The tunnel swallowed them whole with little to no visibility, the scent of blood their guide.

Byung ran point, low and fast, boots skimming the stone as if the floor itself feared to slow him. His nose cut through the chaos like a blade: every breath sorted blood, death, smoke, and orc musk into a single, bright thread: Naz's scent wasn't as potent as the rest of them and the sharp iron of her blood. He had caught it three turns back. Maui had only just caught it now.

They burst into the first massacre without slowing, stepping over the corpse and Byung was visibly heartbroken by this.

Ten goblin bodies lay strewn like broken dolls, throats opened, chests caved, faces frozen in shock. A single set of huge boot prints cut through the carnage: Kraghul's. He had walked, not run. He had savored this massacre.

The second sighting was worse because there were even more goblins dead.

Twenty goblins, maybe more, hacked apart so thoroughly some limbs were unidentifiable. The air stank of bowels and terror-sweat. A much younger goblin's hand still clutched a wooden toy sword it had crafted because there wasn't enough weapons to go round. Kraghul had stepped over it without breaking stride.

Byung worried about Sneegle and Poggle but knew there was no need for him to do so because they weren't in this mine.

Maui's breath hitched. Byung felt her grief and fury boiling off her in waves, but he didn't stop, he couldn't stop.

"Keep moving," Byung commanded, voice raw. The fact he was walking on the ground and not seated on her shoulder like always conveyed the urgency quite well.

"She's still alive. Bleeding, but alive," Byung reassured her.

They descended the mine, there were so many passages that it was beginning to feel like a maze with numerous interconnected paths that had become visible due to Kraghul forcing his way through paths that were otherwise inaccessible.

The tunnels narrowed, the ceiling lowering until even Byung had to duck. The air grew colder, damper. These were the deep workings, abandoned decades ago. No one came here and Byung wasn't even sure Murkfang was aware of these paths.

However, Kraghul had exposed it tonight.

Byung's nose burned with new notes: torch smoke, spilled crimson fluids glowing faintly on the walls with dying torches on opposite sides, and beneath it all: Naz's blood, stronger now, mingled with the sour stink of an unfamiliar scent.

They burst into a cavern. It was vast, cathedral-like, supported by stone pillars. In the center, on a raised dais of black rock, the scene was empty.

Footprints were visible on the ground and smeared with fresh blood. A shallow cut traced a red line across the stone where Naz's belly had rested moments ago. A single boot print: huge, deep, leading away into a far tunnel that had never appeared on any map Byung had ever drawn.

The threat was gone but so was Naz.

Maui dropped to her knees beside the dais, fingers brushing the still-warm blood. Her axe clattered to the floor.

"No…" The word came out broken as she struggled to hold it together.

Byung stood frozen, nostrils flaring. The scent trail was fresh: less than five minutes old. Kraghul's heavy musk, Naz's body and blood, and beneath it the faint, rhythmic drip of more blood hitting stone as they moved. He must have carried her over his shoulder otherwise there would be an obvious trail on the ground if he dragged her along it.

And judging from the amount of blood, it was clear he had other purposes for her.

Naruz lay crumpled against a crate twenty paces away, one arm bent wrong, face a mask of blood and bruises. Her chest rose in shallow, wet gasps. Gribnox and Murkfang were nearby, both breathing but unconscious: Gribnox's ribs caved in, Murkfang curled protectively over him, knife still clutched in a blood-slick hand.

Maui crawled to Naruz, hands shaking as she pressed them to the orc's cheek.

"Naruz, talk to me," Maui pleaded, hoping she could tell them more about what happened here. Naruz's swollen eyes cracked open.

"He… took her," Maui rasped.

"Kraghul… said the baby… abomination… took her alive…" A cough rattled in her ruined chest, spraying red. "Deep… mine… that way…" Her finger pointed weakly toward the unmapped tunnel before her arm fell limp.

Maui's roar of grief and rage shook dust from the ceiling but Byung knew he needed to be level-headed or Naz would never be found. Byung was already planning their next move.

He knelt beside the blood trail, inhaling once more to lock the path in his mind: down, left, then sharp right into the unexplored paths of this place.

Why did Kraghul take her? Why not just finish her off here alongside the others? Why did he leave them alive? Byung had so many questions but one thing was obvious, Kraghul was having fun with them.

Maui rose, picking up her axe with hands that no longer shook. They shook no more because they were steady with purpose.

"He's not far," Byung said, voice flat and cold.

"Five minutes. Maybe less," Byung added.

"Then we have four minutes to catch him," Maui had regained her composure, eyes were pits of black fire.

Byung nodded once but the fact this orc was able to overpower all of them wasn't lost on him, this was a different monster they were dealing with.

They ran as fast as they could because time was against them and there was no telling how long he planned to keep her alive.

But Byung knew whatever he had planned was going to be brutal, this was why a part of him knew if Naz was beyond saving.

He would be the one to put her out of her misery rather than have her suffer a second longer.

The scent was getting stronger but Byung worried more about what came over him when he killed those orcs. he shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as he did and approaching another orc was stirring up that same excitement.

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