Chapter 11: King of the Bears
The roots he had emerged from were just the beginning.
Ashen's trembling body hadn't calmed, but something deeper within him had awakened. It wasn't his mind. It wasn't his senses. It was something older… deeper—his bloodlines.
It was as if the blood in his veins had begun whispering to him. No words, just directions. Urges. An internal drive without explanation.
He walked through the wilderness, not knowing where exactly… but knowing he had to reach it.
The closer he got, the heavier his heart pounded. His strength quivered as if responding to an unseen call. And then… he saw it.
From atop a sloping hill, between jagged rocks and towering trees, he saw it.
A beast of muscle and flesh, fur glinting under the moonlight. Massive enough to terrify. Powerful enough to crush. An undisputed king of this land.
A bear—but unlike any bear.
Its eyes glowed with a rusted hue, as if an ancient fire still burned within.
Ashen immediately stepped back. He didn't dare go closer. His body knew that facing it now was suicide.
But he didn't flee.
For the first time since leaving the clan… he didn't run.
He hid, and he watched.
And he asked himself, "Why did my blood lead me to it? What does my lineage want from this beast?"
The only answer he had: something inside that bear… belonged to him.
From behind a twisted tree, he began to plan. Days of preparation lay ahead. Rushing in would mean certain death.
---
On the first night, he sat by a faint fire, recalling from memory the poison recipes he'd studied in the clan's library. Lessons once memorized but never practiced. Now… everything he had read became his weapon.
He gathered the "Silent Death" plant, crushed its leaves until a cold sap oozed out. He mixed it with the blood of a venomous snake he had killed on his third day in the wild. Then he added powdered bone from a Night Rat. The result: a deadly blend that attacked the nerves slowly.
In the following nights, he brewed a second poison. This one not meant to kill, but to weaken willpower. It drained strength from the inside, stealing energy like a thief in a starving home.
Then came the third poison… for sleep. Slow to act, needing only a drop in the blood. But once it took hold, even the fiercest beasts could not keep their eyes open.
---
He gathered bones from the creatures he had slain: the jaw of a wild boar, limbs of a rotting wolf, and fragments from the black stag's skeleton. From them, he crafted sharp-headed arrows, their tips honed with stone until they could pierce flesh with ease.
Then came the spear. Long. Heavy. Its tip made from the fang of a small bear he had faced weeks ago. It wasn't for quick kills… but for deep strikes.
He coated the spear and the arrowheads with the various poisons. Some for paralysis. Some for death. Others… just to make the king bleed.
---
But tools alone weren't enough.
He wanted the land itself to fight with him.
He dug camouflaged pits among the rocks, filling them with sharpened sticks and bone fragments.
He set up traps that would spring shut with tree fibers, tied to heavy stones that would crash down on anything that passed.
He crafted a crude net from flexible trunks, designed to drop from above.
And then… he thought of one last trick.
At night, hyenas roamed. Creatures of noise, blood, and scraps. He lured them toward the bear's path.
He spread the scent of blood along the trails, scattered bits of rotting meat—bait.
The packs of hyenas began to approach, drawn unknowingly toward the trap.
---
While the bear ruled the valley with its dreadful silence…
Ashen was turning that valley into a silent battlefield.
He didn't just want to kill the bear. He wanted to capture something inside it. Something older than the beast… something bloody… something his blood knew, even if he didn't.
At night, he watched from atop a tree. The wind shifted the branches like fingers.
The bear didn't yet know… that the wilderness was starting to betray it.
And Ashen… was no longer the prey.
He was the hunter.