The border town fell into a strange silence that felt heavier than the clash that had just shaken the ground moments ago, as if the air itself had forgotten how to move, as if every single person present had been frozen in place by something they could not understand, something they could not even begin to explain.
At the center of it all stood Borzoi.
His massive frame remained upright, his chest rising and falling in a calm rhythm, his gaze lifted toward the sky as though nothing had changed, as though nothing had happened, as though the battlefield still belonged entirely to him.
Yet something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The soldiers were the first to notice.
Or rather, they noticed… and then they could not stop noticing.
Their eyes moved.
From Borzoi…
To the ground…
Then back to Borzoi…
Then to the ground again.
There, lying on the dirt, was a severed hand.
Still fresh.
Still warm.
Still belonging to him.
