Chapter 7
The Wolves, a Vow, and the Birth of a Demon Bear
The last we read about Will, he finally discovered the girl’s identity but she vanished from the cabin.
SATURDAY MORNING: 12:15 A.M.
Time: Midnight. Snow deepening.
Place: Uncle Joe’s Cabin.
What: The making of a vow and the story of Aylin.
I ran to the front windows, threw on my coat, and opened the front door. I hadn’t heard her open the door but still ran outside on the porch. The wind had calmed when only moments before it had pounded on the windows. I squinted into the dark to see if she had walked into the front of the property.
I thought I heard her voice. Giggling, no laughing.
Then I saw her.
She was running through the snow in Grandma’s quilt on the east end of the property. But she was running with something or someone.
It was the wolves.
“Aylin! Run! Get out of there!” I shouted as I walked down the porch stairs.
I saw her look back at me and then the black wolf overtook her and knocked her into the snow.
“Aylin!” I shouted in desperation. “Aylin!”
I ran back up the porch steps, kicked open the door, and grabbed the rifle. I thrust my hand into my pocket to make sure I still had a few rounds. Images of the wolves ripping at the neck of the dead bear flew through my mind. I could see the stare of that black wolf again, and the fear I felt when I realized they outnumbered me, and panic seized me.
I ran back out into the front yard and shouted again.
“Aylin! Ru—”
But what I saw before me, out in the snow, silenced me.
The wolves all leapt around her as she kneeled in the snow holding the neck of the black wolf close to her face. Then she threw her arms around its neck, embracing the beast with an unsettling affection. The other wolves continued to leap and yelp and dance around her as if beckoning her to run and play. And she did.
She rose from her embrace of the black wolf and ran away from them into the snow. She laughed loudly. And the wolves yelped and ran around and ahead of her. Her run turned into a skip, then a dance. She pirouetted and leapt, arms outstretched still holding the ends of Grandma’s quilt, her naked body a smear against the dark, blending with the snow beneath her bare feet.
I lowered the rifle and stood stunned in the snow.
I watched as the playful group neared me. And then, as if taken by surprise, Aylin stopped running right in front of me and pulled Grandma’s quilt tightly around her shoulders. The wolves lingered back a few paces. Aylin looked at me almost as if she was revelling in my reaction and my fear.
“Are … they okay with me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from wavering.
“That depends, Will,” she said, hiding her smirk beneath the edges of Grandma’s quilt. “Are you okay with them?”
I looked past Aylin to the black wolf. He stood tall and motionless like a shadow gathered out of the night and forced into the light. I’d never seen a wolf up close—only pictures, and that one time I visited a friend in Pennsylvania and she took me to the wolf sanctuary near her house. But those wolves looked like pups compared to the black wolf. And never once did I fear for my life. They were kept behind 12-foot fences.
No fence separated me and these wolves. Only Aylin and Grandma’s quilt. I could still see where the dried blood from the bear had smeared his fur around his mouth and frozen. He looked savage, and his stillness made me feel uneasy. His size alone injected my spirit with hopelessness. There was no way I was outrunning this beast. I felt like I was caught, and Aylin’s words possessed the only weight in determining whether I lived or died.
I nodded while staring into its eyes, frightened to look away lest he rush in and rip me to shreds.
It bowed its head slightly in response, almost as if he was sizing me up. Not to eat, but for something else.
Aylin broke the silence.
“His name is Orion, Will. And he is my dear friend, my guardian.”
“Um, what do I do? Say ‘Hello’ or bow, or what? I mean, this is crazy. Can they communicate with humans like that?”
“They can. But not how you’ve seen animals communicate with humans in your films, with moving mouths, speaking human words. He is, after all, a wolf.”
“So, then, how—?”
“If you like I can explain inside. Do you mind if they come in for a bit too?”
“Uh—of course. I mean, yes, they’re welcome to come inside, as long as they—will we be okay?” I replied, more in submission than acceptance.
As Aylin walked past me, she reached out from under Grandma’s quilt with her right arm and took hold of my left hand and squeezed. It felt warm. “Yes, Will. We will be okay,” she said. Her mischievous smile was replaced by sincerity, and what felt like the love of a sister or mother or close friend. And I believed her, though every rational bone in my body screamed in defiance. Her touch and gaze and smile filled me with something—something similar to Orion’s gaze, only less savage, and more wonder-filled.
I moved to the side and Aylin walked up the porch steps. Orion led the way as I followed Aylin. The rest followed me. She walked back to the couch, grabbed her soup bowl from the hearth, and situated herself. Orion laid at her feet, with two snow-white wolves on either side of the hearth. Two more found spots at the front door while the last two stayed outside on the porch.
I watched as they all found their place.
—This is crazy, I thought, unsure if I had said it out loud or not.
Then, I walked to the kitchen pantry. Inside, I found an old empty compost bucket. I rinsed it out and filled it with water at the sink. I place it next to the couch. Orion stood up and as if on cue, the two white wolves next to the hearth walked over to the bucket and drank.
When they finished and returned to their spots, the two next to the front door drank then returned. Then Orion growled and howled almost simultaneously. The two wolves from the porch pushed open the door and came in for their fill then returned out front. I secured the front door and slowly made my way around the two hearth wolves to my seat at the center.
“Are my clothes dry enough to wear, Will?”
I reached over to the left of the fire and felt her clothes. “They feel dry. Do you want them?”
“Yes, I think it makes the most sense for now. Though I am comfortable, I’m not suitably dressed for travel in such biting cold.”
I collected her clothes and laid them on her lap. She gathered them and skipped to the back bedroom. She returned in minutes. The lights remained blown in the cabin, but the firelight cast her in soft and wonderful luster. In her clothes and boots, she looked taut and able, her clothes tightly fitted, and her hair pulled up into a large wild looking mound on the top of her head.
With her hair pulled back, I could see her facial features clearly. Her eyes, though blue, sat deep and perfectly spaced with dark outlining features—her eyelashes and eyebrows. Her cheekbones rose high with her delicate ears in perfect proportion.
But I noticed something on the right side of her face just below her ear. A long line that cut across then down to her neck. A scar; faint but noticeable.
Her full lips stretched a deep crimson across her narrow chin. She looked like a warrior, mother, and child all at once. She carried Grandma’s quilt as she skipped back out to the couch. She plopped down, then gave Orion a hearty head maul. The wolf groaned and leaned in with pleasure.
“Thank you, Will. I mean for taking care of me, drying my clothes. You’re so kind. Do you mind if I use the quilt a bit longer?”
“Not at all. I’m, uh, I’m glad you’re okay.”
I was glad, that was true. But things had turned, and uncomfortably so. In the span of only a few hours, I’d gone from sitting on Uncle Joe’s porch with my pipe to sitting with a young woman who could communicate with wolves. I’d figured her clothes and sword were easily explainable—she was from another country, some exotic melodramatic culture that still used swords and homemade leather goods.
—Of course, that made perfect sense! And what country and culture would that be?
The wolves sent me over the top and my curiosity got the best of me. Finally, I blurted out, “Ok, what is going on?”
Aylin watched me throw up my hands and grab my head in frustration. She looked at me with smiling eyes, like she was eager to tell. At least, she looked like she wanted to let out a secret.
“The wolves, the sword—where are you from?” I continued, in full rant mode. “How did you get here, in these mountains? I mean, I just came up here to clear my mind and figure some things out. And now, here you are, with your ‘wolf guardians,’ acting like you own the place—I’m sorry, but you get what I mean, right? Am I going insane? Did I make all this up?”
Aylin smiled and threw her head back, then pulled her legs into the quilt so all that was exposed was her head and nested mess of hair.
“Are you sure you want to know, Will? You should be careful about what you ask. Asking entails discovery, truth, and the consequences of both. If you want to know, I will tell. You, however, must not only listen to my words. You must hear them, with your heart. And if you agree, then you must vow to take responsibility for the utterance of my words. Part of me does not believe you can receive that which I’m about to disclose. But then I recall your virtue, that glimmer of rightness in you that propelled you to shoot into the dark. Fear calculated your lack of aim, but the defender in you rose up, even if only momentarily. And it is to the defender in you I tell my tale.”
She spoke now with a vividness I’d not heard from her in our brief conversations. I could not disregard her warning. How could I? When she spoke, her words dove right to my insides, my virtue as she put it. And I felt compelled to make the vow, silly as that sounds.
It was now getting on into the night and the cold hours lay ahead. But the firewood was still stacked high, and there was plenty of port and tea. And I was nowhere near tired. Plus, the snow—we had nowhere to go So, I met her challenge with open arms.
“I vow,” I said. “And I will hear you and consider the consequences of your words.”
“Thank you, Will.” Her eyes danced as she smiled her words to me.
She lifted her soup bowl to her lips then realized it was empty. I watched her try to hide her embarrassment in realizing she’d slurped it all up. I looked away, towards the wolves at the front door, as she looked up, and said, “Oh, um, so sorry to trouble you, Will, but it appears I’ve finished my soup—again. Is there any left”
I never liked awkward moments. Not in stories I read or in movies I watched. I always looked away or tried to groan the awkwardness away. But this was an awkward moment I tucked away. This girl, sitting on my uncle’s couch, huddled in my Grandma’s quilt—she was real. And awkward. And that wasn’t so bad.
“Sure,” I said as I walked to the kitchen. I returned to the hearth and handed her the bowl.
“Thank you, Will. I must be famished.”
“Well, you can never go wrong with Trader Joe’s.”
“I’d love to meet him someday,” she said. She sipped her soup with a smile glued to her face as she drank it down, more pixie-like now than ever. Maybe it was the hour of the night that made her look so faerie-ish, or perhaps it was the adrenaline pumping through my veins because I was surrounded by a strange woman who claimed to be from another world and seven wolves of mythic size and proportion.
“I accept your vow, Will,” she said as she finished off her soup, and set her bowl on the floor near Orion. She nestled deeper into Grandma’s quilt, rubbed Orion’s head, and said, “And now, I will tell you my story.”
NB: Aylin (‘æ-lîn’), is pronounced with the long “a” sound as in “hay,” with the “lin” sounding simply like the American name Lynn. The closest cognate I could find to Aylin’s name in our world was the Gælic “aláinn,” (pronounced “aw-lin”) an adjective used to describe something as beautiful.
Keep in mind, the following passage, which in the journal is written by Aylin, appears to have been edited by Will, or at least assembled in some fashion because he makes two observations of Aylin as she tells the story. Of course, I can’t be sure.
And let us not forget the incredible qualities of the journal. As I read, or perhaps I should say “experienced” this passage while reading at Blackthorn, I felt present. Like I was there witnessing the events of Aylin’s story unfold.
As such, I have taken a few liberties with Will’s edits and cleaned up the passage to make it more readable—I hope. That is not to say that I have attempted to tamp down Aylin’s wonderful sense and way of storytelling. Quite the opposite. My aim was to enhance for the reader the written journal entry by infusing it with what I experienced in the more, shall we say “enchanted,” engagement with the journal.
And finally, I observed new markings in the margins of these journal pages. Sharp and angular, I noticed seven markings stacked vertically on the final page of this section. So inviting were they that I passed my fingers over them for they looked as if embossed on the page.
As my fingers passed over the markings, tones rang out in the grand fireplace room where I first sat with Will. The tones lingered like the winter bells of a sleigh at Christmastime off on some distant forest road.
It was then I noticed the fireplace shimmer once more.
I held my breath, wondering if Will was returning or if I had invited something or someone else to Blackthorn. But the timbering sound dissipated leaving me staring into an empty fireplace holding my breath.
Entry: Aylin’s Story.
Land: Unknown (to Will). {Land, as in the general idea of a new land or even realm.}
Time: Unknown (to Will).
Place: The Sawtooth Range, South of the Edgewood of Tàirnaich {pronounced ‘tare-nack’}.
We never plan for the darkness to come, Will. Much less overtake us. It shows up unannounced just before we realize we’ve become lazy, lulled by the routine of daily living. I learned my lesson well-enough that day on my weekly ride atop my sure-footed Ischuron {pronounce ‘ish-ron’—the ‘u’ is silent}.
When I ride him, I feel stronger than I am, and the speed and rhythm of his strides stir me to tears. Don’t think me as given to emotional silliness, but the movement makes me somehow remember who I am, why I am and how I am. Do you know what I mean?
I understand if that sounds strange to you now. But my desire gathers now in my words even as they fall from my mouth to you in this story and I feel you may soon come to understand and, perhaps, once again believe.
As was our custom on the final day of the week, we’d ride far and fast, beyond the borderlands of my father’s home, which extends into the foothills of Bronagh. How I loved the ride down the Everly road and into the Brónagh-böurne.
The trees in that forest stand like centurions protecting the wisdom of the earth—a forest older than memory. The trees reach higher than your majestic Sequoias. How stately they rise and outstretch so gnarled like your ancient Live oaks and Banyan trees.
The Brónagh-böurne {pronounced ‘bro-na-born, with slight trills in the r's} traps the mountain air from the great Sawtooth Range, which paints the low-lying foliage with the fire-wisps of your autumn. The Everly road winds like an old river through the spacious forest to the north before it tails off to the west and ascends the lower peaks.
The Brónagh-böurne gives me breath enough to rise a thousand suns with lulethéia {pronounce ‘loo-lay-thea’}—what you call hope.
Ischuron, on this day of days, felt eager to ascend, though I knew he held back to let me drink in the Everly way. Once on the ridge, he knew he could open up—he knew I’d let him run wild. And I did.
On the ridge, I was no longer a rider giving commands upon the reigns. I was simply hanging on. How I love the wild fray of such a beast. How it pains me to see stallions tamed in your world.
We left father’s manor home late that day, so by the time we ascended the Brónach-böurne Dusk filled the sky with his husky hues, but the stars flushed in the thinning air and the full moon rose with a soft brilliance. We could see well enough in the twilight sunshine.
Our game was to chase the moon shadows to the valley near the river, and when we felt the urge, we’d sometimes climb the rugged trail up the falls.
Now in the moonlight, the race was on. Ischuron’s hooves pounded into the frozen ground, churning up the mountainside like the Kraken in the abyss. On we rode, racing the moonlight, arching up to shadows only to burst out again into the moon’s incandescent glow.
Oh, Will, if you could someday know Ischuron. The legends here in your world hail Bucephalus as the king of horses. And why not? He carried your great Alexander for decades as he conquered the world. But his famed Thessalian line finds its way all the way to the stock of Ischuron; the head of a lion, the wisdom of an eagle, but ferocity and strength all his own. Someday perhaps. Now, on with my tale.
“We’re gaining,” I shouted to Ischuron the speed and the cold filling my heart and tightening my grin. He threw his black head back in agreement, nearly knocking me off. His mane flew wild.
I could feel the cold pass through my chest and into my eyes, making them water. And Ischuron’s heat wrapped around my legs and lower torso like a blanket made from the silk wool masters. His movement maintained the music of the race.
Kada-klop, kada-klop, kada-klop!
My father had given me Ischuron during the first age of our world. We’d ridden these trails around the Sawtooth range forever. Ischuron knew the path better than me and rushed the valley from the ridge and turned right on a razor’s edge just before the riverbank.
Movement on movement.
The kada-klop sound atop the water crash—the whitecaps of the river sounded their strength and spit water-jewels into the moonlight which was dispersed now evenly across the valley making dark the pines, their tall formation like timber soldiers guarding our joy.
We galloped, chasing the shadow of the lone cloud before the full moon—its shadow glided across the snow-covered valley like a waltz upon a marble floor.
The path stretched on, deep with snow, and Ischuron strode high and strong like the bison across your great prairies. And then up, towards the promontory overlooking the river, where the waters of the great falls gather. Once atop the falls, the path cut back up into the mountains. It was a rugged shortcut to get back to the Waverly way on the other side of the ridge.
This night was a falls night for the mighty horse.
Sharp steps.
Then, switchbacks that cut up the side of the falls.
Twenty now thirty feet, now fifty—the horse’s breath puffed like an old-industrial-world steamer and glistened like dew trapped in the dawn.
Argh! He grunted and roiled the snow and loam and roots with his thunderous stride.
“Ah-ya! Yes, Ischuron. Eee-yup! Here we go!” I shouted and laughed, and he shook his mane once again in fitful delight as we reached the top of Winterfire Falls some 350 feet above the river.
Aylin paused in her storytelling and closed her eyes in delight. I watched her revel in the memory, then she continued. —Will’s note in the margin.
“I love this trail, Ischuron,” I said to him as I stroked the side of his hulking ebony neck. “The night lives here in the fury of the cold and sky and water. Tonight, we’ll cut through the old backcountry trail to father’s hunting cottage.”
The cottage lay off the Waverly road a few miles into the mountain wilderness, just on the outskirts of the Brónagh-böurne. I knew we had plenty of time to make it back there before the moon fell or the mountain weather stirred up.
I talked to the wonderful beast as if he understood and I think most of the time he did. We waited a moment, and then, a moment longer, and took it in—the sound of Winterfire Falls.
Oh Will, for you to see and feel and smell this falls and river. It is a river that never freezes even in Thuiadah’s unrelenting winters. It is a river whose waters steam through the valley, powered by the fire source near its spring. The water from the spring comes from the farthest Sawtooth Peak, an unnamed mountain found in the outer-most lands called Tàirnaich, the land of the thunders.
No one can enter this land, except the Perrigrin who reside on the Edgewood of Tàirnaich. The Perrigrin are world wanderers, journeying to and fro, from the Tàirnaich to wherever they’re sent; they are a remnant band of guardian warriors and that is all I can tell you of them right now. Perhaps more will come.
The Perrigrin call the spring the Fire Blossom because of how it plooms up the surface of the waters, flowerlike, and stirs its waters into a flowing river. They say it is the water of the divines. To drink from it is life and also death. Death, because who can drink that which is intended for the divines?
Ischuron and I nearly made it to the spring’s source once. But the path leading through the Edgewood grew too steep for Ischuron. And a being like myself stands no chance on the rocks of that treacherous and mysterious mountain.
And yet, from such a terrible and foreboding place flows the very drink of life itself. From such a source, a river of half-frozen fire dives down into the valley fueling the runoff from the snows and myriad other springs on the mountain. It’s a labyrinth of springs pouring down from the mythic peak, where the thin air howls like Avior himself—one of the great Thuaidahian wolves. You now know his son, Will.
With this, she reached down scrubbed the great wolf’s black head once more and he groaned with pleasure.
The spring and its river fuel so much in the Sawtooth Valley, like the steelworks where my father had my sword forged. You now know it as well, Will. The spring of the Fire Blossom, like a human heart, beats throughout Thuiadah.
I could talk about my land for days, Will, but I must continue.
There we stood. Steed and rider, listening, singing, waiting for the glories of the night to nourish us. We turned to disappear into the thick fir forest and make our way back to the Waverly road when I heard a raucous noise.
I turned Ischuron on a hard pivot.
He snorted.
“Something’s down there. There—on the other side of the river!”
The sound rose over the crash of the great falls and in a flash, we dashed down the switchbacks, more jumping than striding. I leaned back on Ischuron as far as I could and let him carry us down. Once we found the riverbank, we took off, up the trail to where the river squeezed around two boulders.
Ischuron was running on instinct now. I held on and let him go. We bounded the boulders and the river and thudded into the snow-packed river bank opposite the trail.
The sound grew now.
It was the sound of a fight.
We raced through the thick underbrush of laurel and alders and into a clearing just in front of the mountain forest that sprawled into a plane of dark woods. The sight met me with force, as I pulled hard on Ischuron’s reins in horror.
Aylin paused and hid her face beneath Grandma’s quilt. She sat quietly for a few moments. The wolves did not stir. The wind beat against the cabin, and swirled down the chimney, sparking the fire, blowing it around. She lifted her head, wiped her eyes with the quilt, and continued.
He stood blood-bathed and indignant.
Half-crazed from bloodlust.
It looked like one of the great bears from the far western lands of Thuiadah. I knew the bears who sometimes ventured this way to drink and fish from the firewaters. But not this one, stained as he was in the red of the wolf which lay torn apart at his feet.
The fiend stood on his hind legs facing us. He let out a growl that sickened me. Behind him lay another carcass—a horse. It was Pollux, the horse of my friend Abaddon.
“Abaddon!” I shouted. “No! Abaddon!” I screamed as I looked upon the dead horse and the shredded wolf. I could barely breathe, paralyzed with terror and grief sudden and smothering.
“Where are you? Abaddon!” my voice cracked as I screamed.
Ischuron stamped and snorted, ready for battle. I dropped the reigns and pulled on his mane to steady him. My eyes blurred with tears as the bear snarled once more.
And for the briefest of moments, I buried my head in the neck of Ischurus, whispering, hoping the divines might send a Perrigrin. The thoughts of my friend, whose horse lay clawed open just behind the brute, struck me with an unfamiliar potency.
I reached over my left shoulder and drew my sword from its sheath, lifted my head and screamed. I don’t know what I screamed, but I felt a power unknown to me surge through my heart. I dropped Ischuron’s mane and kicked him in the sides as hard as I could, and he bucked forward, charging the beast.
The bear hunched and roared again, shaking the very trees. I could smell its breath all over me. The breath of death.
“Abaddon!” I screamed, my sword gleaming in the moonlight, I felt crazed with rage and grief.
The bear charged. And just as he gained speed a blur of white from the shadows burrowed into the bear’s side, lifting it off the ground, sending it sliding towards the river. I whirled Ischuron towards the sprawling bear then pulled hard once again on his mane.
He snorted and bayed.
Then I saw the white blur. It was Avior, the Wolf King himself.
Again, I pulled on his mane and Ischuron stumbled backwards. The magnificent wolf ran over the deep snow as if gliding across ice—an effortless motion of grace and terror. The bear stumbled to its feet but before it could find its balance the white wolf was upon him, clawing and biting into its back.
The hulking bear threw the wolf but not before it had wounded it. With a resentful growl, the bear fled into the dark cover of the fir forest, blurting and vexed.
The white wolf turned on us but did not charge. I knew this wolf, and his son, well. Friends though they were, I knew better than to trifle with a Thuiadahian wolf. The Wolf King shook his body and wagged his head up and down. A gesture to follow. And in a moment, he was off into the moonlight.
I kicked Ischuron again. We followed with haste.
In and through the trees the wolf ran like a slight wind through limbs. Quiet was he and nimble and mesmerizing to watch, but difficult to follow. Westward and down the river bank he raced, and we followed, hoofing behind. Past the boulders he flew and down the ravine, and up again. The snow thickened but his pace never slowed.
My heart pounded in my ears. My left hand cramped as it gripped Ischuron’s mane. My sword was still drawn and glinted blue and silver in the snowy moonlit night.
I wept as the thoughts of losing my friend Abaddon caught up with me.
And suddenly the white wolf was gone. The snow before us, a stretch on the plain high above the river toward the Borderlands of the west, was virgin and lay heavy and quiet. I pulled Ischuron back.
We stood for a moment in the moonlight, our breath pushing hard into the cold. We walked slowly across the plain toward a loan silver oak in the distance.
And there he was.
The Wolf King. Sweeping in from the right, down from the early rise of the foothills and the fir forest. He’d led us out of danger and circled back to make certain the bear had gone. He ran now with a strange rapture and once again we took to flight, but we could not catch him. I merely tried to keep him in my sights as he disappeared behind the silver oak. We raced towards the mythic tree in full stride.
I didn’t know where the white wolf was headed, and I didn’t care. I wept for my friend who lay dead somewhere on the mountain.
I remembered us together exploring those same mountains.
“Aylin, ah yes, here in the heights. Here’s where I want to be,” he said. That was the last time I saw him. We had hiked the Killian Trail that winds up to the peak of the same name. One of the most resplendent views of the Sawtooth range.
“You can stay up here, Abaddon, but I’m headed back. I’m hungry and tired.”
“Yes, I see that we must go. But here, yes here, Aylin, my heart sings. I can feel the Northwind—she speaks to me here. I feel her power. It’s intoxicating is it not?”
“Does the Northwind tell you that it’s time for dinner and we have several miles to go if we want to meet my father at the cottage?” I said, annoyed but smirking at his moment of rapture. He loved the mountain heights and often bragged about meeting up with one of the Perrigrin on Killian Peak.
“Did I ever tell you of that time when I met a Perrigrin on a lone hike to Killian Peak? Imagine it, Aylin! A guardian of worlds full of light and fury. A warrior of warriors. And me, there with him—well, at least seeing him from afar.”
“Yes, about a thousand times, Abaddon.”
“Has it been that many?” he said, nudging me on the shoulder as he took to the lead for the homeward hike. “Well, you watch, Aylin. One day, I’ll be just like one of the Perrigrin. But I’ll be more mysterious and magnificent.”
“Well, I’ll take your word for it. Maybe in the meantime, you can help my father with dinner.”
That hike was only a week earlier, Will. A week. And now, where was he? Not the heights. Not listening to the Northwind.
Then, Ischuron bore down on his front hooves, skidding into the snow, nearly throwing me.
A great figure rose before us, just beyond the silver oak upon the ridge. It looked like a shadow of steed and rider, silhouetted by the most brilliant winter full moon.
“Aylin.” The voice came clear and calm.
The rider did not stir, nor did the horse tamp.
“Aylin, you must come with me now. I need to show you what has happened and what is beginning.”
It was my father.
“Father,” I said, stammering through tears. “How did you—where did you come from?”
“Not right now, Aylin. I need you to know this—”
“Father, I cannot,” I replied, as I looked over my shoulder back toward the mountain. “I have just discovered the most horrid calamity.”
“Aylin, stop. Listen to me. You can do nothing for Abaddon.”
“But how do you know? His horse—the bear!” I stammered and wept openly in front of my father, trying to explain what I’d found at the foot of the mountain. “We cannot sit idly by, Father! We must hunt the beast and kill it. Why has Avior brought us here?”
“Aylin, sweet daughter. The bear is Abaddon.”
To be continued …
Join me for the next instalment, “Chapter 8:Escape into the Mountains.” I can’t give you a preview, because it’s too insane. :)
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Catch Up
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