The forest screamed.
Dry leaves crunched beneath Ezio di Valerio's boots as he moved through the trees, every step measured, every breath controlled. The Carpathian woods that once sheltered hunters and travelers were now alive with moaning, shrieking, and wet, broken screams—the sounds of the Black Plague's victims wandering without reason or mercy.
They were everywhere.
Ezio became a ghost among the trees.
He slipped behind trunks, melted into shadows cast by twisted branches, used boulders and fallen logs as cover. His feathered cape barely stirred as he passed. The fog clung low to the forest floor, masking his movement. One infected staggered past him, eyes clouded, mouth working soundlessly.
Ezio struck.
The curved blade of his scythe flashed once—clean, silent. The body dropped into the leaves without a cry. Another followed. Then another. Each kill was swift, deliberate. No wasted motion. No sound.
This was stealth, not slaughter.
He was heading toward the edge of the village, toward a place he prayed had been spared.
Marno's house.
Marno the blacksmith. His friend since childhood. The only man in Valea Corbului who never mocked Ezio's strange remedies, his masks, his warnings. When villagers whispered "madman" and "freak," Marno had handed him tools, metal, shelter.
Brother in all but blood.
Ezio ran faster now, leaping roots and stones like an eagle diving for prey. But when the house came into view, his heart sank.
It was surrounded.
A horde of plague-ridden bodies pressed against the walls—dozens of them. Their skin was darkened, swollen, eyes sunken and wild. Black boils marked their necks and faces. They clawed at the doors and windows, drawn by nothing but instinct.
Ezio did not rush.
He knelt behind a fallen tree, drew out his fire bolts, and prepared his trap.
This would take time.
Thirteen minutes.
Thirteen minutes of death delivered in silence and flame. He lured small groups away with sound, cut them down in the fog, ignited clusters with burning arrows. Fire cleansed what steel could not. The smell of scorched flesh mixed with rot, but Ezio did not falter.
When the last infected collapsed into the leaves, smoldering and still, the forest fell quiet again.
Ezio approached the house.
He kicked the door open.
Inside, darkness and the stench of death greeted him. He dragged a heavy table across the floor and slammed it against the door, barricading it. His eyes scanned the room desperately.
"Marno…" he whispered.
He found him in the back room.
Marno lay on the floor, hands folded over his chest. His skin was pale, but untouched by the plague's final madness. He had died before turning.
Ezio knelt slowly.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
A letter rested beside Marno's body. Ezio's hands trembled as he opened it.
My friend,
I was too late to believe you.
Five years ago, you warned us about this disease—this curse carried through the air. I laughed like the others. The villagers called you mad since childhood, and I followed them in silence.
I believed you once… but I was a coward.
The only one who truly believed you was my sister, Donatella.
She left this village under family pressure. She now lives in Rome. She has grown into a fine woman. She leads the courtesans at a brothel called Rosa in Fiore.
One truth before I die—Donatella loved you since childhood. She wished to marry you before this darkness fell.
Go to Rome. I left you my horse.
Goodbye, Ezio.
Your brother.
Ezio lowered the letter.
Behind the house, tied beneath a lean-to, stood a pure black horse, its coat dark as midnight. Calm. Uninfected. Waiting.
The plague traveled through the air.
Ezio understood that better than anyone.
Before Rome… he would prepare.
He buried Marno with care, marking the grave with stone and iron. For two weeks, Ezio worked without rest. He stripped his own armor, reforged metal in the abandoned forge, and crafted something unheard of—a plague mask for a horse, fitted with layered cloth, herbs, and crude air filtration. He forged light armor plates to protect the animal's body without slowing it.
Knowledge over superstition.
Survival over fear.
When the work was done, Ezio packed supplies—food, water, arrows, fire bolts, weapons, and a worn map leading south to Rome.
At dawn, when the undead grew sluggish and dull, Ezio mounted the black horse.
He looked back once at Valea Corbului—a village already claimed by death.
Then he turned toward the road.
Toward Rome.
Toward Donatella.
Toward whatever awaited beyond the plague.
The Crow Doctor rode out as the sun rose weakly through the fog.
It was time to save her.