The mule pulled reluctantly, hooves squelching in the mire of blood and mud. The crude sled scraped across the ground, carrying the warrior’s weight with a low groan of wood against soil. His body swayed with each step, bound tight, his face half-hidden beneath the fall of his blood-matted hair.

The girl walked a few paces behind, her eyes darting across the field as though the dead might yet rise. She flinched when a crow cawed overhead, its wings beating slow circles above the corpses. The smell was worse now, as the sun climbed higher and warmed the gore.

“Why must we drag him from here?” she muttered, her voice sharp in the silence. “Better to leave him. His kind only bring more war.”

The shaman said nothing. Her staff tapped against the earth, steady as a heartbeat. The girl scowled, clutching her bundle tighter, and looked away.

The path out of the battlefield wound between toppled banners and broken spears. Pools of blood gleamed in the light, their surfaces rippling when the mule’s hooves disturbed them. Rats scattered at their approach, dragging scraps of flesh back into the fog.

As they climbed a rise of broken earth, the girl cast one last look over the sea of corpses. From above, the field seemed endless, a red ocean stretching to the horizon. Her stomach turned.

At the crest, the shaman paused. She raised her gaze to the sky, where the fog thinned and the first clear rays of dawn broke through. Her lips moved soundlessly, as if in quiet prayer.

The girl tugged at her sleeve impatiently. “Come. Let’s go before the stench eats through our skin.”

The shaman lowered her staff, eyes narrowing at the treeline beyond. The forest loomed dark and still, its shadow like a wall against the bleeding dawn.

“Do not be so eager, child,” she murmured. “The dead do not trouble us. It is the living we must fear.”

The girl frowned, not understanding. But as they descended the ridge and left the battlefield behind, the crimson fog seemed to cling to their backs like a warning that refused to let go.