For a long, terrifying moment, Nick was sure that he’d been spotted. That a monstrous creature would come bursting through the glass and initiate a desperate battle for his life. Thus, what he saw next filled him with a strange blend of horror and relief.

Unleashing a piercing wail, a gigantic beast rounded the corner of the structure and darted into view. It had a wedge-shaped face and was bigger than a grizzly bear. Its earthy brown torso was coated in thick spines longer than Nick’s arms, tapering to form razor sharp points. Most unusual of all, every inch of the beast’s body was covered with intricate swirling grains, like it had been carved from living wood.

The combined effect made the beast look like an oversized wooden hedgehog, with powerful jaws and jutting claws on each foot. Size up informed Nick that fighting this beast one-on-one would be a risky venture at best. A battle that he would choose to avoid in almost any circumstances. But what followed behind the beast half a heartbeat later was so much worse.

There were three of the god-awful things, two the size of wolves and a third as big as a donkey. The smaller swarmlings looked like maggots or grubs, covered in chitinous spikes with round, gaping maws protruding from the fat end.

They wriggled and slithered across the ground with a sickening grace, surprisingly dexterous given their forms. With the mobility they displayed, Nick was certain that they could close the distance by using some manner of leap as well.

The big one ran on six legs, the front two reaching up before narrowing to form a pair of wicked blades, each the length of Nick’s sword. This monster was a bit slower than the hellish grubs, but size up was screaming that it was considerably more dangerous than the other two combined. That if Nick attracted its attention, he was doomed. That moving to lower his head would be even more dangerous than remaining exposed.

Each of the swarmlings was covered with a sickly white exoskeleton, pulled tight around their heads like cloth over a skull, revealing faces trapped in eternal anguish. Nick had the sense that their true form was contained within, the white shells being some manner of armor or container for their bodies. Whatever was inside the macabre exterior was even more foul. Something that felt wrong in a way that he had never known before.

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They weren’t the biggest creatures that Nick had encountered, but his instincts were convinced that they were among the deadliest. More dangerous than beasts many times their bulk. A truth that was revealed in the language of carnage and blood only five seconds later.

The hedgehog was running straight down the hillside, fifty feet away from where Nick huddled in terror. It pressed its body into a greater burst of speed, sending clods of earth flying beneath its claws and pulling further ahead of the monstrosities that followed. For a moment, it looked like the beast might escape after all, but that was when its luck ran out.

The moment they had a straight shot, both grubs skidded to a halt, scrunching their bodies tightly together like springs being pressed down. In the next blink of Nick’s eyes, both ghastly hellgrubs shot forth like bullets, screaming through the air toward the beast fleeing below.

Their unearthly chitters reached a fevered pitch as they flew. It was a deeply disturbing sound, evoking images of a hunger that would soon be sated in flesh.

The swarmlings hit the hedgehog half a heartbeat apart. The first landed squarely upon the end of a wooden spine, impaling itself and holding it back. The creature didn’t even flinch at its injury. It merely squirmed, driving the spike deeper into its body, sliding down the length as it reached for the warm meat below.

The hedgehog revealed remarkable reflexes, sensing the danger, and detaching the spine within the blink of an eye. The motion dropped the grub to the ground, where it fought to free itself and resume the hunt. Unfortunately for the clever beast, that was the moment its luck ran out.

The other grub slammed straight into one of its hindlegs, its chitinous spikes penetrating wooden flesh to hold its body in place. Its jaws closed around the beast’s knee, shearing straight through the fibrous tissue like a hot blade through cream. Its first bite tore the beast’s limb free from its body, releasing a fountain of bright green blood.

The hedgehog cried out in agony and came crashing to the ground, turning upon its assailant to fight back with tooth and claw.