Hesitating, Raeln sniffed and listened, unable to make out anything beyond the breathing of the people nearest him, the rippling sounds of the river, and his own heartbeat. A faint splash hinted at fish…or something standing at the edge of the water.
A second later, the white bear at Raeln’s side pointed slightly to the left ahead of them and then tapped his nose.
Squinting, Raeln made out a faint shape in the fog. Whatever was out there could not be more than thirty feet away, and he could faintly smell mold and dank fur, though that was about all he could pick out. He looked over at the wildling bear, but the man just shrugged and tapped his shirt over the scars he had shown Raeln earlier.
Raeln inched forward. The water rose past his lower ankles to his upper and then nearly to his knees before it became shallower. Once he was certain it was shallow enough that he could run again, he raised a hand to alert those closest to him.
“On three,” Raeln whispered, bracing himself for the dash through shallow water at the creature ahead of them. Whatever they were facing likely could not see much better than they could…at least he hoped it could not. “Everyone else stay back! One…two…three!”
Raeln ran, with both the Turessian and wildling keeping pace and dozens more splashing along after. A few strides later, Raeln’s paws were back on dry land, and he increased his speed.
The vague shape in the fog ahead backed away at their approach, grabbing what appeared to be another spear. It was trying to hold its ground.
Leaping at the figure, Raeln caught its arm before it managed to raise the weapon, knocking the spear aside as he rolled away. He lunged again, only to have a fist hit him in the chest harder than anything but one of Dorralt’s Turessians ever had. Gasping, he fell, moving out of the way as the white bear wildling crashed into the creature. Raeln tried to stand, only to fall again as his chest and stomach muscles gave out.
Nearby, Raeln heard something else approaching as his men surged past him, cutting the creature off from reaching him. Looking around, he saw gleaming eyes watching him from the fog, and the smell of wolves came to him. Suddenly, the fog burned away in a burst of light and flame as a spell hit the creature that had thrown the spears. In that moment, Raeln saw eight black wolves with reddish eyes snarl and retreat into the fog. Even during his trial, the dire wolves had looked no different from regular wolves. Those were something else.
Fighting his pain, Raeln got up to enter the fray, only to find the battle was already over. The bear wildling stood over a gasping creature that lay on its back, covering its face with its hands. From the look of the thing, it had taken the blast of flame full-on and received little more than a few burns in the process. The white bear appeared to have pummeled it into submission while it was down.
Had it been standing, the creature would have been easily nine feet tall. Though it was covered with mold and slime-coated long, ragged fur, Raeln thought he saw vaguely bearlike features. Unlike a bear—even a bear wildling—this creature had retractable claws, and when it moved its hand away from its eyes, he saw it had oversized black eyes and gleaming fangs that did not entirely fit into its mouth. Everything about the creature seemed to hint at an animal, twisted far beyond anything recognizable. The monstrous thing was much further from being a wildling than even a werewolf might be.
“What is it?” Raeln asked, getting no reply from anyone near him. When the Turessian who had cast the spell ran over, holding up his robe to keep it out of the shallow water of the river, Raeln repeated, “What is that thing? Have your people fought them before? Are there more? What do I need to know?”
“I have no idea,” the Turessian answered, raising his hand to cast another spell. As he did, the giant bearlike monster curled into a ball and hid its face. “I do not want it following me, though. The pelts it’s wearing looks like black dire wolf hides, but dire wolves are almost always predominantly white with some black, much like your patterning.”
Raeln searched the fog for the wolves he had seen, but they were gone. “Definitely some kind of dire wolf. I saw some of them out there. Nasty-looking things. Don’t kill it yet. I want to know what we’re in for.”
The monster rolled with a speed surprising for its size. It tried to rush at the Turessian, only to have the bear wildling punch it in the jaw, dazing it. Before the creature could get its balance back, the wildling hooked its head with his powerful arms and forced the creature down onto its knees. From what Raeln could see, the creature probably could have overpowered the wildling but appeared unwilling to fight him directly.
Raeln came over cautiously and knelt in front of the creature and the wildling. Immediately, the creature began thrashing and snarling, but it could not break the wildling’s grip. More importantly, it seemed unwilling to strike at him with its claws when it could have easily freed itself by doing so. That told Raeln far more about it than its appearance did. There was a reluctance to hurt the white bear, and that meant some kind of vague respect. It was intelligent, and whatever his wildling ally had done during his first visit to the Maw, it had some bearing on what was happening now.
“Did you fight these before? What about wolves?” Raeln asked the wildling, who shook his head at the first part and nodded at the second. “Are they friendly?”
That left the wildling staring at Raeln, his muzzle crinkled as he struggled to find some way to reply.
Raeln finally held up a hand to wave aside his own question. As he inched closer, he had to be careful, as the creature began screeching and trying to claw at him. After a few seconds, it gave up and lets its arms hang in defeat. Its large black eyes narrowed as it glared angrily at him. The monstrous bearlike creature’s muzzle trembled.
“I’m not your enemy,” Raeln said, but as soon as he spoke, it began fighting again, trying to get one hand on him while pawing at its face with the other. He realized it was frantically slapping one spot in the middle of its brow, between its eyes. Raeln mimicked its motion, touching the spot on his own brow—right where his tattoos lay. “It knows of Turessians.”
Looking around, Raeln realized he and the Turessian man were both almost within reach. He motioned for the Turessian to back away, which the man did in a hurry. Raeln followed him a short distance, and he could see the creature calm with each step they took. After a few more steps away, the creature patted at the wildling holding it, as though trying to tell it that everything was better. The bear did not release the creature, though he did relax considerably.
“Let him go,” Raeln said, getting a worried glare from the bear. “Be ready, but release him. I want to see something. I don’t think he’ll attack.”
Reluctantly, the bear eased his grip, only to have the monstrous tusked bear-man turn in place and make chittering noises at him. The creature motioned at Raeln and the Turessian and then to the nearest of its spears. From what Raeln could gather, it was asking permission to kill the Turessians, including Raeln.
“You sure about this?” asked an orcish woman who had come over to join them, wandering near the wildling and creature, all but ignored. “I think it’s trying to recruit our bear to kill you.”
The white bear snarled at the creature that kept talking at him, only to have the creature pick up its spear and put it in the bear’s hand. The wildling looked to Raeln for guidance, and the monstrous beast at his feet pointed vigorously at Raeln.
The orcish woman near them scowled, tightening her grip on her sword.
“I don’t want to kill it if we don’t have to,” Raeln said, moving his hand away from his sword’s hilt to be sure he was not giving a mixed message.
Nodding, the bear wildling held up the spear, evaluating it. He then looked the larger creature in the eyes before turning to walk over to Raeln. Holding the spear horizontally, the white bear placed it in Raeln’s hands reverently.
Almost immediately the tusked creature began screeching angrily and looking around for help as it backed away. It clearly thought Raeln was about to kill it, and it only grew more frantic as the bear wildling hurried back over to it. To Raeln’s relief, the white bear did anything more than stand ready.
Raeln slowly knelt, placing the spear on the ground in front of himself. Then, unbuckling the belt that held his own weapon, he set that atop the spear. Once his hands left the weapons, the monstrous beast stopped screeching and instead chittered at him, cocking its head like a dog.
“We should kill it,” whispered the Turessian near Raeln’s side. “It’s taken down several of ours already. There is no sense in sparing it. Face it and kill it. That would be most honorable.”
Raeln watched the creature’s eyes fixate on the weapons. When he moved his hands farther from them, he could easily see its muscles relax slightly. “No. Do you think that thing is fast enough to have been what attacked us before? I don’t. Its weapons are clean, as are its claws.”
“That…actually makes sense,” the man replied. Turning back toward the rest of the army on the far side of the small river, he added, “Hold your position, battle leader. I would explore this further. I will return in a moment.” He ran off, splashing through the river on his way back the way they had come.
At the Turessian’s departure, the tusked giant relaxed even more, eyeing Raeln as suspicious, though not a real threat. Apparently one Turessian was less disturbing than two. Raeln made a point of keeping his head low and his hands on his thighs to avoid any further escalation.
A few minutes later, Raeln heard more splashing, and the Turessian hurried back to his side, spraying water in all directions from his soaked robes. “War leader, you were right. Whatever attacked the orc had short and very sharp claws. This thing has long dull claws, which would have torn, rather than cut. We were attacked by something else.”
“The wolves,” Raeln answered, thinking back on the red-eyed dogs he had seen earlier. “This one’s wearing their pelts. I doubt it uses them to hunt its prey.”
The Turessian nodded. “It hunts them. That does not make it an ally, though.”
The tusked creature sniffed at the bear wildling beside it, but seemed no longer threatening at all, despite its appearance. It almost looked bored, waiting to see what they would do next. It seemed to understand it was not going to be allowed to leave, but was not concerned.
“Give the order to march,” Raeln told the Turessian, motioning off to the side of the creature. “Walk right by it. Keep weapons down unless it attacks. Kill it if it tries again, but I want everyone to keep going.”
“As you wish.”
The order was relayed down the long line of people in the distance, and Raeln heard many more splashing across the river. Once the main force came into sight, Raeln left his weapon behind and led the way past the tusked creature. As he went, the white bear wildling fell in at his side and the giant creature stared at the massive group with wide eyes. It made no attempt to strike at anyone—even the Turessians—and soon Raeln lost sight of it in the fog.
“One disaster averted,” he told the bear. He started to ask the man to find him a new weapon when the tusked creature came running up at his other side, holding both its spear and Raeln’s belt. It carried them tucked into the crook of its arm, not ready to attack. It kept its eyes straight ahead.
Raeln chose to keep walking, though his bear guardian shifted to put himself between Raeln and the tusked thing that had chosen to follow them. The newcomer was quiet most of the time, lumbering on as though it belonged among their numbers. Every so often it would motion toward something beyond Raeln’s sight in the fog and chitter before returning to silence. From what he could gather, it was warning him about more wolves or possibly dangerous terrain. Without acknowledging the creature, Raeln diverted the group as directed.
They walked throughout the day, though time had become difficult to gauge in the fog. More than once Raeln thought he heard faint barks and caught whiffs of the wolves he had seen earlier, but they did not show themselves again. Throughout the walk, the massive creature followed quietly.
When Raeln thought about trying to find some way to camp for a few hours, he realized just how much danger they were in. He had hundreds of people trailing on for half a mile behind him, with nowhere he could truly call safe and certainly nowhere they would all be visible to one another. The hills they were able to see through the fog every so often were far apart, making them useless as any kind of defensible location. Everything else was wide open and filled with the blinding fog. Hills or ditches would do little to stop wolves, even if he could find a way to build them around the whole army. They would have to tighten the group and attempt a watch.