The sky above the gorge split open, turning from a heavy haze into a downpour of freezing, acidic rain. Lightning flashed behind the jagged ridge, illuminating the massive glass-back wolf, its matted hide slick with blood and water.
Joeren raised his heavy bolt-launcher, but the beast was already too close. The two youngsters froze—the glass-back had been waiting for them. With a dismissive swipe, it knocked the weapon from Joeren's hand as if it were a toy. The launcher spun across the rocks, clattering uselessly into the plain below.
Before Joeren could react, the beast's tail lashed out. Renzo stumbled backward, scrambling against the wet shale, but a second swipe caught him. He crashed violently into the cliff face, collapsing into the mud with a sickening crack as his leg twisted at an unnatural angle.
The glass-back could have pressed its attack, but Barik was already moving, scrambling between the wounded man and the beast.
"Hold the line!" Barik roared over the booming thunder. He lunged forward alongside the rest of the team, their iron-tipped spears thrusting through the downpour to draw the monster away from the fallen young men. The beast was even larger than he'd realized—last night's darkness had hidden its true size.
His group of hunters wasn't just outmatched. They were prey.
High above on a slippery rocky shelf, Dara held her ground. The rain stung her eyes, but her breath remained steady as she kept her bowstring drawn taut. She stayed clear of the narrow bottleneck—her duty was to loose shafts from a distance while Barik's frontline entangled with the beast.
The glass-back had been wounded even before it raided Haven's outer gates the night before, and now it fought with relentless fury. Blood gushed from its old wounds, and the stench of hot copper and burnt hair rolled off its hide.
Steel axes notched and iron spear points bent uselessly against the thick armor plating its chest. Still, the hunters held their ground, driving their weapons into every visible gap while Dara's arrows targeted the softer flesh along its flanks.
"Get them out!" Barik bellowed, bringing his great axe down in a sweeping arc that sparked against the beast's shoulder. Cugat, at his side, thrust his spear, buying a precious second of space.
The rest of the team scrambled toward the cave opening to drag Joeren and Renzo free, but the mutant moved with terrifying speed. Vaulting over the broken masonry, the glass-back landed with a heavy thud, blocking the mouth of the ravine—their only escape. Instead of freeing the two, they were now all trapped together.
Its next roar was deafening. The sheer force of the sound hit the group like a physical blow, making their ears ring violently and blurring their vision. Blood trickled from their ears and noses. The hunters cringed, clutching their heads as the noise echoed off the high canyon walls.
Before anyone could recover, the monster smashed its spiked tail against a loose boulder on the ledge. A sudden cascade of fractured stone and heavy shale tore free from the cliff face, choking the exit with a deafening crash.
They were pinned against a dead-end wall of solid rock. The snarling glass-back snapped its yellow teeth, forcing them back into the dark cave mouth. On her high perch, Dara reached into her quiver, her fingers trembling against the cold leather. She had only one shaft left. All her arrows had been spent helping her team gain a better position. She knew a direct shot against the beast's hide would be useless. She had to use this final arrow at the right moment.
---
Hours earlier, before the storm broke, Kaylah and Eris had left Haven despite the gate guards explicitly forbidding anyone from hunting. Orders were absolute: no one was permitted outside until the rogue beast was captured. But the fear of a predator could not compete with the immediate agony of a starving household; hunger was scarier.
Slipping through a narrow masonry fissure Leo had discovered during his explorations of the tunnels, the two youngsters found their usual foraging grounds completely silent. The hunt for food had turned cold before noon, the local game driven deeper into the wilderness by the previous night's alarms.
Kaylah crouched beside a rusted rail beam, her eyes scanning the empty brush. "The kids will have no food tonight," she muttered, frustration edging her voice. "We should head back now, Eris. It's too dangerous beyond the crest. We could still line up for the soup in the mess hall."
Eris stood beside her, his hand resting on the smooth wood of his unstrung bow. Beneath his skin, the strange tremor in his wrist pulsed—a low, constant hum, like a buried electrical current calling to the deep stone. He had carried that strange vibration after yesterday's hunt.
"We've already crossed the boundary," he said flatly, looking toward the dark horizon. "There must be something out there."
Pushing past a high crest, they descended the far slope. The treacherous path was choked with thick brambles and warped trees leading toward the lip of a shallow gorge they had only gazed at from afar during past excursions.
As they pressed deeper, the sun vanished behind thick storm clouds. A pungent, egg-like stench of sulfur drifted from nearby volcanic vents, mixing with the rain-soaked dirt.
"The mountain's a bit more active today," Eris noted. The silver beneath his skin was pulsing, growing more agitated by whatever lay in wait in the brush.
Kaylah stiffened, her hand darting out to grab Eris's forearm. "Blood trail. And it doesn't look human. This blood was tinged with silver."
Curious, they followed the bloody trail for a few minutes, moving cautiously through the terrain.
The trail led down near the flooded riverbank, where a cluster of dark rocks stood against the downpour. A low, reverberating growl rose above the wind, followed by the harsh clang of iron against stone and a panicked scream. "There's fighting over there," Kaylah whispered.
Eris froze, the hum in his wrist flaring into a heavy vibration that buzzed straight up to his shoulder.
"Haven hunters," Kaylah muttered, her face turning pale in the dim light as she recognized Barik's voice floating on the wind.
Eris nodded, his eyes dark with recognition. Their mercy hunt was over. "They must have caught up with the beast from last night. We have to move!"
The trail was clear. They sprinted down the ridge, abandoning stealth for raw speed. Mud splattered their boots as they crested the final rise, where the struggle unfolded below: smashed brush, torn vines, and fresh blood washing away in the deluge. Iron clashed against bone.
Kaylah climbed to a higher vantage point. Her keen eyes spotted Joeren's heavy bolt-launcher, half-buried in the mud. The sounds of battle grew louder.
"They're entrenched in the gorge wall!" Kaylah called out over the rumbling thunder. She tensed, her eyes meeting Eris's. He saw two men were down, and the rest were trapped against the cliff.
Eris didn't wait. The ruins gave no time for plans. Heat flooded his silver veins, his urgency overriding his usual caution. Kaylah watched in horror as he sprinted toward a ledge closer to the trapped group.
Eris moved with practiced quiet through the debris, slipping between rusted slabs and shattered concrete until he reached the high ledge just behind Dara.
Barik is down there, he realized, his chest tightening. How did they get pinned like this?
The scene below was hopeless. Renzo lay sprawled on the gravel, crying out as pain twisted his fractured leg. Joeren cowered before him, pinned between boulders, his wide eyes reflecting the monster's shadow as it loomed closer.
Then, the beast stepped into the light, and Eris's breath hitched.
"It's a glass-back!" The words tore from his throat in a ragged whisper.
No one had warned them that the hunters were tracking a mutant of this scale—taller than Barik, its calcified body as large as a full-grown cow. As the creature's heavy tail thrashed against the stone walls, a cold wave of childhood terror crashed into the heat building in Eris' veins.
In his eyes, the cave disappeared.
He was a little boy again, freezing in the ruins alongside Kaylah and her siblings. The stench of wet fur and rotting meat filled his nostrils. The glass-back's yellow eyes burned into his memory, its breath hot and reeking of copper as it snarled, saliva dripping from fangs the size of daggers. He could still feel Kaylah's small hand gripping his, her nails digging into his palm as they stood paralyzed, waiting for death that never came—only because Ruvio had appeared like a specter, his blade flashing in the dim light.
The memory clawed at him. Suddenly, the phantom pressure of nails digging into his palm softened into a calming touch, and the shouting before him snapped back with brutal clarity.
Kaylah was beside him, her eyes shut, soothing his troubled mind.
Below, Barik swung his heavy axe with everything he had left, but the steel blade bounced harmlessly against the beast's calcified chest, sending the shattered hilt flying from his grip. Barik reached for a backup blade at his waist, his expression crumbling as he realized his iron weapons were useless in the confined space. The beast trampled their defenses, its massive paws crushing spear shafts like twigs. Joeren shrieked as the wolf closed in, its yellow fangs dripping with coppery saliva.
"Don't give up! Push it back!" Barik screamed, but the ringing in the hunters' ears drowned out his orders.
The mutant lunged toward Joeren's throat. Dara released her last arrow, aiming for the eye to buy the trapped man a second to escape. The shaft struck true but only grazed the thick brow. Out of options, she yanked her empty leather quiver from her shoulder and hurled it at the monster's snout. The glass-back didn't even flinch.
Eris felt his heart pounding against his ribs, a wave of childhood terror warring against the fire building in his blood.
I have to stop this nightmare. I won't watch them die
The thought burned through the last traces of his fear. His hand clenched his bow—a heavy piece of oakwood, crafted specially for him by Kaylah to match his growing strength, held together by sinew and luck. He drew the string back. His silver veins flared, pulsing bright light down his arms and into the leather fletching of his arrow. It was his heaviest shaft, reserved for larger prey.
He didn't just aim. His arm straightened with a surge of power, his sight sharpening as the trajectory cleared before his eyes. He released with the full power of his blood.
Twang!
The arrow whistled through the storm, slamming directly into the softer skin of the monster's neck.
Thud!
The steel head sank deep into the flesh. The glass-back yelped, its head snapping sideways away from Joeren. Before it could recover, Eris notched a second shaft. This time, he didn't aim for the beast. His eyes locked onto a narrow, heat-stressed rock formation jutting out from the cliff, where a thin hiss of mountain steam sputtered into the rain. The steam vein stood out in his sight, unnaturally clear, as if the silver in his blood had painted it for him.
Twang!
The arrow struck the cracked volcanic stone cleanly. Under the hard impact, the pressurized rock shattered open. A violent torrent of scalding water and superheated steam erupted from the mountain's depths, gushing directly onto the beast's back and head.
The mutant let out a high, agonized wail, backing away from the boiling spray as its right eye instantly blistered. Blood oozed from its neck, its massive paws clawing frantically at the arrow lodged in its flesh. The air filled with a thick, choking fog—a blinding curtain of white mist and sulfurous heat that transformed the battlefield in an instant.
Dara shielded her face, watching through the haze as the beast thrashed from side to side. Blinded and disoriented, the mutant predator looked terrified for the first time.
Breathing hard, Dara turned toward the ridge behind her. Silhouetted against the dark storm clouds and flashing lightning stood Kaylah. Beside her was Eris, the rain washing over him, but it couldn't dim the brilliant, unmistakable glint of silver light pulsing beneath the skin of his arms.
His bow was already drawn for a third shot.
Now, the group had a chance.
***