It was Henrich who caught it first—the wind, or whatever hell-spawned force twisted through that part of the woods. One moment he’s trudging ahead like the clumsy halfwit he was, boots slapping wet leaves, breathing through his nose with such vigour, that one might think he thought every sound he made important.

  The next, the air went wrong. Not loud, not fast—just wrong. It folded in on itself, like some invisible hand clenched a fist ‘round his belly and, pulled.

  Henrich came apart like rotten meat. Top half flung into a tree with a noise like a butcher’s cleaver in bone, legs twitching in the muck. Blood spiraled in the air like it had better places to be.

  And then—nothing. No scream. Just the wet patter of him cooling in pieces. I watched the steam rise off his coat and thought: we’ve stepped wrong.

  I lay there, swearing under my breath like a priest with gout. That dumb bastard couldn’t follow a track if you nailed it to his foot. Should never have come. He walked wrong. Breathed wrong. Always one step behind and two steps sideways.

  “Elrik!” I shouted, voice cracking like old timber. “Where in damnation are you?”

  No answer. Elrik was shouting—I could see it in the way his mouth moved, wide and urgent—but I heard nothing. The wind had risen, screaming through the trees like it wanted to drown him out. It tugged at the folds of my coat, hissed past my ears, scattered the leaves at my feet like they were trying to flee. It wasn’t whispering anymore. It was roaring. And still, somehow, it knew my name.

  I turned, and caught a glimpse of what was left of him—a slumped ruin against the tree, still steaming. His coat was torn open, body twisted into something unreadable. A pile of meat. Flesh where there should’ve been man. The wind grazed his hair, tugged at his clothes, moved over him like it was searching for something left unfinished. Henrich’s satchel was still where he’d dropped it, just near that twisted willow that looked like a dead man’s hand.

  The charm of Saint Marrow burned cold on my chest. I reached for it slowly, sweat dripping down my brow, stinging my eyes. My fingers closed around it like it might bite. The metal hissed the moment I touched it, cold and scournfull. A current thrummed in the charm, sharp and urgent. Danger was close. Too close. I held it in both hands, as steady as I could, and waited for it to tell me which way death would come from.

  The charm of Saint Marrow had never been tested against anything like this. It glowed some nights, cracked others. Once, it bled.

  But it was all I had.

  I stared at it, waiting for some sign, some motion that might betray a hidden current in the air, a lie in the path. Nothing. No change. Just the constant hissing, like a snake waiting to strike. That was either blessing—or bait.

  So I crept.

  Each thrust a wager. The wind howling in my ears like a scorned whore, waiting to strike the moment i showed weakness. The charm gave no warmth, no pull, no flicker. And I didn’t trust it one damn bit.

  I got the satchel. Yanked it free, hugged it like a dying friend—and then it came.

  A wind. A whisper.

  A blade about to cut.

  A branch near me splintered, sharp and sudden. The current had struck. But it missed me. I clutched the satchel like it mattered more than the corpse nearby. My charm was turning hot in my hand.

  Made my way back slow. Careful. Muttered half-remembered blessings and spat at every shadow that moved too clever. Elrik was waving me in, his arm slicing through the air like a signal flag. The wind had eased—not gone, but no longer licking my neck like it meant to take a piece. I could hear him now. “Johan!” he called, sharp and clear. A calloused hand reaching mine.

  Elrik dragged me the final paces, face pale, jaw tight.

  He was muttering something under his breath—a psalm, maybe, or just words meant to ward off guilt. His fingers trembled around my arm, the knuckles stark and white.

  The old man had seen more than I had, and the lines on his face bore witness to every loss he didn’t speak of. He looked older than I remembered. Like the march of time had caught him in a single night and made sure it showed. The kind of man who’d held too many dying people by the shoulder, and never quite let go.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “God’s blood, you’re heavy,” he said, voice worn more than winded, and lowered me to the frozen ground like a sack of regret.

  “Shut the hell up, you fool,” I managed to say, before another rip in the air struck. Like the sound of the sharpest whip, it cracked the ground just before us.

  A dull warmth spread where my hand gripped the charm—soon turning to pain. How long could it hold this at bay?

  I met Elrik's gaze with fire. No words could be used. No words needed. He could see it in my eyes—I would make sure he was dead long before the wind took him if he opened his mouth again.

  I led, he followed. The satchel was making its own song—a faint, shivering clink that rang like breath held too long. The prize hummed through the leather, whispering its presence to things best left sleeping. The wind moved—not one direction, but all—north and south, up and down, wrapping around trunks and underfoot, trailing like a hunter drunk on scent. Or fluttering like wind, if wind could prowl. Whether it was intent or pure physics behind that deadly search, I would never know. And frankly, I would never care. Cholera and beast kill just the same.

  A feeling like fire struck my hand.

  Stop.

  The charm had said its piece. A footfall more and we would be no more. I stretched my clasped hand, moved it with intent—east. East burned with less pain.

  I nodded to Elrik, and we stepped onwards.

  I glanced back one last time.

  Henrich lay where the wind had flung him, limbs askew like a broken idol. His bloody rags already darkening with the soil, sinking into the land like rot returning home. My face flushed hot.

  Curse this forsaken land.

  We hid behind the grassy hill, where the breeze could not be felt anymore. The world stilled just enough for breath to come back, though it didn’t feel earned.

  Elrik looked like a ghost—pale as sin, his face slack, eyes already beginning to glaze. I could see the words forming before he spoke them, and I hated them before they passed his lips.

  "We lost Henrich," he said—not to me, not really. More to the air, as if he hoped it might carry the guilt away, offer it up to some distant judgment.

  “That’s your damn fault,” I growled. “You said Henrich needed experience. Well, now he knows what his innards look like.”

  We sat in silence. A heavy, bitter thing.

  “He even walked wrong,” I muttered. “Like a drunk trying to march. Made me itch just hearing his boots.”

  Elrik grunted. “Could have been a good hunter. He knew the land. He was loyal.”

  "So is a chained dog. Don’t mean you hand it a sword.”

  He didn’t argue.

  “Next time,” he said, “we bring fewer greenhorns.”

  A pause followed. I let it stand, let Elrik find his wits and remember we still had a job to do—and a long, cursed road ahead.

  “He got it, didn’t he?”

  “Aye,” I spat. “Found it unhurt, dug it up, looked proud as piss—and then wandered off like a child chasing butterflies and got turned into soup. I had to fish it out of muck and madness while the wind licked my neck like a lover.”

  Elrik opened the satchel, careful as a man handling glass.

  “You think it’s still whole?”

  “It better be,” I hissed. “Or I’ll drag your sorry arse back into that cursed patch of woods and feed you to it myself.”

  Didn’t stop long. couldn't.

  Snow clung to the edges of every leaf like old lace, melting slow under the weight of breath and fear. The wind still sang—soft, like lullabies whispered through broken teeth—and I didn’t trust a moment of it.

  “Pack it,” I muttered, nodding toward the satchel. “We need to be gone before the trees remember we’re still here.”

  Elrik said nothing, just tightened the straps and slung it over his shoulder. We moved, not fast, but with purpose—footfalls testing every patch of ground like it might open its jaw.

  “Wasn’t supposed to be active,” Elrik grunted. “The charter said the readings were dormant.”

  “And my arse whistles psalms when I’m sober,” I spat. “It chose, Elrik. You saw it. It chose him.”

  He didn’t answer.

  The snow deepened in places it hadn’t been before. The trail curved wrong, trees we’d passed once now loomed again like they’d moved while we blinked.

  “Left,” I said. “We came down from the ridge that way. I marked that stone.”

  “You sure?”

  “As sure as I am that Henrich’s boots were cursed.”

  We pressed on, boots crunching over frostbitten leaves, breath fogging like smoke. My legs ached, and the weight of the charm pulled at my neck like guilt. I didn’t know if it had worked—or if the anomaly simply let me go.

  That was the trick of it. The bastards never struck the same way twice. You could study every tremble of the grass, every curl of snow, and still miss the moment it decides you should not be allowed to exist. Behind us, the wind sang a little louder.

  Elrik muttered a prayer. I didn’t bother.

  "Just keep walking," I said. "And if anything so much as shivers, you throw the bloody satchel and run."