Ashes in The Maw

The night was iron-black, heavy with the scent of pine smoke and damp earth. Seraphina crouched in the ruins of a half-buried wall, her knees drawn tight to her chest, while Uriel and Michael whispered arguments above her head. Their voices were low, clipped, but carried the sharp edge of brotherly irritation.

“You’re too loud,” Uriel muttered, eyes scanning the ridgeline where torches bobbed like insects. “You always announce yourself before the blade even leaves the sheath.”

Michael smirked, a streak of ash across his cheek. “Better loud than gutless. The point is to make them choke on their own panic, isn’t it?”

“Panic gets you killed.”

Seraphina pressed her palms to the cracked stone, her stomach tightening. The bickering was routine, almost comforting, yet tonight it only deepened the churn in her chest. She had joined these two only months ago, and their arguments always seemed like a language she hadn’t fully learned – banter that covered over the scars of war.

Uriel turned, crouching close. His eyes were hard, calculating. “We don’t get a second chance. The Maw’s supplies are guarded tighter than a treasury. Fail, and the Vicar sends his army marching with enough food, weapons, and–” His jaw flexed. “Other things. Enough to crush anyone standing against him.”

Michael leaned on his knees, the torchlight gleaming faintly in his hair. “Then we don’t fail.”

Seraphina swallowed. “What’s the plan?”

Uriel outlined it with soldier’s clarity. He would slit throats and silence the sentries. Michael would light the barrels of oil with Kairon fire. Seraphina was to cut the wagon tethers and spill rations on the floor into the flames that Michael wrought. High risk, high reward.

Her fingers tightened around the knife at her belt. She could still feel ghost-hands on her wrists from that night with the soldier who had claimed to shelter her, only to show what he truly was. Michael had saved her then, but the fear had carved itself into her bones. Could she raise steel against them now, or would her body betray her again?

Michael’s gaze found hers. He grinned—too wide, too reckless—and whispered the mantra he had drilled into her during training. “Align. Breathe. Strike.”

She nodded, but her throat was sand.

They slipped through the trees like shadows.

Uriel moved first, his steps noiseless. A guard at the perimeter barely had time to blink before steel kissed his throat. The soldier dropped with a muffled gurgle. Uriel’s expression never changed. Michael sat, waiting in the tall grass, “Show-off”, he muttered, rolling his eyes.

Seraphina followed him, crouching near the wagons. She forced her breath steady, trying to ignore the stench of iron and rot emanating from the sealed crates. She unsheathed the knife, held it close to her ear and flicked the knife, listening for the frequency it resonated. She begun whispering the mantra under her tongue. Align. Breathe. Strike.

Her heart hammered, but she kept her mind calm, as the Eidex circuitry in her blood thrummed, merging with the pitch of the blade. The knife gripped in her palm was triggered and had begun to oscillate. She sawed through the thick leather tether of a wagon with ease, like a knife through butter. The wood creaked. The horses snorted nervously. Sweat slicked her palms.

Another tether gave way. Then another.

“Good,” she whispered.

Then a hand clamped over her mouth. Uriel hadn’t accounted for one sentry sleeping in the underbrush behind the wagons.

She froze, the soldier’s breath foul against her ear. His arm locked around her chest. Panic roared up from her belly, blinding. The memory of another soldier’s grip flashed white-hot in her skull.

The knife’s oscillating motions trembled uselessly in her hand.

“Little rat,” he growled. “Thought you could—”

Something snapped. A wild surge of strength flooded her muscles, and she twisted, slamming her elbow back with Kairon-enhanced force. But she had lost her rhythm—her fear made the strike clumsy, unfinished.

Michael darted across the field, sparks dancing around his palms. The soldier recovered from the blow and raised his blade to strike Seraphina. Before his blade came down, Michael drove his foot into the soldier’s knee, bending it in the opposite direction. The soldier dropped his blade, screaming.

Michael quickly covered the soldier’s mouth with his flame-enhanced Kairon and silenced the sentry. His flames flared too bright, blue-white flame crackling into the air. A hiss of warning escaped Uriel’s teeth, but the damage was done. 

A couple of the soldiers stirred in their sleep and the camp erupted.

Torches flared. Horns blared like war-drums. The night filled with steel and shouts.

Michael hurled his fire into a wagon, flames climbing in oily tongues. He shouted over the chaos, “Move, Sera! Don’t stop!” His voice was frantic but steady, almost fatherly, forcing her to remember the mantra.

Uriel joined Michael, back-to-back and cut down a soldier with brutal economy, his blade sliding between ribs, eyes already scanning for the next threat. “They’re waking too fast!” he barked.

But the soldiers pouring from their tents weren’t just men. In the firelight their eyes gleamed silver, and black veins crawled up their throats. Their blades came down with inhuman weight, every strike shattering wood and stone, raging at Michael and Uriel.

“Vrekh’tal*…” Seraphina whispered.

Michael whipped a flaming chain of Kairon through the air, sparks showering as it carved across armour. He fought like a man desperate to shield the world behind him. “Sera! Zreth Nashar!”*

Uriel’s knife kissed another throat. He spun, dragging Seraphina back toward the treeline, but the sound stopped him cold.

A screech tore through the camp.

Not human. Not animal. Something in between.

One of the burning crates split open with a crack. Its contents spilled into firelight—and the world seemed to tilt.

Seraphina’s breath caught.

Inside weren’t weapons. Not food.

Bodies.

Corpses, carved open at the chest, hollow where their hearts had been. Preserved, twisted, desecrated.

Another crate cracked wider, and something writhed within. Chains clattered. A shape dragged itself forward, half-formed, skin slick with black ichor. Its many eyes gleamed, its maw split wider than its skull should allow.

A *Morzbeast.

Smaller than the stories, malformed, but real.

The soldiers didn’t panic. They unleashed it.

The creature shrieked, a frequency that clawed through their chests. Seraphina fell to her knees, hands clutching her ears, blood weeping from her nose.

Michael staggered, flames breaking apart in his grasp. He tried desperately to steel his conviction, creating a barrier around Sera. His body shook with the effort of holding Kairon together.

Uriel hurled one of his daggers at the beast, interrupting the frequency of its screech

With his other he cut one soldier down, then another, but his eyes were already on Seraphina, cornered, a blade to her throat. He froze, breath trembling. Slowly, his knife clattered to the ground.

Michael roared, lunging to protect her, but a soldier’s mace smashed into his ribs, dropping him to the dirt.

The Morzbeast thrashed, lunging against its chain, the sound of it echoing like a dirge.

##   ###   ##

The three of them were beaten down, shackled in chains heavy enough to choke breath. They were forced to their knees among the wreckage, fire painting their faces in orange and black.

Through the haze of smoke and screams, a figure stepped into the light. Not armored like the others. Cloaked, deliberate. He watched the flames with quiet satisfaction, his expression unreadable in the firelight.

The soldiers bowed their heads.

Seraphina dared to lift her gaze, trembling. Whoever this man was, the others deferred to him. The Commander.

He said nothing to them. Only looked at the burning supplies, then at the three prisoners, then back to the Morzbeast thrashing against its bonds.

Finally, a thin smile curved his lips.

“You thought you’d starve us,” he said, voice low, almost amused. “Instead, you’ve only fed the Maw.”

His hand flicked, and the soldiers dragged them into the shadows.

The Morzbeast’s screech followed them into the dark.

##   ###   ##

*Vrekh’tal - Soldiers unwillingly infected by the experiments the Vicar performed on Morzbeasts
**Zreth Nashar! - "Move, now!"

***Morzbeast - Creatures created by the Vicar after he experimented on ancient corpses