“Nevin!”

The cat, his voluminous fur laid flat by the downpour, leapt through the overgrowth crowded up against the limits of the clearing and bound full-speed through the calf-high grasses toward his friend. Each time a paw left the ground, a rooster tail of water kicked up behind him.

Nevin dropped the leather satchel and scooped up the frantic lynx in a tight, grateful embrace.

The cat savored the wet hug for a moment before pulling himself free. A hint of fear colored his over-wide silver peepers, and his ears twitched as if attempting to frighten off an invisible cloud of flies. “Something's really wrong, Nevin. I don't know what-”

“Where did you go?” The young man reached down and grabbed his friend by the mane with both hands, pulling their faces together. “I woke up and you were gone, and the fires were so close I could see them.”

“No, Nevin, listen-”

“You just left me there. Why didn't you wake me when the sun came up?”

Aidux shook free of his friend's grasp and stepped back. “You don't understand! I tried to wake you. When I woke from my nap, the sun was already up and I could see the smoke creeping up the hill. I screamed for Theis, but he didn't answer, so I yelled and screamed and nudged you, but no matter what I did, you just kept sleeping.”

The cat clawed at his left ear and shook his head in agitation, spraying water in every direction. “I even bounced up and down on your chest, and when that didn't work, I thought about giving you a little love bite, but I didn't want you yelling at me, so I jumped off to try and find Theis again.”

“So you just ran off into the woods without me?” Nevin swept aside his sopping hair, feeling the warmth of his run through the woods being steadily sapped by a combination of chill air and rain. He could tell the storm's strength was ebbing, as the frequency of raindrops had lessened dramatically in the sparse amount of time he'd spent in the clearing. With any luck though, it would stick around long enough to slow the advance of the fire line, giving them the time they needed to outrun it.

But without the man in black to show them how to escape through the Nimmons, outrunning the fire wouldn't do them much good.

The lynx flinched when a peal of thunder followed too closely behind a flash of orange lightning. “No, that's just it, I didn't leave you. When I jumped off your chest, I turned to look out into the forest, but instead of landing in the ferns, I was just...I was...I was here. In this clearing.

“I was confused at first, sure, but I knew I had to get back to you as soon as possible, so I turned right back around and ran right back into the forest. I don't think I made it more that a hundred feet or so before I burst right back into this clearing again! I did that three more times before you showed up.” He pawed at his other ear and yowled in irritation.

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Nevin turned to look back the way he'd came. While the trees framing the clearing were too tall for him to get an unobstructed view of the approaching fire, the billowing cloud of inky smoke stood out starkly even against the backdrop of storm clouds.

Nevin rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

The fire line had to be more than a half a mile away. There was no possible way he could have cleared that much distance in the fifteen seconds he'd spent running from the unknown figure.

Aidux plopped down on his belly, shoving his front paws in place over his wilted ears. The cat closed his eyes and released a long, plaintive mrow. Nevin quickly knelt at his friend's side.

“Hey, are you okay? What's going on with you?”

He tugged at the lynx's front leg, but the cat pulled away, scooting back through the soggy grass using only his rear paws, like some sort of furry crab.

“I can hear it, Nevin. It was there before, but now I can understand what it's saying.”

Nevin cocked his head. All he could hear was the rain. “I don't hear anything, buddy.”

“It's calling them in, Nevin. They don't want to come but they don't know what they're doing.” The cat yowled again. “I could hear it in the woods. I didn't want to listen, but it made me listen and it made you listen and now it's making them, too.”

Frowning, Nevin lifted his hands in confusion, but as the storm continued to wane, the interminable patter of falling rain gave way to a previously undetectable high-pitched squeal. The young man looked back at the weapon bound to the top of his discarded satchel, remembering the painful ringing the weapon had seemed to emit before violently reacting to the man in black. Surprisingly, the mysterious object was sheathed in a thin layer of ice, but was otherwise still.

He scanned the clearing, and when his eyes came to rest on that morbid effigy emerging from the earth like a corpse called back from death, the squeal intensified. As he stared, wide-eyed, the air around the statue seemed to shake and warp, distorting the trees beyond until they appeared to squirm grotesquely in its presence.

“Please make it stop,” Aidux whined.

And just like that, it did.

As the rain dwindled to little more than a fine mist, the otherworldly squeal faded and the distortions surrounding the stone effigy stilled, bathing the clearing in a welcome silence. Aidux peeked up from his spot on the ground, tentatively peeling his paws away from his ears one toe at a time.

Nevin, though, was focused on the trees lining the edge of the clearing, squinting as he stared into the heavy shadows lurking beneath their boughs.

Something moved within.

“Aidux,” he began, his voice barely more than a whisper. “What did you mean when you said 'them'? It's calling 'them'?”

The lynx rose to his feet, his silver eyes trained on the distant trees as well. He placed himself in front of Nevin and growled.

“I think we're about to find out.”