"With Jag's silence, Kaylah's breath hitched, Eris felt the silver in his veins hum, faint and alive."
And the story continues…
Jag stared, unmoving, as if frozen.
She paced restlessly along the muddy edge, tail twitching, a clear sign of offense at the very thought of pulling the carcasses from the water. It wasn't the labor that bothered her; it was the principle. The flesh of fallen comrades lay beneath them, a line she instinctively guarded. Yet humans are people, they eat whatever they can when hunger presses, principle be damned. Her pack would do the same, necessity outweighing reverence.
The pack fell silent, eyes fixed.
Jag turned just enough that her golden eyes locked onto Eris. The first wave of emotion that struck him was a silent snarl, sharp as claws, a charge that crackled between them. Possessive, protective, the scent of pack and blood memory clinging to the dead.
Behind her, wolves shifted, muscles tensing. Barik's men halted on the trail, hands hovering near blades out of habit rather than threat.
Eris held his ground, breathing steady, letting her sense he wasn't a challenger. A deeper pulse rose from Jag, slow, heavy, a hunger that went beyond the belly. A yearning for the pack's survival, tinged with the dawning awareness that the humans' survival now mattered, too.
Eris followed up with a mental image of the desperate faces of the children in Haven. "They are not our kin, Jag. They are just meat for the hungry. The truce means survival for both of us. Haven needs the strength."
The air dropped. Cold winds swept in. Sleet turned to snow, the first bite of winter. Jag paused, feeling it on her back. Hunger would sharpen. The hunt would thin.
Her ears angled back, not in anger, but thought. Memories played through her posture: loss, hunger, the cut of reality. She limped forward, fur brushing Eris' leg, and circled the ridge, scenting the pond.
When she turned back, reluctance and resignation mingled in her stance. A leader weighing pride against need. Her gaze slid to the cart, to Renzo and Tonovan among the wounded wolves, and to Kaylah hovering near.
Jag's presence firmed in Eris' mind, edged with memory. She turned, water dripping from her muzzle. "They were pack…"
Eris held still, letting her feel his respect.
Barik waited. The forest waited.
Jag shifted her weight, favoring her wounded side. She nudges Eris's arm once with her muzzle, signaling permission. The rest of the pack mirrors her calm, none showing signs of guarding the fallen wolves. When she spoke again, the thought was slower, tempered by necessity rather than pride.
"You eat what you kill. So do we..." A pause. "And the dead don't care who takes them..." She continued, "Dead are dead. Their hunt is finished..." Another pause, a bit longer, her mind still lingered on, but the falling snow made up her mind.
She looked up at him. This time, the thought was clearer, more controlled, "If feeding their bodies keeps your pack strong… Take them. Let their bodies feed life."
But another feeling followed, sharper, like a warning nip: "Do not make this a habit. Our dead kin should rest unless purpose demands otherwise."
Eris bowed his head in gratitude, not in submission, but in respect. "We won't. Thank you," he murmured.
"You understand," doubt still on Jag's mind. "See that your people do too."
The emotion Eris feels in her mind is akin to a sense of acceptance. A wolf's matter-of-fact practicality.
Jag exhaled, a rough huff, then turned and nudged the nearest wolf, a younger male who had been bristling at the conversation. Jag studied him for another heartbeat, then turned away, signaling the pack. Her command was silent but unmistakable: Stand down. Let the dead go.
The pack relaxed, though uneasy. Some turned their eyes away, refusing to watch; Others sat solemnly at the ridge, silently acknowledging their fallen before the humans reclaimed them.
Jag faced Barik, stiff and arrogant. As Eris approached, she brushed his hand with her muzzle, a brief, reluctant gesture. Dipped her head, respect, not submission.
Eris quickly relayed the message aloud: "She agreed, Barik. But she wants it known that she considers this scavenging, not hunting. We must be quick, and they will not carry it. The debt is for the lives, not the spoils."
Barik nodded, relief flooding his face. Clapped Eris's shoulder. "Thank her." Then he turned to his men and commanded, "Cugat, grab those carcasses. Do it fast! And don't linger."
As Barik's men moved toward the pond with hooks and ropes, Jag's pack maintained their vigil: watching, guarding, grieving in their own wild way. Then she padded away to the head of the trail.
One by one, the wolf bodies were pulled in and loaded into the cart. No ceremony, but no disrespect either, just the grim efficiency of people who had survived too much to let resources go to waste.
Jag's pack peeled away from the pond, allowing Barik's hunters to wade in and retrieve the wolves' bodies. The tension that had bristled in the clearing slowly eased, replaced by a strange, mutual solemnity. Even the wind seemed to move more quietly.
The hunters cheered, a low, rugged sound of triumph that didn't startle the wolves. The alliance wasn't just a promise anymore; it was yielding fruit. As the men scrambled down to the pond, the "Moonhand" and the "Wolf-Speaker" stood together, watching over the strange, new peace.
The alliance held.
Uneasy.
Unpolished.
But real.
The "Red Zone" wouldn't be the same again.
***
As the column paused near the pond, both Eris and Kaylah had a clear view of the lightning-split tree. They saw the deep, blackened wound in the core and the faint, unsettling flickers of silver light deep within the ruptured heartwood. They knew instantly this was no ordinary lightning strike.
Barik, seeing their intense focus on the burnt tree on the hill crest, walked over. He kept his voice low and serious. "That tree is bad medicine," he warned the couple. "The lightning did something to the silver veins in the core of the wood; it almost seems alive. Don't go near it. Don't touch it."
The lightning-struck tree still smoked faintly, though the storm had passed days ago.
But the smoke wasn't what held their eyes.
Charred bark spiraled upward like blackened ribs, but the wound at its center glowed faintly. A vein of exposed core shimmered with silver-white light, pulsing like something alive. Not like sap. Not like fire. Something else entirely.
Renzo shifted on the cart, squinting at the tree. "That thing looks wrong."
"It is," Barik said. His gaze never left the split trunk. "And we're not touching it."
Kaylah gasped softly. Eris felt the hairs on his arms rise, a faint echo running through his own silver-infused veins.
Not fear. A pull.
Kaylah stepped closer, squinting into the crack. "Eris… that's the same color as…"
"Silver…" he whispered before she finished. Several thoughts run through his mind:
Silver… and it's alive!
Like the veins beneath his skin.
Like the river he saw in dreams.
Eris couldn't look away from the tree, transfixed by the pale silver vein that threaded through the exposed heartwood. It pulsed faintly, like something alive beneath the surface of the bark. Tiny branching threads flickered within it—lightning trapped in stillness, neither escaping nor fading.
Barik held up a warning hand. "Don't get close. That thing… is alive. Or something close to it." He shook his head. "When the lightning hit, the whole damned tree spoke."
Eris staggered, lowered his hand… he hadn't even realized he'd raised it.
Kaylah frowned. "Every living thing is alive, including this tree. What's the difference?"
Barik scratched his jaw through his gloves, visibly uneasy. "We saw the lightning hit it. Should've split the thing clean... and died with that strike. And yet… it screamed."
Kaylah's eyebrows shot up. "What? Trees don't scream."
"This one did," Barik said flatly. "We're far from it at that time. But we… I could hear… a sound I felt in my bones," he stammered, recounting the experience.
"Then, the crack glowed silver for a good minute. Like molten metal." He hesitated, shoulders tightening, "…like something moving inside it."
"We were running from the wolves at that time… and it called for us. I was too scared to think twice about it, and I commanded the group to run towards it. Its fire gave us hope... against the fangs that followed us."
Eris felt a cold knot form in his stomach.
Barik pointed his spear toward the tree from a safe distance. Then he repeated his warning, "No one gets close. I'm serious. This morning, before we went to the gorge... I reached out to look."
"What happened?" Kaylah asked.
"I swore the tree breathed on me. Hot. Like furnace air. I'm not easily frightened, but this brought fear on me." Barik lowered his head. "Whatever this is... is alive. And it's not for us to poke at."
Kaylah traded a look with Eris.
Barik caught their gaze and scowled, reading their minds. "Don't even think about it."
The couple exchanged a silent, determined look. They nodded, giving Barik the acknowledgment he sought, but they both committed the sight to memory. The terrifying power that had split the heavens and saved them was contained right there. The silver was a mystery, a resource, and perhaps a massive danger.
Eris muttered.. "The silver… the lightning inside…" His voice dropped even lower. "It felt like it was calling... I know... You felt it too."
Kaylah's gaze flicked back to the tree, expression sharpening with curiosity and concern. She whispered, "We must come back."
Eris agreed without hesitation. The couple's unspoken plan passed between them like a whisper; neither had any intention of abandoning the mystery. Their plan was already forming: they would consult the Great Elder upon their return to Haven, then come back to investigate the tree and its strange, living core in full. They both thought and anticipated the time when eyes were not on them, when they could return to study it, when they could ask the Great Elder what it meant.
The retrieval of the carcasses went smoothly. Once they were securely loaded into the cart, they moved on, snow thickening on their trail.
Jag's pack slipped silently between the shadows ahead. Behind them, the tree pulsed, just once, as though acknowledging their departure. It watched… and awaited their return.
The wolves flowed into formation once more and continued down the trail toward the hidden paths that led into Haven Below.
The column resumed its slow, heavy pace toward home.
Later that afternoon, as they stopped to drink from a stream, Cugat watched Kaylah tend to Jag's shoulder. He nudged Barik, pointing at her hands, which were glimmering with greenish silver. He was excited in his anticipation, "It's really a mysterious healing power. Haven is fortunate to have someone like her. We must take care of Kaylah… and Eris as well."
The conversation then drifted into a comfortable silence.
Around them, the forest felt transformed. Jag's pack spread wide, flowing through the ancient trees in silent, lethal arcs. They weren't just following; they were claiming the territory. Flanks were covered, scent-lines were drawn, and the land itself seemed to recoil in respect. No prowling predators lingered in their wake. No scavengers dared approach the scent of the glass-back meat.
The journey was unlike any other in Haven's history. Usually, a trip through the "Red Zones" was a frantic, breathless dash, a gamble where the price of a wrong step was death. But now, the hunters moved with a strange, guarded confidence.
To their left and right, grey and silver shapes ghosted through the underbrush. Jag's pack acted as a living perimeter, a wall of fur and fang that stood between the humans and the dark. No predator in these woods, no matter how starved, would dare challenge a pack of this size, especially one trailing the sharp, metallic scent of human steel and the authority of a new Alpha.
The pack was more than an escort; it was a declaration. The forest, usually a place of jagged fear, had become a corridor of safety. For the first time, the "Red Zones" weren't a graveyard anymore—they were a path home.
***
The terrain smoothed, the jagged peaks of Haven's Watchtowers piercing the twilight sky. Suddenly, the heavy iron bells of the village began to toll, a frantic, rhythmic bronze heartbeat that echoed across the valley.
It should have been the sound of welcome, the song of a successful return, but as the echoes reached them, the tone felt cold. The guards atop the ramparts weren't cheering; they were scrambling, their silhouettes backlit by the orange glow of signal fires. To the lookouts above, Barik's party didn't look like returning heroes; they looked like a doomed group led by a beast.
To those within the walls, it was a signal of readiness. To those approaching, it felt less like a welcome and more like a warning carried on iron and wind.
Eris felt it immediately.
The figures gathered along the walls did not wave. They watched.
The bells continued to scream their warning, a frantic clanging that seemed to demand the gates remain shut against the monsters and the men who brought them.
Helms caught the torchlight. Spears angled forward. Even the supposedly welcoming faces were tight, eyes sharp with caution rather than joy. Whatever relief the bells were meant to convey, it did not reach the returning party. This was not a homecoming; it was an assessment.
As Barik's group drew closer, the party reached the outer perimeter, where the landscape was a raw wound of fresh earth and upturned stone. A network of trenches, meant to slow the advance of beasts or any attacker, snaked across the path. The work looked frantic; the digging had only just begun.
The unfinished trenches gaped like raw wounds in the earth, their edges still rough from today's rushed digging. The makeshift gate loomed, its timbers hastily lashed together, the sentries' faces hard as they gripped their spears.
Piles of sharpened stakes lay in heaps, and the makeshift timber gate that protected the transition zone outside the Main Gate of Haven Below stood closed and barred. The construction crews, men and women covered in the dust of the earth, had frozen in place. They held their shovels like spears, their eyes wide with terror as they stared directly at the silver and golden shadows of the pack before them.
A makeshift gate stood at the end of the trench line, more promise than protection, lashed together from scavenged timber and iron fittings, guarding the approach to the Main Gate of Haven Below beyond. The construction, clearly recent and hurried, was born of fear rather than planning.
"They started this today," Barik muttered, scanning the defenses.
Whatever Haven Below expected to return from the hunt, it had not been a caravan escorted by wolves, a cart heavy with meat, or hunters bearing wounds that spoke of battles survived by inches.
As the bells continued to toll, Barik lifted his hand and slowed the group.
No shouts of greeting. No lowered weapons.
Only the bells.
And the weight of unspoken fear.
Barik's jaw tightened. The alliance had survived the wilds.
Now came the harder test.
Human suspicion.
To be continued…