Winterskin (Book One of Wrath & Winter)

They Come at Night: Part Five

Warmth followed him, white wind opening and closing like a jarl's silk curtain as he cut a path toward Gram's cabin. I can already see the girls jumping all over him, showering him with kisses and squeezing him half to death with hugs. Gram's eyes might sparkle as he offers her the bread and she'll ask the same question she always does, have you checked on my Katell, Eli? Has she kept her promise? And Maddy and Eva would scrunch up their noses at the idea of their brother, Gram asking the same question and Eli forced to give a completely different answer. An uncertain one devoid of hope.

A stupid smile spread across my face at the notion that maybe he checks on me because he wants to, not because Gram has made him promise, his kind being unable to break carefully worded contracts. And then, maybe he doesn't give a damn about me and when Gram passes that'll be it.

I'll never see his lopsided smile again.

Mist crept from the black forest beyond, batting away torchfire and light. Blinking against the updraft of wind and fog, I gripped the wooden handle of my ax. Slivers sank into my skin. Ice formed around the ridges of my nostrils.

Where is Magni?

Did the Guard really not care about the human print?

Perhaps they think it is a hoax as well. Some sick prank played by one of the outskirts kids.

Or, perhaps...

Movement beyond the trees. A silhouette as black as a night without stars wove its way between ashen bark and too-low branches naked and encrusted with week-old frost. Eyes alight. Golden, then crimson, then golden again. Those eyes meet mine like the moon suddenly pulling a second orb beside itself.

It makes me shiver for the first time tonight.

Not normal.

Bracing myself, I unclipped the torch from its pole. Willed the fire to not die against the constant brush and growl of wind coming in from the east.

Maybe Elisedd should come back.

You can take care of yourself.

Magni, where are you?

Pacing. Three steps to the right, five steps to the left. Ax biting into my cold palm. Fire racing through my veins.

It's out there. It sees me.

Surrounding the perimeter like a neutral army of strung up bodies, three torches go out.

Darkness from my right. To my left, orange light flickers and fights and-

Dies.

In the summer, when the trees are alive and little pricks of green fight to sprout through mushy snow, we fight trees. Our axes are dulled by stationary wood and thick tree limbs. In the winter, wolf-blood sunders them. Makes them rust and brittle bones blunt them.

What sauntered through the woods, freed itself of the thicket, and blew out all torchlight except for the one screaming in my hand is not a wolf.

It can't be.

Yet, it charged on all fours like an animal.

"Get back!" I screeched, waving the torch before my face. Light crisscrossed its raked features. Wood-like teeth jutted from an upper jaw with no lips. Skin spliced in tatters across its long, narrow, face. It's human-not one of Elisedd's people-and it's missing a-

An otherworldy screech split the night. Speared an ache from my right ear to my left.

Don't drop it. Don't drop it. Don't drop it.

Magni, by the Mother...!

I tilted my ax. Snapped my eyes open.

Nothing. Nowhere. Nothing. Where are you?

Chipped and jagged nails dug their way into my shoulders. Weight sent me falling backwards. All I hit is packed earth-stone. Snow and mud and roll right into a trench. Torchlight hovering before my face, ax thankfully in hand. Elbow screaming in whitehot pain.

That disgusting face reappears. Hovered like the torch. Slaver dripped from spaces between the thing's teeth.

Sometimes I can control it.