The trap had been torn clean apart.
Arion stared at the snapped cord and the half-buried blood trail in the dirt.
Claw marks. Not the neat paw-prints of a rabbit or squirrel, but long, angry gouges that dragged through the underbrush.
"A scavenger? Or something worse?"
The forest around him was silent. Not quiet—silent. Even the birds didn't sing.
That was never a good sign.
He stepped back, slowly, testing each patch of ground before shifting his weight. The beast had come in the night. Not just to eat.
It had challenged.
---
By midmorning, the village knew.
A boy named Deno came back with a gash down his arm and panic in his eyes.
He'd gone to piss behind the eastern trees and returned half-mauled, screaming about red eyes and black fur.
Three hunters followed the trail and came back without words. Just a broken bow and a shallow grave.
"Shadowhound," one muttered. "Or worse."
Lira looked at Arion across the fire that night. "Your traps… they brought meat. But they also brought this."
He didn't reply.
Because she was right.
But also wrong.
The beast would've come anyway. Hunger always did. His trap just revealed the truth sooner.
"Better to know now than when it's too late."
---
That night, Arion didn't sleep.
He designed.
He dug holes, set sharpened stakes, wove cord from bark strips until his fingers bled. He remembered war documentaries and guerrilla tactics from Earth. He thought of trigger-weight, bait positions, angles of approach.
The forest would not be his enemy.
It would be his board.
---
When the beast came, it didn't come silently.
It announced itself.
With howls that shook bone.
With crashing limbs and slathering teeth.
The villagers screamed.
The elders chanted.
One brave hunter threw a spear—and was slammed against a tree like a rag doll.
Then the traps triggered.
The first caught its leg—slowed it.
The second pierced its flank—made it bleed.
The third failed entirely.
But the fourth—
Snap!
—a hidden spring of tensioned wood smashed the beast's jaw sideways.
It yelped. Spun. Tore at itself. Arion ran, bait in hand, leading it in circles.
He was five.
Five.
But his feet danced where warriors fell. His mind moved where muscle failed.
When it finally collapsed, panting and dying, it had half a dozen wounds—none fatal, but all precise.
Arion stood above it, bruised and bleeding from a thrown branch that caught his ribs.
His lip was torn.
His knuckles scraped.
But he held the final stake in his hand.
And he drove it down himself.
---
It took three men to carry the body into the village square.
They cheered.
They roared.
The beast's broken jaw hung like a banner.
Arion sat beside Lira and spat blood onto the dirt.
"I told you," he whispered. "We can't wait for heroes."
She looked at him. This time, she didn't argue.
---
Later, as the village slept in exhaustion, Arion walked to the edge of the firelight.
The old beggar sat waiting.
His grin was crooked. "So. You fight without fists. You win without roots."
Arion stared at the flames, voice hoarse. "I don't need power."
The beggar shook his head slowly.
"No, boy. You do. You just haven't realized yet—your kind of power comes with teeth too."
He tossed something small into Arion's lap.
A chipped tooth.
The hound's. Still red. Still warm.
"Keep it," the beggar said. "You'll need the reminder."