The aristocrat emerged from the labyrinth's hidden exit—a crack in a moss-covered boulder that looked like nothing from the outside. He brushed fungal residue from his velvet coat with a grimace of distaste, adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, and began the trek back through the swamp.
He made it approximately one hundred feet.
"Nice night for a walk."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
The aristocrat froze, one polished boot hovering above the murky water. His hand drifted toward the rapier at his hip.
"I wouldn't."
Something small and sharp embedded itself in the tree trunk beside his head—a throwing knife, still quivering from the impact.
"Hands where I can see them, fancy man. And turn around. Slowly."
The aristocrat raised his gloved hands and turned.
She stood on a fallen log, balanced perfectly despite the rot and moss. A girl—she couldn't have been more than seventeen, eighteen at most—but there was nothing childish about the look in her eyes.
She wore a red hooded cloak.
Beneath the cloak, practical hunting leathers. Bandoliers crossing her chest, loaded with knives, vials, and things that glinted with unpleasant promise. She wore heavy boots with steel toes. And in her hands—a massive bowie knife with a spiked knuckle guard, the blade easily a foot long, gleaming in the swamp's dim light.
"Little Red Ryder." the aristocrat said, his cultured voice betraying only the slightest tremor. He looked at the bowie knife as the light that danced along the foot long blade flashed in his eyes.
"My, what big knives you have. I've heard of you."
"All the better to poke you with." The girl hopped down from the log, landing in the ankle-deep water without a splash. "Good. Then you know what happens to people who make me ask twice."
"I'm sure we can come to some arrangement—"
She moved.
One moment she was ten feet away. The next, the aristocrat was on his back in the muck, muddy water soaking into his fine velvet coat, and Little Red Ryder was standing over him with one steel-toed boot planted firmly on his groin.
"HHRRK—"
"Shhhh." She pressed down slightly. The aristocrat's face went purple. "Inside voice."
The bowie knife came to rest against his throat—not cutting, not yet, but present. A cold promise of what came next if she didn't like his answers.
"Now then." Bulleta smiled. It was not a nice smile. "I've been following you since you left Hightown. Watched you sneak through the swamp like you owned the place. Watched you disappear into those ruins." She tilted her head, red hood shifting. "So here's my question, fancy man: what's Lord Farquat's errand boy doing in the middle of nowhere?"
The aristocrat's eyes widened. "I—I don't know what you're—"
She stepped down.
"AAAAGH!"
"Wrong answer." Bulleta eased the pressure just enough to let him breathe. "Let's try again. And this time, remember—I've got two feet and you've only got one set of balls. Well." She glanced down. "For now."
The aristocrat was sweating now, his composure cracking. "You don't understand—if I talk, Farquat will—"
"Farquat's in Hightown." The knife pressed closer, drawing a thin line of red. "I'm here. And I promise you, whatever Farquat would do to you? I'll do worse. Slower." She leaned in, her young face filling his vision. "I've skinned werewolves alive, fancy man. I've gutted things that would make you piss yourself just looking at them. You think I won't enjoy taking you apart piece by piece?"
The aristocrat believed her.
That was the thing about Little Red Ryder. She wasn't bluffing. She never bluffed.
"The spores!" he gasped. "It's about the spores!"
"Keep talking."
"The Red Spores—the Spore Lord produces them. When refined and purified seven times, they... they affect fairy creatures. Drive them mad. Violent. Corrupt their very nature."
Bulleta's eyes narrowed. "And Farquat's been using them."
"For years! The arena—the creatures don't fight willingly. They're drugged. Poisoned with the refined spores. It makes them savage, unpredictable. The crowds love it."
"And tonight's meeting?"
The aristocrat hesitated.
Bulleta twisted her boot.
"AAAGH! EXPANSION! He wants to expand! Not just individual creatures—he wants to poison the water supply! The Black Forest, the Grimm Hollows, all of it! Mass corruption! An entire population driven insane!"
Bulleta went very still.
The Grimm Hollows.
Her home territory.
"Why?" Her voice had dropped to something quiet. Something dangerous. "What's the endgame?"
"Control! Chaos! I don't—" The aristocrat was babbling now, tears mixing with swamp water on his cheeks. "The mad creatures are easier to capture, easier to control. And Farquat wants more. Always more. For the arena, for his army, for—for leverage against the other powers. If he controls the source of the madness, he controls everything."
"The other powers?"
"The old ones. The true fairy lords. They've been growing restless, asking questions about why their subjects keep going mad. Farquat needs to consolidate power before they figure out he's behind it all."
Bulleta absorbed this, her face unreadable.
"The delivery schedule. When's the next shipment of spores?"
"One week. The Spore Lord wants payment—living human children, One hundred of them. In exchange, he'll provide enough refined spores to poison the Black Forest's entire water table."
"Where's the exchange happening?"
"I don't—I don't know! I'm just a messenger! The logistics are handled by Captain Varn, head of Farquat's personal guard!"
Bulleta studied him for a long moment.
Then she smiled again.
"See? That wasn't so hard."
The aristocrat sagged with relief. "Then—then you'll let me go?"
"Mmm." Bulleta appeared to consider this. "Here's the thing, fancy man. You've been very helpful. Really. But if I let you go, you'll run straight back to Farquat and tell him someone's onto his little scheme."
"I won't! I swear I—"
"And even if you didn't—" She pressed the knife closer. "—you've spent years helping that bastard poison innocent creatures. Helping him turn them into monsters. Helping him fill his fucking arena with drugged-up victims for the crowds to cheer at."
The aristocrat's face went pale.
"So no." Bulleta's smile didn't waver. "I don't think I'll be letting you go."
"Wait—wait—I can help you! I know things! I can get you into the castle, I can—"
"Don't need your help." Bulleta pulled a vial from her bandolier—something that glowed a faint, sickly green. "But I do need you to disappear. Can't have anyone knowing I'm onto them. Not yet."
"What—what is that?"
"Swamp ghoul pheromones." She uncorked the vial with her teeth and upended it over his chest. The liquid soaked into his velvet coat, releasing a smell like rotting meat and copper. "Drives the big predators absolutely crazy. They'll come from miles around."
The aristocrat's eyes went wide with horror.
"No—NO! You can't—!"
Bulleta stepped off him and back, sheathing her bowie knife.
"I'd start running if I were you. You've got maybe... two minutes? Three if you're lucky."
She turned and began toward the swamp ruins, her red cloak swishing behind her.
"PLEASE! PLEASE!"
Bulleta didn't look back.
"Welcome to the swamp, fancy man."
She was fifty feet away when the screaming started.
She was a hundred feet away when it stopped.
Bulleta pulled her hood up and kept walking, her mind already turning to the next step.
Someone was trying to poison her home. Her hunting grounds. The territory she'd bled for, killed for, lived for since she was old enough to hold a knife.
That wasn't going to stand.
But she couldn't take on Farquat alone. Not his army, not his mages, not the whole rotten system he'd built.
She needed allies. Information. A plan.
And maybe—just maybe—she'd find some in the ruins behind her. She'd seen the red signatures on her sight scope. Two of them, moving through the labyrinth.
One big. One small.
Survivors, maybe. Or more of Farquat's agents.
Either way, she intended to find out.
Bulleta adjusted her hood and doubled back toward the ruins, moving silent as a ghost through the fog.
Time to go hunting.