Mongrel did not know what was going on.

Everyone was just gone. Where had they gotten to? He had no idea. How had he managed to lose track of them? Again, he had no idea. Why was there suddenly so much fucking fog everywhere? Completing the trifecta, he had no idea.

There was no point trying to figure it out.

He sat down on a rock and split one of his last cigarette packs with the boys. They were going to sit tight and wait for Will to come rescue them.

Several sharp cracks echoed through the forest. Faint, but they were unmistakably gunshots.

There he goes, I guess.

It was so difficult to tell the direction from that alone, though. It was probably better if he stayed where he was.

It was almost like the scenery was shifting, never looking quite the same when he took his eyes off a piece of forest and looked back again. It was like the trees had gotten up and walked around a bit before sitting back down. Just to mess with him. The fact that everything in this forest looked all the same to begin with wasn’t fucking helping, either.

But the longer he sat there, the more reality seemed to reassert itself. That unnaturally dense fog retreated bit by bit, until finally he had gone from being in a definitely haunted forest to just a moderately spooky one.

All according to plan, of course. When faced with a dilemma, simply waiting it out was usually the right move. That was the patented Mongrel Method.

Most people just worked too hard. It wasn’t healthy.

They assembled a neat little pile of cigarette butts between them. Eventually they got down to the last one, The chimps fought each other for it, wrestling and smacking and mock-biting. Number Four came out on top, and savored his spoils with no small amount of smugness. Mongrel told him off for antagonizing his brothers.

Mongrel started harboring real hope that he could get through this without having to do anything. Then he heard footsteps in the distance, accompanied by the sound of snapping twigs and rustling underbrush. Quick. Loud. Someone running. Too fast for Will, and too slow for Bee.

Mongrel stood up and heaved a sharp sigh. With a vague gesture, he had the boys fetch their weapons from Zero’s pack saddle. The horse was thoroughly unhappy with the situation, neighing and throwing her head about, ears streaked back.

Calm, girl, Mongrel sent through their bond with a meaningful glance her way. If you’re good now, I’ll give you treats later.

The bribery only worked to settle her a little, but it would have to be good enough for now.

Number Four still puffed on his cigarette while hefting his hammer in both hands, facing the oncoming footsteps with his brothers.

When Oatmeal stumbled out of the bushes, the chimp nearly got him in the face. Only a panicked mental command from Mongrel stayed his hand long enough for him to recognize the Explorer as an ally.

Oatmeal was red-faced and wheezing, his cloak nearly torn free of its clasp and hanging loose off one shoulder. Numerous branches had snagged in his clothes, and he had evidently lost his weapon, since the scabbard on his hip was as empty as his hands.

“Help!” he croaked, falling to his knees the moment he reached Mongrel. “They’re… after me!”

Mongrel frowned at the young fellow. “Who is?”

“The monsters! So many!” He gestured vaguely with his hands as though that was supposed to give Mongrel some idea of the number he was talking about.

Mongrel was about to ask him how he’d managed to lose his sword when a flying hairball the size of a large raccoon leapt out from behind a tree. Number Four spiked it straight into the ground, where Number Three finished it off with a follow-up hammer blow. But the encroaching pitter-patter of small feet suggested there were more coming. With great reluctance, Mongrel drew his sword.

Grumplets. He’d seen their kind a few times before, sneaking around the house to poke around for easy prey or, more preferably, scraps to scavenge. Filthy things.

“Hang in there, boyo,” Mongrel grumbled, ruffling the Explorer’s hair and plucking a leaf out of it. “Let a grown-up handle this.”

Oatmeal did not fight him on it. He cowered on the ground as their charming little slice of fuck-nowhere backwoods came alive with unwashed vermin.

It was a short engagement. The grumplets came in howling for blood, whipped into a frenzy from chasing a fleeing victim, but beefed it on the follow-through. They had been prepared to cut down a defenseless coward, not face off against an actual enemy.

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By the time they realized that their fortunes had shifted, a battered half dozen already lay sprawled over the root-gnarled turf.

No one had ever accused grumplets of bravery. As soon as they had processed the fates of their unlucky friends, they turned tail and fled every which way. Some even dropping their primitive weapons in their hurry to escape.

Mongrel had delivered a singular sword cut, more to show the boys that he was helping than anything else. After wiping off his weapon and stowing it away, he had Number Two lift the Explorer back on his feet.

“Piss yourself?” Mongrel asked.

Oatmeal shook his head, gone mute with fear.

Number Four offered Oatmeal the last drag of his cigarette out of pity.

He accepted it gratefully.

*****

“Normally I’d be completely down for this, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. Why don’t we agree to part as friends? What do you say?”

Bee held her arms high, working the brass knuckles as she clenched and unclenched her hands. She didn’t know how to signal ‘peace’ to a bear, but figured that not making any sudden moves was a good start, with trying not to look like an easy meal as the natural follow-up.

The great furry beast watched her through beady black eyes, head low. It lipped at the air, vocalizing some sort of strange half-snort, half-bark. Bee wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t feel particularly friendly.

The countless scars across its body and face spoke of many battles won. She could only imagine that surviving as an apex predator in a world full of monsters was no trivial feat. Which meant that this had to be one badass bear.

It was awfully tempting. Now that the question was in front of her, she itched to know the answer. Especially after the lackluster appetizer.

Could I take a bear in a fight?

But she resisted. She was going to do the responsible thing.

Bee backed up a step, then another, keeping her hands up. “Look, see? I’m leaving you alone. Leeeaving you alone. Go back to eating berries or whatever it is you do. I’m not gonna bother you.”

The bear stood up on two legs, then slammed its paws back down on the ground. It let its mouth hang open, showing off an impressive set of flesh-rending teeth.

Bee spread her hands in an incredulous gesture. “Come on. What are you doing, man? Look, I’m trying to be nice here, but you’re not bringing the same energy at all.”

The bear lurched forward, several hundred kilos of muscle and fat bearing down on her. It stopped a few meters shy and began slowly circling. Its eyes always fixed on her, head low and shoulders high.

Bee pointed an accusing finger at the beast. “All right, that’s it. You’ve officially done it now. I’ll be wearing your fucking pelt tonight.”

Having apparently reached a mutual agreement, the bear went for her again. For such a ponderous oaf of an animal, it moved with explosive speed.

This time, it didn’t break away. Bee didn’t have to do more than blink before the grizzly barreled into her, knocking her to the ground against its massive heft. It felt like she’d been hit by a car.

The bear on top of her, she took a swipe to the head that snapped her head sideways and sent streaks of hot pain down her face. Its head came down to bite her chest, but found little purchase in her tough flesh. Bee delivered a retaliatory hook that crunched bone and caught an eye with the rim of her brass knuckle. Then another, and another.

The bear finally came away and bounded off of her, snorting and huffing with pain. Bee rolled to her feet as it wheeled around to face her again. It went for another charge, but she was ready for it this time. She started sidestepping as soon as the beast started moving, managing to get clear with a hand’s breadth to spare. She gave it a right hook to the flank as it bore past, but there was so much fur in the way that she couldn’t tell how much damage she did.

The bear turned almost on a dime, again catching Bee off-guard with its speed, and hooked her tunic in its teeth. Heaving its entire body sideways, it yanked her into the air and threw her hard into a tree, catching all the impact across her back.

She rolled down the trunk and had gotten her hands beneath her when the bear closed its jaws around the back of her neck, clamping down like a vice. She felt its teeth scrape against her spine.

Bee pushed off the ground anyway, leveraging all the strength she could bring out against the animal’s overwhelming, smothering weight. She got one knee under her, then reached up and caught a fuzzy ear. She twisted until she felt cartilage crunch and give.

The bear disengaged with a breathy bellow of pain. Bee only just managed to swivel on one knee, throw off one brass knuckle, and draw the sword off her hip before it was on top of her again. It gave her a swipe that took her in the shoulder and dragged its claws down across her chest, shredding fabric and skin.

She gritted her teeth through the pain. She tried to line up her sword to slip it through the animal’s ribs, but a second swipe knocked the weapon clean out of her hand and sent it flying. It reared up and dropped back down with a two-pawed pounce that took her in the middle of her torso and drove her straight onto her back.

She raised her arms in a tight guard to block the swipes and bites that followed, and her forearms were quickly cut to bloody ribbons.

Finding a momentary opening where the grizzly stopped savaging her to bellow in her face, Bee darted up and wrapped her left arm around its thick neck, pinning it against her side.

She managed to get her shaky legs beneath her, feet tingly and numb, and gripped two big handfuls of fur. She placed her right hand below its shoulder, towards the chest, then braced her feet hard into the dirt and heaved.

Heaved with her legs. Heaved with her back. Heaved with her arms. She felt muscle fibers snap inside her from the strain as she leveraged all of herself against the bear’s massive bulk.

But she won out, lifted the bear off the ground. Just a hair at first; slowly, painfully, fighting for every inch.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, she thought, teeth clenched so hard she felt them creak.

Then, all at once, Bee heaved the bear over her head. She brought it upside down before slamming the beast down on its back with a displacement of air so large it sent fallen leaves flying.

Exhausted and out of breath, Bee lay on her back; panting, looking up at the withered tree crowns. Then, with a long groan and a dogged effort of will, she managed to roll onto her stomach, then sluggishly claw her way back to her feet.

She watched the grizzly scramble up, dazed and wide-eyed. Unable to register what had just happened to it.

“Yeah,” Bee breathed. She hawked a bloody gob of phlegm and spat it on the ground. “Not having so much fucking fun now, are you?”