CHAPTER 73: THE STALKER IN THE STALKS (1)

The claw marks carved into the mushroom stalk seemed to pulse in the dim light, as if the wound itself were breathing. Apollo stared at the three parallel gouges, each deep enough to bury his hand to the wrist, and felt the whispers start again at the edges of his consciousness.

"We’re hunting it," Thorin declared, his voice cutting through the heavy silence. The dwarf’s glowing axe cast eerie blue shadows across his determined face as he ran a thumb along its edge. "Whatever made these marks, I’ll make twice as many in its hide."

Renna shook her head, crouching to examine the footprint more closely. "That would be suicide. Look at the depth of these cuts, the creature’s powerful enough to tear through these stalks like parchment." She traced the outline of the massive three-toed print. "And we don’t know its habits, its territory. Hunting something you don’t understand is the fastest way to become prey yourself."

"So what do you suggest?" Thorin challenged. "Cowering in fear while it decides which of us to eat first?"

Nik backed away from the marked stalk, his face unnaturally pale beneath the golden spores that dusted his skin. "I vote we run. Right now. As far and as fast as we can." His voice cracked slightly. "Preferably in the opposite direction of whatever left those marks."

"Running blindly through this maze would only exhaust us," Lyra said, her green eyes scanning the surrounding forest with the careful assessment of a hunter. "And likely lead us straight into its jaws." She adjusted her pack straps, decision already made. "We move forward, but with absolute silence and vigilance. No unnecessary noise, no separation."

Apollo swayed slightly as the whispers intensified, a chorus of unintelligible voices that seemed to rise from the golden spores floating around them.

Exhaustion from his sleepless night pressed down on him like a physical weight, making it difficult to focus on the debate unfolding before him. The gold in his veins stirred sluggishly, responding to some unseen presence that lingered just beyond perception.

’It’s already here,’ he thought, though he couldn’t have explained how he knew. ’It’s watching us right now.’

"Apollo?" Lyra’s voice cut through the fog in his mind. "Are you with us?"

He straightened, forcing his features into what he hoped was an alert expression. "Yes. Forward. Quietly." The words felt thick on his tongue, as if he were speaking underwater.

Lyra studied his face for a moment longer than necessary, her eyes narrowing slightly before she nodded. "I’ll take point. Thorin behind me, then Nik. Renna and Apollo at the rear. Keep your eyes open and your mouths shut."

They formed their tense procession, moving deeper into the mushroom forest with exaggerated care. Each footfall was placed deliberately, testing the ground before committing weight. Apollo focused on Renna’s back ahead of him, using it as an anchor against the whispers that continued to plague his exhausted mind.

The atmosphere grew heavier with each step, the air thickening until it seemed to resist their passage. Golden spores drifted more densely around them, catching in hair and eyelashes, clinging to skin with stubborn persistence.

Apollo’s lungs labored against the humid weight of it all, each breath a conscious effort that filled his mouth with the taste of earth and something sweeter, almost cloying.

The first sound was so faint that Apollo thought he’d imagined it, a soft exhalation, like wind through narrow passages. But when it came again, longer and more deliberate, he knew with bone-deep certainty that it was breathing.

Something large, something patient, drawing air through massive lungs somewhere in the labyrinth around them.

Renna froze suddenly, her hand raising in silent warning. The entire group halted as one, muscles tensing in shared alarm. For three heartbeats, nothing moved but the golden spores, swirling in eddies disturbed by their sudden stillness.

Then Apollo saw it, a massive shadow shifting between the stalks ahead, its outline blurred by distance and the forest’s perpetual twilight. Upright and impossibly tall, it moved with surprising grace for its size, visible for only a moment before it vanished behind the broad trunk of a mushroom.

"Seven hells," Nik whispered, the words barely audible even in the silence.

Thorin’s hand tightened around his axe handle, the weapon’s blue glow intensifying as if responding to his tension. The dwarf’s shoulders bunched beneath his pack, his stance widening in preparation for a confrontation that seemed increasingly inevitable.

They remained motionless for long minutes, straining to catch another glimpse of the creature, but the forest had fallen silent once more. Even the whispers in Apollo’s mind had retreated, leaving behind an absence that felt more ominous than their presence had been.

"Keep moving," Lyra finally murmured, her voice so low that Apollo felt rather than heard the words. "Slower now. And stay close."

They resumed their careful progress, the space between them shrinking until they moved almost as a single organism, connected by shared fear and the desperate need for proximity.

The path narrowed further, forcing them to brush against mushroom stalks that yielded slightly beneath the pressure, then sprang back with unsettling eagerness.

Apollo’s foot caught on something hidden beneath the golden spores. He looked down to find a broken stalk lying across the path, its flesh torn rather than cut, the wound so fresh that moisture still beaded along its edges. As he stepped over it, his gaze caught on the mushroom trunk to his right, three new claw marks scored its surface, the edges crisp and clean where the older ones had begun to heal.

’It’s circling us,’ he realized with sinking certainty, the gold in his veins pulsing with alarm. The creature wasn’t fleeing from them or merely observing from a distance. It was moving parallel to their path, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, maintaining a constant presence just beyond their direct sight.

Renna had noticed the fresh marks as well. She touched one gently, her fingers coming away damp with the mushroom’s strange sap. "These weren’t here when we passed earlier," she whispered, her expression grim as she met Apollo’s eyes. "It’s tracking us. Deliberately. Like prey."