Snow-Walker

Twelve

Nor did he let them rest

but the next night brought new horrors.

The night had many small, red eyes.

They shone, glinting and winking, far off in the dark miles of land. Squatting in the loose rocks and rubble of the pass, the creature gazed down at them. They are fires, the voice instructed it. They are dangerous, a fierce pain, a spirit that leaves dark prints deep in the flesh. Keep away from them. They are all that can harm you.

The rune beast nodded, scratching its face and eyes. It was weary; it had come a long, bitter way. And hungry. Always hungry.

Below, a great stretch of water glinted under the moon; the creature could see the tide flooding in, the gleaming currents surging upstream. Sharp smells of salt and fish and seaweed drifted up to it; the bleat of goats on the shore made it stir with pangs of memory.

Nearer, on this side of the fjord, a smoky huddle of dark shapes clustered on the fellside, with one bigger shadow in the center. These were the houses men built; the creature had prowled about several in the last weeks. But never so many together, nor huddled so close.

The still air stank of men, of smoke; the rank smell of crowded cattle rose up to it. And something else: the thing it had searched for, all the long miles. Attentively it considered the minute sounds of the night: the water’s lap, the cluck of sleepy hens, a rattle of pebbles. Then, silent, moving from rock to rock, it began to edge down the fellside. Marshland lay to its right, silver pools among black, broken reeds, soft bubbles of unknown underwater stirrings. Skirting the soft tussocks and the mud, it prowled over a black slope scattered with boulders, down to the track that led in among the houses. There it waited, breathing harshly.

A man moved among the houses, a shadow in shadows. The moon lit the sharpness of metal in his hand. Without moving, the creature watched him pass.

This is the place, her voice said. The voice was cold and remote. It seemed to come from a great distance, and yet it was close, somewhere inside, heart-deep. The words held hidden, fierce delight. This is the place. Go on! Go in!

Stirred, the creature shook its head, rocked itself, shivered. It felt eager, and afraid. Something was there that burned with power.

But later, when the moon had slid under a great swelling of cloud, the thing moved down into the settlement. It prowled silently among the shadows, from house to house, drifting like a ghost by shuttered windows, the rattling doors of byres, to the very walls of the stone-built hall, where the grim dragon heads roared silently down upon it. All the windows were barred, the doors secure, a building of blank eyes, holding secrets. Here was the end of its long journey. But the hunted thing was safe, locked in here, untouchable.

Wrathful, the rune beast swayed upright. Its eyes glinted; moonlight touched its snow-pale hands. Then it turned, swift as thought, and crouched in the lee of the wall.

When the watchman came around the corner, he had no time even to scream.