THE BLOOD INK OF THE VALERIUS BLOODLINE

Chapter 7: The Lesson of Reading Tracks

Cshhhh.

Faelan did not waste a single second. In a flash, his hand scooped up a handful of wet clay from the corner of the wall and slammed it onto the campfire. The embers died instantly, leaving behind a thin cloud of smoke that Faelan immediately swept away with his cloak to keep it from rising outside.

The limestone cave sank into absolute darkness.

"Hold your breath," Faelan whispered directly beside Billy's ear. His voice was barely louder than wind scraping against stone. "Don't make the slightest sound, even if your heart wants to leap out of your chest."

"I know the rules," Billy whispered back, pressing his back against the cold stone wall. His hand instinctively pressed against the burn wound on his abdomen to keep himself from groaning as the sulfurous stench outside grew stronger.

Through the narrow opening of the cave entrance, a massive shadow slowly passed by.

It stood nearly four meters tall, walked on four legs, and had a horribly hunched back resembling an ancient wolf carrying a suit of rusted iron armor.

Sitting atop the beast's back was a heavily armored Orc warrior, his muscular black body covered in armor and his head protected by a double-horned helmet.

The stench of charred flesh and the cold aura of dark magic crept into the cave, making the hair on Billy's neck stand rigid.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The soldiers' footsteps slowly faded as they descended into the valley toward the south.

Silence returned to the forest, but now it felt far more ominous than before.

Faelan released a short, restrained breath, then jerked Billy's shoulder.

"Take your dagger. We're moving now," Faelan ordered as he slung his bow over his shoulder.

"Now?" Billy frowned at the darkness. "There are still a bunch of those monsters outside, aren't there? You trying to get us both killed?"

"The main path at the bottom of the valley is under their control," Faelan replied coldly as he silently stepped out of the cave. "Staying here means waiting to be slaughtered when the cleanup squad searches the hills. We'll take the ridge."

Billy snorted irritably, straightened his tattered parachute jacket, and slipped the Fate Pen into his pocket.

"Great. What a wonderful choice. Thanks for the options, Boss."

The moment they stepped outside, the night wind pierced straight through Billy's bones.

Faelan moved nimbly up the steep rocks, leaping from one narrow foothold to another like a forest deer.

Billy, meanwhile, struggled behind him, gasping for breath.

Every time Billy landed too heavily on a patch of gravel, Faelan would stop and turn around with a murderous glare.

Crack.

A dry branch snapped beneath Billy's sneaker.

"Stop," Faelan hissed sharply.

The Elf turned around, slid two meters down without making a sound, then kicked the back of Billy's knee, forcing the young man down onto the moss.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Don't land on your heels, idiot! You walk like a drunk, crippled bull!"

"Ouch! Take it easy!" Billy cursed under his breath, clutching his aching knee. "I'm used to walking on asphalt sidewalks, not slippery moss-covered cliffs like this! My feet are swollen, my stomach just got ironed with your knife, and you're still expecting me to walk like a ballerina?!"

Faelan crouched beside him, grabbed Billy's foot, and tapped the ball of his toes.

"Use the front of your foot," Faelan said firmly, his eyes glinting beneath the dim light of the two moons. "Feel the ground before you shift your full weight onto it. In this forest, the sound of a breaking branch can be heard half a mile away by the ears of tracking goblins. Do you want to die like an idiot just because your feet are too lazy to think?"

Billy let out an irritated sigh, trying to rein in his temper.

"Okay, okay. Land on the balls of my feet. Kind of like sneaking past a security guard when I'm trying to steal mangoes from the neighbor's tree. Got it."

Faelan's thin eyebrows drew together.

"Fruit thief? Security guard? What kind of language is that?"

"Don't ask so many questions. Let's keep moving," Billy grumbled as he stood, this time carefully shifting his weight onto his toes.

His next steps were much quieter.

Faelan watched the change for a moment, then gave a faint nod before continuing to lead the climb up the cliff.

Throughout the night, until dawn approached, Faelan refused to let Billy walk in silence.

The Elf tested every observation Billy made with ruthless precision.

"Look at the branch on your right," Faelan whispered as they passed a thicket of sharp thorns. "What's strange about it?"

Billy stopped and narrowed his eyes at the chest-high silver fir branch.

"The branch is broken downward. The leaves are still wet with sap."

"And?"

"Not the wind," Billy answered quickly, his street instincts working to connect the pieces of the puzzle. "If strong wind had broken it, the smaller branches above it would've fallen first. This break is clean in the middle, like something heavy with a sharp edge slammed into it. A shield or the shoulder of someone wearing iron armor."

Faelan stared at Billy, a hint of surprise in his eyes.

"And the ground beneath it?"

"The mud's been pushed inward," Billy continued, crouching for a moment. "The tracks are wide, with rounded ends. Looks like the tire tracks of a motorcycle gang riding bald tires. That's the Orc you mentioned earlier, right?"

"An armored Orc vanguard," Faelan replied quietly. "Your observation skills are surprisingly sharp for a spoiled city human."

"I'm not some spoiled human, Elf," Billy shot back sarcastically as he jumped across a gap between the rocks. "Back where I'm from, if you can't tell the difference between an ordinary person's footsteps and the footsteps of a thug sneaking up behind you to rob you, you won't make it past fourteen."

Faelan gave a faint snort and jumped onto a large flat stone.

"Your homeland sounds like a disgusting den of thieves."

"Yeah," Billy replied bitterly with a short laugh. "Just as rotten as this forest of yours."

Suddenly, several four-winged crows burst from the canopy of the valley to their left, screeching in panic and shattering the silence of dawn.

Billy immediately lowered himself behind a bush and grabbed Faelan's cloak, pulling him down into hiding as well.

"See that?" Billy whispered. "The forest's CCTV just went off."

Faelan slapped Billy's hand away from his cloak but remained prone.

"Cee-cee-tee-vee? What kind of surveillance spell are you talking about now?"

"It's not a spell, Bambang!" Billy hissed in frustration. "I mean it's a natural alarm! Those birds didn't panic because of the fog. Something must've moved quickly down there and scared them off!"

Faelan fell silent for several seconds, carefully watching the direction the flock had flown.

"The wind is blowing from the east. The birds are flying west. That means something foul-smelling is approaching their nests from the south."

"See? I told you!" Billy whispered proudly. "We're a combination of a street detective and a forest shaman. We should open a tracking agency. Could make some decent money."

"Shut your mouth before I use your tongue as bait for marsh creatures," Faelan hissed coldly, though the scarred corner of his mouth twitched slightly, suppressing a strange hint of amusement.

The next two days of travel were exhausting and filled with physical torment.

They followed narrow trails along the ridges of steep hills, avoiding every valley that could potentially serve as a patrol route for the Orcs.

Without proper food, Billy was forced to chew bitter-tasting cliff moss and thorny tree roots that Faelan taught him to use to maintain his body's water levels.

His cauterized abdominal wound throbbed painfully with every steep climb, while his fractured ribs felt as though they were being stabbed with dull daggers whenever he took a deep breath.

But Billy refused to stop.

Every time Faelan glanced at him to see whether he was about to collapse and beg for a rest, Billy simply wiped the sweat from his forehead, spat on the ground, and kept moving with his teeth clenched.

That wild determination slowly eroded Faelan's disgust toward the human race.

In the eyes of the exiled Elf, this young man was no longer merely a lump of flesh meant to serve as bait.

He was a fighter in the making, tempered by the brutality of oppression.

By sunset on the second day, they finally reached the highest rocky cliff along the eastern border of Whisperwood.

A fierce, icy wind swept across the rocky summit, whipping Faelan's gray cloak and crushing the last remnants of warmth in Billy's body.

"We've reached the edge of Whisperwood Forest," Faelan said as he crawled toward the edge of the steep cliff. "The human settlement lies in the valley below. Oakhaven Village. From there, we can reach the defensive fortress of the Ashen Kingdom."

Billy crawled beside Faelan and wiped the dust from his eyes.

"Good. Finally, I can get a soft bed and some hot food..."

Billy's words abruptly died in his throat.

Beside him, Faelan's body suddenly went rigid as stone.

The Elf's silver eyes widened, filled with pure, unmistakable horror.

Billy looked down into the vast valley before them.

His breath caught in his throat.

Oakhaven Village was no longer welcoming them with the peaceful smoke of village chimneys.

From the green plains below, thick black smoke billowed high into the sky, swallowing the colors of sunset in absolute darkness.

But what froze Billy's blood was not an ordinary fire.

Among the ruins of collapsed stone houses, flames burned a blinding emerald green, their foul stench stabbing into Billy's nose.

It was dense magical fire, slowly melting the stone walls of the human settlement like wax beneath a furnace.

The sky above the valley had been split by a pillar of swirling green light, screaming with the wails of thousands of souls rising into the heavens.