Chương 70: The Hunters’ Rope

The rope around Zayn's waist was not taut. That was worse. A taut rope would have said: prisoner. A loose rope said: we know you cannot run. The wolf-man walked ahead of him, the end of the rope wrapped around his wrist. He almost never pulled. He did not need to. Every time Zayn slowed too much, he simply turned his head, sniffed the air, then resumed walking as if he had just checked that the prisoner had not yet fallen into a simpler category. Dead, for example. The cat-woman brought up the rear.

Not directly behind him. Always to the side. Always at an angle where she could see his hands, his bag, his leg, his mouth. Especially his mouth. Zayn did not like that. He had put the half-mask back on. The dirty leather covered the upper half of his face, his eyes, the bridge of his nose, his cheekbones. His mouth remained bare, exposed to the cold and to their eyes, like a mistake he could no longer hide. He might once have asked to keep the full mask. Now, he needed to breathe freely.

He needed to be able to vomit quickly, if necessary. He needed to be able to bite, if the world insisted. He stumbled over a root, caught himself too late, and the rope finally went taut. The wolf-man stopped. He did not yank him upright. He waited. Zayn braced a hand against a tree, breathing hard.

"Very kind," he muttered.

"Your forced walking service is almost considerate." The cat-woman tilted her head.

"You talk a lot for someone who walks badly."

"It compensates."

"No. It wastes air." Zayn turned his head slightly toward her.

"Do all of you have this kind of medical poetry, or is it personal?" She did not answer. The wolf-man, however, spoke in their language. After a moment, the cat-woman translated:"He asks if you want to be carried." Zayn stared at the wolf-man. He was looking at him without smiling. Not mocking. Serious. Which made the offer much more humiliating.

"No." The wolf-man shrugged and resumed walking. The rope went slack again. Zayn moved after him. Every step reminded him that he had not arrived among rescuers. He had not reached refuge. Not yet. Maybe never. He had only gone from a human pursuit to a more honest captivity. Humans would have surrounded him, questioned him, tied him to a chair, measured him, sealed him, classified him, then found a proper name for whatever they intended to do to him.

These two were leading him through the forest with a rope around his waist and enough distrust not to pretend at charity. That was almost restful. Almost. The forest changed as they moved west. It was not yet the true land of the beastmen. Zayn understood that from the human traces still visible: old boundary stones, collapsed fences, stretches of path, the remains of abandoned mills. But those marks were thinning out. Cut stone gave way to trees. Roads gave way to trails.

Signposts gave way to claw-marks on trunks. Another world began before the border itself. At one point, they crossed a stream. The wolf-man stepped over it in a single stride. The cat-woman jumped onto a flat stone, light as if gravity had made a deal with her. Zayn set one foot in the water. His splint slipped. He almost fell. The rope snapped tight. This time, the wolf-man gave a sharp pull. Not enough to hurt him. Enough to keep him from pitching headfirst into the stream.

Zayn stayed bent over, one hand in the cold water, the other clenched around his satchel. Silence. Then the wolf-man said something. The cat-woman translated:"He says even an old stag dies more quietly." Zayn breathed in slowly.

"Tell him even an old stag probably didn't spend more than two weeks under a living mine." She translated. The wolf-man stopped. For the first time, his expression truly changed. Not pity. Not yet respect. A reevaluation. Among humans, numbers did that. Soul strength, titles, skills, ranks, permissions, seals. Among beastmen, apparently, surviving the impossible while limping badly enough to be insulted by hunters carried a certain value too. The cat-woman asked:"Two weeks?" Zayn straightened slowly.

"Someone told me sixteen days. I didn't count. I was busy."

"With what?" He looked at the stream. Clear water slid over stones. For one second, he saw again the crack at the bottom of Rhel-Fosse. Drop by drop. His waterskin beneath it. His shaking hand. The dying creature. He answered:"Not dying." The cat-woman stared at him. The wolf-man sniffed again. Then he said one word. This time, she did not translate at once. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Zayn looked at her.

"What?" She started walking again before answering.

"He says you are not lying about that part." Zayn followed. The sentence stayed with him longer than he wanted to admit. They walked until dusk. No. They walked. Zayn survived movement. Several times, he nearly asked for a pause. Each time, his pride found some stupid way to force his body a few meters farther. The two hunters noticed. They did not always comment. That was worse. They knew.

They could smell when his breathing became uneven, when his leg overcompensated, when his hand drifted toward his satchel not out of strategy but out of exhaustion. They had no status windows. No visible numbers. No interface. But they read bodies the way humans read reports. Better, maybe. At the edge of a clearing, the wolf-man suddenly raised a hand. Zayn froze. The cat-woman did too. For several seconds, nothing moved. Then Zayn felt it. Not a value. Not a sound. A pressure.

Something changed around the wolf-man. His back seemed to broaden without moving. His presence filled the space between the trees. The air grew heavier, more alive, as though an invisible beast had just opened its eyes behind him. Zayn gripped the rope on instinct. He did not know what it was. Not a spell. Not a system skill. Not a blessing. A vital threat projected outside the body. A predator's discipline. Something that said: here, I can kill. His stomach tightened. The mark on his tongue warmed faintly.

The cat-woman laid two fingers on her spear. Then the pressure went out. The wolf-man pointed at the ground. Tracks. Three broad prints, almost faded. The cat-woman crouched.

"Long claws. Not a pack. Injured." The wolf-man replied in their language. She looked at Zayn.

"A border-beast. It caught your blood. Maybe yours."

"I'm touched to still be useful to the ecosystem." She narrowed her eyes.

"You want to live?"

"In a general sense, yes."

"Then shut up when the blood is listening." He closed his mouth. The sentence was absurd. And probably excellent. They circled around the clearing. Zayn saw the beast only once, between two trunks: a low, brown mass, shoulders covered in bony spines, one hind leg dragging behind it. Approximate value: 34 Not huge. But in his condition, enough to shorten his day. The two beastmen did not panic. They did not even stop long. Which was revealing. For them, a beast at 34 was not a major threat. A problem, yes.

A noise in the forest. Not a wall. Zayn understood something then. The two who had captured him were not monsters of power among their own kind. They were frontier hunters. Competent. Dangerous. But not peaks. Their values around 27 and 29, which among humans would already make them solid fighters, perhaps better than common knights, seemed here to belong near the lower end of a much taller chain. The beastmen started farther ahead. Biologically. Instinctively. Their average was higher than that of humans.

Which meant the true warriors of their clans would be something else again. Zayn looked at the wolf-man in front of him. The slack rope. The straight back. The pressure he had just released for a second. Lower end of the chain, he thought. He almost wanted to laugh. The world had just reminded him, with admirable politeness, that he was still very small. Night fell before they reached the camp. They did not make a fire. The cat-woman gave Zayn a piece of smoked meat and a waterskin. He took them slowly.

"Is it poisoned?" She stared at him.

"If we wanted to kill you, you would already be dead."

"I've heard that before. It turned out to be contextual." She did not understand the whole sentence. But she understood the tone. She sat down on a root, spear across her knees. The wolf-man stayed standing a few paces away, facing the forest. Zayn lifted his half-mask slightly to drink, then lowered it again. He ate a piece of meat. Normal. Smoked. Dense. His stomach hesitated, then accepted it. He took a second piece. More slowly. The cat-woman was watching him.

"You eat like someone waiting for the food to attack." Zayn chewed. Swallowing almost hurt, simply because his body was no longer used to something entering without burning.

"Recent bad culinary experience."

"You ate forbidden flesh." He stopped. The forest seemed to fall silent with him. The cat-woman did not move.

"Your scent says so." Zayn looked down at the meat. He could have lied. But they smelled. Always.

"Yes." The wolf-man turned his head slightly. The cat-woman continued:"Monster?" Zayn stayed silent. The word was broad. Very useful.

"Among other things."

"Demon?" He thought of Rhel-Fosse. Of the dying creature. Of the burning. Of the mark.

"Maybe close enough for it to be a problem." She looked at him for a long time. Then asked:"Why?" This time, he laughed. Not loudly. Not for long.

"Because dying cleanly doesn't help anyone when no one is watching." The silence remained. The cat-woman looked away first. Not out of discomfort. Out of a decision not to dig deeper for now. That was almost a form of respect. Or caution. The two often looked alike. They reached the camp after midnight. Zayn smelled it before he saw it. Smoke. Dried hides. Roasting meat. Fresh blood. Dogs or wolves. Many living bodies. Then the lights appeared between the trees. Not a town. Not even a human village.

A fortified border camp built into a wide clearing ringed by trimmed trunks. Low palisades. Platforms in the trees. Skin tents. Half-buried huts. Bones hanging on red cords. Claw-marks carved into posts. Low fires banked to keep from lighting too much of the forest. And eyes. Everywhere. Zayn stopped at the entrance without being ordered to. Values. Too many to track all of them. 18 22 31 27 40 35 12 9 46 His gaze caught on that last number.

A beastman larger than the others stood near a central fire, arms crossed, a gray mane falling over his shoulders. Wolf-man too, but heavier, older, with scars along his muzzle and throat. 46. The others looked at him differently. Not just as an elder. As weight. Zayn understood he had not arrived in a prison. He had arrived inside a mouth. The cat-woman spoke loudly. The conversations stopped. Children peeked out from one tent, then were pushed back by a woman with round ears and a bear's stare.

Two young wolf-men came nearer, sniffing openly. A raptor-man perched on a platform tilted his neck, yellow eyes fixed on Zayn as on an interesting carcass. The rope around his waist suddenly became very visible. The wolf-man holding it finally spoke in human language. His accent was rough.

"Human found at Virecombe. East. Smells demon. Smells mine. Injured. Still walks." The cat-woman added:"Says he came from the east. Says he survived underground. Says humans tried to kill him. Lies about some things. Not all." Thank you for the summary, Zayn thought. Very balanced. One star for diplomacy. The elder at 46 approached. Each step changed the air. Not the same pressure as the hunter's. Heavier. Calmer. Like a fire covered in ash that did not need to flare to remind anyone it still burned.

Zayn forced his body to remain upright. His leg trembled anyway. The elder saw. Of course he did. He stopped two meters away. Sniffed. His expression barely changed.

"Human." Zayn replied:"That gets emphasized a lot in this region." The cat-woman translated for those who did not understand. A few low chuckles passed through the camp. The elder did not laugh.

"Demon." Zayn held his gaze.

"Not intentionally at first." This time, the silence sharpened. The cat-woman translated more slowly. The elder looked at his leg, his splint, his wounded hands, his half-mask, his split mouth.

"Name." Zayn hesitated. Not long.

"Zayn." The name passed through the camp. No one reacted as though it meant anything. Good. No one here knew. Not his status. Not the Throne. Not what the system had shown in the summoning hall. They smelled the scent. Not the full truth. That was already much. But not all. The elder asked:"Why here?" Zayn answered with the most useful truth:"Because humans wanted to recover me or kill me. Because the east would kill me faster.

Because the west was the only direction that hadn't yet decided what to do with my corpse." The cat-woman translated. Murmurs followed. The elder remained silent. Then he said:"You think we have not decided?" Zayn felt the rope at his waist. The pain in his leg. The dryness in his mouth. All the eyes around him. He smiled faintly.

"I'm hoping you're slow with paperwork." The cat-woman hesitated before translating. Then she did. This time, several beastmen really laughed. Not long. Not kindly. But enough. The elder, however, still did not laugh. He raised one hand. The camp went quiet.

"Prisoner." The rope tightened slightly.

"Not killed. Not free. Not fed without debt. Not questioned by the young." A young wolf-man near one of the tents growled something. The elder turned his head toward him. The adolescent immediately lowered his eyes. Zayn noted the face. Later. You always had to note the ones who spoke too early. The elder turned back to him.

"You are the human who smells like a demon." The cat-woman translated, then added with half a smile:"Shorter in our language."

"And what does it come out as?" She looked at him.

"The demonic human." The camp repeated the phrase. Not like a title. Not yet. Like a caution passed from mouth to mouth so no one would forget that the thing tied to the rope was not only thin. Zayn lowered his eyes. The demonic human. He had been called worse. Candidate for Demon King, for example. But no one here knew that. And for some strange reason, this local name, blunt and incomplete and almost naive, felt heavier than it should have. Because it had not come from a system.

It had come from people who had smelled him. The elder pointed toward a space near the inner palisade.

"Open cage." Zayn looked. An area marked by three posts, with no bars, no door. A low tent, a bowl of water, a ground covered in worn hides. Three paces away, two wolf-dogs slept beside a fire. Higher up, a raptor-man watched from a platform. A prison without walls. Perfect insult. The cat-woman translated:"You can leave." The elder added:"You will die before the fourth step." Zayn observed the wolf-dogs. Then the perch. Then the hunters. Then his own leg.

"Honest." The elder nodded.

"Here, we prefer that." That may have been a cultural lie. All societies had phrases they liked to believe about themselves. But for now, he still preferred it to the Ashen Circle's orders. The wolf-man tugged the rope gently. Zayn moved toward the open cage. The eyes followed him. Children. Hunters. Elders. Warriors. Curious ones. Wary ones. Not afraid. That was the clearest detail. He was abnormal. Dirty. Dangerous, maybe. But weak. Injured.

Held up by a makeshift leg and a will that smelled too much like survival to inspire true fear. When he reached the low tent, the rope was untied. Not from his hands. Not from his throat. Only from his waist. The cat-woman crouched in front of him.

"If you try to run, the dogs will find you. If you try to kill, the warriors will break you. If you lie too much, the old woman will cut you apart with words until nothing remains."

"Very welcoming."

"You have water." She pointed to the bowl.

"And food tomorrow. If the chief decides your smell will not bring war." Zayn looked at the bowl. Water. Clean. He did not ask permission. He knelt, took the bowl, and drank slowly. Not too fast. Never too fast. When he lifted his head, several children were watching him from the tents. One of them murmured something in the clan's language. Another answered:"Demonic human." Zayn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The mark on his tongue burned faintly. He set his half-mask straight again.

Then, for the first time in a long while, he sat down in a place where no one pretended he had been saved. Only kept. And that difference, strangely, let him breathe.