David Gemmel - The Hawk Eternal

“It wasn’t a wolf, Layne.”

“No, but it could have been a hunter trying to frighten us.”

“I hope so,” said Gwalchmai. “I think we should stand watches tonight, though.”

Gaelen awoke at Gwalchmai’s touch, his eyes flaring open, his troubled dreams fragmented and instantly forgotten.

“I can’t keep my eyes open any longer,” whispered Gwalchmai. “I don’t think there’s anything out there. I saw a fox, that’s all.”

Gaelen sat up and yawned. “It’s chilly,” he whispered. Gwalchmai rolled himself swiftly into his blanket, laying his head on his pack. Within seconds he was asleep. Gaelen stretched, then crept to the fire, easing himself past Lennox. Taking a dry stick he poked around the embers of the dying fire, gently blowing it to life. Adding more sticks, he watched the flames flicker and billow. Then he looked away. Caswallon had told him never to stare into a fire, for the brightness made the pupils contract, and when you looked away into darkness you would be blind.

Gaelen wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and leaned back against the granite boulder. An owl hooted and the boy’s fingers curled around the hilt of his hunting knife. You fool, he told himself. You’ve never been afraid of the dark. Calm down. These are your mountains, there is nothing to harm you.

Except wolves, bears, lions, and whatever made that bestial howling…

Gaelen shuddered, and fed more sticks to the fire. The supply was growing short and he didn’t relish the prospect of entering the menacing darkness of the surrounding trees to replenish the store.

Slowly the fire died and Gaelen cursed softly. He had hoped it would last until first light, when the woods would become merely trees and not the frightening sentinels they now appeared. He stood up, loosening the dagger in its sheath, and walked carefully toward a fallen elm at the edge of the woods. Swiftly he collected dead wood and thicker branches. Back at the fire, relief washed over him. He was comforted by the sound of Lennox snoring and the sight of his other two friends sleeping soundly.

It was ridiculous. If danger was upon them they would be no use to him, sleeping as they were. And yet he felt at ease.

Layne muttered in his sleep and turned onto his back. Gaelen gazed down at his square, honest face. He looked so much younger asleep, his mouth half open and childlike.

Gaelen turned his gaze to Lennox. Where Layne was clean-cut and athletic, Lennox was all bulk, with sloping shoulders of tremendous power, barrel-chested, thick-waisted. His hands were huge and the strength in them awesome. A year before he had straightened a horseshoe at the Games, having seen it done in the Strength Test. Too young to be entered, he had shamed several of the contestants and caused great merriment among the Farlain clan.

Later that day a dozen youths of the Haesten clan, having seen their man shamed, lay in wait for Lennox as he strode home. They came at him out of the darkness bearing cudgels and thick branches. As the first blow rapped home against his thick skull Lennox had bellowed in anger and lashed out, sending one luckless youngster through a bush. Two others followed him as Lennox charged among them; the rest fled.

Gaelen had heard the story and chuckled. He believed it. He wished he had seen it.

To the east the sky was brightening and Gaelen stood and wandered through the trees, on and up, scrambling over the lip of the hollow to stare at the distant mountains. In the trees around him birds began to sing, and the eldritch menace of the night disappeared. The boy watched as the snowcapped peaks to the west began to burn like glowing coals, as the sun cleared the eastern horizon. Fields below were bathed in glorious colors as blooms opened to the golden light.

Gaelen breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the sweet mountain air. He slid back down the slope and burrowed into Lennox’s large pack, more than twice the weight of his own, and produced a copper bowl. Stoking up the fire, he placed the bowl upon it, filling it with water and adding the dry oats Maeg had wrapped for him.

Layne was the first to wake. He grinned at Gaelen. “No monsters of the night, then?”

Gaelen grinned back and shook his head.

Had he remained on the rim of the hollow for a minute more he would have seen a Farlain hunter racing back toward Cambil’s village, his cloak streaming behind him.

Badraig was a skillful huntsman whose task it was to set the trails for those of the boys traveling toward Vallon. He enjoyed his role. It was good to see tomorrow’s generation of clansmen testing their mettle, and his son Draig and foster son Gwalchmai were among them.

But today his mind was on other matters. During the night, as he made cold camp by a narrow stream, he had heard the howling that so disturbed Gaelen and his companions. They had half dismissed it as a hunter’s prank; Badraig knew it was not, for he was the only hunter in the area.

Being a cautious man, with over twenty years’ experience, Badraig waited until near dawn before checking the source of the cry. With infinite patience he had worked his way through the woods, keeping the breeze in his face. As it shifted, so too did he.

And he found the butchered, broken remains of Erlik of the Pallides. In truth he didn’t know it was Erlik, though he had seen the man many times at the Games. But no one could have recognized the bloody meat strewn across the track. Badraig lifted a torn section of tunic, recognizing the edging as Pallides weave. In the bushes to the left he found part of a foot.

At first he thought it was the work of a bear, but he scouted for tracks and found six-toed footprints the like of which he had never seen. There were also the tracks of foxes and other small carrion creatures, but they had obviously arrived long after the killing beast had departed.

The prints were enormous, as long as a short sword. Badraig measured the stride. He was not a tall man, neither was he the shortest clansman in the Farlain, but he could not match the stride except by leaping. He gauged the height of the beast as half that again of a tall man. And it walked upright. The deepest impression was at the heel. He followed the track for a little way until he reached the foot of the slope. Here the spoor changed. The creature dropped to all fours and scrambled up at speed, gouging great tears in the clay. Badraig dug his fingers into the earth with all his strength, then compared his efforts with those of the killer. He could barely scratch the surface.

So it was big, bigger than a bear, and much faster. It could run on all fours or walk upright like a man. Its jaws were enormous-the fang marks in the leg he had found proved that. He considered following the beast up the slope, but dismissed the idea.

From the remains he could see that the Pallides hunter had been carrying his bow with the arrow notched. He had been given no time to shoot. Badraig was confident of his own skills, but his strength lay also in the understanding of his weaknesses. Armed with only a hunting knife and a quarterstaff, he was no match for whatever had wreaked this carnage. His one duty was to carry the news to Cambil and clear the mountain of youngsters.

Luckily, so he believed, no teams had passed his vantage point, so he would be able to stop any he came across as he returned. By midafternoon every village in the Farlain had the message and by nightfall six hundred clansmen, in groups of six, were scouring the mountains. By noon the next day forty-eight puzzled and disappointed youngsters had been shepherded back to their villages.

Only two teams remained to be found, those led by Layne and Agwaine. At dusk on the second day Cambil sat with his advisers around a campfire half a day’s march into the mountains.