Rain clung to everything.
It beaded on the rough-hewn palisade, slicked the roots underfoot, and turned the trail along Timberflow’s southern edge into a narrow ribbon of mud. The Silverstream slid by in a dull, pewter sheen, its usual song muted under the soft hiss of drizzle.
Bram walked the ridge above the river out of habit more than hope. The woodchuck’s cloak was damp at the hem, his fur prickled beneath his leather harness, and his pike rested across his shoulders as if it had grown there over the years. Patrol had been quiet for days. Too quiet.
The town behind him breathed the way small towns did: wood-smoke, low voices, the occasional clatter of tools. The forest in front of him did not breathe at all. It watched.
He felt it in his gut. That was why his steps were slower tonight, why his eyes lingered on every bend of river and every tangle of roots.
That was how he saw them.
Two small shapes at the water’s edge, half-hidden by reeds and mist. Not beavers. Not muskrats. They moved wrong for that… stumbling rather than swimming, dragging themselves along the bank like they’d forgotten the river could carry them.
Bram stopped. His paw tightened on the pike’s shaft.
The larger of the two slipped in the mud and caught himself on all fours, sides heaving. The smaller one stayed sitting where they had fallen, hunched in on themselves, head bowed over their paws as if the act of holding still was the only thing keeping them together.
Otters. Pups. Alone.
Bram’s heart kicked once, hard.
He slid down the slope with practiced care, boots sliding on the wet soil. His pike angled low, ready just in case the forest decided to bare its teeth while he was distracted.
“You there!” he called over the rain, voice carrying just enough to reach them without echoing. “You’re near Timberflow. You’re safe here.”
The larger pup jerked upright at the sound. Cinnamon fur clung to his frame in sodden spikes, one shoulder matted dark where a shallow gash had crusted and reopened. His eyes were wrong for a child’s, too wide, too old in the way they darted over the trees, the river, the sky, as if measuring every shadow for teeth.
The smaller pup lifted her head more slowly. Sable fur, darker than her brother’s, slicked close against her body. Her whiskers trembled with each breath. She didn’t flinch at Bram’s approach; she just watched him, like she’d run out of fear and had only numbness left.
Bram slowed as he reached the riverbank, lowering his pike and lifting one paw, palm out.
“I’m Bram,” he said, keeping his voice level and steady. “Soldier of Timberflow. I’m not here to hurt you. Are either of you wounded bad?”
The larger pup swallowed hard, voice hoarse. “We… we’re not… it’s not us you should worry about.”
Bram knelt beside them, mud seeping into his knee-wraps. Up close, he could see the toll of days on the run: cracked pawpads, raw from stone and root; fur worn thin at the shoulders where a pack had rubbed; eyes ringed in red from lack of sleep.
He reached gently for the smaller pup’s forearm. “May I?” he asked.
She nodded, barely.
He turned her paw over, scanning for punctures, swelling, the spidered rot of venom-burn. All he found were scrapes and bruises and a tremor that never quite left her muscles. He released her and moved to the older one, checking the gash at his shoulder with careful paws.
“Name?” Bram asked.
The boy hesitated, throat working, then forced it out. “Finley.”
He nodded toward the girl. “And her?”
“Brooke. She’s my sister.”
Brooke’s eyes tracked a stray leaf as it floated past on the current. When she spoke, her voice was thin but clear. “River’s gone.”
Bram’s gaze flicked between them. “River?”
“Our brother,” Finley whispered. His muzzle twitched, as if the words themselves stung. “He was the youngest.”
There it was. The hollowness he’d felt in the air since he’d first seen them sharpened into something that pressed behind his sternum.
“How long have you been walking?” Bram asked.
Finley’s brow creased. “Six days. Maybe seven.” He looked back upriver, as if the answer might still be hiding in the fog. “We walked until the sun hurt to look at. Then we walked at night. We slept when we fell down.”
Bram believed him. Their paws told the story even if their voices didn’t.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
Finley didn’t answer at first. His jaw clenched and unclenched. When he finally spoke, the words came in broken pieces.
“There was a… thing. In the water. We thought it was a log. Father said stay close to the bank. Mother was laughing. River…” His voice thinned. “River tried to dive like she showed him.”
Brooke shut her eyes. A tear slid through the wet fur on her cheek, indistinguishable from the rain unless you were looking for it. Bram was.
“It came up under us,” Finley said. “Like the river grew teeth. It took Father first. Then Mother. It bit River. We tried to pull him, but his arm…” He swallowed hard, the sentence crumbling. “It hurt him. It hurt him so bad.”
“How did you get away?” Bram asked, though a part of him didn’t want to know.
Finley’s gaze snapped to his, and for a heartbeat Bram saw raw terror there, naked and sharp.
“It let us,” the pup said. “It was wrapped around Mother. Father was gone. River was screaming. It looked at us and… it just watched. Like it was… thinking. Like it wanted to see what we’d do.”
Brooke shuddered. “We ran,” she whispered. “River couldn’t keep up. He fell. He stopped…” Her voice broke on the word. “We had to keep going.”
Rain pattered on the river surface, filling the silence that followed.
Bram took a slow breath, steadying himself. He had seen raids, floodwaters, bones picked clean by forest scavengers. He was not new to horror.
But something in the way the boy said it watched us leave twisted in his gut.
“Listen to me,” Bram said, his tone shifting, firmer now. “You did what you had to do. You ran. You survived. That’s not cowardice. That’s what your parents would have wanted.”
Finley’s jaws clenched again. He didn’t answer.
Bram rose to his feet, joints protesting. “You’re close to Timberflow now. We have walls, healers, food. You’ll rest there, and the council will want to hear what you’ve seen.”
He slung his pike back over his shoulder and pulled a small signal horn from his belt. The metal was cold against his paw as he lifted it.
“This might sound loud,” he warned them. “But it’s for you, not against you.”
He put the horn to his muzzle and loosed a single, sharp note. The sound cut through the drizzle, floated over the palisade, and vanished into the trees.
The call for emergency assembly.
Bram lowered the horn and looked back at the pups. Finley was watching the river again, as if expecting it to stand up. Brooke had wrapped her arms around herself, small body shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.
“You’re in Timberflow’s shadow now,” Bram said quietly. “Whatever that thing in the river is… you won’t face it alone.”
He didn’t add that he wasn’t sure walls and sharpened pikes would be enough. The river slid by, dull and patient, and somewhere far upstream, something long and ancient and venom-slick moved just out of sight.
The chill that ran through him then had nothing to do with the rain.
Timberflow’s central hall glowed with firelight and rain-dimmed lanterns, the air thick with damp fur and the scent of river-mud tracked in from outside. The great hearth at the center of the room crackled steadily, its warmth doing little to ease the tension that had settled over the assembled council.
Two small shapes lay curled on a bed of wool cloaks near the fire. Finley and Brooke slept without rest. Bodies twitching, paws tightening around nothing, small whimpers slipping out when their dreams tightened like snares. A healer from the Hearthkeepers knelt beside them, one paw resting lightly on Brooke’s back, murmuring reassurance meant as much for herself as for them.
Bram stood nearby, his arms crossed, his uniform still damp from the rain. Dirt streaked his fur, and a faint smear of old blood darkened one sleeve. His eyes never left the pups.
Mayor Bramble arrived last, a heavy presence even before he reached the firelight. His broad frame filled the doorway; water dripped from the edge of his cloak. When he entered, the low murmur of conversation died.
“Report,” he said, voice gravel scraping across stone.
Bram didn’t waste breath on preamble. “Found them on the south ridge. Exhausted. Hungry. Barely holding together. They say their holt was attacked by a serpent. Not a normal one.”
High Waymaster Nerin leaned forward from her place at the table, her narrow vole frame wrapped in a tight, practical cloak. “A bear-sized snake is not unheard of in old bends of the Silverstream.”
“It wasn’t size they feared,” Bram answered. “It hunted them. Tracked them. Thought about them.”
“That is embellishment,” muttered Coinwarden Terns of the Flowkeepers, tail flicking with agitation.
Bram gestured toward the sleeping pups. “Look at them. They haven’t the strength left to lie.”
Silence pulsed in the hall. The fire popped.
From a corner stacked with bark-bound ledgers and stone tablets, Scribe Weller cleared his throat. A thin squirrel with spectacles perched halfway down his snout, he approached the council table carrying a sliver of engraved shale.
“I searched the river records,” he said. “As far back as the archives reach. There are fragments, old ones.”
He set the stone down. The grooves in it were faint but unmistakable: a twisting shape carved in jagged lines.
“Old warnings,” Weller continued. “Carved before Timberflow had a name. Before most of the guilds existed. It speaks of a ‘river shadow.’ Something that moved through the waters of the upper Silverstream, killing without feeding. Something that watched more than it struck.”
No one spoke.
Bramble’s good eye narrowed. “A name?”
Weller shook his head. “If there ever was one, it’s been lost.”
Nerin’s voice was quiet. “Maybe not lost. Maybe forgotten.”
A gust of wind rattled the shutters. The fire guttered, throwing long shadows across the children’s sleeping forms.
Bram stepped closer to the table. “The pups said it let them run. Looked them in the eye and watched. That’s no beast. That’s malice.”
“Or curiosity,” Terns whispered. “Which might be worse.”
Mayor Bramble drew in a slow, steadying breath. “Prepare the militia. And double the night watch.” He turned to Bram. “You said a sibling was left behind?”
“Yes,” Bram answered. “The youngest. They say he was alive for a while but… he didn’t make it far.”
Bramble’s jaw tightened. “Send a party downriver at first light. Confirm what remains.”
Bram nodded once.
The mayor turned back to the council. “This threat, whatever it is, will not be ignored. At dawn we meet again to decide our next step.”
He looked once more at the otter pups, small and fragile under the heavy light.
The hall felt colder for it.
Outside, the river pressed against its banks, whispering against stone as something vast and silent disturbed the current far downstream.
Dawn broke gray and thin over Timberflow.
Usually morning light crept gently across the riverbend, catching the mist in delicate threads that drifted between cedar trunks. But today the mist didn’t lift. It clung low and heavy along the water, thick enough that the far bank blurred into a single muted shape.
Bram leaned against the watchtower railing, jaw set, breath fogging in the cold air. He’d been up since the second bell, sleep little more than brief fragments between the pups’ whimpers echoing through the healer’s lodge. The river churned strangely below him, swirling in slow, reluctant coils like something disturbed the current from beneath.
Something big.
The tower door creaked behind him.
Councilor Nerin stepped out, a wool cloak drawn tight around her shoulders. Her whiskers were still damp from washing, and there was a sharpness in her eyes that suggested she hadn’t slept much either.
“You’re early,” she said quietly.
“So are you,” Bram answered, not looking away from the river.
Nerin joined him at the railing, scanning the mist as it drifted in sluggish curls. “The smaller pup screamed in her sleep for half the night,” she said. “Kept repeating something about the eyes.”
Bram exhaled slowly. “Heard that.”
“She described them as… sinking. Like holes in the world.”
Bram didn’t respond at first. His paw tightened on the rail. “That’s not the way of beasts.”
“No,” Nerin murmured. “It isn’t.”
They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the muted rumble of the water below. In the shifting mist, the river seemed restless, shoulders of current rising, falling, disappearing. Bram had seen the Silverstream in flood and frost, but never like this. Never like it was bracing for something.
Nerin leaned closer. “You felt it, didn’t you? Last night.”
Bram nodded once. “Like the forest was holding its breath.”
She swallowed, gaze fixed on the blank expanse of fog. “The council wants to believe this is an animal. A rogue python. Maybe a gator dragged north out of season. But whatever took those otters…” Her voice trailed off, brittle.
“It thought about them,” Bram said. He hated the way the words felt in his mouth. Too real. Too close to the truth he’d seen in Finley’s eyes.
A breeze tugged at Nerin’s cloak, sending a ripple through the mist.
“Come on,” she said quietly. “They’re assembling already.”
Bram cast one last look at the river. He watched the mist shudder, once, twice, as if stirred from deep below. The fine fur along his shoulders bristled.
Something was moving upriver.
Something that did not fear walls or fire.
He turned from the view and followed Nerin down the narrow stairwell.
Behind them, the Silverstream flowed on in tense, unnatural silence.
Morning light filtered through the slatted windows of Timberflow’s council hall, pale and cold against the heavy beams overhead. The hearth burned low, giving more smoke than warmth, and the smell of wet cedar lingered from the night’s rain. The hall felt too quiet. Too expectant.
Mayor Bramble stood at the head of the long table, broad paws planted firmly on the polished wood. His cloak hung damp around his shoulders, he had come straight from the watchtower. The lines around his eyes were deeper than usual.
Arrayed before him stood the leaders of Timberflow’s four guilds:
- High Waymaster Nerin of the Wayfinders
- First Framer Toren of Timberline
- Hearthmother Winna of the Hearthkeepers
- Coinwarden Terns of the Flowkeepers (Merchant Guild)
At the edge of the hall, Bram, still in his patrol harness, stood at respectful attention. He had no seat in this meeting, soldiers did not sit with guildmasters, but the Mayor kept him close.
Bramble struck the floor once with his broad tail.
“Let us begin.”
The room fell still.
“We all saw the pups brought in,” Bramble said. “Their holt is gone. Their kin either taken or dead. And something is moving in our river that we cannot ignore.”
Hearthmother Winna clasped her paws together. “The younger pup’s wounds were… unnatural,” she said softly. “Not gator, not python, not trap. Flesh rotted in strange patterns. Hearthkeepers don’t recognize it.”
Coinwarden Terns shifted uneasily. “The river current is wrong this morning. Slower. Like something’s pushing against it from below.”
Nerin nodded. “My scouts confirm strange movement near the lower bends. No sign of other beasts. Whatever attacked that holt is traveling upriver.”
First Framer Toren exhaled through his teeth. “Our walls weren’t built for anything that comes under them.”
The Mayor’s gaze swept the table. “We cannot wait for it to reach Timberflow.”
A silence settled: thick, heavy, fearful.
Then Nerin spoke, voice steady but sharp. “We need help.”
“Towns upriver?” Terns asked.
“No,” Nerin said. “They won’t reach us in time.”
Her tail flicked. “We go to Cragjaw.”
The room froze.
Hearthmother Winna’s whiskers drew tight. “Cragjaw demands tribute for even speaking. Sometimes blood. Sometimes worse.”
“He demands respect,” Bramble said. “And if that buys Timberflow’s survival, we will give it.”
Toren rubbed his forehead. “Then who speaks for us? Cragjaw won’t treat with just anyone.”
“My son will go,” Bramble said.
The guildmasters stiffened.
“Thatcher will serve as ambassador.”
Winna’s tail thumped once in alarm. “He’s no diplomat. His tongue’s sharp, but his spine-”
“He carries my name,” Bramble said. “Cragjaw respects lineage, and Thatcher knows ten tongues. Words may matter more than pikes.”
Nerin gave a reluctant nod. “If he’s going, he won’t go alone. Shade and Pip as scouts. Bram and Koda from the guard. Hearthkeeper Lina for wounds.”
“Add one Flowkeeper to manage supplies,” Terns offered, though his voice wavered. “I’ll choose someone discreet.”
Toren leaned forward. “That’s a full delegation. Strong enough to reach Cragjaw… I hope.”
Bramble lifted his chin.
“They leave before midday.”
His tail struck the floor once, firm and final.
The meeting broke apart quietly, each guildmaster carrying the weight of what had just been set in motion. Outside, the Silverstream mist pressed against the town like a living thing.
Something was coming.
And Timberflow could no longer pretend otherwise.
Midmorning light filtered weakly through the canopy as the delegation gathered at Timberflow’s western trailhead. Mist clung stubbornly to the undergrowth, drifting in low, pale sheets. The forest beyond stood taut, waiting.
Townsfolk lingered at the edges of the clearing, watching in tight-faced silence. Gear was buckled down. Cloaks were cinched. Weapons checked twice. No one wasted breath.
Shade crouched over a creased, water-stained map spread across a mossy stump. His eyes traced the inked trails and landmarks with the ease of someone who had spent half his life memorizing every bend of the forest.
“The forest road’s washed out here,” Shade said, tapping a claw along a riverward stretch. “If we try to take it, we’ll sink to our bellies in muck. Dryroot Ridge is better. Add half a day, but fewer things with teeth.”
Pip leaned in beside him. “And fewer dens along the bluff, right?”
Shade nodded. “And fewer ways to get surprised.”
Bram checked the edge on his spear while watching the treeline. His ears twitched with every rustle, every breeze that pushed fog into unfamiliar shapes. “Longer route’s fine,” he muttered. “Alive route’s better.”
Koda adjusted a shoulder strap on a crate of rations. “If this load shifts again, I’m throwing it in the river.”
“You’ll starve before noon,” Shade said dryly.
Lina knelt beside her satchel, tightening the bindings around jars of poultice, dried roots, and wound-powder. Her paws kept returning to the same knot, testing it, retesting it.
“We don’t have enough for a long detour,” she murmured. “If someone gets hurt out there: twisted ankle, deep cut, fever, I don’t know how long we can treat them. These supplies were meant for a weeks’ journey, best to keep safe and fast.”
Bram glanced at her. “We’ll get there fast.”
“Fast isn’t the same as safe,” Lina said softly.
Shade flicked his tail, a quiet sign of agreement.
Thatcher stepped forward in a pristine cloak that looked like it had never seen rain. He lifted his chin, carefully adjusting the strap on his lute case, still the least practical item anyone had brought.
“This is still diplomacy,” Thatcher announced. “We speak to Cragjaw, we make our case, we return before Timberflow even realizes we’re gone.”
Gertie, delivering a sack of dried stew, snorted. “Then why bring stew?”
Thatcher cleared his throat loudly, drawing more attention than the moment needed. “Gertie,” he declared, pointing with the authority of someone who had never earned it, “you’re coming with us.”
Gertie blinked once. “Am I?”
“Obviously. Diplomacy thrives on full stomachs. And you’re… well, you’re the best we have.”
Shade looked up sharply. Bram’s jaw tightened. Lina mouthed something that was probably a prayer.
Gertie lifted her heavy pack with a grunt. “Fine. But if anyone complains about the weight of their own load, I’m switching bags with them.”
Thatcher beamed. “Excellent! Team morale secured.”
Shade muttered, “Forest save us,” and rolled the map tighter.
Mayor Bramble approached then, his presence stilling the clearing. His tail struck the dirt once, a soft thump with the weight of authority.
“All of Timberflow stands behind you,” Bramble said. “Walk with care. Speak wisely. And return with Cragjaw’s aid.”
Thatcher bowed his head, trying to mask a swallow. “I serve Timberflow.”
The delegation stepped toward the forest path.
Shade led them under the arching cedars, slipping into the shadows with practiced ease. Pip followed close behind. Bram and Koda took the flanks. Lina walked near the center, clutching her satchel with a quiet, anxious purpose. Thatcher lingered at the rear, hesitating only once before the trees swallowed him.
The forest closed around them.
Only when their forms had vanished into the underbrush did two smaller shapes dart from behind a stack of crates.
Finley and Brooke.
Brooke grabbed her brother’s sleeve. “We’re going to get in trouble.”
Finley’s eyes were fixed on the path, jaw set with the same hard line he’d worn since arriving. “If something happens to them, I’m not staying behind to hear about it later.”
Brooke shivered. “You’re still dumb.”
“But I’m your brother.”
And that was enough.
Together, they slipped into the ferns after the departing party, two small shadows following a much larger one, soundless and determined.
Behind them, Timberflow settled into a tight, waiting silence.
Ahead, somewhere upriver, something ancient pushed its way through the current.