Nightfall (Book 1) (31 page)

One of the last days spent in the mountains, we came upon an ice wall that was far too high for any of us to climb—with a surety that we would not fall unless by our own folly. The whole group stood in a circle while we planned what to do and Sendoa said that there were no other reasonable routes to be taken within a few days’ backtracking. That would add an undesirable amount of time to the expedition and we would already be tight on supplies on our return.

It was suggested by Arrats that I give everyone wings, as I had to get him and Eskarne from Caernadvall on our scouting trip. Kepa insisted on being blindfolded before taking flight, he also insisted that he be held aloft by a true pair of dragonwings and that he be tied to the dragonman. In the end Erramun begged me to just knock the small pest out, which was tempting, because his long string of requests was not worth all the bother it would bring.

Izar requested being turned into a red-tailed hawk and flew barrel rolls, before spiraling toward the peak of the cliff. I would not be outdone.

Large claws burst through the flesh at the ends of my fingers, as they grew wider and shorter; my back grew longer as my thighs rippled over with muscle and my nose grew in length so that I could see it without going cross-eyed and it had long whiskers, near the tip. I let out a throbbing roar that echoed through the mountains, I then flicked my long, furry tail, before I leapt up the side of the ice wall, where my long claws dug in, keeping me anchored for just long enough that I could leap farther up the cliff face. I could have done the same as an elf, had there been a way to latch onto the wall, but I didn’t think claws would go well with my elven hands.

The thick coat of fur that covered my new body protected me against the elements, but I could feel a little chill in my black nose, which picked up the scent of warm blood, high above me on the wall, and further back along the icy canyon we had traveled along for the majority of the day. I leapt blissfully up the wall; I moved fast enough that it seemed as if I were flying across a horizontal plane, the only difference was that if I did not catch a good enough hold at the end of my twenty-to-thirty-feet high leaps, I would fall far to the ground below and be crushed by the impact (of course, I could catch myself, but that does not sound as exciting).

It took me less than a minute to reach the peak of the cliff, where I joined everyone else, including Izar, and I released the borrowed wings of my companions back into the realm of Lietha, and transformed my sister back into her elven form. I kept my new form, which I found rather enjoyable; I loved the feeling of the power in my well-muscled haunches, which could easily propel me across large stretches of space, and I liked the powerful roar that I could now produce from my lungs without the aid of magic. Another thing I found to be quite enjoyable was pouncing; from behind things, or onto things, it mattered not—pouncing was good fun.

“Ah, it is the great snow leopard; is he going to change back into his natural form?” Sendoa asked.

“No.” It felt strange forming the human word with my feline maw, but it came out acceptably intelligible. I kept the form for the rest of that day, often stalking ahead of the others to pounce on unsuspecting snow mice, or other small creatures of the icy realm, whose reactions were definitely worth the rebuking I got when I returned to the party from my short jaunts.

On a number of occasions I forgot about the tail that added a great bit to my length; I would
instinctively swat it to keep my balance and that would result in knocking over anyone unfortunate enough to be in its path. When that happened, I was usually chased by a snowball wielding attacker, though I easily outdistanced them, and their missiles were rendered ineffective.

~ ~ ~

About half an hour before sunset, I skidded down the side of an icy slope and onto an enormous stretch of pure ice that reached beyond the far horizon. The last of the sunlight reflected off the shimmering ice, and the spearheads of the frozen liquids—which pierced up from the ground—sent spheres of colored light shooting across the land when hit just right by the light. After staring out into the wasteland long enough to take in the sights, I turned and galloped back in the direction I had come from, to alert everyone to our proximity to the wastelands.

When I got back to the others with the news, Sendoa said that we should camp in that exact spot. I disagreed with the idea of stopping when the ice fields were just out of sight beyond the hill of snow, but the others agreed with Sendoa, who knew more about that country than I did, and they felt the need to point out that it was usually unwise to start off just before dusk.

I slept lightly throughout the entire night, still in feline form, and so served as the watch for the entire time while everyone else got a full night’s sleep, which Sendoa said would be needed for the following days. Many times throughout the night I awoke, since the animal I was morphed into was nocturnal by nature, so I made rounds of the camp, smelling the night breeze to make sure nothing unusual was afoot. The moonlight, as it flashed across the wintry landscape, was beautiful, and gave the lands an eerie look of being made of silver mist, with the occasional star of ice glinting in the light.

~ ~ ~

I was up long before everyone else and they woke to find me gone—I was already scouting the edges of the ice field, thinking that they could stay out of trouble long enough for me to at least catch a quick glimpse of the wastelands again. I made it about a mile past the border between wasteland and mountains before a minute was up, and having seen nothing of interest I decided to hurry back to the camp. Just before I turned, I saw on the distant horizon a small, blurry, white figure which sped about, chasing in a meaningless pattern a smaller creature of a darker color. I could not recognize either being and was very tempted to go investigate, but after a moment’s hesitation I decided to return to the others.

As usual, Sendoa and my sister berated me for leaving the others—especially without their foreknowledge, Izar pointed out. All Sendoa added though, was that I was worse than a child with the amount of trouble I often managed to get myself into. He was interested in the fact that I had seen the two creatures—one the white pursuant, and the other, a smaller and darker animal. He did not take it as new knowledge, however, and took the opportunity to tell us all of the existence of the ice stalkers and the dangers they presented. The elf informed us of the abilities of the ice-land dwellers so that we would know what to expect if we ran into one during our trek across the wastelands, home of the ice stalkers. After the quick description of them and their abilities, the thirteen of us set off on the second to last stretch of our journey toward the Well.

~ ~ ~

Again the wasteland and its shiny spires of cruelly twisted ice stretched before me; I was facing a different area of it though, having traveled halfway across it already that morning. Izar, who walked beside me, and two of the guards bore scrapes and shreds in their clothes as testament to the attack of an ice stalker, which had encountered the party while I was gone jaunting ahead, about an hour ago. “Do you seriously think that me being here keeps the creatures from attacking?” I said, desiring to bound ahead again, rather than babysit.

“Yes. We had no trouble with them until the second you were out of sight.” I sighed and leapt toward a small, white mouse out of boredom, the little creature squeaked and disappeared into a hole in the ice. I mumbled that I was hungry and Izar replied that I had not eaten lunch, breakfast, or dinner from the night before and that no one would mind if I took something from a pack.

“My appetite has somewhat changed, if you know what I mean?” I said, while baring my long fangs in an attempt at a smile, absentmindedly flicking my tail through the chill air. “You should have brought the stalker with you.”

Izar grimaced and shook her head. “I cannot see why you would want to eat it.”

“I think you could only understand if you were me, right now.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste and we ended the subject at that, while someone behind us chuckled at our debate. Erlantz, who seemed to know Kepa well, said that I could eat the dwarf if I did not find something else soon, or change back to elven form. I looked back to see Kepa and the guard smiling in good humor at each other. “Actually, I am hungry enough that I could eat you Erlantz,” I said. He scowled back at me for a second, before chuckling again.

An earsplitting shriek rang through the air and every one of us tensed for another attack, then relaxed as we realized it was only the wind as it hissed through the ring of icy teeth, ahead and to the left of us. After that the shrieks kept coming every ten minutes to a half an hour, the first few times we all assumed easily defensible positions, but as the shrieks kept coming and they all kept turning out to be false alarms, we all relaxed, growing almost to ignore the monotonous sound as the hours dragged on late into the afternoon.

~ ~ ~

“Look,” Mattin shouted, and pointed ahead of us to where only he could see, beyond the wall of ice he stood on. The shrieking of the wind perfectly accented his word. Then I caught the smell, which was downwind from me so I had been unable to catch it before.

“Mattin,” I called out and he barely ducked in time to receive no worse than a deep slash down the left side of his back, as the ice stalker leapt for his head. I bounded to where my friend was and told him to get back to the others, as I started my own attack on the white beast. The crazily formed creature snarled as it leapt—at me, that time, rather than my friend—and I swatted my huge, clawed paw at it as it came into close range, its own claws only shaving off the ends of some of my long fur.

The four deep marks I had slapped across its face enraged my opponent, and it lashed back at me with its thin forearms, its inferior three-inch claws doing hardly any damage to me. I lashed out again and severed muscles and meat all the way down to the thick bone in the creature’s thigh. It screamed in pain and we charged each other; I faintly felt the pain of claws tearing through my skin along my right side as we collided, then my huge paw slammed into the creature’s head, and tore off slices of skin as it flew past. I snarled as the stalker backed off, limping around drunkenly. I gave a full hearted roar as I leapt in for the kill, cutting off the sound as I snapped its neck between my jaws and tore its head off.

With a swing of my neck, I flung away the nigh meatless head and began gorging on my meal, ignoring the elves, humans, dragonfolk, and dwarf who would soon be coming around the ice curtain to check on me and give aid if needed—and who had entirely different diets and appetites than I did at that moment. I heard disgusted remarks from my companions as they made their presence known, but I ignored them, after all I had not eaten since noon of the previous day and it was getting close to suppertime, so I was ravished. Most of my audience left, returning to the other side of the ice wall and I hungrily tore at the body of the slain ice stalker, though I turned so that anyone who still watched did not have to see the warm flesh being torn apart as easily as a soft loaf of bread. One time I snarled at Sendoa when he came too close, the animal instincts telling me not to let him or anyone else near my prize. When I had finishing my gorging, I licked clean my paws, face, and anything else that had blood on it, and returned to the others.

Everyone told me to leave because the stench was repulsive, but I replied that I did not mind the smell, that I had had a bath of sorts, and that I had had to put up with their own sweaty stenches for an entire day and I thought they could live with it, at least until I was ready to eat again, or ready to return to elven form. In the end they stopped complaining, though they still did not enjoy the scent of my bloody meal.

Mattin again preceded the rest of us around the short wall of ice and for the first time I caught a glimpse of the first stretches of the Andoni Fields. I had been too busy defending myself and then satisfying my appetite when it had earlier been within my sight. It was curious to see the sudden end of the ice fields and, at their borderline, see living, growing grass stretching for as far as the eye could see. The grass was untouched by the iciness of the neighboring field and grew lush and tall, to what would have been chest height had I still been an elf. It was interesting being in the same position as the dwarf, when it came to being unable to see over the top of the grass.

Not only was the shrubbery of the Andoni Fields vastly different from its neighbor—which had none—but the weather was also different; there was a cool, spring-like feeling to everything, rather than the bitter cold of winter. I could not stand the heat in my thick winter coat so I transformed back into an elf, after which I asked my sister if there was any kind of feline made to live in warmer climates.

Argiñe Bakar chuckled aloud, and when I inquired of her as to what she thought was so funny, she replied, “Yes, there are felines who can survive warmth—and not just the small house pets of cities; there are cats
who prowl the dunes, rulers of the desert. There are lions, cheetahs, cougars, and thou mightest recall thy encounter with the meir cats? There is also the tiger that lives in the grasslands of the Southern continent, and the panther living in the jungles of the same.”

“Oh,” was my simple answer. I felt foolish that she had had to point out the
meir cats.