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The hound smells blood before it bites. Its body tense, like a wire, stretched too thin, trembling on the edge of breaking. Its breath ghosts, pluming like smoke, in the cold air thick with the scent of damp earth and iron. A whistle cuts the silence – master's command. Its ears perk up, ribcage expand and contract with every breath. And then... It moves.
A blur of black against the frost-laced earth, a shadow given form. Its surges forward, muscles, instincts and hunger wrapped in fur. Paws hammer the frozen loam, crushing the brittle bones of unfortunate summer birds, shattering the glass-thin crust of ice that clings to fallen pine needles.
The forest is quiet, but it isn’t still. It breathes in its own way – slow, shallow, expectant. The mist lingers low, curling around the trunks of skeletal trees, swallowing the shapes of the undergrowth. The wind moves through the pines, dragging its fingers over the land like a mourner touching a corpse gone stiff with winter.
The hound doesn’t care for poetry, nor for the weight of the past pressing its cold lips to the nape of the present. It knows only the now – the distant heartbeat of something still-breathing but too slow to escape what comes for it. Its nostrils flare, lips exposing yellowed fangs, and it runs.
Its breath rasps in throat. Its heart slams against ribs. The command still echoes in skull, pressing it forward, forward, forward. The hunger is there too, just beneath ribs, coiled in the hollow of his gut. There is no stopping now.
Not until its teeth find flesh.
Ahead, the hare bolts, a streak of pale fur across the undergrowth, silvered with frost. A lump of life against the gnarled roots and dead bracken. It moves, a thing too small to fight and too swift to surrender immediately. Trying to outrun death. Its ribs flare, sides hollowing with every breath, each one taken in ragged gulps, quick and uneven, a rhythm that knows only fear. It doesn't stop. It can't.
The hound is close now. Close enough to hear the frantic beat of the creature’s heart. a heart that doesn’t want to stop, that begs to keep beating, that fights against the inevitable. But the world is relentless. The world does not bargain. It only waits – quietly, indifferently, patiently – as it always has, as it always will.
The hound tastes it, not in the flesh, not yet, but in the air, in the scent of the creature’s fur, sharp and ripe with fear. Terror has a taste. It is bitter, metallic, the ghost of iron on the tongue. A familiar thing. A memory of past hunts, past kills, the remnants of prey long gone, reduced to nothing but the lingering knowledge that they had once run, once fought, once bled to the ground beneath its paws.
His breath white against the cold, disappearing as quickly as it comes. The world is narrowed to this – the stretch of muscles, the burn in its limbs, the ground beneath – a blur of ice-covered leaves and black, frozen earth. The scent of the hare is thick now, mingled with the musk of damp fur and churned loam, an animal that has lived all its life on borrowed time and now knows more than ever, that the debt must be repaid.
It leaps, a last desperate attempt, kicking up the brittle remnants of the last season of life. The hound matches it, pouncing with the certainty of a creature that has no need to doubt. Its hunger is not cruelty, not malice, not even choice – it is only what it is. The closing of distance, the inevitable collapse of space between predator and prey.
It is the moment before the end.
Injrich kneels in the bracken, still as a tree forgotten by time, his breath slow, measured, each inhale drawn deep into his ribcage, each exhale slipping soundlessly past his lips. A smear of mud dries on his cheekbone, cracked where his skin moves, flaking at the edges, but he does not raise a hand to wipe it away. He does not fidget, does not shift, does not shudder at the damp that seeps through the threadbare weave of his clothes, bleeding cold into his flesh. He no longer feels such things. He is made of other stuff.
The world has narrowed to a singular point. The scent of old pine needles, of frost-bitten earth, of something living and unwary beyond the brush. A distant movement. The hush before the end.
Jan Ptáček had called him his loyal hound once, laughing into his silver goblet, his voice rich with wine and ease. A jest, no doubt, meant to draw a smirk, a bowed head, a murmured, As you say, My Lord. But a jest... only to the one who speaks it.
A hound knows its master. A hound listens for the whistle, the call, the hand that grabs the scruff of its neck and holds it back just long enough to make the chase worth watching. A hound doesn’t question the leash at its throat, nor the boots that walk behind it, nor the blood in its teeth.
And a hound has sharp teeth.
Boot prints drown in the mud – fleeting impressions already softened by the morning thaw. Soon, they will disappear, swallowed whole by the meandering trickle of meltwater that winds its way through the undergrowth, blurring into nothingness beneath nature’s indifferent touch. But for now, they remain, pressed into the earth, silent witnesses to the life that has passed through them.
A broken stalk of bracken, its green core exposed, split and jagged where a hand had reached out, where a man had braced himself against the ground. A slip, perhaps. A hesitation. A mistake. The smallest things leave the loudest echoes – if one knows how to listen. Little signs, small hints of direction. The forest tells its own stories, if one has the patience to read them.
But it is the scent that speaks loudest now – thicker than the damp of thawing moss, heavier than the decay of wet bark. Not yet the iron sharpness of freshly spilled blood, not yet the meaty stink of something cooling in the dirt, but close. Waiting. Waiting to be spilled.
The hound and the hare twist through black alders, their shapes swallowed by the creeping gloom of morning mist, the chase weaving through the skeletal trees.
The hare is fast, its hind legs a blur of muscle and desperation, kicking up shards of ice and shattered pine needles. It moves as all prey moves – with nothing but the raw instinct to flee, to find shelter, to escape the jaws closing in behind it. A burrow, a hollow in the earth, a place where the light can't reach and the hound’s breath doesn't burn its trembling skin.
But the ground here is treacherous, slippery with the thaw, damp and untrustworthy beneath paws. A single misstep – just one. A fraction of a second where its paw does not find purchase, where its weight shifts too far forward, where panic unbalances.
It stumbles.
The hound doesn’t.
A blur of muscles surges forward, the crack of a branch beneath its weight. Jaws snap shut.
A scream, sharp and shuddering, as teeth sink through the delicate armor of skin and fur, as the prey fights against the inevitable. The hare jerks, one last feeble struggle, paws kicking the air helplessly, breath coming in short, panicked gasps. But the hound holds firm, teeth locked, the trembling of its prey vibrating against the roof of its mouth.
Then stillness.
Warm, quivering fur slackens between its jaws, the breath within it spent, the life it held snuffed out like a candle in the wind. The scent of blood, fresh, sharp and metallic, spreads through the cold air. The forest does not tremble. Life ends as it always does – without fanfare, without pause, without mercy.
The hare dangles from the hound’s maw, its silver coat dulled beneath the weight of death. No longer the lump of frantic life that once darted through the undergrowth, no longer a breathing creature. Now it is just a thing, a scrap of fur and flesh hanging lifeless between yellowed fangs, its warmth already leaking out into the cold morning air.
Blood drips, thick and slow, gathering at the tips of damp whiskers before falling, one drop, then another, then another, onto the blackened roots below. The forest floor swallows it greedily, steam rising where the heat of life meets the frozen earth.
The hound stands still, paws rooted in the loam, its breath steady but deep, thick clouds rising from its nostrils. Its ribs expand, contract, the scent of blood still thick in its throat. The chase is done. The fight is over. The thing beneath its teeth no longer struggles, no longer twitches, no longer begs in the language of prey. And yet, instinct holds it there, clenched between powerful jaws.
The hound lifts its head.
Ears pricked and alert, listening beyond the silence of the forest, beyond the quiet drip of blood into the ground. The echoes of the chase still hum in its limbs, the thud of its own paws fading into memory. But the hunt is over. The world is still. And yet – not empty. Somewhere, beyond the mist, beyond the trees, beyond the stillness, there is another presence. Not a thing that runs, not a thing that pleads for its life with stuttering breath and trembling limbs.
No. This presence does not flee.
It stands. It waits.
The hound exhales, nostrils flaring, muscles coiled not in fear, but in knowledge.
Its master is near.
Injrich doesn’t hesitate.
Hesitation is a thing for softer men, for those who have the luxury of second thoughts, of weighing the value of a life before taking it. He has long since rid himself of such burdens. Now there is only movement, only the quiet certainty of muscle and bone working together, of breath held tightly behind the teeth, of a body that knows its purpose and does not question the command.
He moves low and swift, the way he was taught – the way a hound moves before it strikes, the way a blade slips between ribs before the lungs can draw a last breath. He is a shadow among shadows, slipping through the tangled bracken, his form swallowed by the embrace of night. The mist clings to the ground, curling around his boots, masking the rustling of the shifting ferns.
Through the bushes he watches the dying glow of the fire at the base of an ancient oak, its embers pulsing weakly, struggling against the damp that creeps through the forest. The light flickers, casting long, broken shadows across the trunks of trees older than any man alive. The air smells of wet earth, burnt fat and smoke.
Four men.
Their backs to the fire, their voices a low murmur, thick and unguarded, the easy drawl of men who have not yet learned to fear the dark. They speak as if the night belonged to them, as if the trees were not listening, as if the shifting fog did not carry the whispers further than they intended. Their words roll slowly, carelessly, the kind born of full bellies and the false comfort of fire.
Injrich waits.
Four men. Four hearts still beating, counting down.
One hones the edge of a sword, rolling steel against whetstone in slow, deliberate strokes. The sound is rhythmic, steady, the rasp of metal whispering against stone, a patient, unhurried ritual. Sparks catch faintly in the dying glow of the fire, brief glimmers of light swallowed by the heavy darkness. He does not rush. A blade demands care, demands reverence. A dull edge is a useless thing, and men like him have little use for anything that can’t cut when needed.
Another dozes, with his arms crossed over his chest, the weight of restless nights dragging him down. His breath soft against the morning chill, rising and disappearing in pale tendrils, curling over the ridge of his scarred knuckles. His head dips once, twice, before his body surrenders completely, boots planted firmly in the frozen loam. The cold creeps in, settles into his bones, but he does not stir. He is too tired to wake, too used to a life where sleep is taken in scraps, where the body learns to steal what rest it can, knowing it may not come again, where exhaustion is the dead man's lot.
A third fingers the purse at his hip, rolling the weight between calloused fingers. The clink of stolen coin, a sound that doesn’t belong here. His thumb traces the edge of the drawstring, the greed in him as much a habit as breathing, as thoughtless as the way his fingers twitch at the promise of silver. It was easy, too easy, to take what another man had sweated for, bled for, starved for. He does not think of the hands that once held the coin. He thinks only of its weight, the promise it carries.
The fourth watches. A bandit with a scarred lip, shifting weight between legs, muscles too tight under his skin, nerves on the edge like an animal hunted too long. His eyes cut through the darkness, darting from shadow to shadow, seeing shapes where there should be none, hearing sounds that have not yet been made. He doesn’t share the ease of the others, doesn’t fall into comfort.
He has lived long enough to know what silence can mean.
His breath slows, his shoulders square. His fingers twitch once, near the hilt at his side, the memory of past violence alive in his blood. Nervous.
Good, Injrich thinks. A nervous enemy makes mistakes.
A nervous enemy hears things that aren't there, shadows moving in the corners of his vision, the silence of the forest heavy with imagined breath. A nervous enemy fumble to draw his blade, grips too tightly, wrists locked with tension instead of loose and ready. A nervous enemy dies gasping, throat open under a knife, before he even realizes he's lost.
The mist rises now, thick as wool, curling through the skeletal branches overhead, pooling deep in the hollows where the night still lingers. It creeps like water, dragging itself through the undergrowth, turning the world soft and formless, smothering sound before it can spread too far. The fire is low, the embers pulsing red under a layer of blackened ash, and soon the light will be gone, swallowed up by the grey of morning.
The mist that hides him now will soon turn against him, thinning in the creeping daylight, burning away as the sun rises. The forest will breathe in color again, shadows stretching thinner, movements laid bare.
If he waits much longer, the light will betray him. If he moves now, he risks too much.
Four men. Four blades within easy reach. Even the sleeper will wake quickly, jolted from his slumber by the smell of fresh blood, by the sharp, wet sound of a man dying too close to his ear. Injrich has been outnumbered before. He knows what it means to fight on the ground, to taste iron on his teeth and feel warm blood slip between his fingers, the difference between a wound that will slow him down and one that will end him.
But he has his orders.
Jan Ptáček had sent him with a task, and he would not return empty-handed. That was not an option. The path behind him does not exist – not until his work is done, not until the hound has closed its jaws around the prey's throat.
And so he waits. Just a little longer. Just enough for the moment to tilt in his favor.
The hound lowers its prey, dragging its tongue across the blood-stained fur of its muzzle, slow and deliberate, cleaning away the remains of the kill. The hare lies before him, still and waiting, its warmth fading. Hunger coils deep in its belly, a sharp, insistent thing, easily sated with a single movement, a single bite. The scent of blood is thick in the air, rich and metallic, a whisper of permission that his body aches to obey.
But his body is not his own. There is no rest yet. Not until its master calls it off. Not until the work is done.
The wind shifts. The bandit with the scarred lip stiffens, his body freezing in that primal way an animal does when it senses the unseen. His nostrils flare, breath comes sharp and shallow, like a prey catching the first whiff of danger curling through the air.
Something is wrong.
He turns his head towards the trees, ears straining beyond the low crackle of the dying fire, past the rhythmic scraping of whetstone on steel, past the quiet murmur of his companions. The forest stretches before him, dark and patient, the mist still clinging to its roots, the branches still, the undergrowth undisturbed. But the silence is too thick. It presses against him, wraps around his ribs, settles in his gut, cold and heavy.
The others don’t notice.
One of them shifts in his sleep, breathing a soft sigh into the cold air. Another tilts his sword against the firelight, testing its edge carelessly with thumb, muttering something. They do not feel the weight of the moment, the eyes in the darkness, the breath held just out of reach. They are at ease, wrapped in the comfort of warmth, lulled by the belief that they are alone.
They are fools.
Injrich remains still. A dog in the bushes, belly pressed to the cold ground, breath measured and silent, eyes fixed and unblinking. He watches. He waits. As a dog waits for the whistle, for the hand that will release it, for the moment when the world shifts from silence to violence.
The scarred man wets his lips, unease flickering in his eyes. He murmurs something – a warning, perhaps, a hint of doubt meant to catch the attention of his companions.
The one sharpening his knife only chuckles, a low, dry sound, and shakes his head as he rolls the blade over the stone once more. “Too much piss in your blood,” he mutters, amused, voice thick with the certainty of the doomed. He looks up, grinning, his teeth catching the firelight. “The lord’s lapdog is miles from here.”
The steel sings as he presses it to his thumb, rolling the edge against calloused skin, a careful test. The blade is sharp enough to cut cleanly, sharp enough to sink deep without resistance, sharp enough to do what needs to be done. He nods, satisfied, and slides the sword back into its scabbard with a slow, practiced ease.
The hound sniffs at the hare. It pokes at the body once, then again, as if to see if it can still get up, if there is still some breath in the fallen chest, some will to escape. But the body remains still. The blood has cooled. The smell of death settles in the damp earth, seeping into the twisted roots.
One heartbeat.
The bandits don’t move. The man with the scarred lip is still watching the trees, but his eyes do not yet know where to land. The one with the knife leans back, his body relaxed.
Two.
The night holds its breath.
Then – Injrich moves.
A step from the trees.
Another.
He moves like snake, slipping between the broken ribbons of mist that curl low to the ground, his form little more than a shadow that creeping through deeper shadows. The night clings to him, folding him into its embrace, softening the crunch of frost beneath his boots, swallowing the steady rhythm of his breath.
The dagger is already in his palm, its worn handle familiar against fingers, an extension of his own hand. He does not need to look down to know how the steel will catch the light, how the blunted edge will gleam faintly before finding its target. His other hand ghosts over the hilt of his sword, though he does not draw yet. He will. But not now.
He has done this before.
He will do it again.
The scarred man sees him first. His head lifts, lips parted, a breath too sharp. Whether he means to curse, to shout, to form a warning, Injrich doesn’t know. And he doesn’t wait to find out.
A blur of movement.
The dagger flies, slicing through the damp air with a whistle, the arc of its path swift, precise, inevitable.
Steel meets flesh with a thick, wet sound, sinking deep into the man’s throat before tongue can form words, before sound can rise and betray his presence to the others. Breath catches – not in shock, not in understanding, but in the awful, desperate reflex of a body that has not yet realized it is dying. Hands claw at neck, fingers slipping over the hilt buried in flesh, over the hot spill of blood that wells too fast, too thick, dark against the grime of his tunic.
He gurgles. A choked, broken sound, the last thing his throat will ever form. His knees buckle. His body sags forward, unsteadily, feet shuffling in the dirt as if he could still fight against gravity, against the death itself. But there is no fight left. Only surrender.
He falls.
And Injrich does not stop.
He is already upon the next.
A single step. A shift of weight. A flicker of movement as the sword leaves its sheath, steel singing a sound as clean and cold as the air before a snowfall. The blade hums through the damp morning light, a gleam of silver against the darkness, cutting a path through mist and shadow alike.
The man with the sword barely has time to flinch.
His head jerks up, eyes widening, muscles clenching. He begins to rise, breath catching in throat, but the blade is already there, already moving, already descending.
The steel sinks deep, slipping into the hollow where shoulder meets neck, finding the soft spot where armor offers no defense. Skin first, splitting cleanly around the edge of the blade, a wound blooming in the steel's wake. Then muscles, tougher, resilient, holding for the barest moment before breaking.
And then bone.
It stops the blade, but only for a moment. The steel grinds against it, a jarring scrape felt more than heard, then pushes through, splitting it as easily as a hunter's knife through the ribs of a slaughtered stag.
The weight of the blow carries through, splitting the man open.
A cry bursts from him, short and sharp. Blood flows, hot and fast, spilling over the dirt.
The others react too slow.
The sleeper shudders, torn violently from the depths of dreamless rest, a gasp rattling from his lips as his body fights to catch up to his mind. His hands fumble for the sword at his side, clumsy with the remnants of sleep, fingers scrabbling at the grip, struggling to draw. His breath is ragged, his limbs sluggish – caught between the last wisps of sleep and the waking horror settling over him.
But there is no time to realize. No moment between waking and dying.
Only the cold weight of what is coming – the blade already moving to meet him.
The one with the purse stumbles back.
His foot catches in the loose earth. He stumbles, falling hard, the breath ripping from his lungs. Panic rushes through him, hands scrambling for the hilt of his sword.
But his fingers find only the purse at his hip.
They tighten around it, clutching the worn leather as if he could still bargain with fate, as if gold could still stand between him and the blade. As if the coin would change what has already been foreseen.
It will not.
A kill is a kill. There is no sadness in it.
The hound does not mourn its quarry. It doesn’t slow down, doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t bow its head in respect for the life it has taken. There was life, and now there isn’t. That is all. The body sprawled beneath its paws is a thing now, meat and fur, and soon even that will be gone. The world doesn’t stop for such things.
And neither does Injrich.
He stands over the man, as still as the trees that watch in silence, his breath steady, measured. Not ragged with effort, nor shaken by the weight of what he has done. His chest rises and falls in the slow, steady rhythm of a man who has done this before.
The blade is wet in his hand, dark and slippery where the blood still clings to the steel.
The forest is quit now. No more screams, no more ragged gasps, no more boots scraping against dirt in a last futile attempt to escape fate.
The lord’s hound has found his prey.
The hunt is over.
Not a victory. Not a triumph.
Just a fact. Bodies cooling on the ground. A blade to be wiped clean before it is sheathed. A man standing alone in the silence of a forest that has already begun to forget.