The smell hit me before I saw her.
Rot. Sweet and sour. Thick. It clung to the back of my throat, made my stomach turn. I had smelled rot before – dead lizards in the hole, old meat left too long. But this was different. This was alive.
I climbed the last few steps to the cave mouth. The morning was grey, cold. Fog hung over the valley, muffling every sound. My hands were numb from the rope, my shoulders sore from two days in the hole. The crystals in my pouch hummed faintly against my hip, a reminder of why I had been gone so long.
She was lying on her side. Her pups curled against her belly, shivering. They weren't nursing. Just lying there, eyes closed, too weak to move. Their tiny ribs showed through their fur.
The wound on her flank was hidden under matted fur, but I could see it now. The fur was dark, crusted with dried blood. The skin around it swollen, hot to the touch from three feet away. Black at the edges. Oozing. The smell came from there.
Two days without treatment. Two days of rot. Two days of her lying here, alone, refusing help. The wound would have been minor after the fight – a scratch, maybe a shallow cut. But in the damp cave, with no one to clean it, it had festered. The rot had spread. Now it was deep.
She looked at me. Her yellow eyes were dull. No growl. No snarl. Just watching. Waiting.
I knelt beside her. The pups whimpered but didn't wake.
"Let me help."
She tried to snarl. Her lip curled. Weak. No sound came out. Just a tired exhale. Her body tensed, then relaxed. She didn't have the strength to fight me.
I pulled out my knife.
---
I worked quickly. My hands were steady, but my heart pounded. The knife was sharp – I had sharpened it before climbing down from the hole.
The wound was worse than I thought. The flesh was black around the edges. The rot had spread deep, into the muscle. I could see the white of something – tendon? bone? – at the bottom.
I cut away what I could, piece by piece. Dead tissue fell away. Fresh blood welled up, dark red. The mother didn't move. Didn't growl. Just breathed. Slow. Shallow. Her ribs rose and fell.
The pups whimpered again. I ignored them.
I poured water from my skin over the wound. She flinched – a small jerk – but held still. The water ran pink, then clear. The rot smell lessened, but didn't disappear.
I tore a strip of cloth from my shirt. Pressed it against the cut. Tied it tight around her ribs. The cloth darkened immediately.
"That's all I can do," I said. "The rest is up to you."
She lifted her head. Looked at her pups. Then at me. Her eyes were still dull, but there was something else there. Not gratitude. Not trust. Just... acknowledgment.
She stood. Her legs shook. She almost fell. Her front legs buckled, but she caught herself. She stayed on her feet.
She walked to the cave mouth and sat down, facing the valley. Her back was straight. Her head was high. She didn't look back.
I gathered her pups in my arms. They were warm, soft, smaller than I expected. Their hearts beat fast against my palms. I carried them to her side. They nuzzled against her belly, searching for milk.
She didn't look at me. She just watched the valley.
---
I climbed down. The rope burned my palms. My legs were weak from the climb.
Elias was waiting at the edge of the village. His face was pale. His bad leg was propped on a rock, wrapped in a dirty bandage. He had been sitting there for a while, staring at the cliff.
"She'll live," I said. "Won't fight again."
He touched his leg. The old wound. The one that never healed. The one that left him limping, unable to run, unable to fight.
"Then we're both useless," he said.
I didn't answer. There was nothing to say.
---
The next days, Marta organized a rotation.
Every morning, someone climbed up with food. A piece of bread. A handful of grain. A scrap of meat. The mother ate. She didn't growl. She didn't thank. She just ate.
I went to the hole every day. Killed lizards. Gathered crystals. The pouch grew heavy. The crystals hummed with mana – blue, warm, pulsing against my hip. I had to climb down carefully, afraid of breaking them.
I brought meat up to the village. Scraps up to Grey. That's what they were calling her now. Grey.
Lena came with me once. She was carrying a bundle of wildflowers – yellow and white, picked from the stream bank. Her hands were stained with sap. Her braids were messy. She had been crying, but she wasn't crying now.
"She saved me," Lena said.
"I know."
"I want to thank her."
I led her up the cliff. The mother watched us approach. Her eyes followed Lena, but she didn't move. She didn't growl.
Lena knelt in front of her. Held out the flowers. The mother sniffed them. Then lowered her head.
Lena wove the flowers into a crown and placed it on the mother's head. The flowers sat crooked, yellow against grey fur.
Then she took a brush – a soft-bristled brush that Lora had given her – and began to brush the mother's fur. Long, slow strokes. The mother closed her eyes.
I sat against the cave wall and watched. The sun moved across the sky. The pups tumbled over each other, biting each other's ears. Lena hummed a song I didn't recognize.
---
The days passed. The mother's wound healed. The rot faded. The swelling went down. The cloth bandage fell off on its own, revealing a thick, ugly scar.
Lena came every day. Flowers. Brushes. Sometimes she just sat beside her and talked. About the village. About her brother. About the wooden bird she had given me.
The mother didn't respond. But she didn't leave.
The villagers stopped calling her "the beast." They started calling her Grey.
I went to the hole every day. Killed lizards. Gathered crystals. The pouch grew heavy. I had fifty crystals now. Maybe more. I stacked them in a corner of my lean‑to, glowing faintly in the dark.
Her pups grew. Their eyes opened – grey, like hers. They began to crawl out of the cave, tumbling over the rocks. Lena named them. The grey one she called Ash. The brown one Stone. The smallest, with white paws, Snow.
The mother did not object.
---
One evening, I sat by the fire. Elias was across from me, rubbing his leg. The flames were low. Sparks floated up into the dark.
"The soldiers will come," he said. "And now neither of us can fight."
I looked at the shaft. Dark. Silent. The hole where I had spent so many hours.
"Then I need to go back down. Level up. Get the golem."
"The golem?"
"It's stronger than this body. More customizable. I can upgrade it. Make it faster. Stronger. Maybe even repair the broken parts."
Elias was quiet. He stared at the fire.
"And if you can't?"
"Maybe I'll find an artifact down there. Something that helps. A weapon. A shield. I don't know."
He looked at me. His eyes were tired.
"And if you don't find anything?"
I looked at Grey on the cliff. At the village. At Lora by the fire, mending a shirt.
"Then we're screwed."
He didn't argue.
"Don't wait too long," he said.
---
I sat alone, watching Grey watch the valley.
The stars came out. The wind picked up. The fire died.
We were not safe.
But we were not alone.