Chapter 61 Chapter 61 Meat is my meat

I left the stone house and hiked back, and it hurt more and more the longer I walked; it wasn't really physical pain, but it was the only thing I could compare it to.It felt like flesh and skin, worse than Burrich taking Big Nose, and I chose to do it to myself.The pale afternoon was more bleak than the darkness of dawn, and I tried not to feel ashamed, telling myself I was just doing what I had to do, as I had done with Heroine, and I pushed the thought out of my head.No, the little wolf will be fine, better than when he was with me.However, how do wild animals live?Hiding is always afraid of being exposed, will the hounds, hunters or others in the castle find it?It may feel isolated and lonely, but it will survive.Our connection was severed, but there was a constant temptation to reach out, to see if I could still feel it, if its heart could still touch mine.I resisted sternly, sealing my mind away from it as tightly as I could.gone.It doesn't follow me anymore, after I've resisted it like that, no.I plodded forward, refusing to look back.

If I hadn't been so deep in my thoughts, if I hadn't been so intent on isolating my inner self, maybe I would have noticed some warning signs.But I can't be sure of that either.The Wit couldn't be used against the Forged, and I'm not sure if they sneaked up on me first, or if I just stumbled past their hideout.I first felt a weight on my back and dropped me face-to-face in the snow, thinking the pup came back and challenged my decision.I was rolling on the ground and someone grabbed my shoulders as I was about to stand up.Three male forged ones, one very young, the other two were tall and seemed to have been powerful men.I jotted down all the information quickly, categorizing them as Chade had given me as an exercise.One is tall and holds a knife, and the other two hold sticks.They were dressed in tattered and dirty clothes, their red faces were peeling from the cold, their beards were filthy, their hair was disheveled, and their faces were covered with scars from wounds.Did they kill each other, or did they attack someone else before they attacked me?

I broke free from one of them and jumped back to try to stay away from them.I have a waist knife, although the blade is not long, it is the only weapon I have.I didn't think any weapons would be needed today, and I didn't think there would be any more Forged men around Buckkeep.They surrounded me and made me stand in the center and didn't seem at all worried that I was holding a knife. "What do you want? My cloak?" I unhooked the cloak and let it fall.One of the Forged watched the cloak fall, but no one jumped to pick it up as I'd hoped.I turned and moved around trying to catch the three of them at a glance and keep them out of my way, but it wasn't easy. "Or my mittens?" I pulled them off and threw them at the youngest-looking guy, who watched them fall at his feet.They moved and grunted and wobbled their legs and looked at me, but none of them wanted to strike first, just because they knew I had a knife and they would get stabbed.I took a step or two toward the gap in the circle, but they moved closer to prevent me from escaping.

"What the hell do you want?" I yelled at them, spinning in a circle trying to see everyone, and after a while I locked eyes on one of them.His eyes were hollower than a coyotes's, with no apparent wildness, just the misery and neediness of physical discomfort, and he blinked as I glared at him. "Meat," he murmured, as if I had squeezed the word out of him. "I have no meat, nor any food, and you're only begging for a beating!" "You!" the other guy threatened with a parody of laughter, dark and callous. "Meat!" I stopped for too long, and spent too much time staring at one of them, and the other jumped up behind me, grabbed me, wrapped his arms around me and pinned one of my arms, and suddenly panicked Clenched his teeth at the junction of my neck and shoulders.Meat.is my meat.

An unexpected wave of terror swept over me, and as if fighting a Forged for the first time, I fought back with merciless cruelty.The weathers are my only allies, for they are dying with hunger and cold, and their hands are dull with cold.If we are all full of wild willpower to survive, at least in my heart there is a new and powerful force, unlike their will to survive that was worn down by their broken bodies.My flesh remained in the mouth of the first assailant, but I did free myself, I remember that well.But what happened next is less clear, and I can't put things in order.My knife snapped inside the young man's ribs, and I vaguely remember a thumb about to go in my eye, and the snap I dislocated his finger.While I was grappling with this attacker, the other hit my shoulders with a club until I turned his partner around and was beaten.I don't remember feeling the pain of the pounding, and the bitten flesh on my neck was nothing more than a warm spot for blood to flow through.I didn't feel hurt, and I didn't have the guts to kill them all, but I couldn't beat it.They were numerous, and though the young man lay coughing blood on the snow, one of the other two tried to strangle me, and the other tried to free the sword that was tangled in my flesh and sleeve.I punched and kicked to try to hurt the enemy, but to no avail, and felt the world around me turn black and spin.

brother!Here it comes, baring its teeth like a battering ram and lunging at our fight, and we all fall down in the snow.The strong impact made the person being tempered let go of his hand, and I was able to inhale a breath into my lungs.My mind cleared up, and I suddenly had the will to fight again, forgetting about the pain and injury and fighting with all my might!I swear I saw myself purple from strangulation and smelled the maddening smell of blood gushing from the wound, and I gritted my teeth and fought it out.Then the pup knocked one of my attackers back and freed me, then attacked him with speed no one could match, lashing and biting violently and leaping away before the enemy could get hold of it, and it galloped back.

I know I realized it when the little wolf clenched his teeth, and I also felt death gurgling in my mouth. The blood that spewed out quickly soaked my mouth and nose, and flowed all over my cheeks, the breath of death enveloped me with me.I shook my head and bit the enemy's flesh with my teeth, letting all his vitality leak out under the stinking clothes. Then there was a dead silence.Then I leaned against a tree and sat on the snow. The little wolf lay not far from me with blood on its front hooves, licking the feet clean with his tongue, carefully, slowly, and thoroughly. I raised my sleeve to wipe the blood from my mouth and chin, it wasn't my blood.Suddenly, I leaned forward and knelt in the snow, spat out my beard stubble and vomited. Even my sour bile couldn't wash away the stench of dead flesh in my mouth.I glanced at his body, then looked away.His throat slit open, and it wasn't long before I remembered with horror how I had bitten down his tough throat tendon with my teeth.I closed my eyes and sat very still.

A cold nose touched my cheek and I opened my eyes to see it sitting beside me and staring at me.little wolf.