The eighth day bled into dusk, the sky a bruised smear of purple and red above the ravine, casting jagged shadows across the lair’s mouth. Skrix crouched low, his mottled scales glinting faintly in the fading light, a dull greenish-gray sheen crusted with the day’s filth—mud from the warrens, blood from a rabbit he’d gutted with his claws, its innards still smeared across his snout. His spear rested against his shoulder, its flint tip dripping a slow, viscous ooze—green and rancid, a gift from the leader’s brew, stinging his nostrils with its sour bite. The air hung thick with mist, curling through the pines like the breath of some unseen beast, and the wind carried a sharp, unfamiliar tang—not prey, not rot, but wrongness. His whip-like tail lashed once, stirring the dust at his clawed feet, a restless twitch that matched the gnawing itch in his skull.
Skrix’s red eyes—slitted, sharp despite the dusk—darted to the cave’s edge, where the bone pile loomed: skulls and ribs, some fresh with clinging meat, others yellowed and cracked from seasons past. Two guards flanked the entrance, their scales duller than his, tails limp with the day’s weariness. One scratched at the dirt with a hatchet, its blade nicked and crusted, while the other leaned on a spear, chittering low—a guttural snap of hunger and boredom. Skrix hissed back, a short bark, his tongue flicking out to taste the air. The lair stank of kin—sweat, blood, the sour reek of their venom—but beneath it, that wrongness lingered, a thread he couldn’t claw free.
Three dawns ago, the air had turned foul. Skrix remembered: the green fog rolling from the cave’s heart, thick and choking, burning his eyes until they wept black tears. He’d been deep, gnawing a deer shank, when it hit—shrieks echoing off stone, wet gurgles as kin fell, scales blistering, blood bubbling from snouts and mouths. Eight died at the mouth, six he’d seen himself, their bodies twitching, guts spilling in steaming heaps, claws scrabbling at nothing. More faded later—eight again, found cold in the tunnels, eyes wide and oozing, a slow rot chewing them from within. Skrix had sniffed one, its stench sharp with poison, not their own. Something else—not beast, not rival pack—had struck, a shadow with no scent he knew.
His mind churned, slow but jagged, like a flint shard grinding against bone. Kobolds hunted. Kobolds killed. Prey ran or bled—rabbits with their soft throats, deer with their brittle legs, even the tall-ones with their metal sticks, if the pack was big. But this? This took them. Skrix’s claws tightened on his spear, the wood rough against his callused palm, its weight a comfort that felt thinner now. Three gone before the fog—snouts sniffing warrens, then silent, no shrieks, no tracks, just blood in the grass and thorns. Two more this dawn, west and east, their guts torn by earth that stabbed—spikes of stone, reeking of that wrongness, shredding scales and spilling black rivers. Nineteen left, the leader’s snarls had counted, his voice a deep rasp that shook the lair’s walls. Nineteen, and Skrix felt the pack shrink, a hole where kin should be.
He shuffled forward, snout low, tasting the dirt—damp, pine-sharp, laced with that faint, bitter thread. Instinct screamed: hunt it, claw it, eat it. But his eyes flicked to the guards, their red glares dull with dusk’s pull, and a colder thought scratched through—it hunts us. Skrix wasn’t the leader, wasn’t the biggest, but he’d lived through winters, outrun wolves, stabbed a tall-one’s gut once and licked its blood clean. He knew traps—rabbit snares snapping necks, pits swallowing hooves. This felt like that, but worse—smarter, meaner, a trap with no shape he could bite.
A chitter rose from the cave—sharp, urgent. Skrix’s head snapped up, ears twitching, the slits narrow and quivering. Krix, another scout, scuttled out, scales scratched from a tunnel crawl, his hatchet dragging a faint line in the dirt. “West,” Krix hissed, tongue flicking, red eyes wide with something Skrix rarely saw—fear. “Trail there. Blood, sweat, not ours. Leads off.” Skrix’s tail lashed again, harder, dust puffing around his claws. The leader had roared at dawn—find it, kill it, bring its head. Trails west, east, south—false, maybe, but meat to chase. Skrix’s snout twitched; he’d smelled west too, faint but real, a pull he couldn’t shake.
“Two,” Skrix snapped back, his voice a wet growl, claws flexing. “Not one. Two.” Krix tilted his head, snout wrinkling, then nodded—pairs now, after the spikes, after the fog. Alone meant death, and Skrix felt it in his bones, a chill deeper than the dusk’s bite. The guards chittered, spears shifting, but stayed—leader’s word, hold the mouth. Skrix and Krix moved, slipping west, the mist swallowing their scales, pine shadows stretching long and thin across their path.
The trail wound through brambles, thorns snagging Skrix’s legs, drawing thin beads of black blood that glistened and dried fast. His spear dragged, tip scraping earth, ooze leaving a faint hiss in the grass. Krix hissed ahead, snout low, hatchet raised—hunting stance, but his tail twitched too fast, too sharp. Skrix’s eyes narrowed, scanning: pines loomed, their needles a rustling shroud, the ground soft with frost-melt and rabbit tracks. The wrongness grew—sweat, blood, not kobold, not prey, a scent that pulled and lied. His mind clawed at it—tall-one? No, they clanked, they shouted. This was quiet, a ghost with claws of stone and fog.
A crack split the air—sharp, close. Krix froze, then shrieked, a wet wail as the earth erupted. A spike—jagged, gray—lanced up, punching through his gut, scales splitting in a wet crunch, black blood spraying in a hot arc. Guts spilled, ropy and steaming, tangling around the stone as Krix thrashed, hatchet clattering, his claws raking air. Skrix leapt back, spear raised, heart thudding—a trap, another trap, the wrongness laughing in the dirt. Krix’s shrieks choked off, blood bubbling from his snout, eyes rolling white as he slumped, the spike slick with his ruin.
Skrix’s tail lashed wild, a snarl ripping from his throat—rage, fear, a mix he couldn’t name. He stabbed the ground, flint sinking deep, ooze hissing, but the spike stayed, cold and still, Krix’s corpse a warning. Eighteen now. His mind spun—run, tell, fight? The leader would claw him for fleeing, but this wasn’t prey to gut. It knew them—knew their paths, their hunts, turned their own venom back. Skrix sniffed, the false trail fading under Krix’s blood-stink, and a colder thought sank in: it’s close. Not west, not east—here, watching, waiting.
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He wheeled, spear high, red eyes piercing the mist—pines, brambles, shadows that flickered too soft. A rustle—faint, wrong—and his claws tightened, venom dripping faster, a hiss rising as he backed toward the lair. Eighteen left, and Skrix felt the pack’s edge fray, a hunter hunted, his primitive cunning clawing for a way to bite back.
Skrix’s claws gouged the earth as he bolted, the mist swirling in his wake, a cold shroud that clung to his scales like damp rot. His spear thudded against his shoulder, flint tip dripping ooze that hissed in the grass, leaving a trail of faint, acrid steam. Krix’s blood-stink lingered in his snout—hot, iron-sharp, mixed with the wrongness that coated the spike, a scent that gnawed at his skull and drove his tail to lash wilder. Eighteen now—eighteen claws, eighteen snouts, and the pack’s edges crumbling under a shadow he couldn’t bite. The lair called, a dark pulse in his bones, and the Leader’s rasp echoed there, a sound that promised teeth and ruin if he returned empty.
The ravine’s walls loomed, steep and slick with moss, their shadows swallowing him as he scrambled over trampled dirt and gnawed bones. The cave mouth yawned ahead, framed by the bone pile—skulls staring with hollow eyes, ribs jutting like broken claws, some fresh with meat scraps Skrix had torn free days ago. The guards snapped upright, red eyes glinting, spears shifting as he stumbled near. One hissed—a low, wet growl—hatchet raised, its chipped blade catching the dusk’s last red smear. “Back?” it snarled, snout twitching. “Krix?”
Skrix bared his teeth, yellowed and jagged, a snap of rage and fear. “Dead,” he spat, voice a guttural rasp, claws flexing. “Spike. Earth bit him—gut open, blood out. It did.” The guards’ tails twitched, fast and sharp, eyes darting to the mist beyond. They chittered—short, nervous barks—spears tilting toward the dark, but they didn’t move. Leader’s word held them, rooted like stone, even as the pack bled.
Skrix shoved past, scales scraping their arms, and plunged into the cave. The air thickened—damp, sour with kin-stink and the faint rot of old kills, the green fog’s echo still clinging to the walls. Tunnels twisted, narrow and jagged, their stone scratched by claws and stained with black blood smears from the fog-dead. His eyes adjusted, slits widening in the gloom, catching glints of scales ahead—kin milling, chittering low, their spears and hatchets dull with use but sharp with venom. Three lingered near a deer haunch, tearing at it with claws and teeth, black blood crusting their snouts, but their tails hung low, sluggish, the pack’s fire dimming.
Deeper, the tunnel widened, a chamber of rough stone and shadow, its floor littered with bones and fur scraps. The air grew heavy, pressing Skrix’s scales, a weight that made his claws curl tighter. At the chamber’s heart, the Leader crouched—a hulking shape, scales darker than night, a deep greenish-black that swallowed light, rippling with muscle no scout could match. His tail coiled, thick and whip-sharp, its tip flicking with a dry scrape against the stone, a sound that clawed at Skrix’s ears. Claws gleamed—longer, blacker, curved like scythes, tips glistening with a venom that shimmered faintly, a sickly yellow-green that burned the air with its reek. His snout jutted forward, broad and scarred, teeth bared in a jagged grin—too many, too sharp, crowding his maw like a trap ready to snap. Red eyes glowed, not slitted but wide, piercing, cutting through the dark like blood-stars, and they locked on Skrix, unblinking, a weight that pinned him where he stood.
The Leader didn’t rise—just shifted, a slow ripple of power, his claws tapping the stone once, a dull thunk that echoed louder than it should. A longsword rested beside him—not crude like the scouts’ stolen blades, but forged, its edge a dull silver streaked with rust and dried gore, too heavy for any but him to swing. Skrix’s snout twitched, tasting the air—rot, venom, and something colder, sharper, a death-scent that made his gut twist. The Leader’s chitter was low, a rumble that vibrated the floor, not words but a growl that scraped Skrix’s mind raw. “Speak,” it said, and the sound was a blade on bone, deep and final.
Skrix dropped his spear, its clatter swallowed by the chamber’s weight, and crouched lower, tail still, claws digging into the dirt. “Krix dead,” he hissed, voice trembling but sharp, forcing it out. “West trail—false, pulled us. Spike came, earth stabbed, gut him open. Blood everywhere—not ours, not prey. It—it’s here, close, killing.” His eyes flicked up, meeting the Leader’s for a heartbeat, then down, the glow burning his skull. “Eighteen left. Trails lie—west, east, south—all lie.”
The Leader’s tail lashed once, a crack like breaking wood, and the chamber stilled—kin at the edges froze, teeth mid-bite, eyes wide. A snarl rolled from his throat, wet and guttural, venom dripping from his maw to hiss against the stone, a faint steam curling up. “It,” he echoed, the word a slow tear, his claws flexing, gouging faint lines in the floor. “No tall-one. No wolf. Smarter. Deadlier.” His head tilted, snout sniffing, a long, deep pull that rattled the air—then a huff, sharp and dismissive, venom splattering near Skrix’s claws, stinging his scales. “Weak pack. Soft claws. Die too easy.”
Skrix flinched, tail curling tight, but didn’t snap back—couldn’t. The Leader’s strength wasn’t just size—Skrix had seen it, moons ago, a tall-one in metal shredded, limbs torn free, blood painting the ravine red while the Leader laughed, a sound like grinding stone. Scouts broke prey; the Leader broke everything. His venom didn’t just sicken—it melted flesh, turned bone to mush, a death no scout could weave. Skrix’s mind clawed—it killed with spikes, fog, tricks, but the Leader could crush it, snap it, if they found it.
The Leader rose, slow and deliberate, towering twice Skrix’s height, scales rippling like a storm over muscle thick as roots. The longsword scraped as he gripped it, a single claw curling around its hilt, lifting it like it weighed nothing—its edge caught the faint torch-glow from a kin’s fire, flashing a dull, deadly gleam. “Find it,” he growled, voice a thunder that shook Skrix’s bones. “No more trails. No more waiting. Hunt it—claw it—bring its meat.” His eyes narrowed, a promise in their red depths, and his claws tapped again—thunk, thunk—a rhythm of death. “Or I hunt you.”
Skrix scrambled back, snatching his spear, heart thudding fast and shallow. The Leader’s shadow loomed as he turned, barking a sharp chitter—kin jolted, spears rising, hatchets gleaming, a pack roused to fury. Eighteen left, and Skrix felt the Leader’s will tighten them, a snare of rage and fear. The wrongness waited—close, too close—but the Leader’s strength was a wall, a blade, a venom that could end it. Skrix hissed, low and desperate, and slipped toward the tunnel, the hunt shifting, the pack’s teeth bared for blood.