Chapter:22 False Trails and False Hope
Jasper followed the coach’s tracks through the ruined woods, the scent of broken earth and crushed leaves thick in his flared nostrils. Each hoofprint hammered into the earth was a drumbeat in his chest—Sarah’s trail. His only friend, his only tether to the life before chains.
At his side padded Flame, the golden jaguar, her lithe form moving like sunlight stitched into flesh. Her keen nose twitched, her ears pricked high. She, too, smelled the trail, felt the wrongness—but even her feral grace couldn't pierce the full depth of the trap laid before them.
The signs of struggle—the torn branches, the rutted mud—led them to a clearing where the trees leaned like mourners over a battlefield. There, near the smashed ruins of a fallen coach wheel, they found him:
A lone guard, bloodied, slumped against the roots of a black elm. His armor was cracked. His sword lay broken in the dirt beside him.
The man looked up as Jasper approached. His eyes, wide with terror and confusion, locked onto Jasper as if seeing a ghost.
Flame growled low in her throat, a sound like warning thunder. Her tail lashed once—but Jasper placed a hand gently on her sleek shoulder. She hesitated, uncertain, but her instincts faltered before the broken, weeping image of the man.
The guard croaked two things, barely above a whisper:
"She was taken… the other way… not west but south… by the King's enemy."
"She… was wounded... bad… I saw the blood…"
As Jasper leaned closer, desperate for more, the guard turned his face away — as if from pain.
But unseen by Jasper or Flame, a sly smile crept across the man's lips.
For the briefest heartbeat, his eyes shimmered red, glowing faintly before sinking back to the soft hazel of a loyal man.
The deception had taken root.
Jasper’s breath shook with grief. Flame lowered her head, a low, confused whine slipping from her throat, her golden eyes dimmed by sorrow she could not explain.
Neither beast nor man saw the next danger coming.
A soft hiss sliced the air.
Before Jasper could react, the arrow struck.
A black-fletched shaft, hissing from the canopy high above, drove clean through the guard’s neck with a wet, sickening punch. The man's body spasmed once, then sagged lifeless.
Jasper spun around, teeth bared—Flame with him, her hackles raised—but the forest betrayed nothing. Only the ragged sighing of the trees.
Yet for a flickering moment—only a moment—
two crimson eyes glinted from the shadowed branches above.
And then were gone, swallowed by the dark canopy.
Jasper knelt by the fallen man, anger and sorrow colliding inside him like clashing storms. Flame pressed against his side, silent, sharing the burden.
Together, they dug a shallow grave by the roadside with their bare hands and claws, piling stones atop the guard’s resting place. No prayer. No words. Just the promise of vengeance.
Jasper looked south—the direction the dying guard had whispered.
Sarah needed him.
She was wounded.
She was waiting.
Jasper turned his back on the true trail and began to run, Flame at his side, each stride taking them further from her… and deeper into the waiting hands of the Hollowed Men.
Behind them, in the high places of the woods, unseen eyes watched.
And smiled.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter 23: The Fading Trail
For three days and three nights they ran — Jasper and Flame, the golden jaguar, never parting from his side. They slept only when their limbs threatened to betray them, curled beneath low boughs or the shadows of ruined walls. The stars wheeled overhead, cold and distant, whispering of things lost.
The trail was dying.
It had once been so clear — the deep ruts of the coach wheels, the churned-up dirt from frantic horses, the signs of struggle at the forest's edge. But now it was nothing but scattered leaves, wind-scattered hints of passage, the trail smeared by rain and time.
Jasper moved by habit now, not hope. His chest was a hollow weight. His hands — once fists of resolve — hung useless at his sides when he paused. He barely spoke. Flame moved with him, silent, ever watchful, sometimes nudging him gently with her great golden head when he faltered. She sensed things — smells on the wind, vibrations in the ground — but even she could not track phantoms.
Sarah was gone.
Another he had failed.
He had failed his parents when the goblin fist shattered their farmstead. He had failed the slaves he left behind in the pits of Grubkhar. And now Sarah, stolen from him while he had slept under the blind canopy of hope. He could still see her face if he closed his eyes — dirt-streaked but smiling, the stubborn hope in her eyes. And now... just a memory.
The land itself seemed to grieve with him. The dark woods thinned until they stumbled into fields rolling under heavy skies. The once-golden orchards of old swayed sadly in the breeze, their apples left to rot underfoot. Long-abandoned farmhouses hunched against the horizon, blackened by fire or left to the slow mercy of rain and time.
Villages loomed in the distance — crooked clusters of stone and timber — but Jasper kept to the edges. Civilization felt like a lie now. Something still moved in the edges of the trees — sensed by Flame in the bristling of her mane — but Jasper remained unaware of the hollowed men, the dark servants of a goblin overlord he had yet to learn of. He would find out soon enough.
Failure sat on his back heavier than the old slave chains. Every step forward felt like dragging those broken memories behind him, clattering and rattling with every heartbeat.
Flame padded beside him, her shoulder brushing his thigh, reminding him wordlessly that he was not utterly alone.
Ahead, nestled at the foot of a low hill, a village huddled — its chimney smoke thin against the grey sky. Life still clung there. People still lived, even as the world sickened.
Jasper’s fists tightened. The memory of Sarah’s voice echoed in his mind: We either fight for what’s left, or there’ll be nothing left to fight for.
He looked down at Flame. She lifted her golden eyes to meet his. No words needed. Just the silent bond of two creatures too stubborn to give up.
He would go to the village. He would ask. He would listen.
Even if hope had long since bled out onto the road behind them.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
