Zhurrem’s body ripples and settles, paws digging into the frozen marsh. He is all black wolf now, huge as a siege beast, shoulders high above the reeds.
Zhurrem
Up. Ride me. We move faster in this shape.
Kamakulzar hauls himself onto the broad back. Static prickles under his palms, and the marsh starts to blur again beneath them.
Kamakulzar
The pulse in my mark is still matching the ground.
Ahead, the ice-dark channel stays still, but the heat under Kamakulzar’s skin answers it with each stride. The hidden thing below is not losing them, it is finding them.
Zhurrem
It knows your trail now. Hold tight, and let me outrun it.
Zhurrem drives onward, hard and low, trying to shake the marsh’s attention. The bone-mark flares hotter, like a lantern for something buried deep in the mud.
“I hold on firmly”
SUCCESS (Great Health, rolled +1)
Kamakulzar locks both arms and settles lower against Zhurrem’s shoulders, his grip firm as the wolf drives harder through the frozen channel.
The rush steadies him, but the glow under his skin grows hungrier, pulsing in time with the pounding of Zhurrem’s stride.
Zhurrem
You hold. Good. But your mark is pulling at something older than tracks.
Ahead, the black ice lies still and glassy, yet the air shivers as if something buried is listening through the marsh.
Kamakulzar
The pulse is stronger when we run.
Zhurrem
Slow if you must. Speed feeds its hunger.
Zhurrem keeps charging, but his ears pin back toward the dark water beneath the ice, where the hidden pressure gathers and waits.