Lyca stepped off the phe tarmac was cracked. The airport itself was small. The nearby town was maybe two dozen tall apartment blocks. Cars were cheap and old, clothes were dull and grey. The air was cold and the wind was starting to pick up.

  Karaina B. In all its glory.

  Ten days had passed. Ten slow days of preparation and watg the skies. Seven days of nature slowly crawling over the dwarf hold. It was not recimed into the ground, it had grown and evolved into a new beast. Passages would open and close for the beastmen, the moat had bee a monstrosity and the trees were slowly retreating from the hold. Every half hour, anreat pine would crad colpse as the poisonous aura around the castle seeped deeper into the ground.

  Fer wondered if she had made a mistake in bringing half her pack here. They could have ran further. Where though? Eventually the hunt would catch up, they flew where the pack marched. A river would take an hour to ford. The hawks chasing them wouldn’t even gwice at the water.

  The sun started to desd from its zenith. It peaked over a picturesque view of the Karainan tundra. All pirees, topped off with snow. Mountains in the distance, birds circled around the farther mountains to keep watch. Wolves stalked the undergrowth as wardens, the rest of the rge animals from nearby had been called to the hold. They had answered. A menagerie of fauna resided in those ruins devoured by twisting roots and vihe rest of the animals were scripted into the force. From fox and boar to squirrel and sparrow, evei rodent was called upon.

  Fer squinted as the snow clouds started to clear. There it was. The hunt on them. A small dark dot on the horizon. As the hunters got closer, that dot started tment. Fer ted at least twenty different fgs and then gave up, it was easily over a hundred cultivators. After a certain point, they may as well be fighting the ey of Great Guguo.

  Fer re-adjusted the bronze breastpte around her body. A turion automaton had given its carcass to serve as her armour, too heavy even for minotaurs but light for Divines. She stood up and howled the war cry. The fort beh answered as every beast dwelling added their own roar to her howl.

  She hefted one of the bronze javelins. Logar had thought they were spears at first, they were bolts from a dwarven ballista. It was time to give them o flight. She aimed, her stomach twisting, leaned bad then threw it forwards. Half a forest was nothing.

  The bolt unched like a metallic shard of lightning, the boom came a sed after. Swords flew to meet it, swords were blown away. One maowards the tree. Hawks and sparrows flew out to meet him and make sure he wouldn’t return to the air.

  Fer bared her fangs. The wind picked up towards her and she smelled the fresh blood. Ahrow, this one was dodged. The men in sky shot a red fre towards the sky as the clouds retreated further. More howls came from the forest. Ground troops. Another dot appeared in the North. Another in the South.

  Two more throws, two more dead men fell out of the sky. The group stopped. She hit someone important. Vengeance. Fer felt her ears quiver and rolled to the side. A bde desded from the sky to the spot she was stood on. She grabbed it and smashed the steel sword in two over her knee. Bdes didn’t bleed, but they could still be killed.

  The shard was a throwing dagger. She u back at the group. They were close enough now for her to make out faces. Men standing on floating bdes and spears. They’re own artefact ons in their hands, more bdes floating around them in circles. One sword came to meet the shard she threw and swatted it like a fly.

  Howls came from the pines. Howls and screams and shouts and whimpers. “Pack Master.” Fer’s ears jumped in aowledgement to the darkfur behind her, but she tihrowing. Half the dwarf-bronze bolts, six kills: Could be better, could be worse. “The animals from the forest are rep about two thousand ground troops. Lesser practitioners and so on.”

  “Yes.” Fer threw two more. One bolt cracked through a sword ahe man behind spiralling to the ground, the other flew past them and disappeared into the perfect blue sky. Fer’s ears quivered again. “Dodge!” She shouted. The dark fur moved on pure instinct, rolling backwards and into a ball behind a ruined n.

  A hailstorm of bdes desded towards the roof they were stood on. The darkfur was hidden the by the n, Fer was te to hide. The bdes thudded against the dwarf-bronze on her chest and slit across arms and arms.

  The pain faded quickly, the wounds closed quicker, but in that moment, Fer smelled her own blood. Time arouarted to slow down, her visio red. Her ears quivered as her nails grew into cws. A single swipe and she snapped half of the swords lodged into the ground.

  The darkfur barged into her and roared his death howl. Fer recovered trol as a beam of fire desded from the men into the air on the forest. Ice grew out of the ground around a tree and exploded into a thousand shards. The ground started to crad shake as the cultivators reaped the woods like wheat. None of that was important, what was so important was the arrow stig out of the darkfurs’ chest. It pierced his head, it would have hit her heart had he not knocked her over.

  Golden shaft, white feathers.

  Arrows made to hunt her.

  Arrows only Gods used.

  Atis’ arrows.

  Fer rolled again as anolden flew were she was just standing. She crouched as if to jump and then pounced forwards. Two arrows followed her. Where? A blink was too much time. No. Don’t look.

  Escape. Fer rolled like a snake, unched herself against the mountain edge, swung on a vine and jumped downwards, towards her roof as if she was about force a door open. The roof gave way under her and she disappeared into the fortress in a cloud of dust.

  Two beastmen stared at her in the corridor, armed with bronze axes looted from the treasury. Fer let the cloud of dust clear as she recovered her breath. Two dozen arrows snaked across the mountain, buried deep into the stone and vines and roots as if it were all butter. They tracked her movements perfectly, a moment slower and she would have been dead.

  “What is it Pack Master?” The took a step back as Fer finally stood up, her eyes led, her fangs exposed in a snarl.

  “The Huntsmaster is here.”