Heir of the Fog

Grey Hunt

"Today is a great day. A day to celebrate. For today, our Great Overseer Tarin himself will embark on the Grey Hunt!" Cairen declared, his voice carrying easily over the assembled ranks. The crowd answered with cheers and a few scattered whistles, the sound rolling over us like a wave.

Chainrunners from every district of New Araksiun had gathered to watch our departure. Some came out of curiosity, others out of duty, and a few, I suspected, just to see if I would fall on my brother's trial. My wife called it a political gesture, a way to tighten bonds between districts.

Maybe she was right. Politics loved a spectacle, and nothing drew eyes quite like the possibility of an Overseer failing in front of everyone.

It was a trial meant to capture a beast's spirit in battle, to be imbued into a frost vessel, one of the Glacier Steeds. Horses, reborn. I had never thought I would see such a day, nor had the other districts.

They called it madness at first. Five chainrunners at most, turned loose into the fog for days with no support and no rescue. Return with five ebony cores, or return with nothing but the shame of failure, if you returned at all.

"Absurd," most called it. But then came the first brave group of chainrunners to attempt the trial—Artemis, Cedric, Gorin, Leslo, and none other than Cairen himself.

They came back a day later, tired but breathing, carrying five ebony cores that hummed faintly even through the cloth that wrapped them. They handed them to Omen, and days afterward, each of them received a Glacier Steed, an ice-born mount shaped after the horses of old, built to run like the wind.

When those creatures first galloped through the training yard, even the most skeptical chainrunners forgot to hide their awe.

Our ward recognized the horses as it did any other chainrunner, and I suspected it had something to do with Omen's recent interest in the Obelisk. Regardless, their prowess in battle showed everyone the path forward. Even Artemis, with her daggers, quickly learned to coordinate her attacks with a mount that seemed to know its rider all too well.

Once the others saw how a rider and horse moved as one, "absurd" stopped being the word they used for the trial.

Now it was my turn, and I studied the faces of my companions. Artemis stood at my side, claiming she just wanted to "stretch her legs in the fog again," but I knew better; she hated letting me walk into danger without her. The other three were veterans, yes, but not on her level. Their confidence had cracks in it, and the fog loved to slip through cracks.

They had years of service behind them, scars and stories to prove it, yet unease still showed in the small things: a trembling hand, a tightened jaw, a stare that held the fog a moment too long. It was one thing to run the fog for less than an hour. We were about to live in it for days.

Seven times the Grey Hunt had been tried. Three groups came back with all five cores, though one of them returned with one fewer chainrunner than they had left with. Two other groups stumbled back only hours after entering the fog—no dead, no serious wounds, just the kind of fear that hollowed a person out from the inside.

Two groups never came back at all. No bodies. No signals. Just names added to the list of the ones the fog had already claimed.

Even for veterans, that never became normal. For me, it sharpened a single question: how had my brother survived so many years out there?

Every day, people protested against the trial. They argued it lacked any standard of civility, that it was barbaric, and they were right. But Omen told everyone it was the only way to trap the spirit within the core, and no one doubted what he knew of the fog.

But I'd spent too much of my life drowning in politics not to smell when truth had been bent. The explanation was neat. Useful. Convenient. The real reason, to me, was far simpler. My brother was not just making mounts, he was choosing riders. Selecting the ones who could survive the kind of madness the road to the lower districts would require, and letting the fog judge the rest.

No one was forced to take the Grey Hunt. There were no orders, only volunteers. But it didn't take long for everyone to understand that a chainrunner on foot was only a fraction of what a mounted one could become.

"Most of you already know what the trial entails," Cairen called out, turning to face the semicircle of chainrunners gathered near the fog's edge. "But we have visitors today, chainrunners from every district of New Araksiun, so let me explain it once more."

"He loves the sound of his own voice," Artemis muttered beside me.

"He does. It's what he does best," I replied, keeping my voice low so only she could hear.

Despite standing in a neighboring district before a crowd that hardly knew his name, Cairen didn't waver. He carried himself as if every chainrunner present belonged to him. His voice carried cleanly across the field.

"Five of you will go into the fog," Cairen said. "You must track, kill, and bring back the cores of five beasts. Which beasts you choose doesn't matter. You have three days at most. If you fail, there is no disgrace. You may return and attempt the trial again next year."

"I know what you're thinking," Cairen went on. "No one survives days in the fog. The beasts feel you the moment you leave the ward."

He lifted a talisman for all to see.

It was a small, flat disk of dark stone hanging from a simple cord. Up close, its surface was crowded with countless runes so fine they looked like dust or scratches, patterns no human hand could have carved with any tool I knew.

At first glance, the stone looked dead and dull. Then Cairen turned it, and at a certain angle the runes caught the light and shimmered faintly.

"A Lume," Cairen announced. "Wear it around your neck, and the fog will not call its beasts to you. You can hide, stalk, and plan your hunt for up to three days, as long as you don't stray too far from the ward."

A Lume, one of my brother's creations. He'd made it after spending far too many hours staring at the Obelisk and whatever secrets hid inside it. "It's nothing like the ward's protection," he'd told me once, "but it keeps the beasts from sensing you for a while. That's enough."

A talisman like that could have changed the fate of the districts years ago. Omen claimed the Lumes were linked to the Obelisks, drawing on their power as long as they stayed near, and it masked us from whatever attracted the beasts whenever we set foot outside the ward.

He'd warned us early about the limits. The Lume didn't shield us; it only dulled the scent, slowed whatever signal called the beasts. In theory, it could last up to five days. In practice, he insisted we count only three of those as safe. After the third day, he said, the beasts were no longer the main concern. The fog itself was.

He never explained what he meant by that, and the look in his eyes when I asked made me stop pressing.

Whatever waited beyond those three days, Omen refused to name. He only told us that no human should linger in the fog for long, Lume or not, and that its effect reached only a few miles past the ward.

So travelling along the Via Appia into other districts was out of the question.

Even with its limits, the Lume changed more than just this trial. It made it possible to gather resources near the ward—wood, metal, whatever the fog hadn't swallowed yet. But the effect thinned with numbers. More than five people, and the talismans weakened. At eight, Omen said, we might as well march out with torches and drums. The beasts would feel us the instant we stepped into the fog. That was why the Grey Hunt was fixed at teams of five.

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Even with all the restrictions, I could already see ways to use the Lumes beyond the trial. The problem wasn't the possibility; it was logistics. And that part would fall to me.

"But remember," Cairen added, walking down the line to hand each of us a Lume, "stay away from the Via Appia. Do not wander farther than you should."

It was a ritual more than a necessity, this formal handing over of talismans, but people clung to rituals when they knew they might die. When Cairen reached me, he pressed the Lume into my hand. "Safe hunt, Great Overseer," he said, flashing me a grin.

I couldn't tell if the grin was real or forced, but I knew he wouldn't risk attacking me in the fog over the next few days, especially with Artemis coming with me.

I glanced at Artemis, and she simply nodded. Then they gave each of us a standard runic spear, the only enchanted equipment allowed in the trial.

And so, our trial began.

***

From my workshop, I watched as the humans gathered near the fog and bid farewell to Tarin before his departure.

I was with them, though none of them could see me. As with the teams before, I let my awareness settle over their every step through the trial.

I had been there when the others died as well. Two teams lost to the fog, their ends laid bare before me. I could have intervened. The thought crossed my mind more than once—step in, turn the tide, save them as Meris would have begged me to do.

One team failed to notice how, after the first day, their scent drew a huge pack of beasts behind them. I watched the moment of realization arrive too late, just as the pack descended and tore them apart.

Another team, more promising, crossed the path of an onyx beast. There was no misstep there, no obvious error. They simply met something far beyond their measure, and the fog claimed them.

If I had saved them, the trial would have meant nothing. The pressure of the hunt would vanish the moment they realized I would always step in. Coddling them was not the path ahead, however merciless that made me seem. They would not understand, but they were not meant to.

I turned away from the distant images of death and back to my bench, the place where new life began.

Schematics lay open beside me: careful copies of the Glacier Steeds' design.

Earlier that day, chainrunners from District 97 had brought a message from Lucious, politely asking for my method of creating the Glacier Steeds.

I admired his ambition. Lucious worked wonders with runes, but making a living thing was something else entirely. It demanded a deep understanding of flesh as well as magic and more than that, the ability to light the first spark inside an empty shell.

Out of respect for him, I decided to copy my documents and give them to him anyway. He could study them if he wished. Unfortunately, replication would be impossible, a task only the sculptors and I could perform.

All around the workshop, horses stood in perfect stillness. A dozen of them, flawless and empty, waiting to awaken once their riders succeeded in their trials. "Five more soon," I told them. Then I hesitated. "I hope."

Tarin was not like the others. The enhancements in his body, the artifact he carried, made him faster, stronger, and sharper than any normal human. Even stripped of those tools, he was still far above the rest. As long as he kept his Lume close, I didn't expect him to be in great danger.

As I expected, they kept to the ruins and away from the main roads, slipping between broken walls and toppled stone. Their scent was masked as I had instructed, their presence softened. Their vision was short in the fog, but they did not rush. Three days was plenty, and they carried enough food and water to last.

The first day was always the easiest. They were still rested, still steady. Most humans could not bring themselves to sleep in the fog, even when they found a secure hiding place. Only one ever had the nerve to do so, and even then, only briefly—Artemis.

They moved by sound as much as sight, halting whenever distant footsteps or low growls rolled through the fog. An onyx beast streaked past not far from them, a dark shape high above, its senses tuned to mana rather than flesh.

It veered away, never noticing them, and dove instead on an ebony beast half a mile away. The shrieks that followed tore through the air. One of Tarin's team clapped a hand over his mouth to choke back his own cry.

They held their nerves and skirted around larger packs, slipping through alleys and gaps in the rubble. Then they turned onto a new street and stopped. There, in the open, a single ebony beast feasted among the shredded remains of other creatures, bones and flesh strewn like discarded cloth.

Its pale, sinewy body was riddled with countless eyes of varying sizes. Dog-like in stance, it had a circular maw brimming with rows of teeth and a tongue that extended far beyond its body—a shoggoth.

Fortunately, Tarin saw it before it saw them. From behind a broken stone wall, he lifted his head just enough to glimpse the street, then sank back and pressed a finger to his lips. The others froze at once, breath held, bodies pressed tight against the cold rock.

It was only one ebony, but a shoggoth was more than they could afford to face. They remained hidden while it tore strips from the corpses, the wet sounds of feeding echoing off the walls. None of them moved. None of them spoke. Minutes stretched thin.

At last, the shoggoth lost interest in what no longer struggled. It leaped across the street with startling speed and vanished into the fog.

The trial was less about strength and more about control. Keeping their nerves steady. Learning how the fog moved, how sound carried, how to slip past larger packs without drawing their hunger. Knowing when to strike and when to swallow pride and retreat.

When they finally stepped out from behind the wall, the full scene met them. Limbs twisted at wrong angles, torsos split open, eyes still wide in frozen terror. Two of the chainrunners doubled over and vomited onto the cobblestones. Some of the bodies bore marks that spoke of prolonged suffering before the shoggoth finished them.

Tarin did not look away, and neither did Artemis. They had seen worse.

When they were about a mile from the ward, they came upon three draths—a kind of small crawler with a long, arched spine and tight, leathery black skin stretched over corded muscle. Each had a narrow, blade-like head with a single vertical slit eye capable of opening wide in darkness.

Their front limbs were far too long for their bodies, ending in hooked talons perfect for climbing walls or ripping through tough skin and even armor.

"That's the one," Tarin whispered, marking the target.

They were weak beasts, the kind chainrunners often dealt with along the Via Appia, ones I knew Tarin himself had faced many times.

The fight was quick. Four of them hurled their spears, killing one drath instantly and injuring the other two. Tarin, who had kept his spear, rushed in with enhanced speed and, with two rapid swings, sliced their necks before they could utter a sound.

Not much farther on, they found another group, four draths near a collapsed archway. They repeated the tactic: four spears thrown, bodies struck, beasts wounded. Tarin sprinted in, a blur of motion as he carved through them. But this time, he was a heartbeat too slow.

"Arghh," the last drath screamed, the sound echoing across the street an instant before Tarin's spear severed its throat.

"Shit," Artemis muttered under her breath. She knew exactly what that cry would bring.

Any beast within range would have heard that scream, and there were many in range, though Tarin's team did not yet know it. They had made a simple error, failing to scout the wider area before striking.

In the fog, even small mistakes could cost lives.

Within moments, the soft rumble of many feet reached them, beasts closing in from several directions at once. "Take their cores, fast," one of the chainrunners hissed, pulling a dagger as he dropped to one knee beside a corpse.

"There's no time. We need to run," Tarin snapped. The others hesitated, eyes dragging longingly over the fallen beasts and the unclaimed cores inside them.

Hesitation was as deadly as any misstep. Fortunately, theirs lasted only a heartbeat before they obeyed Tarin and ran.

Tarin was right. They would never have harvested those cores before the beasts arrived. Instead, they spent the next few hours hiding, half buried under rubble, cloaks and dirt disguising their shapes, barely daring to breathe.

No one spoke. They listened to the hunt pass around them, the growls and scraping claws moving closer, then farther, then closer again, until finally the fog quieted.

Even from my workshop, I could feel how tightly they held themselves, muscles locked, thoughts narrowed to the simple act of not moving.

At one point, Artemis's eyes slid closed, and she dozed for a few hours, her body accepting rest where it could.

The others glanced at her indignantly across the rubble, but I only nodded in approval. "Conserving energy whenever possible is often the right move," I said, though none of them could hear me.

Once everything calmed down, they continued their hunt, not far from where they had been, as they had become aware that the place was crawling with draths. Easy targets for the cores they needed.

It didn't take long before they found three more.

This time, they correctly scouted the surroundings before striking, and the fight ended quickly without injury. That brought their count to six, one more than required.

From the moment they stepped into the fog to the moment they returned to the ward, less than a day had passed. It proved what I had believed from the start. The hunt itself wasn't that difficult, as long as they kept their nerves steady, acted rationally, assessed risks, and trusted their instincts.