Ardi stretched languidly, smacked his lips, and reluctantly opened his eyes, exposing his face to the rays of the hot spring sun. Compared to the snowy trails, which he admittedly loved with all his heart, the forest also had its advantages.
For example, there was always plenty of shelter from the pouring rain or other inclement weather. And yes, storms did sometimes cause forest fires — he had seen one late last spring. It had devoured many sections of the forest and caused the migration of packs and herds. But Ergar, and later his forest friends, had explained that this sort of thing happened every three or four cycles.
There was always plenty of prey down here, unlike in the mountains. You could literally wake up, stretch, warm up, and have breakfast within half an hour. In the mountains, it wasn’t certain that you would even get to eat within an entire path of the Spirit of the Day. But there were also far more hunters to take advantage of the abundance here, a lot more than among the rocks and snow.
And the warmth — even during the coldest winter, it was much warmer here in the forest than in the cave.
Just as Ardi began to think about the cave, a small nut tapped him on the head.
"Awake already?" Skusty dangled his tail over Ardi’s nose. "I can’t figure it out — when I knock on a tree, it lets out such a short burst of sound, but when I hit your head, there’s always a hollow and echoing noise. What’s that about?"
Ardi quickly grabbed the squirrel, who was already scurrying away.
"Help, save me, he’s killing a precious squirrel!" The creature shrieked.
The young hunter just smiled, took the nut from Skusty, cracked it open on the tree, and demonstratively ate the tasty kernel as slowly as possible.
The squirrel pouted, slipped from his grasp, landed on a nearby branch, and drummed nervously on the trunk with his paw.
"That was my breakfast, by the way," he said, putting his paws on his hips.
"Skusty," Shali growled softly, easily climbing the tree to stand beside the young hunter. "Stop bothering Ardi. He just came down from the mountain!"
In truth, Ardi had asked Ergar for permission to leave the night before, but Shali was right — a storm had taken the hunter by surprise, and if Kaishas hadn’t pointed out a crevice in the rock where he could wait out the bad weather, who knows — he might have had to use his teacher’s fang, which would have meant no more trips down to the forest and meetings with his friends. And over the past cycle, Ardi had grown accustomed to having seven sleeps of carefree play waiting for him at the end of each lunar dance.
And yes, while Shali, Skusty and Guta, who was rolling on the ground and trying to lick his scratched paw he’d injured while prodding a beaver dam, were teaching him the ways of living and hunting in the forest and river lands, they didn’t do so like Ergar. After nearly a dozen descents into the valley, the hunter had not acquired a single new scar. Well, okay, there were a few new ones, but they’d been earned through his own clumsiness and stupidity, not because someone’s tail or claws had decided to reinforce a new lesson.
No, Ergar wasn’t cruel, just... a little lonely. Except for Kaishas, his teacher almost never interacted with anyone, and when there was no need to hunt, he didn’t leave his cave except for the most necessary of errands.
They talked a lot. Sometimes, they even played. Ergar had shared old legends and myths with him. He’d even spoken of the Sidhe, the Queens and Kings of the Fae, and how they lived among the forests and meadows and hills and mountains, but couldn’t be seen because they lived here and... not here. You could even visit this not here, but only the most powerful shamans of the Matabar or the mysterious Speakers and Aean’Hane were able to do so.
Ardi had also learned who the Matabar were.
They were those whom the spirits had carved from rock rather than shaped from river clay. The Matabar were stronger than humans, and lived much longer lives. The gods hadn’t known what to do with them and had almost destroyed them in a failed attempt to create a new race, but the spirits had intervened. They’d asked for the Matabar to be given to them for training and service, so that someone could watch over the Alcade.
The gods had agreed, and so Ardi’s people had been born. Unfortunately, there were no more Matabar left except for the old hunter, whom Ergar sometimes spoke of with great respect. Ardi occasionally looked at the rocks and wondered what they were made of. And after his first cycle of rebirth, he was a little sad that the gods had decided not to give him a father or a mother.
He saw them with other animals and sometimes felt a longing. But then Ergar would come, and they’d play, rolling in the snow, running between the ridges and peaks of the Alcade, biting and gnawing at each other to see who could be the most agile and fastest. And sometimes, his teacher would lose. On purpose, of course, but he would never admit to it.
No, Ergar wasn’t cruel.
Just lonely.
Maybe that’s why they got along so well?
Ardi chuckled, patted the squirrel, and looked at the mountain peaks. It was strange — whenever he went back to the cave, he would always look at the forests hidden underneath the clouds, and whenever he came down here, he couldn’t take his eyes off the rocky peaks.
"It is the duality of your heart that speaks," Skusty whispered in his ear, just loud enough for no one else to hear. "But don’t listen to it. The heart doesn’t always need to be listened to, my friend. Sometimes, you have to fight it. The heart is only one part of you. Don’t forget the other parts, like..." The squirrel dangled his tail across the young hunter’s nose again, but this time, he spoiled the air first.
Ardi coughed, lost his balance, and tumbled from his branch right onto the unsuspecting Guta.
"Ouch," the bear growled.
"The nose is very important, too," the squirrel laughed. He stuck his tongue out at Shali, who’d tried to catch the rascal, then darted into the foliage and disappeared.
Everyone knew that Skusty wouldn’t go far and would return as soon as everyone had calmed down and forgotten about his pranks.
Ardi slid down Guta’s fur, landed on all fours, stood up, and sniffed the air. Skusty was right — the nose was very important. And right now, it was picking up the scent of several rabbit burrows to the north. They were quite challenging prey, and sometimes you had to run after them, which went against Ergar’s teachings, but Ardi’s body, thanks to the sun and the warm wind, longed for a chase.
"Shall we run?" Ardi asked, nodding toward the smell of breakfast.
Shali snorted. She jumped down gracefully from the tree and landed on Guta’s back.
"Ouch."
She slid off him without touching the grass, practically flying over Ardi, and landed at the edge of the clearing where they had spent the pre-dawn hours and all of noon. Guta and Ardi didn’t really care about when they hunted and played, but Shali preferred to sleep during the brightest parts of the day and didn’t like to be disturbed.
The lynx stretched, yawned with great relish, and extended her claws as if to check that they were all in place. She looked at the young hunter and, twitching her long whiskers in an amusing manner, disappeared between the trees.
"Catch up!" Came her distant challenge.
Ardi almost choked on his indignation. He turned to Guta, but the bear just grumbled lazily:
"Don’t look at me," and swayed from side to side, heading for the stream.
The young hunter turned toward the grove, where glistening eyes with vertical pupils watched him mockingly.
"Consider that a head start!" Ardi shouted, then took off after Shali.
He ran through tall grass that playfully tried to wrap around his small but already strong legs. He jumped over streams, sometimes going around the widest and fastest ones. He laughed when Shali darted from side to side like a mischievous otter. Sometimes, the lynx would let the young hunter almost catch her, and then she would disappear among the berry bushes or behind a tall stump covered with thick moss and families of mushrooms.
Birds cried out above them. Sometimes, they even joined their little race, but would soon lose interest and fly high into the clouds, barely visible through the dense canopy. The trees, which were delighted at the warmth and new life around them, had put on their finest clothes to show off to their newly awakened neighbors. Their broad leaves had merged overhead, transforming the forest floor into something resembling a riverbed.
Just like under the skirts of swift rivers, the rays of the hot sun beamed down, and a fine, golden ripple constantly changed the landscape. Some mice and the occasional lost hares seemed to be standing in for fish, stalks of tall grass became like seaweed, and colorful moss scattered in a tiny swirls of sand. Only the glacial boulders scattered about served as a reminder that they were not underwater, but still on land.
Maybe this was why animals called these places the forest flows?
The young hunter ran, enjoying the sounds of the forest, the warm air, and the strength and speed of his legs compared to last spring. He no longer panted or stumbled, and on the rare occasions when his feet found a sharp stone in the moss and grass, his hardened skin barely felt the sting.
Occasionally, he managed to touch Shali’s fur, but then she would always disappear again. Ardi laughed and ran after her-
"Ardi! Be careful!"
The young hunter hadn’t immediately noticed that his feet could no longer feel the dewy earth.
He looked down and saw his right leg dangling over a deep ravine that disappeared into an even deeper crevice. He felt his heart skip a beat, as it always did when Kaishas jumped from great heights, Ardi tried to turn and grab a tree with his claws. But, as always, at the most inopportune moment, just when they’d finally gotten a firm grip on the bark and given him hope, they snapped at the base and fell out of his glove.
The young hunter didn’t even have time to comprehend what happened first — the snapping of Shali’s maw that failed to catch his fur, or the scream that escaped his throat. A moment later, something struck his head hard, and his world was enveloped in a thick, wet darkness.
***
"Ouch," Ardi said, echoing his bear friend.
It wasn’t instantaneous, but he managed to open his eyes. Every movement of his eyelids caused him considerable pain. Before, when Ergar had been teaching him how to act after falls from high ledges, the hunter hadn’t suspected that it could really hurt so much. Yes, he had seen his teacher limping and licking his bruises for a few days after an unsuccessful hunt during which he had fallen from a height of several meters and seemingly counted all the rocks and spiky growths with his ribs on the way down, but...
Seeing something was one thing, feeling it was quite another. Now he understood why Ergar had never allowed him to choose a target that was positioned too far below him. He would have to thank him when he returned.
It was a disgusting, unpleasant feeling.
One that Ardi never wanted to experience again in his life.
But alas, the Sleeping Spirits had their own opinion on the matter.
"Found you..." The troll growled and turned to the north.
Ardi looked around and saw... the snow-covered peaks of the Alcade. But how? From the creek where they had spent the night, it usually took almost a day and a half to reach the first slopes! Surely, he hadn’t wandered that far while playing with Shali.
But there they were, the peaks. And behind them, there was no narrow crevice to be found, but a solid wall of rock.
Tomorrow’s thoughts... These were all thoughts for tomorrow.
Ardi sniffed the air and realized, to his horror, that the troll was moving toward a bear cave. No adult bear was currently there, just a few cubs, all of them a little over a year old — too young to notice the troll, especially when he was coming toward them against the wind.
"Meat," the troll rumbled hungrily.
Ardi pressed himself against the wall. His heart started beating faster. He looked back again. Guta and Shali had told him not to go anywhere... Yes, he shouldn’t go anywhere. He would wait for his friends, and together, they would think of something.
The troll wasn’t moving very fast, so he still had time. He definitely had time.
Yes, he had to do what his friends had told him to do.
With these thoughts swirling in his head and still gripped by invisible, icy paws, Ardi sat near the rock wall. He watched the shadows of the trees creep around the trunks, measuring first an hour, then a second. The troll’s scent drew closer to the bear cubs. The young hunter kept glancing up at the majestic clouds drifting calmly across the darkening sky.
His friends still hadn’t appeared.
Ardi put his ear to the ground, but heard nothing but the retreating footsteps of the stone creature. And while Shali could run without being seen or heard even at close range, Guta’s approach could be sensed far in advance. Far in advance...
Which meant...
"They won’t make it..."
The young hunter looked north. His teacher’s lessons surfaced in his mind. He’d always cautioned him against choosing a target that would be too difficult for him to handle. It would not end well and-
"And that’s the only rule you’ll have to break when the time comes."
Those words, rising from the depths of his memory, practically burned Ardi, but... He would’ve liked to say that they burned off those invisible, icy paws, but that wasn’t the case. The paws hadn’t disappeared.
They were still holding him. They weren’t letting him breathe properly. They muddled his thoughts. They made his heart skip beats, then race so fast it felt like it would burst from his chest.
"Someone will come..." The young hunter muttered, hugging himself. "Someone will definitely come..."
"No one but you will take care of Shaia and Ertan. No one but you will take care of you, Ardan. You must become strong. For your mother and your brother."
What? Who’d said that? Why had he heard those words just now? Why did he recognize that voice? And why were hot tears streaming down his cheeks again? And... and...
Ardi tried to understand the words. Tried to hear them better. Remember them. Preserve them. But they slipped away, disappeared like the strange dreams that sometimes, rarely, gave him a slight pain in his chest in the morning. Ergar had said it would pass. That it would only take four and a half more cycles and it would be over.
But...
Ardi tried to stand, but then the crystalline fangs of the poisoned wolves appeared before his mind’s eye. During the last cycle, he had foolishly thought he could stand against five creatures poisoned by the Ley. Without the help of his friends, he might’ve died. After all, who knows if Ergar would have been able to react in time?
Ardi held his teacher’s fang in his hands.
Ergar had always said that the worst thing that could happen to a hunter wasn’t losing to hunger, but to fear. Ardi was familiar with Hunger, but he didn’t know who Fear was. Now... now he could feel the paws of this invisible beast, hear its foul breath, sense its claws scratching somewhere in his heart, and he could clearly see its bared fangs — the fangs of both a wolf and a troll.
That’s what Fear looked like.
It wasn’t like lost battles, because, by the spirits, Ardi had lost many battles to other hunters during his time on the northern trails and in the forests.
No. Fear looked different.
It looked like a battle you had never even accepted.
Ardi didn’t know why, but those words he’d heard inside himself and had already forgotten caused a new feeling to erupt within him. The feeling that, if he stayed here right now, even if the spirits willed it and his friends arrived in time, it wouldn’t matter. Four cycles or ten — it would never make him a true hunter, and no one would ever hear his name in the storms between the snowy peaks.
Gripping his teacher’s fang so tightly that it dug into his skin, the hunter felt blood trickle down his hands. Pain and anger — anger at himself — gave him the strength to shake off the grip of Fear for a moment. And that was enough.
Ardi jumped up and ran.
Quickly and skillfully, he crossed ravines and streams, listening to the wind and the earth, calling for the birds to spread the word through the forest as he followed the mountain troll’s trail. Fortunately, it was easy to follow. The stone giant left behind not only broken branches and depressions in the soft earth, but a trail of twisted, sometimes felled trunks, and the ground was marked with indentations large enough for frogs to settle in after a heavy rain.
The young hunter kept running. His legs were fast and his body responded with ease. Fear chased him, but Ardi was faster, and when the icy paws tried to grab him, he was more agile — avoiding them just as Shali had taught him. His paws were silent, the wind hid his scent, and his body was hidden by the shadows of trees and bushes.
As Skusty had taught him to do, the young hunter listened to every whisper of the mighty trunks, every movement of the birds, and every wink of the sun. In them, he saw images of what lay ahead. He saw the troll already approaching the cave, the cubs still unaware and unable to see or hear him.
And only Guta’s teachings eluded him. He couldn’t find that light within himself, that second skin harder than stone. So what would he do if-
"Those are thoughts for tomorrow!" Ardi interrupted himself.
He pushed off another branch and landed just behind the troll as it approached the clearing with the cave.
The young hunter picked up a stone that he could lift and throw with his meagre strength. It looked like a river pebble compared to the fanged giant. Ardi took aim and hurled the stone right between the creature’s horns. It bounced off with a resounding echo, but the troll...
"Food," he growled, paying no attention to the stone or the hunter who’d thrown it.
Ardi grabbed another, prepared to throw it, then remembered his teacher’s lessons. Every target, prey or hunter alike, had a weakness. Find it, and victory would be much easier.
The young hunter remembered seeing that red crystal on the troll’s forehead.
"Run!" Ardi shouted, circling the giant. "Run away!"
He didn’t know if the cubs could hear him, if the birds had spread the word and called the bear who’d want to protect them, if the wind had left traces of Ardi’s scent for his friends to follow, or if the earth had recorded his path. All he knew was that the icy paws had set him free, and his throat was no longer clenched by invisible fangs.
Fear still lingered nearby, but it no longer growled — it whimpered like a beaten dog instead.
Served it right.
Ardi aimed and threw the stone, knowing he wouldn’t miss. And so he didn’t. His missile struck the crimson crystal, causing the troll to stop and howl so loudly and fiercely that the treetops swayed and the ground shook beneath his rocky feet.
"Matabar!" The creature roared. "Cannot eat... but can kill!"
Two blazing eyes focused on the small hunter.
"Good," Ardi whispered, backing away, going farther from the cave and closer to the mountainside. "I’ve got his attention... Now what?"
The answer came in the form of a wide open, crystal-toothed maw and a roar that lifted not only a tangle of leaves, stones and branches into the air, but also Ardi himself. He flew backwards, landed on all fours as Shali had taught him, shook himself off, and ran.