Daylight pierced my sleep, sharp and unrelenting. I was still partly unconscious, dreaming of warmth and fire and family, so real and close. I tried to roll over and lull myself back into the comfort of dreams, but an ache wrenched me back into the cold light of day. Rock and ice surrounded me – the hollow where we had set up camp.
I sat up quickly, my body giving complaint.
Enja sat nearby, her legs pulled up to her chest and her brows knitted in worry. There was no sign of the creature anywhere nearby, though Siiva stood atop a rock with his nose in the air, smelling and watching. Everything was so quiet, but the last thing I remembered … I was about to die.
“What happened?” I asked. I moved to stand up, but everything ached. “Where did it go?”
“It was all … so fast,” Enja replied, shaking her head like she was still trying to understand it herself. “You were on the ground. I kept trying to shoot arrows but I was so scared and cold that I kept missing. Then I started running over to you, but…”
“Wolves.” I remembered the howling suddenly, the last sound I’d heard before I went under.
She nodded. “They must have been nearby. They arrived so quickly, running out of the valleys and shadows. It didn’t take them long. That … that creature didn’t stand a chance.” She stopped, as if remembering what she had seen. “Then they just left.”
I finally managed to haul myself to my feet and looked around at the stark, bright day. The hills and valleys rose and fell in a blanket of white all around us. Here and there, wind whipped the snow into spirals that rose and disappeared within seconds. Not far off, I could see where the ground gave way to the ravine, which I hadn’t seen the night before while we were setting up our camp. I’d come so close to falling over the edge. I remembered that part.
“Which way did the wolves go?” I asked. She pointed to the northwest, where I could now see an abundance of tracks in the snow. “How many were there?”
“I don’t know. Six, maybe. Eight. It was hard to tell.”
Dark thoughts crept into my mind as I stared out at the snow, remembering the night before. Perhaps these mountains were evil after all. Perhaps we should just turn back now. When the sun only rises to illuminate the way of evil, and the moon ducks behind clouds to give dark things the run of the night, why go on?
Because I cannot let her die.
I took in a long, renewing breath as I stared at the tracks, and then turned back to Enja. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, and we left the hollow behind.
A sort of blackened forest clung to the sides of a hill. There was no evidence of fire, but the trees themselves stood raven dark against the pale landscape, out of place. They did not offer me the same comfort that my trees back in the forest gave me; these were angled and crooked, skeletons of what they could be.
Enja’s grandfather once told us a story of a dark wood just like this one, guarded by a man with no face, in a cloak of shadows, on a horse made of midnight and smoke. At the time we were safe and warm inside, and all thoughts of such a man were far away and indistinct, but here, in a crow-black forest stuck to the side of a hill and far from home, I fancied I could see him walking between two trees, smoke curling from the nostrils of his steed.
I wondered if Enja remembered the story, though I dared not bring it up.
Large, imposing rocks and rises protruded from the icy earth, partly obscured by the mist and fog that pressed against the ground. It reminded me of smoke. Everything about the land around us seemed strangely detached, as though we were seeing it through the disjointed eyes of a dream. We stayed close together, moving slowly around rocks and corners where the ground rose sharply upward. I couldn’t tell exactly what I expected to see each time we turned a corner, but there were faint visions in my mind, visions of the stone come to life, and of monsters that my mind couldn’t quite make real. Siiva moved slowly, deliberately, ears alert and twitching, and nose sensing things about which I was unaware. They said that about animals – that they had a sense which we humans lacked, so I kept an eye on him at all times and let him take the lead.
Somewhere behind the fog and mist, the mountains towered overhead, snowy peaks sensing our presence and bidding the land around us to be quiet. Once upon a time I’d loved the quiet, the peacefulness of the outdoors far away from the village, but not today. Today, I longed for a familiar sound to break through the lonely silence that haunted everything around us. If there was an afterlife, this was a taste of its isolation.
My hair rustled a bit, and something whispered in my ear.
I stopped moving.
Ssssss, something hissed again. Wordless, indistinct, but real. Each time the sound came, my hair stirred some, like a gentle breeze that moved of its own accord.
“Did … did you say something?” Enja whispered beside me, her words barely audible despite her close proximity to me.
“Sshh,” I whispered back. “No.”
Siiva had stopped walking.
Another breeze ruffled my hair, and a voice breathed in my ear. “Welcome. Weellcome.” As if fear itself was a thing made real, an icy hand trailed up and down my spine until every inch of my body trembled.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered to Enja. “Keep moving.”
The fog seemed to intensify, growing thicker and heavier until I could no longer tell in which direction we headed. This rock could be familiar, and we could have rounded that corner many times now, but I refused to let us stop. Each time we slowed down, that voice, that breeze, again reached for my ears, and with every step I wondered if I left a little more of my sanity behind me.
On and on. Round and round. Terror urged us on, but to where, I didn’t know. Yet we made no progress, and nothing new presented itself through the fog. Finally, I allowed my feet to stop moving.
“I don’t know where we are,” I told Enja under my breath. “And I don’t know where we’re going.”
“Perhaps we can mark our way,” she said, tearing off a small bit of paper from something in her cloak and dropping it to the ground. No sooner had it settled onto the rock and ice than a breeze I couldn’t feel whisked it up and away, depositing it somewhere far out of sight.
I drew in a long, steadying breath and flexed my fingers. Whatever this living breeze was, it would not see the end of our journey.
I hear your thoughtssss. I know your feelings. If you run, I will follow, and if you fall, I will devour.
I held on to my hair to keep it from blowing about as the voice tormented me. “Enja, when I say go, run forward with Siiva, and I’ll follow. Do not stop until we’re away from this place. Do you understand me? Do not stop.”
She nodded a few times, standing up taller in preparation to run. I waited until my hair settled after a moment, until I couldn’t feel the caress of movement against my face, and then I said, “Run.”
We took off together, Siiva following closely behind us as we darted around rocks and boulders dripping with ice. The voice of the breeze sounded just out of reach, trailing behind us so closely that if we stopped, it would instantly be upon us. Onwards, only ever onwards, slipping on treacherous ground, tearing around bends, half-tumbling over boulders in the ground. Until, with a sudden thud and a sickening moment of falling through the air, my boot caught on invisible ice and I plunged to the ground like a ton of rocks.
“Don’t stop!” I shouted to Enja, but she had already turned and reached a hand out to draw me up.
You belong to us now. Welcome to the mountainssss.
“Go, Enja, go,” I ordered her, but she took my hand and hauled me to my feet as the voices around us grew in number. Then, suddenly, she stood straighter, head turned in the direction we had been running, listening.
I opened my mouth to ask her what it was, trying desperately to ignore the words hissed into my ear, until I heard it, too.
Howling.
Faint, disembodied howls wafted to us on the cold air, far away but distinct. I was suddenly back in the woods near my village, hearing the howling of wolves far to the north and desperate to answer their call. I couldn’t answer it then, not really. But now, now I needed to.
“Follow it,” I told Enja, scrambling to get to my feet. “Follow the sound.”
I blocked all hisses and whispers from my mind, listening only to the howling of the wolves, however far away it may be, and followed it at a run over rock and ice. Enja ran beside me, her breath short as we refused to slow down. I could sense the voices close at hand, catch a faint hiss now and then, which only encouraged me to run faster.
Ahead, a dark outline began to take shape, and from it, the still distant call of the wolves seemed to emanate. A cave? A tunnel? It didn’t matter. “In there,” I shouted, pointing as we ran. Enja didn’t respond, only shifted her direction until she made directly for the opening. It appeared to be some sort of hollowed-out rock, though whether it was naturally so or made by something I lacked the energy to fathom, I didn’t know. The closer we drew, however, the larger it loomed, until, as we finally passed through it, the roof yawned so far overhead I couldn’t quite make it out.
But my wonderment was overshadowed by my relief, as we stopped running and came to a halt, all sounds of hissing and whispering having disappeared. Near silence engulfed us, broken only by the sound of our heavy breathing and the gentle panting of Siiva at our feet.
Enja fell to a heap on the ground, trying to catch her breath. I remained standing and turned in a slow circle to take in the large cave as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness. It was mostly empty, save for the nearby trickling of a spring, and a large pile of boulders resting in one corner. A naturally formed cave, then. It had to be. I relaxed a little and sat down beside Enja, resting my elbows on my knees.
“What…?” she started, and then stopped, shaking her head. There was no use asking what it was. Neither of us knew, and part of me… Part of me didn’t want to know. If such evil things existed, as long as we were safe, let them remain a mystery.
But if this was the road to the god of death, I couldn’t help but wonder how much worse it would be.
“I don’t know,” I said, turning to look back towards the entrance to the cave. I remembered the stories about the mountains.
They are where all the evil things in Skane were gathered long ago, and they are better off left alone.
After the events of today, I could nearly believe that last one.
As we sat in a long silence, breath slowly returning to normal and fear calming some, a thought crept its way into my mind and rooted itself there, solid and unmoving. That breeze, those voices, they had followed us even when we ran. They had pursued us, close at our heels and inescapable. They had said they would pursue us. Why, then, had they not followed us into this cave?
There was something about clear winter nights that pulled me from the village and into the welcoming darkness of the woods. Sølvi walked at my side, our feet crunching lightly in yesterday’s snow. Through every break in the trees overhead, crisp stars watched our every move, eyes in the sky that missed nothing.
“I convinced a boy today that he was a dragon,” Sølvi told me, laughing softly as he said it. “I told him that white burst of air when he breathed was from a fire in his belly.”
I smiled. “Did it make him cry?”
“No, he thought it was wonderful. Went off to tell all his friends. He’ll realize his mistake when he sees that they can all do the same thing.”
“So, you lied to a child.”
“Well, it’s what my own father told me. I was simply passing it on.”
We fell into silence as our path led steadily uphill, drawing strained breaths from our lungs and slowing our pace somewhat. He had never been here before, but I knew the way by heart. Nearby, the lonely hoot of an owl sounded in the trees, repeating a few times before falling silent once again. Animals were scarce around us, likely hearing our footsteps and scampering off before we approached.
A short while later, we reached the rocky summit of the hill. I hoisted myself on to a boulder as Sølvi climbed up beside me, and overhead, an infinite number of stars glistened against a raven sky. There was no moon to shield their light, no village torches to hide them from view. Cold air licked my skin, burning like a flame, but I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders and shuffled closer to Sølvi.
“Cold?” he asked gently, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. I nodded into his chest. In a whisper, he began to sing a childhood song by my ear.
“Cold, so cold, the winter arrives
Chill as a witch’s heart
Cutting as knives.”
Also in a whisper, I joined in with him.
“Cold, so cold, the winter sets in
Biting your skin.
Cold, so cold is the crystalline snow
Coating the land
Outside houses aglow.
Cold, so cold are the winter nights
While stars hang as sparks
Of celestial light.”
Our whispers died out, and quiet settled in. I stared at the sky, thinking about everything and nothing.
“What do you suppose they are?” I asked eventually. “The stars.”
He paused before answering. “Perhaps they are the eyes of the Goddess, so she can see everything we do.”
“But they are only out at night. What about during the day?”
“During the day she uses the sun.”
“What if it’s cloudy?”
He thought for a moment. “Then perhaps they are the souls of everyone in the world who has ever died.”
I didn’t answer. That seemed much more likely, but the weight of that notion overruled a response.
“Perhaps one day,” he said, “I will be up there too, watching over you.”
“I would rather have you here,” I said, pushing against him a little more. He didn’t reply, and a sharp sadness moved us to silence.