Tales of Wind and Fire: Giver

Chapter 27

The Phoenix got more powerful with each second that passed. Bennu had only a few days to find the Mountain. Even if he found it, what then? What did he actually have to do with the World-souls? How would he even destroy the Phoenix?
Cybil crunched through the snow to stand beside him. "Come on," she said. "We've got to get off the ice river, back to the Forest."
At that moment, Mystigan gave a start, and ran to the top of a snow ridge, turning his ears towards the foothills.
"What is it?" Whispered Cybil. "What did he hear?"
Then Bennu heard it too: voices far away in the Mountains, weaving together in the wild, the ever-changing song of the Kitsune pack.
Mystigan flung back his head, pointed his muzzle to the sky, and barked. I'm here! I'm here!
Bennu was astonished. Why was he barking to a strange pack? Did he know this pack?
With a whine, he asked Mystigan to come to him—but Mystigan stayed where he was: eyes slitted, black lips curled over his teeth as he poured out his song. Bennu noticed that he was looking much less like a cub. His legs were longer, and he was growing a mantle of thick white fur around the shoulders. Even his barks were losing the cub-like wobble.
"What's he telling them?" Asked Cybil.
Bennu swallowed. "He's telling them where he is."
"And what are they saying?"
Bennu listened, finding the melody of spirit tongue in their barks, never taking his eyes off Mystigan. "They're talking to two of their pack: scouts who've gone down onto the fells to seek reindeer. It sounds-" he paused. "Yes, they've found a small herd. The scouts are telling the others where it is, and they should bark with their muzzles in the snow."
"Why? What for?"
"It's a trick predators do sometimes, so the reindeer think they're further away than they really are."
Cybil looked uneasy. "You can tell that?"
He shrugged.
She dug at the snow with her heel. "I don't like it when you talk spirit. It feels strange."
"I don't like it when Mystigan talks to other Kitsune," said Bennu. "That feels strange, too."
Cybil asked him what he meant, but he didn't reply. It was too painful to put in words. He was beginning to realize that although he knew spirit-tongue, he was not, and never would be, truly a spirit. In some ways, he would always be apart from the cub.
Mystigan stopped howling, and trotted down from the ridge. Bennu knelt and put his arm around him. He felt the fine light bones beneath the dense winter fur; the fierce beat of a loyal heart. As he bent to take in the cub's sweet—grass scent, Mystigan licked his cheek, then gently pressed his forehead against Bennu's own.
Bennu shut his eyes tight. Never leave me, he wanted to tell Mystigan. But he didn't know how to say it.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

They started north.
It was an exhausting trudge. The storm had packed the snow into frozen ridges, with thigh-deep troughs in between. Mindful of ice holes, they prodded the snow in front of them with sticks, which slowed them down even more. Always they felt the Mountains watching them, waiting to see if they would fail.
By noon they'd made little progress, and were still within sight of the snow cave. Then they encountered a new obstacle: a wall of ice. It was too steep to climb, and too hard to cut through. Another one of the ice river's savage jokes.
Cybil said she'd investigate while Bennu waited with the cub. He was glad of the rest: the ravenskin pouch was weighing him down. "Watch out for ice holes," he warned, watching anxiously as she peered into a crack between two of the tallest fangs of ice.
"It looks as if there might be a way through," she called. Unslinging her pack, she squeezed in, then disappeared. Bennu was about to go after her when she stuck out her head. "Oh Bennu, come and see! We've done it! We've done it!"
Mystigan leapt after her. Bennu took off his pack and followed them in. He hated edging through the crack-it reminded him of the cave—but when he got to the other side, he gasped.
He was looking down at a torrent of jumbled ice like a frozen waterfall. Below it stretched a long slope of snowy boulders, and beyond that, scarcely a pebble's throw away, and shimmering in its white mantle, lay the Forest. "I never thought I'd see it again," said Cybil fervently.
Mystigan raised his muzzle to catch the smells, then glanced back at Bennu and wagged his tails.
Bennu couldn't speak. He hadn't known how much it had hurt—actually hurt— to be out of the Forest. They'd only spent three nights away, but it felt like months.
By mid-afternoon, they'd clambered off the last ice ridge and started zigzagging down the slope. The shadows were turning violet. Pine trees beckoned with snow-heavy boughs. It was a huge relief to get in among them, out of sight of the Mountains. But the stillness was unnerving.
"It can't be the Phoenix," whispered Cybil. "There was no sign of it on the ice river. And if it had gone round by the valleys, it would have taken days."
Bennu glanced at Mystigan. His ears were back, but his hackles were down. "I don't think it's close," he said. "But it isn't far, either."
"Look at this," said Cybil, pointing at the snow beneath a juniper tree. "Bird tracks."
Bennu stooped to examine them. "A raven. Walking, not hopping. That means it wasn't frightened. And there was a squirrel here, too." He pointed to a scattering of cones at the base of a pine tree, each one gnawed to the core like an apple. "And hare tracks. Quite fresh. I can still see some fur marks."
"If they're fresh, that's a good sign," said Cybil.
"Mm." Bennu peered into the gloom. "But that isn't." The auroch lay on his side like a great brown boulder. In life he'd stood taller than the tallest man, and the span of his gleaming black horns had been almost as wide. But the Phoenix had slashed open his belly, leaving him in a churned-up mess of crimson snow.
Bennu gazed down at the great ruined beast, and felt a surge of anger. Despite their size, aurochs are gentle creatures who only use their horns to fight for mates, or defend their young. This blunt-nosed bull had not deserved such a brutal death.
His carcass hadn't even fed the other creatures of the Forest. No foxes or pine martens had gone near it; no ravens had feasted here. Nothing would touch the prey of the Phoenix.
"Uff," said Mystigan, running about in circles with his hackles up.
Stay back, warned Bennu. The light was fading, but he could still make out the Phoenix tracks, and he didn't want Mystigan touching them.
"It doesn't look like a fresh kill," said Cybil. "That's something, isn't it?"
Bennu studied the carcass, careful to avoid touching the tracks. He prodded it with a stick, then nodded. "Frozen solid. A day or so at least."
Behind him, Mystigan growled.
Bennu wondered why he was so agitated, when the kill wasn't fresh.
"Somehow," said Cybil, "I thought we'd be safer now that we're back in the Forest. I thought —"
But Bennu never found out what she thought. Suddenly the snow beneath the trees erupted, and several tall, white-clad figures surrounded them.
Too late, Bennu realized that Mystigan had not been growling at the auroch— but at these silent assailants. Look behind you, Bennu. He'd forgotten. Again.
Drawing his knife in one hand and his axe in the other, he edged towards Cybil, who'd already ripped out the shuriken. Mystigan sped into the shadows. Back to back, Bennu and Cybil faced a bristling circle of arrows.
The tallest of the white-clad figures stepped forward and threw back his hood. In the dusk, his dark-red hair looked almost black.
"Got you at last," said Hord.