A sound stops me cold. Low. Guttural. Coming from somewhere ahead and to the left.
I raise my fist again. The party freezes.
That's not human.
The sound comes again, a rumbling growl that seems to vibrate through the broken stone itself. I've heard it before, in nightmares and in the field reports that come back from deep salvage operations. Ember wolves. Beasts twisted by the residual magic that still saturates these ruins, transformed from ordinary pack hunters into something hungrier and infinitely more dangerous.
I gesture to Mira. She nods and melts away toward the sound, her movements silent as falling ash. The rest of us wait, weapons ready but not drawn. Ember wolves have excellent hearing, and they react aggressively to the ring of steel on leather.
Three minutes pass. Four. Then Mira's hand appears around a corner, fingers spread. Five targets. She closes her fist, then opens it. No immediate threat, but they're moving this way.
Shit.
Five ember wolves means a full pack. They hunt smartly, using the ruins' acoustic properties to confuse prey and coordinate attacks. But they're also territorial, which means they've claimed this area as their hunting ground. That could explain why smuggler activity has increased. With the wolves keeping other scavengers away, the market square becomes a safer waystation for moving contraband.
Mira appears beside me, her approach soundless. "They're feeding," she whispers. "Fresh kill. Human, from the smell."
"Smugglers?"
"Can't tell. Bodies are... well. You know how they eat."
I know. Ember wolves don't just kill for food. They tear their prey apart in feeding frenzies, leaving behind scattered remains that make identification nearly impossible. If smugglers were using this route regularly, eventually they were going to encounter the pack.
"Position?"
"Forty yards ahead. In what used to be a grain warehouse. Stone walls are mostly intact, but the roof's gone. They'll hear us coming unless we're perfect."
I readthe map, marking our current position against the known layout of the market district. The grain warehouse sits at the junction of three major routes, exactly where you'd expect smugglers to stop and redistribute cargo. But with a pack of ember wolves feeding nearby, approaching requires careful timing.
"We wait," I decide. "Let them finish and move on. Then we check for survivors and evidence."
It's a tactically sound choice. Engaging five ember wolves in close quarters with limited visibility serves no purpose except to risk casualties among my warriors. Better to be patient, gather information, and report back to Drokhan with actionable intelligence.
But patience has never been my strength, especially here.
The sounds of feeding continue as wet tearing noises punctuated by satisfied growls. Each one reminds me of other sounds, other feeding. The fire elementals hadn't eaten their victims, but they'd made similar noises as they consumed the defensive barriers my brother died trying to hold.
Stop.This isn't about Kaven. This is about completing the mission and keeping my warriors alive. Everything else is just noise.
A new sound hits as wheels on stone. The distinctive creaking of an overloaded cart moving carefully across uneven ground. Someone else is approaching the warehouse, unaware of what's waiting inside.
"Sir?" Thane's hand rests on his sword hilt. "New contact."
I peer around the corner. A lone figure guides a two-wheeled cart toward the warehouse entrance, moving with the careful urgency of someone trying to stay quiet while handling heavy cargo. The cart's covered with canvas, but the way it sits low on its axles suggests metalwork or other dense materials.
The feeding sounds stop.
They smell him.
Ember wolves have enhanced senses of their natural cousins, amplified by whatever magic transformed them. They'll detect the newcomer long before he realizes his danger. And unlike normal wolves, they don't retreat from lone humans. They hunt them.
The carter reaches the warehouse entrance. Pauses. Even from this distance, I can see him tense as he notices the silence.
Too late.
The first ember wolf emerges from the warehouse like liquid shadow. It's massive, easily twice as big as a natural wolf, with fur that shifts between grey and red like cooling embers. Its eyes burn with actual fire, and when it snarls, sparks scatter from its jaws.
The carter sees it. Drops his cart's handles. Runs.
