Shadow of Dawn

Chapter 2

They stalked the forest in the night, like prowling snowlions, their footsteps silent upon the fresh depth of fallen snow. Nine and pale, and clad in grey wolfskins they moved silently from the cover of one pine to another. Silver moonlight filtered down through the needled trees, glinting off frozen snowdrifts. A thousand owls hooted from the safety of their shadowed nests.

'Hear anything?' Thorval grunted through a beard tangled with twigs and needles. The nine tensed, those old enough to hold spears gripping them all the tighter, the younger ones glancing left and right helplessly. Of a single mind they stopped, fur boots sinking into the deep snow. The thick plumes of icy vapor faded to nothing as they held their breaths and listened. Nothing moved. Behind the rhythmic hooting of owls and the familiar rush of the winter winds, nothing made a sound. The woods were empty.

Valmyr nodded at his father, throwing one last look over his shoulder. The others waited, crouched beneath a gnarled branch with their heads sunk into their hoods. Three wide-eyed young boys, shivering twin girls with hair pale as snow, his mother cradling a sleeping babe in one arm and a short axe in the other. Ahead, Thorval peered into the depths of the woods. A foul step, a wrong turn, and he would lead his bloodring to a certain death.

The patriarch, apparently convinced, started forward. Around them, the winds grew fiercer and the cold crueler. Their wolfskins were coated with pellets of ice and, beneath hoods, cheeks and lips were burnt raw. Softly, the babe began to whimper. Thorval kept moving, but he cast a frightful look at the youngest of his offspring. Screaming children had been known to summon death before. Valmyr's neck tingled as he thought of the black tales told around fires in the havens. On the edge of his vision, the woods became alive with flitting shadows and he thought he heard the faint patter of predators.

'This way,' Thorval whispered, his voice seeming to echo louder than the tumble of stones. They headed east and south now, with the moon dipping at their backs. The land steepened gradually as they clambered up the side of a valley toward a ridge. Large rocks littered the ground, buried beneath snow and dirt. Several times Valmyr and his father were forced to help the younger ones up and over. Despite the chest-crushing cold, sweat formed in icy beads beneath his arms and on his brow. The spear grew heavy, his legs cramped and the bulging pack dug into his shoulder. The children carried what they could, but they were already thigh-deep in the snow.

The pines receded, then disappeared, leaving them exposed on a stony ridge against the flank of a tall hill. Thorval waited for the nine to reach the ledge, then led them all into a shadowed recess in the wall. 'We rest here.'

There, crowded together, the heat of their bodies helped fend off the cold for a short while. Thorval stared out over the valley with his eldest son by his side.

'We have made good time,' Thorval said, glancing at the sky. Stars still glimmered by the thousands, waiting for the purple shade of dawn to sweep them away. The Wanderer, far brighter and larger than the others, hung low on the eastern horizon. 'The other bloodrings should arrive soon.'

'Are you certain?' Valmyr asked. He had been present during the palavers, remembered the determination in the others' eyes as they swore to meet on the hilltop at the full moon. He could still feel Umskar's rough embrace and Ilva's soft voice promising to be there. But a fear gripped his heart as they approached the hill. Many things could have happened since their parting. Over the past few winters, promises had become almost without weight among the first folk. Each bloodring struggled for its own survival, each man fought for his own life.

'They have no choice,' Thorval nodded. 'The journey will be long into the east. A lone bloodring cannot make it. Our folk were meant to be alone, but sometimes we must work together. My brother Thêus wandered into the mountains on his own and never came back.'