Chapter 38: The Curse of the Death Clan
"I can either decide to use both of you... to make a plan that uses all of us to escape, together, smart..." The thin prisoner glanced at Danny with a fake, sad, pitying look, the look a priest gives before a sacrifice. "...or just him. We have a choice in how we sacrifice. We can be smart or be emotional. We can be survivors or be corpses."
Danny’s eyes narrowed, his chest tightening until it hurt to breathe.
There it is again. That word. Use. Decide. Like we are things in his bag. Like we are tools he found.
The thin prisoner pointed toward Danny again, his finger steady now, no more shaking, his voice taking on strength.
"Why him? You keep asking why him, so I’ll tell you plainly so even the boy understands why it’s him and not you or me."
He answered his own question, voice rising, getting that preacher tone he used when he wanted to sound right, when he wanted to sound like he was speaking a hard truth no one else had the courage to say.
"As I said, he’s from the Death Clan. DoD. The clan that talks to dead things. The clan the empire burned for a reason. The clan that cursed the northern fields so nothing grows."
His expression hardened, his own fear making him cruel and self-righteous, giving him a holy light in his eyes.
"He’s cursed. Don’t you get it? It’s not his fault, it’s his blood! That’s what a curse is! It follows him! We didn’t have monsters before we found him in that village ruin, did we? We were fine. Cold, but fine. No wolves. No sounds."
Danny felt his stomach twist, that old familiar nausea when someone said his clan name like it was a disease, like it was filth you wipe off your shoe.
Again with that. Always with that. DoD, cursed, death. I’m just a boy. I’m just Danny. I didn’t ask to be born with these eyes. I didn’t ask for my village to burn.
The thin prisoner continued, counting on his fingers now, building his case like a lawyer in a market court in Greybridge, twisting coincidence into proof, turning bad luck into fate.
"Ever since we met him, nothing has gone right. Think! Really think, old man, with your soldier brain!"
"The village where we found him was destroyed, everyone dead, no bodies, just burned houses. Sign one. Death follows him."
"The caravan that tried to help us was attacked by wolves that same night we left the village. The same night! Sign two."
"The imperial road was blocked by the empire, an impossible block, snow and soldiers, forcing us up the death mountain that no one uses. Sign three. The world itself tried to push him away."
"And now that monster is following us, a monster that left and came back, which never happens, unless it’s cursed prey. Unless it’s death calling to death. Sign four."
He spread his hands wide, as if his argument was undeniable, as if he was a prophet revealing a prophecy that had been there all along.
"How many more signs do you need? How many more times does the world have to tell you that boy is bad luck? That he is marked by death itself long before any wolf marked him? How many more corpses do you need to see?"
Danny wanted to argue. He wanted to scream that the village was destroyed by bandits, not by him, that he had seen the boot prints, that the caravan was attacked because they lit a fire that was too big, that the road was blocked by soldiers because of the escape, not curses, that the monster was following all of them, not just him, that it was smelling their blood!
He wanted to tell him how stupid he sounded, how childish his logic was, how he was just a coward looking for a reason to be a coward, how he was using his mother’s clan name to hide his own fear.
But another thought stopped him, cold, a thought that made his mouth stay shut.
If I speak now, will he twist my words too? If I say "bandits destroyed the village," he’ll say "yes, bandits attracted by your curse." If I say "we lit a fire," he’ll say "the curse made you light it." If I say anything at all, he’ll turn it into another sign. That’s what a sly tongue does. It doesn’t need truth. It just needs words.
So Danny said nothing. He just held his rock tighter, his knuckles white, his breath making fast clouds in the cold.
The grey-haired man remained quiet, looking down at the snow at his feet, his sword lowering an inch, then another inch. The tip now pointed at the snow instead of the forest.
That scared Danny more than any shouting, more than the wolf, more than the thin prisoner’s speech. Was he... was he considering it? Was the sly tongue working? Was the old soldier who had shared his bread actually thinking about math — three versus one?
The thin prisoner saw the silence, saw the sword lowering, and smiled faintly, a tiny, ugly, triumphant smile of victory he couldn’t hide.
That smile made Danny uneasy. Made his skin crawl worse than the cold. Made his blood feel like ice.
He was enjoying this. He wasn’t just trying to survive anymore. He was enjoying turning the situation against him, enjoying having power over someone after feeling powerless for so long on the mountain, enjoying being the one who decides.
And Danny didn’t know how to stop him. He had no words as sly, no tongue as practiced in lies, no voice as loud. He only had a rock, and bleeding hands, and a name no one wanted to hear, and a grey-haired man whose back was still turned, whose sword was still lowered, and a wolf in the trees that had stopped crunching because it was close enough now that it didn’t need to walk anymore.