Arc 1: Chapter 32: Death By Dawn
In the depths of the irkwood bordering Caelfall, a lonely campfire crackled in the last hours of night. Two men warmed their hands at it.
Two living men.
“Hate this fucking forest,” the first complained, casting a dark look at the surrounding trees. He was the younger of the two, though his sunken features and graying hair so closely matched his brother’s it wasn’t easy to tell.
The older brother coughed, hacked up something foul, and spat it into the fire. The log within split, scattering sparks as though trying to cough the thing back out.
“You don’t like any forest,” the older grunted. He produced a blade, the motion so quick it blurred, and began cleaning his nails. “Suck it up. We’ll head back to the village come sunrise and report.”
“Report.” The younger Culler scowled at the word. “Like we’re fuckin’ soldiers. I didn’t sign up for no militia. Since when do we take orders from the likes of Vaughn?”
“We’re not taking orders,” the older Culler admonished, picking a chunk of dead skin from his thumb, most of it callous. “This is a commission. You’ve done this before.”
“Haven’t died like this before,” the younger man said, his eyes wandering to the third of their trio. They’d managed to fish their eldest brother down off the trees. The evil things had grown their branches and roots into him, and they’d had to leave most of that still riddled through the carcass’s bones, opting to hack him down.
The one cleaning his nails shrugged. “Death is death. He’ll come back, same as always. We should get it done before sunrise. A whole day in this climate will make him rank, and I don’t need to hear his grousing again.”
The youngest Culler couldn’t take his eyes off the corpse’s face, where two spear points of wood emerged from its empty eye sockets.
“Shouldn’t we… get all that shit out of him? Before, I mean.”