Two days ago, this very band had caught up with Gethred and his companions. Gethred had been the only one to escape alive. He'd fled north, hugging the foothills of the Sunrise Mountains. East was only the open steppe and certain death. He'd hoped that he might be able to find some outlying Rashemi settlement and beg for shelter and supplies, perhaps even find another pass westward through the mountains. This, too, he did not tell.
Cormyr had winters, and Gethred had often traveled into the north for king and country. He knew the ways of the wild, even in the darkest days of winter. But he'd never experienced anything like the Hordelands, even though he was only skirt shy;ing the edges of it. The only water to be found was snow and ice, and he knew that eating the snow would only cause him to freeze faster. He'd eaten well the night before the attack but had nothing since then. He'd been lucky to escape the sacking of the citadel with warm clothes, a good coat and cloak, his knife, and his life, but there'd been no time for supplies.
Still, the cold and thirst were worse than the hunger. Since the night their fire had led the Tuigan to them, he'd dared not light one, and so yesterday as the day drew on, despair had set in. When all your life is cold, thirst, and mile after endless mile of hard country buried in snow, when all your friends are dead, when an army lies between you and home, and you know you are being hunted, it's damned hard to hold on to hope. Although an experienced woodsman like Gethred knew he could survive many more days without food, he also knew that cold or thirst would soon claim him-that or the Tuigan still hunting him.
Holwan did not smile at that part in Gethred's tale. Gethred thought one of his countrymen would have, had he crouched where the Khassidi crouched just then, but Holwan's face was a mask, bereft of emotion.
And so Gethred decided to let the cold kill him. His grand shy;father had always said that the build-up to freezing to death was the worst. Death itself came painlessly, even warmly, as the body fell at first to sleep, then the endless sleep. Gethred had often wondered how even wilderness-wise men like his grandfather could have known such things. Did they call a priest to speak to their frozen friends? If so, Gethred could have thought of something better to ask the dead than, 'How was it?' But Gethred's grandfather had not been the type of man to ask such questions.
Faced with the choice of allowing the cold or the Tuigan to kill him, Gethred had chosen the cold. Not so much out of fear-though that was certainly a consideration-but out of plain spite. He did not want to give his enemies the satisfaction of taking him down. Better to find a nice place to lie down and fall into Mielikki's embrace.
These had been his thoughts as he'd made his way down a valley between two long arms of the Sunrise Mountains. Trees filled the valley, and he'd figured that at the very least he could have a little shelter before he lay down to die.
He'd just made it to the bottom of the valley when he heard something-the sound of struggling beyond a stand of nearby bracken. Drawing his knife, he'd crept forward.
Pushing his way through the thick green of a holly bush, the first thing he'd seen was the body of a wolf, fur a pale gray, but the corpse had been gutted, the entrails strewn about. Crudest of all, the jaw had been pulled open till it broke and the skin tore. Simple wanton cruelty that tightened Gethred's stomach. But the strangest thing was a large rune-all wicked angles and sharp spurs-that had been branded onto the wolf's side. In the crisp air, Gethred thought he could still smell the singed fur.
The sudden shaking of brush had turned Gethred's head, and nearby he saw another wolf, still very much alive, its throat wrapped in a snare. The line drew up to a thick branch that pulled the wolf to the height of its front legs, and with each movement the knotted loop round its neck tightened. One look, and Gethred knew it was only a matter of time before the animal's struggles would choke it to death.
Gethred's first thought was to wait for the hunter to come along so that he might beg for food and shelter, but the thought shamed him and he prayed to Mielikki to forgive him. Besides, seeing the cruel way the other wolf had been slaughtered-whether as bait or the first kill, he could not tell-and reflecting upon the rune burned there, Gethred decided he'd rather not meet this hunter. Something about the rune bothered him even more than the malice evident in the slaughter.
Gethred sheathed his knife and removed his cloak. Freeing a wolf from a snare was no easy task, even for a team of men. Moved to panic, the wolf would try to kill anyone who came near. His one hope would be to cover the animal's head long enough to cut the snare. After that, he hoped the wolf would be more concerned about getting away than ripping his throat out. If not… well, it spared him the choice between death by cold or death from the Tuigan warriors.
Holding his cloak spread out before him, Gethred approached, nice and slow, making no sudden movements.
The wolf's lips peeled back, revealing long teeth. The foam around the wolf's black lips was flecked with blood. Another step, and the wolf growled and lunged. But it only succeeded in pulling the noose tighter, and its growl broke off into a choked whine. Gethred took the opportunity to dive forward, throwing his thick cloak over the wolf's head and grabbing it in a tight hug. He was probably twice the wolf's weight, but still its desperate thrashing nearly threw him off. Had it not been for the tight line around its neck, Gethred knew it would have thrown him and gone for his throat.
Keeping his right arm around the wolf's neck so that the cloak enveloped its head like a hood, he made a quick grab for his knife, brought it out, and swiped at the line. The blade caught and slipped, and for one panicked moment Gethred almost dropped it. The line seemed to have been braided from some sort of tendon, and it was as strong as wire. Gethred tightened his grip and brought the blade down again.
The line snapped, and the branch holding it shot upward, shattering winter dry branches. Suddenly freed from the tension of the snare, the wolf twisted beneath Gethred and raked him with its back paws. Had it not been for his canvas coat and the leather vest beneath it, the wolf would have disemboweled him.
Gethred let go, tucked his chin to his chest, and covered his head with his arms. He knew that if the wolf came for him, it would go for the neck. If it got his throat, he could take a while to die, but the creature could snap the back of his neck with one crunch of its jaws, and he'd likely be dead before the breath left his body.
But no bite came.
Nice and slow, Gethred rolled to his side and looked up. The wolf stood at the far end of the clearing. The severed snare was still around its neck, but the tension was gone, and the line hung loose. The creature just stood there, the play of light and shadow through the boughs dappling its fur as it watched Gethred. Its gaze unnerved him. But then, wolves' eyes always had. He'd tracked, hunted, and even tamed many beasts in his life, and he'd always thought that a wolf's eyes seemed the most human.
Then something happened. At first he thought a breeze had come up, setting the boughs to swaying and moving the shadows beneath. But there was no breeze. The light around the wolf seemed to be breaking and bending, and the minuscule shadows in its fur rippled as if alive. The wolf's shape twisted and distorted, and when the shimmering of light and shadow slowed and cleared, the wolf was gone. Where the wolf had been stood a young woman, her skin and hair only a shade darker than the snow. She stood naked and barefoot in the frost, but the cold did not seem to bother her. Her gaze was fixed on Gethred, and he saw by the slight cant of her eyes and the line of her jaw that she resembled an elf more than a human.
With one hand she took the loose bit of snare from around her neck, pulled it over her head, and tossed it aside. She said something, a word or two only, in a language that Gethred had never before heard.
Dumbstruck, Gethred said, 'I-'
The woman cocked her head as if listening. Though the rest of her body hadn't moved, Gethred could see every muscle was taut and tense.
'What-?' Gethred began, but the woman turned and ran away. There was a brief rustling in the brush, a soft whisper as snow fell from a dislodged branch, and she was gone.
Then Gethred heard it, too. Something approaching from the way he had come through the thick holly. Something big.
But Gethred was too tired, too hungry, and too stunned to run. He was done with running.
He was reaching for his knife, which had fallen a few paces away, when the largest man Gethred had ever seen lumbered out of the brush. The man was dressed all in skins and furs, and his beard and head of hair stood out in a great tangle. Seeing the empty snare and Gethred beside it reaching for a knife, the man let loose a bellow that rebounded off the moun shy;tainside. He descended upon Gethred.
Holwan said nothing at first, just maintained his easy crouch and watched Gethred. Finally he stood and
