Chapter 13: The Horn Beyond the Trees
The silence after the slaughter did not last.
The horn's cry rolled across the forest, deep as thunder, lingering long after the note had died. It was not the wild clamor of raiders, nor the shrill call of hunters—it was deliberate, heavy, like the toll of a funeral bell for all who yet drew breath.
Every man still standing felt it in his bones. Some shifted uneasily, gripping sword hilts with bloodied hands. Others stared into the treeline as though the sound itself had carved shadows there, pressing darkness deeper into the wood. The breath of the living seemed small in comparison, fragile as frost against a storm.
The children huddled together, no chains binding them now, yet they did not move. Their eyes—too wide, too dark—followed the horn's echo as though they understood its meaning better than any of us. Their silence was worse than screams; it was the silence of those who knew what was coming and did not hope to stop it.
Carrow wiped his blade clean with the snow, though no scrubbing could rid it of the black smear clinging to its edge. His jaw was set like stone, his eyes fixed far beyond the clearing.
"They come," he said at last, his voice low, certain.
I forced air into my lungs, still burning from the clash. "Who?" The word rasped in my throat, dry and brittle. "The rest of them?"
"No," Carrow answered. He turned his gaze upon the shattered mask at his feet. Cracks split it wide, smoke still leaking upward like the breath of some unseen beast. "That was only a herald. What follows…" He trailed off, and his silence was heavier than the horn itself.
Joran kicked aside a broken helm and spat. "Then let them follow. We cut down their master, and we'll cut down the rest." But his bravado rang hollow against the stillness. Even he must have felt it—the weight pressing in from the trees, the waiting eyes just beyond sight.
The children stirred. One, a boy no older than ten, whispered something. The words were faint, broken, yet every ear caught them.
"It wakes," he said.
The others nodded, lips trembling as though the truth itself hurt to speak. "It wakes," they echoed, their voices too steady for children, too certain for innocence.
The fire in the circle guttered, dying at last into ash. Yet the runes carved in the stones glowed faintly still, feeding on something deeper than flame. Each flicker seemed to pulse with a heartbeat that was not our own.
Carrow's gaze swept over us, weighing, measuring. His eyes were colder than the frost, yet his words cut sharper still. "We cannot linger. If that horn calls what I fear, this clearing will become our grave."
The order came sharp and fast. "Gather the wounded. Break what chains remain. We march north—before the forest swallows us whole."
Men moved, though not quickly. Fear made their hands clumsy, their eyes darting to every shadow. The ground was littered with masks split in two, faces frozen in death, and yet no one dared step too near them. Horses snorted and stamped, restless, as though they too had heard the meaning in that horn.
I bent to lift one of the children—a girl, her frame light as ash, though her stare was heavier than stone. She did not resist, but her lips moved against my ear as I carried her.
"It knows your name," she whispered.
The words froze my blood colder than the snow itself. My grip faltered, though I did not drop her. I wanted to ask what she meant, how she knew, but the look in her eyes told me it would bring no comfort.
Before I could speak, the horn sounded again. Louder. Closer.
This time, the trees themselves seemed to bend beneath its weight. Snow fell in sheets from the branches above, and the forest seemed to exhale, long and slow, as though some great thing within it had begun to stir.
Every man felt it then—the knowledge that what we had faced was only the shadow of a greater storm. And though Carrow stood unshaken, sword still black in his hand, the truth gnawed at all of us: whatever answered that horn had not come merely to fight.
It had come to claim.
"— To Be Continued —"
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