Snowberry's Veil

Part 1

The leaves were wet and dragged on my skin like cold hands trying to slow me as I ran. The chill was so bad that my feet were like blocks of wood -- I couldn't feel them at all, which was good because without any covering they were torn and bruised and bloody. The only clothing I had left was a nearly shredded pair of breeches that barely covered me, the rough cloth tattered and bloody from the scratches and bites on my legs. I ran as best I could through the forest, through a land unknown to me at the base of huge mountains.

Behind me I could hear the baying of the beasts, and distant shouts. How much of a lead I had, I could not guess, I only knew I needed speed and to stay away from their tearing jaws and spears. There were at least five different voices, with a number of those great wolves that I could not count. My mind was focused on the pathway ahead of me, trying to follow an animal trail through the woods as the underbrush lashed and pulled and slapped at me. The cold was all through me like I could never again be warm, and I knew that each step I took marked my path like a fire for the wolves to follow.

From what I knew of their kind, these beastmen were able to track by scent nearly as well as the wolves with them, but they preferred to use their companions. I had seen no shaman in the tribe, which was at least some small comfort. I had been separated from a caravan headed into the wilderness to settle, I had hoped to draw off the wolf clan's attention so that they could pass unmolested. I could only hope that my efforts had succeeded, that this pain and cold and fear was not a complete waste. In my mind's eye I could see my bones lying on this forest floor, scattered and gnawed by the jaws of the wolves, but I had to try my best to survive and return to the caravan, to see if they were safe.

I had been scouting ahead of the caravan, a few hundred strides ahead of the main body when I smelled smoke mixed in with the usual scents of forest and earth and mountain. If the caravan had been further off, I would have been less concerned, but I knew they wouldn't be quiet enough to pass by safely at this distance. With a last look back through the trees to where I knew the road was, I slipped through the forest with the skill that years of training and experience lent me, and closed on the fire downwind. My senses are not keen as an elf much less a wolf, but I could smell dog-smell even before I reached the rocky outcropping above the meadow where their fire was lit. Around it sat half a dozen beastmen: rough tribal creatures; part man, part animal.

These were wolf-like, with a wolf's head but man's keen eyes. Their hands were almost like a dog's paws, but with longer, more agile fingers. Their legs were bent like a hound's as well, with bare paws, and from under leathern kilts made from multiple layers of uncured hide a tail jutted. They were adorned with feathers and strips of leather, leaves, and white chalk in patterns on the short fur that covered their bodies. Standing upright like men, they held spears and they had fire.

With them were an equal number of huge wolves, bigger than I'd seen before. They were not wargs, lacking the malevolence and exaggerated features, but they seemed larger and fiercer than ordinary wolves. Feral wolves, perhaps, enchanted to give strength and cunning beyond their ordinary kin. The beastmen seemed unaware of the caravan and certainly of myself. I saw no ranged weapons unless the spears were intended to be thrown; each had three spears with razor-sharp stone heads in addition to what looked to be stone daggers. They were roasting some small creature over the fire and speaking in a tongue I did not know when a seventh arrived from the forest, so stealthy I had not seen him until he stepped into the clearing.

He spoke and pointed out of the clearing, toward where I knew the caravan was passing. The others seemed excited, and the fire was rapidly put out. Weapons were readied, and I knew that the scout had spotted the caravan just as I'd spotted their fire. They would attack soon, and in the caravan there were hardly four men who could fight, the others ill or injured from a previous attack by goblins. I thought of the families in the caravan, especially Thealea, and knew what I must do.