Bodies lay scattered around the cave entrance. Blood soaked into the dirt, steamed in the morning cold. Jurgen stood over two more corpses, the spear he stole forcefully from a bandit was dripping with the blood of his fallen enemies. Torsten and Egil had moved to better positions, arrows still ready.

  The cave entrance gaped before them. Darkness beyond, and deeper inside, the muffled sound of children trying not to cry.

  Skuggi wiped blood from his knife on a dead man's shirt. His left hand throbbed where the sword had cut across his palm, but the bleeding had been slowing down for a while. Another modification… accelerated clotting; even calling it fast healing would not be too far of a stretch. Useful in raids like the one that just happened.

  He closed his eyes. Listened past the sounds of their own breathing, past the dying gasps of wounded men, into the cave's depths.

  Footsteps. Multiple sets, moving fast. Coming from the left side of the cave system… probably a back entrance or armory. Eight, maybe ten men. Armed and aware now that something had gone wrong.

  And from the right, deeper in, the children. Their breathing was shallow and rapid. Fear smells thick enough to taste even from here. But no guards with them; the slavers had pulled everyone out to deal with the threat at the entrance.

  Mistake. One Skuggi could exploit.

  "Jurgen," he said. The big man turned immediately. "Take Torsten and Egil. Go right. The children are that way, maybe fifty feet in. No guards with them now."

  Jurgen's eyes narrowed. He signed a question: alone?

  "I'll handle the others."

  Torsten stepped forward. "There are too many. We heard more moving inside, at least…"

  "Ten," Skuggi said. "Coming from the left, from whatever area they use to store weapons and sleep. They'll be here in less than a minute."

  "So we fight together."

  "No." Skuggi pointed toward the right passage. "Those children don't have time for us to fight our way through twenty men. You get them out now, while the guards are focused on me. I'll keep them occupied."

  Egil gripped his walking stick. "You're talking about fighting ten armed men by yourself."

  "Yes."

  "That's suicide."

  Skuggi looked at the bodies around them. At the men he'd already killed. At his knife, still sharp despite the bone and cartilage it had cut through.

  "They're not good fighters. They're slavers who prey on villages and children. I can handle them."

  Jurgen grabbed Skuggi's shoulder. Looked him in the eye. Signed slowly, deliberately: safe. Promise.

  "I'll be fine. Go."

  For a moment, Jurgen didn't move. Then he nodded once, turned, and gestured for Torsten and Egil to follow. They disappeared into the right passage, moving as quietly as three armed men could in a stone tunnel.

  Skuggi turned toward the left passage. Toward the sound of approaching footsteps and the smell of weapon oil and sweat.

  He walked into the cave.

  The passage sloped downward and opened into a wider chamber. Natural stone walls, rough and uneven. The ceiling is low enough that anyone tall would have to duck. Evidence of habitation, bedrolls scattered around, a fire pit in the center still smoldering, and weapons propped against walls.

  And at the far end, an opening that led deeper. That's where the footsteps were coming from.

  Skuggi positioned himself at the entrance to that deeper passage. A bottleneck. They'd have to come through here to reach him, to reach the main cave entrance, to reach the children.

  He could hear them clearly now. Voices calling to each other, organizing. Someone taking charge, barking orders. They'd heard the fighting, knew some of their number were dead, but they didn't know how many attackers they faced.

  Skuggi looked at the wall beside the passage entrance. Stone, but not solid… he could see where previous occupants had modified the cave, stacking rocks to narrow the opening, create a defensible position.

  Poor construction. Unstable to any real damage.

  He stepped close to it. Put his hand against the stacked stones. Felt how they'd been placed, where the weight concentrated.

  The footsteps were almost here. He could see torchlight flickering in the passage beyond.

  Skuggi pulled his hand back. Made a fist.

  Then drove it into the wall.

  Stone exploded. Not just the rocks he'd hit, but the entire section of wall. The impact traveled through the unstable structure, found every weakness, and exploited every gap. Rocks cascaded inward, crashing down into the passage. Dust erupted, thick and choking, and filled the chamber in seconds.

  Shouts from beyond the collapse. Confusion, panic. Someone screaming that they were trapped, someone else yelling to dig through.

  But the dust was Skuggi's now. They couldn't see. Could barely breathe. Would be stumbling, disoriented, trying to find the opening through the rubble.

  He moved back into the main chamber. Let the dust settle slightly so he could see shapes with some sort of silhouettes. Drew his knife.

  His mouth pulled into something that might have been a smile. Not joy, exactly. Not a pleasure.

  Recognition.

  This was what he'd been built for. Close quarters combat. Multiple opponents. Chaos and violence and the surgical application of lethal force.

  In the lab, they'd tested him against armed handlers, against other subjects, and against scenarios designed to push his limits. He'd excelled. Had been their success story, the one who proved the modifications worked.

  He'd hated every moment of it. Hated what they made him do, what they made him become.

  But right now, standing in a slaver's cave with ten armed men about to come through the dust looking for a fight?

  Right now, he could use what they'd made him. Turn it against people who deserved it.

  The first man stumbled through the settling dust. Sword drawn, eyes streaming from the particulates in the air. He saw Skuggi's silhouette and shouted a warning.

  Skuggi closed the distance before the man finished shouting. Knocked the sword aside with his forearm, drove his knife into the man's throat. Ripped it free, let the body fall.

  Two more came through together. Smart… it was harder to isolate targets when they worked in pairs.

  Skuggi grabbed the first one's sword arm. It pulled him forward into his knife. Used the dying man as a shield when the second one swung his axe. The blade bit into his companion's back. Skuggi shoved the body forward, pushed the second man off balance, and killed him while he struggled to free his weapon.

  They were coming faster now. Learning of their situation. Adapting to what means they had. Someone had taken charge on the other side… was organizing them into something resembling a formation.

  Four men pushed through the collapsed entrance together. Weapons ready, spreading out to avoid being easy targets.

  Skuggi backed up. Let them enter the chamber fully. Let them think they had room to maneuver.

  Then he moved.

  The lab had speculated about how Skuggi would process multiple threats simultaneously. How to track positions, predict movements, and find the angles that turned many opponents into a series of one-on-one engagements.

  He flowed between them. Knife finding gaps in defense. Elbow breaking a nose, knee shattering a kneecap. Using their weapons against them, deflecting a sword into a companion, and tripping one man into another's axe swing.

  They were trying to surround him. Basic tactics. Get on all sides; overwhelm through numbers.

  He didn't let them. Kept moving, kept the corpses and the fire pit between him and multiple attackers. Made them come at him in ones and twos.

  A spear thrust caught his side. Not deep… He'd seen it coming and turned so it scraped along his ribs instead of punching through. Pain flared. He grabbed the spear shaft, pulled... The wielder stumbled forward. Skuggi's knife found his eye socket.

  Another blade caught his shoulder. The same shoulder that had been cut earlier. Deeper this time. Blood ran hot down his arm.

  He killed that man too. Broke his jaw with a palm strike, drove his knife up through the soft tissue under the chin.

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  Six down. Four left, if his count was right.

  The remaining slavers had backed toward the collapsed entrance. Regrouping. One of them was older, scarred, moved like someone with training.

  "What the fuck are you?" the scarred man said. His voice was rough, controlled despite the fear in his eyes.

  Skuggi didn't answer. Just advanced slowly, knife ready.

  "There's four of us and one of you. You're bleeding. You're going to tire."

  "No," Skuggi said. "I'm not."

  That was true. His body wasn't slowing. Wasn't struggling with exhaustion the way theirs would be. His breathing remained steady. His muscles hadn't cramped or weakened.

  The modifications. Whatever they'd done to his metabolism, his recovery… his endurance… it meant he could keep going long after normal men would collapse.

  The scarred man saw that truth in Skuggi's face. His expression shifted from tactical assessment to genuine fear.

  "Kill him!" he shouted at his companions. "All at once, kill him now!"

  They rushed together. A coordinated charge, weapons swinging from multiple angles.

  Skuggi dropped low. A sword whistled over his head. He drove his shoulder into one man's gut, lifted him off his feet, threw him into another. Both went down in a tangle of limbs and weapons.

  The scarred man's blade came at his neck. Skuggi caught the man's wrist, twisted. Bone snapped. The sword fell. Skuggi kicked it away, then broke the man's knee with a stomp. He went down screaming.

  The last man standing dropped his weapon. Held up his hands.

  "Please…"

  Skuggi's knife opened his throat before the word finished.

  The two who'd been knocked down were scrambling to their feet. One grabbed a fallen axe. The other pulled a knife from his belt.

  Skuggi killed them both. Quick, efficient. The way he'd been taught.

  Then turned to the scarred man, who was trying to crawl toward the collapsed entrance despite his shattered knee and broken wrist.

  "Wait," the man gasped. "Wait, please, I can… I can pay you, I can tell you where we keep the…"

  Skuggi crouched beside him. "The children. Where were you taking them?"

  "Market. Three days north. There's… there's a merchant who buys…"

  "His name."

  "Halvard. Halvard the…" He coughed, blood on his lips. "The Fat. Everyone knows him. Please, I've told you what you…"

  "How many children have you sold?"

  The man's eyes darted. Calculating. Trying to find an answer that would save him.

  "Too many," Skuggi said. "That's the answer, isn't it? Too many to count... Too many to remember."

  He stood. Looked at the man bleeding on the stone floor of his own cave.

  In the lab, they'd taught him when killing was necessary and when it wasn't. Taught him to assess threats, to eliminate them efficiently, and to not waste time or energy on targets that were already neutralized.

  This man was neutralized. Broken leg, broken wrist, bleeding. He wasn't a threat anymore.

  But he was a slaver. Someone who made a living stealing children and selling them. Who would do it again if given the chance? That question already had its answer…

  Skuggi's knife found the man's heart. Ended it quickly.

  Then silence. Just his own breathing and the drip of blood from various wounds.

  He walked back through the chamber. Checked each body to make sure they were actually dead, not just wounded. Found three still breathing. Finished them.

  The dust had mostly settled now. The collapsed entrance was passable if you were willing to climb over rubble. He could hear movement from the right passage. Jurgen's voice, low and soothing. Children crying, but with relief now instead of terror.

  Skuggi looked at his hands. Blood covered them completely. Soaked into his shirt, his pants. Some of it was his, he could feel multiple wounds still bleeding slowly, but strangely enough, most of the blood that belonged to the men he'd just killed was being absorbed by his skin, healing him periodically so the naked human eye would not notice the difference.

  Ten of them. He'd killed ten armed men in maybe three minutes.

  No. Not killed. Slaughtered. There was a difference.

  His reflection caught in a puddle of blood on the stone floor. Face splattered with red. Eyes that looked flat, empty. The expression of someone who'd just done what they were designed to do and felt nothing about it.

  He turned away from the reflection. Started walking toward the right passage, toward the sound of children and the companions who'd trusted him to do the impossible.

  His body was already beginning to heal. The cuts would close faster than they should. The blood would clot, and new tissue would form. By tomorrow, most of the damage would be gone.

  Just another modification. Another way the alchemists had made him into something other than human.

  He emerged into the right passage. Found Jurgen kneeling in front of a group of children… seven of them, ranging from maybe five years old to early teens. All filthy, all terrified. Torsten and Egil stood guard, bows ready.

  The children saw Skuggi. Saw the blood. Several started crying harder.

  A girl, maybe twelve, put herself between Skuggi and the younger ones. "Don't hurt them. Please. We'll… we'll do whatever you want, just don't…"

  "We're not going to hurt you," Skuggi said. His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat, tried again. "We're taking you out of here. Taking you somewhere safe."

  The girl didn't move. Didn't believe him.

  Jurgen signed something. Gentle, reassuring gestures. He pointed at Skuggi, then at himself and the others. Then signed "safe," "help," and "freedom."

  The girl didn't understand the signs, but the expression was a clear indicator of his intentions; her shoulders dropped slightly. Not trust, not yet. But maybe the beginning of hope.

  "The men who took you are dead," Skuggi said. "All of them. They can't hurt you anymore."

  "All of them?" The girl's voice cracked. "There were… there were so many…"

  "All of them."

  Egil moved forward carefully. Pulled a waterskin from his pack. "Are any of you hurt? Injured?"

  Most of the children shook their heads. One boy, maybe seven, held up his hand. Two fingers bent at wrong angles, clearly broken.

  "We can fix that," Egil said gently. "It'll hurt, but we can fix it."

  Jurgen was already moving, helping the children to their feet. Some could walk on their own. Others needed support. The youngest, a girl who couldn't be more than five, wouldn't let go of Jurgen's leg.

  He picked her up. She buried her face in his shoulder.

  Torsten looked at Skuggi. Really looked, assessing the blood, the wounds.

  "You alright?"

  "I'm fine."

  "That's a lot of blood."

  "Most of it isn't even mine."

  They moved toward the cave entrance. The children walked slowly, uncertain. When they saw the bodies scattered outside, several started crying again.

  "Don't look," the twelve-year-old girl said to the younger ones. "Just don't look. Keep walking."

  They emerged into daylight. The sun had climbed higher now, warming the cold morning air. Birds called from the trees. Wind rustled through branches.

  Normal forest sounds. Like the violence that had just occurred meant nothing to the world around them.

  Skuggi breathed the clean air. Let it wash away the cave smell… blood and waste and fear.

  Behind them, the cave stood empty except for corpses. A slaver den ended. The children who would have been sold were freed.

  Not enough. Not nearly enough to balance the scales of what had been done to them, what had already been done to countless others these men had sold.

  But it was something.

  Jurgen set down the youngest girl. Signed to Skuggi: good work. Then, more hesitantly: Too much blood?

  "I'm healing."

  Jurgen's eyes narrowed. He pointed at a cut on Skuggi's arm that had been bleeding freely ten minutes ago. Now it had sealed, just a red line against his skin.

  "I heal fast," Skuggi said. "One more thing that makes me different."

  The twelve-year-old girl was watching him. Studying him the way Freia did sometimes, cataloging information.

  "You're not human," she said. Not an accusation. Just an observation.

  "No," Skuggi said. "I'm not."

  "Good." She looked back at the cave. "Humans did this to us. Maybe it takes something else to stop them."

  She walked past him, helping a younger boy who was limping. The other children followed, sticking close to Jurgen and each other.

  Torsten forgot where he had hidden it thinking a wolf or another animal might have picked up the scent and eaten it, but Skuggi explained to him where it was located, and they were able to collect their abandoned deer from where they'd hidden it successfully on time, or else it would have begun to rot where it was had they waited any longer. They'd need the meat, especially now with seven more mouths to feed.

  The walk back to camp took twice as long with the children. They had to stop frequently for rest. Had to move slowly for the ones who were injured or exhausted.

  Skuggi walked at the rear, keeping watch. His wounds continued to close. By the time they reached camp, most of them would be gone entirely.

  Just scars. Just more evidence of what he was.

  What he could do when he stopped holding back.

  “???????? ??? ???????... ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ?????????...”

  “Monsters are mirrors... showing only the darkness we refuse to see in ourselves...”

  How was it??