Visibility was almost zero, rain and sleet driving horizontal in the wind. The fire had drowned to smoking embers. Tents whipped and shuddered, one already half-collapsed. Our carefully organized supplies scattered across the ground, lighter items tumbling away into the dark.
The river.
The river was roaring, a sound like freight trains, like the world ending.
"Ellie!" Dev appeared out of the storm, limping badly, face twisted with pain. "Help me secure the—"
The ground beneath us shifted, suddenly slick and unstable.
Mud. The riverbank was dissolving into mud.
I grabbed Dev's arm, trying to pull him back toward higher ground, but he was twice my size and favouring one leg. My boots skidded and I struggled to find purchase.
"Stephen!" Dev shouted into the storm. "Where's Stephen?"
A figure moved near the collapsing equipment tent—Stephen, wrestling with a supply pack, trying to drag it free of the rising water. The river had jumped its banks. Water surged through our camp, dark and fast and merciless, carrying debris and rocks.
"Stephen, hurry up!" Nathan snapped, fighting his way through the deluge. "We need that—"
The ground gave way beneath Stephen's feet.
One second he was there, solid and real. The next, he was in the water, arms flailing, face shocked white in the lightning flash. Megan screamed.
"No!" Dev lunged forward trying to grab Stephen’s hand as he was swept past us. He was a big man, strong, but the river didn't care about strength. It cared about physics, about mass and velocity and the simple, brutal mathematics of water moving faster than a human body could resist. I grabbed for his jacket and caught it with both hands. I dug my heels into the mud, trying to brace us as Dev leaned out to grab our friend, but it was like trying to anchor a boulder. Dev was already waist-deep in the surge, and was being dragged forward, dragging me with him, my boots carving trenches in the dissolving mud. The water hit my shins, shockingly cold, and the force of it nearly buckled my knees. I wrapped my arms around Dev's torso and pulled, pulled, felt my shoulders scream in protest.
I could see nothing. The water was black, churning, full of debris—branches, rocks, chunks of sod torn from the bank. Lightning split the sky and for one frozen instant I saw Stephen's face, pale and terrified. He was ten meters downstream already, tumbling in the black water like a ragdoll, his headtorch strobingwildly as he spun. I could see his mouth opening and closing, but the roar of the river swallowed everything.
Then darkness swallowed him again.
"Stephen!" I screamed, but the wind tore his name away.
Dev turned, his face a mask of pain.
“He’s gone!” he shouted through the wind. “Ellie, we have to move, now!”
I nodded, turning back towards what remained of our camp. Dev set his strong hands on my waist, guiding me forward through the water. I saw it a fraction of a second before it hit us—a tree branch—no, an entire trunk, ripped from somewhere upstream, rolling and pitching in the current like it weighed nothing. The branch struck Dev's left leg just below the knee with a sound I will never forget. A wet, dense crack that cut through even the roar of the storm. Dev screamed—a raw, animal sound that vibrated through his entire body and into mine where I was still clinging to him. His weight shifted catastrophically, his leg buckling at an angle that legs weren't supposed to bend, his full weight hit me at once, two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle and bone and borrowed magic, and I couldn't hold him.
We went down together.
The branch spun on, catching my right thigh as it passed. Pain detonated—white-hot, immediate, so sharp it stole my breath. I felt fabric tear, felt skin tear, felt the warm rush of blood that was instantly cold in the freezing water. The water surged over us, black and freezing, filling my mouth with grit and the taste of iron. I choked, spat, got my head above the surface by pure animal instinct. Then Dev was dragging me back to my feet, his weight on his good leg as he half dragged half pushed me up onto the slick mud at the edge of the torrent. He hauled himself up behind me as I gasped for air, and collapsed on the muddy bank, his eyes rolling back in his head as he passed out from the pain.
CHAPTER 5
RIVIK
The first deer went down under Jarak's jaws, clean and quick. The second bolted left and Miska took it at full sprint, bringing it down before it could reach the tree line. I'd marked the third—old buck with heavy antlers—and was closing in when Torin's growl split the air.
Fourth deer. Eastern ridge.
Perfect.
I changed direction mid-stride, trusting the others to finish what they'd started. Daska was already moving to intercept, his massive bear form a wall of muscle and fur that cut off the deer's escape route. The buck tried to turn, panicked, and ran straight into my path.
I took it at the throat. Quick. Respectful.
Four deer. Enough meat to help feed the pack for more than a week, and we'd hunted smart—taking only what we needed, leaving the rest of the herd intact to breed and grow.
Good hunt. Clean kills.
