14. The Cannibal
Late into the night, just before the Hungers' impending attack, Ton moved silently, carefully watching the area where his tribesmen were held captive.
Ton should have been dead.
Hound had healed him—just enough—before vanishing, leaving him broken and unconscious in the dirt.
Whether it was mercy or sympathy, he didn't know.
But he had woken.
And now, deep in the choking dark, he watched.
His tribesmen were bound like beasts, their chains glinting in the firelight.
The Raiders stood guard—not out of pity, but necessity.
They needed slaves.
Bodies to bear their burdens, flesh to fuel their march.
And so they would defend their spoils, even against the Hungers.
Then—
—chaos.
Steel shrieked against teeth.
Arrows hissed through the smoke.
The Hungers came not with the discipline of warriors, but the frenzy of starved things, their jaws snapping at the air, their crude weapons tearing into Raiders and slaves alike.
The man saw one of his own—an elder—wrenched screaming into the dark, his legs still kicking as the feeding began.
A woman fell accidentally under a Raider's axe, only for a Hunger to seize her corpse, dragging it toward the trees, its maw already wet with blood.
The Raiders fought back, brutal and efficient.
They needed those slaves alive.
And the man?
He waited.
Because patience was the only weapon he had left.
The Hungers were dangerous—starving, desperate men turned savage—but they were nothing compared to the Bone Orchards.
That cursed place didn't just kill.
It remembered.
The Raiders fought not just to keep their slaves alive, but to use them as offerings.
The Skinless Leopards that prowled the Orchards didn't attack indiscriminately—they hunted the killers.
The one who dealt the final blow. The one whose hands were stained last.
That was why the slaves had to be the ones to strike.
The Raiders would wound, weaken, herd the beasts—but never finish them.
No, that fate belonged to the chained.
A slave's dagger in a beast's throat.
A slave's arrow through a beast's eye.
Each death marked another sacrifice, another soul to draw the hunters' wrath away from the Raiders.
And in the bloodied chaos, Ton moved.
The knife—taken from the thin, muscular fighter who had tried to kill him—was cold in his reverse grip.
The slaves' wails masked his steps as he slipped between shadows, unseen.
A tribesman spotted him, eyes widening—
"Shhhh—"
A finger to his lips.
A warning in his gaze.
Eyes full of terror yet burning with defiance, they watched the nightmare unfold before them.
Their bodies trembled, their voices hoarse from screaming, but hope hadn't abandoned them yet.
The man tightened his grip on the knife and sawed through the ropes.
"Stay calm," he whispered urgently,
"but scream like you're dying."
His people understood.
They thrashed and wailed, their panic both an act and painfully real.
Every movement had to be precise—one wrong twitch, one misplaced glance, and everything would collapse.
When the last rope fell, they moved as one.
The tribesmen surged forward, scrambling over corpses of Raiders and Hungers alike, snatching up discarded blades still slick with blood.
This was their chance—their only chance—to fight for survival.
Ton, alongside the Tribe Leader and weathered elders, took point, leading the desperate charge toward the dreaded Bone Orchards—a place they knew only in fearful whispers.
As they ran, Ton eyes darted through the chaos, searching frantically for Anik who had saved his life.
But the small figure was nowhere to be seen, lost in the blood-soaked night.
"Where is the child? Where is Anik?" Ton's voice cracked with desperation as he scanned the fleeing crowd.
The Tribe Leader met his gaze with heavy silence before speaking the painful truth.
"Anik turned against us. He was never one of us..."
But Kanaz—small, fierce Kanaz, the Leader's own daughter—shook with fury.
"Liar!" she screamed, her tiny hands clenched into fists.
"I know him! He fought for us when no one else did! You all pushed him away, but he would never abandon us! He is our family!"
Yet the crushing reality remained—Anik, his childhood friend, the boy who had laughed and suffered beside him, was nowhere to be found.
Kanaz's eyes, wide and wet with tears, still held onto hope.
A child's hope, stubborn as a flame in the wind.
"Stop your foolishness!" the Tribe Leader roared, striking her across the face.
The slap echoed like a crack of thunder.
"Open your eyes! Our people are dying, and you would throw their lives away for a traitor? For that whore's bastard?"
Kanaz stumbled back, clutching her burning cheek.
Around her, the tribe fought for survival—Raiders cutting them down, Hungers dragging the weak into the dark.
Blood painted the earth.
Screams filled the air.
This was war—
—and war had no mercy for sentiment.
"Let's go!" Ton commanded, forcing his grief into resolve.
He led them toward the Bone Orchard—a place whispered about in dread, a place none of them truly knew.
They thought it was escape.
They were wrong.
The Orchard waited, hungry and patient, its horrors far worse than the Raiders who had enslaved them.
And as they ran, Kanaz cast one last, shattered glance behind her—still hoping, still praying, for her childhood friend who might already be dead.
...
The axe screamed through the air—once, twice—each swing carving nothing but empty space.
The loinclothed man flowed around Mad Dog's strikes like smoke, his bare feet barely touching the blood-soaked earth.
Mocking laughter spilled from his lips, jagged and cruel.
Mad Dog roared, Barbarian Rage igniting his veins, surging his muscles with brutal speed.
Yet for all his fury—he couldn't touch him.
The man danced just beyond reach, reveling in the carnage around them.
Raiders and Hungers fell in heaps, their dying cries music to his ears.
More corpses.
More meat.
More power.
Then—
—pain.
Yellowed teeth sank into Mad Dog's forearm, ripping skin like parchment.
He barely yanked free before the man could swallow the flesh whole.
Blood dripped between those grinning teeth as the loinclothed man licked his lips.
Mad Dog's vision swam red, rage devouring reason.
No more games.
With a guttural snarl, Mad Dog hurled his axe—a spinning death aimed for the bastard's skull—and charged behind it, twin daggers flashing.
The loinclothed man twisted, letting the axe sail past, then—
—CLANG!
—met the daggers not with steel, but with blackened claws, their edges gleaming like cursed metal.
Mad Dog's breath froze.
No Hunger moved like this. No Hunger had claws that sang against blades.
The truth struck him like a hammer-blow.
"A… Cannibal?!"