Trail of the Black Wyrm by Chris Pierson

Author:Chris Pierson [Pierson, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7869-3979-4
Publisher: Fanversion Publishing
Published: 2015-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

They walked among the wreckage. Nothing remained. The clan of the Spirit Wolf was destroyed, though when Angusuk finally stopped digging among the fallen huts, screaming the names of the dead, he admitted some of the hunters appeared to be missing altogether. A handful only, but it was a hopeful sign. All the women and children were dead, but there might be others still alive to carry the memory of his people.

Not the makau, though. Tulukaruk had been murdered as he slept, it seemed, for his body still lay in his anho-ti: He had been killed by a single slash across the throat, from which not a drop of blood had spilled. The look on the mage's frozen face was one of peace, a faint smile curling his lips. Of the Amaguik, his ghost-wolf guardians, there was no sign—although Hult was certain, for a moment, that he heard distant, mournful howling on the wind. Four voices now, not three. He shivered.

Angusuk broke down completely when he beheld the old sorcerer, huddling over Tulukaruk and sobbing for nearly an hour. The others didn't disturb him. Finally, as the sky was beginning to darken, he emerged from the anho-ti, his eyes red. He stripped to the waist, baring his stout, scarred body to the wind, and looked at the others with an expression so pained that Hult had to look away.

"We must burn them," he said. "Tonight. We must do this before my people become Uitayuik."

There was no more discussion than that. The image of the people of Kitaglu, doomed to wander the Panak forever as white-eyed ghosts, was too horrible. Grimly, quietly, they built pyres of peat and what little wood there was in the village. They gathered the bodies, laying them out to burn. The sky was fully dark by the time they were done, the moons and stars still lost behind cloud and snow; they worked by the light of stones that Shedara enchanted to glow, a cold, blue gleam that made even the living look dead. Finally, near midnight, the work was done and Tulukaruk was laid at the top of the highest pyre. Exhausted, they gathered beside the remains, each holding a lit torch. Angusuk, still bare-chested, drew a stone knife and cut a long gash across his body. Then, as the blood trickled down his skin, he uttered a wheezing chant for the dead.

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