The Legend of the North

Chapter 11

Announcement

Thank you for reading "The Legend of the North". This book is fully published on Amazon (under the same name), it would be very helpful if you buy the book to support me.

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The next morning, the pack turns west when they are very close to the foot of the incredible mountains. The wolves begin to move quickly after sniffing the air for a moment. With great effort, Ezer manages to keep up the pace, through the varied terrain, until he reaches a small clearing in which the sun's rays are reflected by the snow, making it difficult to see.

In the center, perhaps a hundred meters or more, was a moose. It was huge, surely twice the size of a normal one, its antlers just as impressive and reflecting light as much as snow. A spectacular sight forms between the glitter of snow and the moose.

Ezer was sure, that moose was a magical beast. There was no other explanation, only magic could bring such a creature to life.

In his stupefaction, Ezer doesn't notice how the wolves began to slowly surround the moose covering all directions of the clearing. Noticing it, he is speechless.

"Are you going to try to hunt THAT ?" The wolves that moved in the snow were no match for the size of their prey.

"It's impossible for them to do it..." He was about to move, at the same time that the pack finishes positioning itself, but Lia stops him.

Seeing her, he feels her gaze and crouches down again, trusting them. Ezer watches the wolves and the moose continuously feeling more and more nervous. But at that moment a paw closes its eyes.

"Huh?" He is alarmed, although he remembers that it is Lia who is by his side. His sight is obstructed but he still hears his surroundings, feels the snow and cold through his skin and also can smell.

Ezer enters a kind of trance in which he completely forgets his vision, only his heartbeat prevails and the other senses. After a while, his breathing slows down as does his heart rate, allowing him to focus and begin to perceive something that wasn't there before.

Lights, or maybe they weren't, he wasn't sure. They flowed like a visible wind, but thicker, almost like water, and moved all around him. His body exuded this strange flow, just like with wolves and moose, although in much larger proportions. The trees too, but these seemed to store the flow and only a small part escaped to the outside.

Each living being emanated a flow of a different color, painting the black space left by their eyes when they closed. A show worthy of being called magical.

Faced with the new experience, Ezer gets excited creating a chain reaction, which destabilizes his breathing and concentration. And as suddenly and magnificently as when he discovered the flow, it was gone.

He opens his eyes and sees the world the same as before, but with more rational and calm thinking. The look he had now in his eyes seemed deeper... something had changed in him.

His attention refocused on the wolves and that strange moose, now that his vision wasn't blocked by Lia. He didn't know what the wolf didn't want him to see, whatever it was, that wasn't the case anymore.

Suddenly, the entire pack bows their heads slightly in respect to the imposing beast. Ezer follows suit, surprised at the show of submission from those he considered owners of these forests.

Looking up, Ezer is once again even more surprised to notice that the moose had disappeared without leaving a trace. As if nothing had happened, the wolves continue on their way and he hurries to follow their path closing his mouth that, at some point, had opened in astonishment.

"I don't understand, I haven't read anything about a type of beast like that and it shouldn't be on this side of the mountains either. Does my father know that it exists?" Ezer wonders.

The pack continues to move north at a good speed, but this time they stop to rest much earlier than the day before. Gray clouds began to darken the day, which still had a long way to go, and promised to end the brief and rare good times of winter. Before that, Ezer went out to get more wood for his newly lit fire accompanied by Lia.

Walking with several pieces of wood in his arms, Ezer tried to see the world again as he had during the encounter with the moose. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't see those trails of light flowing all around him.

He comes to himself when he feels something strange under his foot, takes several steps back when he partially unearths what was lying in the snow.

"It's...a body..." It didn't scare him as much as he thought it would. He just seemed like a sleeping person, who would never wake up.

He kept digging it up ignoring "respect for the dead." The body wore coats, which looked more like blood-hardened rags than anything else, a medium bow, a quiver with a couple of arrows, and a book as well.

The most logical thing would be for him to take the bow first giving thanks for the blessing that Niva bestowed on him and check its status. But the first thing he checks is the book whose leather cover was cracked and discolored as if it had been in the sun for years, clearly, it passed through many hands before reaching him.

What caught his attention the most was the title, " What a Hunter Should Know ". In its first pages it had a writing, clearly unrelated to the book title and with an almost illegible calligraphy, which said.

"Led, this is a book you will need if you want to be a good hunter. It has truths written in it, unlike other invented rubbish in those things you call books... Your father."

"Led, is that your name?" Ignoring the last vulgar words that were written, Ezer closes the book and puts it in the bag that once belonged to the body and now was his.

"I'm going to borrow your belongings... in return I'll give you peace." Ezer closes Led's eyelids with a lot of effort, since they were frozen, prays a few short words and carves "Led" on the nearest tree.

"It's all I can do, I don't have time or tools." The wind and the darkness increase as well as the cold.

Ezer returned to his shelter and revived the flames of the campfire that were about to be extinguished. The only thing that covered him from the wind was a huge tree trunk, but in any case, the snow and the cold would have passed through, freezing Ezer's bones.

He huddled together with Lia, who this time allowed him to get closer, while they watched the flames of the fire dance frantically to the rhythm of the wind. Ezer took advantage of the moment to review the equipment he got from Led. A medium bow, a quiver with about twenty arrows, a hunting knife, a couple of bronze coins and a leather backpack with a wooden support for large weights, inside it were several tools for long trips and finally the book.