Chapter 6: Night Breaks Open
Fog clung to the marsh road long after dusk settled, thick enough to smear lantern light into trembling halos. The caravan moved in a narrow, exhausted line, each step slower than the last. Even Garrik's voice—normally sharp enough to cut stone—had grown quieter, the strain of the day pressing its weight onto every back.
By the time the moon rose as a faint white bruise behind the clouds, the caravan reached a strip of slightly higher ground—an island of roots, stones, and knotted trees jutting from the marsh.
"Here," Garrik whispered. "Ten minutes. No fires."
The order drifted down the line like a tired sigh.
Aiden sat with his back against a slanted trunk, legs aching from hours of trudging. His cloak clung damply to him. Myra sank down beside him, rubbing her hands together for warmth, while Nellie pushed her hood up until only her eyes showed.
The quiet pressed in deeply.
Water plinked quietly from leaf to leaf. Somewhere distant, a marshbird let out a warbling cry. The fog shifted like a living thing, rolling and folding over itself.
Aiden couldn't shake the feeling that something in it was watching.
He didn't voice it. The others needed rest more than fear.
Nellie leaned her head against his shoulder. "I'm… never going to stop smelling like mud again."
Myra snorted softly. "You're assuming we make it out of the mud."
Aiden nudged her. "Optimism."
"Realism," she corrected.
But she leaned in closer anyway.
Minutes passed—slow, heavy minutes in which the fog seemed to get thicker instead of thinning.
Aiden's eyelids drooped. He fought them open. Every time they dipped, images of the Fangback's electric-shattered body flashed behind them. And then the pup. And then the scorched footprints leading deeper into the marsh.
Aiden's instincts prickled again.
The System whispered in the back of his head, not with a notification but with a quiet pressure—like a hand on the back of his neck.
Something was wrong.
He straightened. Myra blinked awake. "What's—"
A branch snapped.
Not far.
Not by accident.
Another snapped.
Then another.
Slow. Measured.
"Garrik?" Aiden whispered toward the shadowed shape of the caravan leader.
Garrik had his spear halfway up already. His silhouette didn't move except to raise one finger—
Silence.
A faint ripple rolled across the water around the clearing's edge.
Nellie gripped Aiden's sleeve, trembling. "It's not the big one again… right?"
"No," Aiden whispered, throat tightening. "But something's circling."
Shapes shifted in the fog.
Low. Near the ground.
Too many legs. Too many eyes.
Myra's breath caught. "Marsh creepers."
Aiden had read about them in bestiaries—lanky swamp predators that hunted in packs of three to six, moving with unnerving silence until they closed in.
They were not supposed to attack groups as large as a caravan.
But today wasn't a normal day.
Something glinted in the fog.
A wet sheen.
Eyes. Three pairs. No—four.
Garrik hissed, "Form tight! Shields up!"
Hunters scrambled and clustered, forming a half-circle around the vulnerable travelers.
Aiden shoved Myra and Nellie behind him. His pulse hammered. His hands trembled—but not with fear.
With instinct.
He felt the System stir again, like an echo waking from the marsh itself.
One creeper lunged.
Aiden barely saw it—only the blur of a low, skeletal shape with slick, dark limbs and jaws lined with bone spikes. Hunters threw spears, but the fog warped angles and distance, causing one to miss entirely.
The creepers split.
Two slid for the caravan.
Two peeled toward the far right—straight toward Aiden's side of the ring.
"Myra—stay close," he breathed.
"I'm not letting you—" she began.
But she didn't finish.
A creeper lunged from the left—a shadow exploding from wet reeds. Its jaws snapped inches from her arm.
Aiden tackled her down, rolling through mud as the creature's claws raked bark from the tree behind them. Nellie screamed.
The creeper spun—fast. Too fast.
Aiden had no weapon except a small hunting knife. He raised it instinctively. The beast slammed into him, knocking the knife free and sending it skittering into the murk.
"Aiden!" Nellie sobbed.
The creeper snarled, acidic saliva dripping from its jaws. It lunged again.
The System pulsed.
[Instinct Surge: Activated]
Everything sharpened.
Aiden rolled to the side.
Claws slashed where his chest had been.
He didn't think.
Didn't plan.
He moved.
The barest flash of an opening showed itself—a thin glimmer of exposed sinew under the creature's jaw. He went for it, slamming his forearm into the beast's throat and shoving upward with every ounce of his strength.
The creeper screamed, stumbling back.
Myra grabbed a fallen branch and swung it, striking the beast across the face. It staggered again.
"Aiden!" she yelled. "Behind you!"
He turned—
A second creeper shot out of the fog, jaws open wide.
Aiden had no time.
No time to dodge.
No time to react.
No time to think.
This is it—
A bolt of lightning split the fog.
Aiden flinched as white-blue light tore past his cheek, slamming into the second creeper's ribs. The creature convulsed violently, legs locking, jaws snapping shut with a bone-crunching clack as static surged through its body.
It collapsed, twitching in the mud.
Myra stared, mouth open. "No way…"
Aiden turned.
The pup stood in the fog's edge.
Its right paw bled.
Its breathing was uneven.
But its eyes—
Its eyes blazed like two burning stars in the dark.
The lightning wolf pup stepped forward, hackles raised, fangs bared in a tiny snarl that somehow radiated more defiance than its size should allow.
"Aiden…" Nellie whispered, crawling backward into him. "It… it came back…"
The first creeper recovered from Myra's strike and lunged again.
The pup whirled and snapped its jaws—not biting, but releasing a sharp, snapping whip of lightning that cracked through the air like a whip. The creature veered away, shrieking in pain.
The caravan erupted into chaos behind them—shouts, screams, hunters trying to regroup, Garrik barking orders.
"Kill the damned things! Keep the formation!"
But Aiden barely heard any of it.
The creeper in front of him lunged again. This time, he grabbed a broken length of branch from the mud. It wasn't much, but it was something.
The battle blurred.
Aiden ducked under claws.
Thrust the branch upward.
Felt it splinter against bone.
Sidestepped another strike.
Slipped in mud—
Caught himself—
Pushed forward.
A claw caught his shoulder.
Pain shot down his arm, hot and sharp.
He gritted his teeth and drove his boot into the creeper's knee joint. The beast stumbled. Aiden grabbed another jutting stick from the ground and jammed it into the creature's open mouth.
It shrieked, thrashing.
The pup leaped again, releasing another crack of lightning that sent the creature sprawling backward.
It didn't rise.
Breathing hard, chest burning, Aiden staggered to his feet.
Then a scream tore across the marsh.
"AIDEN!"
Myra.
He spun—
A creeper had broken the hunters' line and lunged straight at her and Nellie.
Aiden ran—mud slowing his steps, lungs on fire—but he ran.
"Myra! Nellie!"
The pup charged too, small body sparking with raw lightning.
But the creeper reached the girls first.
Its jaws opened wide—
And Myra threw herself over Nellie, eyes squeezed shut.
Aiden's vision tunneled.
No.
He sprinted harder.
No.
He reached out—
NO.
A shadow slammed into him from the side.
A massive one.
Aiden was thrown to the ground, rolled, slid through a patch of slick mud, and came to a stop far from the girls—separated, disoriented, gasping for breath.
He forced himself to his hands and knees.
A dark silhouette stepped between him and the caravan, towering over him.
Not a creeper.
Something bigger.
Something with a rumbling growl low in its chest.
Something with horns.
The fog parted just enough to show its outline.
A massive armored boar-beast pawed at the ground, its tusks crackling faintly with stolen lightning from the earlier storm.
Aiden's blood ran cold.
The marsh had more than one predator.
And he was now alone.
Cut off.
Weaponless.
Breathing hard.
Hands shaking.
The beast lowered its head.
Garrik shouted somewhere in the distance.
Myra screamed his name.
Nellie cried out.
The pup yelped.
Aiden couldn't help them.
Not unless he survived this.
The boar-beast charged.