3. The Final Fox

Feria had the keenest eyes and tracked the attacker into the dark forest. Darus had the swiftest feet. Following her directions, he tried to trap the Smasher with stone walls and rolling boulders, or with the trusted technique of a well-aimed bite.

He did not catch anything.

“You still see it?” he yelled.

“Faintly,” Feria admitted. “Only when it moves, it leaves this yellow trail.”

She climbed higher into a tree. A large family of Gosti cried out and stumbled away from her, some even leaping to a different tree with complete disregard for their safety. Only a few of them stayed, and that was because they played dead.

“Did you see anything?” Feria asked the Gosti. “You must have. You’re in the trees all the time. And your eyes are huge.”

They slowly shook their head. Why were they scared? Did they still fear punishment for their role in making the dinosaurs go extinct?

She was losing the Smasher.

Ardex had arrived and set the scene on fire. The night light gave Darus a direction to go, but the wolf still stumbled blindly into potential danger. He bit in every direction and wagged his tail fast enough to create a shield at his back.

“Where are you?” he bellowed. “Show yourself!”

The Megarioth staggered, cried again, then started its descent. As if the body had just … shut off. A giant creature that seemed felled by an invisible mosquito.

Ardex and Feria had to move out of range. Feria followed a few Gosti to another tree, while the God of Death joined Darus.

The Megarioth closed his eyes a final time. He flattened several trees and unlucky animals that couldn’t escape his looming form. The ground sloth was no more. His claws jutted out of the dirt like a garden of knives, his tail a new hill.

Then Feria spotted it. He had a hole in his body. The Smasher had not just run into him, it had actually cut through him. This was insane. Unthinkable.

“Darus!” she yelled. “Fall back! It’s too dangerous!”

Too late. Darus howled in pain.

Feria shot from the treetops and landed besides Ardex. In the distance, several more trees suddenly bend in half, as if folded in two by the hands of a giant. That was the last Feria saw of the weird, semi-glowing form she assumed was the Smasher.

Darus’ body had no holes. But he was stuck underneath a giant stone. The Smasher had broken it off of a nearby mountain and made it land on the wolf. His fur had quickly turned from brown to gray, his eyes dull.

Oh no. No, no, no. That was the same look he had when he was a statue for years.

“Say, I am fine,” Darus said, trying to sound playful. “No don’t hurry to save me, just stand there looking shocked, it’s all fine.”

Feria gently touched his fur and kissed her brother on the cheek. Even so, they could not move that boulder.

They would normally ask Darus to do it, but he could not access that magic now. His power had been a bit all or nothing before, admittedly, but after being disconnected from energy that long he seemed afraid to really use it. To spend the energy on it.

The slightest obstacle made Darus lose touch with his magic, and it saddened Feria more than she could say. Her buddy. Her endless well of wolf optimism, now run dry. She hadn’t realized how much she depended on him specifically until she couldn’t anymore.

Ardex’ fires made a ring around Darus, as he strained to unpin his brother. Darus was groaning in pain, his leg squashed by the heavy stone. Just a paw’s length of movement would be enough to set him free, but the saber-toothed tiger could not do it.

Alix climbed over the Megarioth and entered the circle. With every step, he seemed to think about stopping altogether and just sitting down.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. No, Ardex, you’re not moving that boulder any time soon.”

“Who are you,” Ardex spoke through clenched teeth, “and how dare you speak to gods like that?”

“It’s fascinating.” Alix eagerly ran to him to explain. “I’ve studied this for years and found the answer.”

“Go back to your family,” Ardex roared, “and keep your clever answers to yourself.”

Alix stopped tapping. His tail fell flat.

“I lost my family,” he mumbled. “And my mother got rid of me. By now, she has probably been taken by the Smasher too.”

He sniffed, then hit his own forehead repeatedly.

“I could have saved them. If my brain was working.”

In these times, dear reader, groups and families were still uncommon. The Giant Foxes were one of the first to live like that, but even their groups had only a handful of beings. By studying them, Feria had noticed one single truth: you’re not supposed to lose them or be kicked out. That meant certain death for a social animal.

Alix turned around and shuffled away.

“I guess nobody wants me.”

“That’s right as fire,” Ardex said with a grunt.

Feria glared and kicked her brother. She chased Alix, but when he wanted to, that clever fox could be very quick to disappear.

“He won’t survive the night,” Feria said. “You know that.”

“And we can’t play favorites. If he has no claws to defend himself, if he has no dangerous tail or teeth, then he isn’t a strong addition to life anyway. Nature will take care of it. Some carnivore will take care of it.”

Feria flared red. “You disgust me.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Say, sure, forget about me,” Darus said again, sounding less cheerful than before. “Not like I can feel my legs or tail or anything.”

“The thing doesn’t move,” said Ardex, giving a final push.

“And that’s why we needed Alix!” cried Feria. “He … he might be the last one of their species.”

She focused her vision to see the Enyrgias around them. Oblong creatures that represented energy. They showed energy stored in objects, where it was moving, and what forces acted on it.

Ardex was swarmed by them. He put a lot of energy into every push of the boulder, but it still didn’t move. All the Enyrgia he used … just jumped onto the stone and spread themselves across the surface, all equally far from each other. Compared to a giant stone, the number of Enyrgias suddenly felt very tiny. Only one of them for every paw’s breadth of stone.

Of course that wasn’t enough to move the stone.

She felt close to a realization; she was sure Alix could have just told them.

“I’m going after him,” Feria said. “We can’t let such a brilliant animal, even smarter than Gosti, go extinct.”

“Don’t leave me,” Darus yelled. It was the cry of a baby, desperate and pleading.

Feria froze. Ardex tried to comfort his brother, still pinned below layers of stone.

“Haul Bella off of her throne,” said Feria. “We need everyone for this. I don’t care how scared she is.”

“What was it you said again, little sister? We must be more kind to our family? You have an odd way of—”

Feria was already gone. She tracked Alix into the night at a dangerous speed.