Chapter 28: Into Wilder-East
"Just two more days, Rusty, and we'll be there."
I had finally named my horse.
I didn't know why I picked Rusty. He wasn't rusty-colored, and there was nothing rusty about him. But the name fit, and that was enough.
My grandfather used to tell me stories about the Wilder-East.
Only a third of it was habitable, he said. The livable part was buried deep inside the region, hidden beyond toxic swamps, dead forests, ghost-mists, and things that made men turn back before they even understood what they had seen.
Most people never tried entering it.
And the few who did usually had a death wish.
By dawn the next day, I began searching for what Grandfather once told me I would need if I ever went there: ghost spider plant, spirit bamboo palm, and aloe vera.
It took me half the day to find all three.
The ghost spider plant was the hardest—thin white roots spread over black stones like a dead hand trying to crawl back into the earth. The spirit bamboo palm grew in clusters near wet ground, its stalks pale green and strangely cold to the touch. Aloe was easiest to find, though I still had to cut through thorn brush to get at it.
I crushed all three together with the back of my knife, mixed the pulp with a little water, and swallowed it.
It tasted like rotten bark and bitter slime.
If Grandfather warned me about toxins, then I knew the danger ahead wasn't ordinary poison.
By evening, the trees had started changing.
Leaves thinned.Bark darkened.
Birdsong vanished.
Even Rusty grew uneasy, flicking his ears at sounds I couldn't hear.
When we reached the edge of the swamp the next morning, I knew I could take him no farther.
"Hey, Rusty," I said, removing the saddle and gear. "You'll have to stay here, buddy."
He neighed unhappily and stamped the ground.
"I don't know if the swamp is safe for horses," I said, rubbing his neck. "Truth be told, I don't even know if it's safe for me."
Rusty shoved his nose against my shoulder.
"Yeah," I muttered, "I don't like it either."
I left him with what feed I could spare and tied nothing to him. If danger came, I wanted him free to run.
"Farewell for now, Rusty."
He watched me go like I was doing something stupid.
Maybe I was.
The swamp swallowed the world in silence.
The mud was black at first—thick, warm, and greasy around my boots. The dead trees rose from it like burnt bones. Mist curled around their trunks and drifted low across the ground, never lifting high enough to let me see far ahead.
At first I thought the ghost stories had been exaggerated.
Then I started seeing people.
A woman standing between two dead trees, holding a lantern with no flame.
A boy knee-deep in mud, staring at me with my own face.
A man hanging upside down from a branch, smiling while crows pecked at his eyes.
Every time I blinked, they were gone.
I kept walking.
The air turned heavier, then sweeter, then foul again. More than once I felt sure someone was following me just out of sight. Once I even drew my sword and turned, ready to swing.
No one was there.
Only mist.
Only dead trees.
At some point I stopped measuring distance and started measuring survival.
One more patch of dry ground.
One more cluster of roots.
One more hour without collapsing face-first into poison mud.
By the time I realized the ground was changing, I was too tired to care.
The black mud became brown.
Then firmer.
Then merely wet.
The air grew easier to breathe.
And a few minutes later, I stepped onto dry land.
I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, mud up to my knees, and looked ahead.
There was a windmill.
Not ruined. Not abandoned.
Standing.
Behind it, the land opened into something stranger still—cleared ground, old training space, and the feeling that eyes had already found me.
Grandfather once told me the Wilder-East was always full of Hunters.
Especially the young ones, still in training.
But I saw no one.
That made it worse.
I stepped out from the treeline and looked around openly.
Too quiet.
Too clean.
Too empty.
Either they had left this place long ago…or they already knew I was coming.
And were waiting.