Chapter 34: The Marked One
The crunching sound continued behind us, steady now, not hiding anymore.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch. Pause. Sniff.
Whatever was following us was getting closer, up the old stone path, step by heavy step, breaking through the crust of snow with weight. It wasn’t rushing. It knew we had nowhere to go but up.
The thin prisoner suddenly stopped walking, his breath coming in short, panicked puffs. He bent over, hands on his knees.
"As you know, that monster is currently after us... that thing the kid says he saw..."
He took a deep, shaking breath, like he was about to confess something.
"I’m afraid to say this, but I think I know why it’s following us. It’s not random."
The grey-haired man turned toward him, sword half-drawn now, eyes darting between the forest behind and the thin prisoner in front.
"How do you know? How could you know why that thing hunts?"
The thin prisoner looked toward the forest behind us, then down at the faint prints in the fresh snow, then back, trying to look like an expert.
"I was a hunter before. Before the prison. Before everything. In the north valleys."
He pointed toward the tracks in the snow behind us, at the deep, clawed prints that were now clearly visible, too big to be a normal wolf.
"I’ve encountered monsters like this before. Eyeless ones. I know how they hunt. They don’t chase noise. They don’t chase movement."
The grey-haired man wasn’t entirely convinced. His eyes narrowed.
"And? Get to the point. It’s close."
The thin prisoner swallowed, his throat bobbing, and lowered his voice like he was telling a ghost story.
"That thing isn’t simply following us. It’s not following our footprints. It’s following a scent. A mark. Once they bite you or scratch you and you survive, they put something in you. A smell only they can smell. They can find you across a whole mountain."
Danny’s eyes narrowed, his stomach dropping. He felt his arms, his neck, where the smaller eyeless wolf had scratched him in the forest.
Marked? What does he mean marked?
The grey-haired man frowned, his hand tightening on his sword.
"Who? Who is marked? If one of us is marked, we need to know now to plan."
The thin prisoner didn’t answer immediately. He let the silence stretch, let the crunching get closer, let the tension build.
He slowly raised his hand, his finger shaking a little, either from cold or from fake fear.
Then he pointed directly at Danny, straight at his chest.
"Him. The boy. It’s him."
Silence fell, except for the wind and that crunching getting louder.
Danny stared at the man’s finger pointed at him, then at his face, that thin, lying face that was now trying to look sad and serious.
Then at his own hands, as if a mark would be visible.
The grey-haired man looked at Danny, at his pale face, at the small, half-healed scratch on his forearm from days ago. Then back at the thin prisoner.
"You’re saying the wolf marked him? The one from the lower forest? And that’s why this bigger one is following us now?"
The thin prisoner nodded quickly, too quickly, happy his lie was being taken seriously.
"Yes. Exactly. That’s why it stared at him last night and left. It recognized the mark. It went to get the others. It’s not after us, it’s after him. It wants the one it marked to finish the hunt properly. That’s how they work, they never leave marked prey."
Danny clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white under the grime. The cold rock was still in his hand.
This bastard... this lying bastard... he wasn’t even a hunter, he told us he was a thief from the capital.
"So now you’re blaming me?" Danny’s voice was low, dangerous. "Again? So this is my fault too now?"
"I’m not blaming you." The thin prisoner lowered his hand, holding both up like he was innocent, like he was trying to help. "I’m telling you what I think is happening. I’m trying to save us with knowledge."
Danny scoffed, a harsh, broken laugh.
"You’ve been blaming me since we left the camp. Since we left the lower forest. Everything is my fault to you."
The thin prisoner frowned, stepping back slightly, putting the grey-haired man between him and Danny.
"Because strange things keep happening around you. You can’t deny that. First the worm, then the wolves find only our caravan, then the storm—"
Danny’s expression hardened, his eyes burning with tears of rage he refused to let fall.
"The storm wasn’t my fault. The worm wasn’t my fault! I didn’t call it!"
"I know. I know it wasn’t." The thin prisoner said it fast, dismissively.
"The road being blocked wasn’t my fault either. The empire blocked it, not me!"
"I know that too. But don’t you see? It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It matters what the monster thinks. It thinks you’re its prey. Whether you want to be or not."
"Then shut up! Shut your mouth!" Danny shouted, finally losing it, his voice echoing off the old stone walls. "You just want to leave me behind! You wanted that from the start! Don’t make up hunter stories to make it sound noble!"
The grey-haired man raised his hand sharply, his voice a bark.
"Enough! Both of you! Shut it! The damn thing will hear you from a mile away if you keep screaming!"
Both of them stopped, breathing hard, staring at each other with hate.
The grey-haired man looked toward the forest behind them, listening.
The crunching sound had stopped.
That was somehow worse than the crunching. Much worse. When you can hear it, you know where it is. When it stops, it could be anywhere. Running. Crouching. Ready to jump.
He slowly placed his hand fully on his sword, drawing it an inch more, the steel whispering.
"How certain are you?" he asked the thin prisoner, without looking at him, eyes locked on the trees below. "About this mark thing. How certain? Because if you’re certain, we need to wash him in snow, cover his scent, split up. If you’re guessing, you’re going to get us killed with lies."
The thin prisoner hesitated, his eyes darting. The lie was cracking at the edges.
"I’m not completely certain. No one can be completely certain with monsters. But I’ve seen it... I’ve heard of it..."
The grey-haired man looked at him sharply, finally turning his full gaze on him, and his face was full of cold disgust.
"Then don’t act like you are. Don’t point at a boy and call him bait based on a story you half-remember to save your own skin. I know a hunter, boy, and you don’t have hunter’s hands. You have thief’s hands. I saw it when you stole my jerky."
The thin prisoner swallowed, face going pale, caught.
"But if I’m right..." He glanced at Danny again, desperate, his last card. "If I’m right and we do nothing, it will catch us all. We need to decide what we’re going to do before that thing reaches us. We can’t outrun it. Someone has to—"
Danny stared back at him, his heart beating faster, not from fear of the wolf anymore, but from fear of what the thin prisoner would say next, what the grey-haired man might agree to.
He already knew what the man was thinking. The same math as before. Leave one, save two.
And he didn’t like it.
Not one bit. And this time, he had a rock in his hand, and he wasn’t tired enough to let it happen again.