Headless: The Huntsman

Snow fell in silent sheets as the huntsman stepped out of the lodge.

The storm had thickened during his slaughter within. Now, moonlight struggled to pierce the swirling grey, and the forest lay wrapped in spectral quiet. Each pine and skeletal branch sagged under the new weight, their shadows lost within the shifting whiteness.

Behind him, the lodge glowed with faint orange flickers as firelight escaped broken windows. Blood smeared the threshold where his boots crushed old snow into stained slush. He walked forward without pause, the shadows coiling around his broad shoulders like silent, loyal hounds.

Above him drifted Vengeance.

The spirit's vast shape churned within the storm. Its shadowy coils pulsed thicker and darker now, burning crimson eyes glaring with fevered triumph. Its tendrils writhed outward, blackening the drifting snowflakes around it, as if the night itself recoiled from its spreading corruption.

"Do you feel it, Huntsman?" Vengeance whispered, its voice curling through the storm like the hiss of boiling pitch. "With each offering, my strength grows. Their souls feed the void left by betrayal. Soon… soon the gods will know fear once more."

The huntsman did not answer. He trudged onward into the trees, axe resting upon his massive shoulder, the blackened blade still slick with Renak's blood. The shadows around his neck stump drifted outward in thin, trembling tendrils, glowing faintly with the pulsing crimson runes carved into his cold flesh.

He felt… emptier.

The rage remained. Cold. Sharp. Perfect. But something deeper within him flickered dimmer with each life taken. Each death tore away another scrap of warmth clinging to his chest. Each soul fed into Vengeance left him hollower than before.

A silent corpse in motion.

He reached a clearing ringed by frost-chained pines. The wind howled through the branches, shaking cascades of ice down upon his armoured form. Shadows drifted around him in long, curling ribbons, disappearing into the dark between trees.

Vengeance hovered above, vast and coiling like a serpent of living darkness. Its crimson eyes burned brighter now, rippling with flickering veins of black lightning across its vast form. Where once it had been a shadow among shadows, it now glowed faintly within the storm, a rotting star fallen into the mortal realm.

"More," it whispered, its voice trembling with ecstatic hunger. "More names. More deaths. Each offering brings me closer to breaking free of these mortal chains. Closer to my true dominion."

The huntsman stood motionless in the clearing.

Wind howled past him, rattling dead branches overhead. Snow gathered upon his broad shoulders and the curved blade of his axe. Shadows curled around his boots, drifting along the ground like silent, slithering spectres.

He closed his empty, unseen eyes within the swirling void of his missing head.

And he whispered.

"Aryn… Sila…"

The names drifted from his hollow throat in a voice stripped raw by grief, ground down to a trembling whisper. The storm carried the names away, lost among the ceaseless sigh of falling snow and the groan of tortured pine branches.

For a fleeting instant, memory sparked within him.

He saw Aryn's bright smile as he showed off his carved wooden horse. The boy's laughter, echoing within the cabin, louder than winter winds. He saw Sila curled in his arms, tiny fingers clutching his thumb, eyes wide and luminous with childlike wonder. He saw Lira brushing snow from her hair, turning to him with that gentle, quiet smile that always eased the cold from his bones.

Then the vision faded.

Vengeance's laughter rippled through the forest like thunder beneath the earth.

"Sentiment," it hissed, contempt curling through each syllable. "Useless sentiment. They are gone, Huntsman. Only your purpose remains. Your grief feeds me. Your emptiness sustains my power. Let it grow. Let it consume what remains of your frail humanity."

He raised his axe, gripping the blackened haft until shadowed tendrils curled between his gauntleted fingers. His grip did not tremble. His rage no longer burned hot. Now it seethed cold and silent, endless as the storm itself.

Above him, Vengeance pulsed larger within the night. Its vast shadow swallowed the clearing, drifting outward among the trees until the forest seemed to bow beneath its oppressive presence. Its crimson eyes narrowed with feral delight.

"The next name, Huntsman," it whispered. "Commander Vaelor of the Eastern Garrison. He who ordered your cabin burned in the last campaign. He who laughed as your kin choked upon ash. Find him. Offer him to me. Feed my becoming."

The huntsman turned, stepping out of the clearing.

Snow swallowed his heavy strides. Shadows drifted after him, drawn to his silent will. Each movement felt lighter than the last – not with relief, but with the emptiness of a man whose soul was being carved away piece by piece.

He walked on without pause, axe upon his shoulder, the crimson glow of his runes cutting through the storm like a dying star.

Above him, Vengeance drifted in silence, its vast shadow stretching eastward. Its burning eyes flickered with hunger as it watched the huntsman march forward beneath the moonless, endless sky.

And as he walked, his hollow voice whispered once more.

"Aryn… Sila… Lira…"

The storm swallowed the names.

But not even death could silence them within the last remnants of his dying heart.