22

When Hunter logged in the next morning just after dawn, Fawkes was already packed and ready to go. The wolf had been sniffing around the camp, she told him, so she had to spent the night on a tree. Understandably, she wasn’t in a good mood.

They made their way deeper and deeper into the Weald, hopping from one game trail to the other. Like the previous day, Hunter and the two feathery bozos focused on scouting the surrounding area for anything out of the ordinary–which netted him a point in Conjure Familiar and another two in Survival. It was a good thing that they did, too; it was a cold and wet day, and the morning mist never really lifted. It clung around their heels, making the ancient forest around them look even more eerie and unwelcoming than usual.

Hunter slowly became aware of how much was really going on around them, how alive the place was. There were squirrels and birds and insects and small rodents everywhere, and he also spotted the tracks and other telltale signs of other, larger animals. He also got the distinct sense that there were other things around them, presences that shadowed them and observed them from afar. In a place like the Weald, that was to be expected, he guessed. They were trespassers. Whatever the things around them were, Hunter would prefer they kept their distance.

Somewhere around noon, Biggs and Wedge flooded his mind with a stream of excited chattering.

“Big thing, dead thing!” they projected through the mental link. “So very big, so very dead! Near, near, very near!”

“Fawkes,” Hunter relayed, “the ravens say there’s something dead nearby. Something big. Should we go check?”

The woman adjusted the straps of her backpack on her shoulder, frowned, and reached for her pistol.

“Yes. But let’s be careful.”

They didn’t have to veer too far off the path. What Biggs and Wedge had spotted lay at the bottom of a nearby dry creek, and was indeed very big and very dead, too. In fact, big didn’t make it justice. Lodged between two large rocks and partially eaten, the moose carcass was easily as big as a small van. Were moose this big in the real world, too? If they were, Hunter had severely underestimated their size.

Biggs and Wedge had made themselves comfortable on the carcass, happily cawing and picking at strings of dead flesh with excited abandon. Besides them, there was nothing else in sight–no other animals, no predators, no scavengers, no nothing. Hunter was unsure if that was an observation he made on his own, or the product of his twenty-two points in Survival, but that absence raised some serious red flags. What could have killed something this big, and why weren’t there any scavengers around?

In fact, simply asking himself that question was apparently important enough to warrant another skill progression notification.

Your Survival has increased to 23.

The ground was mostly rocks and pebbles, so Hunter wasn’t able to spot any tracks or footprints. What did stand out, however, was the fact that the humongous moose hadn’t been killed there. Judging from the long streaks of dried blood and loose pebbles, something–something really big–had dragged it there from elsewhere.

“Uh, Fawkes…?”

The woman threw him a sharp glance and brought a gloved finger to her lips, silently shushing him, then pointed at an outcropping near the edge of the creek. At first, Hunter saw nothing; just a few boulders, half-covered with bushes and shrubs. Then, much like one of those magic eye optical illusions you had to go cross-eyed to figure out, he saw it; there was an opening among the rocks and plants, a dark hole that presumably led to some kind of burrow or foxhole–if burrows and foxholes were big enough for small African elephants, that is.

“Tell the two feathery fools to keep their beaks shut,” she drew close and whispered in a sharp, rushed voice. “We have to leave this place–fast.”

By the time she finished her sentence, however, it was already too late.

Something stirred in that burrow and let out a deep, resounding growl Hunter felt all the way to the marrow of his bones. The Weald around them fell silent, and as the owner of the borrow and the moose carcass walked out in the open, Hunter felt his knees turn to jelly.

The great bear rose, pushing itself to its back feet. It was easily over twenty feet tall–a veritable titan that made the ancient firs around it look like saplings. Its shaggy fur was the color of winter earth, its long tufts flowing along invisible patterns. This was no mere beast, Hunter knew. This something else, older, primordial. Its aura washed over him, overpowering him completely.

You have failed a contest of will against Arjen, Aspect of Mir.

You’ve glimpsed into the invisible things that lie below the surface of the world. Your Insight quality is now 2.

Too awed to pay attention to the cascade of notifications that flashed at the edge of his vision, too stunned to turn heel and run, Hunter stood there aghast, his mouth slightly ajar.

Somewhere a million miles away, Fawkes shouted something in his ear. She grabbed him by the collar and tried to drag him away, or at least shake him back to his senses. No luck. If there was a force in the world that could make Hunter tear his eyes from the harsh gaze of the primordial creature, Fawkes was not it.

The bear’s lips curled back, exposing giant fangs. Its bellow made the earth rumble, and Hunter heard an impossibly deep voice resound in his skull. It was the kind of voice that would make him fill the fillings in his teeth vibrate–if his Elderpyre avatar had any, which it didn’t.

“SPIRIT-SPEAKER. I SMELL THE STENCH OF HERNE ON YOU. HORSES AND HOUNDS AND STEEL. WHERE IS YOUR HUNT, MORTAL? DARE YOU HUNT THIS ONE ALONE?”

Hunter understood he was expected to answer, but speech was far beyond his current state. Hell, forcing himself to remember to breathe was all he could do.

“SPEAK,” the bear titan roared, and the air itself crackled with poorly-contained fury. It took one huge step closer, and then another. It was enough to tower over Hunter and eclipse the sky. “SPEAK, OR DIE.”

Even if he could speak, Hunter had no idea what to say. Spirit-speaker? Herne? Horses? Hounds? Steel? Hunt? Fuck a duck, what the hell was all that about?

“Pardon me dearly, Mr. Bear,” he would probably say, “but I don’t have the slightest idea what are you talking about. I shall take my leave now and leave you to your own devices, for this obviously isn’t where I parked my car.”

He didn’t say any of that, though. He just stood there and stared, mortified–which apparently pissed off the bear even more. It took another giant step, let out another deafening roar, and lifted a massive paw full of wickedly curved claws, each one of them easily large and sharp enough to tear Hunter open from his throat to his groin.

Arjen, Aspect of Mir mauls you for 53 bludgeoning damage.

Arjen, Aspect of Mir mauls you for 31 slashing damage.

You are now bleeding profusely.

The impact of the blow was so absurdly forceful that it sent Hunter flying, the shock so powerful that his body didn’t even register the pain.

“Ah, shit,” he caught himself thinking as time was slowing down, mind was slipping in a numb fugue state. “Here we go again.”

The bear’s shadow fell heavy on him, and he saw its titanic paw rise for a second blow. As it swiped at him, there was nothing he could do; nothing but close his eyes and brace himself for the world of pain and anguish that was very rapidly starting to catch up with him.