Skarnex, largest of the remaining greenskins, stood at the center of what had once been their camp, his broad frame rising above the hunched, skeletal shapes that drifted around him. The cavern air clung to his skin, cold and wet, carrying the sour stink of rot that had seeped into every corner of their shelter. No warmth lived here. No fire. Only the damp breath of the Deep and the slow, steady reek of death.

  He swept his gaze across the scattered bones littering the ground. They were familiar shapes, picked clean long ago, scraped down to pale curves by desperate hands and sharper teeth. Even the marrow had been sucked dry, leaving nothing but hollow reminders of the tribe’s decline. The sight stirred no grief in him. Only irritation. Those bones had once been food. Now they were useless.

  With a grunt, Skarnex kicked aside a cluster of brittle ribs. They clattered across the stone and vanished into the gloom. Around him, the others shuffled aimlessly, their movements sluggish and unfocused. Their skin sagged over jutting ribs. Their limbs trembled with every step. Even the strongest among them, those who had once towered over the rest, had shriveled into gaunt shadows of themselves.

  Weakness had become the tribe’s new shape.

  He watched them with narrowed eyes, resentment simmering beneath his heavy brow. Every wasted body meant less muscle to throw at danger. Every death meant fewer hands to tear apart prey. Fewer mouths, yes, but also fewer tools. The tribe was shrinking, and with it, his ability to take what he wanted.

  His thoughts drifted to the memory of cooked meat, a luxury from the tunnels they had been driven out of. He could almost recall the heat of it, the crackle, the rich scent that had once filled their dens. They had used hardened mushroom stalks as fuel, brittle and fibrous, burning hot enough to sear flesh. That warmth had been a kind of power. A comfort. A claim on the world.

  Now they had nothing. No stalks. No fire. No warmth. Everything they ate was cold and raw, slick with cave moisture, swallowed whole or torn apart with numb fingers. Even so, the memory of juicy raw meat still tugged at him. The rare times they had tasted it in these depths had been intoxicating.

  Like the rats.

  He remembered the trio they had caught days ago, or perhaps weeks. Time had blurred into hunger. The kill had been quick, the feast quicker. The meat had been dense and rich, the bones soft enough to crack between their teeth. For a moment, he had felt something close to satisfaction. Something like strength.

  But that moment had passed. The hunger had returned, sharper than before, gnawing at his insides until it felt like his own ribs might pierce through his skin.

  He spat on the ground, the glob of saliva mixing with the filth at his feet.

  The tribe had stripped this cavern bare. Every fungus scraped away. Every insect crushed and swallowed. Every patch of lichen torn from the walls. They dug through the damp piles where cave creatures slept or relieved themselves, clawing through clotted filth for beetles or half?formed grubs. They tore apart softened mushroom stalks, gnawed on the spongy cores, and chewed the leathery skins of long?dead things they could not name. In their worst moments, they even scraped at the stone itself, hoping for the faint tang of salt or the taste of anything that was not the stale air of the Deep.

  And still they starved.

  He looked again at the gaunt figures around him. Their eyes were hollow, their movements slow, their breaths shallow. They were close to breaking. Some already had.

  He felt no pity. Only annoyance.

  Their weakness made them harder to use.

  Skarnex’s thoughts drifted to the tunnels they had passed through on their way here, each one stripped and emptied by their own desperate hands. The tribe had not always been trapped in this cavern. They had moved through many before it, carving a path of ruin behind them as they searched for anything that could be torn apart and swallowed.

  The first caverns had offered hope. Pale fungi clung to the walls in thick clusters, soft and swollen with moisture. The tribe had devoured them in minutes. They had found beetles beneath loose stones, fat and slow, their shells cracking easily between hungry teeth. Even the moss that grew in thin sheets across the stone had been scraped away, leaving long streaks of bare rock behind.

  But the deeper they went, the less they found.

  The Deep did not replenish itself quickly. What they took stayed gone.

  The cheiftan remembered the day they found the snails. A slick patch of pale bodies clinging to the stone near a thin trickle of water. The tribe had lunged at them with frantic eagerness, tearing the shells apart, swallowing the meat raw. The taste had been foul, but it was meat, and that had been enough.

  Hours later, the screaming began.

  He could still picture the way their bellies hardened, skin stretching tight and glossy. The way their limbs jerked and twisted. The way their eyes bulged as the poison worked its way through their bodies. Some died quickly. Others took far too long. The stench of their sickness had filled the tunnels for days.

  Skarnex had not eaten the snails. He had watched the others fall and felt only contempt for their stupidity. And when the sickness passed him by, when he felt the faint shift inside his body, the subtle tingle, he understood what it meant.

  The Deep had rewarded him.

  A small Fortune increase. A tiny edge. Barely more than a whisper of strength. But it was there, and he knew it. A lesser creature might have felt pride. Skarnex felt only irritation. After everything the tribe had endured, after all the death and hunger, the Deep had granted him nothing more than the chance to claim this stinking cavern as his.

  A pathetic prize.

  After the poisoning, the tribe grew cautious, but caution did not fill bellies. They tore apart every cavern they entered, ripping fungus from walls, digging through damp soil for worms, prying open cracks in the stone for anything that moved. They fought over scraps so small they vanished between their fingers. They gnawed on leathery skins of long?dead creatures, hoping for a hint of flavor.

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  And still the hunger followed them.

  Worse than hunger were the disappearances.

  Skarnex’s jaw tightened as he remembered the first missing forager. Then the second. Then the third. At first he assumed they had wandered off, too weak or too foolish to keep pace. But then they found the bodies.

  Strung up in thick webbing that clung to the cavern ceiling like a shroud.

  The corpses had been drained, skin sagging over brittle bones, eyes sunken and empty. The webs trembled when the goblins approached, as if something unseen shifted deeper in the dark. The tribe had cut the bodies down quickly, too frightened to linger, too hungry to leave them behind. Even then, the meat had tasted wrong, dry and papery, as if the life had been sucked out long before they arrived.

  The cheiftan had eaten none of it. He had watched the others tear into the corpses and felt only disgust at their desperation.

  After that, the tribe avoided that stretch of tunnels, but the Deep was full of dangers they did not understand. They stumbled into pits hidden beneath loose stone. They brushed against venomous growths that left their skin blistered and raw. They wandered into the territories of creatures far more suited to the dark, creatures that moved silently and struck without warning.

  Every foraging run cost them someone.

  Sometimes two.

  Sometimes more.

  Skarnex felt no grief for the lost. Only irritation. Every death meant fewer bodies to throw at threats. Fewer hands to tear apart prey. Fewer chances to find something worth eating before the Deep swallowed them whole.

  The tribe had once been loud, crude, full of swagger. Now they moved like shadows, hollow eyed and trembling, their strength bleeding away with every step.

  Skarnex clenched his fists, the faint strength the Deep had granted him pulsing through his fingers. It was not enough. It was never enough.

  The Deep was killing them.

  And he hated it for making them weak.

  Skarnex turned his attention to the cluster of smaller goblins huddled near the remnants of their shelter. They crouched close together, their thin limbs wrapped around their bodies as if trying to hold in what little warmth the Deep allowed. Their eyes flicked toward him with a mixture of fear and resentment, the kind that simmered quietly when hunger gnawed too long.

  He felt none of it in return.

  Their anger meant nothing. Their fear meant nothing. Their lives meant nothing beyond the use he could wring from them.

  He snarled in their guttural tongue, the sound rough from disuse. The command was simple. Pack what little they had. Prepare to move. This cavern was finished.

  The reaction was sluggish. A few blinked slowly, as if the meaning took time to sink in. Others stared at the ground, their bodies swaying with exhaustion. One of the larger goblins let out a low groan, a sound of protest rather than pain.

  Skarnex stepped forward and struck him across the back with the flat of his hand. The goblin collapsed to his knees, breath wheezing out of him. Skarnex did not bother to look down. Weakness was not something he tolerated.

  The tribe began to move after that, though without urgency. They gathered scraps of fungal fiber, brittle mats, and the few stone blades that had not been lost or broken. Their shelters were left standing, half collapsed and sagging with moisture. No one had the strength to dismantle them. No one cared enough to try.

  Skarnex watched them with cold disdain. Their movements were clumsy, their steps unsteady. Hunger had hollowed them out until they were little more than skin stretched over bone. Even the ones who had once been strong now struggled to lift their meager belongings.

  He felt irritation rise in his chest.

  They were tools, and tools that broke too easily were worthless.

  A low growl rumbled from his throat as he surveyed the last scraps of their camp. The bones of their dead lay scattered across the stone, pale reminders of their failures. He felt no pull to stay. No sense of loss. Only the familiar pressure of hunger and the need to keep moving before the Deep claimed more of them.

  He turned toward the dark passage leading out of the cavern. The air drifting from it was colder, carrying the faint scent of distant moisture and something else he could not place. A trace of movement. A hint of life. It was enough.

  Skarnex stepped forward, his heavy footfalls echoing through the stone. The others followed, dragging their wasted bodies behind him. Some limped. Some crawled. All moved with the dull instinct of creatures who had nothing left but the drive to survive.

  As they left the cavern behind, the darkness swallowed them. The path ahead was uncertain, but staying meant death. Moving meant a chance, however small, to find something worth tearing apart and eating.

  Skarnex did not look back.

  He did not need to. The cavern had nothing left to offer.

  The tribe followed Skarnex through the twisting tunnels, their footsteps dragging across the stone. They traveled in silence, too weak for chatter, too hungry for anything but the dull instinct to keep moving. Time stretched in the dark. One cavern bled into the next. The air grew colder, the stone slicker beneath their feet.

  Skarnex moved ahead of them, irritation simmering beneath his skin. The faint increase the Deep had granted him after the snail incident pulsed through his muscles, subtle but present. He had dismissed it as worthless, a scrap tossed his way after the tribe’s suffering. Yet now, as he walked, something tugged at him. Not a scent. Not a sound. Just a vague sense that something in the tunnel ahead was wrong.

  He stopped abruptly.

  The goblin behind him, too slow and too weak to react, bumped into his back. The cheiftan snarled and shoved him aside. The smaller goblin stumbled, arms flailing, and crashed into a low mound of loose stones piled against the cavern wall.

  The rocks shifted.

  Then they collapsed.

  A wave of stale, venom?tinged rot rolled out, thick enough to make several goblins gag. Skarnex’s eyes narrowed as he stepped forward, pushing the coughing goblins aside. Beneath the fallen stones lay the curled, collapsed body of a massive spider. Its abdomen had caved in, its legs drawn tight, its flesh dried and shriveled with age. Weeks old. Maybe more.

  Something had fed on it before hiding it away. Tiny grooves and scratches marked the softer parts of the body. Whatever creature had done it was long gone.

  Skarnex did not care.

  He reached down and tore a strip of dried flesh from the spider’s abdomen. The bristles along its body clung to his fingers, irritating his skin, but he ignored the sting. The meat was tough, leathery, and tasted of dust and venom. Barely food at all.

  But it was food.

  He swallowed it whole.

  The others watched him, eyes wide and desperate. When he did not fall, they surged forward, clawing at the corpse, tearing away strips of meat, choking down whatever they could pry loose. They coughed and spat as the bristles caught in their throats, but they kept eating. Hunger drove them harder than pain.

  Skarnex stepped back, watching them devour the remains. The faint strength the Deep had granted him pulsed again, subtle but undeniable. Perhaps it had not been entirely worthless after all. Perhaps that tiny increase had nudged him toward this moment, this corpse, this scrap of sustenance.

  A pathetic prize.

  But even scraps had their uses.

  When the spider was nothing but a husk of chitin and scattered hairs, Skarnex turned away and continued down the tunnel. The tribe followed, wiping their mouths, their steps a little steadier than before.

  The Deep had offered them a morsel.

  It would not be enough.

  But it would keep them moving.