“Breathe slowly, and don’t look behind…” Tammer’s haunting voice echoed in his brain again. ‘Twice in the same day huh?’

Adam froze in his place, trying to discern the number of his pursuers with sound alone.

‘three four-legged creatures, too small to be anything but mundane wolves, but too dangerous to face alone.’ He thought as he gripped the dagger tighter.

The wolves already knew his scent. He was not ready to give up his hunt yet, but they had already blocked his way back, spreading wide for an encirclement. Even if Adam decided to ditch his hunt, he doubted the starving wolves would let him pass. So Adam decided that he was not the wolves’ opponent for today.

 If they wanted to brawl with a predator, he can take them to one.

With the deer still strapped on his back, Adam rushed in a climb up the closest tree, the sound of the chasers behind him quickened, snarling and snapping as they ran to catch him.

Just as Adam thought he had climbed high enough, a wolf’s maw snapped on the hem of his shirt, its weight almost yanking him downwards, before tearing out the hem. So he climbed a few meters higher.

Adam looked ahead, where the trees grew denser, and started vaulting from one branch to another. He was heading west.

As he traversed the trees, Adam had a chance of looking down to see his pursuers. Five wolves were snarling from below.

‘I missed two, but at least I was right about them being wolves.’ He consoled himself.

Tracking the Fenrir from up in the trees was not an easy task, but even if he got discovered by the abominable creature, he hoped the trees would be safe enough.

Lost in thought, Adam overcommitted in one of his leaps, missing his footing. A snarl sounded from below happily, as he dangled from one tree by one of his legs. As he came to a stop, one of the deer’s legs slipped from the ropes, further restricting his climb back up. One wolf took the chance to leap from a tree trunk to reach him and snapped its maw on the dangling deer’s hoof.

The weight of the deer was bearable for Adam, just barely. Adding the weight of the wolf on top made his young bones ache. And to make matters worse, he was dangling upside down right now. So the only sensible thing for Adam to do was to abandon the deer, or at least let the wolf rip the leg off his back.

But Adam was not the sensible type, he was the type to go hunting during the winter festival, alone, and at night.

He raised his knife, and plunged it into the wolf’s eye, then grabbed its hind paw with his free hand. The wolf’s pained whimper made its friends flinch, it thrashed and scratched at Adam in a desperate attempt to escape his clutches, its comrades looked in horror at Adam’s blood bathed figure swing not once or twice, but half a dozen times at their friend. All while hanging upside down from a tree branch. By the time the unfortunate wolf fell to the ground, it was already dead.

Of course, Adam’s display was not just for show. Aside from lowering the number of his pursuers, He hoped to scare them away with a statement.

‘I’m a hunter as much as you are’

Adam wiped the blood off his face, and looked down from the tree. His back was seriously hurt from the melee, but he needed to make sure that no other wolf will try the same play on him.

The remaining four wolves were staring at the unmoving corpse of their companion, silence speaking of their shock. Their blue eyes full of unreadable emotions. Was it sadness… anger? Or fear? Adam did not want to know, all he wanted was to get back to the village with his hunt.

He would rather not meet the nightmarish beast he was heading towards right now, so if the wolves abandoned the hunt, he would gladly head back to his boat.

Alas, a few minutes passed, yet the wolves seemed more determined. And their snarls grew louder than ever. He failed at scaring them off. If anything, they seemed more hell bent on murdering him.

The rest of the chase west was unremarkable, at least in Adam’s books. He did not miss a step this time, but he tried shooting a couple arrows. His targets were too nimble though, and his archery skill was not remarkable enough to shoot moving targets.

As he moved further west, Adam could clearly see marks and footprints of the Fenrir. They had finally reached its hunting grounds.

The wolves seemed to hesitate as they passed a bear’s broken carcass, but it seemed the display Adam made of their comrade ignited a will for revenge that fear could not quell.  Adam found that quite ironic. A cynical smile found its way on his face. “I know rage too, I know loss too, let’s see whose rage will triumph over the other, beasts.”

As if to answer his taunt, a guttural howl escaped from the Fenrir’s cave lair, drowning the silence of the forest with a beastial scream that Adam had never heard before. A chill ran down his spine, and he seemed to not be the only one affected. The wolves shrunk back, lowering their ears, and hiding in the nearby bushes. They too did not want to pick a fight with the true ruler of the forest.

Adam felt his heart drumming in his chest, as his instincts screamed at him to run away from whatever creature he was about to face. The cave looked too vast, too deep, to be a lair of one four legged animal. The stench of rotten meat permeated the air, tempting his stomach to spill out its insides.

Suddenly, Adam realized he was drenched in sweat, and it dawned on him how grave of a mistake it was to deliver himself the house of the most dreaded creature he had ever seen.

Then it emerged, a weird mix of a dog and a hyena strode out of the cave, its hind legs shorter than the front ones. Its shoulders rose to the height of a warhorse and muscles that protruded off its slightly blackened skin. It had torn ears, and scars covered most of its visible side. A testament of the battles it had survived.

As soon as it stood outside, it sniffed around, as the forest held its breath. Then its eyes immediately locked with Adam’s.

‘Crap.’

The plan had backfired.