Chapter 369 - The Piper's Lantern

The stillness that came before the surge was thick and cloying, a silence pressed thinly over the pulse of something feral just beneath. Then came the flood. The rest of the Bearowls charged in all at once, their massive shapes emerging from the misty edges of the woods like phantoms drawn to blood. Heavy paws thudded against the dirt, branches cracked under the sudden weight of their stampede, and the humid breath of beasts steamed through the cold air as they encircled the battered carriage. In the flickering firelight cast by the dying embers of their earlier battle, twisted shadows reeled over the trees and walls. The night itself had become a cage.