The sun hadn’t even fully cleared the horizon when the tension hit a breaking point. The headcount was wrong, and around these parts, the wrong headcounts usually ant so poor sod was currently being digested.
"He wouldn’t just leave."
Gorm growled while pacing the small clearing, his hands opening and closing.
"Silas was with for six years. He’s got a wife back in River’s End. He doesn’t desert, not without his gear, and certainly not in the middle of a damn field of Giant Crabs."
"Hm, maybe he found a very interesting rock and followed it?"
Ignotus suggested while leaning against a tree and picking his teeth with a splinter.
"Honestly, that’d get too."
"This isn’t a joke, boy!"
Gorm snapped.
"One of my n is gone!"
Ignotus stopped picking his teeth and turned to Gorm.
He didn’t look amused anymore, staring deep into Gorm’s pupils, searching for that flicker of deceit or the shifty look of a man covering for a friend. Instead, he saw ugly sincerity.
...Gorm was genuinely baffled and increasingly terrified.
"Fine. He didn’t desert."
Ignotus nodded.
"Which really ans he’s dead or currently being used as a snack for so very quiet monster. Either way, we aren’t finding him in this grass. Pack it up; we’ll keep moving."
"N-No way!"
One of the other rcenaries shouted.
"We’re just leaving him?!"
"Unless you want to join him, yes."
Ignotus answered bluntly.
"If we stay still, we’re targets. If we move, we’re moving targets. Moving is better. Move."
He didn’t wait for their consensus and started walking, forcing them to follow.
Though they complained, they knew better than to disobey his orders.
What little ti they spent together engraved that in their minds.
Yet that obedience didn’t change the outco.
...their third day beca a slow nightmare.
The tall grass, which had once seed like a scenic backdrop of their journey, now felt like a thousand green blades hiding a thousand mouths hungry for their lives.
Two hours in, another of the rcenaries was gone.
"W-Where did he go?"
That voice belonged to the scar-nosed rcenary. He had been walking just before the back of the line. Now, he was ’the back of the line.’ The man who was behind him had simply... disappeared; the rcenary didn’t even hear a rustle of grass when it happened.
"Dammit!"
Gorm swung his axe blindly at the grass.
"Show yourself! Fight like a man!"
"It’s probably not a man, Egg-man, still yourself."
Ignotus comnted with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
He, unlike the rest, was remarkably calm, though his eyes darted around as well.
’It might not even be a monster...’
Felix was essentially vibrating, his teeth chattering so loud it almost sounded like a woodpecker was attacking a tree.
"Young—Stranger, please. We’re being eaten one by one! I’m small and tender! I’ll be the next side dish!"
"Quiet, Spoon. You’re too filthy to be eaten."
With that, another hour passed and then another.
Every ti they looked back, the group was smaller.
They’d gotten close enough to always have an eye on each other.
And yet it still happened. This ti, instead of another rcenary, it was one of the guards who vanished in a blink.
This finally made Ignotus certain that this wasn’t any sort of weird and extrely skilled desertion tactic but an attack.
Another rcenary had disappeared while he reached such a conclusion.
The group of fifteen had rapidly dwindled to ten and then eight.
Much like Felix, Gorm was vibrating, though instead of fear, it was with a helpless rage.
Lykos looked pale, his fluffy ears flattened so hard against his head they were almost invisible. Ulv was breathing heavily, his great sword pointing forward, spinning in circles every few seconds to quickly check their surroundings.
"We aren’t stopping."
Ignotus commanded when Ulv tried to suggest a defensive periter.
"If we stop, we’re easier to pick... I’m sure of that. So keep your feet moving, even when the sun goes down. Keep. Moving."
They marched through the night, and the darkness made the grass look like a black ocean. Every rustle was a near heart attack for many of them, while every shadow was a killer. The atmosphere was so thick with dread they could have tasted it.
By the ti the first grey light of dawn touched the sky, Ignotus suddenly stopped.
"Stranger?"
Felix gasped, nearly running into his back.
"Why are we stopping? Is it a crab? Is it a bigger crab?"
Ignotus didn’t answer; instead, he stayed still with a strange, distant smile on his face.
He felt it now, a cold spot... a stain in the land around them that didn’t feel like a monster.
"Stay here."
"Like Hell we will!"
Lykos barked, but Ignotus wasn’t about to argue.
"Stay. Here."
He dived into the tall grass, moving with an explosive speed that left the others frozen in the dirt.
Guided by a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, he tore through the stalks, his feet barely touching the ground, and burst into a dead patch.
The grass here was black, shriveled, and scorched, forming a perfect circle about twenty feet wide.
In the center of this ’circle was a patch of familiar red flowers.
Standing on them was a child.
She wore a pristine white dress that looked far too clean for it to be real. Her hair was long and dark. She stood with her head tilted at an impossible, bone-cracking angle, looking up at the sky.
When Ignotus entered the clearing, she slowly rotated her head toward him.
Her eyes weren’t eyes but were two pits of absolute, void-like blackness.
’Ah...’
Ignotus thought, his mind clicking into place.
’I was looking for a predator; I found a damned parasite.’
Indeed, this wasn’t a hunt of so weird power; it was a hit job.
A Curse, a sentient manifestation of Corruption targeting Lykos.
The child opened her mouth.
"..."
No sound ca out, but the air suddenly turned frigid.
"Hey, kid..."
Ignotus seed casual despite the goosebumps erupting over his skin.
"Have you eaten all of my employees? Or are they still—"
""AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!""
Suddenly, a cacophony of screams erupted from the direction he had just co from.
Ignotus didn’t need to see it to know what was happening. Behind him, six rcenaries, a few of Lykos’s guards, and even so randoms who must have t the Curse at one point, had co to attack his still sane people.
Their minds were gone, snapped by the Curse’s influence. He could hear the ring of steel as the controlled folk began attacking the guards. The "pack" he had spent ti and money on, though not his own, was tearing itself apart.
’I can’t have that.’
Ignotus tightened his grip on his sword, his eyes locking onto the white-clothed child.
"I need to end the source."
He lunged, his blade whistling through the air, aid straight for the Curse’s neck.
Swish.
The sword passed through it like it was made of smoke.
Before Ignotus could follow up, it quickly began to dissolve into a black mist.
He skidded to a halt, his eyes widening as he saw the mist flow rather than dissipate.
Yes, he saw it shoot across the clearing, moving back toward his group.
Back towards the "Young Lord."
’It baited out.’
Ignotus realized, a cold pit forming in his stomach.
’I need to get back now!’
Spinning on his heel, he charged back into the tall grass.
’Don’t die on , kid!’
He had to be faster; if that Curse touched Lykos while the boy was busy cowering behind his n, it was ga over.
’I haven’t received my reward yet!’
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