Snow-Walker

Fifteen

He could not away from me;

nor would I from him.

Crouched between two pines on the ridge of the forest the creature watched them go.

Even from here it could see the different shapes of them, her voice whispering each description in its ear. The dark one; the tall one; the big, bearded one; the one with long hair; the one with the scarred face. And the small, silvery one. My son, her voice murmured.

The creature lurched down to a pool in a hollow, smashing the thin linkings of ice with its claws. Peat brown water lapped at the soil.

Her face looked up at it as it drank, narrow and pale; silvery hair braided about it, her eyes colorless and bright as glass. My enemies, she said. Especially the last one, Kari. He and I are the same, and yet opposites. Once I cursed him that no one would trust him, not even his dearest friends, and he hasn’t forgotten that. She smiled, a sad, bitter smile. That’s the sorrow of power, and its delight.

The rune beast lapped at the brackish water, barely understanding. Water dripped from its raised face, soaking its pelt and the clots of old blood. It felt as if it had been drinking her, taking her coldness into itself. She reached out as if to touch it, and the pool rippled, wave-blown. There are plans working here, she whispered, and not only mine.

Confused, the rune beast tried to summon questions; the patterns of sound slid through its mind and were lost, and she laughed. The creature swung its slow head at the sound.

And each one thinks he plans for himself and is unseen. But I see.

Her reflection dissolved and shimmered; only her voice, like a cold echo of its own hunger, tickled the creature’s ear so that it scrabbled and scratched. Leave thinking to me. I am your thoughts. You’ve done well already. Now take as many as you can. Feast yourself. Take the dark one if you want, the Jarl, the arrogant one. But leave my son alone.

The beast swayed dizzily.

I’d see him betrayed by his friends first. I want him to feel that. Then he’ll act. He won’t be able to help it.

When she had gone from its mind, it crouched, its small pale eyes gazing deep into the trees, breathing the wet, earthy scents of the forest, the far-off taint of blood and men and horses. Weariness surged in its brain, a dark unthinking pain that masked even the hunger.

The rune thing stumbled far down into the forest, over roots and rocks, fumbling through the tangle of branches; down black aisles of stark trees to the fresh mound of turned earth. Trampling over that, it climbed into a deep split between two rocks and curled there, heaving its huge bulk around in search of comfort. It was growing daily; its body would hardly fit here now; its skin was scratched and smeared and sodden with the forest’s damp. Deep among mosses and lichen and unfurling bracken, eyes closed, it waited for sleep.

When a small bird landed on a stone and picked at its fur, the creature did not move. Deep in dreams, the voice whispered to it all the long afternoon.