Scene 1: The Lure
The sky was pale with cloud-veiled light as the patrol party moved through the eastern ridge path. Snow crunched softly beneath their boots, but the wind carried no scent. That, more than anything, unnerved Ishan.
Mani walked beside him, gaze low, hands tucked into his sleeves. The boy hadn't spoken, but his fingers fidgeted near his belt. Ishan had learned by now that meant something was wrong.
Ahead, Sentinel Kita halted and gestured toward a clearing. In the middle lay a snow-elk calf dead, stiff, eyes wide open. No blood, no sign of struggle.
"Looks fresh," Kita muttered, kneeling, "No scavenger touch. Odd."
Mani stopped in his tracks. He tilted his head at the body, then slowly turned his eyes to the snow just in front of it. Ishan noticed the subtle tension in the boy's posture the kind of stillness animals showed when a predator passed nearby.
Mani tugged at Ishan's sleeve.
Ishan leaned in. "What is it?"
The boy pointed—not at the elk, but at the ground. A patch of snow barely touched, unnaturally smooth despite the wind.
Kita moved closer to the elk. "We have to see if the herd's dying off. Could be something wrong with the water"
Mani's fingers closed tightly around Ishan's wrist. Eyes wide.
"Kita, wait!" Ishan shouted.
But too late.
Kita stepped forward, boot crunching into what looked like powder. The next moment, his leg slid forward unnaturally slick, like hitting oil and he slammed sideways into the hard ice. A snap echoed through the trees.
"Aagh…! My leg!"
Ishan rushed over, crouching beside him. Kita clutched his thigh, teeth grit in pain. His boot was stuck fast, glued by some translucent sap hardened like resin in the cold.
"What the @#&# ?" Ishan knelt beside it, sniffed. Pine sap and frostberry. He looked back at Mani, then around the clearing. "This wasn't random."
Before they could say more, the trees shivered.
From the far side of the glade, five shapes emerged. Frost-furred wolves, white-coated with grey muzzles, padded out in perfect silence. Not charging. Not snarling. Watching.
Their eyes didn't flick toward the wounded man. They looked at Ishan. At Mani. Calculating.
Tarun, blade drawn, stepped between them.
But the wolves didn't move.
After a full minute of silence, they backed away one by one melting back into the woods.
As they vanished, Ishan heard it.
Not a howl. Not a growl.
A click like claws tapping in rhythm.
Mani finally exhaled, as if releasing breath held too long. He knelt beside the frozen sap, touched it with a twig. It snapped clean. Too fast to have been natural.
Ishan looked toward the treeline.
"They weren't hunting," he said. "They were watching."
—
Scene 2: Smoke Between Pines
The return to the village was slower than usual.
Kita, though grimacing with each step, insisted on limping back himself leaning on Ishan and Tarun in turns. His leg wasn't broken, but the bruising would swell for days. Mani trailed silently behind, his eyes sweeping every snowbank, every broken twig.
At the edge of the woods, Niren waited.
He stood beneath a wind-worn pine, arms crossed, his broad figure outlined by the setting sun. A flicker of firelight caught in the reflection of his fur-lined cloak. One look at Kita's limping form and he didn't ask questions. Just nodded once.
"What happened?" Niren asked quietly as they approached.
"It wasn't a hunting accident," Ishan replied, voice low. "It was a test. Someone or something set up bait, coated a patch in sap and crushed frostberry pulp to freeze into resin. When Kita stepped in it, a pack of wolves emerged... but didn't attack. They just watched."
Niren's eyes narrowed. "Watched?"
Tarun added, "They moved like they were ordered to. They weren't acting like animals."
Kita let out a dry chuckle, breath misting in the cold. "Smart beasts. Setting traps now. I suppose next they'll start giving speeches."
But no one laughed.
Mani stepped forward not toward Niren, but to the fire near the pine. He crouched beside it, drew three jagged lines in the ash with a stick, then circled them with a ring. A moment passed.
Niren moved beside him. "That's how they surrounded you?"
Mani nodded.
Tarun, leaning on his blade like a cane, whistled. "This one sees everything."
Kita still didn't look convinced. "Or guesses well."
Niren's voice cut through softly. "No. He sees."
They stood in silence, the crackle of fire filling the space between their thoughts.
Then Niren reached into his pouch and pulled out a smooth, obsidian-colored bead—worn and cold. He offered it to Mani without a word.
Mani looked at it.
"It was mine, years ago," Niren said. "A small token, yes. But those who earned one knew how to read the forest's breath."
Mani accepted it with both hands and gave a faint nod of thanks.
Ishan, watching, leaned closer to Niren.
"You've seen it before, haven't you? Beasts acting strange."
Niren didn't answer immediately. His gaze lingered toward the tree line, past where the wolves had once stood.
"I've seen foxes chase deer into pits. I've seen owls that won't blink even if you scream at them. And I've seen predators moving not with instinct but with purpose. Not one. Not two. Packs."
"And now?" Ishan asked.
Niren's eyes darkened. "Now they're learning."
A branch cracked in the forest, far too distant to matter.
But everyone turned.
Mani didn't flinch. He crouched lower, drew something else in the snow this time, a crooked tree with three claw marks beneath it.
Tarun squinted. "Where is that?"
Mani pointed northeast.
Niren frowned. "North ridge. Patrol path."
"Tonight?" Ishan asked.
"Tonight," Niren said.
He turned, already walking back toward the village gate, voice like iron dragging through frost.
"We need eyes in the trees before they grow hands."
—
Scene 3: Where Tracks Fade
Night fell without grace.
The pines stood like sentinels themselves, sharp and unmoving under a starless sky. The north ridge, where Mani had drawn his warning sign, was colder than usual air biting and taut, as though stretched by something unseen.
Ishan crouched beneath a snowbank overlooking the trail. To his left, Ravi waited in silence, bow string half-pulled, eyes reflecting flickers of cold moonlight. Mani, as always, sat between them—still as stone, his breath shallow and quiet.
No fire. No words.
Only signs.
A pine cone turned upside down: movement ahead.
A small twig split into four and tied with sinew: trap suspected.
A line drawn by a bare finger across snow: trail ends suddenly.
Three such signals had already passed.
Then another.
Mani tapped Ishan's arm gently and pointed down the slope.
At first, there was nothing. Then, movement too slow for a normal beast. A boar. Large. Muscled. But... walking with a limp. Not from injury. Controlled. Mechanical. Its path didn't curve with scent or fear. It walked in a perfect line.
It paused by a tree, scraped its tusks once, and walked on.
Behind it, two smaller creatures, a snow cat and a long-tailed pine fox followed in equal spacing. All three walked in rhythm. Not a pack. Never a pack.
Yet now... a formation.
Ravi's whisper was barely air: "What in … "
Ishan raised his hand, silencing him.
Suddenly, the snowcat stopped.
Its ears twitched. It turned, not toward the patrol—but toward the pines above.
It looked directly at Mani.
And smiled.
A pull of lips. A twitch at the corner of its muzzle. No fangs bared. Just smile.
Ravi swore.
Mani didn't blink. Instead, he pulled a smooth shard from his pouch, a broken remnant of frost-stone and dropped it to the snow, angled just right. The moonlight refracted off its surface into a glowing line across the slope, striking a bundled patch of dry fern.
That was the signal.
A heartbeat later…
Crack.
An arrow split the fern in two.
The boar reared. The pine fox jumped sideways. The snowcat vanished.
A second team of Sentinels burst from the trees, forming a half-ring along the slope. No shouting. No confusion. Only clean, fluid motion honed through years.
But the creatures didn't attack.
They retreated not in panic, but formation. Step. Step. Step. Into the brush. Vanishing one by one.
Ravi lowered his bow. "They were testing us."
Ishan muttered, "Not just testing... counting."
He stood slowly. The froststone in Mani's hand had cracked, its light gone.
"They wanted to know how fast we responded. How many show up. Where do we strike from."
Niren emerged from the other side of the trail. "And now they know."
The air was heavy with unease.
Ravi asked, "Should we follow?"
Niren shook his head. "Not yet. If they're planning something bigger, they want us to chase."
He knelt beside the spot the snowcat had stood. The smile lingered in Ishan's memory like a splinter in his chest.
"They're still watching," Niren said. "Learning. And next time, they won't smile."
Mani stepped forward, gazing down at the tracks—so shallow they barely dented the snow. Then, slowly, he pointed east, deeper into the woods.
No one questioned him.
Niren gave a single nod.
"We move at dawn."
—
Night folded itself around the village like a cloak too quiet to trust. Fires burned low, but the Sentinels did not rest. In the woods beyond the ridge, silence was no longer safe. It moved with intent. Somewhere beneath the trees, teeth sharpened and minds stirred. And as Mani stared eastward unblinking, uncertain he did not speak. He simply waited. For he knew the forest would speak again. Not in roars. Not in howls.
But in plans.
—
Chapter 11 Ends here…