Inhaling as lightly as possible, Fyn pressed his back against Grace's side. Hoots and howls beat at his ears. His brain conjured images of the beasts that those sounds belonged to, each one bigger and tougher than the one he hadn't been able to beat on the bridge.
Tree howlers were a type of troll, and trolls formed colonies, Grace had said. How many vengeful neighbors were out there? Fyn could identify four from their screams. Grace had also said the orange ape-things lived in families of three. Did that mean there were at least six circling the area where their prey had vanished into a cloud of smell bad?
Fyn lifted the edge of the blanket just high enough to stick his fingers out and crushed another grorn, refreshing the covering scent. The tiny mushroom filled the blanket and surroundings with the smell of a hundred enraged skunks. It turned Fyn's stomach, but not as much as the thought that there could be something in these woods that enjoyed the odor. Fyn could be driving off trolls only to find out he was baiting something worse.
A long, deep howl filled the forest, more primal than the calls of the orange trolls. Ten or more similar cries answered the original, melding together to create a fierce wave that swept through the trees, burying the bluster of the trolls. Fyn burrowed farther under the blanket, pressing his chin to his chest and drawing his knees in close.
There was an endless moment of eerie silence, then, snarls and screams erupted. Teeth gnashed and flesh hammered into flesh. Claws ripped into fur, and bones cracked under powerful jaws.
Fyn didn't need or want to see what was happening to know the blood wolves had arrived. The roar of battle grew as canine monsters expressed extreme displeasure at tree howlers in their territory. Fyn drew his dagger and held it with white knuckles, more as a talisman than out of any hope he could fight off a pack of wolves with the weapon.
After an eternity, the din of fighting ceased, replaced by tearing and chomping. Angry snarls became warning growls as larger wolves cautioned smaller ones to wait their turn. Fyn sincerely hoped there was plenty of food for everyone, and that tree howlers tasted delicious.
When the outside had been silent for a long while, Fyn stuck his head out from the cover. An unnatural quiet hung in the air. Holding his dagger, Fyn crawled to his feet.
They couldn't stay here. A blanket at the base of a tree in a forest filled with monsters was not a good camp. They had come three or four miles this morning. Fyn wasn't confident he could return to Ricky's grotto by himself, much less while carrying Grace.
Tree howlers, blood wolves, tree-eyed crows, what else lives among these trees?
Making sure Grace was covered and tossing another squashed grorn on top of the blankets, Fyn cautiously paced towards where the sounds of fighting had come from. Stepping around a tree, he was confronted by the sight of torn earth. Bones, stripped and cracked, lay all over. Blood splashed the moss and bark, tuffs of orange and black fur littering the ground.
Thirteen tree howler skulls lay broken and abandoned, strewn around, unconnected to the spines they belonged to. Beside them were the nearly untouched bodies of seven blood wolves.
Monsters don't eat their own, Fyn noted numbly. However, carrion eaters would arrive soon to devour the bodies. In fact, Fyn supposed, digging up a moss-covered stone larger than his head, one had already come.
His status marker pulsed when held over the corpses of three of the wolves. Hefting his stone easily, Fyn smashed and splintered until he held two white crystals and one yellow, each the size of a finger. Turning his back on the wolves, Fyn deposited the improvement points into his status.
Walking softly, Fyn explored in a sweeping pattern to the east, drifting from tree to tree, ears alert for any sound. The woods were unsettlingly empty. The massive trees kept Fyn from observing very far in any one direction and choked out any underbrush that could have offered concealment.
Fyn thought fondly of the clearing as he searched. Water, food, open skies, the only predator oddly sedate, Ricky's grotto had been perfect. Why had he ever left?
He couldn't blame Grace, though, he wanted to. Maybe the Drifter had suggested it, her offer making the move inviting, yet it was Fyn who had wanted to go. He had wanted to travel with someone he could speak to, and explore the world that surrounded him.
Fyn held on to that thought as he crouched beside a tree, peering around and up. He had wanted this. And he still wanted it, so it was best to make it happen rather than worry about what he had left behind.
Six feet off the ground, a hollow in a tree trunk beckoned Fyn. The opening was large enough for Fyn to crawl into, the interior too dark to see through. Fyn watched for ten minutes, vigilant for any sign of movement. The hollow remained still.
Trying not to think of the hollow as a gaping mouth whose teeth had yet to be seen, Fyn hurried to the base of the tree. The deep ridges of the bark made secure handholds, and Fyn scurried up the side until his hands gripped the rim of the opening.
Hauling himself up, Fyn peered inside, fully expecting a ten-foot owl to peck at him, or for a three hundred-pound squirrel to chastise him with face-shredding claws.
The interior was empty of animals, though a musky, damp smell teased Fyn's nose. It would have been unpleasant if he hadn't been shocked into insensitivity by the noxious grorn. Compared to the fungi, the animal stink from the tree was a sweet spring breeze.
The hollow was spacious. There was more than enough room for two people. In fact, Fyn suspected, his skin crawling, there was probably enough room for three tree crawlers.
The walls of the wooden cave bore claw marks, old ones, coated with hard, dry sap where the tree had healed itself. The floor was covered in moss and twigs, littered with small bones and hunks of fluff.
Fyn pulled himself inside. The moss sunk under his weight as he rolled into it. He winced as a bone jabbed into his side. Dust and fur flew up, disturbed by his entrance.
Sneezing, Fyn covered his mouth, huddling back against the wall. His heart thudded in his chest. If the owners of this space came back suddenly, he would be trapped.
However, the likelihood was, that the previous tenants of the hollow were dead on the forest floor, their skin, and flesh currently filling the hungry bellies of wolves. Would relatives be coming to claim their inheritance?
Fyn decided it didn't matter. Whatever came, he was no safer on the ground than he was in the hollow. If tree howlers showed up, he would meet them with a flurry of noxious grorn. They might still kill Fyn, but they would probably be too sick to their stomachs to enjoy eating him.
Fyn began to toss out handfuls of dried moss, and chunks of pelt. He threw bones onto the ground below and tried not to think about what the small brown pellets covering the wooden floor might be. After half an hour and a dozen sneezing fits, Fyn was left with a mostly empty, circular space.
It was while he was spreading out the blankets from his inventory bag that Fyn found the cubbyhole. On the back wall, under a section of bark, held in place with dried mud, the tree howlers had secreted away a collection of colored stones and shiny objects.
Fyn didn't examine the contents of the hiding place right away. That could wait. Grace couldn't. He did spend a few moments tracing the bark covering with his fingers. It was a clumsy bit of work, but it showed an ingenuity and possessiveness that Fyn hated to see in beasts whose home he was occupying.
Climbing out, Fyn held on to the edge of the hollow, lowering himself with aching arms and dropping the final foot and as half. He took a glance back up, wondering if the inventory bag he was leaving behind would be safe, and purposefully not thinking how hard it would be to lift an unconscious woman up there.
Giving himself a shake, Fyn oriented himself and returned to Grace. Pulling off the leaf-covered blanket, Fyn was relived to find Grace much the way he had left her. Pale, breathing shallowly, but alive.
Carrying the Drifter was easier without her inventory bag attached to her waist. Easier, but Grace's greater height still made it challenging. It took twice as long to make his way to the hollow. Fyn was red-faced and panting by the time he lowered his burden back to the ground.
Looking from the earthbound Grace to the potential nest two feet over his head, Fyn rubbed at his eye socket with the heel of his hand. Retrieving his vine rope, Fyn looped it under Grace's armpits and propped her up against the base of the tree.
It was stubbornness, rather than strength, that lifted Grace into the tree. Bracing his feet and grunting, Fyn managed to get Grace upright. Hand over hand, he pulled until her torso was slumped half in and half out of the hollow. Before he allowed himself to collapse, Fyn dragged the woman inside.
Covering Grace with a blanket, Fyn curled up across from her, body twitching and trembling.
"That's it, Grace," He told her, pulling his legs out straight, "That's the best I can do."
But he knew it was a lie. Taking sips from a canteen, Fyn fought off the urge to nap. There was still work to do, preparations he could make while Grave was sleeping.
Fyn changed her bandage, clicking his tongue at the sight of Grace's inflamed cuts that still wept blood in time with her breathing. Cleaning the wound as best as he was able, Fyn applied a poultice made from lestiherry leaves and yarrow. Whether the toxin would interact with the plants was less of a concern than stopping the bleeding.
Sitting back, Fyn studied Grace's face. He had thought she was older. He would have guessed she was in her mid to late twenties. Looking at her place complexion, he adjusted that estimate.
Awake and in motion, Grace had a hard edge. Jaded and composed, Grace had adapted quickly to the deaths of her companions. Fyn had seen that as experience, but maybe he should have looked closer. With her hair messily framing her face, skin bloodless and damp with sweat, Grace looked closer to eighteen than she did to twenty.
Partly, the misunderstanding came down to the way she talked to and treated Fyn. She spoke to him, if not as an equal, with an expectation that he would behave as an adult. And since, in his head, Fyn considered himself to be thirty-five years old, it was easy to forget that his body was twelve.
Unless he consciously reminded himself, Fyn thought it was natural for Grave to deal with him as an adult. For that reason, he had tacked on a few extra years on to her. Now Fyn couldn't help but wonder what exactly this world expected of its teenagers, that an eighteen-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy could find themselves trapped in a forest surrounded by monsters.
Fyn spent an hour or so playing with herbs and his increased familiarity with plants. He made Grace as comfortable as he could, and went back to retrieve her inventory bag. He swore the pouch weighed as much as its owner did, but Fyn carried the bag to his nest without much trouble.
It was only when he dropped the hated thing next to Grace that Fyn remembered the tree howler's treasure trove. Peeling back the bark, Fyn exposed the contents. Two large silver coins and three small ones, a handful of smooth pebbles, five white improvement point crystals and two yellow.
The coins joined the rest of his wealth in his pouch, the improvement points he added to his status. The pebbles, Fyn tossed in the air, and rolled between his palms. They weren't pretty, they didn't make any interesting noises or whisper secrets to him. Their only worth seemed to be the distraction they provided, as Fyn picked them up and dropped them into his lap, over and over.
"What now, Grace?" Fyn picked up all the stones, held them in a loose fist and shook them, "Cause I'm stuck. If our situations were reversed, what would you do?"
Grace inhaled sharply through her nose. Three short breaths and a low moan, then she was quiet again.
Fyn nodded as if she had answered him, opening his palm to let the pebbles fall. He would wait. He would search through his status for the class or skill that would turn everything around. And if the morning didn't bring any changes… that was a problem for tomorrow.