Wei pulled Chun down into the grass and slowly shifted their angle, inch by inch.
The warhorse lifted its head and swept its gaze around, scanning the area. Finding nothing, it lowered its head again and resumed feeding.
Wet flesh tore apart, then was chewed slowly. Each sound came unhurried, almost patient.
Wei forced himself to look away.
Still, the image clung to him.
He caught the horse's profile.
Half the skin on its face was gone, exposing stark white teeth and dark, slick muscle beneath. Its jaws opened and closed steadily as it tore into the body on the ground.
The man's cheekbones were high. His thick beard was still there.
He knew that face.
Two days ago, that same mouth had been shouting by the well.
Complaining that Chun was too slow with the bucket. Complaining that Wei was cleaning rabbit skins nearby, that fur was drifting into the water.
Complaining about everything, as he always did, his voice carrying across the yard as if the village existed only to hear him.
Now that mouth hung slightly open.
One of the corpse's hands lay limp beside the face. The fingers were curled inward, as if they had been trying to grasp something that was no longer there. Around the wrist was a loop of old leather cord.
It had been worn smooth with years of use.
The knot was strange—tight, layered, not something a child would tie by accident.
Old Kang.
Wei remembered him squatting by the fire, fingers working the cord as he talked. He used to say that if you tied it this way, one touch in the dark told you how far you'd walked. That even at night, even in the forest, you'd know where you were.
"You won't get lost," he'd said."Not if you do it right."
But now, he had.
Chun saw it too.
Wei felt it before he saw it—the sudden change in her weight, the way her body locked up beside him. Her breathing faltered, then stumbled, like someone missing a step on a stair.
Her fingers clutched the hem of Wei's clothes.
They were shaking. Hard.
So hard he could feel it through the fabric.
Her throat moved once, sharply, as if she were forcing something back down. Her eyes burned red in the low light, glassy with moisture, but she held them wide, refusing to let the tears fall.
She had knelt in the river in midwinter, sleeves rolled up, hands numb and purple from the cold, and never once trembled like this.
Wei heard a faint, brittle sound.
Her teeth knocking together.
Not from cold.
From effort.
She was holding back a cry with everything she had.
Her lips parted, forming a sound that never came.
Wei reached over and covered her hand with his own. He pressed down, firm and steady, until her fingers stopped twitching.
No crying.
No sound.
Not here.
The warhorse stopped chewing.
The sound cut off so suddenly it felt wrong, like a sentence ending halfway through a word.
Wei froze, breath caught in his chest.
Slowly, the warhorse raised its head.
Blood clung to its teeth, dark and thick. A drop slid free and fell, striking the ground with a soft, wet tap. Another followed.
As the horse moved, the skin along its neck pulled back, stretched thin, revealing more of the pale bone beneath. Strips of dried flesh hung like old cloth.
Its skull turned.
Toward them.
Wei's stomach sank.
It was sniffing.
The single eye shifted, the pupil rolling slightly as the head tilted. The skull angled toward the breeze.
Wei felt it then.
The wind, brushing across his neck.
It had changed.
They were upwind.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He signaled Chun without words—pressed her hand once, slow and deliberate. Lower your breath. Slower.
Her chest hitched, then stilled.
The warhorse did not move closer.
It did not snort.
Did not growl.
It simply stood there, head lowered, as if listening not to sound, but to thought.
Seconds passed.
Too many.
Chun shook her head.
The motion was barely there—small, sharp, urgent.
Her eyes slid past the warhorse, past the corpse, toward another pocket of shadow in the village. A collapsed thatched shed. Half the roof had fallen in. The rest was blackened but not fully burned.
Something inside Wei clenched.
Someone could still be there.
Alive.
Chun's gaze sharpened, desperation flaring through the fear.
Wei's chest tightened.
If anyone was alive, they couldn't be hiding in burning ruins.
If no one was—
Then being seen here would mean everything.
The warhorse suddenly tossed its head.
A breath passed through its nostrils—low, drawn-out.
"Damn thing," Wei hissed under his breath.
"You think it's spotted us?"
His horse gave a restless blow through its nose, but it didn't bolt.
Instead, it sidestepped, clearing the path to the village with a quiet, deliberate restraint—
as if it were stepping aside on purpose.
Wei went to take that first step forward, but a sudden agitation flared in his chest.
It wasn't fear.
It was that specific kind of restlessness,the raw impatience of being forced to stand still.
Instinctively, he looked back.
The warhorse was no longer where it had been.
It stood behind them now.
Not close enough to strike. Not far enough to ignore.
Perfectly placed.
Blocking the way back.
Its head was lowered again, breath steady, as if it had never moved at all.
But the path they had come from—
It was gone.
Like a door opened on one side while another closed without a sound.
The way forward had been offered.
The way back erased.
Danger flooded Wei's chest, sharp and instinctive.
There was no time to think.
Chun moved.
She slid out of the grass in a low crouch, fast and silent.
"Don't—"
The word died in Wei's throat.
Chun ran.
Her feet hit ash and broken tile, slipping once, then catching. Her steps were uneven but relentless.
That was the direction of home.
Wei ground his teeth together. He hesitated only a heartbeat before pushing after her.
Behind them, hoofbeats sounded—near, then far, then near again—out of rhythm with distance, wrong in a way that made Wei's skin crawl.
The air thickened with blood.
Every step felt like stepping onto ground that rejected them.
—Until Chun screamed.
The sound tore out of her, raw and broken.
Wei lunged, clamping a hand over her mouth and dragging her into the shadow of a collapsed wall.
Too late.
From the well came a low, rasping hiss.
Wei's hand stayed tight over Chun's mouth. Her cry shattered against his palm, reduced to harsh, panicked breaths.
The warhorse stopped.
Its head remained lowered.
It did not lift it at once.
As if listening.
Wind swept through the ruins, stirring ash. An ember flared briefly, glowing red, then dimmed back into gray.
The warhorse tilted its head.
Not toward them.
Toward the village entrance.
The way they had come.
Wei's pupils contracted.
The warhorse's body already filled the space, massive and immovable.
It stepped forward.
Bone hooves struck the ground with a heavy, final sound.
The retreat was sealed.
Its nostrils flared, slow and deliberate.
Wei's heart plunged.
And then—
From behind them came a low, animal growl.
Not the warhorse.
Something else had found them.