The journey began under a sky the colour of steel. Dawn had barely lifted the gloom, and a chill wind rolled across the barren land, carrying with it the distant echoes of screams too faint to trace. The group pressed on in silence for the first hour, each member keeping a wary eye on the horizon. The terrain was treacherous—cracked and uneven, with twisted trees like skeletal hands clawing at the sky.
They encountered the first group of monsters near a collapsed ridge. They came fast, grotesque things with crooked limbs and mouths too wide for their faces. Four of them, each hunched and screeching, emerged from the shadows of shattered stone.
"Positions!" Kael barked.
