The Wyfwood was quiet.
Too quiet actually.
Not a single bird called as if they didn't exist but if Sarah's eye balls could they'll make all the needed sound with the way she was rolling the eyes around trying to catch something before it caught her.
No rustling of squirrels.
Just wind curling around trees like fingers.
Suddenly—
A blur of red burst from the trees.
No warning. No growl. No roar.
Just silence and violence.
The thing crashed through the underbrush like a storm: large, sinewy, wrong.
Red like blood under moonlight.
the size of a bear, a bear's hulking mass… yet with a fox's lean, agile frame…
And claws—long, black, curved like sickles.
It lunged without a sound straight toward Alaric.
"MOVE!" Lucius roared, already unsheathing his sword.
The horses reared and screamed, but the beast ignored them. It wanted flesh.
