Chapter 93: Howls

Miles followed closely behind, then he stopped as suddenly as he’d started moving. Chloe stopped a moment later, seemingly noticing his pause.

She looked behind with a question on her pale face. He pointed to the side, not far off, where the first two wiry ghouls still lay writhing.

That was enough to convey his intention. The girl walked up to one of them, raising the bat in her hand even as it clawed for her feet.

Miles walked up to the next, spear angled downwards. By now, Mia had joined them too.

The milky white eyes of the corpse turned to him. It should have lunged, clawed, or reached for him the moment it saw him. Yet it didn’t. It couldn’t.

Snowflakes landed softly on its unblinking eyes. The beast gnashed its teeth, then he stabbed.

Another filthy coat of black blood was added to his already stained spear. He felt the monster go still through its wooden shaft.

A snap drew his attention away from the corpse. Chloe was smashing in the face of the last ghoul. Its claws still fidgeted afterwards, so she went for another, and another, until it stopped completely.

She stared down at the mess she’d made with a grimace. Even as her chest heaved, she forced herself to stare.

Miles watched silently. Sarah reached a hand hesitantly for her shoulder, yet before she touched it, Chloe had already turned her gaze to the five ghouls approaching them.

They were the stragglers.

She took a deep breath, then shot both Miles and Sarah a glance before pointing towards them. Miles nodded and advanced.

By now, he was rather familiar with dealing with the creatures. Having the spear only made things that much easier.

He extended the weapon outwards, letting the momentum of the first ghoul do his work for him as it ran headfirst into the blade. He had angled initially for the eye, but only ended up hitting the chin.

The spear pierced through and slammed into bones, stopping the creature and sending it into the ground. The recoil of the hit sent a throbbing ache through his hand and sank his feet deeper into the snow.

He shook it off, stepped forward before the thing could react, and stabbed down.

The next two rushed towards him.

Miles swung the spear’s shaft into one’s shin, then stabbed the spear towards the other’s chest, felling them both.

Chloe descended on one of the fallen ghouls like a vulture, her bat, however crooked, swinging at its skull. Sarah hovered over the next, looking hesitantly at the writhing ghoul before slamming down with her crude bat.

Miles pivoted his spear towards the remaining ghouls. Together they made quick work of them, with Miles executing one and Chloe taking out the other.

Her final swing put her bat on life support. It hadn’t broken yet, but he had no doubt that if she used it again out here, in this condition, it was going to.

The others were just about done with their side too. Four ghouls, each with varying degrees of injury, lay around the fire. Brandon went around, setting fire to them one after the other before kicking them into the almost dead pyre.

It was pointless. The flames on them died very quickly.

Ryan said something to him, but Miles couldn’t eavesdrop from where he stood.

"Should... should we head back?"

He turned to find Chloe crouching. The black eyes behind her frosted glasses were locked onto the black mass that used to be the pyre. She turned to him.

"I think s-"

A long, mournful howl interrupted her. He froze, wondering if he had mistaken the wind for something else, but...

’No, that’s not it.’

His gaze turned to the distant haze. Just beyond the fence, a crouched silhouette was visible between the gaps.

More howls joined in, each slightly different in pitch, each just slightly off-tune. They overlapped together, forming a distorted symphony that mixed with the roar of the storm.

More silhouettes joined it. He could count at least five just through the gaps.

’Dogs, or wolves... no, maybe coyotes.’

They didn’t look humanoid, or even semi-humanoid like the ghouls they had faced so far. Not that it mattered.

"Miles, Sarah."

Chloe called out slowly. The snow crunched beneath her boots as she took a step back.

"Let’s head back."

The symphony stopped.

All six creatures leaped over the barrier in sync. They sprinted the moment they landed, not giving Miles the chance to even properly observe them.

The group split as they approached, four heading for Ryan’s group, while two headed for Miles. Grimm was far back enough to not have any target him.

He took the initiative.

Two stones went high, hurtling through the storm and towards the group of four. As though sensing the projectiles, they split off before they hit, letting the stones detonate harmlessly in the snow.

As futile as it was, it bought the others a bit of time to reorganize. Unfortunately, the two barreling towards Miles faced no such interruptions.

The distance between them vanished in less than ten seconds. Before he knew it, the monsters were already upon him.

He swung his spear threateningly at the first. It flinched, then slowed to a stop, eyeing the blade hesitantly as it growled.

The second creature ignored him entirely, lunging towards Chloe and Sarah. There was little he could do to help them as he was, so he placed all his focus on the creature before him.

Close and stationary now, he finally had a proper look at the thing.

It was much larger than a coyote. Roughly the size of a gray wolf if he had to guess, but it still had all the features of a coyote: long, sharp ears and a pointed snout.

Thick, white fur covered its form. Beneath it lay pale, wiry muscles, its color only broken by a network of dark frostbite patterns.

Its milky eyes stared at him with focus, hungry intelligence hidden behind them.

The beast growled again, then took a step, keeping itself just beyond his range as it slowly began circling around him.