The Hunt That Wasn’t

Chapter 4 - The Hunt That Wasn’t

Cold still lingered beneath the trees beyond Greyhollow.

Zio passed the broken fence and entered the forest. The ground dipped. His foot sank into damp soil. His next step came shorter.

A bow rested in his left hand, worn smooth by use. A light quiver sat against his back. A short blade tapped at his hip. He stilled it once and moved on.

The forest held a different kind of quiet than the yard.

Air hung low between the trunks, cold and thin, carrying the smell of wet leaves and old bark. Fog lingered in narrow pockets, caught where the ground dipped. Zio moved through it without haste, keeping his steps light.

He did not think about the lessons. His body moved as it had been made to, without him calling for it.

A snapped twig would carry far here. He placed his feet with care, waiting for the ground to answer. Cold bit into his soles, sharp at first, then numb.

Somewhere ahead, something moved.
Zio stopped. He waited.
The forest settled again. No sound followed. No second movement.

He did not relax.

He lowered his posture and moved forward in shorter steps.
His gaze dropped to the ground ahead of him.

Bent grass.
A shallow press in the mud. Not fresh. Not old.

He crouched and touched the earth with two fingers.
Cold. Damp. The soil sank unevenly under the pressure.
Too wide for something small.
Too shallow for something heavy.

He followed the marks without hurry, letting the ground pull him forward. They drifted between the trees in no clean line. Some showed clear, others faded into nothing.
More than once he lost them. He circled back, slower, jaw setting for a moment before he let it ease.

Patience did not come easily. He moved as if it did.

A broken leaf caught against bark. A scuff where something had shifted its weight. He noticed them, one by one, without stopping. His steps stayed short. Whenever he pushed faster, the ground turned vague. When he eased back, the signs came apart again.

The bow stayed lowered.
A sound flickered to his right. Not a snap. A brush. He turned too quickly.
Nothing.

He exhaled through his nose, slow. The quiet held, but it felt thinner now. Somewhere off to the side, the balance had shifted.

He adjusted his grip on the bow. A faint tremor ran through his forearm and stayed.
The tracks angled downhill.

Zio followed, careful not to match their pace too closely.

The deer showed itself without warning.

Not a full shape. A shoulder sliding between trunks. Brown breaking through the leaves where the light reached.

Zio stopped a fraction too late.

His foot came down on dry twigs. They snapped.

The deer’s head jerked up.

Zio raised the bow as he drew breath.
The motion came rushed. His shoulders were still climbing when his fingers found the string.

He drew anyway.

The deer turned.

Zio released.

The arrow cut through the space beside the deer. Close enough to brush fur. Close enough to miss.

The animal bolted.

Leaves burst apart. Hooves ripped at the ground. Sound tore downhill as the deer fled, fast and certain.

Zio stayed where he was, bow still half-raised, listening until the noise thinned into distance.

His chest held tight.

He had moved too soon.

He lowered the bow and moved again, faster this time. His steps lost their earlier care. Whatever restraint he had been holding slipped into motion.

The tracks were clear now. Fresh cuts in the soil. Hooves dug in too deep, at bad angles. The ground had been struck hard, then abandoned.

He followed.

Branches scraped his forearms. Roots shortened his stride, pulled at his balance. His foot slid once. He recovered and kept going.

Then the trail broke its line, turning sharp across the slope.

Zio slowed.

Ahead, the ground dipped into a narrow strip of earth between rocks. The deer had cut through it hard, hooves tearing forward without pause.

Another set of marks lay over it.

The impressions sank deeper. The gaps between them stretched wider.

Zio stopped at the edge of the track and looked down.

The deer broke left.

Zio reacted a beat too late. His boots scraped loose soil as he cut after it. Branches snapped back into his face. His breath came apart, short and loud, nothing like the rhythm Trod had drilled into him. He did not slow to fix it. He couldn’t.

The forest closed in.

Roots rose where the ground should have been clear. He cleared one, clipped another, then stumbled hard enough to send pain flashing up his ankle. Ahead, the deer tore through the undergrowth, still fast, still running.

The arrow rode its flank, lodged wrong.

His lungs burned. Each breath came shallow, torn at the edges. He drove his legs harder anyway.

A low branch caught his shoulder. Wood met bone. The impact spun him sideways and dragged a grunt out of his throat. He slapped a hand against a tree to keep upright, bark ripping skin. Pain flared, sharp and immediate.

He shoved off again.

The deer cleared a fallen trunk. Zio followed without thinking. He misjudged the height. His thigh slammed into wood, the jolt folding him halfway. He bit down, tasted blood, and kept moving.

Leaves smeared into green and brown. Light fractured through the canopy. His vision narrowed to the pale flicker of tail ahead. Each step landed heavier than the last. His calves burned wrong this time. Not heat. Protest.

The deer surged forward. Panic carried it faster than Zio could match. The distance stretched, slow but steady.

He didn’t stop.

His stride broke. His breathing came apart. He ran anyway.

Zio stopped.

His legs missed the next step. Momentum carried him two paces farther before it collapsed. He caught himself against a tree, forehead pressing into bark slick with moss.

His hands shook.

Breath came apart. In through his mouth, too fast. Out just as broken. Then nothing. Then a gasp that burned all the way down. He tried to slow it. His body ignored him. The rhythm Trod drilled into him never surfaced.

His calves quivered. Small at first, then harder, like the ground hadn’t settled yet. The forest stayed quiet. No crashing ahead. No hooves.

The deer was gone.

Zio slid down the trunk until his back hit it. His legs folded without asking. Muscles jumped on their own, spent and unsure. Sweat ran cold along his spine.

He closed his eyes. Just long enough for the shaking to peak.

When he opened them, his breath was still wrong.

The forest shifted.

Not with sound, but with its absence. The small noises that had followed Zio since morning thinned, then vanished. No birds arguing above. No insects scratching in the undergrowth. Even the wind seemed to slip away, leaving the air pressed flat against his skin.

His breathing changed without him noticing. The ragged pulls tightened, shortened. Muscles that had been trembling a moment ago went still, drawn tight as if bracing on their own. One hand found the hilt of his dagger. The other hovered, fingers half-curled, with nowhere to rest.

He straightened a fraction, weight easing back onto his heels.

The forest did not answer.

Something had crossed this ground recently. Not the deer. The marks ahead cut deeper, wider. Pressed down instead of scattered. Zio followed them with his eyes until they stopped.

So did he.

He did not step forward.

Two eyes opened in the dark.

Not wide. Not startled. They caught the thin light between leaves and held it, steady and level with Zio’s chest. For a breath, they did not blink.

Then the body followed.

Stripes slid out from behind the brush as if the forest were letting go of something it had been holding. Shoulder first. Then the head, low and aligned. The chest came next, broad enough that Zio had to adjust his sense of distance. Forelegs thick, paws setting down without sound. The tail moved once, slow and measured.

It did not rush.

The deer lay behind it, half-dragged, half-forgotten. One heavy paw rested near the torn earth, claws just visible, curved and patient.

Zio forgot to breathe.

The Tiger’s gaze shifted and settled on him. No snarl. No warning. Just attention. Its head tipped slightly, testing distance, angle, weight.

The dagger in Zio’s hand no longer felt like a tool. Just something small he was holding to keep his fingers from shaking.

The tiger stepped forward.

Not to strike.

Only closer.

Zio did not move.

The bow in his left hand felt wrong. Too long. The string brushed his wrist, but there was no room to draw. A step back would snap a twig. A step sideways would break the line between them.

The dagger rested at his right side. Close enough to touch. Far enough to be useless. If the tiger closed the gap, there would be no time to bring it up cleanly. Whatever came then would be clumsy. Too late.

He checked the ground between them. Too short to run. Too open to vanish into.

The tiger remained where it was. Muscle held tight beneath striped hide, still as if set in place. Its chest rose once, slow. Breath made no sound.

Zio’s fingers twitched against the bow grip, then went still. His pulse hammered in his ears, quicker than his breath. The urge to act pressed hard, searching for shape.

Nothing took form.

The forest stayed silent.

The distance did not change.

There was no move that ended clean.

The deer went down first.

Its legs folded. Weight hit brush and dirt. Leaves tore loose. The sound broke the quiet.

The tiger didn’t look at him.

It lowered its head and closed its jaws on the deer’s neck. One bite. No pause. The body went still.

Zio felt his shoulders sink and forced them back up.

He stayed where he was.

Then his foot slid back.

Heel first. Slow. No weight.

His breath stayed high in his chest. Thin. He kept his eyes on the tiger.

The cat pulled once. Flesh split. Blood soaked into the leaves.

Zio slid back another step.

Still slow.

No turn. No hurry.

The ground behind his heel changed.

He stopped.

The tiger moved.

No sign beforehand. It tightened and struck in the same breath. The deer jolted once, then collapsed into itself.

Zio caught it late, more from the shift in front of him than the motion itself. The space felt different, settled, as if a decision had already been made.

Claws dug in. The tiger pulled the body back through brush and leaves. Branches snapped under the drag. Fur scraped over wet soil. Blood streaked the ground and spread where it fell. Nothing around it changed.

Zio did not move.

He stayed low where he was, knees loose, weight held back. His fingers curled without purpose. The bow knocked against his leg. The dagger stayed untouched.

The sounds pulled away. One scrape. Then another, farther off. Then silence.

What remained was churned earth. Flattened leaves. A stain sinking into the ground.

Zio let his breath go.

The tiger did not leave.

It stood near the trees, body already half gone into shadow. Only the head was clear. It turned.

Its eyes found Zio.

They stayed there longer than felt necessary.

Zio kept still. The bow stayed low. His hand did not drift toward the dagger. He let his arms hang, loose enough to look empty.

The tiger watched him and did nothing.

Zio breathed through his nose, shallow and even. He counted nothing. He only made sure it did not sound wrong.

A low rumble passed through the animal’s chest. It shifted its grip and dragged the carcass back, leaves scraping, brush parting. One step. Then another.

Stripes vanished.

The leaves fell back into place.

Only then did Zio feel how tight his shoulders were. He let them drop.

The sound of the Tiger thinned, then disappeared into the trees.

Not silence. Leaves shifted again. Somewhere above, a bird tested a call. Another answered. The forest went on, unconcerned.

Zio let out a breath he had been holding too long.

His knees gave slightly. He caught himself against a trunk, palm scraping rough bark. Strength slipped out of him all at once, leaving a low, unsteady tremor behind.

He stayed there until his legs steadied. Then he pushed off the tree and turned back the way he came.

Slower than before.

Zio found the arrow a short distance from where the deer had gone down.

The iron head was still wet. Blood had darkened along the wood, tacky to the touch. He turned it once in his fingers, breathed out through his nose, then slid it back into the quiver. That was all.

No meat waited here.

He lowered himself onto a thick root jutting from the ground and leaned back against the trunk. His head dipped. His hands lay open on his thighs, empty. His breath came uneven, a few quick pulls followed by one that went too deep.

The forest moved again. A leaf fell. Insects picked their sounds back up, scattered and small.

Zio stayed where he was until the faint shaking in his fingers ran out on its own.

He had come to hunt.
He went home empty-handed.

The walk back felt longer.

Zio followed the same dirt path. His steps were heavy, boots caked with drying mud that pulled unevenly with each lift. He drew a short breath and kept going, not forcing the pace.

The bow hung against his back. The quiver felt lighter than it should have.

Greyhollow came into view between the trees. Thin smoke rose straight from the chimneys, calm and undisturbed, as if nothing had happened today. Zio passed the low wooden fence, then the narrow path he had known since he was young.

Zio reached the workshop yard. His left heel dragged. He took off the bow and leaned it against the wall.

Trod sat on the bench. His gaze dropped to Zio’s boots. A short laugh slipped out.

“Miss?” he said.

Zio stayed quiet.

Martha came out with a cloth. She crouched, lifted Zio’s foot, and tilted it just enough to see the sole. Mud clung along the edge, still wet, darker than anything from Greyhollow. She wiped it clean, said nothing, and let his foot down.

“Drink,” she said.

Zio drank a little and passed the cup back.

Trod got up. “You walked back,” he said, already heading inside. “That counts. Tomorrow, we take another path.”

Zio nodded.

Zio lingered a moment after they went in.

He stood there, listening.

The yard sounded normal. Tools inside. Wood settling. Somewhere, a bird.

Still, his breath did not slow.

After a while, he went inside too.