The Whispering Wood was alive.

  Not with birds or the scuttling of night creatures—those things had long since fled. What remained was something older, something woven into the bones of the trees themselves. They spoke without voices, shifting, creaking, whispering in a language lost to men.

  Korrak moved through the gnarled forest, his breath steady, his sword strapped to his back. The air stank of magic—Velros’s magic. It clung to the trees, to the roots that clawed out of the frozen earth like grasping fingers.

  He stepped over bones half-swallowed by frost, their shapes twisted, elongated. Some were human. Some had been human once.

  The path to Helm’s Reach was clear.

  And something was waiting.

  The ruins loomed at the base of the Cairn Peaks, blackened stone half-buried in frost. Once, this had been a temple. A place where men had prayed to gods that no longer listened. Now it was a graveyard, a monument to Velros’s corruption.

  And at its gates, Gorthak stood waiting.

  Korrak had heard his name whispered across dying villages. A beast of a man. A thing that killed without joy, without cruelty—just the quiet, methodical precision of something that had been made for it.

  Gorthak was massive, taller than any man should be, his body wrapped in thick furs and dried leathers, stitched together from the skins of things he had torn apart. His head was shaved, the scalp marred by ritual scars, some fresh, some so old they had become part of the landscape of his flesh.

  He grinned at the sight of Korrak, revealing yellowed, uneven teeth.

  “They said you’d come,” Gorthak rumbled. His voice was like distant thunder, a slow roll through the dead air.

  Korrak did not speak.

  There was nothing to say.

  The wind howled between them.

  Then Gorthak dropped his furs, rolling his massive shoulders.

  He was not armed.

  Because he didn’t need to be.

  Gorthak did not kill with steel.

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  He killed with his hands.

  The beast moved first.

  He closed the distance with terrifying speed, his feet pounding against the frost-covered stone. The ground shook beneath his weight.

  Korrak did not retreat.

  He sidestepped at the last moment, Gorthak’s massive hands swiping just inches from his throat. Too close. Korrak twisted, driving his sword toward the beast’s ribs—

  Gorthak caught the blade.

  With his bare hand.

  Korrak had seen monsters shrug off steel before. But never a man.

  The beast’s fingers closed around the blade, blood welling from his palm, but his grin never wavered. His grip tightened.

  Then he wrenched the sword from Korrak’s grasp.

  Korrak barely had time to react before a fist like a battering ram slammed into his ribs.

  He felt something crack.

  He was airborne before he realized what had happened. His body slammed against a broken pillar, the impact sending shards of old stone and ice flying.

  Pain roared through his chest. But pain was nothing new.

  Gorthak laughed.

  The barbarian rose.

  They clashed again.

  Korrak fought like a storm, his fists driving into Gorthak’s ribs, elbows striking for weak points. He was smaller, but faster.

  But Gorthak…

  Gorthak did not feel pain.

  Every wound Korrak inflicted was ignored, the beast’s movements never faltering. He grabbed Korrak mid-strike, lifted him off the ground like a child—

  And slammed him into the earth.

  Korrak felt something snap.

  The world tilted.

  His breath hissed between his teeth, blood pooling in his mouth.

  Gorthak loomed over him, casting a shadow beneath the black sky.

  The beast grinned.

  “No one has ever bested me,” he murmured. “Not kings. Not warlords.” He leaned down, his breath reeking of meat and rot.

  “And certainly not you.”

  He wrapped his hands around Korrak’s throat.

  And began to squeeze.

  Darkness closed in.

  Korrak’s fingers scrabbled for anything—

  And found Gorthak’s dagger.

  The beast’s own weapon, still strapped to his side.

  Korrak’s fingers closed around the hilt.

  And plunged it deep into Gorthak’s throat.

  For the first time, the beast hesitated.

  His grip loosened.

  Korrak did not.

  He wrenched the dagger sideways, tearing through muscle, flesh, artery.

  Blood gushed, black in the moonlight.

  Gorthak staggered.

  Korrak forced himself up, ignoring the screaming in his ribs. He seized his own sword from where it had fallen.

  Gorthak reached for him.

  Korrak swung.

  The blade took the beast’s head.

  Gorthak’s body swayed.

  Then collapsed.

  The wind howled.

  Silence.

  Korrak stood over the corpse, his breath ragged. His body screamed with pain.

  But he did not fall.

  Not yet.

  His eyes lifted to the entrance of Helm’s Reach.

  A ruined temple. A burial ground for gods.

  And inside, something waited.

  Korrak knew now that Velros had accounted for this.

  Gorthak had not been meant to kill him.

  He had been meant to weaken him.

  Because inside…

  Rylana was waiting.

  And she would not fight him with strength.

  She would fight him with something far worse.