The smart thing would be to leave. Find Kraath and Raaze, get Michelle back to the garrison where human doctors could care for her. Distance himself before she could reject what was building between them.
But the thought of walking away made his chest tighten until he could barely breathe. She was his. He’d known it the moment she’d smiled at him over those flowers, and everything since had only reinforced that certainty.
If she wanted him gone, he’d go. Somehow. For her sake, he’d find the strength to walk away. But he’d wait until she was conscious and coherent before making that choice.
She deserved that much.
The shelter’s improvised walls groaned against the wind, but the sound was nothing compared to the chattering of Raaze’s teeth. He pulled his jacket tighter, still shivering from the cold that had seeped into his bones during the night. The storm had passed, but he was draanthing cold to the bone. Through to his soul.
Oh good, we’re freezing our ass off in paradise, his legion drawled in his head. Remind me why we volunteered for this rescue mission again?
Kraath emerged from the other side of their makeshift shelter, broad shoulders blocking the early sunlight. His eyes swept the transformed landscape, taking in the damage. Water still rushed through channels that hadn’t existed yesterday, carving new scars across the terrain.
“Most of the tracks will be gone,” Kraath said. “We’ll need to circle around the flooding.”
Raaze nodded, though internally he was cataloging just how draanthed they really were. The valley floor looked like someone had taken a giant blender to it… rocks, debris, and fresh channels cutting through what had been relatively stable ground. Any sign of Michelle and Zeke’s passage would be buried under tons of sediment or washed away entirely.
Fantastic. We’re playing detective with a crime scene that got pressure-washed by nature.
They picked their way across the soggy terrain, boots squelching in mud. Raaze automatically scanned for anything useful… a disturbed rock, a partial print, even fabric caught on vegetation. The systematic search was second nature, muscle memory from his days before everything went to trall.
“There,” he said, pointing to a section where the flooding had been less severe. “Higher ground might have preserved something.”
Kraath grunted agreement, but something flickered in the commander’s expression that didn’t quite match his measured tone.
Interesting. Our fearless leader’s got his poker face on extra tight today.
They climbed toward the ridge line together, Raaze’s breath coming in visible puffs. His muscles were still adjusting to the temperature shift, but the movement helped chase away some of the bone-deep cold. The landscape spread below them like a battlefield… muddy, scarred, and transformed beyond recognition.
“Fan out,” Kraath said. “But stay within sight. Look for anything that survived the wash.”
He moved in a zigzag pattern, eyes tracking across every surface while keeping Kraath in the corner of his eye. Like most warball players, he had decent spatial awareness, but tracking was different. It required reading the story written in displaced stones, bent grass, and the faint compression patterns that most people couldn’t even see.
At least this skill set transferred better than your famous curveball.
The first hour yielded nothing but frustration. Every promising sign turned out to be storm damage or debris. He wondered if they were chasing ghosts… maybe Michelle and Zeke had been swept away entirely, their bodies already miles downstream.
Well, well. What do we have here?
He crouched beside a patch of relatively sheltered ground where a rock outcropping had deflected the worst of the water flow. There, pressed into the softer earth, were the unmistakable signs of passage. Not clear prints, the storm had been too thorough for that, but the subtle depressions and disturbed vegetation told a story to anyone who knew how to read it.
“Kraath,” he called. “Got something.”
The commander’s footsteps crunched across the rocky terrain as he approached. Raaze pointed to the signs, his finger tracing the path without actually touching the evidence.
“Multiple individuals passed through here,” he said. “Before the storm, based on how the water patterns overlay the disturbance.”
“Ferals,” Kraath said immediately. “Has to be. The mountains are full of them.”
That was fast. Almost like he doesn’t want us looking too closely.
Raaze studied the tracks more carefully, his trained eye picking apart the details. Stride length, foot placement, the way weight had been distributed. The patterns were subtle but distinct, like fingerprints written in mud and stone.
“Maybe,” he said slowly. “But something’s off about these.”
They continued following the trail, Kraath’s heavier footsteps behind him as he led the way. The signs were intermittent, scattered across terrain scoured by the flood. But he knew how to fill in the gaps, reading the landscape like a book.
Professional athlete to mountain tracker. What a career trajectory. Dad would be so proud.
