by Justin Wayne
***
He squinted through the flurries that swirled in his face and pulled the cowl of his hood lower. All the world around him was aflutter with snow falling in every direction. Never before had he seen such strange wind patterns that even the trees didn’t know which way to blow. He ducked beneath their low-hanging, snow-laden boughs and delved deeper into the forest.
His mind was heavy with concern; for his friends and to a lesser degree himself. As if coming into an abandoned town to hunt a demon wasn’t perilous enough, it now seemed Blaine had somehow survived their last incursion. Top it off with a semi-potent poison that numbed his body from all feeling and he wasn’t too thrilled with the prospects his future held.
But he couldn’t help but grin as the trees grew thick about him. The wild had always been his true home, and here in the north there was no better climate suited for just that. Crouching low in the frosty white, he pulled his cloak tighter to mask his scent.
He inhaled deeply and smelled the wintry mix of pine and cold; the latter an aroma all its own. He scanned the ground or rather the thick layer of powder atop it, and soon spotted a curving line of prints. Upon further inspection he identified them as deer tracks; a wounded doe carrying a limp based on the slight drag to the rear prints.
Another smiled creased his cheek and he started forward again, pushing such dark thoughts away, with lighter steps that crunched through the snow.
