Chapter 7: Lessons in Claws and Consequences
The "training" began at dawn the next day. Lykos, it turned out, was a relentlessly cheerful drill sergeant.
"First lesson!" he announced, his tail wagging slightly. "Tracking. The forest speaks. You just have to learn its language."
Astra, who was more accustomed to identifying bird calls for a ecology paper than following the minute scuffles of predator and prey, nodded grimly. Lykos led her to a patch of soft earth near the tree line and pointed to a near-invisible impression.
"See this? Rabbit. A large one. It passed here just after the sun rose. It was nervous."
Astra squinted. "It looks like a dent. How can you tell it was nervous?"
"The depth is uneven on the left side—it was favoring a leg. An animal in pain is always nervous. Prey senses this." He moved a few feet away, brushing aside some leaves to reveal a smaller, sharper print. "And this is a Shadow-Stalker. A small, feline predator. It was following the rabbit. See how its print overlaps the rabbit's? It knew it had an easy meal."
Astra felt a flicker of fascination beneath her exhaustion. This was advanced ecology in real-time. She focused, trying to see the story Lykos was reading.
[Skill Activation: [Beastworld Botany] is passively enhancing your sensory perception. You note the crushed stem of a Sorrow-Moss plant near the Stalker's print its sap causes a tingling sensation that heightens feline focus. The Stalker was using the environment.]
"Whoa," Astra murmured, pointing at the moss. "The cat... it stepped on this deliberately, didn't it? To sharpen its senses."
Lykos stopped, his cheerful instruction faltering. He stared at her, his ears swiveling forward in surprise. "You... how did you know that? That is a deep wood secret. Most of my own pack wouldn't notice that."
"I just... felt it," Astra said, tapping her temple. "The bond, the system... it's giving me pieces."
Lykos's look of surprise melted into one of deep respect. "Perhaps you are not as soft as you look." The next few hours were a grueling cycle of tracking, identifying edible plants (which her new botany skill made thrillingly easy), and learning to move silently through the undergrowth. Astra was drenched in sweat, her muscles protesting with every step.
The final lesson was the one she dreaded most: self-defense.
"Your first and best weapon is your mind," Lykos stated, adopting a low, ready stance. "Your second is to run. But if you cannot run, you must know how to make an attacker regret their life choices." He gestured for her to attack him.
Astra threw a clumsy punch. Lykos sidestepped, grabbed her wrist, and used her own momentum to send her tumbling onto a soft patch of moss with a gentle thud.
"Again," he said, not unkindly.
They repeated the process for what felt like an eternity. Tumble, stand, tumble again. She was a quick study, learning to anticipate his grabs and shift her weight, but she was hopelessly outmatched in strength and speed.
"Your problem is you are fighting my strength," Lykos explained, helping her up for the tenth time. "You do not have it. So you must target my weakness. The eyes, the throat, the..." he gestured vaguely between his legs, "...the future generation of warriors. Be ruthless. Survival is not a fair game."
As the day wore on, a small audience gathered—mostly the younger warriors and pups, who found the spectacle of the human being gently tossed around highly entertaining. Astra's frustration grew, chipping away at her patience.
During a particularly graceless fall, a wave of mocking laughter came from a group of young hunters, Bor among them. "Maybe the soft-skin should stick to playing in the water pipes!" he guffawed.
A hot flush of humiliation and anger spread through Astra. She saw Kaelen watching from the entrance to his cave, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. She felt a flicker of his own judgment through the bond—a pragmatic assessment of her weakness.
That was the last straw.
Lykos reached for her again. This time, instead of resisting, she let herself fall forward, as if losing her balance. As he moved to catch her, she drove the heel of her palm upward, aiming for his nose. He reacted instinctively, jerking his head back, which was exactly what she wanted. Her other hand, formed into a tight fist, slammed not into his rock-hard abdomen, but into the sensitive nerve cluster under his arm.
It was a move from a self-defense class a lifetime ago. A human move.
Lykos grunted in surprise and pain, his entire arm going momentarily slack. Astra didn't stop. She swept a foot at his ankle, not to knock him over, but to unbalance him further. As he stumbled, she dropped to the ground, rolled between his legs, and came up behind him, jabbing two fingers sharply into his lower back, another nerve point.
For a single, breathtaking second, the mighty wolf warrior was frozen, off-balance and vulnerable. Astra, panting and covered in dirt, stood behind him, her finger poised at his spine.
The clearing fell utterly silent. The mocking laughter had died in Bor's throat.
Lykos slowly straightened, turning to face her. He rubbed his arm and then his back, a wide, genuine grin spreading across his face. "Now that was a weapon!" he boomed, his laughter echoing now, but this time it was filled with approval. "Dirty! Deceitful! I love it!"
He clapped her on the back so hard she stumbled forward. "You used your weakness as a lure! Brilliant!"
Through the bond, the judgment from Kaelen vanished, replaced by a spike of intense, focused interest. He was still watching, but the crossed arms had loosened. He gave her a slow, deliberate nod.
Astra, her heart still pounding from the effort and the adrenaline, smiled back at Lykos. She had passed the test.
[Quest "Sharpening Your Claws" Progress Updated: 40%.]
[New Skill Unlocked: [Dirty Fighter (Novice)]. Opponents are 10% more likely to be shocked by your utter lack of honor. Effectiveness increased.]
As the crowd dispersed, chattering about the human's cleverness, Kaelen approached. "You learn quickly," he said, his voice a low rumble.
"I have good motivation," Astra replied, still catching her breath.
He looked at her for a long moment, then gestured for her to follow him. "Come. There is something you should see."
He led her away from the village, to a high ledge that overlooked the entire valley. The setting sun painted the world in shades of orange and purple.
"This is our territory," Kaelen said, his gaze sweeping the landscape. "The Silvermane have held it for ten generations. We fight for it. We bleed for it. We die for it." He turned to her, his blue eyes intense. "You fight for it too, in your way. With your pipes and your charcoal and your... nerve strikes."
He was silent for a moment, the wind ruffling his silver-streaked hair. "The Boar-Tusk tribe, the ones we fought, they are massing. Our scouts have seen it. They are not strong enough to take us head-on, not yet. But they will try to starve us out, to pick off our hunters."
He looked at her, and the bond hummed with the weight of his responsibility. "Your knowledge is a new kind of strength for us, Astra. A strength they cannot predict. I need you to think. What else can your... human magic... do to protect this pack?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and profound. She was no longer just a prisoner or a curiosity. She was being asked to be a strategist.
Astra looked out at the vast, beautiful, and deadly Beastworld, the weight of Kaelen's trust and the fate of an entire tribe settling on her shoulders.
"The first thing we need to do," she said, her voice steady, "is make sure they can't starve us. We need to start a farm."