(6 hours later, The Ashfang Tribe)
It took six hours for the victorious warriors of the Ashfang Tribe to bring all the conquered slaves back to their village, as they rounded all the wagons and placed them near the centre of the camp, a few dozen meters away from the celebratory fire.
Inside, the surviving women of the Blue Frost Tribe sat pressed against one another in silence, their eyes red and faces hollow as the cold bit through their thin clothes while the Ashfang raiders celebrated beyond the bars.
No one fed them that night.
No one offered comfort.
As hours passed, while they were left neglected.
"Water.... I need water...."
One of the women pleaded repeatedly, until eventually a man finally approached the cage with a cracked wooden bowl filled with cloudy water, the same filthy bowl Riven would later see placed before pigs and hunting dogs, and after sliding it through the gap beneath the bars, the man laughed softly as he said, "be glad that you’re worth more alive than dead.... Because otherwise, we wouldn’t even waste livestock water on you."
And yet, despite how repulsive it looked, the women still drank from it.
They drank because thirst cared little for pride, and because grief did not stop the body from demanding water even while the soul begged for death.
Riven remembered the way his mother’s trembling hands reached for the bowl only after letting the others drink first, her lips dry, her eyes swollen from crying, while Lyra leaned into her side and shivered without making a sound.
That was when the dogs came.
At first Riven only heard barking beyond the cage..... sharp, hungry and excited in a way that made his skin tingle, and then he saw the Ashfang men dragging bodies across the snow, some by the legs, some by the arms, leaving dark trails behind them while the campfires painted everything in a wavering red that made the dead look even less human than they already did.
The bodies belonged to the fallen warriors of the Blue Frost Tribe.
Men who had stood beside Torren.
Men who had hunted with him.
Men whose names Riven did not fully know but still recognized from those quiet evenings around the fire when the elders used to speak in low voices and pretend the children were too young to hear fear in a grown man’s throat.
Now they were meat.
*Toss*
*Thud*
As soon as the bodies hit the ground, the dogs rushed in at once, teeth sinking deep into flesh as jaws clamped and locked, their bodies jerking as they pulled back with force, ripping loose whatever they could claim while others slammed into them, snapping wildly as they fought for the same piece.
One braced its paws and yanked hard until something gave, stumbling back as another lunged for it, teeth crashing together as they tore at each other’s hold, growls rising into sharp, frantic bursts while the snow churned beneath them.
Around them, men laughed loudly, shouting and cheering as the frenzy unfolded before their eyes.
While inside the cage, the women saw everything.
They were meant to.
That much became obvious quickly, as the raiders made no effort to hide the feast and even dragged the corpses closer whenever the firelight grew too dim, wanting the captives to see exactly what had become of the men who had failed to protect them, as they hoped that grief settled into their bones properly before the next stage of their lives began.
Some of the women broke immediately.
One older woman threw herself against the bars until blood ran down her forehead, screaming her husband’s name over and over until her voice cracked into something hoarse and useless, while another curled in on herself and bit her own wrist to keep herself from crying too loudly, her eyes fixed on a severed arm being dragged through the snow by one of the dogs.
Alira did neither.
She sat very still with Riven in her arms and Lyra pressed tightly into her side, her entire body shaking in small, constant tremors while her face remained fixed in that terrible place between grief and numbness, the kind of expression that belonged to someone who had already screamed too much and had discovered that pain could keep going long after sound gave out.
Riven remembered the exact moment his mother realized Torren’s body was among them.
He could not have known it for himself then, yet he saw it happen in her face as her eyes suddenly widened and stopped moving, as if the whole world had narrowed into one unbearable point somewhere beyond the bars, and a second later her hand flew over Lyra’s eyes while she pulled the girl tighter against her body, though it was already too late.
Lyra had seen enough, as she began to sob without restraint after that.
*Sob*
*Wail*
"Mother, is this a bad dream? I–I I’m scared. I want to wake up.
*Sob*
Where is Father? Where is Daren?
*Sob*
This is a bad dream isn’t it?
Is Minerva punishing me because I stole some food from Daren’s plate when he wasn’t looking?
*Sob*
Is this my punishment for being naughty?
I swear I’ll never be naughty again, mother.
So please..... wake me up...."
Lyra muttered, as she did not cry like someone overwhelmed by noise or confusion, but rather like someone who understood the ugly, broken reality that was now before her, as it was at that moment that her childish innocence shattered forever.
She kept asking where her father was?
Where Daren was?
Or why the dogs before them were eating men? While Alira could offer no answer beyond pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head with lips that would not stop trembling.
However, while she only saw the dogs, Riven saw more than the beasts.....
As he saw the men too.
Most of the Ashfang warriors seemed content to let the dogs and livestock devour what remained of the Blue Frost dead, either because they found the meat foul or because some small fragment of taboo still clung to them, but a few among them possessed no such hesitation, and those men crouched beside the bodies with knives in hand, carving strips of flesh with the same casual focus a butcher might devote to an animal.
They laughed while doing it.
Laughed while cutting, their blades moving with practiced ease as they spoke over one another, pointing out portions they claimed were softer, richer, or worth taking first, as though they were selecting cuts from livestock instead of what had once been living men.
One of them tapped the bone with the flat of his knife and remarked that the marrow inside was the real prize, speaking with crude certainty about how it strengthened the body and kept a man going through long winters, while another nodded and added that it was wasted on beasts when it could be boiled down and consumed properly.
They spoke of it like knowledge passed down.
Like something normal.
Like something earned.
One of them held up a piece in triumph and shouted that hunger made all creatures equal, while another replied that Blue Frost men must be tough from the cold and would need longer by the fire to cook, until eventually, the entire group burst into laughter and carried their stolen flesh back toward their huts as though what they held in their hands had not once been fathers, brothers, and sons.
Riven remembered their faces too.
He remembered that one had a burn scar twisting from ear to neck.
He remembered another wore necklaces made from teeth that clicked softly against each other whenever he walked.
He remembered a third man licking blood from his thumb while grinning at the cage as if daring the women to object.
That was the true cruelty of a mind like his.
The world did not allow him to look away.
Even when his mother turned his face against her shoulder, even when her fingers tried to shield him and Lyra from the sight beyond the bars, whatever he had already seen remained fixed inside him with a sharpness that age would never dull, and perhaps that was why, the first night at the Ashfang Tribe never ended in Riven’s mind.
It simply remained there... as an event that was going to shape his psyche deeply growing up.