Isolation & Fear (Damned of the 2/19th Book Seven)

Man

GPS LOCATION ERROR - OUT OF RANGE
The Mountain
North-Eastern Slope, By Wolf Rock
Old Goose Ridge Top
TIME/DATE STAMP ERROR
Twilight, Third Wake

Watching, I crouched down, on the rock the thin linen cheesecloth across my face keeping my breath from steaming out in the cold thin air and keeping frost from forming on my short beard and mustache. Below me I could see three of the unmen standing knee deep in the snow, in a triangle, facing away from each other.

They had been trying to see me since Twilight had come.

For two wakes and two sleeps I had watched them. They moved now and then, from place to place, without moving. They would simply abandon the spot they had been watching and move to this new spot.

All three were unmen. Dark coarse looking hair, unshaven rough faces, lanky, pale skin with a bluish tint, male appearing but smooth at the juncture of the thighs.

I snarled behind the wrapped cheesecloth, gripping my spear tightly. I'd forged the metal myself in my new lair.

Eight sleeps ago, during the Long Dark, I had to abandon the Ancient's Fortress. Snow and ice had clogged the entryway, and I had been forced to use one of the secondary passages to move my possessions and tools to a new lair, higher up on the Mountain.

They stirred slightly, slightly turning to look down the icy slopes of The Mountain.

now

I got to my feet, running, and jumped off the cliff face. Legs spread, spear over my head. The alternating bronze and iron links of my mail had been threaded with cord to keep it silent, the furs around my body laced tight to prevent noise even though it created a lack of air spaces to keep me warm.

The spear crunched as it slammed through the body of the downmost unman. Black ichor exploded from its chest as it screamed loudly. The impact drove the air from me, but I had done this before, in worse conditions, and forced my body to move regardless.

The oiled and engraved/embossed leather sheathe whispered as I pulled my longblade from it. A heavy chopping sword. A swing of my arm and the unman's head flew off. On the backswing I severed the arm of the third unman and used the inertia to swing myself around.

The first and second had been killed too fast to explode in frost. Instead clumps of snow fell to the ground, replacing their bodies.

The third threw back its head to give one of those savage bellows that would summon more of its kind.

The heavy blade, honed to a razor sharpness, sliced its head from its body.

The unman turned into clumps of snow, collapsing.

I crouched down, low to the snow, and listened.

Ravens cawed, and I knew they were near, but not near enough.

Pulling my spear from the snow I hurried away, moving quickly across the thick packed snow.

Upside headed, move up the Mountain.

Twilight deepened by the time I got to my lair. Longnight would be here soon.

Not that I held fear. They were only things. I was a man. The Ant. They could not stand against my muscle and metal. I had learned savagery, and could not withstand my will. Fear was nothing more than fuel for my body and soul. It could be tempered and forged, like all things inside man.

Through the thick berry bushes at the top of White Fawn Ridge, the finger-long thorns scraping against my furs but not finding purchase. There were several branching paths and I swore.