The forest didn't speak.
It just listened. To every step I made.
Not even the birds dared their usual chatter this morning. Mist clung low to the soil, the kind that wrapped itself around your ankles and whispered warnings you couldn't quite hear.
I moved through it quietly. No escort. No fanfare. No one knew I'd left the village at all.
This wasn't a lesson to show the people how it is done. This was blood work.
Yesterday, I'd set crude traps. Deadfalls. Tension snares. Primitive, but sharp with purpose. I used vines and carved spikes and baited them with bark mash soaked in lard from the last scraps of the fat store.
A gamble, but one worth taking. I needed meat to feel like the human I am. I checked the first trap empty.
The second sprung, but nothing caught.
The third made me stop.
Blood.
A trail. Drag marks. Snapped brush. And then just beyond the clearing the thing was caught between two twisted roots and pinned to the dirt like an offering, was a half-dead stag.
Its hind leg shattered, tangled in my snare. Its breath came heavy and slow. One eye was swollen shut. It had struggled. Fought. Lost.
I approached, slow, careful. Its ears twitched as it noticed me. It tried to stand. Failed. It wasn't dead—but it was mine.
I knelt beside it. "You're the first and won't be the last." I said softly, not to it, but to the moment.
Then I slit its throat, clean and quiet. The blood steamed in the cold.
Not a hunt, not exactly but a kill. And they would remember the kill, not the method.
But still... I wasn't satisfied. One kill from a trap didn't teach me enough. I needed to feel it, what it meant to chase, to strike, to risk.
So I dragged the stag back halfway, stashed it near the brook, and turned back toward the forest alone, spear in hand.
The hunt was harder than I expected.
Every snapped twig sounded like betrayal. My boots, even caked in mud, still felt too loud. I moved slow. Patient.
Then I saw it. A boar. Not enormous, but thick, covered in dark bristles, tusks barely curved. It dug at the roots of a fallen tree.
I waited. Let it settled.
Then I stepped just once and it looked up.
Our eyes met.
I lunged, my spear leveled low. It squealed, furious, lunging forward, but I met it mid-charge. The spear punched deep into its shoulder.
It kept coming. I twisted. Blood poured hot across my hands. We collapsed together me on top, spear grinding bone.
It kicked once ,Then stopped, I didn't breathe. Not yet. Then I exhaled. I'd done it. This one was earned.
Two kills in a single day. One from my mind. One from my hands.
I didn't say a word when I returned to the village.
Just emerged from the mist, blood-streaked and silent, dragging two bodies behind me one in each hand like a butchered warning.
Voices died in throats.
Eyes widened. A woman dropped her bucket. A boy froze mid-run.
And that's when the whispers began.
"He did it alone."
"No one saw him leave."
"Did he… call them to him?"
I ignored it all.
Dragged the boar to the square, dropped it. Let the stag roll beside it with a thud that made someone flinch.
I stood over them, chest rising slow, my face unreadable beneath streaks of dried blood and smoke.
"Feast," I said.
Then I turned and walked away.
The Fire and the Feast
They didn't hesitate. Meat was meat.
Men skinned. Women cleaned. Fire roared in the pit we'd dug three nights ago. Fat hit flame and screamed. Smoke rose, thick and greasy. It coated our huts, our hair, our lungs. But no one coughed.
They were too busy staring at me.
I sat alone, just outside the fire's reach.
They brought the first bite to me again. This time, the village elder; a woman named Mera, half-blind but proud offered it.
Still warm, still bleeding, She didn't kneel, but her voice trembled.
"We are grateful, Baron." I took it. Bit deep.
Let the blood run from my chin as I chewed.
They needed to see it. The mess. The rawness.
I swallowed.
"Good," I said.
And they erupted.
Singing. Chanting. The children danced. Men began carving bones into tools for show. A boy smeared blood under his eyes, mimicking me.
They were feeding off it.
But more than that, they were changing.
Becoming hungry for more than food.
Hungry for me.
Later, when the fires dimmed and the drunk began to snore, I heard it.
Not from the loud. Not from the bold.
From the corners. From the edges.
One voice.
"Do you think he's been chosen?"
Another, softer.
"No one hunts like that. No sound. No warning."
And another one barely audible.
"I heard the forest bends for him. That he doesn't even hunt. The beasts come to him."
I let the words settle.
Didn't correct them.
Didn't feed them.
Let them grow wild in the dark.
A trap set days ago had caught a beast.
But tonight
I'd caught something far more useful.
Belief.
Right now my only problem is the church they have been too quiet