CHAPTER 205: RIVER’S CLAIM

Dylan set off again, swallowing the slope the way you stumble down an unfamiliar staircase in the dark: one sure step, one hesitant step, one that threatens to send you sprawling.

The mist thickened, clinging to his ankles as if it meant to hold him back. It hid the roots, blurred the outlines, gave the trees the look of ghostly sentinels ready to close ranks.

He wasn’t thinking north, or east, or even in any precise direction. His thoughts ran in broken lines, all while avoiding the sodden ground, skirting clusters of ferns that could hide snakes, staying clear of hollow trunks where the silence felt too perfect. Each detour added minutes, maybe hours. But in this forest, a straight line was nothing more than a trap with a red ribbon on it.

From time to time, a branch snapped somewhere behind him. He was learning which ones to ignore and which ones to probe, trying to guess their source.

Daylight barely seeped down to the forest floor. A premature dusk ruled here, where the canopy formed an unbroken roof. The trunks, coated in moss, oozed with damp, and more than once he slipped, breaking his fall with an arm or shoulder. His skin already bore red scratches, souvenirs from scraping against the stone in the fissure.

The rumble he’d heard earlier became clearer, until it resolved into the quick murmur of running water. He reached it by following a narrow ravine where gnarled roots plunged into the void like clenched fingers.

The water ran clear and fast, bristling with foam. Wading across would have been suicidal; the current would sweep away even someone awakened like him. So he followed the bank, looking for a crossing.

After a quarter of an hour, he found a fallen tree, its trunk carpeted in moss. The bridge wasn’t wide, but it held. Dylan set one foot on it, then the other, advancing hunched like a lazy tightrope walker. The moss made every step treacherous; twice he nearly slipped, catching himself just in time with his hands clawed into the wood.

On the other side, the mist seemed denser still.

And then, far away, he heard it—a faint metallic chime, barely louder than a breath.

He quickened his pace. Branches whipped his face. The ground tilted upward, forcing him to clamber over mossy rocks, sometimes crawl beneath fallen trunks. The air grew sharper, a sign he might be nearing the edge.

A shaft of light suddenly pierced between two enormous pines, enough to make him squint. He slipped into the gap like a rat into a crack in the wall, and at last the forest fell away behind him.

Ahead, the ground opened into an uneven clearing, still heavy with morning mist.

The clearing was only a false reprieve. An expanse of tall, wet grass, scattered with rock outcrops like grey teeth. The mist danced here, thicker still, swallowing shapes.

Dylan stood for a moment at the treeline, breathing hard, ears straining. The faint metallic sound he’d heard earlier still prickled at his neck. Was it a harness, a weapon... or just the distant groan of a branch against stone? In the oppressive silence of the forest behind him, every sound was a threat.

I should head further south. The thought came sharp and cold. Staying at the edge was offering himself as a target. The river—that was his only compass now. It ran downstream, toward lands perhaps less patrolled by the Net. And then... there was Julius.

The image of the giant plunging into the dark abyss, a defiant grin on his face even as he fell to what should have been certain death, burned into his mind. Musclebound bastard, he thought, without bitterness this time, but with a new urgency. If Julius had survived the fall—a miracle, but Julius was a force of nature—the current would have carried him far. Very far. And if he hadn’t... Dylan clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t let the fish, or worse, the Net’s two-legged scavengers, feed on his... friend. He owed him at least that much.

He kept to the edge, crouched low, using the tall grass and rocks as screens. The ground sloped gently downward, confirming his instinct: water always seeks the lowest point. The forest, on his left, loomed like a dark, whispering mass. He was turning his back on it—literally and metaphorically. Each step southward pulled him farther from it, closer to the river and his grim hope.

Progress was slow. The soil, soaked by constant mist and recent rains, was a mire. His feet sank into cold, clinging earth that sucked at the last of his strength. He avoided open spaces, favouring the partial cover of thorny bushes or the shadows cast by huge erratic boulders. The river’s murmur grew louder, swelling into a steady roar. It was a summons, a promise of fresh water, but also a reminder of Julius’s fate.

Then the forest thinned. The trees spaced out, stunted, giving way to a rocky moor sloping down toward a wide gash in the land. And there, below, winding between steep banks lined with leafless weeping willows: the river.

It was broader and more powerful than he’d imagined from the heights. A mass of grey-green water, streaked with white foam where it slammed into rocks or the carcasses of dead trees. The current looked treacherous, swift, gouging out dark whirlpools. The air was saturated with the deafening roar of water and a fine spray that clung to the skin.

Dylan crouched behind a massive boulder crusted with yellow lichen, his heart hammering—less from fear of the hunters than from what he was searching for. His eyes swept feverishly along the banks, upstream, downstream.

"Where are you, you bastard?"

He scanned the sparse vegetation, the piles of driftwood wedged in rocky hollows, the stretches of grey pebble shore. Desperately looking for a splash of bright colour—Julius’s torn tunic—a human shape washed ashore, or... or simply a sign. A shred of fabric snagged on a low branch. Struggle marks in the mud along the bank.

The river’s roar seemed to shout an unyielding answer: Here, no one survives. Here, you vanish. But Dylan refused to believe it. Not yet. Not before he had searched every meter of this cursed bank—besides, he trusted that mountain of muscle not to die so easily.

He drew a deep breath, filled with the sound and smell of furious water, and began his careful descent into the realm of the currents, ready to face the worst sight—or the faintest scrap of hope.