Ruho ran.
Not a jog. Not a brisk walk. A full sprint, his bare feet slapping against stone, the chunk of meat clutched against his chest like a blood-soaked football. Behind him, the howling continued, getting closer with every second.
The castle was maybe thirty meters away when he started. Twenty-five. Twenty. His lungs were already burning. Fifteen meters. Ten. The heavy wooden door was open, he'd left it that way when he went out to butcher the Gigantosuchus, thank god. and he practically dove through it, slamming into the stone floor of the entrance hall with enough force to knock the wind out of him.
The meat chunk went flying, tumbling across the floor and leaving a trail of blood. Ruho scrambled to his feet, ran to the door, and shoved it closed with his entire body weight. The heavy oak swung shut with a satisfying thud, and he fumbled for the crossbar a thick wooden beam mounted on brackets—and dropped it into place.
Locked. He was locked inside.
He pressed his back against the door, gasping for breath, his heart hammering so hard he thought it might actually break through his ribs.
Four minutes passed. Four minutes of silence except for his own ragged breathing and the occasional drip of blood from his body onto the stone floor.
Then he heard them arrive.
The first set of footfalls was almost delicate paws on stone, moving with predatory grace. Then more footfalls. Then more. The sound multiplied, overlapping, creating a rhythmic pattering like rain on a roof except each drop was a potential death.
Ruho moved away from the door and crept to one of the narrow windows arrow slits, Vexor had called them—and peered out.
His blood ran cold.
They were massive. Easily the size of wolves, maybe bigger, with sleek bodies built for speed. Their fur was a mottled gray-black that seemed to shift and ripple in the sunlight. But it was their faces that made Ruho's stomach turn. Their muzzles were elongated, almost bat-like, with mouths that opened too wide revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. And their eyes—their eyes glowed with a faint reddish light, like embers in a dying fire.
One blood hound approached the Gigantosuchus corpse, sniffed at the pooled blood, and then its mouth distended even further and it began to drink. Not lapping like a dog would drink water. Drinking like it was using a straw, its throat working in rhythmic gulps.
More blood hounds joined it. Then more. Ruho tried to count them but they kept moving, kept arriving from different directions. Twenty. Thirty. Forty.
"Azirel," Ruho whispered, his voice shaking. "How many are there?"
"Looks like about fifty," Azirel said, his tone grim.
"FIFTY?!" Ruho's whisper became a hiss. "You said they hunt in packs of eight to twelve! You said—"
"Yeah, packs of eight to twelve," Azirel interrupted. "That's four different packs out there. Maybe five. Hard to tell when they're all clustered around the food source."
Ruho watched as more blood hounds arrived, pushing and jostling for position around the corpse. Some were fighting already, snapping at each other, establishing dominance or territory or whatever pack hierarchy determined who got to feed first.
"Okay," Ruho said, trying to calm himself down. "Okay. So there are multiple packs. But they're all here for the same food, right? So maybe they'll be... cooperative? Share the meal? Work together?"
Azirel's laughter cut through the air, sharp and humorless. "Ahahahahahaha, no."
The way he said it completely deadpan, with zero warmth or humor despite the laughter made Ruho's stomach clench.
"What do you mean, no?"
"Blood hounds are territorial pack hunters," Azirel explained, his voice taking on that clinical tone he used when reading from files. "They'll tolerate each other while there's enough blood to go around. But the second that corpse runs dry, the second the blood supply is exhausted and they're still hungry..." He paused. "They turn on each other."
"What?" Ruho pressed his face closer to the arrow slit, watching the feeding frenzy outside. "What do you mean they turn on each other?"
"I mean exactly what I said," Azirel continued. "When the primary food source is depleted and their bloodlust isn't satisfied, they start mauling and gutting other blood hounds for their blood. Pack against pack. Sometimes pack members against each other if the hierarchy breaks down. They'll fight until only one pack sometimes only one or two individuals leaves alive."
Ruho felt his legs go weak. "You're telling me that those fifty blood hounds out there are going to kill each other? After they finish with the crocodile?"
"Yep," Azirel confirmed. "It's part of their population control mechanism. I designed them to be self-regulating. Too many blood hounds in one area? They sort it out themselves through combat. Very efficient, ecologically speaking."
"That's not efficient, that's INSANE!" Ruho's voice was rising despite his attempts to stay quiet. "They're going to tear each other apart right outside my castle!"
"Better out there than in there with you," Azirel pointed out.
Ruho's hands were shaking. He looked down at them—still covered in drying blood, the dark red already turning brown and flaking off in places. He looked at the blood trail he'd left across the entrance hall. The chunk of meat lying on the floor, still dripping.
"Vexor," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please tell me the castle walls can hold against those things."
"The walls?" Vexor's voice swelled with pride. "Oh, absolutely! The walls are magnificent! Three feet thick at the narrowest points, constructed from magically reinforced stone, layered with protective enchantments against both physical and magical assault! You could fire a cannon at these walls and they'd hold!"
Relief flooded through Ruho's chest. "Thank god. Okay. Okay, so I'm safe inside. They can't get through the walls—"
"The windows, on the other hand," Vexor continued, his tone shifting slightly, "are not quite as sturdy."
The relief evaporated instantly. "What?"
"Well, you see, arrow slits are designed to allow defenders to fire outward while providing minimal target area for attackers," Vexor explained, slipping into lecture mode. "They're narrow from the outside but wide from the inside, creating excellent sight lines and firing angles. However, the structural integrity of the window openings themselves is necessarily compromised compared to solid wall. They're reinforced, certainly, but not to the same degree as the primary fortifications."
"How not sturdy are we talking?" Ruho asked, his heart starting to race again.
"Oh, they'll hold against arrows, small projectiles, even moderate impacts," Vexor assured him. "But sustained assault from multiple large predators simultaneously applying force? The shutters would eventually fail. And then—"
"And then they get inside," Ruho finished, his voice hollow.
He looked around the entrance hall with new eyes. Windows. There were windows everywhere. Arrow slits on the ground floor. Larger windows on the upper floors, actual glass windows that let in light and could be opened for ventilation. He'd been so focused on the grandeur of the castle, the size and the amenities, that he hadn't really processed how many openings there were in the structure.
How many ways in.
Outside, the feeding continued. The blood hounds were drinking with single-minded intensity, their glowing eyes fixed on their meal, their bodies pressed close together around the massive corpse. The sound of their feeding was audible even through the thick walls—wet, slurping sounds mixed with occasional snarls when one hound got too close to another's feeding spot.
Ruho pressed his forehead against the cool stone wall next to the arrow slit and closed his eyes.
"This castle has a lot of windows," he said quietly.
"Seven windows per floor on average," Vexor confirmed, sounding less proud now. "Twenty-eight total across four floors, not counting the arrow slits, plus the larger viewing windows in the towers, and the skylight in the library, and—"
"Fuck," Ruho whispered.
Outside, the blood hounds kept feeding, their numbers growing, their hunger insatiable.
And somewhere in the back of Ruho's mind, a countdown began. How long until the Gigantosuchus ran dry? How long until the blood hounds turned on each other? And most importantly—how long until they realized there was more blood inside the castle? Fresh blood. Living blood.
His blood.
"Fuck," he said again, louder this time, his voice echoing through the empty entrance hall.