Milt retreated deeper into the trees, keeping the settlement in sight through gaps in the foliage. Shouts echoed from the gate, sharp and urgent, carrying farther than the horn had. That meant coordination, not panic. Someone was giving orders.
He slowed his breathing and forced his body still. The urge to run pulsed under his skin, but running blindly would only push him back into the open. Humans gathered where paths met. They controlled roads, gates, and rules he didn't understand yet.
Smoke drifted from chimneys, carrying the smell of cooked grain and meat. His stomach twisted with hunger so sudden it hurt.
Shelter was right there.
So was exposure.
Milt lowered himself into a shallow dip in the ground and waited, listening as the world decided whether to close or open.
The shouting settled into a rough rhythm. Commands barked, acknowledged, repeated. Milt counted at least five distinct voices near the gate now, maybe more moving along the road. The hunters hadn't just arrived—they'd been expected.
That meant the road wasn't only a boundary. It was a line of communication.
Milt shifted his focus inward, testing his body the way he had learned to over the last days. His arms still trembled from the wagon escape. His legs felt heavy, but usable. The pressure responded sluggishly, like a muscle already overworked.
He couldn't fight a group. He couldn't outrun a coordinated search in open ground. That left one option he hated: getting close without being seen.
He moved downhill, keeping low, using bushes and fallen trunks to break his outline. The forest thinned the nearer he got to the settlement, but the ground grew more uneven, cut by old drainage channels and animal paths. Signs of traffic. Signs of attention.
A narrow creek fed into the river near the settlement's edge. Milt followed it, staying in the water when he could, ignoring the cold biting into his ankles. The noise covered his steps and smeared his scent.
He reached a point where the creek widened and slowed, reeds clustering thickly along the bank. From here, he could see the settlement clearly. A wooden palisade ringed most of it, patched and uneven, built more to keep animals out than soldiers in. The gate was open, but guarded.
Two men stood watch. Not hunters this time. Town guards. Their posture was different—less alert, more bored, but their eyes snapped toward every raised voice.
Milt studied patterns. One guard scratched his beard every few minutes. The other shifted his weight and leaned on his spear, favoring his right leg.
He waited.
Time passed slowly. The voices near the road grew fainter as some of the group moved on, spreading outward. Searchers, not a wall.
When the moment came, it was small and unremarkable. A cart rattled through the gate. One guard stepped aside. The other turned to say something over his shoulder.
Milt slid beneath the water, reeds brushing his ears, and crossed the creek at its shallowest point. He emerged on the far bank and crawled into a depression clogged with roots and trash—broken baskets, torn cloth, scraps thrown from the settlement.
Human waste.
Human blind spots.
He stayed there, barely breathing, as footsteps passed within arm's reach. A voice complained about the heat. Another laughed.
They didn't look down.
When the sounds faded, Milt shifted deeper into the refuse, pressing his body into the stink and rot. His instincts screamed, but his mind held them down.
This was how humans survived together.
By not seeing what they didn't want to.
The hiding spot worked, but it took its price.
By the time Milt dared to move again, his limbs were stiff and numb. The cold water had drained heat from his muscles, and staying curled had locked his joints. When he tried to stand, pain flared through his calves and lower back.
He bit down hard to keep from making a sound.
The smell clung to him—rotting food, human waste, old cloth. It masked his scent better than mud ever had, but it also turned his stomach. He gagged quietly and forced the reaction down.
Using the pressure was out of the question. Even thinking about it made his head throb. He needed rest, food, and something solid to drink that wasn't creek water.
What he had instead was proximity.
He crept along the settlement's edge, keeping to shadows and clutter. Every creak of wood made his ears twitch. Every laugh from inside the walls felt like a threat.
He wasn't invisible. He was tolerated by accident.
If anyone looked directly at him—really looked—there would be shouting, weapons, panic. The same fear he'd seen in the hunters would spread fast here.
Milt understood something then, cold and clear.
Surviving humans wasn't about strength.
It was about timing.
And he was running out of it.
As dusk approached, lanterns flickered to life inside the settlement. Warm light spilled through cracks in wood and cloth, turning shadows longer and deeper. That helped him, but it also meant curfews, gates closing, guards paying attention again.
Milt found a narrow space beneath a raised storage shed near the outer wall. The ground there was dry, packed hard by years of use. He crawled under and pressed himself flat, pulling debris around his body.
From here, he could hear voices above him, muffled by planks. The smell of grain was stronger. So close it hurt.
He closed his eyes and measured his options.
Stay hidden and starve.
Reveal himself and be caged—or killed.
Or move again, deeper, closer, riskier.
The settlement wasn't safety.
It was the next test.
A child's voice laughed above him, followed by running footsteps.
Milt realized he was no longer hiding from hunters, but from an entire town.