Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Chapter 29

The battle had become a slaughter.

Nyra’s sword arm burned with exhaustion. Blood rogue blood, she hoped splattered her tunic and streaked her face in lines of crimson and rust. She had stopped counting how many she’d killed. Three? Four? The bodies were piling up around them in twisted heaps of matted fur and lifeless limbs, but more rogues kept coming, pouring out of the mist like rats from a sinking ship. The fog itself seemed to birth them, each new wave more vicious than the last.

Orion was fighting beside her, his blade a silver blur in the dim light, his breathing ragged and harsh. A gash ran across his forehead, blood dripping into his eye, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. None of them could.

"Where the hell are they all coming from?" Silas shouted, driving a dagger into a rogue’s eye socket with a sickening wet crunch. He yanked it free and immediately spun to face another. "This isn’t a pack it’s a bloody army! How many of these things are there?"

"Just keep fighting!" Orion bellowed back, decapitating a rogue mid-lunge. "Save the questions for when we’re not dying!"

Slias moved through the chaos like a wraith, silent and utterly deadly. His blade found throats and hearts with surgical precision, and his expression never changed. If he was afraid, he showed no sign of it. Draven’s axe was slick with gore up to the handle, his earlier smirk replaced by something far grimmer the realization that this was no longer a game, no longer a chance to eliminate a rival. This was survival, pure and simple, and whatever else Draven was, he was not ready to die.

Nyra ducked under a snapping jaw and drove her sword upward through the rogue’s exposed throat. Hot blood sprayed across her face, and the wolf collapsed at her feet, twitching once before going still. She yanked her blade free and immediately had to parry another attack, her arms screaming in protest.

Soren. Where are you?

He had been gone too long. Far too long. Every second that passed without him felt like a stone added to the weight crushing her chest. She kept looking toward the treeline where he’d disappeared into the mist, hoping to see his silhouette striding back with Valeria at his side or alone. At this point, she didn’t care which. She just needed him to come back. She needed to know he was alive.

A sharp whistle split the air, cutting through the sounds of battle.

Nyra looked up. Her heart stopped.

A flare was rising above the eastern treeline, trailing fire and smoke, painting the gray fog in shades of blood-red and molten gold. It hung there for a long, terrible moment, brilliant and beautiful, before beginning its slow descent toward the forest floor.

Someone had lit their flare. Someone had surrendered. Someone had decided that failure was better than death.

"Eastern side," Silas said, his voice tight with dread. "That’s one of the other teams. Team Delta, maybe. Or Beta."

"Focus!" Orion’s voice was a whip crack. "We can’t help them right now. We can barely help ourselves. Keep fighting!"

The battle resumed with renewed ferocity. Another rogue lunged at Nyra, and she sidestepped, pivoted, drove her blade between its ribs. It yelped and crumpled. She was getting better at this. Faster. More lethal. Soren’s training had become muscle memory, her body moving before her mind could catch up.

But it wasn’t enough. The rogues just kept coming.

She looked at the treeline again. Soren wasn’t coming back.

Then I’ll go to him.

She broke formation and ran.

"Thorne!" Orion’s voice chased her through the trees, furious and desperate. "Thorne, get back here! That’s an order! You’re going to get yourself killed!"

She didn’t listen. She was already gone, crashing through the underbrush the way Soren had done, following the trail of broken branches and trampled moss and the faint, lingering scent of him. The sounds of battle faded behind her Orion shouting for order, Silas cursing, the clash of steel and the howls of wolves until there was only the heavy silence of the deep forest and the pounding of her own heart.

Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive.

Across the forest, in the western sector, Team Beta was drowning in blood.

Corvin had lost count of how many rogues they’d faced. The pack that had ambushed them was larger than any of them had anticipated at least fifteen, maybe more, their scarred bodies pouring through the trees in wave after relentless wave. The forest floor was littered with corpses, both wolf and the beginnings of human casualties.

"Hold the left flank!" Corvin shouted, his voice hoarse. "Lucian, watch your—"

The scream cut through everything.

Corvin spun. A massive rogue bigger than the others, its fur matted with old blood and its eyes burning with feral intelligence had broken through the formation. Its claws raked across Lucian’s side, tearing through leather and flesh like paper.

Lucian’s scream was not just pain. It was agony. Deep, searing, wrong.

"Lucian!" Corvin was moving before he knew it, his blade cutting down the rogue that had hurt his friend. He caught Lucian as he fell, lowering him to the ground, his hands already pressing against the wound. Blood pulsed between his fingers, hot and fast. Too fast.

"Stay with me," Corvin ordered, his voice cracking. "Lucian, look at me. Stay with me."

Lucian’s face was pale, his usual wit stripped away by shock. "Corvin—it burns—why does it burn—"

Corvin’s heart plummeted. He looked at the wound more closely, the way the flesh around the gash was turning black at the edges, the way Lucian’s wolf should have been healing him already but wasn’t. The smell hit him next. Faint but unmistakable.

Wolfsbane.

"Those bastards," he breathed. "They coated their claws. They came prepared."

The rogues hadn’t just attacked. They had planned this. Wolfsbane wasn’t something found naturally in the Mistwood. Someone had given it to them. Someone had armed them.

But that was a mystery for later. Right now, Lucian was dying.

"I need a medic!" Corvin roared. "Master Aldric!"

The instructor in charge was already there, cutting down a rogue as he crossed the battlefield. He knelt beside Lucian and examined the wound with quick, efficient hands. His expression darkened.

"Wolfsbane poisoning. His wolf can’t heal this on its own. He needs treatment immediately."

"Then treat him!"

"I need my full kit. The one back at camp." Master Aldric met Corvin’s eyes. "Take him. Get him out of here. I’ll hold the line with the others."

Corvin didn’t hesitate. He shifted partially his arms thickening with muscle, his spine elongating, his strength multiplying and lifted Lucian onto his back. Half wolf, half man, all desperate determination.

"Keep him alive until I get back," Corvin said.

"Just go. Move!"

Corvin ran. The trees blurred past him, his enhanced senses guiding him through the fog. Lucian’s blood soaked into his back, hot and wrong. His friend’s breathing was shallow, labored, each exhale a wet rattle.

"Don’t you dare die on me," Corvin growled. "You’re insufferable and irritating and you never shut up, and if you die, I’ll never forgive you. Do you hear me? Never."

Lucian made a sound that might have been a laugh. "You say... the sweetest things..."

"Shut up. Save your strength."

The camp was ahead. Corvin could see it through the trees, the tents, the supply crates, the field kit that could save his friend’s life.

Hold on. Just hold on.