Chapter 4
KURSK
The air here is wrong.
There’s no ash, no tannin of bark smoke. No wet leather or forge heat to greet me when I rise. Just the scent of something... delicate. Sweet. Faintly spiced.
Books. Ink. And something like toasted bread with spice bark—cinnamon, Olivia called it.
I sit up from the low pallet she gave me—some cloth-and-feather contraption that tries to mimic a proper ground nest. It creaks under my weight like a dying animal, but it held through the night, barely.
The walls of her shelter are wood. Thin.
Cheap. Not a single defensive brace, no ward-carvings, no palisade.
There are windows in every room. Clear ones.
Just... open holes in the wall where any enemy can see in.
This is not a stronghold. It is a coffin waiting to happen.
I stalk through her dwelling like a sentry surveying enemy terrain. Her hearth is cold, mechanical. The heat it gives is artificial and tasteless. The ceiling hums with magic light orbs—unholy silent fire trapped in glass. I poke one with a claw. It zaps me.
I growl.
She keeps books—many of them. I find myself drawn to the shelves, brushing thick tomes with one hand. Some of the words are familiar now, burned into my mind by the Communion. Others are gibberish, even to my enchanted tongue. She lives in a world of stories. Of inked memory. There’s power in that.
But not the kind that keeps you alive in battle.
I stop at the wall mirror—an old one, framed in human relic-wood, flecked with age spots. I stare into the reflection.
My skin is paler now, faded from its deep umber to something almost... washed out. The magic here gnaws at me already. I can feel it.
I lean in close, teeth bared. “What has this world done to them?” I murmur. “So soft. So blind.”
The day passes without threat, but not without discomfort.
The cabin's systems baffle and infuriate me. I cannot conjure flame from her stove. The ‘toilet’ hums and howls with strange sorcery when I use it. The small cold box—a “fridge”—makes a grinding noise every time I open it. And every time I turn on the television, I am convinced I’ve glimpsed the screaming void.
When she finally returns, I hear her vehicle before I see it. Her iron beast growls and rattles as it approaches, chewing up the gravel road like a tired hound.
I brace myself near the door, spear in hand.
She steps in, looking tired but bright. “You didn’t burn the place down. I’m impressed.”
“Your fortress is fragile. Its bones creak like dying game.”
“It’s a house, Kursk.”
“I have seen sturdier cloth tents in the Veldthorn Pass.”
“Not everyone’s expecting a siege, okay?”
I grunt.
Behind her, two creatures enter.
Smaller humans, I think. Male. Lanky, loud, foul-smelling. One wears a shirt depicting a bleeding skull strapped to what I believe is a lute. The other has hair the color of mold and wears pants that hang too low to be battle-ready.
They stop. Stare. One whispers, “Dude, is that…?”
“He’s real.”
They look at Olivia.
She sighs. “This is Kursk. He’s a… musician.”
“What now?” I bark.
“From Gwar,” she says quickly.
The room goes silent.
I freeze. “What did you call me?”
“Gwar. You’re in Gwar. That’s your cover.”
My hands curl into fists. “Gwar is a cursed word.”
The shorter boy, Booger I think she called him, snorts. “Dude. That’s awesome. You are in Gwar. You look like Gwar.”
I hiss. “In my tongue, ‘Gwar’ refers to a weapon made from sacrilegious entrails—used to defile the sacred groves of Ar-Droth. You named me after that which my people loathe.”
The one called Burnout leans closer. “Can I touch your abs?”
“No.”
“What kind of music do you play?” Booger asks.
I pause. “Battle songs.”
“Like metal?”
“Made of iron, usually.”
They both gasp like I’ve just confessed to murdering a unicorn.
“I told you,” Olivia says, rolling her eyes, “he’s not from around here.”
“No kidding,” Burnout breathes. “You dating him?”
Olivia chokes on air. “WHAT?!”
“I mean, you’re bringing him home to your cabin in the woods. Classic cryptid-courtship scenario.”
“He’s not a cryptid. And I’m not—no. Absolutely not.”
Booger raises both hands. “Hey, no judgment. If I found a hot death-shaman in the woods, I’d bring her home too.”
Burnout nods sagely. “Respect.”
Olivia turns to me, glaring. “Don’t make that face.”
“I am not making a face.”
“You look amused.”
“I am always amused when your kind dig holes with their tongues.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I am very possible. I am here.”
She groans and waves at the door. “Out. Both of you.”
Booger and Burnout shuffle backward, still grinning like feral possums. “Bye, Mr. Gwar!”
“Say hi to your battle drums!”
“Leave,” I growl, spear in hand.
They flee.
Later, after the sun dies behind the trees and the world turns violet, Olivia sits at the tiny kitchen table, cradling a mug of steaming brown liquid.
“You handled that... mostly okay,” she says.
“I did not kill them.”
“That’s the new bar for success, huh?”
“In battle, yes.”
She smirks.
I pace the room again, restless. This place is too still. Too open. No watchfires. No brothers. No wind howling through stone. Just strange boxes humming and Olivia watching me with those deep, unreadable eyes.
“You are brave,” I say again.
“You keep saying that.”
“It remains true.”
She sips her drink, shrugging. “I’m just trying not to die.”
“That is bravery, Olivia of House Wilkins. Not the absence of fear—but the will to move through it.”
For a moment, she doesn’t reply. Just watches me.
“You can stay. For now. But don’t eat all the rations this time. And if anyone comes by, you’re not Kursk the Battle Bard of Gwar, okay? You’re my… cousin from Norway.”
“Norway?”
“Close enough.”
I do not understand the small ones. They are soft in body, chaotic in manner, and speak like goblins who have overdosed on bloodroot mead.
Yet here they are—Booger and Burnout—sitting cross-legged on Olivia’s rug, each nursing a foul-smelling can of “Monster Energy” like it’s some sacred tonic.
Their fingers are stained with orange dust from something called “Flamin’ Hot Doritos,” and their eyes gleam with unholy glee as they pepper me with questions.
“Okay, but like, if you had to pick,” Booger says, jabbing his finger at me. “Would you rather go toe to toe with a Balrog or fight, like, fifteen Chuck Norrises?”
“What is a Balrog?” I ask.
“It’s a big fire demon.”
“Then I would kill it.”
“And Chuck Norris?”
“I do not know this Norris, but if he bleeds, he dies.”
They both burst into laughter, hooting like hyenas.
Burnout raises his can. “Dude, you’re the most metal thing to ever walk this town.”
“You honor me,” I say solemnly.
“Swear to God,” Booger says, holding up two orange-dusted fingers, “we won’t say a word. No videos. No posts. This is like, sacred.”
Burnout nods. “We’re gonna protect your identity like it’s Batman’s.”
“I do not know this Bat Man,” I reply, “but if he stands with honor, then we are brothers.”
“DUDE!”
They are absurd. But they are loyal, in their own crude way.
I watch them, studying the sharpness of their banter, the easy speed of their deception. Goblin-spirited, yes. Tricksters. But not malicious. They offer no tribute, no coin, no promises of power. Only silence… in exchange for tales of steel and song, and their foul elixirs.
Strange allies.
But acceptable.
Later, after the goblin youths have slithered back to their lairs with promises to “text” and “DM memes,” Olivia stands in front of me with a pile of folded cloth.
“Okay. Time for you to look less like a barbarian and more like someone who doesn’t get tased on sight.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I am not a barbarian.”
“You’re shirtless and carrying a spear.”
“My people would find this under-dressed.”
“Well, my people call that ‘probable cause.’ Arms up.”
She throws a shirt—tight, black, and clearly not made for someone of my proportions—over my head. I try to wrestle it on but it catches on my tusks, nearly ripping. The trousers aren’t better—stiff, constricting denim that binds my legs like a trap.
“This is not battle attire,” I growl, yanking the shirt off again. “I can’t move in this. I’ll die wearing this.”
“No one’s asking you to breakdance in it. You just need to not draw attention.”
I look at myself in the hallway mirror again, a scowling green bulk stuffed into human clothes like a boar in wedding garb. “This will not do.”
She throws up her hands. “Fine! Then do your thing. Orc magic. Orc glamour. Whatever you used to kiss-translate me into knowing your language.”
I blink. Then smirk.
“You wish for me to activate the talisman?”
“Yes. Just do it before I find you a fanny pack and Crocs.”
I reach beneath my chest straps and retrieve the old talisman of my chieftain line—an obsidian shard set in bone and iron. I hold it to my forehead, close my eyes, and whisper the shaping words in Old Tongue.
Heat coils down my arms. The illusion spreads over me like a second skin, wrapping my flesh in false shape.
When I open my eyes, the mirror shows something else.
A human man. Bare-chested still—compromise—with muscles like boulders and a jaw cut from statues. My eyes remain my own, glowing faintly gold, and the spear… it shifts, becomes a walking stick to human eyes. Still deadly.
I turn to Olivia.
She’s staring.
Mouth slightly open.
“…You didn’t think to do this first?” she asks, voice cracking just a bit.
“It requires energy. And the illusion only lasts a few hours.”
“Well.” She clears her throat. “You look… stupid hot.”
“Hot?”
“Never mind.”
This “farmers’ market” is not what I expect.
When Olivia first speaks of it, I imagine a trading pit, something akin to the Harvest Holds of my homeland—men and women yelling, bartering livestock for grain, children scampering beneath the legs of stoic guards. Blood, sweat, sun.
But here in Walnut Falls, it is a scattering of quaint tents in a tidy square, all pastel colors and chalkboard signs. No warriors. No beasts of burden. Just baskets of fruit, pots of flowers, and elders with too much time on their hands.
Beneath it all, the stench coils.
The Vorfaluka has passed this way.
I feel it before I see it—an unnatural chill seeping up from a storm drain tucked near the edge of the lot. Olivia is talking to a woman selling hand-knit scarves. The woman glances at me, eyes widening slightly, but doesn’t flinch. Instead, she whispers something to Olivia that makes her laugh.
Strange.
I crouch by the grate, careful not to draw too much attention. The iron bars are rusted, but the space below is vast—black and yawning, breathing cold air like a dying god’s exhale.
There. Along the edge. A trace smear of blackened blood. Old, but not ancient. The creature is close.
I rise slowly.
“You okay?” Olivia calls, weaving through a cluster of old men arguing over cucumbers.
“There’s a taint here,” I say.
She gives me a look. “Could you not say it like that?”
“The creature passed this way. Beneath.”
She glances at the drain, then back at me. “It’s probably using the sewer system.”
I nod.
“And now you’re going to tell me we need to go down there?”
I nod again.
“Nope. Nuh-uh. That’s how horror movies start.”
Despite my grim focus, the townspeople... do not seem entirely afraid of me.
They stare, yes. But not with fear. With interest. One woman asks if I’m a “WWE stuntman.” I tell her I do not know this ‘double-you-double-you-ee,’ but if it involves battle, perhaps I am.
Olivia rolls her eyes. “He’s new in town. Norwegian exchange program.”
“Explains the accent,” the woman says, handing over a basket of scones. “And the biceps.”
We walk on.
Children chase each other between stalls. A man sells raw honey from glass jars that sparkle in the light. A wrinkled woman with hands like twisted bark offers us peach preserves in tiny paper cups.
I sniff it. Sweet. Cloying. Poisonous, maybe?
“No, it’s jam,” Olivia whispers. “Just try it.”
I do. And... it is good.
Dangerously good.
As we walk, she talks. More than before.
Her voice is lighter now, not weighted with suspicion or fear. She laughs at small things—my confusion at a sign reading “locally-sourced arugula,” or the way I duck instinctively when a pigeon flies too close.
“You’re not exactly subtle,” she teases.
“I was not forged for subtlety.”
“No kidding. You walk like the ground owes you money.”
“Does it not?”
She snorts, shaking her head.
I catch her smiling when she thinks I’m not looking.
This place is strange. Weak on the surface, but there is strength here. In her. In the way she guides me through her world, fielding questions with dry wit and answering danger with defiance.
There is steel beneath her softness.
She does not wear it on her back, like I do. She carries it in her tongue. Her stance. Her refusal to be broken.
We round the far edge of the market, past a table stacked with loaves of something called “zucchini bread,” when the stench hits me full force.
Rot.
Fresh.
Blood was spilled here. Not long ago.
I crouch, ignoring the murmurs from a trio of young mothers sipping iced drinks.
The scent curls under my tongue—hot metal and meat. The Vorfaluka was here, and recently.
I rise, eyes scanning the shadows.
“What is it?” Olivia asks.
“It hunted here.”
Her face pales.
“Did it kill anyone?”
“No. But it fed.” I pause, hand tightening on the false cane that masks my spear. “It is testing your world. Stretching its limbs. It grows stronger the longer it feeds.”
Her lips part. “And the longer it stays, the more people will die.”
I nod once.
She steps closer. Not flinching. Not trembling. “Then we stop it.”