Once again, Morgan found herself running; this time, she was following the shadowed outline of a man that faded in and out of her vision with every step. Dana kept pace, though she wasn’t doing anything close to what Morgan could consider ‘running.’ Shortly after they set off, Dana had reconfigured the legs of her suit between one step and the next, her armor shifting so rapidly Morgan almost couldn’t see two legs transform into two wheels. She’d leapt forward, keeping pace with the ghostly figure until Morgan tapped her [Acceleration] to close the gap.

“What did you mean when you said ‘your’ kitty?” Dana shouted over her shoulder as they crossed the uneven ground.

Morgan put on some more speed, drawing shoulder to shoulder with the engineer. “There’s a huge cat called a Nightstride! It’s the only thing out here that didn’t try to eat me,” she replied. “If they hurt it, I’ll be pissed!”

“That is highly unusual behavior for a Nightstride,” the apparition remarked, seemingly unaffected by their run. His name was Miros, the sorceress recalled, and he was the ephemeral twin of someone the hunters referred to as Kels. “They’re intelligent predators, nearly untrackable, and they don’t make friends.” He paused, reflecting. “They also don’t typically attack large groups.”

Neither Morgan nor Dana spared the breath to respond, merely hoping they arrived in time.

==========================

Terisa Aras glided between the trees, keeping the horses and hunters in sight as they picked their way back towards the valley. With several hundred people to feed for longer than the expedition would normally be in the Wildlands, hunting parties had become a staple of daily life, supplementing their food stores. It was only a matter of time before some tragedy befell them, and the huntress seethed with embarrassment that she couldn’t avert it.

Her senses, which had entered into local legend back at the city, had failed her; she didn’t have enough time to even shout a warning before the hindquarters of the rearmost pack-horse disappeared in a spray of blood and viscera. The horse had time enough to scream once before it succumbed, sending its brethren into a panicked stampede and sending the hunters scattering for position. The fact that Terisa had sensed nothing until a moment before the attack meant that it could only be one of a handful of creatures, and the momentary impression of a cat’s paw writ in shadow narrowed the field to only one or two.

“Miros is approaching.” Were it not for Terisa’s sensitive hearing, she would not have been able to make out Kels’ whisper from his position halfway up a tree some thirty paces away. “Quickly, but not his quickest. He must have people with him.”

The rest of the pack-horses snorted and stamped the ground in agitation, eyes rolling in barely-restrained terror. Graz, the young Ursaran, held their reins in one massive hand and worked to calm them down to prevent them from bolting again. His Luparan counterparts circled around the horses, trying to catch the scent of their mysterious assailant. Terisa briefly considered telling them to save their energy, but she couldn’t be certain one wouldn’t catch the trail by dumb luck.

They were, however, still quite unlikely to track a Nightstride. She knew of nothing as fast, or as stealthy, as the huge, deadly cats. The only reason she hadn’t ordered the party to break and run for the valley was the sheer oddity of the situation. The panthers were notoriously reclusive, and for one to attack a group of seasoned, healthy hunters was so far out of the ordinary that she’d only expect it if the animal in question was desperately wounded or defending its territory. Figuring out which case held would be key to determining the correct course of action.

She carefully crept back through the trees to the horses, where another hunter sat with gritted teeth and a rough splint on his leg. Graz may have gotten a hold of them now, but with the death-scream of one of their number, the equines had bolted in fear. Varkell had been knocked down and stepped on before he had a chance to get clear of the horses, and Terisa had used up most of her rejuvenation elixir when her eyes had been flash-burned after Dana’s prior misadventure. What little she had left, the man had refused, understanding that healing was near if they could make it back to the valley.

The evening shadows stretching across the forest proclaimed that the short trip back to the valley would be fraught with peril. Dangerous enough in daylight, the Wildlands became downright treacherous once night fell, and their chances of avoiding or intercepting the lurking Nightstride fell to almost nil. If it had attacked from hunger or starvation, they had likely seen the last of it now that it had had a solid meal. If it was wounded, all bets were off; if they were in its territory, she knew she would have to kill it and hoped she could do so before more lives were lost. Althenea pulsed in agreement, the Colt’s grip reassuringly cool.

Her sister’s rifle form would have been too unwieldy; the dense trees, uneven terrain, and the fact that Terisa needed to move quickly negating the advantages the Barrett offered. While certainly better suited to the task of taking down a Nightstride, it wouldn’t be practical given what she lacked. What she had, however, was a living weapon, decades of experience, keen senses, and most importantly: bait.

The remains of the dead horse and its terrified brethren put the scent of blood and fear on the wind, and Terisa moved as silently as she could across ground covered in autumn’s dried leaves. A lifetime of practice allowed her to time her own movements to coincide with the sound of nervous horses and the susurrus whisper of the wind, masking her own footsteps. The branch Kels perched upon overlooked Graz, the horses, and the injured Varkell, and she picked her way to a better vantage point where she could see all of them.

The forest had grown silent, the taut air lending an eerie cast to the deepening gloom. Birds and other wildlife had grown still when the beast attacked, yet had not resumed their natural chatter. She knew they were being hunted. But she was a hunter herself, and one did not live nearly fifty years and earn over seventy levels without learning a few tricks, after all.

==================

Morgan kept running, and to her surprise her two companions were actually keeping up, even as she continued to tap her [Acceleration] skill. She could have pushed faster, of course, but once they had crossed the warded border and left her demesne it would have started to dip into her reserves. She had to conserve power, unsure of how bad the situation may be when they arrived. Miros had lost a good bit of his physical substance outside of the mana-rich confines of the valley. So Morgan ran, Miros flickered his way along to keep pace, and Dana…

Dana continued to zip across the ground in her two-wheeled configuration, armor emitting a sound somewhere between a go-kart and a buzzsaw. The gears whined and hummed, spitting electricity through the gaps in her armor and making for a rather frightening appearance. A small cannon had emerged from Morgan could only guess where, and was somehow keeping itself level over her right shoulder no matter how she tilted and turned. One of Dana’s golems, what she called dragonflies, had launched itself from her left shoulder, and now flew circles around them, mapping the ground with angry red lines.

“Almost there,” came the whispery shout from Miros, his more spectral form’s voice seeming to fade in and out like static on a radio. “Something’s happen--”

The evening gloom was banished by dozens of balls of bright light shooting into the sky less than a mile away, and more flashed through the trees in the distance. They were followed by the popping cracks of gunfire that could only be Althenea’s “magic bullet” mana-bolts. With that acting as a beacon, Miros abandoned the fiction that he needed to run anywhere, vanishing into a sphere of ephemeral mist to return to Kels’ side. Morgan sped up even further, and to her surprise, so did Dana. She grimaced and manipulated something in her armor, and several small points of magic erupted from her back, propelling her in Morgan’s wake. A layer of projected energy sprang into existence in front of her forward armor, protecting her from the forest’s debris and detritus. The two of them shot past two terrified horses running in the other direction, but Morgan could spare them no mind as a sudden, harsh, bellowing roar shook the trees.

That doesn’t sound like my panther friend! she thought worriedly.

The roar grew louder and deepened into a bass rumble, and she realized it had to be the young Ursaran giving into his berserker rage. More shots broke the air, and when Morgan and Dana crested the hill, she took in the scene at a glance: Kels and Miros, dragging a hunter she didn’t know away from an enraged bear-kin; Terisa, high in a nearby tree, looking down; and in the middle of the clearing, Graz, the berserker, grappling with a large, shadowy shape, its edges barely discernible in the magical light. His muscles jumped and quivered, claws sunk deep into the shadowed form, unwilling to let it loose.

“I need light!” the huntress shouted as the pair darted into the clearing, Morgan skidding to a stop lest she intrude on the struggle. “As much as you can make, before it shadowsteps and kills him!”

Morgan raised her hands, lightning flickering between her fingers. She hesitated; save for Lulu, the Nightstride had been the closest thing she had had to a friend for the majority of her time on Anfealt.

Dana, however, did not. Rising from her cover in the low brush, she spread her arms, armor shifting across her arms and shoulders, retracting to reveal the latest in her bag of tricks. Then, suddenly, there was light. Brighter than the noonday sun, brighter than a football field’s entire arsenal of floodlights, the harsh fluorescence banished every single shadow for hundreds of yards. Morgan threw her arm up and cried out, momentarily blinded before her tattoos could compensate for the glare.

Her sight returned to her as Terisa raised her Colt, the pistol shimmering into the form of the Barrett as she drew a bead on the shape in Graz’s arms.

“NO!” Morgan screamed. For a long time afterward, she wasn’t sure if the crack she heard then was the Barrett or her heart.

The echo of the shot died away, and the forest went silent, save for Graz’s labored breathing. The massive feline shape stopped struggling, its neck and throat destroyed. It slumped to the ground with a long deathrattle, and Graz turned, arms spread, looking for someone to sate his rage on. He advanced towards the first person he saw -- Morgan. The sorceress blanched and backed away, conjuring a barrier of air ahead of her. Graz roared and charged, his rage granting him startling resilience in the face of the savage wounds he’d taken in his fight. He smashed through her barrier; Morgan yelped and danced back, pouring Mana into her [Runic Armor], the runes glowing an angry violet.

Terisa, seeing Morgan’s predicament, had dropped from her perch and made her way over to where the young berserker was trying to attack the sorceress. She interposed herself between the two with an easy grace; as Graz raised his massive paw at this new threat, Terisa demonstrated the supremacy of her levels and stats by simply lowering her body, then driving her forehead into his face.

Morgan let her magic fade as Graz dropped in a heap. “What was that?!”

Terisa shrugged. “You can’t talk a berserker down, even a human one. Ursaran are worse.” She returned her Colt to the holster at her side, patting it. “He’ll be fine; his head’s almost as hard as Foz’s.”

Indeed, Graz appeared to be snoring, of all things, as though he hadn’t just had his face smashed in. Morgan gave him a wide berth and a wary look on her way to the fallen panther; Lulu pressed herself against her mistress’ neck, sensing her changed demeanor. She dropped to her haunches next to the beast, eyes narrowing as she slowly came to a realization.

“That’s not Marjorie!” she said slowly. “That’s not my cat!”

“Are you sure?” asked Dana, approaching as softly as her whirring metal legs allowed.

“Yep,” Morgan replied. “Marjie’s a lot darker, almost black, and has a white slash on her forehead. And,” she continued, moving to the panther’s hindquarters, “this one’s a male…”

Terisa glowered at the sorceress. “So you’re telling me there was not just one, but two of the most dangerous species of cat in the known world prowling in your territory, and you’re just telling me this now?” She gestured at the remains of the battle.

“I only knew about Marjorie,” Morgan replied defensively, “and I figured she’d be making herself scarce, what with me and my dad wandering around.”

“Why’d this one attack, though?” Dana asked, approaching the panther and crouching beside it. “If this is Morgan’s cat’s territory...not to mention Morgan’s herself...wouldn’t it have stayed back?” She heaved at the creature, rolling it over to expose a series of wounds. “Man, this one looks like it went a couple rounds with...with...damn, another Nightstride, maybe.”

“The only thing Nightstrides will fight each other over is a mate,” came an oddly reverberating, repeated voice. Kels’Miros stood next to Terisa, a singular being once again. “There must be another male in the area, and we must track it down sooner rather than later.”

“Dana and Morgan can help me with that,” replied Terisa. “You and Graz get Varkell back to the camp in the valley once the bear wakes up. We’ll escort you as far as the wards.”

“I won’t let you kill Marjorie if she’s not attacking people,” Morgan warned.

“I don’t expect you to, but we still need to find her and the other male if there is one. If you can keep her from attacking us, she’s in no danger from me or Althenea, Morgan.” Terisa’s nod was reassuring.

Dana set herself to helping Kels’Miros roll Graz onto a travois, shifting supplies to the spare where sat Varkell with his broken leg. “I’ll pull the big one,” said the engineer with a grin. “Power armor has its perks.”

===========================

Terisa stalked forward through the trees as quietly as she could, with a carpet of leaves again muffling her sound. She knew well how to walk in the forest, picking out patches of moss or places where the wind had bared the dirt. Much to her surprise, Morgan made even less sound than she did; whatever skill she used to conceal her presence served her well. She had obviously grown well accustomed to her role; she picked her way through the brush and leaves in a half-crouch, like some feral thing. A necessity, Terisa supposed; without such rapid acclimatization, she wouldn’t have lasted long on her own. Her eyes sharp and alert, Terisa knew the woman was taking in everything in their surroundings with her darting glances and intense focus.

The skill she used wasn’t quite stealth, and it wasn’t quite invisibility, either. Even with Terisa’s own advantage in levels and a skillset practically built from the core to seek out targets, she found her gaze sliding off the slender tattooed form. It must be something that twists perception in an area around her, thought the Huntress. Something to make her stand out less, not a true masking skill.

Terisa was impressed. Such unconventional abilities meant that the true advantages came from the woman’s own knowledge of how to make the most of it. If she didn’t already know how to move through the forest, such a skill would be worse than useless against such beasts as stalked the lands. Like the Huntress herself, Morgan moved with the sounds of the wilds, waiting for the natural rustle of leaves and the stirring of the wind in the branches of the trees before taking her steps.

Dana, on the other hand, had managed a true silence, which even in the absence of a particular skill, had its own distinct advantages. Terisa didn’t pretend to understand the science the woman claimed to employ, but its effect was total silence. From the engineer’s vague ramblings when asked, she understood that the ‘active sound dampening field’ that her suit used required a certain amount of power to keep running, which would drain her faster than usual, were she forced to fight with it active. Dana wended her way through the trees above the ground-bound pair, and Terisa found herself more unsettled by the suit’s arachnoid nature than its unnatural quiet.

Between the three of them, they had managed to pick up signs of the Nightstride’s path even through the dark, starlit night: a tuft of fur here, a blood trail there. The evidence of its wounding grew greater the further along they went, leading them into a shallow gulch several miles from Morgan’s valley. The sorceress paused by a clear patch of dirt, laying one rune-etched hand palm flat on the earth and closing her eyes for several moments.

“There’s a cave ahead,” she whispered faintly, without opening her eyes. “I can’t tell what’s in it, but there’s definitely something there.”

Slowly, the trio crept forward, pushing through a copse of trees and overgrowth far denser than the rest of their surroundings. The quiet grew almost oppressive, and they could feel each other’s tension grow.

The scrub eventually opened up to reveal a tiny clearing. Across from them was a small cave cut into a hillside, and in front of the opening lay a very dead Nightstride, even more torn up and mutilated than the one Terisa had felled.

“That’s another male,” the huntress reported tersely, stepping into the clearing and drawing Althenea. “You said your friend was a female?”

“Yeah,” Morgan replied, easing out of the treeline behind the huntress. “Nearly pitch black, and bigger than either of--”

“Guys!” Dana hissed from the trees. “I’m picking up something in the cave on wide-band sonics!” She slunk forward, slowing down to match pace.

Morgan summoned a ball of flame, casting purple light across the clearing as she stepped forward toward the shadowed opening. Low growls emanated from the cave’s mouth, but nothing leapt out at her.

“Easy, girl, easy,” she murmured, as the light crept forward with her gesture to reveal a wounded but alive Nightstride Panther. The cat put its ears back and hissed, baring its fangs as the light played across it.

“Wait, Morgan--!” Terisa took a quick step forward, reaching out to grab Morgan’s shoulder while carefully keeping an eye on the cave opening.

Dana dropped to the ground on the sorceress’ other side, her suit whirring. “It’s not just her in there!” she shouted. “I’ve got two other heartbeats--”

Two spotted grey heads appeared over the Nightstride’s flank, the young ones curious about this new intrusion into their den.

“Oh,” said Morgan.

“Well, this complicates things,” said Terisa as Dana threw caution to the wind, advancing towards the cave mouth.

“KITTENS!” squealed the engineer.