September 11, 540, from the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored
The first sensation was cold. Icy moisture seeped through the fabric of his shirt, touching his back, making his whole body tremble in a fine, uncontrollable shiver. Then came the pain. It wasn't sharp, like the bite. It was a dull ache, spread throughout his body, as if he'd been run over by a cart and then thoroughly beaten with clubs. Every muscle screamed with overexertion, every nerve rang raw from the terror he'd endured.
Dur opened his eyes. Above him was not the night sky glimpsed through branches, but a low, sooty ceiling made of rough, dark logs. The air was thick with the smell of smoke, old wood, dried meat, and something else—sharp, herbal, probably medicinal.
He lay on a hard bed covered with a tattered hide. Trying to move sent a hot flare of pain through his shoulder and ribs. He groaned, and the sound, weak and hoarse, seemed foreign to him.
"Alive," came a low, raspy voice from the darkness. It was devoid of any emotion, like stating the weather.
Dur slowly, with difficulty, turned his head. By a small fireplace made of rough stone, a stocky, broad-shouldered man sat on a stump. His face was furrowed with wrinkles, like old, time-cracked leather. His graying hair was cut short and uneven. He was repairing some kind of trap, his strong, scarred fingers deftly working with thin wire. His eyes, cold and light gray like river pebbles, slid over Dur for a moment, assessing and indifferent.
"You... you..." Dur tried to say, but his throat was dry and tight.
"Torm," the man introduced himself curtly, turning back to his work. "Found you by your tracks."
The words were spoken calmly, but each one hit Dur's consciousness with the force of a fist. He pictured himself, helpless and pathetic, lying in a pool of his own blood. His stomach clenched with shame.
"The wolf..." Dur whispered.
Torm nodded towards the corner of the hut, not looking up from his work. Dur followed his gaze, and his heart plummeted into some abyss. Nailed to the wall hung a hide. That same one. Gray-brown, with a dark spot on its side—probably from his helpless blows with the stick. It was enormous. In the half-light of the fight, he hadn't realized its size. Now, seeing it fallen and lifeless, he understood the full depth of his folly.
"He was old," said Torm, as if reading his thoughts. His voice was even, without a hint of reproach or sympathy. "Teeth worn down, claws blunt. Hunger drove him to the road. Lonely, weak. A strong beast, in a pack or in its prime..." He paused for a moment, snapping the fastener on the trap with a click of his finger. The sharp metallic sound punctuated his sentence. "...wouldn't have even noticed you. Would've taken you for a bug."
The words hung in the air, heavy and inexorable as stone blocks. Old. Weak. Hungry. And this old, weak, hungry beast had turned him into bloody rags in just a few minutes, left him to die in the forest.
All his childhood dreams of adventure, all the oaths sworn under the Old Pine, crumbled to dust in that second. He wasn't a hero setting out to conquer the world. He was prey. A foolish, arrogant puppy who thought he could challenge the adult forest.
Tears welled up in his eyes, hot and stinging, but he squeezed his eyelids shut, not letting them fall. Crying in front of this man seemed like the last, most shameful display of weakness.
He lay there, staring at the sooty ceiling, feeling the cold from the hide beneath him seeping deeper, mingling with the cold inside. It wasn't the cold of his body, but the cold of realization. Realization of his own insignificance, his frivolity, his terrible, fatal mistake.
"Thank you," he finally forced out, and the word burned his throat.
Torm said nothing. He just finished with the trap, set it aside, and stood up. He walked over to the bed, and Dur involuntarily cringed, expecting a blow, a taunt, anything. But the man simply, roughly but carefully, touched the bandage on his shoulder, checking for blood.
"Rest," he threw over his shoulder, returning to the hearth and pouring something steaming from the pot into a clay cup. "You'll live."
Dur closed his eyes. In his ears rang the snap of that very trap. He realized he had just fallen into another one. But this time—into the trap of reality. And to escape it alive, he would have to stop being a bug.