Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1) Read online

  Panting, she slowed to a stop, shaking from the adrenaline and remnants of fear. Lulu was quite upset as well, manic purbles and wurbles a riot of vocalization from the little scrubby. Its own concern and panic were quite obvious as the poor thing seemed not to know what to do, hopping all over Morgan as if checking to make sure her everything was okay. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry Lulu,” Morgan said, pulling the scrubby in for a comforting hug. “That had to be terrifying if the haste effect didn’t cover you as well.” The loofah took several long moments to finally calm down, followed by stern warbling as she scolded her mistress for such a distressing experience. Morgan knew they couldn’t tarry for long, as the howls in the distance were already closing in.

  She no longer felt totally hopeless, though, and took a brief time to let her mind settle and try to think of a plan. She thought very seriously about using [Earth Sculpt] to burrow down as deeply as she could, but that plan was tossed out as she realized the wolves could dig, or might have other abilities she hadn’t seen. At the very least they could simply camp out in the area and ambush her wherever she popped up for air or food.

  Morgan knew she had to keep running until she found a place the wolves had no possible way to follow. With the howls getting closer once again, she did exactly that. Heading north again, if only for lack of a better idea, she once again used the acceleration skill. This time she warned Lulu first, however, and the scrubby responded by burrowing up into her mane of hair, anchoring itself solidly before giving a purble to announce its readiness for the impending burst of speed.

  This time Morgan was starting with both her Stamina and Mana almost full, so she didn’t hold back. She took off at a full sprint and kept it up. It quickly became apparent how hard she could push off against the ground before damaging herself, and she soon settled into a loping pace that she could maintain for hours. And she so. Navigating the forest by moonlight was almost trivial under the light of the twin moons, especially with [The Naked Eye]. The greatest difficulty she had came from slowing down and releasing her haste skill so she could jump over fallen trees and the like. Her singular attempt at jumping over a stump while under the effects of [Naked Acceleration] had launched her through the next tree in the way.

  Broken bones and warbling protests had punctuated another break from running while she healed herself again amidst the shattered ruins of the tree that had stopped her. As her flesh knit itself back together and her bones realigned, she staggered to her feet. She could hear no howls, but [Naked Instinct] still screamed danger to her senses. The frequent healing was also beginning to take its toll on the reserves she’d gained from eating most of a giant crispy cat, even with the extreme metabolic efficiency of [Naked Recovery]. She was nowhere near starving yet, but as things were currently going, she would need some form of food within a day or she’d burn through her body’s reserves. That time would be greatly reduced if she had to recover from more extreme injuries.

  The forest seemed truly endless to Morgan as she continued to run, and everything sort of fell into a pattern of sameness. She would cancel [Naked Acceleration] and slow to an easy lope for a time to let her Mana recover while she healed the accrued damage that built up from pushing her body so hard. So far, her bursts of speed had kept her far enough ahead of the pack that they were no longer chewing on her backside as she ran, but Morgan knew that this was their game.

  Run the prey to exhaustion, she thought, recalling every wolf documentary she now wished she’d actually paid attention to. Dad always loved his animal shows; he’d know exactly what to do. The repetitive cycle of accelerated sprinting and slower loping really did leave her mind almost too free to wander. Aside from the occasional creek, boulder, or fallen tree, she only really had to think about navigating the sparse brush that grew under the gaps in the forest canopy. That all changed when the forest gave way abruptly, the rolling hills of the woods dropping off to a vast, grassy field that stretched for miles in either direction. And from the higher vantage point at the forest edge where she’d slowed to a stop, she could see just a mile or so in the distance a river winding through the plain.

  This was no small stream, she realized, as the fading light of the moons gave way to the first glimmers of dawn that sent rippling reflections twinkling across the water. She’d been running all night, and she felt the first spark of hope in all that time flare up while she gazed at the other side. In the distance past the far riverbank, a sheer cliff rose up from the low hills. The vertical stone walls stretched skyward for thousands of feet, the tops of the cliffs shrouded in mists not yet burned away by the day’s rising sun. She could see with [The Naked Eye] various cracks and formations in the winding, ribbon-like walls of rock. Trees, brush, and lush, verdant ivy painted intense green contrast to the nearly black mountainside, where ledges and outcroppings allowed plants to find purchase.

  “AHA!” she shouted in exaltation as she jumped up and down, clutching the scrubby in her hands despite its surprised purbling protests. “Let’s see those assholes climb that shit, Lulu! And I can make my own handholds!”

  Her sudden outburst had startled more than the scrubby, however, as Morgan’s [Naked Instinct] reared its insistent head once again. Two utterly massive oversized ears suddenly appeared above the shoulder-height grasses less than a dozen yards from the surprised woman, the tips of the ears almost comically flopped forward and tufted in white. She would have thought they were cute, if the Morgan-length ears hadn’t kept rising, followed by a very not-cute and honestly quite frightening caricature of a rabbit’s head. The eyes were solid red and, instead of the typical rodent incisors she would’ve expected even a giant sort of rabbit to have, its mouth opened wide to reveal double rows of wickedly sharp fangs. As it rose up on its haunches, the horse-sized creature let loose a scream that gave Morgan a notification and left her body frozen perfectly still and helpless.

  Status afflicted: [Paralysis]! You have been frozen in place by [Tyrannorabbit]’s [Scream]!

  Morgan’s mind was nearly as frozen in shock as her body was. Her magic was dropping away as if there were a layer of static interference between her and her Mana. The whole absurdity of her situation only fueled her outrage, and she furiously willed herself to move as the new threat hopped toward her with a ridiculous, wobbling gait. She’d just managed to get her fingers and toes to move as it pushed its way out of the grass and came into full view, but her magic was still not responding. The creature looked almost cartoonishly mutated, its front limbs smaller and held in close to its chest while its hind legs and feet were oversized in the extreme. The juxtaposition of its name and its mutated form weren’t lost on Morgan, and she would’ve laughed were it not for the danger. It lacked the balancing tail that made its namesake dinosaur beneficiary so mobile, and that gave it a waddling gait that belied the obvious lethality of that ever-widening maw of teeth.

  She managed to stumble back a half-step as the [Tyrannorabbit] duck-walked closer, and saw several more pairs of ears pop up in the grass beyond. But these weren’t facing her direction. A sudden basso snarl revealed exactly what they were listening to as the familiar canine form of a wolf slammed into the [Tyrannorabbit] with enough force that she felt the thump of it in her chest from the impact. With her legs working slightly better, she tried another step, and fell backward away from the brawl.

  The fall was enough to clear the paralysis, and her magic once again felt under her control. As she rolled to her feet, Morgan saw wolves pouring out of the forest, and what had before been a beautiful dawn lit landscape devolved into snarls, howls, and rabbit-esque screams that cut short in sprays of blood and flying fur.

  She wasted no time making her break for the river. The tall grass was much harder to run through than the mossy dirt and leaves she’d grown used to padding across with her bare feet in the forest. A full sprint was practically impossible, stubs of grass and roots tearing her feet to a degree that would have been crippling without her [Pain Resistance] and [Naked Recovery].

/>   A wrenching, rage-filled howl that bent the grasses down in rippling waves as far as the eye could see had Morgan instantly rethinking that full sprint. She ignored the pain from her feet and leaned into a pulse of [Naked Acceleration] as the giant Alpha from before made its appearance. [Naked Instinct] spiked again as the bigger wolf ignored the other prey and homed in on her, almost keeping up with her accelerated rush. As Morgan broke free of the grassland onto the sandy bank of the river, her feet kicked up a rooster tail of sandy dirt sprays behind her. Approaching the water at a pace faster than most highway speed limits, she called upon [Spell Surge] to boost her acceleration skill even farther and burned almost half of her total Stamina at the same time to temporarily empower her body.

  Less than a step before the water’s edge, Morgan planted her feet at the lowest point in her stride, pulled Lulu from her shoulder to the middle of her chest, and with both her Mana and her Stamina aiding her efforts, she jumped.

  Between the force against the ground and her feet and legs, Morgan managed to launch herself up and across the river at a speed that was truly frightening, even as her mind was buffered by [Naked Acceleration]. The kick-off had crushed her ankles and knees, and even fractured her hips and pelvis, and the same force against the ground had excavated several tons of silty sand and mud. As she tumbled through the air, she watched the Alpha charge right through the spray, wreathed in enough of his own ambient power to repel the wave of dirt and the water of the river as he continued the pursuit.

  At the apex of her flight trajectory, as she levelled off and began to descend, Morgan released [Naked Acceleration], but not [Spell Surge], as she used the only form of manipulating the Air Element she’d so far managed. Already using her Stamina furiously to heal the damage from her jump, she curled herself into a ball and cradled a very loudly warbling and panicked Lulu. Empowered by [Spell Surge], she hardened the Air around them into a ball.

  She didn’t quite make the distance, hitting the water almost thirty feet shy of the far bank, but her improvised sphere of Air Mana worked. She bounced once off the water, skipping like a stone to plow into soft sand and leaving a shallow furrow excavated out of the earth. She also gained her very first Air spell:

  You have gained the spell [Wind Barrier]! What cannot hit you cannot hurt you! Increase the density of the air around you and shape a barrier as you desire! Expending more Mana increases the strength of your Barrier!

  Morgan dismissed the notification almost without a thought. She had no time to stop and play with the new spell, not with less than a quarter of her Mana left and her Stamina reduced to a similar amount. She sacrificed even more Stamina as she scrambled to her feet, preparing to resume her sprint for the cliffs. Expecting to face the pursuing Alpha, she turned, and could only stare in shock.

  The rest of the pack, including the remaining Alpha Female, had all stopped well short of the water. From the edge of the grassland, they stood witness to the same sight that now held Morgan transfixed. The giant alpha male that had been chasing her had made it across the water right behind her but was now in a fight for its life. Thing was the only word she could think of to describe the new monster now embattled with her pursuer barely a few dozen paces away from where she’d landed.

  The rest of the pack refused to come any closer to the water, and Morgan well understood why, if the monster she was now seeing had any relatives lurking below. She’d thought it was tentacles at first, but as she watched the battle play out, she realized it was more like a cluster of eels growing out where a larger eel would have had a head. The wolf and the thing thrashed in the shallows, deep, rumbling snarls and slimy sounding hisses roiling against Morgan’s eardrums. The great wolf’s flanks were shredded and bleeding, and it was now missing an eye, but it was giving even better than it had got.

  She stood there watching, almost in a trance, letting [Naked Recovery] heal her fractured bones and restore her much depleted Mana. She could feel Mana being used in the fight as well as see the effects. The eel-hydra seemed to be made from electric eels, as several of its heads latched onto the wolf’s forelegs and sides, and green lightning arced around them. It was only temporarily effective, though, as the mighty wolf had managed to sink his jaws into the clump where all the necks grew out from the main body. With an almost contemptuous snarl, the wolf dug in with its hindquarters and viciously jerked its head from side to side as it worked the massive eel monster farther out of the water.

  With its biggest advantage negated, the thing tried to escape, thrashing in the mud in an attempt to retreat to the safety of the water, but the enraged Alpha was having none of that. With all four feet on solid ground, it danced around the weakening strikes, tearing at one neck after the other. When the last of its heads finally came free, the main body thrashed a few more times before going still. The giant wolf, wheezing and exhausted, gave it one final, vicious shake with its jaws before dropping it. The victor stood with his front paws on his defeated foe and gave one last victorious howl to the sky.

  Just in time for Morgan’s [Spell Surge] amplified [Flame Bolt] to blast its head from its shoulders in a singularly impressive display of burning brains, bones, and teeth. And then several surprising things happened almost all at once.

  You have defeated [Lesser Direwolf Alpha (Lvl - 14)]

  For earning your victory while [Naked] and [Unequipped], experience gain doubled.

  +5300 experience gained.

  Morgan stared in shock at the notification. “Lesser!? ”

  Lulu made strange purbling noises from her shoulder and suddenly began glowing, startling Morgan back to attention as another notification popped up.

  Congratulations! Lulu has reached Level 2!

  Followed by another:

  Congratulations! Lulu has reached Level 3!

  And then another:

  DING!

  You have reached Level 10! Health and Status partially restored!

  For reaching this milestone while [Naked] and [Unequipped], rewarded points doubled.

  10 distributable Stat Points awarded.

  10 Skill Points awarded.

  Class Selection Unlocked!

  Initialize Class Selection for one-time review before choosing. After reviewing available classes, you may choose your class, or choose to Delay Class Selection to allow new possible class options later. WARNING! Levelling capped at Level 10 until a Class has been Chosen!

  Initialize Class Selection now? [Yes/No]

  Morgan had but a moment to parse this new influx of data, however. With the death of the [Lesser Direwolf Alpha], the howling and yipping rest of the pack had fallen silent on the other side of the river. Every previous feeling of fear and panic spurred on by her [Naked Instinct] suddenly faded to a pale memory, as without even thinking, she instinctively crouched low in the sand clutching Lulu and activated [Naked Camouflage]. She’d almost forgotten she had the skill, and it was no comfort before this dread pressure now squeezing the very light out of the day.

  A low, roiling mist had begun to slowly creep out of the trees, and it flowed across the ground and the rest of the wolfpack. The mist curled almost lovingly around the pack members before thickening and rising higher. It came to the very edge of the now calm waters and stopped there, as the morning sunlight seemed to fade back to the dim pre-dawn night. The mists gently roiled higher until they obscured the trees of the distant forest edge, and then receded like a slow sigh finally released.

  The pack of wolves was now simply gone. In their place on the other side of the river and looking directly at Morgan was an utterly massive wolf, easily twice the size of the [Lesser Direwolf Alpha]. It made no sound and did not blink, and though its fur rippled as if there were a breeze, there was no wind. She stared back at it, entranced by the glow of its ancient amber eyes. And she had no doubt, this wolf was old. Its fur was a yellowed gray, with white on its muzzle and ears. She could suddenly hear its slow growling breath, even from hundreds of yards away, and as it kept its eyes locked on
hers, yet another notification slammed into her mind:

  The Ancient Direwolf Packmother has Marked you as Enemy of The Pack! Cross their territory at your peril! The Moonlit Hunt is Unending!

  She could feel something hit her along with the notification, something that rattled her entire body and knocked her out of [Naked Camouflage]. A whisper of Mana of a type she couldn’t touch brushed across her bones, leaving traces that faded a heartbeat later. Any delusions of being hidden fled her mind, and Morgan stood up with resignation. If this wolf wanted to cross the river, it would, and Morgan knew she couldn’t outrun this one. Her only salvation was the fact that she seemed to have made it outside the territory of the pack. This ancient being not only respected the oldest rules; for all Morgan knew, the thing had written them.

  The Packmother raised her head to the sky, and what came forth couldn’t simply be called a howl. It was grief made manifest, a resonating sorrow that caused the land and waters to vibrate, kicking up dirt and river spray. It was a memory of a time older than ancient, when mankind feared the dark and worshiped the life-giving fire, and the only safety to be found in the world was within the light of those embers. It made Morgan want to rip her own heart out of her chest in mourning, and at the same time she wanted to dance for triumph and sheer joy of survival.

  The piercing cry carried on and on, and brought tears to her eyes as it faded. She felt like she’d lost something important as the sound faded away, but gained a new understanding, as well. As she blinked the tears away, the daylight returned between one moment and the next, and the Packmother was gone.

  Sobbing for multiple reasons, Morgan fell to her knees as [Naked Instinct] finally faded and the adrenaline shock hit her. Relief at no longer being hunted warred with a guilt she didn’t understand over killing the Lesser Alpha. She knew it would have killed her, but that didn’t make her proud of it. It only meant she was the one who had survived. And so she sat and cried, while Lulu made comforting purrs.