2: That Which Stalks the Hunter

Tal slowed his and his stor's approach as the end of the caravan appeared ahead.

He tried on his old smile, but it didn't seem to fit any longer. His skin, numbed and chapped by the cold, failed to stretch that way. He had more often worn a grimace as he labored across the winter-veiled woods and through the foothills of the mountains that dominated the East.

He gave up the effort and hurried after the sleighs, walking through the deep furrows the runners left behind in the snow.

Though his mind had spun in indecision all the while he had pursued the caravan, he still had not arrived at what he would do. He knew the safest course. Steal the map. Silence any who stand in your way. With the sorcery brimming inside of him, he knew he could manage it. He had spied a dozen armed guards and suspected more were hidden within the sleighs, yet no amount of them could be his match now.

But as he imagined red blood staining the white snow, his gut clenched, and a weariness claimed his limbs. Memories of Elendol ablaze, with its people lying butchered in the lower streets, and the scarlet film upon his sword — they intruded every time he plotted to take the map by force. 

He was no longer Gerald Barrows to revel in the making of corpses. 

But he wasn't sure he was Tal Harrenfel, either. The Man of a Thousand Names was a folk hero, an individual with an indomitable will, who would stop at nothing to achieve his aims. Tal Harrenfel would know what to do.

He possessed none of that certainty now. All he carried were doubts.

He'd left behind his companions to protect them. Even with civil war claiming the city, he knew they were safer in Elendol than traveling with him. And with the sorcery running rampant through his veins, that had never been more true.

If he had ventured out here alone to protect, how could he now bring harm again? He didn't know the answer. He only knew the first step toward uncovering it.

So he trailed the caravan, sometimes walking, sometimes riding Folly, his stor, but always following the road by the tracks they left. Whenever the end of the caravan came into view, he would fall back. He had to be careful; a casual glance behind would reveal him, and the caravan's guards wouldn't last long in the East if they were laggardly in their duties. Yuldor's Kin assured of that.

The road passed back and forth, back and forth, winding up switchbacks as the land grew ever higher and the sky ever nearer. The river down to his left grew steadily more frozen, only parts of it sluggishly churning downhill. Tal ate his little remaining food as he trudged along, knowing he could not put off the decision another day. He had to recover that chart, or risk being lost in the frozen wilderness for the entire winter. 

Silence only knew what horrors might find him then.

Part of him wished a town would appear soon, one where the merchant train might stop and he could attempt to hunt and resupply in the surrounding forest. But it was a vain hope. Though it was early in the season, the snow had already piled up several feet deep in drifts around the road. No town could hope to survive this high in the mountains in his estimation.

It had been morning when he'd spied the sleighs from the ridge. As he trailed them now, the sallow sky dulled to a steely gray as the short day passed quickly. Night began to fall again. Despair dragged at his weary legs as much as exhaustion. The nights went slowly. He was not able to sleep, yet with the moons cloud-covered, he could not safely travel, either. 

An itch against his senses brought Tal out of his complaints and fully back to awareness.

He lifted his head and looked about as his hand fell to Velori's hilt. He was tempted to open himself to his sorcery and use it to expand his senses, but he pushed the urge back down. He had indulged it far too much as it was. His eyes scanned the gray slopes to either side, trying to pick out shapes from among the dark trees and rocks that peppered the snow. His ears strained to hear any disturbances over the plodding of his stor and the faint gurgle of the river below.

Nothing. Despite the feeling to the contrary, it appeared he remained alone in the dreary dusk.

"Perhaps you're going mad," he muttered with a cheerless smile.

Just as he began to settle back into his morose musings, a scuff against rock sounded up the slope to his right. A small cascade of snow drifted down the hill.

Tal jerked around, tugging back his hood. Against the hoary landscape stood a dark figure he had not noticed before. It was unfamiliar in its shape. At first glance, it resembled a full-grown bull caribou, with antlers rising high from its head, and a white ruff of fur thick down its chest. 

But as Tal's eyes flicked over the beast, it shifted. Its head and chest morphed into a human woman's, though with the same white fur covering her belly, breasts, and arms. Her hair was black and coarse where it fell from her head, and a caribou's antlers still sat atop it, appearing impossibly heavy for her thin neck to support. Her eyes were dark in her pale face, studying him with a predator's calm regard. Her hands were curled, and long, dark nails grew at the ends of them.

Folly pulled at his reins, uneasy before this foreign creature. Tal let the stor slip free as he backed away and drew his sword. He had a feeling he would need both hands to ward off this danger.

He'd never heard of such a beast before, not even when he'd studied the monsters of the East as a warlock's apprentice. It was reminiscent of a centaur, the half-human horses said to rule the groves near the Eastern shores. Yet this didn't match the descriptions he'd seen of those, nor were centaurs supposed to be creatures of snowy mountains. As his eyes moved, its appearance shifted back and forth, a haziness always hovering around its upper body.

The winter beast slowly picked its way down the slope, small showers of snow accompanying its hoof falls. Tal held Velori at the ready and continued to back away, sneaking glances behind him to make sure he didn't accidentally fall down the hill and into the icy river below. His boots, made for traveling over dirt and grass, lacked the traction for steady footing, and he slipped slightly with each step before finding a hold.

But the beast was only one of his concerns. He couldn't afford to alert the caravan to his presence. Give himself away now, and he risked losing his chance at a map — or worse, having to fight for it.

Bracing himself, Tal released his sorcery.

It flooded through him at once, racing down his veins and inundating his blood. Tal gasped with the shock of it — the raw power, the beautiful absence of pain! It felt like seeing the faces of the Whispering Gods, who were said to be blinding in their divinity. For a long moment, he reveled in awe and terror.

But as the beast reached the other side of the road, he clawed back to himself, fighting against the pulsating magic, and attempted to wrangle it to his will.

As had happened atop House Elendola, his vision split in two. A plane existed beneath the material one his body occupied, a plane rife with veins of sorcery, interweaving throughout — and, he suspected, sustaining — the World. Here, he could perceive all the connections that were invisible to the eye, ear, and nose. 

The beast walked like a spider over its web, many threads connecting it to the surrounding land. This was its territory; here, it reigned supreme. It approached him with all the confidence of a hunter, its sorcery curling in a menacing veil around it.

But where the creature's sorcery moved in rivulets, his raged in torrents. It battered him with mind-crushing might. As the Nightkin beast advanced, he tapped the smallest part of his magic and wielded it with the World's fundamental language.

"Fisk kord ferd."

The bubble of silence raised from the river to shimmer about him. With his hidden eye open, he could see its effect extending out nearly as far as the stalking beast. Now, the sounds of the oncoming conflict would not travel to the caravan ahead.

Yet even as the sorcery bowed to his will, something rose with it. His insides twisted themselves into knots. His skin felt as if it stretched too tight. His heart beat against his rib cage like a soldier battering the shield of his foe.

Tal pushed down his discomfort and confusion and raised his sword toward the advancing hunter. Soon, it would step within the spell, and then he would strike. Incantations, long forgotten in the intervening years, sprang back to mind. Despite the strange effects of his sorcery — or perhaps because of them — a smile curled his lips.

He would not fail, not out here in the wilderness. He would not be his own undoing.

He felt the beast step inside the spell as much as saw it. Tal wasted no time, but thrust his free hand forward and cried, "Kald bruin!"

The lines of energy converged at his command. Underneath the hoofed feet of the caribou-woman, the snow began to steam, then melt. But as the plume of flames blossomed from the ground, the winter beast leaped lightly to the side. 

It confirmed what he had already suspected: it could sense sorcery just as he could.

His casting came at a cost. The nausea worsened. His head rang like a tolling bell. His balance reeled. Frantic theories flew through his mind: that he was overwrought; that the creature was interfering, though he sensed no intrusions. But it did not matter; the conclusion was obvious. He could not win against this Nightkin without his sorcery. 

He would have to gamble, and hope the price was not too high to pay.

Tal followed up his first attempt with a charge and another called spell. Velori flashed with sparks, and fresh pain wracked his body. Yet with sorcery bolstering his movements, his strike was quick and true. Lightning arced from the steel, and both sword and sorcery cut into the winter beast's chest.

As the Nightkin faltered under the assault, the caribou morphed back to the woman. Untold agony wrote itself across her expression. 

He should have driven home the attack. He should have finished his assailant with a second spell and a final slash. 

But when he saw her pain, Tal hesitated.

The woman's face twisted back into fury, and she lowered the broad crown atop her head. Belatedly, Tal pivoted and caught the creature on the horns with Velori and another rapid hex. Sorcery curled through him, intoxicating and biting, as his blade sawed half of her antlers away.

The pain spiked, and for a moment, he was lost to it. Next he knew, the winter beast had caught him with the other half of its antlers and was bearing him off the road. 

A moment's suspension — then they crashed down the hill, rolling and spinning toward the river.

But even as the ground pummeled his body, the greater pain seared from within. The World knotted together, senses crossing. Blood pounded in his ears. The streams of sorcery pooling inside him bulged as too much poured through him, more than he could hope to survive.

Icy cold sucked at him. Gray swelled over his eyes. The river. We're in the river. Though he burned hotter than a conflagration, he knew his body couldn't endure the cold water for long. 

He was caught between fire and ice, pain and confusion. So he fled the only way he could. 

Tal let go and slipped into murk.