SSS Rank: Strongest Beast Master-Chapter 263: Wolves in the Winter

Seraph pulled the sled harder. The rope cut into her good shoulder, the one that wasn't attached to a broken arm. Behind her, Draven's unconscious body slid through mud and dead leaves, leaving a trail a blind man could follow.

Which was a problem, considering the people hunting them weren't blind at all.

Ahead of her, Kaine stumbled. The gag in his mouth muffled whatever complaint he was trying to make.

Almost.

"Move faster," Seraph said. Her voice came out hoarse. When had she last had water? Six hours ago? Eight?

Kaine mumbled something through the gag. She ignored him.

WHIRR.

That sound. That mechanical whine that meant drones were close. Searching.

Seraph looked up through the trees. Lights covered the forest canopy, thermal scanners looking for body heat.

She dropped the rope and grabbed Kaine by the collar, shoving him toward a dense cluster of undergrowth. "In there. Don't move. Don't breathe loud."

He went, surprisingly obedient.

Seraph went back to Draven. The bandages on his leg had bled through hours ago, and she'd run out of clean ones.

"Hey." She shook him. Gentle at first. Then harder when he didn't respond. "Draven. Wake up."

Nothing.

The drone sounds were getting closer.

She couldn't hide him. The sled left tracks too obvious to miss, and his body heat would light up their scanners. They needed to disappear completely.

She could hear it fifty yards downslope. Fast-moving water, probably freezing cold this time of year. Cold enough to mask their thermal signatures.

Cold enough to kill them if they stayed in too long.

"Well," she muttered, grabbing the rope again, "it's not like we have better options."

She pulled. Her muscles screamed. Her broken arm throbbed in time with her heartbeat. The sled carved a trench through the undergrowth, and she prayed to whatever gods were listening that the rain would wash away their tracks.

The river was worse than she'd imagined. Not a gentle stream but a torrent of black water churning over rocks, violent and hungry.

"Kaine!" she hissed. "Get down here!"

He came down from the undergrowth, eyes wide when he saw the water. He shook his head violently, making desperate sounds through the gag.

"Yeah, I know. It's a terrible plan. We're doing it anyway." She grabbed him by the arm, dragged him to the river's edge. "In. Now."

She didn't wait for agreement. Just shoved him.

SPLASH.

He went under, came up sputtering and choking around the gag. The current caught him, started pulling him downstream. Seraph grabbed his collar before he got too far, anchored him to a half-submerged log.

Then she turned to Draven.

Getting an unconscious, two-hundred-pound man into freezing water while having one working arm was exactly as difficult as it sounded. She pulled. She pushed. She used leverage and desperation and probably tore something in her shoulder that would hurt like hell later.

If there was a later.

SPLASH.

Draven hit the water and didn't wake up. The cold should have shocked him conscious, but nothing. He just floated there, face barely above the surface.

Seraph got behind him, hooked her good arm under his chin, and held his head up. Her feet found purchase on the rocky riverbed. Barely. The current wanted to pull her away, wanted to drag all three of them downstream into the dark.

She held on.

Above them, the drone sounds got closer. Lights swept the forest.

Seraph forced herself under the water. Pulled Draven down with her. Grabbed Kaine and yanked him under too.

The lights passed overhead. She could see them through the rippling water, bright beams cutting through the rain.

Her chest started burning. She couldn't hold her breath much longer.

The lights moved on.

She burst to the surface, gasping. Pulled Draven up. His face was blue. Not breathing.

"No no no." She positioned him against the log, tilted his head back, and breathed air into his lungs. Once. Twice.

He coughed. Vomited water. Started breathing again in shallow, pained gasps.

"Stay with me," she said. "Don't you dare quit now."

His eyes opened. Barely. "Cold."

"I know."

"Can't feel my leg."

"That's probably a blessing."

He tried to laugh. It came out as more of a wheeze. "Should leave me."

"Not happening."

"Seraph..."

"I said no.We don't trade lives. Not yours. Not anyone's."

The drone sounds faded. Moving away. Searching somewhere else.

Seraph counted to three hundred. Five full minutes. Then she hauled everyone out of the water and back onto the muddy bank.

They were all shaking. Hypothermia was coming. Maybe already here. Her fingers didn't want to work right.

But they were alive. Still alive.

She pulled Draven back onto the sled. He was conscious now, at least. Aware enough to groan when the movement jostled his shattered leg.

"How bad?" he asked through chattering teeth.

"Bad. But not dead bad." She checked his bandages. Soaked through. Useless. She had nothing to replace them with.

They needed shelter. Medicine. Food. Water. All the things they didn't have and couldn't get.

Kaine was laughing.

"What's so funny?" Seraph asked.

He spat out the gag she'd loosened, still laughing. "You're both going to die out here. In the mud. Like animals. And for what? You sent the codes. Your mission is done. You could surrender. Get medical treatment. Live."

"Under Sterling's rule?"

"It's better than this."

Seraph looked at him. Really looked. And realized something. He believed it. Actually believed that life under Sterling's boot was better than dying free.

That made her sad more than angry.

"No," she said simply. "It's not."

She gagged him again. Tighter this time.

They needed to move. The drones would come back. Sterling's people wouldn't stop searching. And sitting in one place meant dying in one place.

Seraph had ammunition left. Three bullets. That was it. Three chances to get lucky.

She looked at Draven's broken armor. Pieces of it had fallen off during the crash. One chunk was particularly large, about the size of her palm.

A terrible idea formed .

"Draven," she said. "I need a piece of your armor."

"Take whatever you want. Not like I'm using it."

She gathered the fragment. Found her last three bullets. Started building something in the mud with shaking hands.

"What are you doing?" Draven asked.

"Making them regret finding us."

It took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of working with frozen fingers, trying to remember the trap-making lessons from her early resistance days. Pressure plates. Tripwires. Nothing fancy. Just functional.

When she finished, she had something that might work. Might.

She positioned it along the trail they'd left. Obvious enough to follow. Subtle enough that someone moving fast wouldn't see it until too late.

Then she grabbed the rope and pulled. Moving them away from the trap. Away from the river. Deeper into the forest where the trees grew thick and the darkness felt like a blanket.

They'd gone maybe a hundred yards when she heard voices behind them.

"Got tracks here. Fresh. Moving east."

"How many?"

"Three. One being dragged. Probably the injured target."

"Move in. Command wants them alive if possible."

Seraph dropped the rope. Drew her knife. It was the only weapon she had left besides her fists and her stubbornness.

Draven was trying to sit up, one hand reaching for a sword he didn't have anymore.

"Stay down," she whispered.

"Not much choice."

The footsteps got closer. Four soldiers. Maybe five. Moving fast through the undergrowth.

They hit the trap.

FLASH. BANG.

The armor fragment exploded. Not big. Not enough to kill. But enough to blind. To disorient. To turn predators into prey for just a few seconds.

Seraph moved.

She'd never been the strongest fighter. Never the fastest. But she'd survived this long by being mean and practical and absolutely refusing to quit.

She hit the first soldier before he knew she was there. Knife between the armor plates. Twist. Pull out. Move to the next one.

The second soldier swung at her. She ducked under, came up with a rock she'd grabbed from the ground. Smashed it into his faceplate. Once. Twice. Until something cracked.

The third got his bearings, raised his weapon.

A massive hand grabbed his ankle.

Draven. Barely conscious. Unable to stand. But still fighting from the ground with rage.

He pulled. The soldier fell. Draven's hand found the man's helmet, twisted with the last of his strength.

CRACK.

Four soldiers. Only four. They'd thought that was enough.

Seraph stood in the rain, breathing hard, covered in mud and blood. Some of it hers. Most of it not.

Draven lay on the ground, hand still wrapped around the dead soldier's helmet. "We win?"

"For now."

Kaine was staring at them. His laughter had stopped. Now he just looked terrified.

Good. He should be terrified.

"Come on," Seraph said, going back to the rope. "We need to move before more show up."

"Where are we even going?"

"Away. That's the plan. Keep moving away until we can't anymore."

It wasn't much of a plan. But it was all they had.

So they moved through the freezing rain, through hostile forest, with no ammunition and no hope except the stubborn refusal to let Sterling win.

Sometimes that was enough.

Sometimes it had to be.