Chapter 023 Waiting Fangs

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

-Helen Keller: Let Us Have Faith, 1940, Page 50-51

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In the dim light of their Shine spells and lamps, it took a moment for Neron to recognize what he was looking at. At first he believed it to be another coati given its size, with dirt covering its fur from the digging. Then he reevaluated as he realized the snout was wider, its ears were pointed, its shoulders set further back and its tail bushy and hanging down. There was also no dirt on the fur and it was naturally a dark brown. Thus, Neron, for that second moment believed it to be some sort of dog. A large one since it reached his waist.

Then the other two, much larger, creatures dropped from the ceiling and Neron was forced to confront a rather uncomfortable truth: if the first creature was a dog, then it was a void damned puppy compared to the two creatures that followed it. Their brown fur was lighter in color, also absent of dirt, with white along their chests. They were thicker and stockier too. Unfortunately, that wasn't their only difference. They also came up to Neron's chest in height at their shoulders, towering over his three party members.

There was a long moment as not only Neron and Enzio, the only two players with line of sight on the arrivals, but also the coati stared at the wolves who'd fallen from the ceiling of the dungeon. 

The wolves surveyed the room in turn and Neron... didn't know what to do. 

This was so outside what he'd expected for today that, like everyone else in the room, he'd frozen in shock, discombobulated as his mind tried to understand what was happening.

When events like this happen, when an unexpected and dangerous phenomena appear out of seeming nowhere, it is instinct for living creatures to engage in one of five behaviors. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or flop. It wasn't necessarily a fear response, though it usually was, just one that evolution programmed into life as a shortcut to survive when the time to think wasn't present.

Neron instinctively froze, trying not to make a sound so as not to attract attention. He was a man who liked to have time to think. Adaptable, sure, but adaptability had its limits. One of which was when something completely incomprehensible happened. So, his instinct was to buy himself time to comprehend and fold these new variables into his understanding and plans. Once he could rationalize everything, he could decide on the optimal response for his goals.

Neron froze. His body did not.

His heart still beat. He still breathed. He continued to perspire from the exertion of combat. He continued to bleed from his wounded leg. All natural, bodily functions continued as usual. Including the ones he'd incorporated into himself through months of practice.

A forked tongue flickered out, tasting the air and the new arrivals before folding back in, locking into the small dock at the top of his hard pallet where the Jacobson organ interpreted those faint particles and shot their meanings and appropriate response to his brain.

Neron could taste freshly excavated dirt.

Neron could taste the rain falling outside from the hole in the ceiling.

Neron could taste wet canine fur and musk, a different tang than Cuholy's.

Neron could taste the fresh human blood on lips that began to pull back in a snarl. 

It had been less than a day since those jaws, bigger than his head, with teeth the length of Belen's dagger, had feasted on human flesh.

Then the first wolf, the small one, lowered itself to pounce and spoke in a boyish voice only Neron could hear.

"Kill the beasts. Chase the Blessed. Save the leader for the others."

The two larger wolves also lowered themselves into a crouch. One growled, a low, threatening sound that sent neck hairs on edge and tension running through the body. The other was less subtle. It let out a deafening bark.

The sound was cacophonous, echoing through the room around them and had a physical force  triggering every single part of Neron's brain that remained from a time when his ancestors were little more than monkeys and not yet the most dangerous things in the solar system. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution told him what to do and not even a thousand years of dominance could undo that. 

Certainly not when backed by a sensory organ that magnified every instinctual response.

"What the fu-!""My children to-!""Luca! Get back-!""Caw Caw-!""Throw me Part-!""Ruuuuuuuunnnnnnn-!"

The noise of voices, of confusion, shock and fear. The scramble as wolves lunged, weapons re-positioned, and monsters grouped up. Neron heard all of it yet did not process it. Did not see it.

Neron was already running. 

Thought left him. All that was left was physical need to get away. To put as much distance between himself and the certainty of death.

Neron ran at a hobble, using his staff as a cane for his leg. Step. Thump. Step. Thump. Into the tunnel they entered by. Step. Thump. Step. Thump. Step. Thump. His breath came in rapid pants. His mind suffused with fear. Step. Thump. Step. Thump. Step. Thump. Step. Thump. Faster. He needed to be faster. Faster than the wolves. Faster than death. StepThumpStepThumpStepThumpStepThumpStepThumpStepThump. Sound from down the tunnel dwindled but he could still hear the growls, the snarls, the shouts. He was still too close. He was still going to die. Stepthumpstepthumpstepthump-!!

Neron's staff hit a stone in the dirt at an angle. He destabilized. Tried to compensate by balancing on his injured foot. He was moving too fast. It couldn't support him. He fell face first into the ground.

Fingers scrabbled on loose stone and drove dirt under his nails as he grasped at the ground in desperate mania to stand up and run and get away away away. They were right behind him. They were-

Small fangs sunk into the webbing of his thumb and Neron hissed at the sensation, look down to see what hurt him.

Jorry periscoped half a meter of his body to look in Neron's eyes.

"What," the small creature hissed in anger. "Are you doing?"

Neron opened his mouth to answer, to point out that if they did not run they would die and be eaten, that there were giant wolves chasing them down to tear them to shreds. He was going to use a few, concise words to point out the rationality of his actions. It was completely logical. It was...

Neron closed his mouth with a harsh click of his teeth.

It was panic, pure and simple. He wasn't operating by logic at all. He wasn't thinking. He was reacting without thought or consideration.

"You are right," Neron spoke, taking another deep breath as he did. "I lost my head there. Thank you for snapping me out of it."

He knew the Jacobson organ exaggerated instinctual responses. The scent/taste it conferred went directly to the brain and led to snap judgement. It was why he'd moved far from civilization to train it. He should have a better control after weeks doing so. He thought he did. He'd met people, monsters even. He'd almost died a few times while training it. Felt every base instinct instilled by it, from hunger, to lust, to anger, and even fear. He'd maintained control.

Yet Neron had never felt panic. Felt that overwhelming, thought-eating terror that ruled battlefields and phobias. 

How could he? In the modern world where his life was never threatened, without a phobia to trigger it, Phobos had no opportunity to enter his life. Not even in combat. He could die, sure. Had died. But it was never a certainty and, with the pain reduction and knowledge he'd resurrect, it wasn't even something he was really anxious about. He fought monsters half his size, whose greatest method of hurting him was to target his legs. He set up traps and ambushes, always stacking the deck in his favor. Always planned out. Even when things went wrong, it was still something he could deal with and adapt to.

When confronted by a creature of his own size that he knew he couldn't fight, that he could taste the human blood on its breath, that for the very first time was wholly a surprise, he'd panicked.

And that panic would get him killed.

"What are you doing?" Cuholy repeated Jorry's question but her voice was also laced with panic. "We need to run. Get up!"

Neron did continue to rise, counting down from a random number in sets of seven to steady his mind. By the time he was back on his feet, his normally quick wits had returned.

"No," Neron denied the fox on his shoulder. "Jorry is right. We can not panic."

"Exactly," Jorry's anger had left him with Neron's words. "We can fight them here. They're too big for multiple to fit in the tunnel at once."

"No," Neron repeated, denying the snake on his wrist. "Cuholy is right. We need to run."

Neron set out again, this time at a more sedate pace to try and regain his breathing. As he did, he focused on casting a spell. He'd made pretty good distance in his panic and he needed to gain more before those behind him reached him.

"We can-," Jorry began to argue, but then stopped for a moment to give it some thought. "They're too big. We have nothing that can hurt them, do we."

"If we all surrounded one, we could probably kill it," Neron answered absentmindedly, still focusing on the spell. "In the tunnels, they can just rush through everything. Once they get their claws or fangs on us, it is over."

"What type of monsters are they?," Cuholy babbled in fear, claws hanging onto Neron's shoulder for dear life. "Where did they even come from?" 

"I do not know where they came from but I do know they are wolves. Ones that evolved gigantism like the coati we were fighting. Except for the small one. That one is different." As he shaped his Spirit, the focus on the task helped him calm further. More details flowed and he was speaking as much to himself as to the two animals he carried. "Probably a variant. With a Self. If it did not focus on size then it probably has some sort of magical ability. That means- Cuholy!"

"Yes!?"

"Keep an ear out behind us-""Already am!" "And tell me when the party are getting close."

"You think they also fled and want to reunite with them?"

"I think if we do not play this smart, we are going to die, no matter how fast we run," Neron said grimly as his Sculpt spell coalesced on his hand. 

He'd gotten a lot of use out of it in the last few weeks and knew he had a few minutes before it expired. A part of those minutes he would use to cast a second Sculpt on his other hand. This was not concurrent casting, as he'd seen Gabriel do, but rather consecutive while the old spell's effect still lingered. Much easier.

"What's the plan," the rat-snake asked, tightening himself around Neron's arm.

"For now, get under my jacket," Neron ordered. "If we end up in a fight again then we have already lost. And we are heading outside so it will be cold."

Jorry grumbled but slithered his way up Neron's arm and down under his shirt to wrap around his torso as he continued to half hop, half jog down the tight tunnels, thanking his good fortune that his hip lamp hadn't broken or gone out when he fell because his Shine spell was long gone. For a while it was just them, in the tight tunnel with a flickering light and the vaguest noises behind them.

Far sooner than Neron hoped, but later than he'd feared, Cuholy called out the approach of the party.

Neron stopped, planted his feet, both hands glowing with spells and one grasping his staff, and waited.

They turned a bend in the tunnel and the three players saw him and stopped.

"Kaisar! You son of a bitch!" Enzio snarled out. If the mage wasn't helping to drag Belen along, he probably would have tried to attack Neron. "You ran like a coward and left us to die!"

The trio looked rough, covered in dirt and more than a little blood. Enzio looked the best off, uninjured but missing his spear. Belen was the worst. Half her head was covered in blood, a long gash along the left of her scalp caked her in it as it ran freely. Not fatal, as her eyes focused in and out and she let out minor noises of confusion and pain, but she couldn't stand and had to be carried between the two men. Luca was in slightly better shape, but only slightly. His one good arm held up his sister while the other hung limply at an unnatural angle. There was no blood, but the four deep rents in his shield left little question on how it had been broken.

Altogether, they were a pitiful sight, forced to huddle together at an angle to fit through the tunnels as they half carried, half dragged their unconscious member with them. If they weren't experiencing only a fraction of the pain, and supported by super human strength in Luca's case, they wouldn't be able to move. As it were, even with an injured leg, Neron could outrun them if he wished. He could, literally, leave them to the wolves. Yet here they were. 

Which meant Neron's guess was right.

"You are right." Neron declared firmly, meeting Enzio's eyes directly. "I panicked. I ran. There is no excuse." For a second the mage seemed unable to form a thought at Neron's blunt admission. Then the rage returned. 

"You think saying your sorry makes it right!? You sack of-" 

"No. Apologies will not solve anything." Neron interrupted. The longer this took the worse they'd all be. So he let his actions speak and stood to the side, pressing himself against the side of the wall and raising his glowing hands. "Go. I will stay behind and collapse the tunnel."

"Wha- That's not going to help!" Luca exclaimed as the trio continued to near him. "They dug through the ceiling! They can dig through anything we do."

"It will slow them down," Neron said with grim finality. "Go. Get out as fast as you can. Head east when you are out. If you make it to the road you should be safe."

"What about you?" Luca asked as they reached him. Enzio was looking Neron over suspiciously but the rage was gone.

"I will be right behind you," Neron said. He inflected his tone just right. A bit of false cheer, just enough fake confidence that they could see through but not too much as to be bluster. A touch of a wince as he re-positioned his leg as they passed, just enough to remind them he was hobbled. "I do not plan on dying here."

Every clue he gave said the exact opposite, that he was seeking to atone for his cowardice with his life. Perhaps if they thought particularly well of him, or enjoyed dramatic stories, they even imagined he planned on not only collapsing the tunnel but to go down fighting to buy them even more time at the cost of his life.

Unfortunately for them, real life seldom played out like the stories and Neron was telling the complete truth.

"First round of drinks is on me then," Luca said solemnly as they squeezed by him, Belen letting out a noise that might have been a thanks, an apology, or a torturous moan.

"I might hold you to that," Neron said with a shaky smile, putting up a front of putting up a front.

As soon as they were past, Neron gave his back to them and plunged his hands into the dirt and stone on the ceiling. With as great a heave as he could manage, putting as much of his considerable weight as he could behind it while still maintaining his delicate balance, Neron began to tear down the ceiling of the tunnel. 

Stone and dirt fell. In small fistfuls at first, the second half to Sculpt used to stabilize constructs not helping in that regard, but there came a point where not even the coagulating effect on the back of his hands could handle the sheer volume and speed of material he was ripping from the ceiling.

"Are you seriously staying to fight!?" Cuholy asked in disbelief. "You can't. We can't. I can't! Those things could eat me in one bite!"

From the ceiling, he moved to the walls. He didn't focus on them long, just jabbing his hand in at regular intervals to create faults, then backed up to target the ceiling once more. 

"Of course not," Jorry snorted derisively. "He told us we weren't going to fight so we won't. This is just as tactic. A cunning deception fit for a dragon. The real plan is obvious."

He had to repeat this process twice more, the pile of dirt at his feet growing in height to reach his knees, before the destabilization took on its own momentum. 

"Really?" The fox asked, naked hope in her voice. "What is it?"

Jorry did not speak.

As soon as the dirt started sloughing off on its own, Neron turned around, grabbed his staff and hobbled down the corridor as fast as he could.

Behind him the cave in sped up as the movement of more earth destabilized more as it snowballed, a small trickle of loose material growing into falling stones and then boulders. 

There was not enough room for a full collapse, and a perk of sculpt was its stabilization, so only the parts Neron disrupted were disappeared under the cavalcade of ruble. Granted it was that same stabilization aspect which meant he took so long to collapse the tunnel but Neron's goal of putting an impediment in the way of the monstrous wolves had been accomplished.

Now for the actual dangerous part.

"We needed to put space between us and the party," Neron explained as he kept up his pace. As the one who'd carved most of these tunnels, he knew them pretty well. He needed to pass two more side tunnels before reaching the one they needed. "They will be using the main tunnel to get out. No reason not to."

"And we'll use a different one," Jorry continued, poking his head out of Neron's shirt to nod sagely. "Like you, they are bait."

"Oh." Cuholy said softly in realization, her voice a mixture of relief and sadness. "Are they... going to be okay?"

"Doubtful," Jorry snorted. Neron passed the first side tunnel without slowing down. The darkness tried to cast illusions in the shadows of his lamp but he pushed forward without bothering to consider them. "If they couldn't handle those three with other monsters distracting them and in these tunnels, they have no chance in the open while carrying dead weight." 

There was a beat of silence and the snake met the fox's eyes. Jorry looked away. 

"But who knows, maybe they get lucky and get away. Or they can fight them off long enough to get help."

"No," Neron denied bluntly. "They are going to die. Cuholy keep an ear out."

"...I have been. Nothing's started digging yet."

"I mean ahead of us," Neron said reaching an intersection in the tunnels and taking the larger one. It should be the next right. "Let me know if you hear them coming down the tunnels."

"You think they'll leave the way they came in," Jorry guessed. "They'll go up and over to get around the cave in?"

"I think the wolves that landed in that room are more interested in the coati than us." Neron said, vocalizing his thought process, the intuition that had been verified by the arrival of the party. "I think they will not even try to follow us. At least not for a while. If they were, they would have killed those three way before they reached me. And I would not have had time to cause the cave in."

"So... we're safe? At least for now?"

"No...," Jorry spoke slowly in response, realization tinging his voice with a grim certainty. "It means there's more than those three. And they're outside the tunnels."

"It said: 'Kill the beasts. Chase the Blessed. Save the leader for the others.'" Neron repeated, glad Jorry had picked up on what he'd been laying down. "It clearly separated the Elite and us Blessed as targets from the other coati."

The aspect of The Nest that Neron had found the most useful so far wasn't the ability to gain traits of animals. Those were long term investments. It was understanding the 'voice' of creatures. They had no idea he could, so they never tried to conceal their words from him because they weren't even 'speaking,' not really. Just communicating. From what he could tell in his limited exposure so far, creatures 'directed' by those with Selves needed 'verbal' instructions. Whether that was an actual requirement or a simple facet of never having to conceal their voices, Neron didn't know but it gave him crucial information that others lacked.

"It's trying to give Selves to others by letting them be the ones to kill you," Cuholy realized.

"Or let one monster kill them to make them much stronger," Jorry added. "Either way, there are more wolves outside and they are waiting for us."

"Not us. The Blessed. And we sent three their way."

"Prey that thinks it is safe is easy prey." Cuholy's voice was so soft in Neron's ears that he almost missed it. He certainly didn't miss her next question. "What's to stop them from hunting us down when they're... finished with the others?"

"I have a plan for that," Neron said calmly. Then, to distract them from asking further, he diverted their attention. "I just hope we time it right. Our path is shorter than theirs so we could emerge before them. If we do, we will end up as the bait."

"And if we're too late then they will not be distracted," Cuholy whimpered. There was more light in the tunnel now. Natural light. Not a lot, but it was enough to know they were getting close to one of the exits excavated in the past weeks.

"But if we time it right then they will not even realized we've left the tunnels," Jorry hissed out in vindictive glee. "We'd have slithered right from under their paws and they'll need to go looking for us in the tunnel. The cave in will give us even more time as they try and uncover it! Exceeeeeelent! A beautiful plan, just what I'd expect from a dragon's partner!"

"Do not count chickens before they hatch," Neron warned. "We are not safe yet."

"What is a chicken and what do they have to do with anything?" Jorry asked.

Right. Animal domestication and ranching was comparatively underdeveloped in this world due to the risk of those animals learning to spit acid or fire and with a genetic inclination to kill and eat the farmer instead of the other way around.

...Were wild chickens a thing? At least, those not a byproduct of humanity interfering in their evolution? Neron didn't know. Chickens weren't really one of his priorities for Beasts to gain traits from so he hadn't done much research on them. He knew they were an early example of domestication due to their ability to produce eggs and meat while not competing with human food sources, but he did not know if early fowl were genetically similar enough to be considered 'chickens' as they existed today like cats or if they were like horses and dogs and humanity had such an influence on them that they barely resembled their ancestors. A potential area of study...

... When he wasn't at risk of dying horribly to a bunch of giant wolves that is.

Neron shook his head fiercely, trying to focus. He was feeling a bit light headed and, looking down at his savaged leg, he grimaced. He probably wouldn't die of blood loss... probably, but it was better if he managed to wrap it up sooner rather than later.

He didn't have time though. The mouth of the tunnel was right there, letting in the light of an overcast evening. He could hear the pitter-patter of rain, not heavy, but consistent. Neron grimaced slightly and put out the lamp at his hip. Getting wet wasn't the problem, it was getting dry that would be. With a quiet sigh, he leaned against the wall of the tunnel and started to unfasten his boots, whispering to his companions as he did so. Immediately his feet began to tingle from the cold. The lack of fur on his feet, once a boon due to socks, was now a significant loss.

"I am going to be as quiet as I can be. If you sense anything approaching, let me know. Can you hear anything?"

"A bit," Cuholy said, also speaking quietly even if it wasn't needed for her. "I thought I heard Luca. I think they're fighting right now."

"Then we need to move. They won't last long."

With a deep breath, and a firm grip on his staff, Neron half power walked, half hobbled out of the tunnels and into the rain. He didn't have far to go, a glance at his feet revealed little in the way of debris that would make noise. It was stone, dirt, moss, and the occasional underbrush. Fifty meters. That was all that separated him from his goal.

And Jorry and Cuholy finally realized what that goal was.

"Oh no. No way! We are not going there! Are you crazy!?"

"We're going to die," Cuholy quietly hissed in terrified anger. She'd been saying that a lot today... Or in general really, Neron noted. "We don't have to do this. It's stupid. Just turn right here. We can escape the wolves while they're distracted."

"For once I agree with the cowardly fox. We'll die." Jorry, already unhappy being out from the underground and back into the winter air, had his own concerns. "Worse than dying, we'll be cold!"

Neron could not answer without making further noise than he wanted and continued his quick pace toward the dark waters of the Mandory river.

"I'm serious," Cuholy said, her voice trembling. "If you don't stop I'll... I'll do... something. I'll-" The fox cut herself off and Neron felt her whip her head around and he tensed. "Up there. In the trees."

The trees?

Neron paused and looked up, scanning the dense foliage. It was dark and hard to make out details in the shifting shadows of the leaves as they swayed in the rain and wind. What was he looking for?

A small glimmer of reflection on a branch was all the hint Neron had. His eyes latched on.

A bird stared back at him.

It was too dark to identify the details with its all black feathers and beady black eyes and Neron almost relaxed. Almost. He couldn't relax because he noticed two more corvids land on nearby branches. Which drew his attention to the other five.

Neron's hear skipped a beat. He recalled a tidbit of information he'd picked up when investigating canines in the wild after picking up Cuholy.

Ravens and wolves had a symbiotic relationship.

Ice flowed down his spine.  His heart rate sped up. He knew what was going to happen before it did. He saw the raven open its beak.

"Caw caw!" As the bird... spoke(?), and loud CROAK emerged from its beak. The call was joined by it fellow corvids and in moments the forest was filled with the sound of croaking birds that reverberated throughout the trees as if it was demented laughter.

Neron turned and ran. He forwent every attempt to keep quiet and took off at a limping sprint, his staff beating a quick rhythm against the stone and dirt.

"Something's coming. Fast," Cuholy cried out and Neron tried to move faster. He couldn't put too much weight on his leg without risking falling. A fall would be fatal. 

He was almost there! The water flowed in a black wall, beyond a small ledge overhang. Less than twenty meters away. Fifteen meters. Ten met- "Behind you!"

Neron whirled, staff up in swing-

-A large form with teeth and claws and eyes like fire-

-Impact on his staff. Teeth vanishing-

-The black mass slammed into him with the force of an asteroid and Neron was knocked ass over teakettle, bouncing and skidding along the forest floor. He rolled, Jorry cried out, Cuholy screamed-

Neron tried to get to make distance, get to his feet, anything!

The wolf recovered faster.

He heard it snarl, a feral sound, and he turned his head to see it lunging once more.

His staff saved his life. He hadn't let go of it in his roll and as he brought it up to defend himself, he managed to get it between his body and the wolf.

The jaws were centimeters from his face as he barely put the piece of reinforced wood in place. The wolf bit down and only found purchase on steel and wood.

It creaked in protest.

Neron saw it properly for the first time. It was large, larger than even the two big ones in tunnels. It's jaws were larger than his head. Dark fur was covered in splotchy patches of crimson. Blood pooled with saliva as it drooled from a mouth forced open by his staff.

This creature had just taken a bite out of someone in his party and Neron could taste the human blood on its breath. 

The message was clear. This was a man eater. A monster higher on the food chain than himself. He was but prey. If he did not flee and hide, he would be killed and eaten.

Once more, the particles filtered through the Jacobson organ passed beyond rational thought and directly into his brain. Instinctual panic would claim him and he would die.

Yet, when that fear, that mind numbing terror overwhelmed his conscious thought, it did not claim his sanity. It was present. He felt it. But it was not dominant.

Was it because he was expecting it and knew to be prepared? Was it because he was already planning on fleeing and the feeling did not change those plans? Was it because of a desperate will to survive, the very goal of the terror, was telling his body that panic was counter to survival?

Or was it that when the instinct to flee and panic started to overwhelm his conscious thoughts, another, deeper, more personal instinct superseded fear? Was there no room for panic because Neron was filled with something... else?

Neron heaved, trying to push the creature to the side. He needed it off of him. Now. He had seconds at most before the wolf used its claws to rake at him. This wasn't a dramatic vid where it would stand in place to hold him down to be dramatically rescued.

Yet, for all his strength, Neron could not move the creature. It budged and twisted his neck to keep him down but that was it. He did not have the leverage to throw it off from his position on his back and arms out of line from the fall.

In the moment following his attempt, the wolf raked at his chest, claws scraping along his torso-

-And could not pierce his sister's jacket.

The leather, dirty and worn from months on the road, did not even tear as claws the size of knives scrapped along it. It tried twice more with no success and Neron could see the confusion in its eyes.

Neron, as surprised as the wolf, did not have time to celebrate his lack of disembowelment. 

Just because it wasn't able to scrape him open did not mean it could not kill him.

The wolf put a paw to his chest and pressed.

Over a ton of murderous muscle and bone bore down on Neron's ribs and all breath left his lungs in an instant. He let out a choked, gurgling gasp of pain and-

-And Jorry struck, lashing out from inside Neron's jacket in a blindingly fast lunge to sink his fangs into sensitive nostrils.

The wolf couldn't help itself.

It sneezed.

Neron's staff shattered in splinters of stone and metal from the violent motion of the creature's jaw, leaving him lying on his back with two jagged fragments in his hand and no way to protect himself from its teeth.

Yet, when it sneezed, it had closed its eyes.

And Jorry was not the only companion Neron had.

Cuholy took her opportunity and lashed out with her own claws. So much smaller than the wolf's, they still tore red lines across its face. It would have clawed out an eye if the creature hadn't harshly jerked itself backward to avoid the attack.

As the weight on Neron lessened a tad, he pivoted, throwing all his mass into the movement to destabilize the wolf further.

And give him access to the front leg between himself and the river.

The two jagged pieces of wood and metal pierced flesh just above the joint and the wolf recoiled with a howl of pain.

Neron took the chance while he had it, scrambling out from under the monster as it recoiled. Scooping Cuholy up from where she'd fallen, Neron half crawled half sprinted on all fours toward the overhang.

He heard the wolf without seeing it.

He knew he was out of time.

With teeth set into a bloody smile and a desperate jump, putting all his force into both his legs, Neron threw himself over the edge of the tiny cliff.

He barely had time to see yellow, vulpine eyes shining overhead before he hit the cold, dark water.

The shock of the freezing water hit him like a physical blow and he involuntarily let out a gasp of shock, water flowing in and he began to choke.

Cold like he'd only felt once in his life instantly embraced him and at a greater speed than ever before. Combined with blood loss and Neron had minutes before he died from hypothermia, cardiac arrest from vasoconstriciton, or drowning...

...And that still wasn't his main concern!

Neron's head broke the surface of the river with choking gasp, spitting and coughing water and ears ringing with a wolf's howl to the night sky. Beside him, Cuholy also surfaced, fur pressed to her body and eyes wide in panic

"Blessed in the river." The wolf watched him from the bank, eyes tracking his movements as it conveyed its message to the night sky.

"He's getting away," a younger, more familiar voice called out from the bank.

Neron turned, grabbed Cuholy, and desperately started swimming toward the west shore. Jorry's head floated listlessly beside him in the water, the shock of the cold sending the snake into unconsciousness.

"Leave him." A howl from further away reverberated through the trees. "We are going in."

With a final look at Neron's desperate movements, the wolves took off into the shadows of the trees.

Neron did not spare even the slightest bit of effort to speak to the fox he carried. He couldn't. His every thought was on swimming as fast and as steadily as he could. He knew how to swim, the mechanics, and even done so a few times in the past but there weren't exactly rivers or an ocean on Mars. His experience was limited to pools and artificial lakes. Ones without a current. He'd underestimated how much the water would pull at him.

"You're almost there!" Cuholy encouraged, eyes and ears swiveling in a panic from where the wolf had left, to the sky, the river, to the west bank.

Neron was two and a half meters tall, most of it muscle, and with a weight to match. His clothes, jacket, and cloak weighed him down further. He swam half on his back, keeping Cuholy and Jorry's head above the water with his own. It also lowered his energy expenditure. Swimming was incredibly hard exercise in the best circumstances and Neron was not in the best circumstance nor very practiced in it. He hadn't been able to rest after combat, been running on adrenaline, and scrambled to stay alive. He was tiring. Fast.

"Half way. Just a bit more."

Yet he could not slow down. The river wasn't wide here, but it did not need to be to kill him. 

It just needed to be wide enough.

There was a reason both Jorry and Cuholy considered this plan to be suicidal. 

It was the same reason Neron was certain the wolves would not try to follow him.

It was the same reason the bridge near Provent was so heavily guarded.

It was the same reason the road was kept over a kilometer from the river.

In a world where monsters evolve from murder and need to be regularly purged to prevent them from growing to strong and fast, what can be done about an environment where said monsters can flee at blinding speed, humanoids can't breathe in and most can not easily access?

Very little.

And Neron had brought blood into the water.

Less than four meters from safety, Neron's timer ran out.

He did not even have the chance to register the increase to the stinging pain of his leg before a violent force dragged him under the surface of the water.

Neron flailed at the sudden jerking of his body back and forth and then jolted harshly as something in his leg gave out with a SNAP that he felt more than heard.

Something had a hold of him, something that had broken his leg instantly, something that was dragging him through the river's depths, something he couldn't couldn't see.

It thrashed once more and he thrashed helplessly with it, the cold and the pain and the dark threatening to overwhelm him.

He had no way to fight back.

So he created one.

"Ghr brst: phx rwls!" 

There was no understanding his words, garbled and choked as they were underwater, yet his skill responded all the same.

He could not see anything in the dark, he was choking on water, and being dragged through the cold yet Neron felt the tingling pain of a first time transformation along his finger tips and knew it had worked.

Tightening his core, and with a heave of effort, Neron 'sat up' in the water, Jorry's head flopping into him with the movement. The creature flailed once more but Neron had locked his body in shape by tightening all his muscles and managed to keep his relative position.

Ten razor sharp claws sank into aquatic flesh right beside where he felt the pain in his leg.

Neron had no way of knowing where he was grasping, what sort of creature it was, or even how long his claws were. All he knew was that he had a hold on it and was not letting go. 

It's next thrash was violent, instinctive, and Neron's leg was freed from the vice like grip as it flailed. And he held on.

It jerked trying to tear free and Neron rolled with with. He still held on.

It whipped out, and Neron felt solid matter hit his back. What little air he had left his lungs as he impacted the river bed. Yet he held on.

Freezing. Drowning. Bleeding. Delirious. Completely blind. Neron could not help the wild grin on his face as he put his good leg under him and pushed with all his might.

Neron breached the surface of the river like a rocket, the cold air and rain a different kind of shock to his system as he coughed and spluttered. His would-be drowner still locked in his grip.

"Neron!" Cuholy cried out from somewhere nearby. She hadn't been dragged down with them. "This way."

Still disorientated and half blind from the water in his eyes, Neron did not have any idea where anything or anyone was, but he tracked on to the general direction of her voice. Only not for the reason she likely expected.

With another heave, Neron kicked against the water to send himself in a backward roll with his good leg. The leverage was shit, the momentum was shit, it sent him back under the surface and the creature still flailed, yet Neron managed to toss the creature up into the air and out of the water.

When he regained the surface, coughing and spitting out water as he wiped his eyes, Neron found himself less than a meter from the bank of the river, a line of moss covered stones covering it. With a heave of tired effort, Neron swam the last little distance, pulling himself up on their wet surface with great effort.

"Waterpaindieswimwaterriverpain."

He coughed and hacked up more water, desperately trying to clear his mouth and throat, and continued to crawl his way up and out of the river. He almost fell back in when he tried to put weight on his injured leg by accident but managed to save himself with his arms, claws digging into dirt.

"Preyfoodwaterhomediewaterriver."

Still hacking up water, Neron cast a tired eye toward the fish flopping in the dirt beside him. At least as long as he was tall and half as wide, it was a massive thing with grey-green scaled and mouth covered in his blood. Its own covered its head from where Neron's claws had sunk right below its eyes.

Neron could not muster the energy to finish it off. Survival came first.

Thankfully, he didn't have to.

Appearing form around a tree from further upstream, a soaking wet Cuholy descended on the flopping fish with claw and fang, ripping and tearing at it from its softer underbelly.

Neron continued to drag himself further away from the river. The adrenaline was lessening now that there was no immediate threat.

Frozen fingers topped in sharp claws struggled with the clasp on his cloak as its soaked clothe pressed down on him but he managed to get it loose and off of him as he crawled.

He was so cold. So tired. His fur, it was too short. To thin for his large body and lack of fat. He needed... He needed... Shelter. A... A hole.

There. Large tree. Canopy. Roots. Divot in the base.

Neron rolled himself into the small space, his bulk filling it up entirely, but it put four walls around him, even if small. With leaves overhead and a trunk at his back, that was the best he could do.

Jorry's head continued to hang limply out of Neron's shirt. The snake wouldn't have drowned, his ability to close off his glottis would have prevented water from entering his lungs, even unconscious. Moving him wouldn't be good. Even soaking wet, the parts of his body underneath his jacket were slightly warmer than everywhere else.

Whatever Octavia had done to this thing, it was the only reason he was still alive, even with his fur.

And it, hopefully, still held the key to keeping him alive.

With trembling hands and stiff movements, Neron tried to reach into his jacket pocket.

His claws caught on the material and he had to try again.

"Can I help?" Cuholy asked, and Neron looked up blearily to find the soaking fox standing just outside his little hole.

It took a moment for his slugging thoughts to comprehend her question and another to decide on an answer.

"Mu-my clooak," Neron chattered out. "An-and a ste-stick. Thee-thick asssss may arm."

The fox disappeared, rushing off to grab what he wanted and Neron returned to his task, though with a bit more focus than before. Instead of trying to reach in with his claws, Neron felt around his pocket from the outside. A profound sense of relief filled him as he felt what he was looking for and he pushed it out of the pocket.

A small piece of bark, separated into twelve sections by eleven lines, fell into Neron's hand and he smiled.

With his claws, which he now noticed were decimeter long hooks growing from his fingernails, Neron carved another furrow into the wood. He hopped the inside would be dryer than the outside, even if only slightly.

With the interior exposed, Neron began concentrating as best as he could on shaping his Spirit into the appropriate form.

He failed the first time as Cuholy returned with a fallen branch the length and thickness of his forearm.

He failed the second time as he lost concentration, his mind swimming and eyes trying to drift closed.

Neron sunk a claw into his already injured leg to jolt himself awake. One more hole wouldn't kill him any faster.

The third time, he formed the spell properly and a small spark hovered between his thumb and forefinger.

Neron held the Spark against the wood. At first nothing happened, then faint wisps of smoke threaded up in the air. Finally, after half a minute, the wood caught and heat began to radiate from the lyndros bark and Neron let out a sigh of relief that was positively orgasmic. Complete dryness was impossible without an actual ceiling and walls, not with the drizzle, but the combination of his burrow, his sister's jacket, and his fur and he'd be able to warm up and survive the night.

Placing the bark upright in the divot like an incense stick, Neron let a bit of tension fall from his shoulders. Then he began carefully drawing Jorry from out under his shirt, the snake's coils having loosened with unconsciousness. He wrapped the snake around the bark close enough to warm up but far enough that he wouldn't knock it over or get burned.

Noise registered to Neron's ears and he looked up and over the roots that surrounded the hole he'd claimed.

Cuholy was there, walking backwards with his cloak in her jaws as she struggle to drag its sodden heft across the forest floor.

With a tired sigh and a heave, Neron lifted himself up off the dirt and onto the root, half leaning against the trunk for support. Then he leaned over and grasped the edge of the clothe he could reach, dragging toward himself and freeing Cuholy from her burden.

The fox took a few unsteady steps before collapsing in an undignified heap beside Jorry near the warmth.

In the little light of the grey evening Neron surveyed his leg and grimaced. Taking off his water logged boot, he used his claws to cut his pants above the injury. Using the destroyed strips of cloth, he rolled it into a cord. 

Breaking the branch Cuholy had brought over his good knee, Neron took the shorter piece, wrapped the cord around it and his leg and then tightened his tourniquet above his injury and below his knee as he'd been taught at Ysold's. Once he was sure it was tight enough, Neron let himself relax and slide back down into the hole.

The rain continued to drizzle on the leaves above, fat drops occasionally falling through and onto their heads. They were not warm by any stretch of the imagination. If the weather took a turn for the rough, Neron would probably not survive the night. Neither would Jorry. They were not safe, not even a little bit. He still needed to close the wound on his leg, instead of just stem the bleeding, and even once he did he wouldn't be able to run on it until he received proper healing.

They'd been stupidly lucky. If the rain hadn't already disturbed the water surface, if the water's temperature did not slow most aquatic creatures, and if it had been closer to start, he would have faced more than just one fish and they'd have died.

Neron was still at risk of bleeding out, still had a broken leg, was on the wrong side of the river from a town where it could be healed, he had no weapon or tools, and there was a pack of giant wolves not even a hundred meters away.

But they were alive. Despite everything, all the odds stacked against them, they were still alive.

Neron couldn't help it.

He began to laugh.

It started low and coughing, but with every passing second, it gained strength and volume. His laughter was loud and long, tinged with exhaustion, relief, and a touch of madness.

After a moment, Cuholy joined him in his laughter. Hers was higher, a repeating 'yip yip' of foxy joy as she lay splooted, four limbs spread out in an 'x' on the dirt beside the burning bark, her fur as soaked and matted as his clothes.

For a long, happy moment, the pair shared the simple euphoric joy of surviving, of living when the world seemed insistent on killing them.

It was a heady, delirious feeling...

...Which ended when a rabbit's food landed on the back of the fox's neck with a violent CRACK that cut through the laughter.

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