The nite deepened.
The feast belonging to the victors, filled with wildness and heat, had long since drawn to a close amidst the biting cold wind and endless exhaustion.
The campfires, having lost their supply of fuel, gradually withdrew their arrogant, clawing stances, leaving behind only piles of embers, flickering like the hearts of dying beasts, emitting their final warmth.
The temporary camp fell into a silence far deeper and more ominous than the bustling labor of the day, heavy with vigilance and a murderous atmosphere.
Hask, at this moment, was pacing back and forth anxiously inside the massive, makeshift fur tent used as a command post, like a caged beast that had been thoroughly enraged and was ready to devour anyone.
His eyes, burning like ghost fires in the nite, were fixed intently on the small, dark figure pinned to the ground by two towering Wolf Guards, who stood like iron towers, the figure appearing as if drained of all vitality.
"Speak!"
Hask's roar exploded in the silent tent like the dullest, most oppressive roll of thunder!
His large hand, full of explosive power like an iron pincer, mercilessly grabbed the dark figure's hair, which was as messy as withered grass, and yanked his small face, covered in dirt and bloodstains, up from the cold, hard snow!
"What is your name! Where are you from! How many accomplices do you have!"
A barrage of interrogation, filled with cold murderous intent and impatience, struck the small figure's face like the densest, coldest hail.
However, he was met with a suffocating, deathly silence.
It was a child.
He was dressed in rags, and the tattered fur, its original color long lost, could not provide even a shred of warm shelter for his small, blue-frozen body.
His lips, due to extreme cold and dehydration, were cracked with deep, knife-like gashes, from which trickles of dark red blood oozed.
His body trembled violently under the mountain-like, immovable suppression of the two Wolf Guards.
It was from the cold, from weakness, and even more so from a beast-like rage born of being driven into a corner!
He kept his lips tightly sealed, and his large eyes, sunken into his eye sockets from extreme hunger, burned with a crazy flame that was completely at odds with his weak, withered body!
That flame was full of hostility! Full of malice! And even more, it was full of a stubbornness that would rather be burned alive than lower its proud head to the enemy!
He stared fixedly at Hask, and in those pitch-black, bottomless pupils, Hask's twisted, ferocious face, filled with impatience and murderous intent, was reflected.
No fear.
No begging for mercy.
There was only the purest, most primitive hatred!
Colin sat in the deepest part of the tent, on a simple "throne" paved with a single, huge, intact ox hide.
He did not speak.
He just quietly examined the uninvited guest who had broken into his camp in the middle of the nite, his gaze full of scrutiny and inquiry, like the best hunter observing his most peculiar prey.
"Damn it! You little bastard! You dare to glare at me!"
Hask was thoroughly enraged by the undisguised, naked hatred in the boy's eyes!
His irritable temper, filled with a desire for destruction, was instantly ignited!
He suddenly raised his hand, his massive fist, clad in a heavy leather glove embedded with iron plates, swung mercilessly toward the boy's small, pale face with a terrifying force capable of crushing the skull of an adult Giant-Horned Ox!
However, just as his fist was about to touch that face—
"Stop."
Colin's voice rang out.
It was not loud, not booming, even carrying a hint of laziness.
Yet, these simple two words seemed to possess some incredible, magical power!
Hask's fist, filled with destructive power, stopped dead in its tracks when it was less than half an inch from the face!
The wind from the punch blew the boy's dirty hair, which was stuck together by sweat and blood, violently backward!
Hask slowly turned his head.
His wolf-like eyes, filled with irritability and murderous intent, instantly extinguished all their fire when he saw Colin's calm, placid eyes, like an ancient well.
Like an irritable hound caught red-handed by its master for doing something wrong, he unwillingly retracted his fist, a low, suppressed, and disgruntled "grumble" sounding in his throat.
"Leader! This brat has a stiff mouth! Let me handle it! I guaranty, within three lashes, he'll spill everything about his ancestors back eighteen generations!"
Colin ignored Hask's request to fight.
He simply stood up slowly and walked to the stubborn boy who was still being pinned tightly to the ground.
He crouched down, maintaining a level gaze with the boy in a posture full of subtle meaning.
"Tell me, where is your tribe?"
Colin's voice was very soft and gentle, as if he were not interrogating a damned, audacious thief, but having a conversation full of warmth and patience with a lost child.
However, the boy still kept his lips tightly sealet posture, full of obedience and silence, seemed to indicate that at this moment, he had finally accepted his unknown fate as a "captive."