Ashwalker:Blood in the Wind

The shrine was older than the gods.

That much, the Ashwalker knew the moment his hand brushed the stone.

It wasn't the weathering — though the carvings had nearly been erased by wind and sand. Nor the architecture — crude, sloped, built without mortar. It was the weight.

A sacred place… long forsaken.

And forsaken things remember.

The girl moved quietly through the ruins, fingers trailing across cracked columns. Something about the place felt tight. Like a held breath that never let go.

She stepped into what had once been the inner sanctum — now a hollow dome open to the stars.

And there, carved into the wall, she saw it:

A mural.

Faded, but still visible in moonlight. A ring of figures surrounding a faceless giant. No weapons. No chains. Just eyes — dozens of eyes, all watching from within the giant's chest.

Below them, words in an old dialect.

She couldn't read them.

But she could feel them.

Like blood pressing behind the eyes.

She stepped back — and nearly screamed.

A figure.

Not the Ashwalker.

Not moving.

Just standing at the far end of the sanctum, half-hidden behind a pillar.

"Who's there?" she called.

No answer.

She reached for her dagger — cursed as her hand trembled.

The figure didn't move.

Didn't breathe.

She took a slow step forward.

And it crumbled.

Just stone. A statue.

Old. Weathered.

She cursed under her breath, heart hammering.

That's when she noticed something worse.

There were four of them.

Identical.

Each facing inward.

Each with no face.

Meanwhile, the Ashwalker stood at the outer edge of the shrine, scanning the hills.

He'd seen them.

Footprints in the red clay. Too deep. Too spread. Not human.

Not natural.

He drew his blade.

A low whistle echoed from the western ridge — rising, falling. Almost birdlike.

Except no birds flew in these skies.

He turned to the girl.

"Now."

She was already moving — sprinting out of the sanctum, eyes wide.

But she froze mid-step.

Because something was already there.

On the ridge.

Silhouetted against the moonlight.

A shape that crawled and twisted with too many joints. Long limbs that walked on elbows. A head like a split bell, open down the middle.

It moved like water.

It moved like hunger.

The girl screamed, "WHAT IS THAT?!"

The Ashwalker didn't answer.

He ran.

Straight toward it.

The Ashwalker moved faster than the girl had ever seen.

No battle cry. No rage.

Just precision.

Blade low. Shoulders tight. Boots silent even as he closed the distance.

The thing didn't react at first — as if unsure this prey would charge instead of flee.

That hesitation cost it.

The Ashwalker's first strike was clean — a horizontal slash meant to sever the front limb at the joint.

The blade hit.

It sank.

Like cutting through soaked cloth and bone—but the creature didn't bleed. It screeched.

Not with a mouth. But with every inch of its body.

A choral shriek, like flutes carved from lungs.

The creature reared back, limbs twisting in impossible angles, then slammed into the ground with a tremor that shook the ruins.

The Ashwalker rolled, came up on one knee, slashed again—

Missed.

The beast flowed around the strike, then lashed out with a limb that looked like a spine turned inside out.

It caught him across the ribs.

He staggered, cloak torn, blood painting the dust.

The girl watched, frozen, fists clenched, breath shallow.

Then she remembered the statues.

Faceless.

Facing inward.

Like a circle.

She turned and sprinted back into the sanctum.

The Ashwalker parried two strikes, dodged a third, and barely avoided a fourth by letting the blade fall from his grip and rolling beneath the creature's bulk.

He snatched it back mid-roll.

Slid through its legs.

Came up swinging.

This time, he struck true — cleaving a deep gash along the creature's underbelly.

It reeled, limbs thrashing wildly, gouging the earth, smashing pillars.

Then—

Light.

The creature stopped.

All at once.

A thin blue glow had erupted behind it.

The girl stood inside the circle of statues.

She hadn't touched anything — just stood there, barefoot, weaponless.

And the air around her shimmered.

The Ashwalker's eyes widened.

He didn't speak.

He simply moved.

He used the creature's pause to leap onto its back, drive his blade into the center of its spine, and twist.

It howled again — but now the sound was softer.

Draining.

The glow grew brighter.

The creature shuddered — and for a moment, its body rippled like a mirage.

Then it split.

A crack down its center. As if unzipped.

It fell in on itself, limbs folding, bones collapsing inward like wet paper.

And then—

Gone.

The girl staggered out of the sanctum, collapsing onto her knees.

He caught her before she hit the ground.

Her voice shook. "What… was that?"

He looked toward where the creature had died.

The earth was already swallowing the remains.

"A bone harrow," he said.

"From where?"

"Where the gods buried their mistakes."

The Ashwalker tended to her wounds first.

Just scrapes. A bruised palm. But her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

"Why didn't it kill us?" she asked.

"It tried."

"No," she said. "It could've. Before you struck. Before I found the statues. It didn't move like it was hunting. It moved like…"

"…it was testing," he finished.

She looked up. "So it was sent."

He nodded once.

"Then who—?"

He didn't answer. But she saw the way his jaw clenched.

Later, as the fire crackled low, she sat across from him in silence.

Then finally: "That circle. What was it?"

"A ward."

"Old magic?"

"Older than magic."

She furrowed her brow. "Then how did I activate it?"

"You stood where the first sacrifices stood," he said. "It remembers shape more than blood."

She shivered. "So that shrine was built to kill things like that."

"No," he said. "To contain them."

She blinked. "But it helped us."

He looked at the stars.

"It helped you."

She didn't sleep that night.

Neither did he.

Not because of fear — but because the fire didn't crack the way it should.

Because the shadows moved wrong again.

Because far in the distance, a second whistling echoed — soft, broken, like something learning to mimic the first.

They weren't alone anymore.

They hadn't been for days.

The Ashwalker stared out into the dark and whispered a name.

Not to her.

Not to the gods.

But to himself.

"Oron-Kael…"