The ruin reeked of blood and smoke. Somewhere in the mist, the beast faltered, and the hunters dared to hope. But victory was never simple in the dark.
[A Desperate Rescue]
When he released the two arrows, silver flicker danced down the bowstring. The gorge swallowed the sound. The beast turned, and doom turned with it.
The glass-back beast jolted, confusion in its movements. It ignored wounds and fallen hunters; eyes locked on the scent's source. Eyes fixed, it sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. Recognition sparked in its primal mind. This was the scent.
The silver.
It had stalked that scent last night from thorny shrubs where Eris and Kaylah hunted to the tunnel's mouth, and now here.
Its snarl echoed like a cracked war drum, glass shards along its spine rattling. It sensed what no one else could, the buried shimmer in Eris' blood. A beacon. A summon. A threat.
Kaylah braced the bolt-launcher against her shoulder, aiming for a killing shot. She squeezed the trigger. The weapon roared, launching the spear-like bolt with force. But the angle was tricky, and the beast shifted at the last moment. The bolt sliced across the beast's hind limbs, gouging a shallow gash.
The beast bellowed in rage, pain flaring. Eris cursed under his breath; eyes locked on the enraged beast. The creature was still deadly, charging with renewed fury toward Eris.
It lunged, slower this time, as if savoring the scent. Its roar cut through the air.
Kaylah dropped the launcher. No time for another shot, She scanned the terrain like a predator. Her mind read the battlefield: the slope, the thorns, the scattered weapons.
Kaylah didn't hesitate. "The crack! Go!"
They ran, not with the reckless speed of desperation, but with the calculated sprint of two people who knew their terrain. Eris and Kaylah scrambled toward a narrow fissure in the canyon wall—a crack just wide enough for two. They squeezed in, Kaylah shielding Eris' back with her body as he turned to face the beast.
The hunters, still scattered, saw their chance. The beast was distracted. Joeren, his swagger replaced by a trembling rage, grabbed a dropped spear.
Barik moved with a clear-headed purpose, rallying the remaining hunters. "The wounds! Hit the wounds!" he roared, pointing to the matted flank where the bolt-launcher had hit.
Spears and arrows flew, but they were useless. The glass-back's hide was too thick, and with its back turned to them, their attacks were little more than pinpricks. Their action was a joke. They could wound it if they could hit the wounds, but right now it was an impenetrable fortress of rage and vengeance.
In the crack, Eris and Kaylah were the only ones who could wound the beast directly. With Kaylah covering his back, Eris faced the glass-back, which was now trying to force its way into their tiny sanctuary. Eris notched a scavenged arrow, his heart pounding in his chest.
The beast lunged, its head thrusting into the crack. Eris, with the calm that came from a lifetime of being hunted, waited. As the beast drew back for another charge, he pushed the silver in his veins, not to shatter the rock, but to amplify his own strength. A faint, almost imperceptible silver lightning jumped from Eris's hands to the arrow. He released. The arrow flew true, not with the force of a normal bowstring, but with a crackle of kinetic energy that sent it deep into the beast's open maw.
The beast howled in pain, stumbling back. But it wasn't finished. It charged again, this time with a primal rage that shook the very rock walls.
He remembered Elder Ruvio's words: "Don't just kill. Use the world."
He closed his eyes and felt the pulse. The ruin's cold river inside him. The same song Elder Ruvio had told him to listen for. He asked it, the way the old man taught him, not commanded, but bargained.
The silver light spread through his veins, down his fingers. A shimmer dropped from his palm. It struck the wet stones by the beast's forelegs. A hush, then the stones cracked, sudden frost blooming where the silver touched.
Eris notched a second arrow. Again, the silver flared, a silent, unseen power that coursed through his veins and into the arrow. The projectile hit the beast's snout, burying itself in the soft flesh.
A third time, Eris pushed the power. He could feel his own strength draining, a cold weariness settling in his bones. This was all he had. The final arrow, charged with the last of his controlled energy, flew from his bow with a silver blur, striking the beast in the eye.
With a final, terrible shriek, the beast stumbled back. It was heavily wounded, its fury replaced by a desperate need to flee. It turned its back on Eris and Kaylah, presenting its wounded flank to the other hunters.
"Now!" Barik screamed.
The hunters, seeing their chance, moved in.
Barik's spear found the deep wound, sinking in and causing the beast to howl. Joeren, shaking off his fear, hurled his spear, hitting the mark. The beast, now overwhelmed, stumbled and fell, a chaos of claws and glass shards. The other hunters, their courage renewed, swarmed it, their spears and arrows finally finding their mark.
The glass-back collapsed in a flurry of glass shards and flailing limbs. The gorge echoed with the sounds of the kill; the thuds of final strikes, the groan of a dying monster.
Then, silence. The battle was over.
The gorge smelled of blood, steam, and shattered earth. The beast lay still.
The wounded slowly emerged from hiding. they were stunned, bloodied, shaken, but alive.
They had won.
But Eris's hands still trembled, the silver dimming in his veins. Kaylah pressed her palm to his back; not for comfort, but to feel it. The pulse. The river.
Her eyes were wide. Not afraid. Searching.
The others cheered behind them. But Kaylah looked at Eris like the world had tilted.
And Eris?
He felt no triumph.
Only the whisper of something watching still.
* * *
[The Aftermath]
The beast, a collapsed heap of matted fur and shattered glass, was finally dead.
Cheers erupted in the gorge, a raw chorus of relief and disbelief. Bloodied but alive, the hunters gathered around the monstrous body, their voices raised in triumph. It's a counterpoint to the silence of the two who were heavily wounded and Joeren who still felt shock.
Renzo's leg was mangled, but still breathing. Joeren was still shaken, face pale and shaky, trying to salvage a scrap of bravado. But no one listened. The hunt was over, and whatever heroism he imagined for himself had long been swallowed by the gorge.
From the rear, Eris and Kaylah emerged from the jagged crack in the rock wall. Dust streaked their faces. Eris, quieter still, the shadows of the crack clinging to him like a second skin.
Kaylah knelt beside Renzo, checking his pulse, already giving quiet orders. Eris stood nearby, silent and distant, watching the gorge. His eyes were unreadable.
The rest of the team looked at the two, a mix of gratitude and confusion in their eyes. They hadn't seen what happened in the crack, but they knew that something had turned the tide. The beast had lunged toward the narrow ravine, blocking their view. What they had seen was its sudden hesitation. A final, unnatural pause, then collapse. To them, the timing was strange, but the details blurred by chaos..
Barik, blood crusted along one arm, approached the beast's massive head with slow, deliberate steps. His eyes narrowed at the three arrows buried deep into its skull, one piercing through the eye. A normal hunting arrow wouldn't have done this. Not even a well-placed shot.
He crouched, ran a finger over the wound. The shaft was scorched faintly at the edge; not blackened by fire, but marked with something colder, subtler. Something unnatural.
He knew the force required to make a hunting arrow do that kind of damage was immense. He looked at Eris, who had just emerged from the crack, a quiet figure beside Kaylah, who was now helping Renzo.
Dara, silent as always, moved to the beast's flank. She traced the old gashes left by spear tips, compared them to the tight cluster around its temple. Her gaze flicked to the ravine where Eris and Kaylah had emerged.
"That kind of shot..." she muttered," . . . doesn't happen by accident, it's not natural--carried a frost-bitten chill . . . ." Her voice didn't carry.
But Barik heard. He met her eyes for a beat. It's a silent, shared suspicion passing between hunter and tracker. Then he stood, brushing off his hands as if dismissing the thought.
"Sharp shooting," he said aloud. "Someone up there knew where to aim."
No one questioned it. They were too busy tending wounds and counting blessings. The beast had fallen. That was enough.
Joeren glanced at him, sneering. "Hiding in the crack while we took the hits," he muttered, just loud enough. "Then walking out like he saved us... "
Kaylah shot him a look that cut the rest of the words from his throat.
Barik moved between them. "That's enough," he said, his voice a low rumble. "No one is dead. We've all done what we had to do. Now, let's get our wounded and prepare to go home with our catch."
Joeren, however, stood stiffly, his face a mask of conflicting emotions, beneath it, a bitter shame and resentment began to simmer. To be saved by the younger, silver-touched boy he so disdained—the humiliation was a wound deeper than any beast's claw. He fell silent, his anger simmering beneath the surface. He glared up at Eris and Kaylah, jaw clenched, his fingers tightening around the shaft of his spear. Not gratitude, but something colder.
Eris said nothing. His hands still trembled slightly, but only Kaylah saw. Only she had witnessed what stirred beneath his skin when the silver thread ignited. And even she wasn't sure if she'd imagined it.
The wind howled low through the gorge, threading through stone and broken trees. It carried the whisper of water, not the gurgle of the river, but something deeper. Slower.
The others celebrated. But Joeren didn't join them. He watched Eris from a distance, his face unreadable.
Eris stood apart, the crack behind him and the ruin just beyond, as if caught between two thresholds.
He felt it again, faintly: Not a voice. Not even words. Just a pull; silver and silent.
They had survived the beast. But in the hush that followed, something older stirred. It's a beginning disguised as an ending
* * *