Urtif vaulted the snow-covered log and pressed himself hurriedly but soundlessly into a recess beneath the felled tree. He stifled his breath into the sleeve of his fur-lined tunic hoping desperately no condensation was visible from his laboring.
That which chased him no longer had a name, at least not among those still living. His father had told him it had once been human, but Urtif knew no human could survive in this place of desperation.
Through the muffled quiet of snowfall, he could just discern the crunch of feet. But were they hooved or clad in large, black boots? The ancient scrolls always noted the black boots. Only tellers of tales noted the hooves, emphasizing that those who’d looked upon the hooves never’d succeeded in writing down what they’d seen…
Dread grew within Urtif. As the steps approached, doom reverberated across the icy forest and into his bones. He was at his end; he felt it. Why not look upon it? To know this creature at his last? Perhaps the ravens would whisper his tale for tellers to tell. And lo, before his most untimely death, hidden beneath a log, desperately hoping the creature didst ignore both him and the snowdeer he’d slain for his daughter, Elya, ill with winter’s wasting sickness, did Urtif look upon the creature’s feet to find that they were…
The footsteps stopped. Near, yet not upon him. Urtif dared turn and slide his finger gingerly along the freshest of snow beneath the log so he might look out.
The sky had darkened in the moments he’d been hiding. He couldn’t recall if this was a trait of the creature’s presence or if he’d merely lost count of the hours—the snowdeer hunt had been a long and arduous one.
Through the slot cleared by his fingers, a sliver of moon reflected blue off the snow. For a moment, he saw nothing as his eyes focused in the dim light.
Then, there were crystals of the creature’s breath, billowing warm into the night.
Urtif blinked the cold from his drying eyes. The creature, hooved he now saw, walked away from him. Hooved, dark brown fur. It moved away from him, much to Urtif’s relief, though only temporarily.
The two hooves approached his snowdeer.
Elya…
There were so few snowdeer remaining. And nothing else would temper Elya’s winter wasting sickness but the medicine woman’s antler tincture.
A sob caught in Urtif’s chest as the hooved beast moved closer to the snowdeer’s body. Then, his breath caught along with the sob. Instead of two hooves, a pair of large, black boots stood. Had the…hooves become boots?
The boots walked to the snowdeer carcass and knelt, the man inside them draped from head to foot in a garment the color of long-coagulated blood. Urtif recognized it—the pelt of a winterbear, a creature one was only capable of skinning if it had died of natural causes. Any other attempt would result in certain death.
When the man reached the snowdeer, Urtif cried out. The man froze. Urtif clapped his hands across his mouth. He couldn’t believe he’d given himself away. On the other hand…
“It’s for my daughter. She’s dying.” Urtif’s voice shook, and as the snow ate the echoes of his words, a shiver ran through him.
The man turned and stood, rising to a great height. Urtif had never seen a person so tall. Skin hardened as bark, he seemed more tree than human, though the great white beard certainly was not of the forest.
The man’s dark eyes pierced Urtif, but he said nothing.
Urtif tried his luck further, much to his conscious mind’s surprise. “I beg you—she’s my last child. The others’ve succumbed to winter’s waste. I cannot lose her and this snowdeer is my last—”
A great red hand stopped Urtif mid-sentence. The man looked to the heavens and after a moment, Urtif followed his gaze to the bare overstory and an overcast sky.
“I had a daughter too,” said the man in a voice more thunder than speech. “Before they poisoned the sky. Before I became this.”
Urtif flinched when the man moved suddenly, but he was only kneeling down over the snowdeer. He appeared to speak to it, then gently removed a point of antler. Holding the antler to the sky, he loosed a shout that shook snow from the trees. He lowered his hand, showed the antler to Urtif, and crushed it with his fist.
“Save your money for the medicine woman. This will serve.”
Urtif’s jaw dropped.
“Come now. Hold out your hands,” the man said gruffly.
Urtif watched powdered antler drop into his hands, freezing into crystals as it fell through the frigid air.
The man spoke again over the snowdeer, rubbing his hands along the pelt. Urtif stared in disbelief at the frozen antler crystals.
“Thank you,” Urtif said, hot tears forming and freezing as they wound down his face. “I-I’m sorry about the snowdeer,” he added quickly, sensing this was of great import.
There were two grunts. One from man, one from snowdeer as the two stood.
Dizzy, Urtif braced against a nearby tree.
“If you run out,” the man pointed at the reanimated snowdeer, “find Omitis. He will grow another for you.”
The snowdeer shook the snow from its antlers, and Urtif watched as it disappeared into the forest. When Urtif looked back to the man, he was gone.
Urtif studied the antler crystals to confirm their purity, then carefully placed them in his pouch. He hurried across the snow. Elya needed him.
Had he not required such haste, he might have noticed a trail of hoofprints that followed alongside him until he was home.
* * *
Ⓒ Jason P. Burnham