Dawn came to Oakwood Village, and a thick, brittle hoarfrost had stolen over everything in the night. The morning's fragile peace shattered under a storm of shouts and raw fear.
"Gods' blood! What in the black pits did this?"
"My ewes! All three of 'em, gone!"
Renn jolted awake to the chaos. He was on his feet in an instant, his hand going under the thin pillow—the bronze flask was there, cold as a river stone. The memory of its shifting patterns felt like a fever-dream. He dressed in sharp motions, snatched up his yew bow, and burst outside.
The threshing ground seethed with pale-faced villagers. At their center lay the remains. This was no ordinary kill. The sheep looked ripped apartby some immense, careless strength. The flesh was torn in ragged strips, bones not just broken but pulverized. Worst of all, there was almost no blood. It was as if the life had been suckedfrom the carcasses.
Old Huck crouched by the carnage, holding a broken leg-hold trap—the kind that could snap a bear's limb. The thick steel bar had been twistedlike a wet rag.
"This wasn't wolf. Wasn't bear." Old Huck's voice held a tremor. He looked up at Renn. "This is fell-work. Beast-work."
"Fell-beasts?" The dreadful whisper slithered through the crowd. For folk like them, it was a word from fireside tales, meaning things that did not fear iron or fire.
Renn stared at the drained corpses. A cold knot tightened in his gut. The wounds were wrong. Then, his perception sharpened—the hunter's edge, honed by a flood of cold fear. He could see individual dust motes in the air, track a mouse's panic in the distant grass.
"Renn!" Bucky stumbled up, face the color of curdled milk. "I told you! I heard 'em again last night! A whole chorus… like bones bein' ground!"
"Steady." Renn gripped his friend's shoulder, but his own hand betrayed a fine tremor. It was the primeval fear of prey that knows a new kind of hunter is near.
Old Jack, the village elder, shuffled out. He leaned on his staff, his face whiter than the frost.
"Terrorclaw spoor…" His voice was ashes. He pointed at the deep, three-toed prints gouged into the earth. "And not one. A hunting pack."
"Terrorclaw?" a voice quavered.
"Low-born, but mean. Hide like boiled leather. Iron turns on it. They run in packs…" The old man drew a shuddering breath and slammed his staff down. "Now! Light the beacon! Women and children, to the root cellars! Every man with an arm, to the palisade! Bar the gate!"
Panic exploded into a storm of screaming and weeping.
"Renn! Mia! The root cellar!" Old Huck's iron hand clamped on Renn's shoulder. "Nail the door shut from the inside! You do not come out until I come for you!"
"Father, I can fight!" Renn's hand was white on his bow.
"This ain't a hunt, boy! It's a butchering!" Old Huck roared, his eyes wild and desperate. "Go! Now!"
Renn saw the finality in his father's gaze. He bit down a curse, turned, and ran.
As he did, a scream—high, wet, and abruptly cut short—ripped through the chaos from the village's far side.
Heads snapped up. A black shape, a blur of impossible speed, shot from the tree line. It hit the rickety lookout post not with a climb, but a leap. Wood splintered. The watchman came apart in two ragged pieces, a hot red rain pattering on the frost below.
A roar shook the air—a sound of breaking bones and hate, stinking of sulphur.
The thing stood atop the ruins. It was the size of a yearling calf, sheathed in plates of black, chitinous armor. Its monstrous forelimbs ended in three sickle-shaped claws that dripped gore. Eyes like molten blood fixed on the villagers. Strings of saliva swung from its jagged maw.
Terrorclaw.
And in the shadows of the Black Forest behind it, pairs of red coals ignited. One pair. Then another. And another.
Ten. Twenty. More....
Renn's heart hammered a war-drum beat. A flood of pure, fiery instinct scoured his veins. Every fiber of him screamed, not to flee, but to fight.
"RUN!"
Someone shrieked the word, and the ordered panic shattered into pure, mindless rout.