The chase had turned into a desperate, pounding rhythm—feet slamming against wet earth, breath tearing from lungs in ragged bursts. Jorka's spear was still slick with the tiger's blood, the pelt bundled and tied across his back like a trophy he refused to relinquish. The beast ahead was wounded, limping now, its powerful strides shortening with every leap. Dorag had fallen behind after the initial clash, cursing and limping from the gash on his thigh, but Jorka could hear him crashing through the underbrush somewhere to the right—stubborn, relentless.
Then, abruptly, Dorag vanished.
One moment, the heavy thud of his boots was there, the next—nothing. Jorka frowned mid-stride, a flicker of unease cutting through the hunter's focus. Had the rival slipped into a ravine? Tripped on roots? It didn't matter. The tiger was bleeding out, slowing. Jorka pressed harder, ignoring the warning prickle at the base of his skull.
The forest began to slope downward sharply. To his left, the narrow game trail paralleled a growing stream—first a cheerful trickle over mossy stones, then wider, faster, swollen by recent rains higher in the mountains. The water roared now, white-flecked and hungry, carving deeper into the earth with every bend. Jorka kept pace with the tiger, staying just behind its haunches, waiting for the moment it would falter enough for a killing thrust.
He never saw the attack coming.
A brutal impact slammed into his temple from the side—something hard, metallic, edged with the unmistakable weight of Dorag's axe haft. Pain exploded behind his eyes like shattered flint. The world tilted violently. Jorka's legs buckled; his spear flew from numb fingers. He pitched sideways, tumbling over the slick bank in a tangle of limbs and wet leaves.
The river swallowed him.
Cold shock punched the air from his lungs. The current seized him like iron hands, dragging him under before he could draw breath. Water filled his mouth, his nose—bitter, silty, alive with the taste of mountain stone. He thrashed, arms windmilling, but the flow was merciless. It rolled him, slammed him against submerged boulders, tore at the pelt still strapped to his back. His head cracked against rock once—stars bursting in the black behind his eyelids—then again, harder, a sickening thud that sent darkness rushing in from the edges.
Above, on the bank, Dorag stood panting, axe still raised. Blood dripped from the haft where it had connected with Jorka's skull. A slow, cruel grin split his bearded face.
"Should've watched your back, brother," he muttered, voice thick with triumph. He spat into the foaming water. "The tiger's mine now. And the honor."
He turned, limping but purposeful, following the blood trail the wounded cat had left. The river would finish what the axe had started. No man survived the Blackfang rapids this time of year. Dorag vanished into the green gloom, already dreaming of the elders' cheers and the pelt draped over his shoulders.
Jorka, meanwhile, was carried deeper into the gorge.
The current battered him without mercy. He surfaced once—long enough to gulp half air, half water—before another wave drove him under. His lungs burned. His limbs grew heavy, sluggish. Consciousness frayed like old rope. Another glancing blow to the head—stone this time, not axe—and the world narrowed to a dull, throbbing roar. Then nothing.
The river didn't kill him.
Instead, it spat him out.
He washed into a hidden cave mouth where the gorge narrowed to a throat of black rock. The current weakened here, swirling lazily in a wide, shallow basin lit only by faint cracks of daylight high above. Jorka's body fetched up against a gravel bar, half-submerged, face-down. Water lapped at his cheeks. Minutes passed. Hours. The cold kept his heart beating—slow, stubborn, alive.
Eventually, sensation returned in painful increments.
He coughed, retched river water, rolled onto his back with a groan. Every inch of him ached: ribs bruised, skull throbbing with a deep, nauseating pulse, left arm numb where he'd struck a rock. The pelt was gone—torn away in the rapids. His spear, his knife—lost. He lay there, staring up at the jagged ceiling of the cave, listening to the drip-drip-drip of water echoing somewhere deeper.
Darkness pressed close, broken only by a faint, unnatural glow coming from the far side of the basin.
Jorka dragged himself upright, head swimming. He crawled on hands and knees across the slick gravel, following the light. It grew stronger—pulsing, almost liquid. At the edge of the pool, half-submerged in black sand, lay a stone the size of a man's fist. It wasn't ordinary rock. Its surface was veined with deep indigo and midnight blue, and from within it emanated a cold, shifting radiance—like captured starlight trapped under ice.
He reached out, trembling fingers brushing the surface.
The moment skin met stone, the glow flared.
A low, resonant hum filled the cave—vibration more felt than heard. The stone cracked—not shattering, but splitting along invisible seams. From the fissures poured a thick, viscous fluid: blue-black, shimmering with flecks of silver, moving with unnatural purpose. It flowed upward, defying gravity, coiling around his wrist like living ink.
Jorka tried to pull back. Too late.
The liquid surged over his hand, up his forearm, spreading across his chest, his shoulders, his throat. It was neither warm nor cold—something else entirely. It seeped through his torn hides, through skin, into muscle and vein. He gasped as it reached his mouth, forced its way past his lips, down his throat. Bitter. Metallic. Alive.
His vision whited out.
The last thing he felt was the liquid pouring into every part of him—filling lungs, heart, marrow—like being drowned from the inside. His body convulsed once, violently. Then stillness.
Darkness claimed him again.
But this time it was different.
Deeper.
When awareness returned—hours later, or perhaps days—he was no longer lying on gravel.
He was standing.
The cave was gone. Or rather, he was no longer inside it in the same way. The world around him had shifted—stretched, thinned.