บท 31: Dog Hunting

Felipe looked at the mother's dead body after he had pulled himself off her weight.

"I killed her! I did it… I really did it!" Henry was happy as he was basically dancing on her body.

"…" Felipe didn't say much; he didn't know what to think; his mind was all messed up, and he just wanted to sit still and try to process what happened.

"We are free; we are free," Henry said as he was just too happy with himself, he was beaten by the last boss of a level, or that is what he thought. But Felipe knew very well the man was nowhere to be there, probably out of the house. Nevertheless, he was not there but eventually will be there.

"You know where we are?" Felipe asked as he tried to compose himself; he could not really hesitate, not now that has already been in so much. There is no point in going into mental depravation, he will get out of such a godforsaken country, and nothing that has happened will be of his concern.

"Huh. What did you say, Felipe?" Henry was still way too happy.

"Look around. Do you know where we are? General location, we need general locations." Felipe said as he finally got up. All his limbs felt cold as if all his blood had turned cold.

Henry looked around; they were at the entrance of a plantation of sugar cane, but to the other side, they could see the mountains on the far.

"I don't know; the whole kingdom is just mountains," Henry said as he realized he was also lost—his emotion quickly plummeted.

"The air is… is tropical… we are not in the mountain anymore; we are at sea level… we are no longer high up… we have to decide Henry… do we try to go for the mountains? Chances are, we are not far from the main mountain range where your father constructed his palace… other chances are.. that we are really far. We will be just going up in a random mountain." Felipe said in a very calm voice; he was not shaking anymore.

"Mountain, let's go for the mountains." He said, determined. The desire to return to his house was strong within him.

Felipe suggested a plan of action, "Our first priority is to mislead the man searching for us by making it appear that we are in a different location." He turned to Henry as he spoke.

"How do we do that?" Henry asked as he looked at Felipe with anticipation.

"… Use her blood… make a trail into the sugar canes, make it long," Felipe said as the only thing in his mind were cold calculations, it was as if he had completely forgotten what had happened, almost as if he was copping.

All in all, it worked, and that was everything that mattered; he was the first to act as he began to scoop her blood, moved it to the sugar canes, and spread them across the entire sugar cane, following a path.

He didn't want to think of it, but they followed 10 meters inside the sugar cane and gave it 2 passes before making sure anyone could see the blood spread through it.

"Move; we gotta start climbing; make sure your feet are completely clean; we don't want to make more trails," Felipe said as he began to aggressively clean his feet on the grass—he was kidnapped during the night, and he didn't have any shoes; that was also true for Henry.

Henry only nodded and did the same. Soon, both of them were going for the mountains; Felipe was not really in the mood to make decisions, that is why he left the decision of climbing inside the hill to Henry instead of him just doing his own thing, he would have gone through the Sugar cane, but it would probably be the wrong choice.

"Auch," Henry complained as his soft feet were getting hurt; no that there was no adrenaline inside his body; he could feel everything his pampered ass was not accustomed to. So there was only complaining as they went up; Felipe was not better, though he maintained his cries inside of him.

"Quick, the sun is going to set soon." Felipe Felt annoyed as it was going to be cold, and they didn't have any fire or could do any fire; the only source of war was the energy the woman gave them in the form of delicious soup.

"..." Henry only nodded, and they just kept climbing while the mosquitos were making a meal out of them.

Hours later.

When the man came home, he didn't go home alone, but with 5 more conspirators, they were there to move the cargo.

"...Elise?" The man asked loudly as he was at the entrance door.

"…" Everyone looked at each other; no single candle or sign of anyone was lit.

"Elise, I am back… open the door." The man said as he signalled the people to accompany him to the back, not because he thought something was wrong but because Elise didn't like he was doing things to children.

If not for his wife, he would have killed Henry already; his goal was to inflict damage on the king. She made him realize he was just like Pierre, an innocent child. He caved in and decided not to do it, at least not near his house.

The dogs that came with them began to bark loudly as their 6th sense began to tell them something was wrong; probably the amount of blood fragrance in the air was of no animal.

When he realized something might have gone wrong, he began to try to force himself into the house; he had a job in the government, at least in the palace, and we were paid enough to be able to buy a lock, never the less, standard house locks in the 19th century were still shit.

After forcing himself in a couple of times, he could move an entry into his own home.

"Elise!" He forgot that he got scammed by buying a house lock and just went into his house trying to find his own wife. "Elise! Pierre!"

"Boss!" the man at the back yelled at him, and he quickly went for the back entrance. He got out and saw his people around a cabin; one of them just came out of it as he shook his head, but the dogs were going inside the place as they were barking more loudly.

He didn't excuse himself and went inside to see what happened. His concern shifted to the hostages. If he could not produce Felipe of Aragon, the Spanish would not help him. If he could not inflict damage on the King of Haiti, all the risk he had put his family into would be for nothing.

But after he entered, he saw the dead body of his child, and since the cut was proper in his Aorta, the amount of blood coming out of the body was almost all of it, creating quite the wide pool of blood.

He didn't say anything and just kept looking at him; the sky had turned dark blue, but there was still enough light for it to filtrate through the plants to realize that it was his son and not a crown prince.

He didn't say anything; his dogs' barks flooded his mind.

One of the men looked at a dog that just went out to the Sugar Cane field. "Hey, boss, come. There is something."

The man didn't say anything as he closed the door where his dead boy was.

The dogs began to run toward the Sugar Cane field.

The sky was already dark blue, but he could see the figure of a dead body in the distance, and it was no child. It was an adult.

They sprinted as if getting there could help the woman in any way. They could see the blood on the floor and the machete still stuck in her upper back. There was nothing they could actually do.

"…"

When they arrived, they all just looked at it; no one said anything as they just looked at the brutality of a Machete on her back.

"Trails, into the sugar cane field." One man said as he saw the dog sniff the bloody trail that they had done.

"… Find them, don't kill them; I want them alive." The man said without shedding a tear; he had gone to rage immediately, no grief, nothing, just rage, but a calm rage, the scariest of them all.

The men whistled, and all the dogs came to sniff out the trail, and from then on, it was a hunting ground, or so they thought. Felipe and Henry had already been climbing the mountain relentlessly.

Felipe was annoyed that he didn't go out from the front door; they could have gone to whatever town they were in.

Their progress was slow but steady. They had to wrestle with nature, but they were not able to effectively wield a machete; they were not strong enough and not big enough; it would have slowed them down even more; though he brought his rusty nail, he didn't know what for, but he felt that he needed, and so he took it.

Little did he know that there were multiple dogs already looking for them in the mountains; their blood trail was just good enough to fool the humans, but not the dog; they went straight to them after losing all the clues for the blood trail they made.