Марта Уэллс: From a Certain Point of View

He feasted on smaller creatures to keep his energy up and slept rarely; he knew he was most vulnerable then. He rested just long enough to keep going.

And the hunt continued.

The sun passed overhead. Again and again and again. The moons, each with their own color and shape, appeared as daylight vanished, as night took over, as the terrible chill threatened to take him away. But he continued. He sought refuge from a particularly nasty wind, one that seemed to cut through his fur, by hiding under a cliff face until the sun came up again.

He did all of this for them.

He found the prey on the southern ridge of a crag, and it was easy to trap them in the valley below. Once he took out the largest of them as it swiped at him with those stunted horns it had, the others were easier to track down. He feasted on the smallest, devouring every part of it, so that he would have stamina for the long trek back. There would be no stopping nor sleeping; it was too big a risk with the carcasses he dragged behind him.

So he walked.

He did not note how many suns and moons passed overhead.

He did not care how frigid it felt as he crunched through ice and snow.

He did not let the exhaustion in his bones and muscles bring him to the ground.

He just kept going, one thing in mind.

Return.

He crested the last hill, and for a brief moment, he thought the light of the sun was playing tricks on him. It could be blinding, reflecting off the sheets of ice, but he dropped the carcasses. He stared. He brought his body low.

They poured out over the ice near an enormous structure: little things, walking upright on their hind legs, dark shapes against the snow. Some of them rode on top of the very same kind of creature he had just killed; others guided herdbeasts forward, screaming and shouting at them.

This would delay him, but it would not stop his return.

He made for the entrance to the caverns on the far side of the ridge, wondering if these new arrivals would make the hunt all the more challenging. Would they bother his den? Would they invade it?

The anger boiled in him. This was his home.

He thought of his clan as he sneaked down into the valley, down toward the cavern. There was another entrance—smaller, less effective—he could use. All the while, he watched these creatures. They did not seem to have packs, but there were so many of them. No matter. He could crush them with a simple swipe of the paw.

He squeezed into the opening in one of the rear caverns, falling to the ground of the tunnel and clamping his paws to his ears. There was an awful sound echoing throughout: something high, repetitive, and it pierced his ears, sent nausea in waves through his body.

This seemed impossible; he was so far from those creatures. Had they somehow broken through? Were they not even aware of who had been here first?

He left the carcasses there and ventured forth through his den. When he reached the far side of it, the impossible was true: There, burned into the wall of ice, was a massive gap, and the sounds that echoed out of it filled him with a terrible pain.

But he pressed on. He had to. He had to find them.

He searched. In the area where they buried their waste. (Empty.) In one of the caves where they fed. (Now occupied by swarms of the terrible things.) He was low to the ground when it came upon him, walking out of one of the small caves deep within the cavern. (Out of his home.) After just a glance, the creature screamed at him. Did it mean to frighten him? Or was it so afraid that it made the sound as an instinct? Sometimes they did that before they died. It could not be helped.

He roared and prepared to crush it to death.

The thing raised its arm up, and there was something dark in its paw, and then a blaze of light burst forth, traveled the distance between them impossibly fast, like the streaks he often saw in the sky at night.

He had never felt a pain as searing as this; it seemed to plunge deep beneath his coat and skin, stabbing into the muscles of his leg, and his roar this time was of his own pain.

And then he gave himself over to rage.

He had no idea how many he maimed or killed in those moments, but he struck anything that moved. He could not find them. Where were they? Where were his den-mates? Where were his children ? He stumbled into the greatest cave of them all, saw the countless beings scattering about, screaming and yelling, and he roared again.

He could only smell the remnants of his family, only a faint wisp of what they once were. Where were they? What had these creatures done to them?

There was more of that piercing light, but none of it struck him. He scrambled out of his home, out of the entrance, smearing blood on the snow and ice as he stumbled forth, as these creatures shouted unknown sounds at him, and he made himself disappear into the hills above.

It was only when he was safe that he knew he had failed them. Surely his den-mate protected the others. Perhaps they had fled elsewhere?

He packed snow onto his wound, forced it to go numb so that he could travel.

Then he walked.

He did not find them in the caverns on the other end of the range, in the place they had made their home. Perhaps his den-mate had taken them to where they’d lived before.

But he did not find them in the home they had inhabited before this one.

He did not find them anywhere.

Something filled him. He had never sensed this before. There was now a cavern in him, one that ate at his gut, that seemed to grow bigger and bigger with each passing of the sun overhead. He tried to fill it with food, picking off prey here and here. But while his hunger was sated, the other sensation bloomed. He was empty without his clan.

He waited. He watched. He despaired.

More and more of these creatures came to his home. They came and went, sometimes venturing out onto the ice on the backs of other creatures, but always together. There were so many of them. How could they do this? What did they want? Were they hunters like him, too?

He hungered. He watched. He waited.

A small pack left the cavern one morning, all riding astride the upright, horned beasts. His instinct took over: He could deal with a group this small. Eventually, all living creatures lost to his kind. And with another upon its back, the horned beast could not maintain its normal speed.

Meaning it could not escape.

It would be too easy.

But the challenge did not matter to him. He followed the pack, watched them split up and spread out over the ice. He remained distant and quiet as he always did. He wanted the last thing his prey saw to be the whiteness of his fur, his ferocious maw cracked open, his sharp claws slicing at the softness of their neck.

He wanted that not for hunger. Not to satiate his need to feast.

No.

He needed to fill the cavern in his body.

And only blood would do that.

He chose one. There was no need to focus on the entire pack. It was the scrawny creature, the smallest of them all, that would be easiest to take down.

Would this reunite him with his clan? Would it reveal their fate to him?

No.

But it was a start.

He moved closer to the plateau, aware that there was not much cover, but there was only this chance. He stilled and observed. Watched the thing bury something in the snow.

He waited. The gangly creature climbed atop the other, and they moved forth.

Stopped.

He rushed forward then, keeping his body tucked in tight, and he closed the distance between them.

The horned beast twisted its head back, and he froze. It raised its snout in the air, sniffed a few times, and he was sure it could sense him, that the chase was about to begin.