Chapter 14
Kof
I saw nothing in the clouds that hinted at a disaster to come, felt no particular twinge in the atmosphere.
But I had to agree with Eli—the air didn’t smell right.
Still, Droko was impatient enough about me “wasting time,” as he called it, by ordering more cloaks. I’d never convince him to get Ul-Rott to postpone the hunt.
We gathered by the front gate in a large, raucous group.
The hunters were eager to honor Ulka’s memory—and all of us were eager to forget about the Lost Clan.
The caves had only borne the incursion of a single human, but the rest of the Red Hand was not so lucky.
Everywhere they turned, a Lost Clan stranger was eating their food or pawing through their fallen neighbors’ belongings.
This outing would give them a respite from the forced hospitality. A chance to breathe easy again.
The chieftain was just as eager as the rest of them to get on with the hunt.
He sat astride his warhorse, Destroyer, head and shoulders above the crowd, watching everyone assemble with a keen eye.
Once everyone was there—including a token few hunters from the Lost Clan—Ul-Rott raised an arm and the gathering immediately fell silent.
“We triumphed in our last skirmish with the hobgoblins—but we lost too many good fighters.” A murmur of assent went through the crowd.
“We will not let ourselves get complacent. A soft clan is a dead clan. Remember who you are: the Red Hand. By the end of his hunt, the forest floor should be crimson with the blood of our prey.”
And our larders should be full again.
Ul-Rott turned to Droko. “Shaman—have you got anything to say?”
Droko was a plain-spoken orc who cared little for ceremony.
But Archie had anticipated that he’d be called upon to bestow some sort of blessing.
I’d heard the human coaching him well into the night.
Droko squared his shoulders and said, “The strength of the ancestors runs through your veins. Steel your resolve. Claim the land’s tribute with your blades. ”
It was a bit stilted. But no one would dare remark on it.
Once Droko said his part, the hunting parties thumped their chests, and we split into smaller groups so as not to flush all the game across the river and into our neighbors’ grounds.
The shaman’s group consisted of a handful of trusted honor guard, Eli, and me.
And while the other guardsmen were too busy salivating over their chance to sink their spears into something warm and thrashing, I was on the lookout for any potential threat to Droko.
“You worry too much,” Archie often told me.
“Even if someone did have it out for Droko, would they really risk a shaman’s death curse? ”
Never underestimate the stupidity of your enemy.
In particular, I disliked the look of the hunters from the Lost Clan.
Their gear was shoddy and ill-cared for, and they glanced toward the shaman’s group far too much for my liking.
Once General Marok strode over and gave us our assignment—circle the city and trap our prey against the bank of the river at its deepest, fastest point—we set off into the woods, leaving the Lost Clan hunters behind.
We did our best to move swift and silent, but my men and I had trained to defend the caves. Even the hazy, overcast light made me squint, and endless dried bits of grasses and trees crackled underfoot. “We sound like a team of drunk oxen,” Droko remarked.
I said, “But we move toward the water. If we do flush something out, we can trap it against the river.”
Eli chuffed.
“What’s so funny?” Droko demanded. “It’s a solid plan.”
“As solid as a frozen river?” Eli said.
He was mistaken. The river never froze over this early in the season. And yet, the way his breath plumed out from him as he spoke…he might very well be right.
“We’re sure to bring in a good catch,” Droko said.
It looked to me like he was just glad to be out in the woods, but I would never second-guess his motives. “Did you have a vision?”
He thumped me on the arm, laughing. “Not at all—I heard Marok sending the Lost Clan to the northern glade. If we sound like a team of oxen, they’ll be louder than a whole herd. Between their racket and the river barrier, game will be leaping onto our spears!”
The young shaman was pragmatic. I’d give him that.
We marched toward our position in an orderly formation. But Eli continuously fell out of line, looking up at the sky. “Your legs may be short,” I told him, “but it’s not a punishing pace. You need to keep up. The weakest member can’t delay the whole group.”
“I can keep up.” He jutted his chin skyward. “But I’m more worried about the storm.”
I glanced at the sky. It was gray. But this time of year, it often was. “The shaman says the hunt will be a success. And so it will. The sooner we get to our grounds, the sooner we’ll bag our trophies. Stop looking at the clouds and fall in line.”
He rolled his eyes. But he did as he was told, so I didn’t punish the insolence.
Human ways were not our ways. Archie often hemmed and hawed, though ultimately, he obeyed.
And though Eli might not be weak compared to others of his kind, all humans were fragile.
Beating him into capitulation would only slow us down.
And apparently, even a beating was not necessary to slow his pace. He stopped so suddenly, the guard behind him had to swerve to keep from knocking him over. “Eli!” I snapped.
But he turned to me and held up the fur-bound edge of his cloak. “Look, Kof. It’s snowing.”
Of course not—it was far too early for snow.
Humans can see ridiculously minute things, though.
More likely, he’d just spotted some nits rooting around in the fur.
But then a white fleck lit on the feathers around my spearhead, and a bright spot of cold touched my forehead… and I realized Eli was right.
“A good omen,” Droko declared. “The game will be easy to track.”
A murmur of agreement went through the honor guard. That pragmatism of Droko’s was a welcome change from Taruut’s cryptic pronouncements.
As we trekked toward our assigned area, the snow continued to come down. And down.
And down.
Within the hour, not only had the temperature dropped, but visibility, too.
Even worse, the blanket of new-fallen snow obliterated all the familiar scents that would guide us.
Normally, I’d know where the river lay by scent alone, even if the water was low and the current was sluggish.
Now, we could be heading inland for all I could tell.
But Droko was not only a wise leader—he was an accomplished outdoorsman. Moreso than any of us honor guards, who spent all our time in the caverns. And though the snow was coming down in sheets, eventually, the terrain dipped down and we found ourselves at the river.
Though the only reason I recognized it as such was the slope of the banks. The water had entirely frozen over. It was buried now under a good hand’s breadth of drifting snow.
We paused to let the men behind us catch up. I spied a few blowing into their palms. For warmth? Or to ward off supposed magic?
Eli stepped up beside me, swaddled in furs. The snowflakes that clung to the trim were so large now that even I could see them. “We should turn back,” he said. “The shaman will listen to you, won’t he? You need to tell him.”
“It will take more than a snowfall for him to go against the chieftain’s direct orders,” I said.
“This?” Eli indicated the weather with an impatient sweep of his arm. “This is nothing compared to what’s on the way.”
“And how would you know?” demanded one of the guards. “Unless your unnatural magic brought it here.”
“Quiet!” I barked. “Even Taruut could not control the weather. Stop staring at the human and scan the woods for game!”
A sullen silence descended on the men. The woods were unnaturally silent, all sound absorbed by the deepening snow.
The rush of the river was absent, and birdsong too.
The stillness was eerie. And when a sudden crash sounded just down the bank, a dozen spears were immediately poised to make short work of whatever had come upon us… .
But it was nothing but a branch that had given way under the weight of the wet snow.
Eli leaned in close. Even through the crisp air, his human scent beckoned to me. And beyond that, the elusive undertone that felt more familiar to me than even my own sleeping mat….
“We should find shelter,” he whispered. “Maybe a few of the bigger pines would have hollows underneath where we could wait out the storm. Or maybe we could find a rocky overhang and construct a lean-to—”
“You’re bundled in furs. Can you truly not survive a few hours in the cold?”
“You just don’t get it,” he hissed. “I’m not talking hours. I’m talking days—”
A sound like thunder reverberated through the woods. But it wasn’t thunder—it was the sound of a tree coming down. It hadn’t finished dropping its leaves, which caused heavy clods of snow to gather in the boughs.
Too much for the tree to bear.
We were all staring at the gap in the canopy when Eli grabbed a fistful of my cloak and said, “Kof—what’s the shaman doing?”
I swung around and saw Droko was now several paces down the bank, heading for the frozen river. I couldn’t tell where the bank ended and the water began. And bitterly cold or not, if the river had frozen, it was so early in the year, the ice would still be thin.
“Shaman!” I bellowed, but he strode forward, stiff-legged, as if he hadn’t heard me, even though my voice had cut straight through the muffled silence.
The snowfall was coming so heavily now that his closest footprints were already filling in.
I plowed along after him, startled when my feet sank into the snow to my knees. “Shaman, wait!”