Chapter 11: Run, Storm's Chosen
The word hung in the fog like a curse.
"Storm… marked."
The largest beast stepped fully into view.
It looked like a wolf only in the way a thunderhead looked like a cloud—similar, but wrong in every important way. Its legs were too long, its shoulders too high, its fur a thick black pelt that drank the light straight from the air. Faint, ember-colored lines pulsed along its ribs and down its spine, like cooled lava waking from sleep.
Five more padded out behind it, moving as one. Their eyes glowed dim amber. Their paws made no sound.
The pup on Aiden's chest bared needle fangs, a crackle of blue-white light skimming over its fur as it snarled.
The leader's gaze sharpened.
"Storm… child," it rumbled.
Myra's blade trembled in her hand.
Nellie pressed herself against Aiden's side, small fingers digging into his cloak. Garrik shifted his stance, spear angled toward the biggest beast.
Aiden's pulse pounded against his skull.
The System flickered behind his eyes:
[New Beast Identified]
[Duskfang Stalkers — Marsh Apex Pack]
[Behavior: Territorial / Hierarchical]
[Relationship to Stormline Beasts: Adversarial]
Of course.
Because one impossible bond wasn't complicated enough.
Garrik stepped forward just enough that his shoulder brushed Myra's.
"This ground is ours tonight," he called out, voice steady but tight. "We don't seek your pack. Take another path."
The Duskfang alpha tilted its head, ember-lines along its neck brightening.
"Storm… scent," it said slowly. Its voice was deeper than the boar's, rougher than the lightning wolf's—like gravel ground through a throat that rarely bothered with speech. "Storm… mark… wrong."
Its gaze dropped to the pup.
Then to Aiden.
Nellie clutched his sleeve tighter. "They can… talk," she whispered, trembling.
Myra swallowed. "Some packs can. Old blood. Old hates."
Garrik's knuckles whitened on his spear shaft. "We aren't Stormline. We're travelers. Take your quarrel somewhere else."
The alpha's lips peeled back from long, pale fangs.
"Storm walked… here." Its nostrils flared, tasting the air. "Left… piece of self… in prey of men. Broke law of sky."
Myra's free hand found Aiden's arm again. "It's talking about the lightning wolf."
Aiden's chest tightened. "About… the bond."
The alpha padded forward until it stood a mere ten paces away. The other five fanned out behind it, forming a loose crescent that cut off their escape into the fog.
"Storm child… belongs to storm," the leader growled. Its amber eyes locked on the pup. "Not to… two-legs."
The pup let out a sharp, crackling bark, fur sparking brighter.
Aiden felt a hot flare under his ribs in response, like the bond pulling taut.
"No," he rasped, forcing himself up on one elbow even as his muscles trembled. "He chose me."
The alpha's gaze slid to him.
The weight of it landed like a stone on his spine.
"Storm mark… on weak flesh," it said slowly. "Not hunter's heart. Not stormbone. You will… break."
The words hit harder than they should have.
Maybe because Aiden felt the truth in them.
He still lay half-collapsed in mud, struggling to breathe normally. Lightning still thrummed under his skin, not quite settled. His stats were nothing special. He wasn't from this world. He was a half-formed thing wearing a bond too big.
He didn't argue.
"We're not your enemies," he said instead, voice rough. "We just… want to live. Him too."
The alpha's tail twitched.
Its gaze flicked from the pup to Myra's shaking blade, to Nellie's wide eyes, to the ring of tense hunters at the edge of the clearing.
Then it snorted.
"Storm child… draws storm," it said. "Where he walks, thunder follows. Where thunder walks, blood falls."
Myra's grip tightened on her sword. "Are you threatening him?"
The alpha's ears swiveled toward her. One of the smaller stalkers let out a low, hungry sound.
"Warning," the leader rumbled. "Storm child with two-legs… is wound in sky. Wounds… draw teeth."
The System whispered:
[Environmental Status Shift]
[Marsh Predation Level: Increased]
[You have become a mobile lightning locus]
Aiden's stomach dropped.
"So everywhere we go…" he murmured.
"…things like them will follow," Myra finished hoarsely.
Nellie shivered. "That's… not fair."
The pup just pressed closer to his chest, as if trying to shield him instead.
The alpha stared at that movement for a long moment.
Then it bared its teeth.
"Storm child… return," it growled. "Or we bite storm from you."
It stepped forward.
The pack moved with it, silent as falling ash.
Garrik snarled, stepping in front of them. "You'll have to get through us first."
The alpha looked almost bored by the declaration.
"Two-legs… bleed easy," it said.
It lunged.
Garrik met the charge.
His spear shaft cracked against the alpha's shoulder, glancing off thick hide. The blow would have staggered a marsh predator; the Duskfang only snarled and twisted its weight, teeth flashing for Garrik's arm.
Hunters shouted.
Spears flew.
The clearing exploded into motion.
Myra grabbed Aiden's cloak and dragged him farther back as two of the smaller stalkers darted in low, snapping for his legs and the pup both. One spear clipped a Duskfang's flank, drawing dark, smoking blood that hissed where it hit the damp earth.
Nellie cried out, fumbling for her herb satchel even as she tried to stay low.
"Aiden!" Myra shouted over the chaos. "Can you stand?"
"Not well enough," he forced through gritted teeth.
Another stalker darted in from the side, teeth bared for his arm.
The pup leaped.
It was small. Hurt. Barely stable.
But it moved like lightning.
It slammed into the stalker's muzzle with a crack of blue-white sparks. The bigger beast yelped, rearing back as static crawled across its face.
"Myra!" Garrik roared. "Keep that thing—"
His words cut off as the alpha crashed into him again, driving him back.
The ring of hunters wavered.
The Duskfangs exploited every gap, slashing in with teeth before flowing back out of reach.
They weren't a wild, frenzied pack.
They were disciplined.
Trained by survival.
And their eyes kept flicking back to the pup.
"It's him," Nellie cried, voice breaking. "They're after him, not us—they want him!"
The realization slammed through Aiden like a physical blow.
If the pup stayed near him, the pack would never stop.
They'd cut down everyone to get to it.
"Myra," he rasped. "You have to—"
A Duskfang bounded toward them, jaws open wide. Its breath stank of old blood and damp fur.
Myra didn't hesitate.
She stepped forward and slashed, her short blade carving a shallow line along the beast's muzzle. It recoiled with a snarl, amber eyes blazing.
She didn't wait for it to attack again.
Her gaze darted from Aiden.
To the pup.
To the trees behind them—the deeper fog, the thicker roots.
"Garrik!" she shouted. "If they want the pup—"
"We can't hand it over!" Nellie cried, horrified.
"I'm not," Myra snapped.
A Duskfang lunged again.
She grabbed the pup.
Its small body sparked in her hands, then stilled, startled—but it didn't fight her.
Aiden's chest seized. "Myra—"
"Trust me," she shot back.
Garrik parried another bite from the alpha, sweat and blood streaking his face. "What are you—"
"They're tracking him!" she yelled. "Then they can track me instead!"
And before anyone could stop her—
Myra ran.
She bolted away from the caravan, boots pounding over the damp earth, the pup clutched tight against her chest.
Aiden's heart lurched.
Nellie screamed. "Myra!"
The pack reacted instantly.
Three of the smaller Duskfangs broke away from the melee and tore after her, drawn by the brighter spark of the storm child in her arms. Their long, lean bodies ate up the distance in terrifying strides.
The alpha snarled, as if surprised—but it didn't call them back.
Garrik swore. "Idiot girl—!"
He tried to push toward her, but the alpha slammed into him again, forcing him back into the ring of hunters.
Myra didn't look back.
She plunged into the fog, breath sharp in her own ears, the sound of pursuit growing louder by the second.
The trees closed in fast, twisting together in tight, clawed branches. Roots jutted from the ground in slick, treacherous arcs. The air tasted of moss and stagnant water.
The pup wriggled in her arms.
"Not now," she panted. "You picked a storm-marked idiot. Deal with it."
A small spark flicked against her wrist.
It didn't hurt.
If anything, it steadied her.
She ducked under a low branch just in time for a Duskfang to crash through it behind her, snapping it clean in half. Bark splintered past her ear.
They were close.
Too close.
Myra grit her teeth and pushed harder, lungs burning, legs shaking.
Just a bit farther. Far enough they lose the others' trail. Far enough they can't circle back to Aiden.
She wasn't fast enough.
One of the stalkers cut to the side, looping through the trees to head her off. Another crashed through a tangle of reeds at her right. The third bounded straight behind her, breath hot on the back of her legs.
The world narrowed to pounding heartbeats and snapping twigs.
"Think, Myra," she gasped. "Think think think—"
The ground dipped.
Without warning, the solid earth vanished into a half-sunken causeway—a cracked, broken line of ancient stone stretching out over a darker patch of marsh water.
Old road, she realized dimly. Swallowed by the swamp.
It was suicide to run on blind.
She did it anyway.
She jumped onto the first slab. It rocked under her weight. Mud and black water gurgled between the cracks.
Behind her, a stalker landed on the stone and slipped, claws scraping desperately before it regained traction.
They weren't made for this footing.
Maybe she could use that.
Myra leaped to the next stone, nearly losing her balance as it tilted under her boots. She clutched the pup tighter, teeth gritted.
"Don't you dare fall," she muttered—to herself, to the stone, to fate.
The pup squirmed once, then went very still.
Blue-white sparks flickered across its fur.
For a second, the air around their feet felt… lighter.
Not less solid—just less drag, like the marsh had been convinced to release them just a fraction quicker.
Myra didn't have time to wonder about it.
Another stone.
Another jump.
A Duskfang lunged onto the causeway behind her, claws scraping against wet moss. It snarled as one paw slipped into a crack, jerking free with difficulty.
"Come on then!" Myra shouted over her shoulder, half-mad with adrenaline. "Come and get us, you overgrown ash rugs!"
The beast bared bloody teeth.
Lightning cracked over the pup's back in a faint, shaky sheet.
And then the stone beneath Myra's leading foot sank.
It didn't tip.
It dropped.
She had one breathless instant to understand that the slab wasn't anchored to anything solid—that it was just sitting on half-liquid mud, waiting for enough weight to drag it under—
Then she and the pup went with it.
Cold, black water swallowed her boot, then her shin, then her knee.
She yelped as the chill bit straight through fabric and skin.
The stone tilted, threatening to roll and dump them into the marsh entirely.
Myra threw her weight backward, clutching the pup tight. Her other foot scrambled for purchase on the previous stone, heel skidding.
She found a grip at the very last second, boot catching on a jut of rock.
"Nonononono—"
She hauled herself backward, muscles screaming, dragging her half-sunken leg out of the sucking mud. The stone she'd stepped on slipped fully beneath the surface with a groan, vanishing into black.
The pup whined, ears flattened against its skull.
"You're fine," she panted. "We're fine. I meant to do that. Probably."
A Duskfang hit the far edge of the broken causeway—
And this time, it didn't slip.
It paced onto the stone she'd just abandoned, testing its weight, learning where it dipped and where it held.
Smarter than she wanted.
The other two stalkers circled the side of the flooded channel, looking for a shallower crossing.
Myra's heart hammered.
"We're not outpacing them," she whispered to the pup. "Not like this."
The creature turned its head and stared at her with storm-bright eyes.
For a heartbeat, the world shrank to that gaze.
To the unspoken question there.
Are you going to run?
Or fight?
She huffed out a half-crazed laugh. "Option three. We cheat."
A branch jutted from the gnarled tree rising beside the old causeway, angled downward like a crooked arm.
If she could reach it—
"If this goes badly," she told the pup, "you're not allowed to haunt me."
She backed up a single step, feeling the edge of the stones beneath her boots, gauging the distance.
The leading Duskfang crouched low, tongue flicking over its teeth.
It leaped—
Myra leaped first.
She jumped sideways instead of back, pushing off the wobbling stone with everything her tired legs had left, one arm cradling the pup, the other clawing for the branch.
Her fingers caught.
Bark tore beneath her grip, but she held.
The stone she'd just been on tipped and rolled, the Duskfang slamming into it in midair. The slab flipped half over under the sudden shifting weight, dumping the beast shoulder-first into the black water.
It thrashed, snarling, trying to drag itself out of the sucking mud.
Myra swung, legs flailing, every muscle burning. The pup clung to her chest, tiny claws digging into her cloak.
The other two stalkers slid to an abrupt halt at the water's edge, eyes furious embers.
They looked up.
At her.
At the fragile branch.
At the pup.
Slowly, they began to circle again, looking for an angle. One tested the nearest stone with a paw. Another growled low, a sound that promised patience.
They weren't giving up.
And Myra's arms were already shaking.
She couldn't hang there forever.
She couldn't drop into the mud—she'd never get out in time. The stones behind her were unstable, the roots in front of her too far.
"Okay," she said through gritted teeth. "New problem."
The pup lifted its head.
Sparks crawled across its fur.
A faint jolt passed through her arms, her shoulders, her spine—just enough to make her grip clamp harder, to make her muscles stop screaming for one more second.
She laughed, wildly. "You are… cheating. But I'll take it."
Down below, the hauled-out Duskfang shook black water from its fur and glared up at her with murder in its eyes.
Across the gap, the other two crouched, coiling for a leap.
Myra's fingers slipped half an inch on the bark.
She gripped tighter.
"Looks like," she whispered to the pup, voice shaking, "we're out of road to run on."
The beasts tensed.
The branch cracked.
She had nowhere left to go.