The hunting party was large and not as quiet as Ren would have liked. Thirty-six hardened spearmen, one trainee, and six foresters. The latter leading the former in groups of seven–and one of eight–fanned out to close the net on the Black Claw den–a cave in the southern reaches of the valley. Behind them, a team of knights led by an Asbar named Emil, heavily armored and armed, tucked with their horses into the trees at the edge of a glade. The plan was to draw the fight back to the clearing and charge the wolves. Mupali’katana was to wait for the Alpha to emerge before engaging.

Ren and his group followed Markens, their faces hard to hide their nerves. But he could feel it. He could practically smell the fear.

They went the long way, skirting around and up the rise that formed the hill, to come at the cave from behind and above. Each soldier carried two spears, one for throwing, and one for stabbing.

The nearer they got, the quieter the woods grew, till not a critter nor skitter nor chirp could be heard. Ren’s blood froze and the hair on his neck rose in primal terror–he felt hungry eyes lock on him from out in the fading fog. But a moment later the feeling passed. He had imagined it. Their team should be the safest, as they were only to engage should the main force fail to draw the Black Claws away to the ambush.

The fog lifted with every step, removing the cloak that hid them, and his last vestiges of feeling safe along with it. A downward slope and thinning tree cover graced them with a view of the open ground surrounding the rocky overhang of the den. Markens held up a hand and the group froze in place.

A deep growl echoed out, then another, then more, till the air quaked with the rumble. A pitch black wolf large enough to tackle a horse paced out from the cave beneath them. It paused in the open, sniffed, whipped its head to look at the trees and opened its maw for a great howl, but a flash of motion ended the sound just as it left the giant throat, and the beast stumbled, turning slightly so Ren could see the arrow sticking from its eye, and the arrow that then punched into its throat before it collapsed.

The collective howl that followed rattled his bones. Then a wave of black beasts charged, darting around arrows and colliding with the wall of spears that emerged from the treeline.

Ren winced at the clatter of steel and fang, the shriek of a man ripped free of his arm, thrown bleeding and crippled into a tree.

A soldier dropped his spear to grab his screaming, dismembered friend, only for black claws to slice right through this chainmail, a mist of blood painting the nearby ground and branches red.

Even so, the group as a whole tightened up, spears pointing out like a single spikey organism, retreating and fending off the wolves, step by bloody step. It was working.

Markens pursed his lips as he watched the exchange. “There is no Alpha here.”

He gestured and they all followed back to the other side of the hill. “Ren,” said the forester, “Look for anything out of place. Anything. I think they may have circled around for an ambush of their own.”

Ren cycled his Silver Fox Meditation, processing every tiny detail, the abandoned nests, the collapsing burrows, even a faint, sickly curl to the bark of the trees here. The ground was undisturbed, all animal tracks were old, faded to almost nothing, except for one patch where they were nothing. His mind raced, piecing together all of what he was seeing. Another patch, totally undisturbed. Too undisturbed.

“Markens. Look.” He pointed to several patches that formed a line.

The older man paused, crouched down, glanced around at the other parts of the ground. “Good eye. Damn good eye. Take the men and track the beasts but do not engage. As fast as you can. I’m going to warn Emil.”

“But-”

“No time for arguing. I can handle sneaking past the wolves while they are distracted, and you can handle this. We are counting on you. Leave signs so we can track you easily in case anything happens or we are missing something.”

With that, the man was off, darting through the trees.

Ren took a breath. He didn’t have enough Qi to power the Silver Fox Meditation continuously. But his overall perception had been improving—steadily, if subtly—since he started practicing the technique in earnest.

He studied the edge of the offending patch of earth, where the unnaturally clean patches met the normal patches. There was a faint pattern almost like brushstrokes. Were the beasts wiping the earth clear with their tails somehow?

Now that he knew what to look for, he could follow.

The men were silent and tense, but they did not fall behind. Ren made sure to mark a path through the trees with his knife as they went. The trail took them North. Farther North than he would have thought. Several times he was sure he must have missed where the Black Claws had turned to flank the knights, but his Silver Fox Meditation told him otherwise. They carved a winding, but definite course. What could they be doing? It got easier and easier for him to identify the signs, and soon enough he was leading the soldiers at a quick jogging pace. His arm flashing out periodically to slash the bark.

*****

Mupali’Katana watched as the retreating fighters–bleeding, ragged, and fewer in number than when she last had seen them–entered the glade and broke into a run for the trees where the knights were hidden.

The first glimpse of black fur filled her with rage. How she would love to fly out there in a storm of fury. They had attacked her home. Her cubs.

But no. She had to wait.

The horses broke from the treeline. A thunderous charge of pounding hooves, glinting metal, and war cries. Their commander wore elaborately painted armor in the design of a raging bear. Beasts ascended for centuries to take a human form, but humans wasted so much energy pretending to be animals. Foolish. Why did so many creatures fail to embrace their own nature and the place they held in the grand flow of the Forest?

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The Sett-Mother braced herself. It would be here any moment.

The wolves yelped and snarled as their number was hewn and torn with sword and lance and poleaxe.

And yet, there was still no Alpha.

Something was wrong. Her heart twinged and dread, cold and hollow, filled her gut.

*****

Snarls, whimpers, growls and heavy, panting breaths broke through the trees from up ahead. The trail had led much farther than he’d expected, all the way to the badger’s burrow. Ren halted the men and held a finger to his lips as they doubled over to catch their breath. He took but a moment’s pause before approaching a tree near the edge of the clearing. Drenched in sweat from the run, his ascent was more a muted scramble than a proper climb as he pulled himself up through the branches till he had a view of the burrow’s entrance–the bow in his hand and his need to be silent doing little to add to his grace and speed.

Bargan’atar stood alone, glowing faintly, his coat emitting an emerald shimmer that only highlighted his wounds. His coat was torn up and blood dribbled into tiny puddles beneath him where he stood at the entrance to his home.

Ren willed himself to pull his eyes from his friend to the horror around. Four pitch black wolves lay in the clearing, dead or grievously wounded. One tried desperately to nudge its innards back into its belly with its nose to little success.

Four more wolves the size of ponies surrounded the badger, their hackles raised as they bared their fangs. Behind them strutted a true monster. Easily the size of a warhorse, black with a crimson undercoat and blood red irises set in midnight eyes. The ground sizzled where it drooled and grass wilted where the shimmering air around it made contact.

“Give me your younglings and we will make your death swift.” Its voice set the air to vibrating and grated the nerves like two broken bones grinding together.

A twig snapped beneath the tree in front of Ren. One of the soldiers had crept forward. Beastkin bastard of a dog fucker. Did the man want to die?

But Ren wasn’t the only one to notice.

All heads swiveled toward the quaking man. “Run!” The word escaped, hoarse and desperate, just before a huge fanged maw closed around his head.

Ren couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. Couldn’t look away. Not as the four smaller wolves charged into the forest. Not as a lucky spear took down one of the charging wolves. Not as three men shrieked while being torn and tossed about like a puppy’s plaything. Not as a second wolf died, impaling itself on a spear deftly planted in the ground at the last moment of its leap. Not as the remaining wolves launched over their dying packmate.

All he could do was watch as the men he’d led here all died. To his shame, it wasn’t guilt that gripped him, but fear that if he so much as breathed to ease the burning in his terror-bound lungs, they would find him too. He was worse than incompetent. He was a coward. Worthless, gutless, pathetic.

The two surviving Black Claws took a few squelching, crunching, sickening bites of soldier meat before one rejoined their leader in the standoff with Bargan’atar. The other turned to its fallen brethren and sniffed.

Was it mourning?

It opened its jaws and ripped a chunk of meat free. If his body had been working properly, Ren would have blown his cover and retched. Instead he inhaled sharply, pushing back the dark edges that had been closing in on his vision.

With a black and red blur the cannibalistic wolf split in half, and the Alpha appeared standing over it in a spray of gore and viscera. “Mine,” it growled.

At that moment, Bargan’atar struck, launching at the wolf that stood before him. He latched onto its back, shredding and clawing his bloody way up to the neck which he ripped open with his teeth.

The wolf hadn’t even collapsed when another blur of motion brought the Alpha back and sent the badger flying into the stone wall with a crack of stone and bone.

“I’m going to eat your babies while you watch-”

Ren’s shallow breath slowly unfroze him. Even as he told his body to run, images of exploring the forest with Bargan’atar flashed before his eyes. The gentle way he plucked berries with those too-long claws. The almost human grin he wore when he caught a good snack to bring to his cubs.

“-then I’ll skin you before I eat you-”

Ren found his hand shifting over his shoulder to draw an arrow.

“-and I’ll leave your pelt and those of your offspring hanging from the burrow wall for your precious Sett-Mother to see.”

Ren nocked the arrow.

The Alpha approached Bargan’atar and pawed at his broken, twisted limbs, cackling as the badger cried out.

Ren pulled back with all his strength till the bow creaked. He couldn’t feel the wind, or the tree beneath his legs, or his hands.

The Alpha turned its head, fixing those bloody eyes on him, making his soul squirm.

Everything froze. Stopped. Ceased. Quieted.

If Ren was breathing he couldn’t feel it, but he loosed anyway. The twang shattered the silence, pierced the stillness, and Ren lost his balance, tipping backward from his perch, bouncing and banging and snapping through the branches till the ground rushed up and slammed the air from his lungs.

A howl that shook the earth, cracked stone, and split ears exploded from the clearing and Ren stumbled to his feet, pushed his body into a shambling run. He tripped over the corpses, looked back to see the red haze that followed, slipped in the wet gore, stood with the help of a spear and kept running.

A gust of air sent him toppling to his knees. He looked up and his eyes met the Alpha’s. Or at least the one intact eye. From its left eye stuck the shaft of his arrow.

“I’ve got your scent now, weakling. I’m going to eat your limbs and keep you alive while I hunt down your kin and anyone who carries your blood or the faintest whiff of you. You will watch all you care about erased before you die in agony.”

The attention of the Alpha was a weight on his spirit, pushing him down. Ren fought against that pressure and his own terror, leveling the spear even as his shaking legs threatened to give out.

“Pathetic!” The giant wolf batted at him with a paw. It was dismissive, almost playful, but the force pushed through his spear, shattered the haft, caught him in the ribs, and sent him crashing into a tree.

Ren groaned, surprised he still had the strength to crane his neck up to watch the wolf approach. His ears still rung from the howl. Every breath brought pain. This was it. In the end, even after all that training and trying, he was still helpless. Still weak. Still unable to help or save anyone.

His parent’s smiling faces ran through his mind. Asana and Mako wrestling and clinging to him. Norns insincere insults. Garam’s warm hand on his shoulder. Seraphina, ever smiling, even when her makeup couldn’t cover her bruises. His uncle’s final gift, wasted on him. He’d let them all down. But, in a way, it was a relief. No more pain, no more struggle.

The Alpha’s breath blew moist and hot on his skin now. It stank, sweet and sick, a cloud of rot and sulfur.

He was okay with dying, but not like this. No, not like this.

Long, sharp, cruel teeth filled his vision.

Please, not like this.

Gold bloomed into the forest along with a shrill keckering full of wrath and fury.

Mupali’Katana stepped into view.