Snowberry's Veil

Part 3

I had terrible dreams, sleeping fitfully. My whole body ached from bruises, gashes, and possibly worse and the cold made me miserable. I was warm enough that, after a while it actually became harder to sleep. The fire was warm enough to keep me from slipping into a coma, but it made sleep difficult because I would jerk awake fearing that the fire had gone out. Once, I woke from a nightmare that my feet were somehow in my campfire, and even after confirming they were under my rough covers of leaves and pine boughs, they hurt like aflame. Warming up, they'd started to have feeling again, and all the gashes, bruises, tears, and what I feared was frostbite were starting to stab at me with wave after wave of pain. Come morning I could get some medicinal herbs and perhaps even make some sort of makeshift shoes, and take care of myself, but I had to make it there first.

The night dragged on, endless. Each time I managed to drift off into exhausted sleep I dreamed the fire had caught in my bedding, or gone out, or that I was in an icy tomb, or that the wolf clan had caught me and were feeding me into coals feet first. The variations on nightmares were amazing and powerful, each time jerking me awake sweating and gasping, even crying out. I finally managed to slip into semi-normal sleep when I became so cold I woke again, and found my fire nearly burnt down. I reluctantly crawled part way out of my rough bed and began to feed sticks into the flame when I spotted glinting lights just on the other side of the little dying fire, to the side of the big bark reflector.

The lights blinked out and on again, and I heard a deep, yowling growl. Whatever it was, the lights I saw were the fire reflected in its eyes and it wasn't happy. I sighed in near-disbelief, at my continual misfortune, then steeled myself. Long ago my father had given me some of the finest advice I'd ever heard: son, sometimes life's just like that. How you faced it and got through - or sometimes didn't get through - was what mattered. I carefully and slowly pulled a larger, longer branch out of the woodpile, one I'd noted earlier for its strength and jagged, pointed end. As the fire burned higher, I could see that just to the side of my reflector bark there was a huge cat, at least the size of a cougar. It was more compact and bulky than a cougar's long grace, with tufts on its ears and huge paws like a bobcat, but no bobcat had those long, saber-like fangs in its upper jaw, jutting low beneath its lower jaw. The cat was difficult to see, its fur mostly black in various shades and patterns that seemed to shift and blend into the background.

It was a felpyr, an elfin cat, but it seemed alone. It was eyeing me with steady determination, crouched low to the ground. Perhaps it had smelled my blood, but I'd never heard of one attacking anyone like this. They were very protective of their home lands and would sometimes kill intruders who caused destruction and damage, but someone like me in need or just passing through was usually ignored, or trailed to see what I was doing here. I'd even heard of a felpyr assisting someone in need, although they were shy creatures in most cases. What was this one doing here? It growled continuously, moving its paws very slightly forward, creeping up a bit at a time. I knew they could leap tremendous distances, so it wasn't readying for a strike, but instead almost as if it was trying to convince itself to attack.

I moved my scratchy branch blanket back and got ready for a spring – if it wanted a fight, I'd give my best effort. I didn't care for my chances, particularly bare handed, wounded, and shaking uncontrollably as I was, but I wasn't about to just give up and there was nowhere to run. The felpyr twitched a few times, its body jerking as if it started to jump then stopped, and its growl shook. It glared at me, ears flat back and lips pulled back over sharp, clean teeth. Whatever it was thinking, it looked terribly upset.

I risked a glance away from the cat's eyes, and saw a larger branch was burning in the fire. I laid down the sharpened branch and reaching down carefully I grasped the end of it and the cat's growl got louder and deeper. With a sudden shout and jerk of the branch, I swung it across the cat's face spraying it with sparks and embers, leaving a streak of fire in the air. "No!" I cried in Elencal, the language of the wood elves, hoping it knew a few words like many did. The cat yowled and leapt back, continually yowling and backing away like it was hurt or angry, but retreating. I was on my knees now, waving the flaming branch and the cat vanished into the darkness. I heard it yowling and growling as it backed away into the wood then it became silent. Staring across the fire with the plank of bark as big as a man's chest in the way I could see absolutely nothing in the dark, even if it hadn't blended in so well already. My eyes were completely useless for night vision staring across the fire for so long.