These Hungry Dogs [sample]

prelude

"TREAD CAREFULLY, there are wolves here," a woman's voice splintered across the cold air, staring into the wake of the overturned carriage, ruined as the bodies in front of her.

"I keep that in mind, oma," the man replied with a nod.

Gently, he tore his gloves from his hands as he rose to the small incline before his eyes leaped to the muddy prints. With the rain hung on the curves of his jaw, he wandered closer to the edge of the Degenhard Forest, tethering and groaning from the pollen-filled wind.

He merely danced around the idea of giving up the hunt, it was pointless. His bones began to ache the longer he stood out in the open, shivering from the wintry air. As if the vernal equinox decided to slumber for a while.

As the grand dowager followed the path west, the man lowered himself to the footprints, marking it with a lone finger.

Slowly, small darts of flames spread across the print, swallowing it whole. Drifting his eyes close, his mind relayed a hazy image of a child, barely hanging onto her youth, drowned in blood as her body nestled in the overgrown roots.

A visible string of howls distracted his attention, his head snapped upright and his skin crawled with ambition and fear. He then signaled to the summoner next to him, her words unspoken.

"Must I remind you? The child is not dead," her answer did not come lightly.

"She would be if we don't hurry," snorted the man, grudgingly, but it gave him strength to carry onward. He could feel her breath hitched, conflicted.

He felt a pit in his stomach, not by the gnawing sensation of fear that confined him but raw defeat. He truly pitied the lives discarded in front of him, shaking his head in response. Did they not know they're dealing with the forest-eater? The thought alone made his mind wander, if he's truly a child sharpened with hunger, too.

When he did not hear her footsteps trailing behind, he gave pause, raising a brow. "Are you close to Steg Ladent?"

He felt her breath hitched, slightly taken aback. She halted herself, pandering to her thoughts, and he knew she was thinking of it. "I'm afraid—" her eyes froze when he turned back to her. "No, not anymore."

Her answer alone mused him greatly as if another liar thrown in this world roused his ambition more.

In a soft tone, he whispered, "Would you like to become one?"

When the summoner did not answer, he watched her as her eyes drew back to the forest, her face basked in shadow, imagining things. He regarded her from afar, afraid he had stepped to far but he wanted to know. If it would make things easier.

"May Saint Ivo be with you," the summoner said at last, not looking him in the eye. "The child's not far from here but I sense her fading."

But the man was already moving, he cannot let his years of devotion to the hunger god be wasted for a mere devil. His eyes seized at the entrance of the forest, lungs spent and quiet, as the soft murmurs of Degenhard Forest challenged his opposition. To dare him to enter.

He doubted it for he knew the woods had a life of its own. Even a prince himself, did not dare to scorn the deathless that haunted the place. But he cannot fail tonight, he was closer to the sublime than anyone.