The fat creature leaped out from under the scrub and paused, as if it had to catch its breath from the effort of moving. It looked like a cross between a toad and a gorse-pup, but it certainly didn’t smell as sweet as the pups! It had a number of loose octagonal scales or plates on its body, and it rolled its large, watery eyes towards Ingmar before the legs flexed and the creature leaped forward again. It completed another two hops with pauses before Ingmar was aware she’d started breathing again.

Whatever it was, it was almost certainly native to the Mirelands, Ingmar thought as she followed it in a slight daze, her heartbeats still thundering in her chest. She pushed a growth of bracken out of her way with the unlit makeshift torch and followed the toad creature, observing it. She realized this was only a diversion to keep her mind from facing the decision of making camp for the night, but she was thankful for it. Every pace she walked may cost her that much light in the sky, but it took her that much closer to the research team’s camp.

A cloud of leaf mould erupted into the air. Something grey and hairy had crashed through the undergrowth at the same time the toad jumped, colliding with it as the toad landed. Ingmar screamed involuntarily as she nearly fell backwards, her first thought just a primal urge to run. It took her a moment to even call the word ‘clairen’ to mind, but by that point the cub had already lost the advantage of surprise, and the toad now squirmed free and swivelled its watery eyes to track the bear’s every move.

She watched in amazement that gave way effortlessly to horror as the toad’s flesh, visible in the gaps between octagonal scales, flushed a dark, unpleasant violet. As fast as the clairen bear cup had pounced, the toad now lashed out with a long, sinuous tongue the dark yet faded colour of the sky during a partial eclipse. Ingmar had a faint impression of old memories, distant snatches of songs from childhood, but nothing she could pin down. The toad took its leisure, swallowing its tongue back into its mouth inch by slow, steady inch. The bear cub was gone. There was no blood, no fur. The only sign that it had ever been there was the disturbed leaf mould of the forest floor, and the look of uncomprehending terror on Ingmar’s face.

The toad rolled its eyes to her as it swallowed the last of its tongue and then waddled for a moment, as if unsure how it had previously been able to hop. With a slight, almost growling croak the creature bunched the muscles in its legs and hoped into the bracken, no longer heading to the east. Ingmar squatted down for a moment and poked at the leaf mould with her torch before touching it with her hand. It didn’t feel warm; it didn’t feel like much of anything other than perfectly ordinary compost.

She willed herself to stop biting her lower lip. “Mage’s Luck,” she breathed as she stood up, “definitely from the Mirelands… Definitely.” She knew it was pointless trying to make a camp tonight. Even if she could get to sleep now, she was quite certain that she didn’t want to. She pushed a tiny sapling of an ivy thorn shrub out of her way and marched on through the East Wood.