THE BLOOD INK OF THE VALERIUS BLOODLINE

Chapter 5: The Merciless Bow

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The slow rhythm of water striking limestone rocks gradually pulled Billy's fading consciousness back to the surface. The stench of poisonous moss and the weasel carcass had been replaced by the scent of wet cedarwood smoke and the smell of animal fat roasting over glowing embers.

Billy tried to move his hands, but his wrists were locked tightly behind his back. The rough rope, braided from strips of bark fiber, immediately bit into his already blistered skin.

"Damn... what now?" Billy rasped, opening his swollen eyelids.

He was no longer at the bottom of the muddy ravine.

Billy was tightly bound to a smooth limestone stalagmite inside a narrow, dark cave alcove. A few steps ahead of him, a small campfire burned between a pile of river stones, casting dancing shadows across the damp cave walls.

Across from the fire sat the figure who had aimed an arrow at him earlier.

The figure was tall and slender, dressed in a worn gray cloak made from coarse fibers that seemed almost indistinguishable from the surrounding stone. Its hood had slipped back slightly, revealing dull silver hair cut roughly to ear length.

But two things made Billy's breath catch.

A pair of long, pointed ears protruded from beneath the silver hair, and the left half of the figure's face was horribly disfigured, the skin pulled tight and wrinkled by the remnants of an old chemical burn.

His right eye was silver-gray, sharp as a honed blade, staring at Billy without the slightest trace of emotion while his hand dragged a whetstone across the edge of a serrated hunting dagger.

Sret. Sret. Sret.

Billy swallowed, his throat dry and raw.

"Hey... man. Handsome archer. Mind helping me out?"

The figure did not stop sharpening the knife. His gaze did not shift even a millimeter.

"It's just... the rope around my wrists is a little too tight," Billy continued, trying to sound casual even though his heart was pounding like a war drum. "My blood isn't circulating. If my hands rot and fall off, you're the one losing out because you won't be able to demand a ransom."

The figure's hand finally stopped.

The freshly sharpened blade caught the firelight.

He slowly raised his head and looked directly into Billy's eyes. His voice was cold and hoarse, his words clipped and rigid, as though he rarely used the human tongue.

"Silence," the figure said curtly. "Or your tongue will be the first thing I cut out."

Billy clenched his jaw for a moment.

"Okay. Message received. Damn, you're intense."

The hooded figure rose to his feet.

His movements were unnaturally quiet, barely stirring the air around him. He walked toward a flat stone beside the fire where all of Billy's belongings had been laid out in a neat row.

Billy's torn synthetic parachute jacket lay there, along with his paracord fire starter, a pair of battered sneakers, a metal button from his high school uniform, and an ancient bronze pen that now looked dull and lifeless.

The silver-haired figure picked up Billy's parachute jacket between two fingers and examined it, his brow furrowing deeply.

"What material is this?" he asked, glancing toward Billy. "Not silk. Not sheep's wool. Not animal hide. Too smooth, yet it contains not a trace of mana fiber."

"Imported polyester from Tanah Abang," Billy answered flatly. "About a hundred thousand rupiah for three when they're on sale."

The silver eyes narrowed sharply, staring at Billy as though the young man had just started speaking in the language of demons.

"You speak the language of the Ashen people, yet your terminology is strange," the figure hissed, tossing Billy's jacket back onto the stone. "Who is your master? Which noble faction sent a street rat like you to infiltrate Whisperwood's nest?"

Billy gave a short laugh, a dry sound that immediately twisted into a pained grimace when his abdominal muscles tightened.

"Master? You think I'm somebody's servant?" Billy slowly shook his head. "I'm not a spy, Elf. I'm just an orphan who got unlucky enough to be chased by thugs working for a government official, then somehow fell into a river and woke up in this monster-infested forest. Believe me if you want. If you don't, whatever."

The figure gave no reply.

His hand reached for the hunting dagger before he stepped toward Billy. His footsteps were so light that he seemed to glide without leaving a trace in the dust covering the cave floor.

Billy tensed, pressing his back harder against the stalagmite.

"Hey, easy, bro! Don't start stabbing! I've already got one hole in my stomach. I don't need another ventilation hole!"

The figure crouched directly in front of Billy.

Without warning, the wooden sheath of his dagger slammed into Billy's swollen stab wound.

THUD!

"AAAGH! BASTARD!"

Billy howled, his body convulsing against the stone pillar. Cold sweat poured over his face in an instant.

The terrible pain drove straight into his spine, tearing open the infected wound that had only just begun to dry. His eyes reddened as he glared at the figure before him, fury blazing in them.

"You bastard!" Billy roared between ragged breaths, his teeth smeared with blood from biting his own tongue. "Come at me one-on-one without tying my hands, you asshole! I'll break those pointy ears of yours!"

The Elf did not strike him again.

Instead, he studied Billy with a subtly altered expression. A faint flicker of surprise crossed his gray pupils.

His gaze lingered on the stab wound before shifting to the bruised, fractured knuckles of Billy's right hand and the scratches covering his neck, remnants of the Blight-Weasel's attack.

"Not a trained soldier," the Elf murmured coldly, more to himself than to Billy. "Your punch was reckless enough to shatter your own hand. Yet you drove a brittle branch into that rotting beast's eye and pierced its brain."

"Oh, so you were watching from the tree?" Billy cut in between ragged breaths, spitting beside his foot. "Pretty impressive. Instead of helping, you just sat there watching."

"In this forest, those who help strangers usually end up as corpses before sunset," the Elf replied without expression.

He stood again and walked back toward the fire.

His long fingers, covered by leather gloves, picked up the Fate Pen from the flat stone. He turned the engraved metal object slowly before his eyes.

"This object," the Elf said, his voice lowering into an investigative tone. "Where did you steal it?"

"Nobody stole it!" Billy snapped immediately. "It belonged to my grandfather! It's the only family heirloom I have, damn it!"

"Your grandfather?"

The Elf let out a short laugh, dry and hollow, like dead leaves scraping against one another.

"Lowborn humans do not possess artifacts engraved with the ancient runes of the northern dynasty. This is dawn-forged metal from the First Age. And these engravings..."

The Elf touched the faint symbol near the base of the pen with his fingernail.

"...only that cursed bloodline would dare wield them."

"What bloodline are you talking about?! I'm Billy! Just Billy. I don't have some fancy noble surname!" Billy grunted irritably, his head throbbing harder from the lingering mushroom poison and fever. "If you want that pen, then take the jacket too! Just untie me! My wound smells like a corpse. Doesn't it disgust you?!"

The Elf fell silent.

His gaze shifted from the ancient pen in his hand to Billy's mud-caked face.

The human boy's face was deathly pale, his body hovering on the edge of physical death. Yet his eyes stared back with the same wild glint, showing absolutely no fear.

It was the stubborn gaze of a wild animal born and raised in the darkest corners of the world.

"What is your name, Human?" the Elf asked quietly.

"Billy," he answered curtly. "What's yours? So I know whose name to carve onto your gravestone once I'm healed."

Hearing such a ridiculous threat from a prisoner who was barely alive, the unburned corner of the Elf's mouth twitched faintly.

"My name is Faelan," he answered briefly. "And you will not live long enough to carve anything on my gravestone."

Faelan slipped the bronze pen back beneath his cloak before snatching a small bone-handled dagger from his belt.

With one precise flick of his wrist, he threw it at Billy.

STAB!

The blade sank three fingers deep into a crack in the limestone floor, stopping only a few centimeters between the tips of Billy's sneakers.

Billy flinched.

He stared at the dagger, then at Faelan's cold face in confusion.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Faelan turned his back and sat beside the campfire again, picking up his longbow to inspect the tension of its string.

"The wound in your stomach is already rotting. By midnight, the poison will reach your heart, and you'll die slowly while babbling like a mad dog," Faelan said without turning around.

His voice was flat and cold as snow.

"So what?!" Billy snapped irritably.

"Cut your own ropes and don't die tonight," Faelan said quietly, his voice echoing through every corner of the silent cave. "At dawn tomorrow, an Orc-hunting squad will pass through this valley."

He drew a finger along the length of his bowstring.

"And I need bait for my arrows."