Ezra woke to the feeling of his own body throbbing.
His eyes snapped open to darkness broken only by thin shafts of starlight and the faint orange glow from the camp below. The forest canopy was a black mesh above him. His sensory net—the thin film of mana he'd laid over his skin before sleeping—was buzzing like a kicked hornet's nest.
He froze.
Two shapes circled above his branch.
Hawks. Big ones. Each pass brought them a little closer, their silhouettes cutting across the scraps of sky. Even half-asleep, he could tell they were the same breed as the one that had tried to carry him off.
His internal check came automatically.
Mana reserves are around half full. Better than I deserve after the night I've had.
He was still piecing together a plan—stones, angles, whether he could reach the circle in one jump if he timed it right—when voices drifted up from below.
"Up," Phobos said. "Something's wrong."
The tone was flat, but underneath it was something that made Ezra's neck prickle.
The sleeping knights jolted awake as if yanked from their dreams. Armor clinked. Someone cursed softly.
"What is it?" Deimos replied.
"The felbeasts," came the reply. "They're surrounding us."
Ezra didn't dare look down. Shifting his weight too much would draw the hawks' eyes. He kept his gaze on the birds and let his mana divert to his ears, sharpening the sound from the circle.
"This area is usually quiet at night," the Deimos continued. "A few wanderers at most. Now…" He hesitated—an unfamiliar thing for someone who spoke with such certainty. "Now they're everywhere."
"Are they attacking?" Rycharde's voice was rough, already fully awake.
"No," the Deimos said. "That's what's wrong. They're not tearing into each other. They're… waiting. Watching us. This has never happened before."
"Aye," Phobos said, low. "They should be killing each other. This ward's always drawn the storm away, not pulled it in. Not like this."
Ezra's mind flicked back to the rabbit, the bears, the way his own thoughts had been hijacked.
So I wasn't imagining it.
Whatever saturated the forest at night, it wasn't just random bloodlust. Something was coordinating it.
"What do we do?" Rycharde asked.
"We break out before they decide to test the ward," Deimos said. "We dash for Anticourt. I don't like the feeling of this."
There was a beat of silence.
"Understood," Rycharde said. "We'll ready the horses."
He barked a few low orders. The knights moved quickly, rolling up bedrolls, checking tack, soothing restless steeds that scented predators just beyond the invisible line of safety.
Ezra didn't look down.
He couldn't.
The two hawks were circling tighter now, eyes glinting faintly. Every time one dipped its wing, his muscles tensed.
So the bloodlust hits everything when night falls, he thought, keeping his gaze locked skyward. But not equally. The beasts are organized. The knights aren't snarling at each other. The Demon Hunters have traveled here at night before.
He swallowed.
So what's different? Age? Heritage? Some threshold in mana control?
His heart beat faster.
If they leave without me, I am not getting out, he realized. I'll either turn feral or get torn apart. I need them to know I'm here. I have to show myself and explain before they ride—
The hawks attacked.
They didn't scream first. They folded their wings and dove, two streaks of dark cutting through the branches.
Ezra reacted on instinct.
He threw himself sideways along the branch as claws slashed where his head had been a heartbeat before. One hawk tore past, shredding bark. The other adjusted mid-dive and came around for a second pass.
He didn't have room for AMP or calculation.
As the second hawk swept by, he kicked off the branch and grabbed.
His hands found feathers and bone. The hawk shrieked, banking wildly. Ezra swung up with the motion and slammed his dagger down, once, twice, into the joint of the wing.
The bird's cry went ragged. Its left wing buckled.
They fell together.
The ground rushed up.
Ezra rode the dying hawk for a few breathless seconds, teeth gritted, then pushed off at the last moment, turning a killing drop into a bruising tumble. He and the bird hit the forest floor in a heap roughly thirty meters outside the circle.
Bloodlust hit him like a wall.
It poured in from every direction, thick and oily, drowning his earlier clarity. Every beat of his heart felt like a drum demanding violence. The urge to finish the crippled hawk—tear, rip, stab—rose up so strong it made his fingers twitch.
"This is bad," he hissed, forcing the words out. "I have to get back."
He staggered upright and dragged his eyes away from the hawk's twitching body.
That was when he saw them.
Felbeasts. Dozens. Maybe more.
Wolves the size of small horses padded between the trees. Felboars, bristling and scarred, snorted and pawed the ground. Felbears lumbered, hulking silhouettes. Felcougars flowed along low branches, tails lashing.
They ringed the ward-circle in a loose, shifting wall.
But they weren't snarling or lunging.
They stood. They watched. They waited.
This isn't random, Ezra thought, forcing his mind to work past the pounding in his blood. This is… formation.
Out beyond the ring of beasts, half veiled by trunks and shadow, something moved.
For an instant, he saw it—a tall, human-shaped silhouette standing very still. The air around it seemed to warp, like heat haze over asphalt, blurring the edges of its form. Watching.
The bloodlust surged, tearing the thought away.
He turned toward the circle.
"Is that—" Rycharde squinted through his visor. "Is that a toddler stabbing a boar?" He wanted to rub his eyes, just to make sure his helm wasn't fogging and his brain wasn't inventing nonsense.
Evered's mace came down on a felboar's skull with a wet crunch. He didn't look away from the kill until the body stopped twitching. Only then did he lift his chin a fraction and follow Rycharde's stare.
"Impossible," he said, clipped. Then, as the small figure ducked under a snapping jaw and drove steel into flesh again: "…What in the hells."
Dynham, further down the line, barked a short laugh that sounded more like disbelief than amusement. "Reckon the Grove's gone and started throwin' babes at boars. That's new."
"Eyes front," Oswyn said immediately—calm, corrective. His polearm angled a hair to close a gap before it existed. "We talk after we live."
Before anyone could say more, the outer line of felwolves moved.
Not a surge. Not a panic.
A coordinated flow inward, bodies slipping between trunks until every gap was filled. Fur and teeth and low, intent eyes. The ward-circle was ringed—tight enough now that the horses began to scream and stamp, feeling the wall closing.
"This isn't good," Deimos said. His whip was already in his hand. He didn't raise his voice; he didn't need to. "They've sealed every line of retreat."
Phobos's tone cut in like a knife. "We thin them. Stay tight. Protect the mounts. Hold the line."
Rycharde didn't argue. His mind had already snapped into constraints. No retreat. Horses panicking. Circle boundary holding—barely.
"Hold spacing," he called, short and hard. "Don't bunch. Don't chase."
Deimos pointed without looking. "Galwell—middle. Everyone else—steel on the line. Conserve mana. We don't know how long this lasts."
"Aye," Galwell said, already moving. He slid in behind the horses, back to the center of the ring where he could see over the mounts' heaving necks. His bow was in his hand for half a heartbeat—then he took one look at the tightening crush and made the call without being told.
"Too close for feathers," he muttered, and the bow vanished into its sling. His short spear came up instead, point steady, eyes unnaturally sharp as he tracked the gaps between bodies.
The first wave hit.
Felwolves—twice the size of their mundane cousins—darted in short, snapping bursts, testing the boundary with their bodies and the men with their courage. The ward didn't stop flesh. It stopped nerve. The bravest crossed it with a shudder, hackles rising as if they'd pushed through cold water.
Rycharde met the first one like he'd been waiting for it.
He didn't swing wide. He didn't overcommit. He stepped in, set his weight, and brought the hammer up in a compact arc.
Impact.
The wolf's skull ceased to be a skull. Its body cartwheeled back into its packmates, scattering them in a spray of blood and torn fur.
Rycharde's recovery was as controlled as the strike—hammer returning to guard before the next threat finished registering.
Evered moved beside him with brutal economy, doctrine made flesh. Mace up. Mace down. Every blow placed to end, not to impress—temple, jaw hinge, spine. When a wolf tried to slip past the hammer's shadow, Evered didn't chase it; he pivoted half a step and crushed it on the line.
"Lane!" he snapped once—more a reminder than a plea.
Oswyn answered without words. His polearm shot into the gap, not to kill but to deny. He hooked a wolf mid-leap and shoved it back across the ward-line, buying space like it was coin.
"Two steps right," Oswyn barked, "Give him room to swing."
Dynham's blade flashed on the far edge of the ring, working in the ugly places where bodies met. He didn't try to hold a perfect line; he made sure the line didn't break. When a felcougar dropped from a low branch, he met it with a short, vicious cut that opened its throat and sent it tumbling under hooves.
"Don't drift!" he bellowed. "Hold—hold—don't you drift!"
Galwell's spear became a sewing needle in the crush. It darted through fur and teeth, puncturing eyes when wolves lunged too high, slipping under jaws to punch through soft throat. He didn't stab at bodies; he stabbed at stops.
"Left—high!" he called once, and the warning came a heartbeat before the leap. Evered's mace was already there when the wolf arrived, as if Galwell had thrown the strike as surely as an arrow.
On the other side of the circle, Deimos and Phobos fought back-to-back, the only calm center in the storm.
Two felcougars launched at them from opposite sides. They stepped aside in the same instant, letting the cats collide in midair in a tangle of claws. Deimos's whip snapped—one savage loop around both throats and yanked.
As the beasts choked and thrashed, Phobos slid in, efficient and merciless. Daggers flashed—two quick slits. Two bodies dropped.
A felbear thundered into the gap their movement had created, claws raking at where Deimos had been a moment before.
Deimos rolled under the swing, came up outside the arc with the smoothness of practice. He didn't hack at the bear's bulk; he cut what mattered. His blade bit deep into the hamstring.
The bear roared and spun—heavy, angry, leaving its throat open for the next strike.
The air inside the ward-circle turned thick with noise—roars, snarls, steel on bone, men shouting calls that were half command and half prayer. Blood spattered armor and grass. The ground grew slick under hoof and boot.
And through it all, Rycharde's voice kept reverberating—short and steady.
"Hold the line," he said. "Inches. Not stories."
Ezra ran.
He'd barely shaken the hawk off his arm before another felboar lunged at him from the side. He sidestepped on instinct, drove his dagger into its shoulder as it passed, and yanked free as it stumbled.
The wound slowed it, but didn't stop it.
He sprinted toward the faint glow of firelight, breath ragged, shoving mana into his legs until his muscles buzzed.
Every step drew more attention.
Felbeasts that had been focused on the circle turned their heads as he passed. Their eyes locked onto him, and some buried instinct told them prey. One by one, then in small packs, they peeled away from the siege and fell in behind him.
By the time he was within twenty meters of the circle, ten beasts were on his heels—wolves, a boar, something cat-like with too many teeth.
A wolf lunged from his right, jaws snapping for his thigh.
He threw himself forward in a reckless dive, felt the teeth close on empty air just behind his boot, hit the ground hard, rolled, staggered up without quite stopping.
A second wolf darted in from the left. He twisted away, but the movement cost him speed.
A felbear stepped into his path.
Ezra skidded, almost tripping.
His lungs burned. His legs screamed. Every thought was a knife-edge between run and turn and rip and tear until everything is quiet.
He could feel the drain on his mana now—not just from reinforcing his body, but from sheer will. Fighting the rage took power too.
On the line, Evered crushed another felboar's skull and risked a glance up.
"Is that—" he started. "Is that a child running toward us?"
Rycharde turned just in time to see a small cloaked figure dart between beasts, dagger flashing.
He saw the hair. The eyes. The size.
His stomach dropped.
"That's Lord Ezra!" he shouted.
A felboar slammed into his side while he was looking. The impact staggered him, armor ringing. He grunted, grabbed the boar by the tusks, and heaved, tossing it sideways into a knot of wolves.
He pointed his hammer toward Ezra.
"Oswyn! Dynham!" he roared. "Cover him!"
There was no hesitation.
Oswyn and Dynham broke from their current engagements in the same instant, trusting the line to close behind them. Rycharde and Evered stepped up, weapons blurring faster as they filled the gap in the circle.
Two felbears lumbered into Oswyn and Dynham's path.
The knights' first strikes met raised paws instead of soft flesh. Steel bit into thick bone and fur, but not deep enough to cripple. The bears focused entirely on blocking, not attacking, swiping just enough to keep the knights at bay.
Oswyn snarled in frustration.
Ezra's small figure was being swallowed by moving fur and muscle, his path narrowing with every heartbeat.
A stupid idea bloomed.
He committed to it anyway.
Oswyn dropped his center of gravity and sprinted straight at his bear, planting his polearm in the ground at the last possible second. He vaulted, using the spear as a lever.
The bear reared, swiping, but the claw fell short as Oswyn sailed over its head.
For a gorgeous, fleeting moment, the maneuver worked.
Then a felboar launched itself upward like a battering ram, crashing into Oswyn's chest mid-air.
The impact knocked the breath from him and twisted his trajectory. He sailed past Ezra, hitting the ground hard and rolling in a spray of dirt and leaves, far from where he'd intended to land.
He pounded his fist into the earth in frustration, then scrambled back to his feet, already turning to rejoin the fight.
"Damn it," Ezra hissed.
He could see the circle now. He could taste it—the edge of the ward like a cool line against his over-heated senses, sanity waiting on the other side.
He was ten meters away. Ten.
Seven.
Five.
AMP stuttered in his vision.
It tried to draw him paths—little golden lines weaving through the moving bodies, tiny windows of time he could squeeze through—but each time he focused on one, a new beast lunged into the gap. The projections fuzzed, calculated vectors dissolving into static as his brain struggled to keep up with the chaos.
The hawks weren't gone either.
Every time he thought about climbing, dark shapes swept low overhead, talons raking at any branch he glanced toward. They didn't give him even a heartbeat of clear air.
The encirclement tightened.
Wolves flanked him on both sides. The wounded boar lumbered behind, snorting and snapping. A felbear moved into place ahead, massive bulk filling his forward vision.
He backed up until his shoulders hit a tree.
"Great," he said aloud, voice thin. "Perfect."
The bloodlust crawled back up his spine, urging him to stop thinking, to just launch himself at something and plunge the dagger in until nothing moved anymore.
He fought it. Every second of resistance cost mana he could no longer spare.
If I push through, I die, he thought. If I stay, I die slower.
For the first time since he'd woken that morning, the thought crept in, cold and small.
Am I going to die here?
He tightened his grip on the dagger hilt until his knuckles hurt.
"…Fine," he muttered. "If I'm going out, it's not with my back against a tree."
He forced his foot forward.
A shadow moved at the edge of his vision.
He didn't see the bear's swipe coming.
A massive paw blurred in from the right, claws extended, aimed straight at his head. AMP barely had time to throw up a red warning and a useless suggestion—duck—before his body locked, too exhausted, too slow.
He flinched anyway, eyes squeezing shut.
The impact never came.
Something slammed into the bear from the side with a sound like a battering ram hitting a wall. The paw was knocked away, claws ripping harmlessly through air above his head.
Ezra staggered, blinked, and found himself staring up at a horse.
A knight sat astride it, plate armor catching every scrap of firelight from the circle. His lance was still extended from the charge, the tip buried deep in the felbear's flank. His helm had a visor shaped like an open-mouthed fish, ridged and unfamiliar, but the voice that came from behind it was not.
"Lord Ezra, Let's go home."
Evan had arrived.