Ник О'Донохью: Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes

It might have been the cold that set him to shivering deep down in his bones. Or the sudden strange turn that the storm’s song took. Whatever it was, Tas found that his music had faded and left him.

The wind roared and screamed. The snow, falling more heavily now than it had in the afternoon, was like a gray woolen curtain. Frustrated, Tas laid aside his pipe and went to stand by the door.

“Doesn’t the wind sound strange?”

Flint did not answer, but stayed still where he sat, peering out into the storm.

“Flint?”

“I heard you.”

“It sounds like ... I don’t know.” Tas cocked his head to listen. “Like wolves howling.”

“It’s not wolves. It’s only the wind.”

“I’ve never heard the wind sound like that. Well, once I heard it sound almost like wolves. But it was really more like a dog. Sometimes you hear a dog howling in the night and you think it’s a wolf but it’s not because wolves really do sound different. More ferocious, not so lonesome. This does sound like wolves, Flint, don’t you think? But I’ve never heard of wolves hunting in a blizzard unless they were really starving.” Tas frowned, remembering a story he’d heard once. “There was a village way up in the mountains in Khur that was attacked by wolves in a blizzard. I didn’t see it. But my father did, and he told me about it. He said it was really interesting the way the wolves came down after dark and stalked anything that looked like good food. And he said it was amazing what wolves consider good food when they’re starving—”

“Will you hush! And while you’re at it, stop imagining things that aren’t there!” Gritting his teeth against his anger and the fear that the kender’s tale of starving wolves and blizzards fanned, Flint climbed to his feet. He was stiff and aching with the cold. “If you must do something, come help me start a fire.”

“With what. Flint?”

“With those old boards and—” Flint thought of the blocks of wood in his pack. He sighed heavily, regretting the loss of his whittling wood. “And whatever I have in my pack.”

“All right.” But Tas lingered at the doorway. It was wolves howling, he decided firmly, and not the wind. In his mind’s eye he could see them: big, heavy-chested brutes, gray as a storm sky, eyes bright with hunger, fangs as sharp as the blade of his own small dagger. They would leap across the drifts and slink through the hollows, pause to taste the air with their noses, howl in eerie mourning for their empty bellies, and lope on again.

His father had also told him that the big gray wolves could be almost invisible against a snowy sky. Lifting his head to listen, he thought the howling was closer now. He wouldn’t have to go very far to get just a quick glimpse of the beasts. Forgetting his promise to Tanis, forgetting the uncooperative pipe, Tas decided that he simply had to see—or not see—the wolves.

Checking to be sure that Flint was not watching, Tas grinned happily and slipped out into the storm.

“Tanis!” He was but an arm’s length behind the half-elf yet Sturm could see Tanis only as a vague, dark shadow. He hardly heard his own voice, bellow though he did above the wind’s scream, and he knew that Tanis had not heard him at all. He caught Tanis’s arm and pulled him to a halt.

“Listen!” Sturm shouldered his pack to an easier perch on his back and moved in close. “You’re not going to tell me again about how that’s the wind, are you? Those are wolves!”

They were indeed. The fiction of the wind had been partly for Sturm’s sake, partly for his own. Tanis abandoned it as useless now. “I know! But we have to push on, Sturm! We can’t let them get between us and the shelter!”

“Run? You want us to run?” The thought of fleeing from danger sent a spasm of disgust across the youth’s face. Beneath that revulsion, though, was an instinctive fear. It was not hidden, Tanis saw, as well as Sturm might have hoped.

Tanis’s humorless laughter was caught by the wind and flung away. “I do! But the best we can do is slog on. There is no shame in this retreat, Sturm. We’re no match for a pack, and Flint and Tas won’t appreciate our courage at all if they have to consider it while freezing to death.”

Though carefully given, it was a reprimand. Sturm recognized it and took it with considered grace. “I’m not accustomed to flight, Tanis,” he said gravely. “But neither am I accustomed to abandoning friends. Lead on.”

Sturm, Tanis thought, seeking his bearings, you’re too solemn by half for your years! But, aye, I’ll lead on ...

And that was another matter. How far had they come? Tanis could no longer tell. He was storm-blind now, hardly able to keep his eyes open for the merciless bite of winddriven snow and ice. The bitter wind had battered at their backs when they’d left the shelter. As long as it roared and screamed in their faces, clawing at their skin, tearing at their clothing, he could be fairly certain that they were moving in the right direction. He did not like to think what might happen should the storm suddenly change direction.

Likely someone would find our bones in spring and wonder and pity. Putting aside the grim thought, Tan-is hunched his shoulders and bowed his head before the storm’s blast, protecting his eyes as best he could. His legs were heavier and harder to move with each step. His neck and shoulders ached beneath his burden of wood. And the wolves were howling closer.

It only seems a never-ending journey, he told himself as he waded through still another drift. Before the night was much older they would be back at the shelter. Then the storm could tear across the mountains, then the wolves could howl until they were hoarse. It wouldn’t matter. Tanis could almost hear Flint scolding and grumbling about two young fools who couldn’t come right back, but must linger to catch their deaths in the storm. Beneath it all would run Tas’s chattering and incessant, never-ending questions. Their miserable burdens of fuel would feed a crackling fire to thaw hands and feet they could no longer feel.

Thinking to share the encouragement with Sturm toiling silently behind, he turned, squinting into the blinding snow.

“Sturm! Soon!” he shouted.

Sturm looked up. Ice rimmed his hair, long streaks of white scored his face where the cold had bitten. “What?”

“Soon! We’re almost—”

It might have been instinct that made Tanis slip immediately out of his pack and reach for his bow and quiver. Or it might have been the look of wide-eyed horror on Sturm’s face. He never heard the wolf’s roar, or the slavering snarl of its mate. He only felt the heavy weight where it caught him behind the knees and drove him with all the force of its hundred pounds face first into the snow.

His bow was beneath him, his dagger still sheathed at his belt. Fear raced through him like a hot river. He shoved his chin tight to his chest and locked his hands behind his head, protecting his neck and throat. The wolf’s hot breath, stinking of its last kill, gagged him. Powerful jaws snapping, unable to reach his neck or throat, the wolf fastened on his shoulder, worrying at the thick cloth of his cloak, tearing through it and his leather tunic to lay his flesh bare to dripping fangs. Its eyes were gleaming green fire, its mouth a roaring crimson maw.

Bucking and kicking, his mind empty of all thought but survival, Tanis heaved onto his back. His head still low, he freed his hands and found his dagger. The wolf rose up, scrambling to regain position, belly exposed for an instant. Tanis gripped his dagger hard. The icy air stung in his lungs. He thrust upward with all his strength. The blade drove into the wolf’s belly to the hilt. Gasping hard, he dragged until he struck breastbone. The beast fell away, dead as it hit the snow.