Chapter 33: Someone Left Behind
They had barely left the camp, not even a hundred steps up the old path, the snow still fresh over their footprints from yesterday, when Danny heard it.
Crunch.
Not the soft puff of snow falling from a branch. This was weight. Something heavy pressing into crusted snow and breaking through.
He stopped walking, mid-step, his body freezing before his mind did.
The sound came from behind them, from down the path, from the direction of their abandoned camp.
Crunch. Crunch. A slow, deliberate rhythm.
Danny slowly turned his head, his neck stiff with cold and fear. He stared back down the winding stone path that disappeared between the white pines.
Snow shifted between the trees, a branch trembling where no wind touched it. Something pale moved, just at the edge of his vision.
Something was coming. Up the same path they had just taken.
His heart began beating faster, hammering so loud he was sure the other two could hear it.
The thin prisoner heard it too. He had been complaining about his broken nose, but stopped mid-sentence.
"What was that? Did you hear that?" he whispered, grabbing the grey-haired man’s sleeve.
Another crunch echoed through the forest, louder now, closer. Crunch. Then a pause, as if it was sniffing.
The grey-haired man’s expression immediately changed. The tired, older man face vanished and the soldier’s face came back, eyes sharp, jaw tight.
"We need to leave." He didn’t shout. He spoke low and fast. "Now. Don’t run. Fast walk. Stay on the stones."
He grabbed his belongings, slinging his small bag over his good shoulder.
"Now."
The thin prisoner looked behind them, eyes wide, blood still crusted under his nose.
"It sounds like something is following us. From the camp! It’s following our tracks!"
Danny tightened his grip on his coat, on the sharp rock he still held. His throat was dry.
So I wasn’t lying. I told you. I told you it was here and you called me a liar. Now it’s here.
The sound grew louder, more confident. It wasn’t trying to hide anymore.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Whatever was following them was getting closer, and it was big enough that it didn’t care if they heard it. It knew they couldn’t outrun it uphill.
"We should avoid a fight by all means," the grey-haired man said, pulling Danny forward by the back of his coat. "If that’s an eyeless wolf pack, we die. If it’s the big one Danny saw, we die faster. We get to higher ground, to the road, where we can see."
Danny looked at him. The man sounded serious, more serious than when the wolves attacked before. His hand was already on his old, rusted sword.
But the thin prisoner suddenly spoke, and his voice was different. Calm. Too calm, like he had been rehearsing this in his head all night.
"That’s not necessarily true. Fighting isn’t our only option. Running isn’t either."
Danny’s eyes narrowed, a cold feeling dropping in his stomach that had nothing to do with the monster behind them.
He looked at him, at that thin, pale face.
What is this bastard planning now? That tone...
The thin prisoner adjusted the bag on his shoulder, not looking at the forest anymore, but looking at them. At Danny.
"We have some choices. We always have choices. We don’t have to all die just because one thing is following us."
The grey-haired man stopped, frowning, sensing where this was going.
"What choices? Say it plainly. We don’t have time."
The thin prisoner hesitated, just for a second, swallowing. He looked toward the forest behind them where the crunching was now steady, then toward the mountain path ahead which went up and up into the mist.
"I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Since yesterday. Since the cliff."
Danny’s expression darkened, his hands starting to shake not from cold but from anger. He knew that phrase.
The thin prisoner continued, his words coming faster, trying to sound logical, reasonable.
"And I’ve finally come to a conclusion. A logical one. For the group."
The grey-haired man waited, his hand tightening on his sword hilt, not for the wolf, but now for something else.
"What conclusion?"
The thin prisoner took a slow, deep breath, as if he was about to say something brave.
"Someone should be left behind. One person stays, makes noise, holds it off. The other two get to the imperial road and bring back help. Or just survive. It’s math. Two live is better than three die."
Silence fell, heavier than the snow. Even the crunching behind them seemed to pause.
Danny’s eyes widened slightly, but not from surprise. From disgust. From that sick, familiar feeling.
Tch. Of course.
He already knew where this was going. He had seen this movie before, in the lower forest, with the wolves.
This bastard never learns, does he? He never changes. He just finds a new way to say "sacrifice someone else."
The thin prisoner looked between them, his eyes darting, trying to gauge who would agree.
"We can’t outrun that thing while carrying everything we have and moving this slow. You know it. I’m injured, he’s old and injured, the kid is half-dead. If one person stays behind, makes a lot of noise, maybe fights a little, the rest of us can escape. It’s the only way that makes sense."
Danny clenched his fists inside his coat, his knuckles cracking.
His eyes hardened, that little bit of hope from two nights ago completely gone, replaced by that cold, old hatred again.
So that’s your plan.
The same plan as before. Use someone as bait. Use someone else’s life to buy your own.
Only this time...
Danny knew exactly who he wanted to choose. He didn’t even need to hear it.
The thin prisoner looked directly at him, no longer pretending to be fair, no longer pretending this was a group decision.
"You," he said, pointing at Danny. "You’re the youngest. You’re the cursed one. The DoD boy. That thing wants you anyway. It smelled you last night. If you stay, it will stay with you. We can go."
Danny stared back, breathing hard, snow falling on his eyelashes. He didn’t shout. He didn’t cry.
Neither of them spoke for a second that felt like a minute, while the crunching behind them started again, closer still.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
The grey-haired man slowly turned toward the sound, his body tense, his hand moving toward his sword, drawing it an inch from its sheath with a metallic hiss.
The thin prisoner swallowed, stepping back, putting Danny between him and the sound.
And Danny realized, with perfect, freezing clarity, that their greatest danger might not be the monster behind them, sniffing their trail with no eyes.
It might be the man standing beside them, who had already decided who deserved to live.