmet close. Holding it to her chest like the feral animal she resembled. Eyes constantly roaming, every bite snatched up quick, as if her meal could be taken away at any moment. Blood stew. A fine delicacy.

  She tried very hard not to think about where the meat had come from.

  No one knew when exactly the camp became silent.

  When the frantic, and often contradictory orders stopped coming from the east.

  When the blank looks of resignation were mirrored on every malnourished face.

  It was unclear how many of the several thousand women to enter this cursed forest had made it this far. Or if, like she now suspected, they were, in fact, the only ones. Communication had completely broken down by the second culling. And supply lines by the third.

  Don’t think about the meat.

  They were pushing forward today.

  Making for the heart of this unholy place. It was either that or starve. Wait for the long ears to come, with their arrows and their traps and their wickedly curved knives.

  Maybe that was why there were no more skinners about. They were all deader’s now, one way or another. And so it was.

  On the morrow, they would march for the heart of the forest.

  On the morrow, they would march to their deaths.