Skevix was a wretched thing.

  He crouched in a shadowed recess of the cavern, his wiry frame trembling with hunger, exhaustion, and the coughing fits that rattled through his chest. Each breath scraped thin and sharp, like his ribs were trying to claw their way out. Filthy rags clung to him, stiff with dirt, sweat, and whatever else had soaked into them over the last few days.

  He watched the others with dull, sunken eyes.

  The tribe lingered in scattered knots across the cavern, snarling and shoving at one another, each one ready to bite or claw at the slightest insult. Skevix’s gaze drifted to the chieftain as it barked at a nearby goblin, its guttural voice echoing through the chamber. A brutal kick ended the argument, dropping the unlucky goblin to the ground in a gasping heap.

  Skevix let himself smirk.

  Only for a heartbeat.

  Attention was dangerous. Attention meant pain. He had learned that lesson too many times.

  His stomach cramped, twisting hard enough to make him fold in on himself. He pressed his thin hands to his belly, trying to quiet the hunger gnawing at him. Earlier, he had dared to snatch a half?gnawed bone left momentarily unattended. The scent of old marrow still clung to it, faint but tempting.

  Another goblin had seen him.

  He never saw the blow coming.

  The strike had slammed him into the cavern wall, jagged stone scraping his back. The laughter that followed was harsh and guttural, echoing long after the pain faded. His ribs still throbbed from it.

  So he stayed in the shadows, rubbing his aching side, watching, waiting.

  Hatred simmered quietly.

  For his kin, for the chieftain, for himself.

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  The cavern they had fled to was cold and barren. Only sparse patches of dim fungi clung to the walls, offering no warmth and little light. Their meager supplies were long gone, their retreat too chaotic to carry anything useful. Desperation hung over the tribe like a foul stench.

  And no fire. Not even the brittle mushroom stalk fires they used to make in the old tunnels. Nothing here burned. Nothing warmed. Everything stayed cold.

  Skevix hated the cold almost as much as he hated the chieftain.

  The air itself felt wrong. Thin. Empty. Like the Deep had taken something from them when they fled the lower tunnels.

  Skevix could breathe it, but every inhalation carried the reek of rot and unwashed bodies. It made him snarl softly as his fingers tightened around a shard of bone, a pathetic trophy from some long?dead creature. He imagined sinking it into the throat of the fool who had led them here, the chieftain who had thought they could stand their ground, the coward who had fled when their home fell.

  His thoughts drifted to food. They always did.

  He remembered the snails they had found in a damp tunnel days ago. Pale things, soft and slick, clinging to the stone. The tribe had torn into them fast, shells cracking, slime dribbling down their chins. Skevix had been too slow, too small, shoved aside before he could grab even one.

  They had jeered at him for it, called him useless, weak, slow.

  He remembered that well.

  He also remembered the sounds later, the groans, the whimpers, the bodies curled on the stone clutching their bellies. The chieftain roaring in frustration. The stink of sickness filling the tunnels.

  Skevix had watched from a distance, arms wrapped around his empty stomach, and felt something close to joy.

  Let them hurt. Let them suffer. He had the last laugh that day.

  And now, he would eat a snail whole if he found one. Consequences be damned. Anything was better than this hollow ache.

  Scavenging parties had been sent out again and again by that mockery of a leader. Each time, fewer goblins returned. Some limped back bleeding, others never came back at all, claimed by whatever prowled this barren stretch of the Deep. Their failure only stoked the chieftain’s rage. He greeted them with snarled curses and wild blows, as though beatings might shake food from empty hands.

  Soon after, thirst became a new threat. The tribe had been reduced to drinking from a shallow pool of fetid water near the cavern wall, its surface thick with scum and unknown filth. Every sip was a risk, but what choice did they have?

  Skevix recognized the small mercy left to him. Being too weak to be sent on the scavenging runs, he avoided the chieftain’s furious punishments and the unseen threats beyond the cavern. He leaned back against the stone wall and pulled his rags tighter around his bony shoulders. The pitiful hides did little to blunt the cold’s bite.

  Sleep crept over him slowly.

  His mind buzzed with broken scraps of thought, anger, misery, and the small, mean spite that kept him alive when strength could not.