Chapter Two
When Dipak woke in the morning, half his berries were gone. In their place, lying neatly on the empty stretch of shirt, was a single fat hare, its neck deftly broken.
His heart dropped into his stomach and his blood turned ice-cold.
Trembling, he threw himself out of bed and checked his wards.
Finding them completely intact did nothing to soothe the terror flooding his body.
There was nothing in the forest that should have been able to just wander in and out of his wards like they weren't even there, especially not at night when it was literally fatal to wander around.
He prowled the rest of the tiny space, but there really wasn't anything to prowl. Just his fire, his bed, his supplies. Barely enough to be called a campsite.
Sitting down, he got the fire going again as his racing heart slowly calmed.
Someone had traipsed into his camp, stolen half his berries, and left a hare in their place. Someone had traded him berries they could have easily picked themselves for meat that would have taken far more work to obtain.
At least now he was confused rather than panicked.
After he had the fire going and had enjoyed a good cup of strong tea—mourning the lack of cream and sugar to go with it—he turned his attention to the hare.
They were the first thing he'd ever learned to butcher when his mother had brought home three of them after a good day of hunting.
She'd also taken down a buck, but had traded that to a larger family in return for milk, eggs, and a few other staples.
That had been a good night, with smiles and his father singing, and full bellies when they'd gone to bed.
A few weeks later, after he'd gotten the hang of butchering small animals, she'd started taking him out to learn tracking and field dressing. By the end of that year, he'd started trapping and hunting small animals.
By the end of the next year, when she'd broken her leg and Dipak had been forced to take up the hunting, he'd been able to hunt all but the largest animals, because at twelve he just didn't have the strength to carry them back.
That had changed once he'd grown into himself, and by sixteen he was the best hunter in the village.
Not long after turning seventeen, he'd become an orphan and, unable to deal with the trauma of his parents' deaths, of the many deaths that had occurred that awful day, he'd left the village and joined the military.
Sighing softly at how stupid life could be sometimes, Dipak drew his hunting knife and deftly set to work skinning and butchering.
He'd planned to spend his day seeking out better, long-term shelter, but he couldn't afford to waste the meat or the fur.
So he dealt with the meat first, setting it to cook slowly over a long period so that it would be ready to eat that evening.
After that, he turned his attention to preserving the fur, rigging a frame so it could dry out in the sun after he'd gotten it scraped and clean.
By that point it was well into the afternoon, and he still had a lot of work to do, including dealing with the remaining berries.
First he gathered more firewood, because he wouldn't be able to do that in the dark.
Thankfully, it only took about an hour or so to gather enough to get him through the rest of the day and into the next morning.
Ignoring his grumbling stomach, he set to work on the berries.
He'd found the perfect stone for the job while collecting firewood.
It was wide, almost round, and near perfectly flat.
Unfortunately, the cooking he was doing now couldn't be done with the smuggler fire, so he filled the pit in, created a more traditional firepit, and built up a proper campfire.
It would draw more attention, and clearly his wards weren't as effective as he'd thought, but he had no choice if he wanted to eat and, more importantly, start preserving food for the cold months.
He had, at best, two months before serious cold set in, and while he planned to be gone no later than the six month mark, that was still four to five months in miserable cold.
He needed better shelter and plenty of food.
Hunting and foraging could be all day tasks, and combining those with trying to find a legendary dragon…
Well, he certainly wouldn't be bored.
Once the fire was going strong, he set the stone close enough the berries could heat and dry out without cooking and burning, though they'd need regular attention to do so evenly. What he wouldn't give for a proper stove and canning equipment. Ah, well.
Tasks completed for the moment, Dipak sat down to enjoy some more tea while he took stock. He was sweaty and grimy, so a washing up wouldn't hurt. Then he could muck some more with his wards, see what he could add to strengthen them.
His stomach continued to grumble for food, but until he was a bit more stable in that, one meal a day would have to do. He was lucky he wasn't forced to go without entirely.
Standing, he stripped off his clothes and set them aside.
He'd love to be able to at least rinse them out, but it was too late in the day for that, so he'd have to make do with cleaning himself and save laundry for another day—though he did take the berry-stained shirt with him, as that one he could leave to dry overnight.
The water was cold but bearable. He'd certainly bathed in waters far colder. Plenty of clean water to take his time washing in was another luxury he'd lost while stuck in prison for six months. Fresh air, fresh water, not having to fight for every scrap of food or moment of limited privacy…
Wasn't the life he wanted, that he'd worked so hard for, but it was leagues better than the six months of living nightmare he'd endured. Even actual fucking war hadn't been as miserable as prison.
When he was clean, and feeling better than he had in months, he stretched out on a smooth plane of rock by the shore to dry out in the fading sunlight. When he started to get chilly, he finally pulled his clothes back on and checked on his dinner.
It was cooked perfectly, which put a smile on his face. Combined with some of the berries he'd set aside, the meal was delicious. Simple, maybe, not as flavorful as it would be with herbs and such, but good all the same.
He cleaned up, stoked the fire and checked on his berries, then finally sat down to relax a bit.
Tomorrow he would definitely need to focus on finding or building better shelter. Finding it would be ideal, something like a sturdy hollow or a small cave not filled with something dangerous, but he would take whatever he found first.
When he'd suitably rested, he went for a short walk to ease up any stiffness before he settled in for the night, mind spinning with all that he needed to do, the looming hunt for a dragon that most people didn't even think actually existed, they were that rare.
Worry picked at the back of his mind over the gifted hare, but there was nothing he could do there.
Anything that could so easily bypass his wards could do the same to any other spell he could think up.
Who or what, though? Any person would have to break the wards, and he'd have felt them doing it long before they succeeded.
Same with any creature of wild magic. He went through the whole list of every known inhabitant of the Forbidden Forest and even some that lived further afield but could conceivably wander into the forest, and all he came up with was nothing.
Something cracked under his boot, and he looked down to see he'd crushed a nut.
Dipak looked up and smiled to see he'd chanced upon a dragon nut tree.
Like tartberries, they were a late season harvest, named for their greenish color and how fucking difficult it could be to get them out of their shells.
The only reason he'd cracked open the one beneath his boot was that it was half-rotted.
Removing his cloak, he laid it out on the ground and started foraging, finding all he could eat and more just on the ground. Then he climbed the tree and tossed down many more. When he had enough to feed a small army, he tied up the cloak to form a crude sack and returned to camp.
Dusk had fallen, and it would soon be full dark, but that hardly mattered to him.
He double checked his wards, increased their strength, and then fetched a suitable rock from the riverbank.
With a cup of tea at his side, he spent the next couple of hours cracking open nuts, leaving them in a pile on the poor shirt he'd just cleaned of berry juice.
By the time he was done, it was late, and he was even more sore than when he'd started, but it was plenty worth it to have this kind of sustenance. He could have nuts and berries for breakfast, and he hadn't anticipated more than one meal a day for weeks yet.
All in all, his first two days in the Forbidden Forest hadn't been terrible, even with the mysterious, sneaky little bastard that could ignore wards.
Though it would prove futile, he set up an alert just inside the wards, so anyone crossing the first ring would have no choice but to trip the second one, waking him to the intrusion.
Satisfied with his efforts, if not confident they would work, Dipak built up the fire and finally went to sleep.
When he woke just a few hours later, hazy morning sunlight slipping through the canopy, he sat up and looked around—and swore loudly enough to startle some nearby birds. Climbing out of bed, he crouched down by his stockpiled nuts.
Half gone. Half of the fucking things were just gone.
In their place, lying neatly next to the remaining nuts, was a spined pheasant.
They were notoriously difficult to catch due to the rather glaringly obvious venomous spines, a peculiar creature that had never been able to decide if it was a bird or a lizard.