Hunger was different in the Ashlands. It wasn't just an emptiness in the stomach; it was a cold that started in the marrow and worked its way out.
They had been walking for three days.
The water they found was grey and tasted of chalk. The only food they had scavenged were a handful of bitter berries and the strip of dried meat Horg had given Kael before... before.
"We stop," Kael croaked.
He didn't really have a choice. Elric had stopped walking ten yards back. The old Knight was on his knees, dry-heaving nothing but bile.
Jax slumped against a pale, petrified tree. His face was gaunt, his eyes darting around the silent woods.
"We need meat, Rat," Jax whispered. "Real meat. Not bugs. Not roots. Meat."
Kael looked at Elric. The wound on the Knight's side wasn't closing. It was weeping a black, foul-smelling fluid. Iron-rot.
"I'll hunt," Kael said.
"Hunt what?" Jax laughed, a sound like dry twigs snapping. "There's nothing here. Even the birds fly high."
"There's something," Kael said. "I saw tracks."
He had seen them. Hoofprints, split and wide. Too big for a deer. Too erratic for a horse.
"Watch him," Kael ordered, dropping his pack. he kept only his sword and his dagger.
He moved into the grey undergrowth.
***
Kael hunted the way he had learned in the village, but adapted for the Ash.
He didn't look for green. He looked for disturbances in the dust. He didn't listen for rustling leaves—the trees here had no leaves. He listened for the click of bone on stone.
He found the creature two miles from their camp.
It looked like a boar, but wrong. Its hide was hairless and scabbed, grey as the stone. Tusk-like protrusions grew not just from its jaw, but from its shoulders and spine. It was gnawing on the root of a dead tree, grinding the petrified wood with teeth that looked like iron chisels.
Ash-Boar.
Kael approached downwind. The wind here always smelled of sulfur, masking his scent.
He drew his sword. The metal hissed softly.
The boar's head snapped up. It didn't have eyes—just fleshy slits. It sniffed the air, then let out a low, grinding growl.
It charged.
It was fast for something that looked like a boulder. The ground shook.
Kael didn't try to block. He remembered Karn's lesson.
The air shifts.
He waited until he could smell the rot on the beast's breath. Then he sidestepped, spinning to his left. He brought the sword down with both hands, aiming for the spot behind the skull where the spine met the neck.
Clang.
The sword bounced off the bone-plate. The vibration numbed Kael's arms.
The boar squealed and thrashed, its side-tusk gashing Kael's thigh.
Kael gritted his teeth against the pain. He scrambled back, switching his grip. "Soft spot... find the soft spot..."
The boar turned, lowered its head, and charged again.
This time, Kael didn't swing. He dropped to one knee, bracing the pommel of his sword against his hip, point angled up.
The boar impaled itself.
The blade punched through the soft flesh of the throat, sinking deep into the chest cavity. The beast's momentum drove Kael back into the dirt, knocking the wind out of him. Hot, black blood sprayed over his face.
The boar thrashed once, twice, then died with a gurgle.
Kael lay there under the weight of the carcass, gasping. He was alive. He had food.
He pushed the beast off and stood up, limping. He began to butcher it right there. The smell of blood would attract others. He took the haunches, the liver, and the heart. The rest he left for the Greys.
***
When he returned, Jax was holding a knife. He wasn't peeling bark. He was looking at Elric.
Kael threw the bloody sack of meat at Jax's feet.
"Cook," Kael said, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
Jax jumped, hiding the knife behind his back. "I... I was just checking his bandages."
"Cook," Kael repeated.
They made a small fire—smokeless, using the petrified charcoal of the trees. They roasted the meat.
It was tough, gamey, and tasted of ash, but it was the best thing Kael had ever eaten.
Elric managed to swallow a few strips. The color returned to his cheeks, just a little.
"You found game," Elric whispered. "In the Dead Lands."
"It found me," Kael said. He was chewing on a bone, cracking it to get the marrow.
"We can't stay here," Elric said. "The blood... it draws them."
"Draws who?" Jax asked, looking into the darkness.
"The things that don't eat meat," Elric said. "The things that eat magic."
He pointed to Kael's chest.
Kael looked down. The pouch containing the obsidian cylinder was glowing. A faint, rhythmic purple pulse that matched his heartbeat.
"It's waking up," Kael realized.
"And everything in the Ashlands can hear it," Elric said. "We have to move."
"You can't walk," Kael said.
"Then drag me," Elric said. "Or leave me. But don't let that thing stay in one place."
Kael stood up. He kicked dirt over the fire.
"Jax, grab his other arm."
"We just ate!" Jax complained.
"Move," Kael snarled.
They dragged the old Knight into the gloom, leaving the pile of gnawed bones behind.
Ten minutes later, shadows darker than the night descended on their campsite. They didn't eat the bones. They licked the ground where the cylinder had rested, hungry for the echo of its power.