Pushing through the brambles and underbrush is annoying enough, but I also have to constantly keep the wounds I''ve covered with gauze from being caught on the multitude of branches and twigs that seem determined to catch the stretchy material. Behind me, Cassandra has maintained almost complete silence, allowing me to lead without interruptions. She nods when I gaze back at her intermittently to ensure she''s having no trouble. By the time we''ve pushed through, most of the gauze has wound up left behind on some briar or branch, where I just chose to give up on keeping it wrapped.


    "Finally." I pant as we find the traveler''s path again. "Now, to find the others. They''re probably this way. If we don''t hit them in half an hour, we''ll come back and try the opposite way."


    "Okay."


    I turn my head to look at Cassandra, momentarily forgetting that it''s more unusual for her to be chatty. So when I look at her for a period, she gives me a slightly hardened yet questioning glance.


    "What, Orion?"


    "Everything okay?"


    "That depends on your definition of ''okay,'' now, doesn''t it?"


    "Yeah, alright."


    I shake my head and then slowly start to jog ahead, wanting to find out as quickly as possible why Kline and company didn''t bother to help out their two people and why we wound up having to fight for our lives alone because we stuck to the plan. Ignoring the stinging of my open scratches and wounds, I concentrate instead on making sure the sounds of us jogging are the only out-of-place ones in our vicinity.


    I reflect on the night so far while weaving along the path with its brambles and bushes ominously looming on either side. A large part of me is thankful that Cassandra chose to come with me into the Wilds tonight. I''ve heard many tales of people who left the traveler''s path at night and were never heard from again. Truthfully, I believe I would have been one of them tonight. If the night terrors hadn''t overwhelmed me, the basiliscu would have ended my life in a pretty gruesome way had I stumbled on them alone. After years of going on little hunting trips for my village, I thought I was a pretty good hunter, but now I know I''m still an amateur at best. There''s so much that I don''t know how to recognize until it''s seemingly too late–look at how I "discovered" the pair of basiliscu; I simply stumbled over them like a fucking moron.


    Familiar snarling and growling at a close distance shake me out of my period of reflection, but I don''t change our jogging pace. Instead, we move closer to the noise, my hand reaching up towards my bow and resting on it as we turn the next winding curve of the traveler''s path. Ducking below a partially fallen tree, I finally observe what is making all the noise: our party''s assorted saddled wiretails. The other tracking party duo is present, trying to calm down the six saddled wiretails, but they are quite worked up, and even from this distance, I can see their long tails quivering, with the razor-sharp quills lining their tails primed and only moments from being used on whatever they''re focused on in the campsite.


    I clear my throat loudly as we start to draw closer; I don''t want to become an accidental mauling statistic because we stupidly snuck up on agitated wiretails. The cats turn at the noise and growl, but because I gave enough space and warning with my loud noise, the two Blackham can get the wiretails pulled back into some degree of containment. With Cassandra following me, I carefully move around the group of wiretails and into the temporary camp. My eyes carefully take in the sight before me: Khalil is crouched next to a wiretail caught and bound in some kind of supernatural netting that has shrunk precisely to the size needed to fully constrict the big cat.


    Sure enough, it''s the bull-sized cat that hunted Khalil and me back to our trader wagon those couple of weeks ago. Seeing it brought down and groggy, captured by netting that the Blackham used to perfection, makes me a little uncomfortable. Upon seeing Cassandra and I enter the camp, Khalil stands up and exclaims.


    "Ori! Dude! Where have you two been? Holy shit, I was worried!"


    "The fuck do you mean ''where have you two been''? What happened to bringing the calvary when someone popped a pixies'' spark?" While speaking, my anger spikes, and I don''t resist it.


    "What are you talking about? No one used a pixies'' spark that we saw."


    Kline makes his way towards us from just up the road, picking up his pace when he sees me and Cassandra standing there. I''m still too mad to be done bitching at Khalil, so for now, I ignore Kline''s movement in our direction.


    "Well, the other two people in our little tracking expedition would fucking disagree with you, Khalil. They''d very much disagree if they could, but as it turns out, they''re dead and torn into about fifty different pieces. We almost joined them too when we went to their pixies'' spark, found no cavalry, and were completely alone."


    "What the fuck?!" Khalil spits his next question at Kline as he draws into conversational range, "How did we not see a pixies'' spark? My guy almost died; look at his arms and face!"


    Before I can turn my wrath onto Kline, Cassandra blurs past me, and Kline winds up on his back about five feet from where he was previously standing. Cassandra bares fangs down at him, her rapid change of demeanor startling me yet again. Her seafoam eyes, usually so curious and at times calculating, are wide and full of towering rage. On his back and pinned underneath Cassandra, Kline does pretty much the only thing he can do: hold up his hands in her direction, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.


    "Cassandra, what is–what''s wrong?"


    I stalk in their direction since it''s only a few feet away. I loom over the both of them, staring angrily down at Kline.


    "You want to know what''s wrong, Corporal? I''ll answer for both of us. You said you''d send the calvary if someone needed help. What do we find when we finally get back here? You''re all dicking around and haven''t even moved one foot to come and help your people–or us when we stuck to the plan and tried to get there to help them."


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I–it''s not like that–we didn''t see the spark! I swear to it. Khalil, tell your friend."


    "I don''t like agreeing with this asshole, but he''s right, we didn''t see anything in the sky."


    "I''m sure it has nothing to do with the partially tranquilized and netted wiretail sitting ten feet from here, huh?"


    Kline tries to shift his weight, incorrectly guessing that Cassandra will let him up and off his back because I''m talking to him. As soon as he starts to move, she uses her hands and slams him back into the packed dirt of the traveler''s path. A low growl escapes her lips, which I haven''t heard before, and sounds full of genuine menace. It reminds me that I still don''t know the first thing about Cassandra and have been pretending otherwise.


    "Okay, okay. Look: it''s possible that while we were trying to wrangle the wiretail that those two lured back, we missed the pixies'' spark hitting the sky. I''m not saying that''s what happened, and I''m not making excuses, but I''m just saying it''s possible that happened. Please, let me up."


    Kline''s voice wavers from his usual pretentious and overconfident manner, and when he asks to be let off the ground, that same voice is small and weak. Cassandra leans forward and snarls openly in Kline''s face, her fangs completely lengthened and almost portentous. I only then notice that her fingers are ragged talons, too. She indeed was–maybe still is–thinking about killing him and not just scaring him. I don''t speak up, letting Cassandra decide on her own if she''s going to murder him right then and there or if she''s going to give him a pass based on what he just said. Khalil looks between us, taking his cue from me and staying completely quiet.


    After staring directly into Kline''s face for at least a minute, Cassandra shoves his chest once more and gets up to her feet. She turns as soon as she''s up and stalks away towards her wiretail. The two Blackham left from the tracking expedition step aside to give Cassandra plenty of space. The big cat even calms as she draws near, perhaps recognizing a dangerous predator that shouldn''t be bothered more than she already is. Without another word, Cassandra mounts the wiretail, turns it around with her reins, and then takes off on its back.


    I watch the wiretail rapidly disappear behind the next bend of the traveler''s path, ignoring Kline''s muttering as he gets off the ground.


    "Hell. Dude, what–what happened?"


    I gaze over at Khalil, stepping back to allow Kline to get up. My fury and leftover adrenaline are finally starting to ebb away, leaving me feeling tired and lethargic.


    "Night terrors took the tracker and his friend out; when we got to the boggy area where the two who''re dead set off their pixies'' spark, we beat the creatures back, but then ran into a pair of basiliscu as we tried to get out of the swamp."


    "Oh man, wow, you saw basiliscu…"


    "Yeah. Far too up close and personal. Zero out of ten experience, would not recommend."


    Unsurprisingly, my attempt at humor is lifeless and flat. I leave it at that and move away from Kline and over towards the captured and groggy wiretail. For some reason, when I regard his form once again, it causes me to smile. The black and brown head of the wiretail is massive, and who can deny that these are truly remarkable beasts? They are so perfectly adapted to the Wilds with their natural camouflage and powerful, bull-sized bodies. I crouch down next to the great cat just behind his back in the event he starts to become unsedated so that I''ll have time to move. I touch his coarse, sandy brown fur through one of the holes of the net that is keeping the beast from moving, then gaze at Khalil.


    "What did he tell you?" I murmur now, sedately.


    "Well, first off, he''s drugged up, so he''s kind of difficult to understand, but from what I gathered, they were out here doing something–obviously, the fella here doesn''t know what his rider was actually doing–and the rider left on foot but never returned. When he didn''t return, Mister Cat here decided to do wiretail things. The day that he tracked us for food was about four or five days after his rider went missing, and he''d gotten to the point where hunger overruled his training not to attack us fey."


    "So we missed the event by a pretty slim margin."


    "Yeah, that''s what it sounds like."


    "So is he, like, docile or what?"


    "Don''t know that I''d call him docile, but it''s kinda their show now, you know what I mean?" Khalil nods his head at Kline, who is beside us.


    I turn my head to look at Kline, who is having trouble shaking off the fear he experienced just minutes before from Cassandra. When he doesn''t take my hint, I mutter at him.


    "Well? What''s the plan for this wiretail now?"


    Kline hesitates before responding mutedly, almost as if he''s gunshy. Cassandra did put an actual streak of fear into him.


    "We''re supposed to bring it back to Blackham City."


    "And how do you plan on doing that? You''re down two people, so you already have two extra wiretails to bring with you, and I suspect when this guy gets back up and isn''t tranquilized, or whatever you guys did to him, he''s not going to be real thrilled about the prospect of giving up his freedom in the Wilds a third time."


    "A third time?"


    "Yeah, I assumed you guys caught him once, trained him or whatever you do, and then he accidentally got set free this time."


    "That''s a lot of assumptions for someone who doesn''t know how our tribe works, Orion."


    The pretentious tone seeps back into Kline''s voice, and I don''t care for it. I glare daggers at him. He''s the first to break eye contact, clearing his throat and gazing at the captured wiretail.


    "I suppose you''re right, though. With the current situation, it would be difficult to get it back to the city."


    "What''s that supposed to mean, Kline?" My growing annoyance starts to bubble up in the tone of my words.


    "We''ll just put it down. No need to let it roam and potentially see more of our kind as food to be hunted."


    "What do you mean ''put him down''? Wait, you mean just kill him? What? If you''re going to do something like that, we should just let him out into the Wilds here. They''re from the Wilds, and he''ll be fine."


    "You and Khalil already encountered it hunting you once; what makes you think it won''t continue to see fey as prey?"


    I turn to look at Khalil, who seems highly uncomfortable with the turn the discussion has taken. I know his heart for animals of the Wilds, and he knows mine. He nods at me, and I nod in return, turning my now-hardened gaze back at Kline.


    "Fuck you, man. You won''t kill this wiretail because he''s ''too much of a hassle'' to return to your city. You''ll teach Khalil and me how to control him and the command words he was trained to obey."


    Kline blurts out a laugh, apparently not so cowed any longer.


    "Yeah, no, that is just not going to happen." Kline laughs again and adds with a murmur. "Stupid fucking Wilder."


    I draw my bow out from across my shoulder and nock an arrow in a smooth gesture. With the arrow drawn back and only a few feet of distance between me and Kline, he knows just by the shocked look on his face that if I choose to loose right now, it very much would likely mean the end of his life.