Brant returned his attention to the pair of loam-giants who stood guard at the foot of the tower. The massive twins huddled from the worst of the wind, buried in their furred long-coats, leaning on pikes.
“The scabbers came from that direction,” Malthumalbaen said, raising a stout arm. “Should’ve seen ’em. All singing and pounding their round shields, like they had wrested a wyrm with their own bared hands.”
Dralmarfillneer nodded his head, scowling his agreement with his twin brother. “Mal speaks true. Stinking of ale, too. Could smell them long before you could see ’em.”
Brant circled off in the direction Malthumalbaen had indicated. He easily found the tracks of Sten and his men. It would not be hard to follow their trail back to the frozen forest.
“Mayhap you should stay in Oldenbrook’s shadow,” Malthumalbaen said. “Skies turning. Best not challenge on foot. Leave your hunt for another day.”
Brant shook his head. It could not wait. “I will return by the first evening bell.”
Dralmarfillneer shrugged, his eyes rolling at Brant’s foolishnesss.
“Ock!” his twin called to Brant as he set out. “If you should come across any scrawny bits of snowhare, I could use some new gloves!”
Brant pulled up his hood and lifted an arm in acknowledgment. As he trudged across the snow-swept ice field, he heard the brothers arguing about who needed the gloves more. When he was a good half a league off, he still heard a barked laugh echoing out to him from the pair.
Shortly after that, as he followed the trampled tread of Sten’s hunting party, his only companion was the wind. It whistled and moaned, kicking up. It was easy to grow weary, especially with the sun reflecting in a blinding glare. The only relief was found in the patches of fog in sheltered gullies between upended cliffs of ice.
As he crossed through one patch, Brant was reminded of the mists of his homeland, of the cloud forests of Saysh Mal. Unlike the cold here, the mists of Saysh Mal were all dripping leaves and steaming heat. He allowed the memory to warm him now-despite the pain that came with it.
He could still remember the day he’d heard of his father’s death; he’d been killed by a she-panther. It had marked the beginning of the end of Brant’s life. His mother had died giving birth to him. But the Way extended to the people of Saysh Mal as well as to the forest. No child was left to starve or beg. The god-realm was a rich one. The forest fostered an endless bounty, with a prosperous trade in wood, fur, and incenses.
Brant had been taken in by the school in the shadow of the Huntress’s own castillion. It had been a good life: surrounded by friends, challenged by his schooling, and always near the forest, ready to hone eye, ear, and nose. It was out in the forest that Brant’s father came alive for him again. Sometimes he swore he could see his father’s shadow shifting through the bower. More than anything, the forest helped him both mourn and heal.
It was also the Way.
And as time passed like a panther through a dark wood, Brant was discovered to be quick of mind, especially for one so young. He rose to the attention of many of the learned masters and mistresses, and eventually to the Huntress herself.
Then it all ended.
Brant had to stop his hand even now from clutching at his throat, at the stone buried under his leather and furs. If only he hadn’t been so dull…if only he hadn’t found himself bowing a knee before the Huntress…if only he had kicked that cursed stone away when it had been rolled to his toes by a burning god.
But he had bowed his knee. He had threaded the stone and made a necklace out of it. How could he toss it away? The stone was as much a talisman of his father as any rogue god. They had come upon it together. It was their secret. Brant had carried it with pride.
Then he had met the Huntress, god and mistress of Saysh Mal.
And his life had truly ended.
A new noise intruded on this painful memory. It came from ahead, cutting through the drone of the wind. A sharp popping, like breaking bones, along with a dry rattle. The forest. The gusting winds were shaking the trees, crackling ice and frozen limbs.
Rounding a tall shelf of ice, Brant spotted the dark line at the edge of the lake, thick with clinging fog. Even the rising winds seemed unable to shred the mists away.
Brant followed the tracks toward the forest. He welcomed reaching the shadowed bower. His eyes had begun to sting and water from the glare of the sun off the ice. He hurried toward the shore of the lake.
The mists ahead lay thick, as if the winds were some storm-driven sea and the fog were a tall surf, pounded and driven into the forest.
Brant tossed back his hood, despite the cold. He wanted nothing muffling his ears. He knelt a moment to string his bow, bending the taut wood with practiced ease.
Within steps, the lake vanished behind him, the sun became no more than a glare above, and even the trees seemed to fall away and disappear. He could barely see more than a handful of steps ahead of him.
Still, he had a well-beaten trail to follow-both into the forest and eventually out again. He was careful from here to step where Sten’s men had trod. That hid his own trail and was easier than crunching fresh tracks into the ankle-deep and icecrusted snowfields.
He moved silently, ears straining.
Once he was away from the edge of the forest, the winds died. The rattle and pop slowly faded. A dread quiet settled as thick as the mists.
Brant continued onward. The only sign of the larger world was the track of Sten’s hunting party. But even this trail shortened as visibility shrank. The fog continued to grow thicker and higher, shielding the sun into a twilight pall.
And the silence seemed to grow even deeper.
He smelled the blood first. A loamy ripeness to the air. He followed the tracks to the slaughter.
It appeared like some fetid bloom in a snowy field. A glade opened, slightly brighter with the open sky above. In the middle, blood splashed in frozen streaks, as far as the treeline.
Brant paused at the edge.
She had fought. The first blow had not been a killing strike, whether done for the cruelty or merely drunken aim. Brant bristled at the pain.
In the center, blood had pooled and iced around the abandoned and frost-rimmed carcass. They had not even taken the meat, only the hide. They had skinned her here. Off to the side, they had scraped and trimmed the hide. Brant leaned down and shifted a pile of scrap. They had cut away her belly skin, too thin of fur to be of value. He spotted the abandoned heavy teats. Brant’s jaw muscles tightened. Sten’s butchers must have noted the same, known she was nursing whelpings.
But to them, all that had mattered was her pelt.
Brant slipped out his own skinning knife, cut two of the heaviest teats away, and gently slipped them into deep pockets in his heavy coat. He would bury them later. The rest of the bruised and frost-blackened flesh he would leave to the hungry forest. While Sten’s men might waste good meat, it would fill the bellies of other scavengers.
Straightening, Brant continued on. He suspected it was only the scent of men that had kept the hungry denizens of the winter wood away so far. Brant had noted the unburied shite and piss left by the drunken men. And in another spot, a pile of upturned stomach, smelling still of ale.
Had it been the ale or the slaughter that turned the man’s belly?
As he had suspected earlier, a glint of metal trailed from a rear ankle of the carcass. Razor snare. The trapped ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle.
Brant took a deep breath through his nose. There was nothing he could do to lessen her pain now. Sten’s butchers knew nothing of the Way, of honor and responsibility between hunter and prey.