The storm bled across the hills like a curse. Rain fell thick as poured oil, thunder crashing overhead like war drums beaten by the gods themselves. The wind howled through the high ridges above the Dak Mar, carrying with it the stench of rot and something older. Each boom of thunder rattled the bones; each flash of lightning painted the world in ghost-white silence.

  It was rain that drowned men, not refreshed them. The kind that found its way beneath armor, into boots, under skin.

  Thirty merchant wagons groaned under the weight of their wares—spices from the Southern Straits, silks spun by child-hands in Rebbis, trinkets enchanted with lies and greed. Canvas flaps snapped in the wind, and rusted axles shrieked protest. Within the rhythm of hoofbeats and the slap of water, footsteps could be missed. Warnings lost.

  Captain Nathander, broad of shoulder and darker of thought, rode atop a black warhorse, the beast snorting steam in great huffs like some miniature dragon. Rain trailed off the brim of his iron helm. His cloak—once the color of mourning—now clung to his back like a wet burial shroud.

  Behind him stretched the caravan: nearly a mile of wagons, oxen, and uneasy souls. Three hundred mercenaries marched alongside—his Crimson Blood Riders—weathered killers all, sworn more to coin than to creed. Somewhere within, the merchants of Rampur tried to keep their silks dry and their secrets buried.

  And always, the mist boiled below them—the Dak Mar Swamplands, endless, wet, and foul. Home to things that the gods had once created in jest… and then abandoned in horror.

  Nathander had been to worse places.

  But not by much.

  A fresh bolt tore the sky, illuminating three riders who had emerged beside him like phantoms.

  “Captain,” said Yunna Feld, her voice unshaken despite the storm. Her face—beautiful in the way carved marble is beautiful—was framed by a hood pulled tight against the rain. Her polished armor caught the flash like a mirror in the dark. “The scouts haven’t returned.”

  Nathander didn’t glance at her. His eyes stayed locked on the mist-choked valley below.

  “How long overdue?”

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  “Three hours.”

  “Double the guard,” growled sergeant Dregor, his voice steeped in age and blood. His bald head gleamed wetly beneath the storm. His leathers creaked with every breath, and his sword sat loose in its sheath like it had been waiting for this.

  “Could just be this damned weather,” offered sergeant Velk, voice slurred only by exhaustion. His grey-streaked beard hung to his chest, waterlogged and twitching in the wind. A flask bulged beneath his cloak, untouched. His eyes—bloodshot, sharp—scanned the tree line like a hawk in a murder of crows.

  “Could be,” Nathander muttered, fingers tapping his saddle in thought. “But we do as Dregor suggests.”

  “At once,” Dregor nodded, already turning his horse, bellowing to the others before his form faded into the rain.

  “Yunna,” Nathander said, “tell the merchants we move within the hour. We need shelter. This storm… and whatever else stalks us… we’re too exposed.”

  “Don’t want to make it easy for them, eh, Captain?” she asked, already tugging her reins.

  “No,” he said, voice flat. “We do not.”

  ?

  When the others had gone, it was just Nathander and Velk, alone on the ridge. The rain fell harder now, like the sky was cracking open.

  “Do you truly believe the scouts are just delayed by weather?” Nathander asked at last.

  Velk scratched his beard, spitting off the side of his saddle.

  “No. Not Ulfir and his hawk-eyes. That bastard once spotted an ambush behind a waterfall.”

  “Exactly,” Nathander said quietly. “Full armor from here on.”

  “They’ll curse your name,” Velk muttered.

  “They can curse me from inside their helmets. So long as they survive.”

  Velk nodded, then spurred his horse away with a grunt.

  ?

  Nathander remained.

  The mist was moving now.

  It slithered along the ridge like a living thing—too slow to be wind, too deliberate to be chance. It pooled in the hollows. It waited at the edge of torchlight. It wanted something.

  Rain traced lines down Nathander’s face like tears he hadn’t earned. But he didn’t feel the cold.

  Instead, his mind wandered—to Rampur, and the moment this madness began.

  The Rusted Jinn Tavern. Loud, filthy, and full of lies. He’d been nursing a bloodied knee and counting the spoils of a goblin-throttled mining contract when a merchant guild agent approached.

  Escort thirty wagons west.

  Through the hill passes.

  During storm season.

  He’d laughed in the man’s face. Called him a fool. Refused without hesitation.

  But then the offer doubled.

  And his three sergeants—Velk among them—had looked at him with hungry eyes. Hopeful eyes. Eyes that had once followed him into siege fire and famine alike.

  And he had nodded.

  Now? With soaked boots, a churning gut, and scouts gone silent.

  He smirked, bitter as mold.

  Two other companies had been offered the job before them.

  Both had refused.

  “They were the smart ones,” he muttered.

  But leadership was a blade balanced on rumor and results. A single misstep, and whispers started. A single dry coin-pouch, and your soldiers found a better cause.

  The merchant’s gold had been too heavy to ignore.

  And so here they were—thirty wagons of desert wealth crawling through gods-forsaken country. Rain-blinded. Outnumbered. With their best eyes vanished into the storm.

  “Fool’s march,” Nathander said softly, almost reverently.

  Then lightning cracked again.