Neska remained still in response to the blood and bodies before her, but her mind recoiled at the sight. Humans were sprawled out across the area. All dead, based on their lack of movement.

  Juni hopped off her back to sprint forward, screaming out for Jurik, as if this might have been an area of refuge along the route they had intended. Neska hustled to increase her speed to catch up to the mouse, who ran up to a corpse. Neska’s tongue flicked out, and the air carried an overwhelming taste of death.

  This is…unpleasant. What happened here? Juni stood upright, hand waving over her snout, like she was having trouble breathing. But she stood firm and leaned to examine the body.

  The first one was a man wearing a checkered red and black shirt and bulky pants lying prone, his back torn open by massive claws. The exposed flesh was discolored and starting to spot with black. The blood had soaked into the grass, giving it a brownish hue where he fell. A woodcutting axe remained gripped in his hand, clenching even in death. Neska saw the shiny weapon marred by blood, fur, and viscera.

  A massive, dark-furred wolf lay prone next to him, its bowels hacked out from underneath, its jaw twisted at an unnatural angle. What was unusual was the large, claw-like spines on its back. Neska was reminded of another animal she had been wise to avoid, one with spines on its back, to dissuade her from ever chasing it. The wolf, too, showed early signs of decay, likely a day or two old. Neska also saw that there were ripped open bites on the man's legs, as if the wolf had gnawed on him before death.

  Neska took in the rest of the scene, raising her upper body to observe the area. Four more men in similar clothing were sprawled on the ground, the violence inflicted upon them no less than the first she had examined. A few more massive wolves lay dead, partially incinerated, or melted into the ground; one was cut in half at the mid-section, with both halves separated by a short distance. It was a clean cut, and the wound appeared to have been precisely inflicted. Neska theorized a bladed weapon had done that.

  Someone powerful, as well. But she saw no weapon that could have caused such an injury to the wolves.

  Worse still, some of the human corpses had been scavenged, bones picked clean on certain portions. The wolves–those that likely survived the encounter–had eaten their fill. Strangely, there were no scavenger bites on the wolves.

  She found that odd. Did the monsters not eat their own? Or maybe wolves didn’t eat wolves, and left it to others. As morbid as the small detail was, it felt noteworthy.

  “Neska, we should go.” Juni’s breath was shallow and rapid, and Neska could hear her heart jackhammering in her chest. “None of them is Jurik. I don’t know who they were. We should check the building over there, see if anyone escaped. I mean, I’m capable of speech, so…it might make them not try to attack us right away. Hopefully.”

  Neska had to hand it to her. Despite being a mouse, one of the most skittish creatures she knew, Juni was running against instincts hard today. Juni hopped onto her back as she slithered across the clearing, avoiding the bodies and the blood.

  The building in question was a log cabin-style design, not dissimilar to Risha’s home, but significantly larger. Neska saw the entryway had been smashed open, knocked inward by an incredible force. The door itself showed significant damage, with massive claw marks and gouges on the wood, along with the boards being splintered and pushed inward from a heavy blow.

  Juni peeked her head in, nose twitching. “I smell…a lot of blood.” The poor mouse made a gagging noise, and Neska hated that taste on her tongue, too. Death tasted awful; it was a cloying taste that wouldn’t come off, tainting the scent of everything else.

  The interior of the building was not spared from the violence outside. Four wolves lay just inside the door, their heads perforated by daggers buried deep into their skulls. Neska peered at this in morbid curiosity. Each wolf had been struck squarely in an eye socket. She surmised someone had known exactly where to aim, where to inflict the most damage. The fact that all four bore such a swift death spoke to the skill of the user. Juni’s breath was no less rapid, and Neska snaked around the corpses.

  Another two wolves had been torn apart. Their fur and meat were burnt around the edges of the visceral damage. This fight had been one-sided, as Neska couldn’t see any humanoid corpses. Juni pointed at the damage, paw trembling. “Magic cast. The mana from most spells leaves a residual. Someone got off a fireball from a Mage.”

  She looked at the knives and tried prying one away, but it remained firmly lodged. “Hunter or a Rogue. Maybe a Ranger. Jurik told me that some classes have a broad spread of abilities, but the starter ones? Almost everyone gets the same ones. That’s how I recognized your [Rooting Hex] before.”

  If Risha was capable of raining ruin on those monsters, I hope I can do the same in time, Neska thought as she worked along the length of the building, where lumber lay stacked, some of it in a room with boards that appeared to be ready to be treated with some liquid. A large metal shutter door remained closed, but had been bashed in from the outside.

  She had to make a difference. Not even for Risha, or for killing Marikand. But…so that little girls wouldn’t run away, crying, the moment they saw an Awakened.

  There was one door to the side that remained.

  And one body.

  Neska peered at the fallen man, a man with bulging muscles who had stood at least as tall as Risha, or taller; he was almost as imposing in life as he was in death. A large axe with double blades lay by his side; the haft snapped in half. This was a weapon of war, with a broad, sharp edge meant for cutting off limbs and heads, unlike the wedge shape of the ones outside.

  Another half-dozen wolves lay dead surrounding him. They had been dismembered and hacked to pieces. But in violence, Neska sought answers: she peered at the room, trying to run through questions.

  How. And why. The attack started at the edge of the woods. They were working when it happened. Daytime. They attacked in force. If this many wolves were lying dead to kill half a dozen people? There must have been many more.

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  And this man was the last one standing. She noted the door behind him had been suspiciously left open. It was not damaged like the others. Neska pointed her tail to the fallen man, his axe, then the wolves.

  Juni nodded, reaching a satisfactory conclusion. “This guy was the last one standing. He might have bought time for survivors. A place like this would have many people working here, not just the woodcutters. They would have had people to prepare and trim the timber. There was also a sawmill outside.” She let out a shaky breath, cupping her snout with her paws. “I don’t think we’ll find anything here, Neska.”

  She shook her head. No. But wolves are a problem. We cannot fight that many. Not as we are. These are not the same as the hounds that chased Juni. This was a different group of monsters.

  All working in tandem. She now understood what the mouse girl had indicated. The monsters seemed to work together. It was an uncomfortable notion that they displayed such intelligence.

  But the claw marks…the claws on these wolves were not long enough to cause the injuries on the first man. Perhaps a larger one led the pack, or something more dangerous than the wolves?

  She flicked her tail toward the door, and Juni was just able to nudge it open for them to head outside, back into the fresh air. The sunset was a crimson and purple glow on the horizon, now, and small fireflies flickered into existence. That such creatures showed off their beauty, unaware of the dark carnage here, left an uncomfortable juxtaposition in Neska’s mind.

  She tasted the air, glad to be free of the death that dwelled in the building. Juni knelt over, rubbing her paws together and forcing her eyes shut. “Neska,” she said shakily, “I think we need to find Jurik as soon as possible. Those were dire wolves. Still tier one, but…still deadly. Their pack must have been huge. If we see them? We hide somewhere they can’t get us.”

  Neska pointed her tail at the path leading out to the road. Juni held on firmly as she went as fast as her belly scales would allow her to scoot along the gravel.

  A pale moon rose a short while later, and stars winked into existence far overhead. Neska gazed up at the faint glow of the sky, the most prominent feature beside the moon. An ethereal cloud of blue and green, hovering far above and giving off faint light, made the evening traversal quite easy.

  Travelling along the road carried its own risk. Neska wasn’t sure where this pack of wolves went. She had a few theories, as did Juni. The mouse now was showing signs of fatigue; her words sounded weary. “Neska, mind if I talk about something for a bit?”

  Of course. She dipped her head as they slithered along the presumptive path north. With any luck, they’d intersect Jurik along the way. She just wished she could talk to Juni. Seeing that massacre had changed something in her.

  Why do the monsters want to kill us? For food? Something drives them, compels them. Those people were not hunters. They were people using their life skills to harvest lumber. They weren’t a threat to anyone.

  Juni let out a soft sigh on her back. “What we saw, back there? It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen something like that. They come in waves. Sometimes they send scouts. Soften us up. Retreat. Then, they do it all over again, in a different town. They do it to break us, break our hopes into little pieces.”

  She wondered why Juni hadn’t completely shut down in the spectacle of the violence. It was because it wasn’t new for her. “Neska…did you see things like this? Do you remember them?”

  The stalker cat. But that one was solitary as far as I know. Neska shook her head softly.

  A glance over her back revealed the mouse girl more at ease, now. “Be glad that you don’t. When we come back from…whatever is between the soul harvest, and now? Not all of us comes back. I think I remember more than most…and that’s not always a blessing.”

  Maybe Zhuren was right. We try to stitch ourselves with too many missing pieces. She found it startling that a monster had more insight into this than she did.

  A light got her attention, the faintest flicker of an orange flame, just off the road. Neska arced her head high and flicked her tail to get Juni’s attention. The mouse stood upright on her back, pointing with one paw. “I saw it. Careful, Neska. In our early Tiers, people mistake us for monsters.”

  Let’s hope that is not the case. Neska allowed the mouse to hop off her back and scurry forward toward the light. She could make out what looked like a large hollow in a grouping of boulders, and she heard the crackle of flames. Though the light was only visible from a narrow band of the adjacent forest.

  Neska heard a grunt of discomfort nearby, keeping to the shadows. She also heard a soft cough, and the lights danced in the small shelter. Juni edged her body around the corner and let out a soft gasp. “Jurik? Jurik, it’s me, Juni!”

  There was a shout of surprise, then someone stumbling to their feet. A minute later, a haggard, dirty-looking man covered in blood spots on his leather jacket and leggings came out. He knelt to hug the mouse girl, who stood no more than two and a half feet tall, at best.

  “Juni! Oh my goodness, I thought you were…” Tears streamed down his face, and his body shuddered from seeing her. “How did you survive?! The hounds broke off shortly after they were done throwing bodies at me. I made them bleed for it, a lot more than I did.”

  Juni nuzzled against him. “It’s a long story. I’m just glad you’re in one piece. But, oh, goodness, you look hurt! Neska, come on over!”

  Well, time to make my introduction. Neska slithered over to the man past the underbrush; the man almost drew the dagger sitting in a sling on his hip. He did, however, take hold of Juni and arched his body back, looking wary.

  “Juni. That’s a snake. A huge snake–wait, hold on. Come into the light.” Confusion gave way to curiosity as the mouse girl loosened herself from her embrace and beckoned one paw toward her.

  “That’s Neska. She's Awakened, the same as me! She saved me from the hounds!” Juni waved animatedly at her.

  “Truly?” He looked warily between the two of them, but his hand drifted away from his weapon. “Oh, oh goodness…Neska, was it? I cannot express the depth of my gratitude. I thought both of us were done for.”

  Neska nodded her head and pointed her tail awkwardly at a wound on his arm–a ragged bite from the canines, and the skin surrounding it was scorched. It looked like a terrible injury, and his motion had reopened the wound, bleeding lightly. Jurik read her gesture and grunted softly. “Juni, I didn’t dare move to go back to the cart. I haven’t heard the hounds; they must have scattered elsewhere after I killed the ones surrounding me.”

  “Is there a healer kit still inside the cart?” Juni asked, and he nodded weakly. “Neska, follow me. We’ll explain as soon as we get–”

  Her thought was cut off as her tail stiffened and her eyes went wide. “Danger. Really close.”

  The howl of a canine, and then several others, set Neska back to alert. You fiends are not robbing them of this moment, not if I have a say in the matter. And I certainly do.

  Juni pointed to Neska. "I got a big ask, can I share your abilities with Jurik? I trust him with my life, and it goes both ways."

  Neska nodded sharply. She'd shared her Interface once, and maybe once was too much, but she had done so to give Juni a measure of good faith.

  The mouse continued. "Jurik, we need to plan fast. She has a witch class, not just monster evolutions. I've seen her Interface and her abilities in action. I have never heard of anything like it."

  "That's dangerous, you don't just share your Interface!" He scolded. "How is that even possible that she has a class?"

  "Jurik! We have monsters closing, do you trust me?" Her whiskers twitched in agitation.

  "Yes, of course, but I need details later, assuming we get out of this alive!" He affirmed, looking visibly shaken. "What does she have?"

  "Mana bolts, a rooting hex, insanely high Intelligence for her level to go along with it, and some other snake evolutions, including a ranged blinding venom. She knows my abilities, too, and has seen them used." Juni spoke rapidly and to the point.

  Jurik's face brightened as he considered this new information. He drew his sword and rested the pointed end facing the cavern floor, and knelt to their level. Even given his weary state, he wore a confident smile. “Neska, are you good with me calling out a plan since you can't speak? I have an idea.”

  She nodded. Gladly.

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  Predict what happens in the next chapter!