The Covenant's thermal maps were a revelation in cold, clinical detail. The "ribbons" of thaumaturgic energy weren't random; they traced faint, ley line-like paths through the Blackwood, converging on the Stone Circle and a handful of other "nodes"—the Weeping Hollow, the Leaf-Speaker's valley, and several unmarked spots deep in the trackless woods. But it was the "hot spots" that concerned them: pulsing, isolated signatures that didn't follow the ribbons. They moved erratically, like fireflies trapped in a jar. The lost ones. The unaffiliated Moon-Touched.
One signature was particularly strong and distressingly close. It was located in a narrow, steep-sided gully known locally as "Briar Crack," less than three miles from the Millfield town line. According to the thermal history, its movements had grown increasingly frantic and circumscribed over the past 48 hours. Agitated. Trapped, perhaps, by its own fear or the changing energy of the forest.
The Bridge Crew prepared for contact with a solemnity that felt like preparing for surgery. Their kit was a mix of the practical and the symbolic: first-aid supplies, a compact water filter, Jenkins's non-lethal crossbow. But also, bundles of calming herbs from the Leaf-Speaker, a small pouch of Heart's-Moss, and a digital recorder loaded with filtered audio of the forest's "calm" state—a sonic olive branch devised by Lily.
"We're not hunting," Kiera reminded them as they geared up at The Lodge in the pre-dawn grey. "We're approaching a wounded animal. One that used to be a person. Our goal is to demonstrate we are not a threat. To offer a path to the sanctuary."
"And if it doesn't want a path?" Jenkins asked, checking his weapon.
"Then we back away," Kiera said, meeting his gaze. "We mark the location for monitoring. We prove we are different. That is the point."
The hike to Briar Crack was tense. The forest was quieter than usual, as if holding its breath. They followed the coordinates from the Covenant map, the path nonexistent, forcing them to bushwhack through thick undergrowth that clawed at their clothes. The air grew damp and cool as they descended into the gully. The smell here was not of sulfur, but of damp rot, stagnant water, and a sharp, feral musk.
They found the first sign before they saw the creature: a deer carcass, not eaten, but savagely dismembered, as if in a fit of frustrated rage. The blood was days old.
Lily knelt, touching a snapped sapling. "Pain," she murmured. "Confusion. It's not hunting for food. It's… screaming."
A low, shuddering growl echoed from further down the crack, where a tangle of fallen trees and granite slabs created a natural, cave-like den. The sound was full of misery and a hair-trigger violence.
Kiera held up a hand for them to stop. She took a deep breath, and then she did something extraordinary. She shifted. Not fully, but partially. Her features softened, her ears elongating slightly, a faint dusting of grey fur appearing on her arms. It was a subtle change, one of control and communication. She was meeting the lost one halfway, in a form between human and beast.
"I'll go first," she said, her voice slightly roughened. "Alone. It will see me as less of a human threat. Lily, be ready with the moss and the sound. Jenkins, cover from here. Alex, document from a distance."
Before anyone could argue, she stepped forward, moving with a predator's cautious grace towards the den.
Alex found a vantage point behind a mossy boulder, camera ready, heart in his throat. He watched as Kiera approached the dark opening.
"Hello?" Kiera called, her voice gentle. "We mean you no harm. We felt your distress. We are… like you."
A pair of eyes ignited in the darkness—sickly, fever-bright yellow, lacking the deep amber intelligence of a Blackwood. A shape uncoiled from the shadows. It was smaller than Kiera's transformed state, its form a chaotic patchwork of human and wolf features, twisted as if the change had been a violent accident it could never complete or reverse. One arm ended in a malformed paw, the other in a twitching, five-fingered hand. It snarled, strings of saliva dripping from mismatched jaws.
"I know the pain," Kiera continued, slowly sinking to a crouch, making herself smaller, less threatening. "The moon's call that feels like your bones are breaking. The rage that tastes like copper. You don't have to be alone with it."
The creature—the person—hunched, muscles coiling to spring. It let out a choked, wet sound that might have been a sob or a growl.
Kiera reached into a pouch at her belt and pulled out a sprig of Heart's-Moss. She placed it on the ground between them. "This helps. It remembers peace."
The lost one's eyes flicked to the moss. Its head cocked, a vaguely canine gesture of confusion. The rage seemed to stutter, replaced by a flicker of something else—recognition? Curiosity?
Then, Lily, from her position twenty yards back, activated the recorder. The filtered sound of the forest's calm state, a deep, resonant hum mixed with wind and distant water, washed softly through the gully.
The effect on the lost one was immediate and heartbreaking. It flinched as if struck, then stilled. The feverish light in its eyes dimmed. It made a low, whimpering noise and took a single, shuffling step forward, towards the moss, towards the sound. It was a creature drawn to the memory of wholeness.
For a breathtaking moment, contact seemed possible.
Then, the world exploded.
A net, made of gleaming, fibrous polymer, shot from the trees on the opposite side of the gully. It wasn't fired from a gun; it was propelled, silent and fast, enveloping the lost one before it could react. The creature shrieked—a sound of pure, betrayed terror—and thrashed violently, but the net constricted, its fibers emitting a high-pitched whine that seemed to paralyze it.
From the tree line, three figures clad in advanced, matte-grey camouflage and full-face helmets emerged. They moved with the silent, fluid efficiency of a special operations team. One carried a compact launcher. The other two advanced on the netted creature with stun prods crackling with blue energy.
The Covenant. They hadn't been observing from a distance. They'd been waiting. Using the Trust's own contact attempt as the perfect moment to capture a volatile, distracted specimen.
"NO!" Kiera roared, her partial shift surging into a full, explosive transformation. She lunged, not at the operatives, but to place herself between them and the netted, shrieking lost one.
Jenkins's crossbow thwumped. A non-lethal irritant bolt struck the lead operative in the chest plate, exploding into a cloud of incapacitating powder. The man staggered back, coughing.
But the other two were professionals. One turned his stun prod towards Kiera. The other fired a taser-like projectile at Jenkins, who dove behind his boulder just in time, the wires grounding harmlessly against stone.
Alex was filming, the horror unfolding in his viewfinder. This was the "realistic conversation" the Covenant had invited. A demonstration of their superior force, their ruthless efficiency.
Before the operative could reach Kiera, a new sound filled the gully. Not a growl, not a weapon.
It was a song.
Lily had stepped into the open, ignoring the danger. She was singing. A wordless, ululating melody that was part lullaby, part keen of grief. It was raw and powerful, and it resonated with the very stones.
The forest answered.
Not with a god-like manifestation, but with a localized, ferocious defense. The roots of the trees around the Covenant operatives twitched, then lashed out like woody whips, tangling around their ankles. Vines dropped from the canopy, coiling around arms and weapons. The very ground beneath them seemed to soften, their boots sinking into the suddenly muddy earth.
It wasn't an attack to kill. It was an ecosystem rejecting an invasive species. The forest was defending its own—both the lost one and the Bridge Crew who had come in peace.
The operatives, trained for combat with creatures and men, were utterly unprepared for a hostile environment. They struggled, silenced by their helmets, but their movements became slow, trapped.
Kiera took advantage. In her full wolf-form, she slammed into the operative with the stun prod, knocking him into a thicket of thorny brambles that seemed to actively close around him. She then turned her fury on the net, her powerful claws tearing at the high-tech fibers.
Lily's song continued, a conduit for the forest's focused will. Sweat beaded on her brow, the effort immense.
Jenkins, seeing the tide turn, emerged and helped Kiera. Between them, they ripped the net apart.
The lost one scrambled free. For a second, it looked at Kiera, at Lily, at its rescuers and its would-be captors. Its eyes, now clear of rage, held only a profound, bewildered terror. Then, with a final, pitiful whine, it turned and fled, a broken silhouette disappearing into the deep green shadows of the Blackwood.
The forest's hold on the operatives relaxed as its charge escaped. The roots and vines retracted. The men, battered and humiliated, extracted themselves from the mud and thorns. They didn't raise their weapons. They simply backed away, collecting their stunned comrade, their faceless helmets giving nothing away. Then they melted back into the trees, their retreat as silent and professional as their ambush had been.
The gully was quiet again, save for the heavy breathing of the Bridge Crew and the fading echo of Lily's song. The scent of ozone and crushed herbs hung in the air.
They had made contact. They had been answered with betrayal. And they had been saved by the very force they were trying to understand.
Kiera shifted back, collapsing to her knees, exhausted by the rapid, adrenalized transformations. Lily swayed, and Alex rushed to catch her.
Jenkins scanned the tree line, his face a mask of grim fury. "They were here the whole time. Letting us do the work, then scooping up the prize."
"They showed us their way," Alex said, his voice shaking as he helped Lily sit. "And the forest showed them ours."
The lost one was gone, more terrified and lonely than ever. The Covenant had been thwarted, but not defeated. And the Bridge Crew had learned a terrible, vital lesson: their sanctuary wasn't just a place on a map. It was a living, breathing alliance that would fight for itself. The path ahead was no longer just about understanding. It was about defending a new kind of peace against an old kind of war. The lonely had been lost again, but the battle lines for their souls were now drawn in blood, moss, and song.