Ya'aburnee

The steam of my breath curls around my face in the stillness. The snow on the ground seems to muffle all sound, but the thin layer of ice that has formed on top of it lends a sharpness to whatever's left. Even my breathing, calm and even, seems to come to my ear forcefully, piercing the silence that lays upon the forest.

I lean my head back and breathe deeply, the late winter sun playing across my face, casting red shadows through my closed eyelids. This is my first peaceful breath in months, and I savor it. Spring is coming, halfway here, and with it the thaw that drives our enemy north, out of the valley that we have made our home, back to the inhospitable waste through the high pass, the land an endless cratered plain, littered with icebergs though the sea is months' travel away, a land we dare not tread upon until our teeth grow soft and our minds begin to wander, then we take that long walk to the north, disappearing over the ridge and living on only in memory.

The village has been spared the horrors of winters past this year, and for that I am thankful. One safe winter, one kind season, spent nestled under furs next to the fire with my new wife. Our first winter; we mingled blood three days before the first snowfall, before the days turned gray and the nights grew talons. The wind howled outside, clawing at the walls of wood and hide, finding no purchase, no ingress. Though I doubt we would have noticed if our home had blown down around us, so enraptured were we with each other's bodies.

A smile spreads across my face at the memory, not cursing the long nights for the joy they brought us. Our first winter. The first of many.

I roll my shoulders under my hides, eager for the spring, eager for the river ice to crack and recede, eager more than anything for her to join me in the river, to strip off her hides and-

I hear a crack, wood snapping, made more sharp against the thin sheet of ice stretching across the snow into the mist through the trees. I turn quickly, scanning the forest with my eyes and ears, my heart already racing. I haven't seen any sign of elk in days, and I want to believe it's simply a fox or hare, but I know better even before I can smell it, the stink of death screwing up my face. I feel its breathing in my chest more than I hear it, rumbling deep and slow, with a poisonous, nameless malice we don't even have words for.

I peer deeper into the forest, every fiber of my being tensed and screaming to flee, but I find myself motionless in the snow halfway to my knees, staring into the woods, praying I'm wrong.

Then the trees begin to fall.

First one, somewhere out in the mist. I can hear it groan and crack, straining to stay upright before succumbing to the irresistible force that assails it, and it crashes through the canopy towards me, snow tumbling down from the branches in its way.

Then another, closer, and I take a step back, the ice resisting my weight for a moment before splintering under my foot. Another tree falls, and another, more quickly now, but I'm frozen, unable even to flee, that first step back all I could muster. Terror rises in me, clawing at my throat something like a scream, and another tree falls. I feel the ground trembling with each step, my heart far outpacing the beat, though that lead is narrowing.

Finally two great trees tumble down before me, and I see it, through the falling snow and pine needles, steam billowing from its mouth in great clouds as it stares at me with a hate more pure and ancient than anything I can imagine. It bellows a roar at me, its ragged maw a mass of fangs framed by jagged tusks, and I break.

I turn on my heel and sprint away from the great beast, my feet punching through the ice and into the wet snow beneath as my legs pump furiously, frantically, trying to carry me away from this doom. The beast's roar echoes through the woods, shaking the snow loose from the branches above me, shaking my teeth in my head. As the roar echoes through the woods, I hear trees crashing down behind me, the earth shaking as my pursuer thunders after me.

I run through groves of the biggest and oldest trees, trying to find something, anything, to slow the beast, but it snaps them like kindling, laying low stately pines that stood tall when my father's father was a boy as if they were twigs. I cannot escape this thing.

I take long, leaping strides down the hillside and across the riverbank, reaching the frozen river. I can race along the rough, pitted ice all the way to the village, definitely faster than struggling through the wet snow that has soaked through my furs, chilling my feet. I run along the ice, the sinking sun throwing my shadow out before me. I'll be back at the village soon. I'll be back with my wife-

My wife.

I stop suddenly, skidding on the uneven surface of the ice, and turn back. The beast crashes through the treeline on high on the riverbank, leaping down towards the river, its long, matted fur trailing behind it in the air. Watching this creature, the hate and bloodthirst in its eyes, its cracked and stained claws and fangs, I know I cannot lead it back to the village, to her. My father's father told me they'd fought one before, in his father's time. They'd driven it away, but at great cost and after great suffering. He wasn't able to protect his wife, and he was a man ten feet tall. So what hope have I?

The beast crashes to earth, smashing right through the thick river ice, bellowing its rage as it sinks into the surging water, great chunks of ice as thick as my leg sailing through the air, tossed like leaves. I know what I must do.

I wait on the river until I see the beast's head rise from the black water, already beginning to climb up onto the ice. I wait for it to see me, and then I run again, up the riverbank and away, back into the trees and into the fading sunlight.

I hear ice cracking like thunder behind me, the river ice shuddering and giving way under the weight of the beast, under the intensity of its pursuit, and I keep running.

My feet are blocks of ice, the furs wrapping them soaked through and matted with ice and snow, growing heavier at the ends of my leaden legs, but I keep running.

My lungs burn, the winter air slicing down my throat and into my chest like a knife, my beard crusting with the frost of my breath, coming out of my mouth in great gouts of steam, tears running down from my eyes as I flee, trees crashing down behind me as the beast pursues, gaining ground, getting ever closer, its stink preceding it, choking the desperate breaths out of me, but I keep running.

Finally, as I can feel its breath upon my neck, its claws tearing at my trailing hides, I break through the treeline and into the clearing atop the cliff overlooking the valley, my village somewhere below, safely out of sight around the bends and twists in the river. I stop, doubled over, at the cliff's edge, my chest heaving, my lungs burning. I grit my teeth and my choked sobs are carried off by the winter wind across the valley.

I whirl, pulling free my father's stone knife as I cast aside my hides and furs, and I stand to face the beast, gasping for breath, weeping and desperate, damned and terrified. I choke out my last breaths and raise knife, defiant and hopeless, praying I've led it far enough away from the village.

It lumbers slowly towards me, a growl deep in its throat sounding like a laugh.

I plant my feet and hold the stone blade out before me.

For her.



18 May 2015