Chapter 8: Cursed Boy
The fire had almost gone out.
Only a few red embers remained beneath the pile of half-burnt, damp wood. They pulsed weakly every time the wind blew, then faded again.
Danny sat with his knees pulled hard against his chest, staring into the darkness beyond the camp. His body was still shaking, but slower now. The kind of shaking that comes when you have no energy left to shiver properly.
He had eaten a little salt.
But it wasn’t enough. Salt is not food. It just made his mouth burn and his stomach cramp harder.
His throat remained painfully dry, like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Around him, the other captives had begun falling asleep, or pretending to. Some lay against each other for warmth, sharing breath. Others curled themselves into tight, small balls beneath their thin clothes, trying to disappear from the cold.
Danny couldn’t sleep. The cold wouldn’t let him. Neither would his thoughts, which were too loud.
Across the clearing, maybe twenty steps away, the mercenaries were still wide awake. Their fire burned brightly, tall and crackling. They had thrown fresh logs on it.
They had food. The smell of grease still hung in the air. Water. Their waterskins were full. Blankets. Thick ones. Everything the captives didn’t have.
Danny stared at them for a moment, at their warm faces, before lowering his eyes. Looking made the hunger worse.
Then he heard a voice. Not loud. But close enough.
"Why did you give him so much?"
Danny’s head moved slightly, his ear turning without him lifting his face.
He listened. He pretended to sleep.
One of the mercenaries was speaking to the man who had given him the salt — the younger one with the beard.
"You know we’re running low," the first voice said, annoyed. "We’re supposed to save for the city."
The man who gave the salt didn’t answer immediately. Danny could feel someone looking at him.
He looked toward Danny. The boy was sitting alone near the dying fire, a small black shape in the snow.
"He’s a child," the bearded man said.
"So? We’re all hungry. The kid is extra weight anyway."
"He hasn’t eaten in two days."
"Neither have most of them. Why does he get special treatment?"
The first man frowned, then lowered his voice a bit.
"You know what I mean. You shouldn’t waste it on him."
The other man scoffed, a short, harsh sound.
"Why are you wasting food on that cursed boy?"
Danny’s eyes narrowed in the dark. His fingers tightened on his knees.
Cursed?
He didn’t understand. What did they mean?
The man who had given him the salt looked at his companion, confused.
"How do you know he’s cursed?"
The other mercenary stared at him like he was stupid.
"You don’t know? You really don’t know who he is?"
"No."
The mercenary leaned closer to the fire, his face orange.
"Everyone knows. Look at his skin. That boy is from the DoD."
Silence. Even the men who weren’t part of the conversation turned their heads and looked toward Danny. The name carried.
The man beside the fire frowned.
"The DoD? You mean that clan from the north border?"
"Yes."
The mercenary glanced around before continuing, as if saying it too loud would summon something.
"The Demon of Death clan."
The name seemed to change the atmosphere in the main camp. One of the men by the fire spat loudly into the snow. Another made a sign with his fingers, like warding off evil.
"Those people..." one muttered.
"Monsters. All of them," another shook his head.
Danny remained completely still, holding his breath. He didn’t know what they were talking about. He had heard that name once, in whispers in his village, when adults thought children weren’t listening.
The mercenary continued, voice low, enjoying the fear.
"They say the DoD doesn’t worship any god. They worship the Demon of Death himself."
"They don’t worship him," the other man cut in. He sounded like he knew more. "They worship death itself. They believe death is the only true power, the only thing that doesn’t lie."
He pointed a greasy finger toward Danny, toward the small shape in the dark.
"And that boy was born among them. Right in the heart of it."
The bearded mercenary glanced at Danny again, this time with disgust and fear mixed.
"You’re saying he is one of them? One of those butchers?"
"Look at his body. Look close."
Danny instinctively looked down at himself, even though he knew. His torn clothes barely covered his thin arms anymore. In the faint light of the dying embers, several dark markings could be seen across his skin.
Black. Thin. Almost like ink under the skin. Arrow-shaped, sharp. They ran along his forearm, up his shoulder, and disappeared beneath his clothing, toward his back.
He had always had them. Since birth. His mother told him not to show them to strangers.
The mercenary stared at them from afar.
"Those marks. Every DoD child is born with them. It’s their curse. Proof the Demon touched them."
The man beside him looked uncomfortable and shifted away from Danny’s direction.
"And his village?" he asked.
"Destroyed. Burned to nothing."
"By the monsters? The beasts from the forest?"
"That’s what they say happened," the mercenary said, and gave a cold smile. "But who knows? Maybe the monsters came _because_ of them. Evil calls evil."
Another man laughed quietly, a cruel sound.
"Wouldn’t surprise me. Those clans bring bad luck wherever they go. Should have left him in the snow to die."
Danny heard every single word. Every whisper, every insult. But he didn’t react. He didn’t shout that they were wrong.
He didn’t care about the clan. He didn’t care about the Demon of Death. He didn’t care what these men thought he was — cursed, monster, bad luck.
He only cared about one thing. It was the only thing keeping him awake.
Getting away.
His fingers slowly curled into fists inside his chains. The rusted iron made a faint, soft clink.
He looked toward the trees at the edge of the clearing. Darkness covered everything beyond the camp, thick and endless. The forest was enormous, black and white and full of things that howled.
He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know which direction his village had been — east, north? Everything looked the same in the snow.
And somewhere out there were the real monsters, the ones that had torn his village apart.
But staying here was not an option either. Here, he would be sold. Or die of cold. Or be killed because they thought he was cursed.
Danny looked back at the mercenaries. There were six of them around the big fire. The grey-haired man was their leader, sitting a little apart, cleaning his nails with his knife. One of the others was an Awakened — Danny had heard them say it. His eyes glowed faintly when he got angry.
Danny didn’t know exactly what that meant, what Awakened meant.
But he had seen enough during his escape to understand one thing. Awakened humans were different. Stronger. Faster. More dangerous than normal men. They could fight the beasts.
He had no weapon. No food. No water. No strength. His body was breaking.
Yet he continued thinking, his eyes open in the dark.
_There has to be a way._
He just needed to find it. To watch. To wait for one mistake, one chain left loose, one moment when the fire made them blind to the dark.
Before they reached wherever they were taking him — that city they talked about. Before another person died on the road and was left behind like trash.
Before he became another small corpse left behind in the snow, forgotten.
Danny closed his eyes, but not to sleep. He listened to the sound of the big fire crackling, then to the soft footsteps of the man guarding them, pacing back and forth, back and forth.
He waited.
And waited.
Because if he wanted to survive this night, and the next...
He would have to learn how to escape with nothing but his bare hands and cursed marks.