SWNOVELS Chapter 8
The sun had set for the ninth time since we departed. The land was as frozen as the night wind, so was the water I noticed, as we touched shore. Desolate as the landscape was there were signs of life, animal life. There was no human in sight, no house, no cave, just nothingness. We had to look for a shelter though, rain was upon us any moment now and strong as we were, it would be harder to move in frozen clothes. Time was of essence, our search on land took more than expected. It seemed as though Alice had planned her escape thoroughly. Her behaviour unsettled the campground of other outposts we had, the greatest hit had been at the headquarters, for weeks we had to walk on our toes around Cole, the smallest thing made him roar.
Robin and I were the only volunteers for this mission. I say volunteers but it was our punishment for not bringing her back the first time.
’Robin, we have to look for shelter or we will be caught in the storm.′
‘I know, we’ll move forward and with some luck we will find something on the way. We cannot afford to lose more time.’
’You are right, but what shall our plan be when we do find her? Alice, I mean.′ Robin said, with a perplexed look.
‘I don’t know, let’s find her first, we will work out something on the way.’ But I was not so sure we will come up to something. Alice was impressive enough as she was for a tamed hunter– now that she went rogue who knew what she was capable of. We were not sure, I was not sure she was still human. The only way to know for sure was to find her.
He sat in front of the fireplace pondering his next move, his arctic disposition was making the man behind him shiver. His eyes reflected the light from the fireplace or maybe the fury inside him had surfaced enough to be seen. The man behind him, a two meters tall giant, was pacing from one foot to the other, unable to utter a word. Cole had sent word for him to come, apparently another one of his men left. Alice’s disappearance made Cole’s madness surface and overflow on his men, this time there was no indication as of what his move would be.
’Any word on Robin’s whereabouts?′
‘Last time he checked in, he and Francis were reaching Scotland, sir.’
’The land of the red-haired beasts, is that were Alice went or just another one of the many lands she had passed?′ Cole said in a low voice.
’No sir, this is not one of her attempts at evading us. Robin said that she seemed to go deeper into the land and she is not alone.′
’The three intruders are with her ey? Thinking she can hide from me on the land I was born, naive little thing, isn’t she?′
‘Indeed sir, she is. How should we proceed now sir?’
‘That depends, is the arsenal ready?’
’It was ready ahead of schedule sir.′
Cole stood up and went to the window, looking outside the white of the snow blinded him for a moment, until he adjusted and all he saw was a white blanket covering the land.
’Tell everyone to get ready, we leave for Scotland first thing tomorrow.′
’Will do. What about Kuno sir?′
’Ah...him, I will deal with him when I see the little bastard. If my intuition is right when we find Alice, we find him.′ He said turning to face his subordinate. ‘One more thing...’ Cole said stopping the man, just as he was about to go out the door ’...prepare the prisoner as well, he will come in handy later.′
A river flowing at its own peace through the rough terrain was nothing unusual, the rain and the snow were normal, birds flying in the sky just as natural as the fish swimming in the sea. The unusual thing was the fog that enveloped me. I could see nothing, just a dense greyish-white smog that reminded me of smoke rising from a fire. With no knowledge of where I was or what was ahead of me I looked around trying too at last find some clue.
’Rumour has it that fog brings with it a dream eating monster, he lures you into its web of smog and you are never to be seen again.′My heart skipped a bit, Nire spoke in a shallow voice almost ghostly.
‘Why do you always do that?’
‘What did I do?’
’You appear out of nowhere, but that would be OK if you did not scare me all the time.′ Nire appeared near me, her amber fur was lighter than usual, her wolfish grin was as clear as a morning sun.
’It is fun teasing you. All you do these days is think, you need to relax a bit too from time to time.′
’How can I relax? I am sure you already know, but Cole’s two little pets are on our tail. It won’t be long until they arrive and all hell will break loose.′
’I know, but worrying about something that is inevitable won’t make it go away.′ She was right, always was. Still, the fact that a war was about to start was terrifying, for some reason ever since I changed I become a coward. ’You are not a coward, what you are feeling are just your instincts kicking in.′
The smog cleared some more while we were speaking and somewhere in the distance a person’s shape approached. I could tell by its silhouette that it was a man but his features were like a shadow. No, not like a shadow, an actual shadow. Something pulled me to him, a feeling of home overcoming me as I moved towards him, Nire remained where she was but her eyes followed the shadow as well. I was about to touch him when someone grabbed my hand.
’...thought you could run away from me that easily?′