Chapter 48: Unclean Hands

  The portal spits us out like an afterthought.

  One moment I'm surrounded by violet light and a sensation like falling through water, the next I'm stumbling onto solid ground, my legs barely remembering how to support my weight. The transition is jarring enough that I almost collapse, catching myself on one knee before I can fully eat dirt.

  Gorvash crashes down beside me with considerably less grace, his broken arms making it impossible to catch himself. He hits hard and rolls, a pained grunt escaping him. Thrak'zul materializes next, somehow managing to land on his feet despite his injuries, though his stance is unsteady. Kor'ik appears last, immediately dropping into a defensive crouch, his throat sac pulsing rapidly as he scans for threats.

  We're back in the Temple.

  And it is completely silent. No angry Orcish shouts. No drawn weapons. Just the regular background noises of the Sunken City

  .

  I force myself to my feet, ignoring the protests from muscles that have been pushed far beyond their limits. The brand on my forehead lies dormant. No burning nor pain at all.

  "The brand," Kor'ik says quietly, one webbed hand pressed against his own. "It's... inactive."

  "Magic over" Thrak'zul rumbles in his broken Lizardman's tongue, his eyes narrowing as he surveys our surroundings.

  Fortunately it seems so.

  But the absence of Orcs is more confusing than reassuring. I'd expected an ambush, with the Orc Chief reclaiming his "property" and confiscating whatever prize we'd won.

  Instead, there's nothing. Just the thrones and stones of the temple entrance looming ahead of us, exactly as we'd left it.

  Except…

  "Grib," Gorvash says, his voice hollowed out.

  I see it then. What remains of our companion.

  The Bog Goblin's body lies near the temple steps, partially scavenged. Someone has been at his corpse, violently butchering him.

  My stomach turns from the gore and what it represents. Grib died buying us time to escape into the trial. We'd known that. But seeing the aftermath, the casual desecration of one of us and who'd shown such kindness and bravery…

  My throat tightens.

  Kor'ik makes a sound I've never heard from him. Something between a hiss and a wail, high-pitched and keening. His legs buckle and he drops to his knees, both hands pressed against the ground.

  "No," he whispers. "No, no, no..."

  The translator has been holding it together through sheer force of will, maintaining his composure even when the situation demanded much more than he was expected to give.

  But this shattered him.

  "He saved us," Kor'ik chokes out, his throat sac pulsing erratically. "He gave us a chance, and we left him to... to be..."

  He can't finish. The words dissolve into that same keening sound, and his whole body starts to shake.

  I want to say something. Should say something. But what comfort can I offer?

  That Grib's sacrifice mattered? That his death had meaning? These are human platitudes, and I'm not even sure they're true. Maybe Grib's death was just another casualty in a world that doesn't care about meaning or sacrifice or any of the narratives we construct to make suffering bearable.

  Thrak'zul moves first.

  The big Frogman approaches Grib's corpse with slow, deliberate steps. His movements are stiff, as he's clearly in pain, but there's a ritual quality to how he positions himself. He kneels beside the body and places one massive hand on what remains of Grib's chest.

  Then he does something unexpected.

  His lips move, but I can't understand the words. Too quiet, too personal. A prayer, maybe. Or a warrior's acknowledgment.

  When he's finished, he sits back on his heels and simply... wait.

  The gesture is powerful in its simplicity. No grand speeches. No elaborate ceremony. Just recognition. This being mattered. His death should not pass unmarked.

  "Bog Goblin tradition," Kor'ik says, his voice steadier now, but still rough. "I know this. We return their dead to water. To the marshes that birthed them."

  He wipes at his eyes with the back of one webbed hand, then pushes himself upright. "We should... we should give him a proper burial. What we can offer."

  Together, we gather what remains of Grib's body. It's grim work, made worse by our injuries and exhaustion. Gorvash can barely help with his broken arms, but he stands watch, scanning the surroundings for any threats while the rest of us work.

  We carry him to the temple entrance, where water pools at the base of the ancient steps. The same threshold we'd crossed what feels like a lifetime ago.

  "In my people's culture," Kor'ik says quietly, "we believe water connects all things. That the marshes remember. That those who rise from water never truly leave."

  I don't know if I believe that. The scientist in me sees only decomposition, the recycling of organic matter back into the ecosystem. But maybe that's its own form of remembrance. Grib's body is going back to his origin, becoming part of the endless cycle of life and death.

  We lower him into the water as gently as we can. The dark liquid accepts him without sound or ceremony, and within moments the ripples smooth out as if claiming one of its own.

  Kor'ik speaks something in a language I don't understand. Bog Goblin, maybe, or something older. His throat sac pulses in rhythm with the words, and despite not knowing their meaning, I can feel the weight of them. Farewell. Safe journey. Thanks for the sacrifice.

  When he falls silent, we stand there for a long moment. Four survivors paying respects to a fifth who bought their survival with his life.

  Finally, Thrak'zul straightens. "We honor dead, living," he says simply.

  It's practical to the point of being cold, but he's not wrong. The best way to honor Grib's sacrifice is to make sure it wasn't in vain. To survive and escape this place.

  "We need to move," I say, hating how the words sound but knowing they're necessary. "The Orcs might return. And we're in no condition to fight."

  Outside the Temple, we immediately encounter evidence of what happened while we were gone.

  The battlefield is exactly where we left it. Bodies of Orcs and Gnolls scattered across the muddy ground, already beginning to decompose in the humid air.

  Blood has soaked into the earth, turning the mud a rusty brown. Weapons lie abandoned where they fell, crude Orcish axes, Gnoll daggers, a broken spear with its shaft snapped in half.

  And there's a blood trail. Near the entrance there are drag marks leading away from the main battle site, accompanied by sporadic drops and smears of blood indicating that something wounded made it away from here.

  "The damn Stalker," I say, pointing out the trail to the others.

  Thrak'zul grunts acknowledgment. "Fled. Smart."

  The Gnoll had been formidable in combat. Fast, vicious, and intelligent enough to know when to retreat. I'd half-expected it to be among the dead, but apparently its survival instincts were strong enough to abandon his pack.

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  "Should we follow?" Kor'ik asks, though his tone suggests he already knows the answer.

  "In our condition?" I shake my head. "We'd be lucky to catch a slug. Let it go."

  Then hunger hits me, making my vision swim. My regeneration has been working overtime, patching holes and mending breaks and keeping me alive through injuries that should have killed me.

  It eats me from the inside. My body cannibalizing itself to fuel the regeneration process. Muscle mass being converted to energy, fat reserves long since depleted, my very bones beginning to leach minerals to keep essential systems functioning.

  And apparently I'm not the only one suffering. Gorvash's eyes have that same hollow, desperate quality. Thrak'zul moves with the careful economy of someone rationing energy they don't have. Even Kor'ik looks drawn.

  We're all starving.

  "Weapons first," Thrak'zul says, already moving toward the battlefield. "Then food."

  The practical brutality of it almost makes me laugh. Of course. Strip the dead for equipment, then figure out our next meal.

  My first find is a pair of daggers among the debris. Simple weapons, iron blades with leather-wrapped grips, but functional.

  Having zero training in weapons, and my combat experience before this world consisting of few school scuffles, I think I prefer to go simple. Point the sharp end at enemies, try not to stab myself. I think I can manage that much.

  The daggers feel awkward in my hands. I test the balance, noting how the weight distributes along the blade. Adequate. Not great, but adequate.

  Thrak'zul claims a spear from one of the fallen Orcs. A long weapon with a leaf-shaped blade, the shaft made from some kind of hardwood that's proven durable enough to survive the battle intact. He tests it with a few practice thrusts that instantly demonstrates him as having plenty of experience. After a few stabs he grunts with satisfaction.

  Kor'ik finds a club. Not elegant, just a chunk of dense wood with a heavy knot at one end. But in his webbed hands, it looks threatening enough. He gives it a few experimental swings, and he also appears satisfied.

  Gorvash stands empty-handed, his broken arms making it impossible to wield anything. The big Lizardman looks diminished by his injuries, frustration warring with resignation within his eyes.

  "They'll heal." I say to him, catching his look. "You'll be back to full strength soon."

  He just nods, but I can see he is weighting his options. If we get into another fight, he'll have to rely entirely on his natural weapons and his considerable mass. Against prepared opponents, that might not be enough.

  With weapons gathered, we face the final question. The one we've all been avoiding.

  Food.

  Thrak'zul speaks first, cutting through the unspoken tension. "Bodies rot soon. No waste."

  From a purely logical standpoint, he's absolutely right. The corpses represent protein, calories, nutrients. Everything our bodies desperately need to keep functioning.

  Gorvash nods immediately. "Is honorable," he says. "Use their strength. Make their deaths matter."

  I feel my stomach clench. Not from revulsion exactly, but from the weight of what they're suggesting. What we're about to do.

  The man I used to be would be horrified. The cautious scientist who studied evolution from the safety of his laboratory, and never had to confront the brutal realities of survival. He'd see it as a moral failing. A descent into barbarism. The loss of humanity in the most literal sense.

  But again, Edgar is dead.

  He died being torn apart by a Komodo dragon because he was too weak to fight back, too civilized to recognize that the universe doesn't care about morality when faced with the simple equation of predator and prey.

  I'm what came after. Something that wears his memories like ill-fitting clothes, but has learned new lessons in a harder classroom.

  And I've done this before.

  The memory surfaces spontaneously. Freshly hatched as a Minor Lizardling, barely able to stand, fighting for scraps of that strange meat the giant Lizardman threw into our nursery cave.

  Just after that, my first kill…

  But that was different, my instincts had to override any vestigial human squeamishness.

  This time, I know exactly what I'm doing.

  I look at the Orc corpses. At the Gnoll bodies. At the flesh that represents survival versus the moral boundaries that represent who I used to be.

  The hunger screams at me.

  "Protein," I mumble to myself. "Approximately twenty grams per hundred grams of muscle tissue. Essential amino acids. Iron. B vitamins. Lipids for energy storage…"

  I'm doing it again. Retreating into science. Turning horror into data points and nutritional facts. It's a coping mechanism, I know, but it's also the only way I can process this without going insane.

  Gorvash is already moving toward the nearest Orc corpse. "Start with pigs," he says pragmatically. "Heard they taste great."

  Well… who am I to disagree.

  I force my feet to move. Force my hands to draw the Gnoll daggers. Force myself to approach the nearest body.

  The Orc whose throat I slashed.

  Kneeling beside it, the daggers suddenly feel very heavy in my hands.

  I make the first cut.

  The hide is tough, tougher than I expected. I have to saw through it, the blade catching on thick dermis layers before finally breaking through. Blood wells up, but not much, since the heart long since stopped.

  Just enough to coat my hands.

  Then comes the smell. Both Metallic and organic. The particular scent of fresh death that somehow blends into taste, coating the back of my throat.

  I cut deeper. Find muscle. Begin the process of separating meat from bone.

  It should be horrible. It is horrible. Every part of my human conditioning screams that this is wrong, that I've crossed a line that can't be uncrossed.

  But the hunger…

  The first bite is hell.

  I force myself to chew, but I’m almost overwhelmed with disgust. So I immediately swallow.

  My body recognizes the protein even as my mind rebels against it. This raw texture feels wrong, tougher than beef, gamier than pork, with an aftertaste that's distinctly unpleasant.

  But it's food. Beats dying from starvation any day.

  So I take another bite. Then another.

  By the tenth bite, it's easier.

  Never easy. But... manageable.

  Around me, the others do the same. Thrak'zul first cuts up the meat and then proceeds to gulp them with practiced ease, while Gorvash just tears at his voraciously. The translator eats in silence, his expression carefully neutral, but his shoulders remain rigid.

  We don't speak. What is there to say?

  This is what survival looks like. Raw, brutal and stripped of all the civilized veneers that make us feel superior to the world's other predators.

  And I hate how easy it becomes.

  I hate how, by the time I've consumed enough to quiet the screaming hunger, I'm barely thinking about what I'm eating. Just mechanically taking bites, chewing, swallowing, repeating.

  I hate that some part of me recognizes this will probably not be the last time. That in this world, where death comes frequently and food is scarce, these choices will present themselves again.

  And finally, I hate that I know I'll make the same choice. Every time.

  Because the alternative is dying. And I've died once already. I'm not eager for a second attempt.

  When we're finally sated, or at least no longer in immediate danger of starving, we sit in silence among the bodies. None of us meets the others' eyes. Not shame exactly, but it's close enough to make conversation feel wrong.

  I look at my hands. At the blood coating my claws. At the ring on my middle finger, the three grey stones catching the fading light.

  I've come so far from Dr. Edgar Sarti. From the man who studied evolution through a microscope. Who theorized about adaptation and survival without ever having to test those theories in the crucible of actual life and death.

  Have I fallen? Or evolved?

  I don't know. The scientist in me wants to analyze, to categorize, to find meaning in the transformation.

  But maybe there is no meaning. Maybe this is just what happens when you strip away everything but the basic imperative to survive. You do what's necessary. You cross the lines you thought were uncrossable. You become what you need to be.

  And you live with it.

  "We should move," Kor’ik says, finally breaking the silence. "Before dark. Find a safe place."

  He's right. We're still in hostile territory. Still wounded and exhausted despite the meal. We need shelter, water, and time to recover.

  I push myself to my feet, ignoring the protests from muscles that are already starting to repair themselves. The ring feels heavy on my finger.

  We gather what we can carry. Strips of meat wrapped in salvaged cloth. Water skins taken from dead Orcs. Extra weapons just in case.

  As we start to walk away from the carnage, something finally clicks in my exhausted mind.

  We're free.

  Of course the brand still marks us, I can feel its weight even if it's dormant, and we're still trapped in this godforsaken Sunken City with no clear path to escape.

  But the Gnolls are dead.

  No one is telling us where to go. No one is deciding whether we live or die based on their convenience.

  Just the four of us now. Four survivors in a hostile world, injured and starving and barely holding together. But perhaps, this is the starting point where we can forge our path.

  I look at my companions. None of us are in good shape. None of us know what comes next.

  But we're finally free to figure it out ourselves.

  The irony isn't lost on me. We gained our freedom by losing Grib and becoming exactly the kind of brutal, survival-focused creatures that this world demands.

  Maybe that's the price of freedom here. You don't get to keep your hands clean.

  And so, we leave the battlefield behind.