The stomps of many pawsteps battered the snowy soil like an incessant rain, snow swooshing and branches rustling by the rush of an army of quadrupeds.

  A stampede of rapid pants and frantic barks reflecting their urgency to capture their prey, their desperation stemming more from fear than their own desire.

  Dozens of packs working together was not something feasible in nature, and no prey required that many canines to be captured. In the event such an armory of fangs was needed, such a ‘prey’ was not worth the cost to hunt down.

  But woe to the speechless animals, which could not protest and which had not thought on the matter. Their free will had been undermined by a greater authority.

  A lone creature, coated in a white as pale as the very snow that engulfed the highlands, sped across the woods and crags of the mountain range while executing drastic movements to escape from its relentless chasers.

  The eccentric speedster, blurred by velocity, was greeted by a handful of wolves, previously positioned to pull out an ambush. The ambuscade did not live up to the task — the moonlike eyes, shining with predatory hostility, the elongated limbs whistling like scythes, that crooked knife embedded on its mask, and, more noteworthy, the supernatural presence it exuded was akin to repellent for hostile beasts, dreaded features that scared all animals.

  One shriek, and the pack of wolves lost cohesion like dust on a desk before a breeze, the chains of enslavement shattering and allowing them to scatter with their tails between their legs.

  Such a scene had repeated more times than the avian creature could count. Mere mutts could not stand a chance, even if their number surpassed the hundreds. Their task was limited to aiding the true hunters, the enemy that held the leash on every pack on the highlands.

  Their purpose was to find the entity’s whereabouts and hinder its escape until Gloom Fang showed up.

  A whistle grew in volume, picked up by lupine ears as soon as a line of pure cold got in the creature’s way, replacing the view of trees and humps by a frigid rampart. One top dog finally found it.

  The creature snapped to the left, its gaze meeting with a trio of eyes.

  A single warg stood as no threat to the winged entity; the wolf-thing knew that. His aim was not to battle the bird-faced monster in solitude but to track it down and call upon his pack, leader included. That humongous leader.

  Wolf-like tail whipped the air, and its feathery wings, leaking blood from a recent wound, jerked at the thought of Gloom Fang. Perhaps, in a solo battle, the feathery monster could have won against the alpha warg, but with the pack accompanying him like multiple shadows, winning loomed out of reach. As a result, Gloom Fang scored a crippling wound on one of its wings, stripping its ability to take fly.

  The beaky monster was fast even without the help of its wings, but not even after bolting during an entire night, it had managed to escape the constant harassment of wolf-things.

  Gloom Fang’s determination was set on slaying the snow-white beast at all costs.

  The feathery monster turned around in a blur and sprinted anew, trailed by a warg whose speed was closer to its level. The chase went on, the winged monster zigzagging to throw off its pursuer, but the latter used its breath weapon to obstruct its prey’s course of movement.

  Streams of cold energy collided with the vegetation, turning the woods into a gallery of glass, spike walls looking radiant under the noon sky, but failing to cut the avian creature off from circumventing capture.

  The chase continued unfruitful, stressful seconds for both pursuer and pursued, until another pack of wolves emerged next to an ice-slushed gradient. The winged monster was about to shriek and scare off the bothersome animals, but the warg won the initiative and howled first. The cry was a call for attack, and whatever hesitation shook the wolves’ legs disappeared, now replaced by shackled hostility.

  The pack, numbering five, rushed directly toward the avian entity, which refused to stop at the incoming assault. The aftermath was three dogs hurling through the air, with only two wolves successfully latching onto the monster with their fangs. The teeth failed to pierce through the hide, but their purpose had been fulfilled: slowing the creature down.

  With two gnawing animals at its back, the creature extended its silky appendages on its back and shook off the mutts. But in the time it took the avian creature to get rid of the chewing dogs, the warg chaser had closed in, arriving with a tackle that flung the prey through the slope located left. The winged creature snowballed several yards downhill until a tree painfully stopped its descent, its bark breaking with the impact.

  Its head was swimming, every joint of its body complaining with throbs; the monster tried to lift itself up, but before it noticed, three new missiles struck it: two light ones, then one as heavy as the first hit that sent it rolling through the snow. The pine shook with each blow, and the monster dropped practically unconscious.

  The warg took a few heartbeats to catch a breath; wargs could not breathe comfortably while preparing their breathing attack, so sprinting while shooting waves of coldness had dried his lungs. But the sacrifice was worth it, and now he could grin delight: the chimera lay spent at his paws, defeated, conquered.

  The victory was his own.

  The warg whisked its gray ears beyond the vegetation — it was faint, but the sound was approaching. In short, the rest of the warg pack will be in his location, and they could finish the aberration.

  The warg regarded the creature in front and how it elicited no more than an occasional wince and shudder, beakholes emitting feeble whistles. Ideas stormed on his mind — the chimera was for the leader to slay, but the satisfaction of catching it belonged to him. What if he took a piece as the trophy? Obtained something that would serve as proof of his achievement? A testament to his might?

  The pack leader would have the kill, but he might get a tangible chunk. The leader would not care as long as he had the satisfaction of killing the enemy of wargkind.

  That would do: he would claim an arm. The warg crawled quietly, tongue brushing his fangs, savoring the anticipation. The monstrosity’s meat was hard; wolves could not harm the chimera, but warg’s fangs fared moderately better; the limb should be torn off after a few seconds of sawing the bone with his gnashers.

  The chimera, not-quite unconscious, felt the warm breath ghostling through its scaly arm, a sensation that would bring dread to any living being. But not for the bird-like beast. Wargs are so egotistical: the delight of defeating a powerful enemy made them drop their wary behaviors, acute ears hearing nothing but their own fantasy, and nostrils taking in the blood yet to be spilled.

  Their sharp wits, more developed than wolves’, only made them vulnerable to deception.

  The warg had not begun to apply pressure when the bird-like chimera snapped at him, free foreleg striking like lightning directly at the warg’s shoulder, who released a hoarse cry of pain in response. The surrounding wolves winced at seeing their leader being launched several feet away.

  Witnessing their mighty cousin hurled like a pup demoralized the remaining duo, but any attempt to flee fell short when the hurt warg barked in their direction, urging them to attack the monster. Hesitating, the two wolves lashed out at the bird creature, but the swing of a wing demolished the frail offensive.

  Foul monster — it had played him a fool! He could not surrender now, not after blowing the howl. Were his father to realize he had called him for naught, he…

  Fangs bared in a snarl, resentment oozing through the gaps of his fangs, feeling that sooner rather than later materialized into mist, then rang out with a high-pitched tone. The avian entity turned and stared at the warg, silvermist orbs glowing with a cluster of feelings, none of which conveyed defeat, the intense stare extracting a flinch from the wolf-thing.

  How the roles had reversed in the blink of an eye.

  The warg suppressed his fear and held the stare, then he released the cold blast. Rather than dodging, the feathery creature charged toward the source of the supernatural attack. The wintry wave made contact, but its effects were next to nonexistent.

  The chimera shrugged off the freezing attack. For the unnatural entity, the breath attack was nothing wilder than a gust of wind, a southern blow that barely slowed the relentless charge and dissipated the force of the impact.

  Shoved afresh, the warg resumed the race the chimera had started and rolled several feet down the slope until a stump caught its body. The chimera, ever the slippery, dashed and glided with its wings above the descent and beyond the warg’s immediate senses.

  By the time the warg stood on four again and recovered from the impact, it was too late — the chimera fled far from his clutches. Desperate, the warg sniffled around, trying to catch the monster’s scent; however, the smell of the chimera, dispelled thin, mixed with the growing scent of his kind, and it was then that the sound of trampling on the snow echoed, too heavy to belong to wolves.

  His father found him.

  The wolf-thing spotted the silhouette of a bulky canid with a lustrous mane, dark as the starless sky. The hulking monster leaped and slid across the gradient, landing in front of the young warg, now cowering and with ears flattened against his skull.

  He came here expecting a trapped aberration, but only found an injured warg.

  The alpha warg ignored his underling for the time being, snuffling at the air and perking his ears in all directions. It did not transpire long before more wargs, three in quantity, emerged from all angles, imitating the leader’s action in no time. The humongous warg stopped smelling around, very aware that his prey was gone, its intimidating snarl growing in disappointment spelling that fact.

  The wargs had no language of their own, not one that the human or other sentient races could emulate by mere words without the aid of magic. Yet, with a combination of gestures, lip movements, and throaty growls, they could convey feelings from one to another in the same way sentient races spoke.

  “Where?” the alpha grilled, his voice as deep as crashing boulders. The small wolf-monster could not help but flinch at the threatening sound.

  “It glided over moments ago. It is not far—” Making an effort to avoid stuttering, the young warg started informing, but did not get to finish when the alpha boomed a howl. The other three wargs turned to the leader with erect ears, and right when the roar ended, they all rushed ahead, the three trailed by several wolves.

  The young warg cast a glance at the lupine forces, wanting to join in their search, mainly to get away from the fierce leader’s presence. A swift paw strike that knocked him down broke any illusion of escaping punishment.

  “Disappointment,” the alpha chided, “A scarcely dozen moments since your last call, and here I found you… defeated and empty-jawed.” The alpha approached the prone warg and placed a heavy leg on the smaller warg’s ribs, extracting a yelp from him.

  “Gruhulla— the creature— It tricked me—” Another cry of pain came out from the young warg’s muzzle as the alpha increased the pressure on his paw.

  “Not smarter than warg. You were tricked by a mutt,” the bulking warg scolded again. “You only needed to slow it down until the pack arrived, but you only endured mere moments. Such failure would have been justified by your demise… but here you are, hurt but in one piece,” pressure arose, and so did the whimpering, shallower than seconds before. A snout, bigger than a bear’s, edged closer to the youngling’s head; the breath it emitted burned like steam. “Perhaps, I should carry the creature’s failed task and take a piece from you, Hollu.”

  The warg, Hollu, could not help but glance at the row of sharp gnashers as they neared his neck. However, the fangs stopped their advance, and the alpha took his head back from the warg’s vulnerable neck. “Lucky for you, I need as many wargs as possible to hunt down the aberration. Many wargs, one piece each.” The alpha finally retrieved his leg from the chest of the youngling, who missed no beat to inhale a lungful of air.

  “From now on, you hunt beside me. One last failure, and my jaws will gut you before any chimera could. Clear, spawn of mine?” Hollu breathed a soft bark in agreement, after which his father glanced at the surroundings, watchful of the minimal sign of the location of the bird-hound hybrid monster.

  Such a repugnant charade of a living being, the great warg thought in disdain, lips twitching into a tiny snarl. You had added the sin of humiliating my blood into your being.

  The wolf-thing had planned to take advantage of the chaos generated by Hissing Wing and take the mountain range and the territory to the North for his own. Thanks to his unique condition, he would exercise his domain over the wolves, an easy task when they were all shaken by the wyrm. But there was a hitch to his plans — Howling Talon.

  The mountains were the territory of the misshapen monster, and even when the alpha was confident of defeating the creature on his own, the creature’s domain over the air put Howling Talon out of any wargs’ reach. And with such a stealthy creature nearly as powerful as he was lurking nearby, no warg could settle definitively. On top of that, so much contempt and fear did Howling Talon cause that no other warg group would join him in his conquest of the mountain range.

  But the alpha knew more. The wargs in the East were all cowards, afraid of humans, of manticores, and of Howling Talon.

  He was about to change that; he was the precursor of the incoming reformation. Once Howling Talon lay dead between his jaws, more lupins would join his cause, and then he would expand the territory beyond the human towns and surround the manticores’ lands by both East and North. No more humans would hunt his kind for their hide, and constant skirmishes with the Devourer’s Spawns would diminish.

  The wheel of warg revolution was turning, and he, Gruhulla — Gloom Fang for the manticores — would be the most powerful sovereign of the Frostscape, only second to Hissing Wing.

  “I heard wailing… Nnaj’s wailing.” Gruhulla’s daydreaming was interrupted by his youngling’s muttering, perking one ear in his direction. “You think the human got him?”

  Indeed, the alpha warg had heard the howl of Nnaj moments before the shriek of Howling Talon — a pained call of alarm. Gruhulla was aware of the urgency of its comrade, but catching the chimera was the utmost priority.

  “Not strong enough to kill a mere man, not strong enough to be part of my pack.” After his firm declaration, the hulking wolf-monster strode to the woods, stomping his way to where the dissonance of howls was more stirred, his son trailing behind like a shadow.

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  Hollu dared not ask about Nnaj again.

  One human is not a menace to my mission, Gruhulla pondered. Even if the man got into the walled town, it would take days before warriors broke into hunt. It will be too late by then. With Howling Talon killed, I’ll take its gory remains and go East and gather more wargs, more eager to join the one that killed the fear of many.

  Accompanied by his son, Gruhulla continued his search for the chimera while envisioning his triumph and subsequent ascension within the hierarchy of the Frostscape.

  ————————————————————————————————————————————————

  In the middle of the paleness of the highlands, a moving, cork-colored spot stood out.

  The crisp dirt and plants crackled under the hard-soled boots, and inside the security of two leather-clad hands, two weapons of supernatural steel glowed, one with a silver hue, the other with a faint scarlet-black color.

  The adventurer Marek Blakesley had been drifting uphill, looking for this famous ‘alpha warg’ the old Evert told him about. The intensity of the howls had increased during the hike to the point that the fighter could now discern which howl belonged to each. He could identify three different wolfish kinds, one of which was the head of the pack, the gutturalness of its cry betraying its identity.

  Likewise, he identified a fourth, unusual howl-screech noise, its tone hovering between wolf- and buzzard-like; no doubt those shrieks belonged to the warg’s foe, whatever creature that might be.

  Perhaps the wargs declared war on the birds, Marek jested mentally.

  Regardless, this unknown monster had been agitating the predators in the region — the wolves had not stopped sprinting back and forth the whole time the lone fighter had been ascending through the highlands. If that creature was mocking hordes of canids for this long, then he better be wary of it, too.

  Despite the ruckus, Marek had been spared from hostile encounters so far. Often, a member of one ‘patrol’ would set its eyes in his direction with ears standing straight, but as soon as another howl echoed, the animal disregarded whatever they had picked up.

  After dragging himself uphill, circling steep climbs, and shuffling through pools of slush, Marek abruptly felt the need to stop; his ribcage suddenly felt smaller. He approached a tree and used his left arm to lean on it, not bothering to sheath his blade. In short, he began to cough, first as if simply a sip of water took the wrong pipe, but as seconds ticked by, it evolved worse, feeling as if a flock nestled in his lungs.

  “Crap…” the man managed to grump right before the exhalations became too intense to allow words, chest spasming irregularly. What he was undergoing was no consequence of tiredness or battle wounds. This fit stemmed from an invisible enemy, one that had rooted in his core several years before.

  The sensation that his chest was about to explode was not the only symptom.

  His vision tunneled, and a cluster of dazzling lights flashed before his eyes, as if the image of the night sky overlapped with the landscape. He rubbed his eyelids with his free forearm, a gesture hardly effective since the imaginary stars were dimly present even behind the eyelids.

  The fit dragged out for one minute, although Marek would swear it lasted five times that much. And just as it appeared, the cough stopped and the lights faded away; his chest, too, heaved back to its normal rhythm.

  Marek was nice and sound, just as he had been before the fit.

  He composed himself, taking a deep breath. “Let it pass… better now than in battle.” The infection had worsened, and so had the adverse effects. He should have paid no heed to this warg quest; he needed to find and slay the dragon as fast as possible. And yet, he chose to complete the old veteran’s last will.

  Another sigh escaped his mouth. “A hero wannabe all along, Blakesley…” After rolling his shoulders, the black-haired man proposed to continue his advance, but the sound of soil cracking, along with the noise of barks and pants, changed his mind. Marek scurried behind a nearby pine and took cover, standing quietly and attentive to the noise, which stemmed from far to the right, nine feet above his current level.

  Another patrol approached.

  Marek counted around seven, not a threatening number, but one he would rather avoid partaking in, not to commence an animal massacre. His attempts to remain concealed succeeded: the pack ran past, seemingly unaware of his presence. However, this time, trailing behind the wolves, heavy steps thudded.

  It was warg — the second one of the day, and given the size, it was a ‘common’ exemplary. With some luck, the warg would imitate its pets, miss the man’s presence, and keep its course. But luck was not the Purity of Combat’s domain.

  The warg slowed, suspicious at first, then stopped in its tracks, no more than fifty yards from where the fighter hid. Then it began to sniff at the air, taking in something amiss, its nostril expelling fog with every blow.

  Did it detect me? How could it— Marek cast a glance down at his clothes and saw the thick red smeared on his cloak; that blood belonged to his last kill. Oh. So that’s how. Aren’t you too old for these fuckups, Blakesley?

  The creature went down the short slant, snout snuffling over the snow, then around the bushes; the man adjusted himself around the pine, sidling along the bark as he avoided a angle that would present him to the beast; however, deep inside he knew it was all for naught: blood was an intense perfume for the hounds.

  He could kill the monster on his own, just as happened scarcely hours ago, but his task was only killing the pack leader — if they behaved similarly to wolves, the remaining ones would turn tail the moment the life of their leader was poured out. And even if they did not flee at the demise of their leader, at least the common wargs would not be able to control the dogs, and they would no longer pose a danger to the region, let alone to him.

  The monster smelled its way closer, mere six yards from where Marek vainly hid. The creature’s lips began to twitch, bending into a snarl as whatever doubt it had was about to shift into anger.

  Can’t be helped. Guess this one will join its partner.

  Marek prepared to break from his concealment and strike at the wolf-thing, his grip in both weapons growing firm, but a blink before that maneuver could become reality, a faint flap hummed closeby, and the warg set the smell sense in the background and perked its head and ears.

  The creature glimpsed one last time at the pine but finally decided to swivel back and up the gradient, disappearing behind the edge in short order. A couple of seconds passed, and the pawsteps thudded no more.

  Well… lucky you. You may live another day. Marek relaxed, staring in the direction in which the furry creature vanished. He was musing about what could have caused the warg to stop investigating his whereabouts, potentially inquiring about the death of one of their own. Thinking about it, the man was not sure the wolf-monsters knew about the death of their packmate.

  Would they mourn their dead? Would they be vengeful to the point that they would cross lakes and mountains to find the killer?

  Better not find out.

  With the atmosphere untensing, Marek decided to move on and climb the slope on foot. He poked his head above the elevation, expecting to see the same scenery he had been beholding since morning. His expectations were accurate at first, but the sight of a black-grayish quadruped prowling from behind a pine ultimately proved him wrong.

  The monster bared its teeth and, lightning fast, thrust directly for the man’s head.

  “Crap!” Promptly, Marek bent backward and rolled down the slope, avoiding decapitation; the warg continued its sprint and leaped right before reaching the edge of the gradient, momentarily disappearing from view. Despite the surprise, the warrior slid down skillfully, kneeling as soon as he stopped pirouetting and adopting a defensive stance.

  Vengeful. They are definitely vengeful.

  His eyes darted, trying to localize the sneaky creature that nearly beheaded him. Snow thumped loudly behind him, and when he spun, he saw the monster ten feet away, snarling behind the screen of ice particles. Both warg and human exchanged gazes, each deep with hostility.

  “Cunning bastard. Waiting for me to poke my head so you can chew it…” the human hissed.

  The staring drew out a bit too long, none of them daring to take initiative despite the air of conflict itching between the two.

  Perhaps, it did recognize how dangerous I am because of the blood on my clothes, the man theorized. Nothing but the clouds moved, and anticipation made the fighter waveringly flex his fingers around the two handles. Seconds ticked by, and unexpectedly, a voice came from the beast ahead.

  “You were the one who killed Nnaj,” the man heard, hiding any hint that would give away his surprise. Right. They can understand and speak human language. The monster’s voice was raspy and, weirdly enough, feminine — this warg was a she. The mouth of the wargess gave little mouthing while speaking, something the warrior deemed curious.

  “I killed a few mongrels, I admit… and I may kill more unless you all disappear,” he dropped the ultimatum.

  The creature snarled. “We are not hunting for man-things. What we hunt is of no concern to man-things. You and your kind do not interrupt our hunt.”

  “An old man would beg to differ. You killed him,” his lips slightly curled down sourly at the reminder of Evert’s death.

  “Man-thing of advanced age. Has a piercing stick... yes, that one man-thing...” the creature said, teeth flashing. She was grinning, Marek noticed. “At least Nnaj had one last good bite before perishing.”

  “Not a noteworthy deed if its actions brought me to you,” the fighter stated. “I’ll make it easy for you. Tell your leader to get out of these mountains as soon as possible. If he complies, blood, your kind’s blood, won’t be spilled.”

  “You think our pack leader, or any of us, will fear a mere man-thing?” the she-warg growled. “Wasn’t witnessing the death of your kind enough for you to realize our might?”

  “Well...” Marek displays his coat tainted with blood, “Witness the results of the last warg that thought the same as you.”

  The wargess narrowed her eyes. “Two man-things against a lone warg… not a fair fight for Nnaj.”

  “Interesting theory. Would you like to test it right now?” Marek growled back.

  The ears of the warg twitched in the way of the slope, a detail that the warrior did not miss. “No lone man-thing could stand against one warg.” Behind Marek and beyond the gradient, the branches vibrated with the upcoming panting and barking. Ah, so that’s why she attacked no further: the mutt knew another pack was patrolling nearby. “But unlike Nnaj, I am not going to give you any chance to strike back.”

  Upon spitting that last sentence, a group of wolves peered through the edge of the declivity. The warg roared, and all wild dogs charged in vicious harmony.

  “Curses.” With an entire pack behind him and a warg in front, this was a situation where Marek’s back was against the wall and the sword — two ‘swords’ in fact. He opted to rush forward the wargess, knowing that her death would dishearten the incoming pack.

  But the lupine creature foresaw such action and took evasive maneuvers, sidestepping to her right. Fast as he was, Marek failed to engage and, knowing it could not stop the warg quickly enough, turned to the avalanche of furs and fangs.

  He counted eight when the first two wolves assailed him. Three swift movements with his arms and Dalavut and Iousterard cleaved through one, two, three… only three wolves, since the fourth one hit him on his side, ruining his balance. What came next was a stampede of the pushful wolves. The man defended as if he were resisting a river’s current, but the numbers overwhelmed him and pushed him into a kneeling stance. The bites followed, and although Marek diverted the attacks with his blades, many fangs hooked onto his cloak, immobilizing him in that uncomfortable stance.

  This could have ended up better.

  “No man-thing could stand against one warg,” the wargess jeered.

  ‘One warg’ is an understatement, you cheating bitch-thing.

  A plenteous amount of fog manifested around the warg’s snout.

  No good.

  Marek was not hurt, but the wolves were not giving him a break with the constant tugs, and as he stood, the manticore-made cloak could not be raised in defense. He was unsure whether he could get out of the way of the attack in time. His mistake in listening to the wargess’ chatter will cost him dearly. Not his life, and most certainly not a limb, but it will hurt regardless.

  The whistling of the miniature blizzard rang out as the wargess gathered cold energies, sleet slowly covering the bark adjacent to the beast. Marek prepared for the incoming attack, body tensing in grim expectancy. But from nowhere, a hiss resounded. The she-warg glanced upward, her eyes meeting with a falling — diving — snowball.

  No, snowballs do not hiss or have feathers.

  The white mass crushed the warg beneath, catapulting an ample amount of snow through the air and causing the blast of freezing power to miss its mark, straying to the pinetops instead. What happened next was a pandemonium of growls, yelps, and shrieks, most of which were coming from the female warg, most of which were charged with agony. Blood was splashed in all directions, painting the surrounding snow red. The human stood entranced by the gory spectacle, and the wolves shouted half-baked barks shaken by fear.

  In a matter of seconds, the warg stopped giving proper resistance and slowly succumbed to the superior predator, a predator Marek identified as a large bird of some sort. The she-warg wailed one last time, a cry that turned into a gurgling sound when the bird monster brought its crooked beak down into its neck, tearing a chunk of flesh. One last jerk, and the wolf-thing fell quiet into breathlessness.

  The new monster stood on top of its victim and beheld its work of savagery before snapping its head toward the human and wolves. The canids winced, yelped, and whimpered, making haste to escape the presence of the bird creature. But the human remained there, kneeling, contemplating this new entity.

  “You must be the famous prey,” Marek stammered, unable to take his eyes off that unique monster, gaping helplessly. With no other distractions around, and with the howls diminished out of his senses, Marek could pinpoint more details about this new creature’s appearance.

  The bird — an owl, to be more accurate — had the unusual characteristic of having long, canine ears, as wolfish as the mane that ran down its neck to the upperside of its chest. Two protrusions stood erect on the top of the creature’s head, marginally curving backward. It was a couple of mist-colored horns.

  Its wings, shaped into a semi-circle in the current stance, had a larger span than any other bird the human knew about; even when not completely outstretched, the wingspan was fourteen feet long. The avian’s right wing, the man observed, was tidied up and lacerated. The creature would be an immaculate white if were not for the red fluid that tainted its fur and plumage and the oyster-pink tones that defined the borders of its owl mask and crooked beak, highlighted some of the wings’ remixes, and covered its arms — bird appendages, scaly to the elbow, that ended in what the man counted in four sharp talons, thumb included.

  The creature met Marek’s gaze, its silvery blue eyes boring into him like the very rays of the moon. This monster was not exceptionally intimidating, but the human could not stop gawking at the entity, its presence almost mesmerizing to the point that Marek theorized he got enthralled by some form of supernatural force.

  What is this thing? He pondered. No one in Gr?t?h told me about this beast. And why can’t I stop gaping at its forms? Is it like some kind of spell? A power similar to a wyrm’s aura?

  His storm of speculations abruptly halted when Marek noticed the monster stirring, its pale form crawling in his direction while issuing a drawn-out hiss. His fighter instincts jumped in, and that was all it took to break through the trance. “Stay back. Closer and you get the steel,” he warned, getting up rapidly and pointing his longsword at the creature, his voice not cracking once despite knowing what the avian entity was capable of.

  The chimera stopped at the warning, after which it regarded the human once more, tilting its head in a clockwise manner, head perpendicularly to its natural position. Marek’s brows furrowed at the quirky gesture.

  Without bringing its head to its natural placement, the creature slowly raised upright, adopting the same posture as the human in front, albeit slightly hunched. Supported by two long white legs, standing on its clawed toes rather than its soles like the feet of dogs, the chimera now towered nearly one head taller than Marek. Its resemblance to the human form was both striking and uncanny.

  Now I can understand why the wargs are looking for this thing: It’s a killing machine. A frown weighed over his features. What to do? Should I kill this entity as well? Is it perhaps more dangerous than the wargs themselves?

  Several questions and possibilities swirled inside Marek’s head. When looking for the warg, he did not expect to face the wolvens’ alleged enemy, nor did he consider that their enemy could be as baleful, if not more, than the fierce wargs. Could it understand me if I spoke, just as that one warg did? Does not seem to be in a hurry to attack.

  But just as Marek considered the plausibility of talking to the monster, the creature jerked its head straight and twitched its ears directly to the fighter. A few eyeblinks, and its mane bristled into a grassland of needles, the corners at the end of the beak twisting into a snarl, pupils likewise contracting into daggers.

  No chatter then. The black-haired man raised his defense with both enchanted weapons, expecting the creature to lash out at any moment. A thundering roar boomed, but contrary to what the human expected, the avian monster was not the culprit. The yowl came from his back.

  The snow thumped as if boulders were raining, a rumble louder than a herd of warhorses. Marek knew what had emitted that howl even before turning around. The thing he had been seeking for the last hours, and the orchestrator behind the old Evert Hort’s demise. Marek turned halfway and cast a glance, confirming the hunch.

  The oddity itself — the alpha warg.

  And it sprinted full speed in his direction, toward the bird monster’s location. And he was in the middle.

  Like a metronome, Marek ducked and rolled to the side, while the chimera made its way out of the scene, swiveling back and dashing down the mountain, back to four legs once more.

  All transpired as if the entire world was immersed in waters of time, everything slowed from the man’s perspective. The avian monster had not even covered ten yards when a black blur passed three feet to the side of the cloaked man, a form showcasing a mane that waved like smoke fumes. For the elephantine, velvet black wolf-thing, the human did not even exist, tailing downhill after the snow-white feathery monster.

  Time resumed its normal course by the time another warg sprinted near the fighter. Unlike the massive warg, this monster halted and observed the human, who had two weapons crossed up in front of his chest. The wolf monster bared its fangs and narrowed its three eyes, but as quickly as it stopped in its tracks, the lupine creature resumed the pursuit, leaving a baffled man behind.

  “Seolvor cleave me clean,” Marek uttered. “The first thing I’ll do in the afterlife is apologize to the geezer.” But the fighter has no time to waste. The sole purpose of his charitable quest was getting away, his target chasing after yet another oddity of a monster. Without missing a beat, the man stood in one stride and rushed behind the giant warg.

  “One hour climbing this dumb pile of slush to scramble down…” he complained between pants.