I made my way back out of the trees. I strayed away from the path of the mages as I entered the spruce, and I hoped to find their tracks so that I could make sure I was going the right direction back to town. I would wait for Io, even if that meant I waited all night.
But the snowy field before me was empty and untouched aside from the trail I had just made coming out of the trees. I didn't think I had walked very far—it only seemed like a few feet into the tree line.
I would need to forge my own path through the waist-deep snow to get back.
I looked up into the sky, thinking I might see the dark outline of Veles, whose inky scales were blacker even than the night sky—or the pale ethereal glow of Eroa, whose name had come to me in that dream of another life.
I saw neither Veles nor Eroa, just the breathtaking starry sky overhead. I stood there for several moments, tracing the line of the constellations I knew—the maiden with her long flowing hair, the mother at her side, with her hand out in offer of some assistance, and the bent and aged crone, just above and to the right, whose stooped back had always made me think of a turtle.
A faint whoosh sounded far-off to my right, and I turned, trying to peer into the shadowy trees.
A growl came from behind me. Another, deep, ominous, and somehow wet sounding, came from the right.
I lifted my sword and turned in a slow circle, hoping whatever beast was behind me would not be startled into pouncing.
A huge black shape stood only a few yards away. I could see another at the edge of my vision, now on the left, the deep-black stark against the snowy landscape.
I held my breath, hardly daring to move my eyes as the sound of the creature's wet-raspy breathing reached my ears.
It was roughly wolf shaped, but enormous, its back rounded at the shoulders in a hump. Spiky fur jutted off in points that looked as sharp as blades.
Its face was shadowed as it growled again, low and menacing. Something dripped from its snout and fell steaming and hissing onto thesnow—blood, most likely—from the people in the Beaver Trap it had dragged away.
It coiled its legs to spring, and I dove to the side, swinging my sword out in an arc. It connected with some part of the creature’s chest.
Where my blade grazed it, tendrils of black streamed out into the air as though its blood was smoky darkness.
I got to my feet and heard a yelp, strange and unearthly from my left. The creature I cut angled back towards me, coming at my face with snapping teeth and jaws.
I shoved my blade directly into the thing's eye—or where its eye should have been if its face was not blanketed in unnatural darkness.
Life fled from it quickly as it fell, pulling my sword arm with it. I was yanked down by the weight of my blade buried in its head.
I tried to wrench my blade free as I turned to face the second beast, but a set of thick shoulders obscured my view of the sky. I saw Io's sardonic smile and those night black eyes.
"Well, hello there, darling," he said, reaching a hand down to me. "I thought you could use a hand there."
He pulled me to my feet, and I just knew he was resisting the urge to run his hands over me, to see if I was alright.
He held his sword out to the side while gore dripped from the length of the blade. It hit the snow with a steaming hiss as though it was fiery hot.
"What was that thing?" I asked as his hand seemed to lose the battle a little, and he ran it down my spine. "Was that a farnook?"
"No. Those were fucking hellhounds," he said with a sudden look of disgust.
"Are they falciferum, like the others?" I asked.
"I suppose you could consider them so. But either way, they haven't been in this world for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They were eradicated very carefully over many long centuries by my Darkwatch ancestors, the druids."
"Were there others out here?"
"At least a dozen. I think we got them all though."
"Did you find any people?"
He shook his head, giving me an apologetic look.
"They can't have taken everyone in the brothel!" I said with renewed horror, thinking of poor Ida.
