The echo of Kael's words hung in the tunnel long after his voice faded.
No one moved. No one breathed.
The darkness before them felt alive — thick, pulsing with unseen motion. The damp air carried the faint scent of rust and something colder, cleaner, like frost creeping through the stone.
Lira's lantern quivered in her grip, its light trembling across the uneven floor. The walls shimmered faintly with moisture — and then, almost imperceptibly, the droplets began to freeze.
Taro's breath fogged out in a shaky exhale.
"Kael…" he whispered, voice barely above the hum of the air. "It's getting colder."
Kael lowered his stance, sword angled forward, eyes fixed on the dark ahead.
"Positions," he murmured.
The four hunters shifted into formation, boots crunching softly against thin crusts of ice that hadn't been there a moment ago. Somewhere ahead, a faint dragging sound echoed — slow, deliberate, like claws scraping stone.
Then came the first sound of movement — a heartbeat rhythm, heavy and uneven, followed by the scrape of bone against rock.
From the void, a shape began to emerge.
It moved on all fours at first, body too thin, too pale, its skin almost translucent in Lira's flickering light. Frost clung to its limbs in delicate patterns, like lace spun from death itself.
And when it lifted its head —
It had a human face.
Or what was left of one.
It crouched at the mouth of the tunnel, chest rising in shallow jerks. Under the thin skin, black veins pulsed like frozen rivers trying to flow. Its jaw quivered; teeth clicked as if rehearsing speech it no longer remembered.
Kael motioned silently. Rin shifted left, Lira right, Taro at Kael's back—textbook formation. The creature's eyes followed them with fractured awareness, not rage. It seemed to be listening, head tilting from side to side, as if weighing which heartbeat to answer first.
Lira's whisper brushed Kael's ear.
"Temperature drop—three degrees in seconds. It's generating the cold."
Kael nodded once. He took a step forward, blade lowered in warning, not threat.
"If it still has reason, maybe—"
The thing hissed—a sound like steam hitting snow—and the ground answered. A silver frost webbed outward from its palms, racing along the floor. The hunters jumped back as the frost hardened into needle-thin spines.
Rin snarled. "So much for reason."
He lunged, fire bursting in short arcs along his sword's edge—heat clashing against the creeping cold. The impact scattered shards of ice that sang as they broke. Taro followed with a pulse slash, vibrations cracking the frozen floor beneath the creature's feet.
It moved fast—too fast for something so newly born. It vaulted sideways, landing with a feral grace, dragging one claw through the wall. Frost blossomed where it touched, and three smaller shapes detached from the shadows behind it: half-formed Wendigos, thin as scarecrows, eyes dull and milky.
Lira's voice tightened. "It brought a pack."
The air filled with noise—breaths, claws, steel. Kael's focus narrowed; his world reduced to rhythm and motion. He slid through the nearest spawn with an upward cut, steel whispering through brittle flesh. Ash burst instead of blood. The next came low; Rin's blade met it with a spray of sparks.
Still, the cold thickened. Mist coiled around their feet, slowing movement, biting skin. The lead Wendigo—the builder, Kael realized—wasn't attacking to kill. It was shaping the battlefield, turning the tunnel into its own frozen lung. Every breath the hunters took came out in ragged clouds.
Taro stumbled. His sleeve brushed an icy pillar, skin sticking for an instant. Kael caught his shoulder and shoved him clear.
"Keep moving! Don't let it trap us!"
The creature screamed—not loud but deep, vibrating in bone. The frost leapt again, forming tendrils that whipped toward Kael. He ducked beneath one, countered with a rising slash. The steel met the tendril's core and split it; cold light scattered like shattered glass.
Rin struck next, cleaving through another limb of ice that had begun to crawl along the ceiling. "It bleeds frost now—what's next, snowstorms?"
"Stay focused!" Kael barked.
They pressed together, blades glowing faintly in the lantern's flicker. Each strike chipped away pieces of the icy armor forming over the Wendigo's body. Lira studied its movements between breaths.
"It's organizing them. It's building a feeding ground—look."
Around the chamber lay the arranged remains of animals, birds, even villagers' belongings, all frozen mid-motion. The pattern spiraled outward from the Wendigo's position—a nest under construction. It was territory.
Kael saw it too—the deliberate spacing, the ritual symmetry. This wasn't madness; it was instinct sharpened by stolen intelligence. If they let it live, soon the forest would be nothing but ice and silence.
He exhaled once. "We end it here."
They moved as one. Taro pulsed the ground to break the frost barrier. Lira dashed through the gap, leaving decoys of mist to distract the smaller spawn. Rin charged straight at the Wendigo, flames bursting from his blade in an arc that seared the tunnel walls.
Kael followed, timing his strike to the creature's recoil. The two blades crossed—a flash of light and cold. For an instant he saw the thing's face clearly: the outline of a man beneath the ice, lips trembling with words that never came.
Then Kael's sword pierced its chest. A soundless shock rolled through the air, and the frost stopped spreading. The Wendigo convulsed once, twice, then collapsed. Its body darkened, frost melting into black water that steamed on the floor.
The smaller ones shrieked and disintegrated, as if their existence depended on the leader's pulse.
Silence followed. Only dripping water and the rasp of tired breathing remained.
Rin kicked a fallen shard. "Smart one, my ass."
Lira crouched by the corpse, inspecting the veins of frozen blood that hadn't yet faded.
"No ordinary infection. This much ice—it was gifted more blood than its body could hold."
Kael wiped his blade clean. "Meaning a higher Wendigo passed through."
Taro shivered, rubbing his arms. "So this was just leftovers?"
Kael sheathed his sword slowly. "A remnant. Trying to claim ground."
They stood there for a long moment, the weight of the realization pressing harder than the cold. Then Kael nodded toward the exit. "Burn it."
Rin sparked a small blaze with his blade's edge. Flame met frost; steam rolled through the cavern. The body curled inward, collapsing into gray ash. When the fire died, the tunnel felt emptier than before.
The four hunters emerged to the sound of wind moving through dead branches. None of them spoke until Lira finally broke the silence.
"If a higher one blessed it, that means we're already late."
Kael didn't answer. He looked back once at the curling smoke seeping from the cracked earth. The frost was still melting, drop by drop.
He turned away. "Let's report to base. Ravenwood's worse than we thought."
They left the forest behind them, boots crunching over brittle leaves, the smell of burnt ash trailing faintly in the cold air.