Ash was right. The stream did lead to a small, murky pond, and they soon had to pass through, this time using the mountains to guide them. But as the shadows grew longer and dusk turned into night, even going in a straight line became a challenge. It was a new moon, the blackness so suffocating and vast that none of them could really see where they were headed at all. Constantly, Ash’s leg pounded with agony as the terrain shifted high or low, or a root or a rock caught her foot. In one particularly bad case, Matteo bumped headfirst into a tree, and it was all he could do to stop himself from screaming as he crumpled and nursed a fiery headache that struck back with a vengeance.

And as the path began to wind and wind and wind, soon even the mountains that they trusted faded into the background, melting into the night and leaving only vaguely foreboding patches of darkness that cut into the starry sky. Now, the night was in full force. Now, the terror was seeping into their bones. Now, that primal urge for light, the urge that caused their ancestors from millennia ago to smash rocks together, roared into their skulls. They were bleeding. They were exposed. They were lost. Ash had realized too late that the true geography of the wilderness around Andeave had been that of coastline circled by a mountain range.

The blood continued to flow, taking with it their ability to concentrate.

Then, in the distance, to their right, they could hear it. The ghostly howl of a lone wolf, echoing through the woods and silencing the dozen critters that roamed the wilderness. It was requiem and it was celebration, it was a high pitch that arced up until it fell into the dirges of a bass growl.

It was haunting, and it was beautiful.

But it was a beast, nonetheless.