Night was beginning to fall, and they still had not managed to find the path again. The sun circled around them in ever-widening loops before disappearing behind the impenetrable wall of trees. Hichy had taken off his shoes to rub his battered feet, covered in blisters. Inata sat on an old log, her gaze lost in the immensity of the forest. Melio purred softly, completely unaffected by the twins' growing anxiety and delighted to discover horizons other than the clearing.
"At least we won't have any trouble finding wood for a fire," her brother remarked. "I'll gather a few twigs," he added, getting to his feet and walking barefoot across the thick carpet of moss.
He had barely taken two steps when the little ginger cat—whose senses were always on alert despite his drowsy air—rose and sprang after his master. He overtook him and suddenly stopped, hissing and spitting, his long fur bristling.
"What's wrong, my li—"
A huge black dog burst out of the undergrowth and charged straight at the boy, barking wildly. Long strands of drool hung from its jaws full of fangs as it yapped and snarled. Rearing up on its hind legs, it was gigantic, towering at least two heads above Hichy.
The boy barely had time to grab Melio in his arms before leaping into a tree. He jumped more than two metres high without even realising it. The little cat wriggled free and ran to take refuge on a branch slightly higher up.
The mastiff circled the tree, yelping and frothing with rage, looking for a way to reach its future victims. Its musculature was impressive, and its black coat was covered in scars. Never had the twins seen such an animal, for there were no dogs in the clearing. The sheep needed no guarding, since predators were kept at bay by the forest's secure enclosure.
When it grew tired of trying to climb the tree and finally understood that it could not reach the boy and the cat, the dog sought an easier target and turned toward Inata. The girl was terrified and did not move an inch, completely paralysed by fear. She was about to let herself be devoured by the monster without even defending herself.
Seeing this, the boy jumped down from his perch and landed right in front of the wild dog. But his knife was still in his backpack near his sister, and he had no means of defence. He grabbed a thick branch and raised it, threatening the animal. The gesture only redoubled the mastiff's aggression, and it snarled even louder. Its ribs stuck out sharply, and if it was not attacking to defend its territory, it was far more likely doing so to devour them and satisfy its hunger for meat.
"Easy. Calm down, that's it," Hichy said, lowering the stick and trying to reason with the raging animal.
Little by little, the dog stopped growling and stared at the boy for a long moment, ears pinned back. It no longer moved, its eyes fixed on him.
"I think I managed to calm it down," he boasted. "You see, you just have to show it we're not afraid and who's in charge."
"Be careful anyway," his sister replied, getting to her feet. "You never know how they'll react."
"Don't worry. Look, I'm sure we could even tame it."
As if to prove him wrong, the mastiff chose that very moment to leap at Hichy, aiming for his throat. The boy barely had time to raise the stick as a shield. The animal's jaws clamped down on the makeshift sword and snapped the thick piece of wood as if it were nothing more than a twig.
Hichy vaulted over the animal, which spun around to attack again. The boy jumped once more before it could reach him, bounding back and forth around the dog, which was now mad with rage. Though his jumping ability had improved since the day before, he was exhausted from the long march and felt he could not keep this up for much longer. His blisters burst one after another, and his bare feet began to bleed from rubbing against the countless pieces of wood and stones littering the ground.
"Quick! Throw me my knife!" he shouted to his sister.
Inata rushed to rummage through her brother's pack and pulled out the Opinel. It looked tiny and utterly harmless. Why hadn't Golock given them daggers to defend themselves? Why had he abandoned them in this infernal forest with no further warning? Did he know the path led nowhere, and was he aware of the dangers they faced?
For now, it was more urgent to get this small knife to Hichy—even if it seemed harmless—than to look for answers to all those questions. If she got too close, the dog might attack her. For the moment, it was entirely focused on lunging at her brother from side to side and paid no attention to her. Throwing the knife was not necessarily the best idea.
Gathering all her strength around the metal-and-wood object resting on her palm, she managed to lift it a good centimetre above her hand before it fell back down. She concentrated even harder, focusing all her energy on that single knife. Everything disappeared around her—the trees, the spongy ground, the rocks, even the sky. She no longer felt her body and had the impression she herself was suspended above the ground. In her field of vision, only the small Opinel remained, her brother continuing his grasshopper-like dance, and the hideous animal.
She built up so much energy inside her mind that her head began to ache, as if her skull were about to explode. Then the knife rose fully above her hand and did not fall. She guided it through the air toward her brother, to a place where he could grab it during one of his leaps.
"I've got it!" he shouted, closing his hand around the wooden handle.
Inata collapsed to the ground, completely exhausted by the superhuman effort she had just made. If muscles require the body's energy to move, the mind needs far greater quantities to bring to life objects one believes inert.
Deprived of his last reserves of strength, Hichy was about to follow. He ended his acrobatic performance and planted both feet on the ground. His hand clenched tightly around the knife, he was ready to face the mastiff in close combat. The animal lowered its head and hurled itself at him in a final assault. The boy thrust his left arm forward to protect his throat. He felt the fangs tear into his flesh as the dog tried to bite down to the bone.
Sacrificing one limb to make better use of the other, Hichy took advantage of the fact that the animal was busy crushing his arm with its powerful jaws to slide the blade of his knife beneath his attacker's throat. A massive gush of blood burst from the dog's neck; its body suddenly went limp and released him. It collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
Canine blood mixed with the human blood pouring from Hichy's arm once the animal's teeth withdrew from his flesh. The bite was so deep that white cartilage was visible beneath the bloodied skin. Inata, who had barely had time to recover from her mental shock, rushed to her brother's side to help him. She tore a strip from her spare shirt and used it as a bandage to stem the bleeding.
"I'm cold," her brother said, his teeth chattering.
"It's because you've lost blood. You need to drink."
Inata gathered the twigs scattered around them and lit them easily with her lighter. A few minutes later, a large fire was crackling, around which Melio soon joined them. Hichy struggled to warm himself, having drained his strength to survive the dog's attack.
Melio circled the corpse lying a little farther away, which now looked far more like a large inert piece of meat to him than any kind of danger.
"Do you think we could roast it and eat it?" Hichy asked, eyeing the animal.
"You're completely insane!" his sister retorted. "We're not going to eat dog!"
"Why not? It's meat."
He struggled to his feet and, with his good arm, cut off one of the animal's legs. The tendons and cartilage were particularly difficult to sever. Then he skewered the piece of flesh on a wooden spike to make a sort of kebab. A strong smell of burnt hair rose as he held it over the fire to cook.
"You're really disgusting," his sister remarked. "I don't understand how you can do that."
"He was perfectly willing to eat me! He took half my arm. I can eat one of his legs. It's the harsh law of nature."
Once all the fur had been completely burned away, the smell of roasted meat rose into the air and began to excite their hungry stomachs. Hichy waited a few more minutes for the inside to cook thoroughly and then bit into the meat with gusto.
He tossed a piece to the little ginger cat and repeated the process with a second leg. Despite the water inevitably pooling in her mouth, Inata held firm and refused to let a single bite of meat pass her lips.
"You're wrong," her brother remarked. "The few supplies we have won't last long, and we'll have to learn to draw food from the forest."
"You can forage for mushrooms. Golock taught us how to recognise the good ones."
"Yeah, right! If you think you'll survive on that. We need meat for our muscles and our brains. That's how Cro-Magnon men became intelligent—not on morels and wild strawberries."
Once their meal was finished, they set about pitching the tent as the Golem had shown them. But they soon realised that the staffs they had leaned on all day were useless, since it was enough to bend down and pick up others, and that the most important thing was not protection from the sky but from the ground, which teemed with countless insects.
They spread the canvas on the ground and used it as a mat on which they lay down. They barely slept, between trips to gather wood to keep the fire going, while Melio dozed blissfully at their feet, his belly full and satisfied with what had been, for him, the finest day of his life as a cat.