Chapter 23 – Four Winds, One Cut
Part 1: Into the Wind
The Iron Tusk's evening hall reeked of sweat, oil, and drink. Contract runners haggled at the boards, mercs leaned over dice and blood-washed mugs, and above it all rang the low buzz of old stories made new again.
Kael moved through it like mist.
Silent. Unnoticed. Until he stopped at the far wall—the one marked "Delay Board." That's where the jobs no one wanted sat to rot.
His violet eyes scanned the parchments.
[Emergency Hunt Request – Wind Wolf Pack]Location: Naraqi ReachesConfirmed Targets: 4x Wind Wolves (Tier-3)Bounty: 80 silver + salvage rightsStatus: Unclaimed – 2 parties terminatedNote: High-speed pack hunters. No survivors. Avoid.
He tore it from the board without a word.
Nearby, a merc paused mid-sip. Another stopped laughing.
Kael walked to the desk.
The same guild clerk stared at the paper as if it might catch fire.
"…You're taking this?"
Kael said nothing.
The clerk leaned forward. "Kael, these aren't like the quarry or sewer things. These things don't brawl. They dance. They're fast. Fast like—" he snapped his fingers—"—like blink-and-you're-dead fast."
Kael placed the paper on the counter.
The clerk looked at him. "You don't even ask questions, do you? You just... what? See death and walk into it?"
Kael didn't blink.
A long silence.
Then, finally, the clerk stamped the page and slid it back.
"Fine. Don't die. Or do. Just—bring back heads. Or tails. Something I can weigh."
Kael turned without speaking, cloak whispering behind him like a warning no one quite heard.
The city faded behind him before sunrise.
By mid-morning, Kael had left the patrol roads, crossed the outer watchposts, and entered the Naraqi Reaches.
The terrain changed quickly—cracked rock and split canyons. Wind-blasted cliffs. Trees bent permanently eastward from years of sharp gales. The sun painted the earth in bruised red and dead gray.
He walked until the paths ended.
Then he followed the wind.
Signs appeared quickly.
A shattered blade caught in a stump.
An armored gauntlet crushed into red stone.
Then: tracks.
Kael crouched beside a claw pattern etched into dust. Deep. Curved back. Pack sync'd by distance and staggered motion.
Four wolves.
They hunted in sequence—like a moving formation.
One struck high. Two flanked. One came in behind to finish.
Kael rose and followed them silently, hand on the hilt of his blade, cloak low and trailing like ink over the dust.
He climbed a rise overlooking a jagged bend in the canyons.
Below: a slaughter zone. Half-buried spears. Crushed tents. Blood trails that ended with drag marks into shadowed cracks.
No bodies.
No remains.
Only claw marks and silence.
Kael didn't descend.
Instead, he walked the ridges around the site, testing echo angles and air pressure changes. He adjusted his footing until he could predict exactly where wind would break sound, where movement wouldn't carry.
Then he prepared.
A shallow bluff.
Two trap anchors set in silent cloth laced with scent.
One baited with salted meat and a single drop of his blood.
He found the central overlook of the ambush site, crouched beneath an overhang, and waited.
The wind picked up first.
Then dropped.
Stillness.
Then a pressure—not sound. Not motion.
Presence.
Kael's hand rested lightly on the hilt of his blade.
He didn't move.
Not yet.
But when they came…
He would.