Ice (The Wintering Book 1) by Stephen Bowkett

Author:Stephen Bowkett [Bowkett, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Venture Press
Published: 2015-09-10T23:00:00+00:00

8. The Shore People

The creature’s front paw caught Shamra on the shoulder and batted her easily aside, then dropped down with a thud in the snow nearby raising a small blizzard of flakes. For a few moments it twitched in a death-dance; its life heat faded and the body was still, and two thin trickles of blood ran from its nose.

Shamra’s breathing was out of control. She gulped in great draughts of the numbing air and felt her head starting to spin. More of the animals moved with an elegant co-ordination among the trees: so graceful and calculating, they were playing with the darkness and the light.

But the pretence of their illusion was over. The lie of the lost child had given way to a deadlier dream — To terrify their victim all the more, they pushed into her mind anticipations of her own slaughter beneath their crushing, ravaging jaws. Shamra screamed at the pain-that-was-to-come. And her scream saved her, for it gave Hora a bearing on which to aim. A shell exploded from the fire-rod and struck a tree to Shamra’s right, taking a great chunk away in a spray of spinning splinters. The impact caused the whole trunk to shudder, dislodging a shower of snowflakes and heavier masses that came pattering down.

Another of the animals appeared. Despite this greater danger to the pack, they were reluctant to relinquish their meal. This next beast came in slinking low to the ground, not to pounce but to bite at Shamra’s exposed limbs and right side.

The fire-rod roared again and sent booms echoing away into the forest deeps. But the creature wasn’t deterred: it was intelligent enough to realise Hora’s tactics, knowing it couldn’t be hit without injuring or killing the youngling. Its thin black lips stretched away from its fangs, just as though it was smiling in triumph.

Now the rest of the human pack was assembling ... Clever, as she was, yet slow-moving and weak. The one who carried the fire posed the greatest threat, but the gristle of his neck was unprotected and one bite would be enough to take out the whole throat. Besides that, his eyes were not adapted to the dark: neither he nor his companions knew of the other kin circling round to attack from the direction of the bright-lights.

Shamra calmed her breathing with the greatest of efforts: on the brink of a panic, she had no hope. The long lean doglike creature was watching her from ten paces away. She realised it knew that it had the advantage; folded in shadow, concealed by trees. Hora had little chance of killing it before it reached her — whenever it chose that moment to be. And there was no doubt that the animal was biding its time, revelling in the thought of its victory perhaps ... Or waiting for more of its kind to gather!

The intuition was sharp and deep and true, and it was out of her before she could stop it. Feoh picked up on it at once.

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