The battlefield was silent. Only the crackle of dying torches and the distant cries of retreating hunters remained.
The man who had led the children this far finally found his voice. His fists shook, his throat tight with shame and exhaustion.
"Why…?" he rasped, eyes fixed on the towering figure of the Hound. "Why are you helping them? You could have left us all to die."
The Hound's massive frame turned, his greatsword planted in the soil like a monument of death. His eyes, shadowed beneath his helm, locked on the man.
"I'm not helping them." His voice was deep, unyielding. "I'm serving my Lady."
The children stiffened, every gaze drawn to him.
He continued, each word heavy as iron.
"The Eryndor Clan is fading. Our blood runs thin. Our legacy wanes. My Lady has ordered me to find successors… children strong enough to inherit her name, her will, her fangs."
The man's face twisted in disbelief. "Successors? These are children—"
"They are more," the Hound growled, cutting him off. He glanced at Kairo and Igron, crimson and shadow staring back at him. "She will forge them into wolves. Or they will die trying. That is her way."
The children's eyes widened. Fear. Curiosity. A spark of something deeper.
The Hound straightened, towering over them like judgment itself.
"They will leave this realm soon. To the one above — where her hand waits. That is why I fight. That is why they live."
Silence gripped the group. The children clutched one another, torn between dread and hope.
Kairo's crimson eyes narrowed, unreadable. Igron's smirk crept back, sharper, hungrier. The man, however, paled, shoulders sinking beneath the weight of truth.
And the Hound… the Hound stood motionless, as if the battlefield were nothing but a step on a longer road — a road carved by his Lady's dying will.