The first thing Aael felt was the cold. It wasn't the sharp, biting frost of Silverleaf; it was a damp, suffocating chill that seeped into his bones.
He gasped, his lungs spasming as he coughed up river water. He rolled onto his side, retching into the mud. His body felt like a single bruise. His tunic was tattered, heavy with silt, and his boots were gone, stripped away by the violent current.
Aael pushed himself up on shaking arms and looked around.
He was not dead. But he wasn't sure if he was alive, either.
He was on the bank of a sluggish, black-water tributary. The forest around him was a nightmare of twisted roots and hanging vines. The trees here were not the noble copper-woods of his home; they were gnarled, pale giants covered in slick moss. Their branches wove together so tightly overhead that they formed a solid ceiling.
There was no sky. There were only heavy, bruised clouds trapped beneath the canopy, blocking out every ray of sunlight. The world was painted in shades of slate, charcoal, and dying green. It was a twilight realm, silent and grave.
Aael hugged his knees to his chest, shivering.
His mind tried to reject the last few hours. Maybe he was back in his bed. Maybe Rian was asleep next to him. Maybe his mother was humming at her loom.
But when he closed his eyes, the silence of the jungle screamed the truth.
He saw the white flash of his father disintegrating. He saw the cliff crumbling. He saw the face of the monster that wore his mother's skin. He saw Rian, lying motionless on the rock.
"Rian..." Aael whispered. His voice was a rasp, swallowed instantly by the damp air.
Tears pricked his eyes, but he wiped them away with a muddy hand. He remembered his father's last words. Strength is the mind. Strength is the heart.
"I am alone," he said to the darkness. The words tasted like ash. He realized, with a terrifying clarity, that there was no one coming for him. No search party. No Chieftain. He was a speck of dust in a vast, uncaring wilderness.
Snap.
The sound was faint—the breaking of a dry twig—but in the oppressive silence, it sounded like a gunshot.
Aael froze. He stopped breathing.
It came from a dense patch of fern-bushes about twenty paces to his left. To an ordinary ear, it might have been the wind, or a small animal scurrying for cover.
But Aael felt the prickle.
It started at the base of his neck—a cold, electric buzz that ran down his spine. It was the same sensation he had felt in the alleyway before the Orcs appeared. It was his Intuition.
His instincts screamed a single word: Malice.
Whatever was in those bushes was not a deer. It was not a rabbit. It was heavy. It was patient. And it was hungry.
Aael slowly, agonizingly slowly, shifted his weight. He didn't look directly at the bushes—he sensed that eye contact might trigger an attack. Instead, he scanned the ground for a weapon. A rock. A stick. Anything.
His hand closed around a fist-sized river stone half-buried in the mud.
Rustle.
The bushes parted slightly. Two yellow eyes, low to the ground and set wide apart, gleamed in the gloom. A low growl, like stones grinding in a deep cavern, vibrated through the air.
Here is the high-stakes action sequence for Chapter 8.
Chapter 8: The Grey Awake (Continued)
Part 4: The Sabre's Lunge
The bushes exploded outward.
The Shadow Panther was a nightmare of muscle and midnight fur, larger than any wolf Aael had ever seen. Its eyes locked onto him with predatory arrogance, and from its upper jaw, two jagged, ivory saber-teeth curved down past its chin, glistening with saliva. It didn't growl; it sprang.
Aael's body screamed to curl into a ball and accept the end. But a voice thundered in his mind, louder than his fear.
Live.
Thorne's final command acted like a jolt of lightning. Aael didn't freeze. He pivoted on his heels, digging his bare toes into the mud.
As the panther reached the apex of its leap, jaws opening to crush his throat, Aael whipped his arm forward.
Thwack.
The river stone struck the panther square on the nose. It wasn't a killing blow, but it was enough to shock the beast. The panther flinched in mid-air, twisting its head. Aael threw himself to the right, rolling into the wet ferns.
The beast landed where he had been standing a split second before, its claws tearing deep furrows into the mud.
Aael scrambled to his feet, slipping on the slime, and bolted toward the treeline.
ROAR.
Behind him, the panther shook its head, sneezing blood. Its annoyance had turned into fury. With a burst of speed that blurred its form, it gave chase.
Aael didn't look back. He ran with the desperate, flailing speed of the hunted.
Branches whipped his face, leaving stinging welts. Thorns tore at his tattered tunic. Roots seemed to reach up to snag his ankles, but he leaped over them, driven by pure adrenaline.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He could hear the heavy paws hitting the soft earth behind him, getting closer. The panther was faster. It was closing the distance with terrifying ease, flowing over the obstacles that slowed Aael down.
Aael saw a narrow gap between two massive, moss-covered boulders ahead. If I can squeeze through there...
He put on a burst of speed, his lungs burning like fire. He dove through the gap, scraping his shoulders against the rough stone.
He tumbled out the other side—and skidded to a violent halt.
He hadn't stopped because of the panther. He stopped because the path was blocked.
Hanging from the low branch of a pale tree directly in front of him was a coil of green scales as thick as a tree trunk.
A Giant Viper.
Its triangular head, the size of a shield, hovered motionless at Aael's eye level. Its tongue flicked out, tasting the sweat and fear on the air. It was coiled to strike.
Aael froze, his breath caught in his throat. Forward is death.
Behind him, a low growl vibrated through the rocks. The Shadow Panther slunk out from between the boulders, lips pulled back to reveal the saber teeth. It crouched, muscles bunching to pounce on the cornered boy.
Backward is death.
Aael looked from the snake to the panther. He was the meat in the middle of a grinder.
But then, the Viper shifted. Its golden slit-eyes didn't focus on the small, trembling boy. They drifted up, locking onto the larger heat signature behind him. The Panther, too, paused. Its ears flattened. It realized that the boy was no longer the only thing in the clearing.
In the law of the jungle, a rival predator is a bigger threat than a meal.
The Panther snarled, challenging the snake. The Viper hissed, its neck expanding into a hood of warning.
Now.
Aael dropped to the ground.
As the Panther lunged over him to swipe at the snake, and the Viper struck forward with lightning speed, Aael scrambled on his hands and knees. He rolled under the tangle of roots to his right, dragging himself through the mud.
SNAP. CRUNCH.
Behind him, chaos erupted. The sound of fangs sinking into fur and claws raking against scales filled the air. The two monsters thrashed, tearing at each other, forgetting the small boy who had slipped away into the gloom.
Aael didn't stop to watch. He crawled until he was sure he was unseen, then stood up and ran. He ran until his legs gave out, collapsing near a quiet stream miles away from the fight.
He lay there, panting, staring up at the sunless canopy. He had survived.
But as his heart rate slowed, a new sensation crept over him. The Intuition was buzzing again. Not the sharp sting of immediate danger, but a low, heavy pressure.
He sat up slowly.
Ten paces away, sitting on a mossy rock with his legs crossed, was an old man.
He wore a ragged grey cloak that looked like it was woven from cobwebs and dust. A straw hat shaded his eyes. He held a simple wooden fishing rod, the line dangling into the stream, though there was no bait on the hook.
The man didn't look at Aael. He just watched the water.
"You possess a noisy spirit, boy," the old man said. His voice was like dry leaves rustling. "You scared the fish."