They sat in silence and watched.

For days, the wolf never let their eyes drift from the messy camp sprawled out before them. They watched the men come and go, sometimes returning with a fresh kill, sometimes not at all. The danger of the forest was well known to them, having experienced it firsthand, and the men seemed to know of it as well as they stared off into the forest with wary eyes, even during the deceiving safety of the day.

They had spent most of this time listening to the men speak, using their magic to help them parse the sounds they would make to learn their language. Learning a language was difficult enough by context alone. Luckily, the men’s vocabulary seemed to be very limited, making the task easier than they initially thought.

Many of the men had expressed their hatred for the forest, the dangers beyond the camp, and the man responsible for them being there. A man named Vic. He was their leader, a violent man who, more often than not, would prefer to explain his reasoning with fists instead of words. He would bark orders like a rabid dog, spittle flying and veins bulging in his forehead, glaring at the men under his control as they cleared the forest around them. He watched the men as they split and honed the timber, nailing them together into amateurish structures hardly any better than the tents they currently slept in, sneering instead of helping.

At first, they were cautiously optimistic about conversing with these men, eager to talk to another soul and learn about this revived world. However, as they watched and learned, becoming more familiar with the creatures before them, they lost much of that optimism to a disheartening disappointment. These men were all nearly as vicious as their leader, more than eager to pass down their beatings to those weaker than themselves, holding no empathy for those of their own kind.

They could only wonder if all of these two-legged creatures behaved in such a way or if these were just the dredges of their society, cast out into this forest because of their blatantly crass behavior. They had decided that tomorrow, at sunrise, they would find out.

That night, the first signs of winter started to gently fall from the starless sky, blanketing the forest in a light dusting of pure white. The men sitting around their fires and enjoying their drinks looked up at the silently falling snow and cursed. Their wooden shacks stood in half-completed messes of crooked boards and rusty nails, not nearly stout enough to protect them from the oncoming winter chill, and they knew it. Their days would be filled with more intense labor and impatient beatings from their leader, Vic, all in a rush to outpace the winter’s snow.

Perhaps if their conversation went well, they could be persuaded to help the men with their homes. Their magic could easily manipulate the forest to whatever ends they needed; it would be a simple gesture of goodwill in exchange for any information they had.

Just then, as the camp fell into a quiet slumber and the unattended fires burned themselves to ash, the winds shifted and brought the scent of death with them.

The tang of fresh blood hung in the air like a suffocating blanket, forewarning the horrible fate of those caught beneath it. Other, more nauseating scents clung to the edges like fine quilt work, not adding to the heavy weight bearing down on them but merely hinting at its complexity. They shifted their emerald eyes to the forest behind them, the creeping breeze at their back, tapping their shoulders in warning.

A snap of a twig nearby was the only warning before a low and long howl pierced the ominous silence. It was much like the howling of the wolves that had attacked them exiting the pond several days ago. Still, it was much deeper and reverberated with an unmistakable malice that promised nothing but bloodshed. Before the last echoes faded from the forest, the few men still patrolling the camp’s perimeter began to shout and scramble back into the perceived protection of the tents and half-finished buildings, doing everything they could to rouse the others.

They were only successful in getting curses and vague threats in return for their warnings before the first creature exited the forest into the clearing. Dreadful claws, gleaming even in the moonless night, hung just above the snow-dusted ground on long, sinuous arms that bulged with strength and the aching need to rend. A barrel-chested frame supported those horrible instruments of violence, the rippling muscles and mottled skin covered by a coat of wiry, grey fur. All of this stood on two double-jointed legs, thick and sturdy with padded, clawed feet, that brought the creature into the clearing at a loping run, its red eyes wild and its long muzzle filled with slathering teeth open in a rumbling growl.

More of the monsters rushed into the clearing, barking and yattering. There were at least twenty of them, but they moved so quickly that it was difficult to count, even for the wolf that had yet to move from its hiding spot deep within the bramble.

“Worg!” A cry rang out, almost lost to the din of the encroaching monsters.

The man that had shouted pulled free the sword hanging from his hip, the steel issuing a challenge to all nearby beasts. Almost as if the blade had insulted them, the monsters snapped their heads in the direction of the man and rushed toward him, clawing and biting at each other to be the first to spill his blood. To his credit, the man stood his ground, although the tip of his blade quivered violently as his fear coursed through his body and into his hands.

The worg that had won the right to kill the man bowled into him without slowing; a sickening crack told of something broken, and a pained wail told of the man’s fate. Almost immediately, the other monsters fell into the camp, claws and teeth meeting steel and flesh.

A man drove his sword into the belly of the worg in front of him, the beast half again tall as the man himself. It cried out in a whimper of pain as blood poured from it in thick, black ribbons, and when the man twisted the blade, its guts decided to follow. Just as the man pulled out his crimson sword to finish off the monster, another came in from the side to sink its many teeth into the man’s soft and unguarded neck.

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There was very little that the man could do. His eyes widened, the whites bloodshot from fear and too much ale, as the worg fell upon him and tore into his body with teeth and claw. The ground within the camp turned into a macabre swamp of blood and viscera, making the battle that much more treacherous for the men who relied on sure footing to survive.

Half a dozen men had fallen prey to the attacking worgs in under a minute. They still held the advantage regarding numbers, but that was it. The men fell far short in strength, speed, and power, forcing them to fight the monsters back-to-back as they quickly became exhausted.

Roaring with such force as to shake the snow from the tents and trees alike, a bear of a man exited the finest tent in the camp, a bastard sword held in one hand and a blocky hammer in the other. He was shirtless; thick veins wormed their way underneath flushed skin that wafted wispy ribbons of steam in the icy breeze. His body was a tapestry of scars, countless blades painting a picture of battle and cruelty atop a canvas of steel muscle and calloused hands.

Vic, the leader of this group of rough men, looked upon the besieged camp with hate-filled eyes. Not just for the monsters that dared to slaughter his men but for the men themselves, as if they were no better than the beasts tearing them to pieces. The wolf looked at the man curiously, feeling the world’s magic radiating from him in waves.

It was unlike any magic they had felt before, although it was fair to admit that they had very little experience with any other than their own. Only their kind had been able to wield the world’s magic; even though every creature held the power within themselves, they were the only ones to have the ability to access it in any meaningful way. Magic required some level of intelligence and intent.

The man’s magic was raw and primal like unfettered rage barely contained inside a glass bottle, a bottle that had been shattered. It surged through his body, engorging his already swollen muscles and hardening his skin into something close to boiled leather. His knuckles popped as his thick fingers squeezed the hilts of his weapons with so much force as to nearly deform the metal, the uncontrolled wrath radiating off of his body moving through his limbs and into his sword and hammer, giving them a ghostly, crimson glow as they created afterimages in the air.

The nearest worg was cleaved from shoulder to waist, the wide blade of the bastard sword slicing through thick bones and sinuous muscle as if they were paper. Wet heat spilled out of the bisected worg along with its crimson, oily organs, creating large clouds of roiling steam that curled and twisted in the early winter breeze. The smell was as wretched as the beast itself, clawing against the breeze that threatened to carry it away to permeate the already hectic camp with a nauseating, cloying funk.

Before the towering body of the worg fell to the soupy mess beneath it, Vic swung his heavy hammer in a seemingly bored manner, the backswing catching another monster in the shoulder. Its meaty frame submitted instantly to the heavy iron’s momentum, splintering bone and turning internal organs into mush. Ignoring his second victim, Vic’s wild eyes focused on a man in front of him who was locked in a desperate battle for his life.

The man had blood oozing from several long and jagged wounds across his chest, and his left arm hung limply to his side. He stabbed forward with his sword, only for it to be batted away by the worg in front of him, its other clawed hand above its snarling head, ready to strike. Another blade burst forth from the man’s chest, skewering him and the worg in an explosion of force that lifted them both from the ground. With a shake of his arm and a bellow of rage, Vic dislodged his sword from the two corpses and fell into the midst of the battle with reckless abandon.

He was like a whirling dervish of sharpened steel and blunted iron, striking out without concern for any around him. He was lost bloodlust, ignoring the screams of his men as he reaped their lives along with the worgs’. He left a wake of dismembered limbs and crushed torsos as he charged from one foe to the next.

He was not invincible. As Vic’s mind clouded over in a fugue state of wanton violence, any sense of self-preservation was gone. Many of the worgs that suffered from his overwhelming strikes did not do so without retribution, and some of the more experienced men that he cut down for the mere slight of being in his way managed to cut into him as well, scoring deep lacerations that wept streams of hot blood that flowed down his nearly naked body.

Soon enough, he was the only living thing standing. The other men had all succumbed to either the worgs’ deadly claws and snapping teeth or their own leader’s cutting blade and smashing hammer, while the few remaining monsters had fled back into the forest, their tails between their legs.

Vic stood in the middle of the ruined camp, his boots sunk to their laces in the blood-soaked mud, his chest heaving as his lungs worked like a blacksmith’s bellows, bringing air to his hammering heart. His wounds were as numerous as the bodies that littered the ground around him and bled every bit as much. The magic that surged through his body was beginning to wane, only lasting a few minutes before his muscles deflated to their normal size, and the mania that drove him forward receded into nothing but a nightmarish fever dream of monsters and dying men.

He fell to his knees, then to his side. Gasping like a drowning fish, he fought against the weakness that rushed in like a high tide. For all of the power that his magic gave him, it could do nothing for the damage his body had suffered or the life-giving liquid that continued to spill from his sucking wounds.

“Victor!” A wailful cry broke the booming silence as a woman dressed in little more than rags stumbled out of the only lingering tent. She retched as she covered her nose and mouth with the back of her hand, her wide eyes scanning the desolation around her. “Where are you, Victor?”

Victor replied with a pained moan, his body too drained to do any more. The woman locked on to his unmoving form coated in bloody muck before she waded through the sea of carnage. She fell to her knees, unbothered by the splashing, crimson slush. The cold night air was slowly winning its battle against the hot blood that had permeated so much of the disheveled camp.

She reached out to touch the man that she loved, hesitating at the last moment out of fear of hurting him more than he already was but ultimately deciding that it was better for him to feel her tender hands during the last moments of his life. “Y—you promised me, Vic.” A great, wracking sob shook her body painfully as she forced out her words. “You said… you said we’d be safe here; our daughter would be safe… You lied, Vic. W—why’d you lie to me, Vic?”

She lowered her head against his, clamping her eyes shut as painful tears spilled out of them. “Don’t leave us. I love y—.”

A resentful howl cut through the night like a knife, stealing her mournful words from her mouth, ensuring that the man lying in the mud would never hear them as he drifted into nothingness.