Dawn tinged the horizon pink, and faint rays of sunlight began to seep through the early morning mist covering the small village. The false peace was quickly shattered when the first villagers awoke and stepped outside.
A horrified scream tore through the quiet atmosphere.
From the ashes of the burned-out house, a trail of dark, gruesome, and mottled blood stretched across the white snow. It snaked like a giant venomous serpent, leading toward the distant edge of the forest.
Priest Lycomedes rushed to the scene, followed by Overseer Hector and curious villagers. When they stepped onto the charred foundation, they found only two unrecognizable bodies, burned to charcoal. But the child Lyra and the boy Lycaon were gone.
"Have you found them?" Hector asked.
Lycomedes didn't answer; he followed the trail of blood, his face darkening. The trail stopped at the bank of the Axios River, then vanished. He looked toward the dark Labyrinthos Forest on the other side, a belated regret and anger flaring in his heart. He had been too careless.
"To survive something like that... it's a miracle," Lycomedes muttered, his voice choked. He could not let such a menace escape.
"Manhunt!" he turned and ordered the crowd. "Have everyone search for Lycaon! He is gravely injured; he cannot have gone far. Find him, and bring me his head!"
At the same time, at the edge of the Labyrinthos Forest.
Lycaon regained consciousness.
It was not an awakening, but a violent tearing from the darkness of unconsciousness by searing pain. The faint morning light filtered through the dense canopy, illuminating a mangled body. The broken leg, the burn on his face, and the stab wounds in his chest all screamed at once. He nearly passed out again.
But a command, his father's final words, suddenly echoed in his mind: "Run! Save Lyra!" His little sister's name was like a flame erupting in his icy heart, rekindling his fragile will to survive.
He knew he would die from blood loss and infection if he did nothing. A fever had already begun to burn through his body.
He had to live.
Remembering the survival lessons his father had taught him, he dragged his body, his teeth clenched so hard they drew blood to override the pain. He found patches of clean moss growing on a tree trunk, grabbed them, and frantically pressed them into the wounds on his chest to stanch the bleeding. He found a cold mud puddle and plastered the dark mud over the searing burn on his face.
The most horrific task was setting his broken leg. He used his father's iron knife, his hands trembling, to chop straight branches from a tree. Then, with a guttural, animalistic roar, he used all his strength to set the protruding bone fragment back in place. The pain sent him into convulsions, his eyes rolling back in their sockets, but he did not faint. The thought of Lyra kept him conscious. He tore a strip from his blood-soaked tunic and tightly wrapped the branches around his shattered leg.
Every movement was an agony. He repeatedly fainted and came to, haunted by Lyra's screams and the villagers' laughter. There was no one to help. Not a single kind hand. There was only the survival instinct of a wild beast.
Finally, when the work was temporarily done, he used his last ounce of strength to crawl to a large hollow tree, burrowing deep inside and covering himself with layers of rotting leaves.
Then he passed out again, sinking into the delirium of a high fever and endless nightmares. He didn't know that on the other side of the river, a relentless manhunt was heading straight for him. The race against death had only just begun.