Another red-furred wolf stared down at them. This one seemed to be roughly the same size than the first one height-wise, if not a little smaller. However, this one was gaunt to the point of body horror, in a way that made its fur seem to hang off its skeleton, as if the thing had no muscle or fat to fill it in.

  But that wasn't the only sign of unhealth its appearance offered. Its fur, though also clearly red, was considerably more drab than the first wolf's, as if someone had sprinkled it with ash. And its eyes, which were sunken on its wrinkled face, almost buried by its own hanging brow, were the worst part of it all; two orbs of vanta black darkness with two spots of sickly green light acting as the pupils.

  It was that last feature that told Kurt he was dealing with an undead, even when the beast was too far for any screen to manifest above its head.

  Nobody dared to move or speak, neither the group nor the undead wolf, and the four of them fell in a tense staredown that no one seemed ready to break. Kurt's eyes went to his sword, which was lying on the asphalt, too far for him to reach without abandoning his current spot.

  His eyes went then to Conrad, who took notice of it and matched his gaze, and they had a silent conversation. Kurt gestured with his head at his sword, and then at Conrad. The older swordsman grimmaced, and gestured very mildly at his hip, where he ususally strapped his sword, and then at the over turned car.

  Gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes shut, Kurt nodded, and returned his attention at the undead thing that was staring down at them, as unmoving and inexpressive as a statue. After a moment of internal deliberation, Kurt placed the alfa wolf's head, which he was still cradling, down on the road, as gently as possible, and began making his way to his sword as slowly and smoothly as he could, knowing from personal experience just how randomly the undead could be triggered.

  The living wolf, however, knew nothing of the undead, or their current predicament, and much less about Kurt's plan. All he knew was that he was in terrible pain, and that he had lost the mild reassurance that his embrace had brought him. So, of course, the poor thing whimpered, and thrashed as much as he could in his current state, which wasn't much more than some mild shaking of his legs and tail.

  Not much, but more than enough to alert the undead wolf.

  The creature's ears rose, and from its jaws came a sound that could be described as equal parts growling and gargling. And then green light shone from within its chest, extending like lightning throughout its entire frame, energizing every withered muscle with the stuff of unlife. It was an horifying display, especially know that Kurt could actually feel that necrotic magic to an extent, thanks to his still infant aetheric sense. But it also gave away the beast's next move, which let Kurt better plan his own.

  The undead beast pounced, its attention clearly on the dying wolf, and Kurt conjured his wand, and pointed it upwards, so that when the undead's leap put it in front of it, Kurt only had to cast the spell. A quick flex of his will, a pouring of aether on the air around him, and Kurt cast his sixth wind evocation of the day, a Jet Bullet that flew off as soon as it had formed, and that hit the beast midair, colliding against its side in a blast of pressurized air. Suddenly, the undead wasn't flying forwards, but sideways, and when it finally landed on the road, it did so on its side, and with a sickening crunch that could only have been its ribs.

  Kurt glanzed at the thing, and this time he did see a screen over its head.

  Beta Direwolf (Thrall)

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  LV: 29

  Kurt was so fixated on reading the text, so shocked at what the 'thrall' in its title implied, that he didn't notice the blue light behind his head. At least not until its source darted right besides him, carrying a very familiar silver sword.

  Conrad closed the distance with the thrall in an instant, long before the thing could so much as put its feet below it, and put all the momentum of his blindingly fast charge behind his sword, plunging the entirety of the mithril blade on the creature's still glowing chest, where the core of necrotic magic that animated it resided, something that both Conrad and him knew very well.

  Low level undead, which were made hastily and most of the time sloppily, always had a 'core' of sorts where most of their undead essence congregated, and this core tended to occupy a spot within what had been the creature's gut or chest when it had been alive, since that was where most of the life force that went to feed the necrotic magic was.

  So, when Conrad rammed an entire sword's worth of mithril straight through that core, it was pretty much over. Kurt saw the familiar spectacle of white and pale green lights thta came with the unraveling of necrotic magic, and the black fumes that were rising from the wound in greasy gouts. He also saw how the creature's body deflated, as the last dregs of vitality, no matter how noxious or unnatural, left it, leaving behind a corpse that was practically mummified.

  Conrad yanked the sword from the beast's remains, causing a grey sand to bled out the wound. What in God's name that substance was supposed to be, Kurt didn't know or want to know. Without a word, the blond swordsman tossed him the sword, which Kurt easily caught on the fly, and waved his hand at him in recognizion, all without taking his eyed of the corpse.

  "What the fuck happened here?" Conrad finally said, gesturing at everything around him. "Seriously, what in the fuck was all this about?!"

  Kurt didn't answer, both because he didn't know if Conrad was actually questioning him, as opposed to simply wondering (very) aloud, and because he had no idea of how to answer him if it was the former.

  Luckily, Mila took that matter out of his hands.

  "Guys," she exclaimed, drawing both their attention to her, and to the dying beast whose head she was now cradling. "This guy is on his last legs." She turned to Kurt. "It's not an enemy, right? You wouldn't have been hugging it if it were. We have to use the amber on it!"

  "The amber?" Kurt asked, only for his brain to catch up to his mouth a moment later. "Yes! The amber. Got it."

  He closed the distance between the wolf and himself, and procured the Wyldfae's Amber out his inventory. The golden sphere the size of a golf ball materialized on his hand, and Kurt immediately felt the skin of it thrum in unison with the energy it emitted.

  He prepared to bring the thing down on the wolf's neck wound, which had very worringly stopped bleeding all of a sudden, when another flash of blue came from behind him, and he felt someone grab his wrist.

  "Woah there!" Conrad exclaimed, pulling Kurt back. "Let's think this stuff through first, okay?"

  "Think first?" Kurt repeated, his tone dripping with disbelief, before he sharply gestured at the wounded, agonizing animal that they both had at their feet. "What the hell is there to think through?! He's gonna die, you jackass!"

  "I know that," Conrad said, clearly doing his best not to quip back at Kurt. "And what is killing it again? Hmm?"

  Kurt gestured sharply at the wolf's neck. "The wound on his..." He trailed off as his mind put together the meaning of Conrad's answer. His eyes wwent to the wounded animal at his feet, specifically to the black bulging veins that were covering half his head, which seemed to be pulsating now. Then, he turned to the dissecated corpse that had once bee a wolf. Finally, he said, "The necrotic magic is killing him."

  And as he said those words, he realized how obvious it was, at least for someone that wasn't shifting from one strong emotion to the other every two minutes like he had been. Necrotic magic, the stuff of undeath, and the corruption of life. Not only could it reanimate the dead, but it could also feed on the living, cannibalizing the light of their lifes, hollowing out and turning it into more of itself, just like a virus.

  A virus that the thrall had inoculated into the beast at his feet via fangs to his neck.

  "It could still work," Kurt said, gripping the amber. "Consuming the amber, it connects a crreature's life force with the planet's. Such a surplus of Od could purge the necrotic magic off his body."

  "Yeah, or the opposite could happen," Conrad sneered. "With how much of his body that energy has infected, there are just as many chances of the darkness swallowing the light as there are of the light cleansing the darkness. And what happens if we give it the amber and all that surplus of life force his consumed by the necrotic magic? An undead an order of magnitude above that wight we just killed. It's too risky, dude." His face grew a bit softer as his eyes went to the dying beast, and he placed the hand he hand on Kurt's wrist on the boy's shoulder. "I'm sorry, but we can't do anything for it."