The End of the Hunt

"Winter will come, and it will not end. Brothers will kill brothers. The bonds between father and son will be rent, and the mountains will shake with each breath of the world. As the Ward Tree wilts, so shall the Oathbreaker return.

Heroes will rise once more, for this will be the age to end all ages."

— Morene Gylfaginor, The Codex Gylfaginor 

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It was dusk, and the wood was waning. The wind whispered of happier times as Ein and Alend trudged through the snow.

"Let's stop here for the night," Alend said, coming to a halt. "It's getting too dark to track."

Ein frowned. "If it snows harder, we could lose all the ground we gained."

His father gave him a stern look. "Better to lose a day or two than to lose our quarry completely."

Ein sighed and stepped away from the trail. Alend nodded in approval.

The trees shivered and sent a light dusting of snow across the tracks, as if to taunt the two. For three days they'd been stalking the buck, three cold, harsh days with gray skies, dry winds, and white-flecked wood stippling the snow. Sometimes Ein would see a fox scurrying into its den or a snow finch flitting between the branches, but most of the time he and his father were the only signs of life for miles around.

"We could push a little further," he murmured. "Cover enough ground to end the hunt tomorrow. We'd be back in Felhaven before the week's end."

Ein's father folded his arms. "What can you tell me about these prints?"

Even in his middle ages, Alend Thoren stood as tall and broad as a great oak. He was wrapped tightly in warm leathers and thick boots, a greying cloak the colour of his beard fastened about his shoulders. Muscles bulged beneath his shirt, thickly corded and wrought with a lifetime of experience. By his father's side, Ein was but a sapling.

Ein pulled back his hood and bent down to examine the tracks, squinting in the murky light. Specks of snow touched his face.

"I'd say a couple of hours old," he concluded. "The print belongs to a deer, a young male. Looks to be in good shape." He turned around and stood. "Reasonably well-fed, considering the stool we found a while back."

"And what about that over there?"

Alend extended a finger to one of the trees nearby. Ein approached it and brought his face closer to the trunk. The outer layer of snow had worn thin, revealing the bark beneath. There was a scrap of fur snagged against one of the grooves.

"It rubbed itself against the tree," he said. "Probably to scratch an itch or remove some brambles from its side. There hasn't been enough snow to cover it yet."

"Does that give you a more accurate timeframe?"

Ein tilted his head toward the sky, watching the snowflakes spiral towards the ground. "Three hours," he said. "It hasn't been snowing that heavily."

"Exactly," Alend nodded. "Good to see I haven't raised a thickhead."

Ein scowled.

"Now, tell me," his father continued. "If we took your suggestion and kept going for an hour or half, what would any simple-minded animal do?"

Ein didn't hesitate. "It would run—unless we sneaked up on it. But that would be hard to do in the dark."

"Added to the fact that we're both tired and hungry and in no condition to chase," Alend said. "Still think it's a good idea?"

Ein slung his travelling pack from his shoulder and set it at the base of a tree. "Alright, Father. You win." He unstrung his bow.

The shadows lengthened yet another inch. Though light still shone through the clouds, Ein hadn't seen a hot sun or a clear sky since the start of winter almost three years ago. In that time, snow fell thickly, crops refused to grow, rivers churned ice blocks, and animals buried themselves beneath the snowdrifts to wear out the storm. It felt like lifetimes ago when the land had been green and wet, lush with the sweet smell of summer. Now it was a wasteland, a desert of white.

Some said nature. Others blamed the gods, as long gone as they were.

To the more superstitious, it was the Great Winter—just as the Three-winged Crow had foretold.

Alend rifled through his bag and produced a bundle of supplies—cured meat and nuts, a hunk of stale bread and a wedge of cheese. Ein took his portion and washed it down with water, taking relish in the feeling of having something in his stomach. It wasn't much of a dinner, but then again nothing was these days. The abnormal weather had stripped Felhaven of its produce, restricting the villagers to a meagre diet and forcing them to dig into their supplies if they needed more. Many a night was spent with food on the mind and a dream of spring.

Alend began packing snow into his flask, so Ein did the same. There was a stream about half a day away on foot, but there was a good chance it would be frozen, so they'd taken to drinking snow instead. Although it took an entire night to thaw, it was far better than running out of water.

When they were both finished, Ein's father unfurled his bedroll and burrowed into it. They decided not to light a fire—there was nothing to cook and no pressing need to melt snow. The light and smoke of a flame would only alert their quarry to their presence, and there was no time or strength to be wasted on gathering wood.

Ein remained seated against the trunk, watching as the trees blended into the shadows. Slowly, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. He was still hungry; most of the fullness he'd felt before had been the water, and hunger did little to drive away the cold.

A winter night was dark and long. It was cold and quiet, and if you weren't careful you might find yourself never waking up. The sky fell into pitch black, turning the woods into an unseeable mass. Ein allowed his other senses to take over, listening to the rustle of leaves above him, smelling the crispness of the snow. His heartbeat slowed. Before long, his eyelids grew heavy with fatigue.

Then, the first of the howls rang sharp in the night, and then a second, and a third. Ein's eyes shot wide open, and he reached for the knife by his waist, heart thumping.

Wolves, he thought. But what are they hunting? Us?

The chorus of howls echoed. They were further away this time, just a bit. He became aware of his father sitting upright in the darkness, having woken from his sleep. He couldn't see Alend's face, but he knew those steel eyes would be alert and searching. Alend had a sixth sense forged in the pits of Hellheim.

"Should we go?" Ein asked.

There was no response. The dark shape that was his father tilted an ear to the sky. They waited patiently, wordlessly, listening to the wind. The wolves cried again. They were travelling in the opposite direction, their sounds growing more and more distant, fading like the toll of a bell. When their cries could no longer be heard, Alend fell back to his bedroll.

"They're hunting something else," he said. "We should be safe for the night."

Ein felt the tension ease from his shoulders as he sunk back into his covers. He'd never fought for his life before, even if he'd been taught the skills to. He hoped that day would never come.

Alend was already asleep, breathing long and deep in tune with the wind. Ein wished he could do that—sleep and wake at will, like the flick of a torch. It was a learned skill, one he had yet to master, along with hunting, tracking, fencing and the myriad of other skills his father knew. Ein wondered how a person like Alend became a village blacksmith as he fell into an uneasy sleep.