"Here, just as you ordered. Here, this one too." The officer went to the wooden side of the weapon stand near the stalls and took a spear with an iron point from it.

I accepted the weapon and unwound it in my hand. Perfect balance, a little tilted toward the tip so I could comfortably grip it and throw it if I needed to.

"I need a horse," I reminded the supply officer of my needs.

"Come into the stalls and choose for yourself. The stableman has already had enough advice for today," the man assigned to us told me, checking the pulse of the young man lying in the mud.

"And who did he advise?" I grinned.

"This mare," the hunter pointed to the horse, who had hesitated with the saddle and was now watching me with interest.

I walked around the wooden stalls near the stone wall of the courtyard. There were still a couple of stunted horses here. It looked like someone had taken offense at being advised against a stallion. This horse looked much better against the others. I'm not proud.

"I'll take this mare," I pointed to the horse.

"Take the horse," sighed the anxious quartermaster, lifting the young man carefully out of the mud. With his other hand he called several servants, who, however, keeping order, surrounded the boy on all sides.

The hunter who had pointed her out laughed and rode out of the courtyard. Out of the shadows came a girl, unnoticed by me, the one who had been sitting in the meeting opposite. She winked at me approvingly and jumped on her horse, following the hunter. I decided that it was all foolishness and that the boy had been hurt for nothing, and then I sped up to keep up.

The long and piercing gaze of Count Mirtel from a small elevated terrace did not escape me. Now Pheanoth might even have regretted hiring us. He hardly cared about the fate of the stable boy; rather, he wanted to see who had snuck into the enclosed garden to see his youngest daughter. And this young man's story is just another stone in our garden.

As I walked away, the hag put a bag of food in my bag. The water in the flask was splashing again, "Take it, my dear – you need it more," she said kindly. We broke through the forest predators, and I wielded with dexterity the new carga's spear. My companion led me to the edge of the forest.

"We can't go any farther, there's the castle," she pointed ahead. Her bluish-black cat walked along the edge of the forest from side to side. The cat hissed and lost all patience when she saw the gray earth. Covering her nose with her paws and getting angry.

"Good." I stepped forward, and the ash-gray dust that had engulfed the plants near the forest crumbled to ashes under my boots, as did the grass itself, devoid of life. The girl looked at me again, probably wanting to say something. But she changed her mind, then ducked down and, beckoning the panther, disappeared into the forest.

I walked straight toward a barely discernible target, which for a moment appeared in the haze. The disease-ravaged brushwood crumbled to dust as soon as I touched it with my boot. The skulls of small animals that had been exposed to the sulfur that had forced them out of the forest crunched beneath my feet. Here, on the border, one could feel the struggle of the last guardian of the Darkwoods and the eerie gray earth pulling the life out of the entire forest.

"Yes, this was the castle to which the waystone pointed. There, at the crossroads, I made a note to the other hunters that I was leading the work here for them to move on. But it felt like there was no one behind me. How many of us were there? Fourteen? Fifteen if you count the hunter who took part in the tournament itself? This is definitely the place the forest villagers were talking about. Nearby, near it, there must be a village, what did they call it? Sgulli… Sgugli? I don't remember." The headwind gutted the remains and ashes, and even through the mask my throat choked and I coughed. I had to cover myself additionally with the edge of my cloak. The fine particles floated like mist, so I didn't see the charred hulk of the village building right away.

I wandered around the ashes. It was all that remained of what had once been a fairly large settlement. I saw an anvil among the ruins of one of the houses, and an unpleasant feeling came over me. With bitterness I remarked to myself, "There was even a smithy here long ago, but despite its size, the settlement still perished." My face was covered by the mask of a milchemist, so I wasn't afraid to breathe. But the air in this small depression in front of the castle where the village was located still felt stifling. Burnt houses and huts. What had happened here? The dust storm had intensified, but the Titan Jodkheim was at the zenith of its power, shining through everything for twenty meters around. A premonition visited me, and I raised my green lantern higher. Ahead, the silhouette of a stray dead man emerged from the shadows of the haze around him. He took a couple more steps forward, then jerked sharply and turned toward me. He saw me.

"Wheeewurrrgh!" came the shroud of mischief from all directions. The dead man ran when he saw his prey, and another and another followed him out of the mist with his hands out in front of him.

I stood in the protective stance of an aspid, lowering the sting of my spear downward. As soon as the enemy approached, I sliced him open with a swift thrust of my spear. Another swing followed, and then another. One blow, one corpse. All the dead came at me from the same direction. It was as if all the former inhabitants of the village had gathered in one place for some reason. I took step after step back under their onslaught, chopping up the mindless bodies.

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