by Lori Holmes
The prints were leading away from the dark line of the forest, directly towards a steep escarpment rising into the foothills before they were wiped out by another bloody commotion in the snow. A smaller fight had taken place away from the main battle.
On the other side of the battle-churned ground, the two lone tracks continued on towards the seemingly impassible escarpment. The track-makers had survived the fight but a trail of blood now accompanied their footprints; someone had been seriously wounded in the struggle. Out of the corner of his eye, Eldrax noted other marks in the snow leading off to his left but he paid little interest.
Like a wolf on a scent, Eldrax loped along next to his target’s tracks until he reached the edge of the rocky cliff. A narrow path was almost completely concealed between the rocks. At this point the smaller set of footprints tracked back and forth as though undecided upon their direction before disappearing completely over the steep rocks. The larger Cro tracks doubled back on a different route towards the camp, still trailed by a thin line of red.
Eldrax’s nostrils flared as he turned and ran back towards his men. Murzuk and the rest had caught up and were gathered around the evidence of the smaller fight.
“He got the witch out,” he announced triumphantly as he approached. “She has perhaps two day’s lead but she is alone. Juran’s greatest possession is ours for the taking at last.”
“If she is alone then she’s most likely dead already,” Murzuk muttered without raising his eyes from the snow.
Eldrax felt a stab of resentment. The rare prize that his clan had coveted for so long was out there somewhere, unprotected, and Murzuk was not even going to bother mounting a hunt. He could not hold his tongue. “Just take a look at the tra-”
“Silence!” Murzuk hissed. “A rash fool as ever. Look there and tell me what you see.”
Eldrax’s hackles rose. Baring his teeth he gripped his spear threateningly, his anger and disappointment overcoming his better sense. A hand on his arm stopped him. Rannac’s gaze held a note of warning. He bit down on his tongue so hard he tasted blood.
His chief jabbed a finger at the strange marks that he had previously ignored. There was a wide, unbroken scuff making a direct path in the snow back towards the edge of the forest. It appeared as though something very large had been dragged along the ground. Upon either side of the drag marks were evenly spaced depressions. Disbelief shook Eldrax from his blackening temper. Not possible.
“Footprints.” Murzuk confirmed.
Footprints. Each one was as long as a man’s arm. The stride between each print was twice the length of an ordinary Cro man.
“What in the Nine Gods made tracks such as those?”
“Nothing that I have ever seen,” Murzuk muttered. “And by all the Nine gods, nothing we ever want to see.” The handful of warriors surrounding him shifted, ready to bolt the moment their leader gave the word. “This place is not meant for man. It is cursed. We will leave now.” Murzuk turned to lead the scouting band back towards the rest of the hunting party.
Eldrax did not follow. He was staring at the giant footprints leading into the forest. There had been a fight here. That much was certain. He looked at the Cro footprints travelling away from the skirmish and the trail of blood that accompanied them. If Juran had walked away, then he must have killed his adversary. If that was so, then where was the body? Eldrax examined the drag mark in the snow with new insight. The other monsters had come to clear their fallen away, leaving nothing but footprints to prove they had ever existed.
Eldrax felt a twinge, a flicker of life amongst the ashes of his dreams. He turned in the direction of the forest and jogged along beside the tracks. One opportunity had been lost to him but perhaps one far greater had just revealed itself. A fever took hold in his heart. He wanted to look them in the eye, this foe who had managed to wipe out the strongest Cro clan in existence.
“Eldrax!” Murzuk’s voice sounded dimly behind him.
He ignored his chief and continued towards the dark line of the forest. The trees were dense; black, twisting trunks standing stark against the snow and the grey mountains behind. The thick tangle seemed to frown down, forbidding his presence against entering. There was a quiver, a vibe on the air that danced just beyond his mortal senses. Eldrax’s step faltered and for a moment he truly believed that this land was not meant for the tread of man.
Coward! He admonished himself. Acting like an old woman cowed by superstitious tales. It was a forest, just like any other he had hunted in. He plunged on into the depths.
The canopy was so thick that the snow had barely made it through the twisted, tangled fingers overhead. Eldrax stood for a few moments, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. The scent of damp, black mud and leaf mold filled his nostrils. The air was still and stagnant, cloying after the clean sharpness of the snowy plain outside. The ground squashed beneath his fur-wrapped feet.
He could hear the commotion out on the plain as Murzuk raged for his return and the men fretted over the loss of a brother. Eldrax paid them no mind. Casting his eyes down, he could now make out the over-sized prints in the earth and followed them forward, catching sight of other signs of passage as the ground began to rise steeply before him. Branches and whole trunks had been snapped and uprooted on either side of the trail. Eldrax studied the halves of one broken tree in the light its absence had permitted through the canopy. The wood was not rotten and yet it had been snapped in two like it was no more than a twig.
“I’ll kill you myself, boy!”
Too late, Eldrax heard the footfalls pounding behind him just as a heavy body tackled him to the ground.
“You dare to disobey me?” Furious, Murzuk pinned his arms. “You insolent fool! I will not have had my efforts on you wasted. You will learn respect!” The older man caught him with a fist, he was holding a hunting knife and he was not mindful about the blade.
Eldrax felt the skin on his cheek part and hot blood spilled forth. The familiar red mist descended over his eyes as something finally snapped inside. With a roar he threw Murzuk off and, with reflexes honed from a lifetime of survival, he leapt to his feet, his spear poised and ready. It was time for Murzuk to die.
Without betraying his motives, he lunged for his chief. He had the satisfaction of seeing the shock on the older man’s face as he narrowly parried Eldrax’s strike.
“You have no right to Challenge me, boy!” the older man exclaimed. “You are no chief yet and the men know it!”
“We’ll see about that!” He saw now that a handful of the men lead by Rannac had been brave enough to follow Murzuk in his pursuit and they were watching with interest. Eldrax knew his actions would divide the clan down the middle but, in that moment of rage, he cared very little. All he wanted was to see Murzuk dead at his feet, the men would accept him as the new chief or suffer the same fate. He had waited too long to kill the man who tormented him his entire life.
“You have become an old coward and a fool, Murzuk! You are no longer worthy of following.”
“And you are more trouble than you are worth!” Murzuk snarled. “No matter, I have others who will gladly step over your corpse.” The old chief struck back.
Eldrax knocked the blow aside with ease and then he went on the offensive; twisting and striking so fast that Murzuk was hard pressed to defend himself. Still, Eldrax struggled to land the killing blow. Most of his experience came from fighting and hunting on the open Plains and he quickly found that the tightly packed trees hindered his long spear. After missing two killing strikes, he threw it down in frustration. Drawing his hunting knife, he closed the gap, forcing close quarters where his superior strength gave him the advantage.
He watched the uncertainty in Murzuk’s eyes turn to fear as he took up his own knife in defence. His chief had never truly understood how strong Eldrax had become. In a moment when their two knives locked together, Eldrax took the opportunity to heave his full strength against his chief. Murzuk could not match him and the older man
was thrown back, smashing heavily into a fallen log. He lay gasping for a moment, stunned.
“Red Bear!” The younger warriors chanted. “Red Bear!”
The sound of his warrior name stoked the fire in Eldrax’s blood. A triumphant cry tore from his lips as he seized his spear, ready to strike the killing blow. He paused, unable to resist savouring the moment. At the fall of his weapon, he would become the new chief of his clan and he would have tasted vengeance at last.
Murzuk choked out a laugh as he gazed up at him. “Your mother would be proud, boy. She never got this close to killing me, though the gods know she tried. I bet she wishes she could see you now.”
Eldrax’s spear hesitated on the air. “She paid her price. You made sure of it!”
Murzuk laughed again. “Yes. Your mother was soft and I have spent a great deal of time making sure such weakness had no place in you. It seems my efforts were wasted. You are a fool to hesitate!”
Before Eldrax could formulate a thought, Murzuk kicked the earth and leaves into the air, blinding him for a critical moment. A spear haft smashed into the back of his legs, taking them out from under him. Cries and hoots went up all around from the men at the turn in fortune. Flat on his back, Eldrax barely got the haft of his own spear up in time to block Murzuk’s knife as it came for his throat. Eldrax was the stronger but now the old chief had the advantage of his full weight bearing down against him as Eldrax fought to keep him at bay. They grimaced into one another’s faces, each fighting to gain a fraction.
OOOOOAAAAHHHHGGGG!
The screeching howl split the air. Bloodcurdling, the sound rose above the treetops and continued for an inhuman amount of time. Eldrax felt his breath catch in his throat as both he and Murzuk froze in their struggles. Never in his life had he heard anything like it.
Nobody moved as the scream played out and shivered into nothingness. Eldrax’s ears strained against the breathless silence left in its wake until the stillness was broken by the ominous sound of trees swaying and snapping.
Something unseen had begun to move through the forest towards the divided Cro. The scent of something dead and rotting assaulted Eldrax’s senses, getting steadily stronger.
“We have to go now.” Rannac’s voice was barely a breath. “Right now.”
But Eldrax could not move and neither, it seemed, could Murzuk. They remained frozen in their battle pose until they saw it. Something pale and monstrous was shifting through the trees in the near distance. Branches snapped and trunks groaned as they were parted. Then the sound ceased. Somehow the lack of movement was worse. Eldrax searched the trees and spotted the pale silhouette standing motionless just out of his direct line of sight. Only the sound of the Cro warriors’ frightened breath could be heard as they waited, too afraid to move in any direction.
Then Eldrax got his wish. A pair of glowing blue eyes snapped open and he found himself looking up into the very soul of the Black Wolf’s death. The eyes were not alone, another pair and another opened until a whole line of vivid blue was staring down at them from the darkness, high above where an ordinary man’s eyes should be. Rotting skulls covered the faces and severed bones protruded from the shoulders and arms in jutting spikes.
Eldrax gazed up into the row of blank, icy depths and felt the stirrings of an emotion he had vowed to never feel again since the day his mother had died: terror.
“Run!”
Eldrax had no idea if the command came from his own lips or from Murzuk’s. The inhuman howl sounded again just as Eldrax got his feet into Murzuk’s chest and kicked his chief hard in the direction of the watching eyes. Taking to his feet, he fled just as the shadowed creatures charged. He did not turn to see what they were, the fear he felt was too overwhelming. He concentrated only on escaping this cursed forest. He had made a deadly mistake in coming here.
The sound of trees being ripped aside behind him signalled the monsters’ pursuit. Deep, primal terror pushed Eldrax’s legs ever faster, throbbing to every part of his body as he ducked and dodged through the trees, heedless of the other men flying beside him.
There seemed no escape from the trees and for a few terrible moments, Eldrax feared that he had become disorientated and was heading deeper into the forest. But before he could check himself, the light changed and Eldrax burst from the forest and out onto open ground. He stumbled as his feet hit the deep snow. He caught himself, then continued to run, fighting for every stride. Survival now depended on who could run the longest. He did not dare look back.
His breath was ragged by the time the camp of the massacred Black Wolf reached out to surround him, the sight of each torn body fuelling the terror of his flight. He screamed at the men still waiting on the outskirts of the camp to abandon their kills. Such a burden would only slow them down. The loss of the spoils stoked Eldrax’s fury and in that moment of rage, his mind cleared enough to remember the narrow path leading up the escarpment and into the foothills. Their pursuers would be too big to follow them there. He could not hear the sounds of pursuit over the rushing of the wind and blood in his ears but he could feel the malevolence behind him boring into his back.
“This way!” he bellowed.
Blind in their terror, the men ignored him.
“Follow me if you want to save your miserable skins!”
Without waiting to see if they followed, Eldrax changed direction and began running directly towards the escarpment. His legs were burning with the effort of fighting through the deep snow. Some of the men had heeded his instruction and begun to follow. The rest continued to run heedless across the open ground, unwilling to follow him into what they believed would be certain death against the rock face.
Uncaring, Eldrax quickly found the narrow path that he remembered. He did not pause to see how many of his clan had followed. The strongest would survive, the rest would perish and slow down the monsters. Mastering his tiring body, he began the grueling ascent between the rocks.
Up he climbed, not giving in to exhaustion until he reached the summit. Half of the men had made it to safety with him. Eldrax clutched at the rocks to brace his trembling body. He waited until his heart returned to a steady rhythm before steeling himself to face the plain below.
It was empty. The rest of the raiding party had disappeared and there was no sign of their pursuers. Chagrined, Eldrax realised that the creatures had not followed them out onto the open ground. Terror alone had been enough to drive him and his men to continue their flight and abandon their spoils.
Shame burned through him as he shifted his gaze to the tree line. They were there. Eldrax could just make out their cold blue eyes, staring out from the darkness of their lair. Now that he was away from the strange influence of the trees, the paralysing terror had receded and he bared his teeth in challenge. He would never forget that they had made him run for his life this day.
“W-what in all the gods are they?” one of the men asked as the glowing eyes winked out one by one and disappeared. It was Tanag, a young warrior of his own age.
“Things I am going to kill one day,” Eldrax snarled. He had made a mistake in entering the forest so rashly, he could admit that, if only to himself. The fate of the Black Wolf should have served as a warning but he had allowed his bitter disappointment to drive him. He would not be so naive again. The next time he challenged these monsters, he would be prepared. He would see those blue eyes burn with the terror that they had inflicted on him.
The cowards surrounding him stared at his face as though questioning his sanity.
“What about the chief? Do you think he escaped?”
In the confusion, Eldrax had not seen what had happened to Murzuk. A fierce joy burned at the edges of his anger and shame. Murzuk had not made it. The Hunting Bear chief had not come out of the forest. Eldrax was disappointed that he had not been the one to land the killing blow but he was certain the monsters would have ensured a more gruesome demise for his hated chief than he could possibly have dreamed. The thought comforted him. A glance
told him that Rannac had also failed to make it. He felt a slight pang at this loss. The older warrior might have been a thorn in his side at times but he had been a skilled hunter and warrior. Eldrax could have used him.
Eldrax was careful to keep his emotions in check as he answered Tanag. “Murzuk fell into the path of those monsters. His body will be strewn around the forest by now.” The fierce joy burned brighter. Entering the forest had not been such a mistake after all. It was time to take the position of power at last. He lifted his chin. “I am your chief.”
“But-” Hanak, Tanag’s brother, began to protest.
Quick as a hunting cat, Eldrax backhanded the man across the jaw with enough force to send him crashing to the ground.
“Murzuk is dead. I will lead you now,” he repeated. “Once we return home, I will take my place as chief. If anyone wants to Challenge for that right here then pick up your spear. I am ready.”
The remaining men backed away at the offer and kept their eyes downcast. Eldrax almost purred at their immediate show of submission.
Only Hanak showed resentment as he spat the blood from his mouth, spraying the snow with red. “Then, what are we going to do now, revered chief?” he asked.
Eldrax paused for a moment, scowling into the distance as his mind worked. The raiding party had lost the kills it had risked Black Wolf territory to gain. His gaze travelled back to the site of the massacred Black Wolf.
The knowledge that he would never prove himself the greater warrior against Juran of the Black Wolf still twisted in his gut like a knife. But who was there to say what had actually happened here? There were no other witnesses to spin tales of the massacre that had taken place before the Mountains of the Nine Gods. If he claimed the victory, then when the tales were recounted to small children, it would be the figure of the Red Bear and not the Black Wolf that would have babes cowering closer to the camp fire.
