The wind howled like a dying god over the Shatterlands, carrying dust, bone, and the stench of old wars. Rook trudged through it, his tattered cloak snapping behind him, eyes burning beneath a hood of wolfskin. Each step sank into cracked earth littered with rusted blades and half-buried skulls. It was a place forgotten by kings and cursed by the dead. Perfect.
Exiled for a crime he didn't commit—the murder of his own brother—Rook had spent years wandering the wastelands. A former war captain, once praised and feared, now reduced to a hunted vagabond. His name, Rook the Kinslayer, echoed like a curse among the realms. But the truth mattered little. In exile, truth and justice had long since died.
He paused beside a charred post where vultures circled lazily above a swinging corpse. The dead man wore a sigil Rook recognized it was House Varron. One of the lords who had signed his exile decree.
Rook grinned. Not redemption. Just coincidence. But a satisfying one.
He pressed on until night fell like a shroud. When the stars blinked into view, Rook found himself at the edge of a fire lit camp deep in the ruins of Old Mereth. Four bounty hunters surrounded the flame, eating, laughing, weapons close. Rook had seen them before. They weren't hunting game. They were hunting him.
The axe on his back "KARZUG" hummed with malevolence. Bound in blood iron and demon runes, it whispered to him like an old friend. "Slaughter," it murmured.
He didn't hesitate. He descended like a storm. Steel clashed. Screams echoed. And by dawn, the fire still burned, but none of the hunters did.