** In a world of steam and danger, Scarlett Lockhart joins the Redcoats. But in the darkness of the Bone Forest around the Iron City of Grimmhold, the Bad Wolves are already lurking for fresh prey. **
"Who's that I see walkin' in these woods?
Hey th...
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Her fingers released the clasp, and the mask slid over her nose and off her chin.
The first breath shakily filled her lungs. Once, they had wanted to use it to drive the enemy back in a controlled way. Now the ring of mist formed their shield and the boundaries of their prison. The defense was going wrong.
The fog had killed thousands in a few moments and many more in later years. It surged around the mountain like a sea and, like the deep waters of distant ocean depths, took one's breath away. It settled in the lungs and turned one's own breath into a deadly miasma. With each successive breath, one inevitably approached one's end - and hastened that of all around one.
Redcoat immunization was a balancing act. A monthly game with death, whether the mixture, whose recipe only the Redcoats knew and which was exorbitantly difficult to make, allowed one to enter the mists and leave the mountain or let the disease break out. But for now, she had won this game.
Scarlett could taste the poison on her tongue. The volcano's fumes were bitter and pungent. Behind her, the plumes broke on the mountain's steep slopes like waves of a tide on impregnable cliffs. They rolled over and rolled back, bouncing off the trees and changing the flow anew so that it snaked around the mountain like a living thing.
It was silent at the foot of the mountain and in the forest. Dead quiet. Not a bird chirped its song, not a single deer was to be found, and nothing small rustled in the thicket or under leaves. To this day, no one knows how or why the trees survived this epidemic. One thing was sure: this was a hostile place.
"Every minute here is one too many," Scarlett said quietly, trying to make out more through the thick fog than the blurred silhouettes of the nearest rows of trees. Her fingers fumbled over the holster of her firearms. The feel of the rough leather and cool metal of her revolvers calmed her a little - even if she knew it was a deceptive calm.
Her eyes fell on the nearest tree as if at a silent signal. A leaflet was nailed to the tree with a large iron nail. It showed the symbol of a wolf's head with bared teeth on yellowed parchment. A red horizontal line had been drawn across the symbol of the enemies of their kingdom, which would have conveyed a clear message even without the bold letters
'BEWARE THE BAD WOLVES'
emblazoned below.
These leaflets or the warning were commonly found scrawled on the walls or Litfass pillars in Grimmhold. Down here, there was no reason for such wanted posters.
When Redcoats and Bad Wolves clashed, there were no prisoners.
Scarlett knew she was an excellent shot and skilled on the gliders. If she ran into one of those bastards ... who do you think would lose out? It was best not to find out. And whether her brother had fallen victim to one of her enemies was something she'd best not even think about!
