"Ghost!" Hunter screamed as he leaped forward and viciously snatched the wolf by its thick black mane, hauling him from the monster's deadly embrace as it was claimed by space and night.
Only at the last minute did a taloned hand lash out to smash against the ledge with titanic strength and titanic rage before its great weight pulled it down and away, leaving claw marks in the stone.
It was gone.
Wind and the last of night enveloped Hunter as he crouched on a boulder, resting on his way back to the ragged campsite. From the stars, he estimated two hours before dawn.
He moved only his eyes as he scanned the broad expanse, patient and disciplined. He felt alive in the purity of it, at home again. But it had been a narrow escape, and even Ghost had not come away unscathed. A series of savage gashes had been torn in the wolf's neck and ribs, slashes that had even torn through the thick fur, though the wolf did not seem to notice. Hunter smiled at the thought; Ghost never noticed anything at all, had never asked a question in his life.
Easing down, Hunter had traveled less than a mile, moving toward a pass that would quickly return him to the camp, when Ghost stopped in place and emitted a single threatening growl. Hunter reacted instantly, swinging the Marlin from his shoulder in a vertical movement.
Immediately Ghost fell silent and Hunter remembered that the big wolf only gave one warning. The next sound Ghost made would be something beyond wild, something that thundered from the center of a blurring black death.
For almost five minutes Hunter held position, conditioned to waiting without sound or movement. Then, in the distance, he saw a black silhouette emerge over a ridge. Ghost lifted his nose slightly to the oncoming wind, tasting a scent as he stood solidly on all fours, head slightly lowered at an intense animal angle.
"Easy, boy," Hunter whispered, noticing the shape was walking slowly and somewhat unsteadily. He squinted through the night, grateful that his vision had improved so much with use, and tried to make out details. He saw almost instantly that it wasn't the creature because it was too small, held too short a stride, and its bulk wasn't right.
Hunter moved to the side without a sound, crouching low, using a boulder to hide his profile against the sky, and then he slid around it and out of sight. He knew that if the man was alert, the width of the boulder would have appeared slightly larger for a split second before Hunter had moved behind it, but he doubted the man had noticed. Hunter gave no concern to Ghost, knowing the wolf would melt beyond the rock with only the faintest flicker of night shadow.
Carefully selecting his ground, Hunter crouched on a slope, still hidden from the stranger's view but bisecting his path. Then, when the man passed beneath him, beyond view but well within Hunter's acute hearing, Hunter stood, staring down.
Instantly the figure whirled, raising a rifle.
Hunter was implacable.
It was an old man. An old Anathasian man.
A hundred years ago, men knew them only by the primitive term "Eskimo," native Indians of the far north. But in the white light of approaching dawn Hunter could identify the style of crude leather clothing, the hair, could almost read every harsh year of survival etched in the gaunt brown face. And he recalled that the Anathasians were once revered as the continent's most accomplished hunters and trackers, even selected their chiefs by their prowess at such things. Those, and war.
It was a warrior race, Hunter knew, and the aspect before him did not belie that suspicion. Slowly, the old man lowered his rifle.
Hunter spoke. "It is too cold to be walking alone in the night, Grandfather, so far from your fire," he said. He knew that, among all North American Indian tribes, "grandfather" was a term of respect.
The old man nodded once. "Yes," he said. Then, "I hunt. Only now I do not hunt so well. Or I would have seen you." He shook his head. "I must be getting very old. I must hunt very badly now."
"Not so bad," Hunter smiled. "Not so old."
Hunter noticed that the gaunt voice, so low against the wind, seemed weary and disturbed. He continued, "Why do you leave the safety of your village to walk alone in the night? And what do you hunt in the night that you cannot hunt in the day?"
The old man hesitated. "I hunt the beast that walks by night," he said simply, unafraid.
There was no need for more. Hunter knew what the old man hunted, alone and helpless, wandering through the hungry cold in the coldest hours before dawn. "Why do you hunt this beast that walks at night?"
The old man bowed his head. "I had a grandson." He waited long, and longer. "I have one no more. He was young. Just learning to hunt. I was there when the beast…"
Hunter bowed his head. Then, bracing, he looked up. "I am sorry, Grandfather. I am sorry for you, and for your family, and for your people. But I will avenge your grandson."
The old man seemed to stagger slightly. He did a kind of quarter turn, to face Hunter fully. "You… hunt…"
"Yes," Hunter said plainly. Up here, he knew, where men were so alone with each other against so much that was not man, there was no need for lies. "Yes. I hunt it."
It was enough. The old man nodded, simple as that. He believed, but Hunter knew he believed for more than the words. A long time in the wild, and a man learned to read the words of other men, perhaps because they heard them so little.
Hunter saw more clearly the old man's withered face as he seemed to somehow step into a fresher shade of moonlight. The countenance was indeed old, but the eyes scintillated with intelligence, keen and quick. "And what is this beast, Grandfather?"
The old man approached the foot of the rock.
Hunter did not move.
"It is not the bear," the old man said. "But it is not man. I do not know…what it is. I only know that it does not belong."
"Why does it not belong?"
"Because…" The old man paused. "I have seen pictures of it. Many years ago, when I was a boy, I saw pictures of it in the caves." He pointed to a faraway ridge with his rifle. "Long ago, when my people lived in the caves, we knew the pictures well. The pictures, they were drawn by those who came before us, the storytellers. There were pictures of this beast that walks in the night… I remember these pictures."
Hunter frowned. "And so what did these pictures say, Grandfather? You said it is not a bear. You said it is not a man. Tell me more of these pictures."
"It is not man… but it was feared by man," he answered slowly, but his voice seemed subdued, taken by the gusting wind. "The pictures, they spoke of war. War among the natural man and the unnatural man, the Iceman. They spoke of slaughter, and much killing. And they spoke of bones at another place, a cursed place. We do not go there. To the other place." He pointed south with the rifle. "It is at the place the white man calls… White Mountains. On the river where it bends, beside the water that comes out of the rock. We call it Cave of Souls. There was much death there."
Hunter knew.
"I heard the old people speak of it once. They said that the Cave of Souls is where the Iceman lived long ago, before it no longer belonged, and the forest took it. They say there are also pictures there. And much death. For it is a haunted place. An evil place. But you can find it by following the water that flows from the rock between the two beasts, I have heard. But I do not know. I have never been there."
Hunter said nothing.
Pausing, the old man continued: "When I was a boy, we would find things in the mountains. Weapons not made by my people. All very old. My grandfather told me it had always been that way. And then he would speak of hidden things… of things buried in the ice. And one day, after we found a bow deep inside the north, he spoke of when he was a young man and they found one of the men of ice. It was very old. Frozen. And when they lifted him from the ice and carried him to the village, his body crumbled like ancient bone. But I remember my father's eyes as he spoke of it, and I know he was very afraid." A pause. "Just as I know that I, too, am very afraid."