The Eye of the Hunter (7 page)

The Moon above hurled past, so large that it seemed to fill the whole of the sky. Titanic upheavals rent the crustal matter, and fire and molten rock poured forth. And the land itself broke apart, as if a mighty hammer had struck the great continent, shattering it into many pieces…thirty-one in all.

And great tides rose up from the oceans and rolled over the land, flooding all.

Out swept the Moon, and then back again, a silver fury causing great upheaval and calamity when it passed near.

And the thirty-one continents riding upon enormous crustal plates slid across the fiery molten core of the earth, crashing into one another, joining, fragmenting, ripping apart, melding together, raising great chains of mountains, rending open vast abysses. Volcanoes spewed out lava; rifts formed and molten stone wrenched up from the guts of the world; continents sank below others; oceans boiled and their floors hove up above the waters, forming new land.

Aeons passed…

And in this time the Moon fled and attacked, fled and attacked, over and again. And with each pass it rendered great destruction upon the face of the world. Yet with each pass it did not flee as far, nor did it draw as near, as if it
were beginning to know the world, as if it were attempting to find a place neither too close nor distant from which to continue its dance; and with each pass its fury lessened.

Finally the Moon gentled, though on the world the fractured crusts and riven continents yet drifted upon the melt deep below, colliding, rifting, driving beneath, heaving up creating volcanoes, raising mountains, shifting the oceans.

As the continents merged and separated, at times there were many of them, at other times few. Occasionally there was just one. But always the one fragmented into more, as the fractured crust and driving fire below shifted and churned, and the land masses hove across the face and through the gut of the world.

Aeons passed, yet over vast epochs of time, as if impelled by some hidden celestial giant, missiles of stone and metal and ice would hurtle out from the dark between the stars, some to strike the silent Moon, others to hammer upon the world. For millennia, down they would thunder, great and small, riding upon golden fiery tails; but then, as if a tide had passed, the skies above would grow quiet once more, remaining so for age upon age, until the next wave rolled.

More time passed while the earth cooled.

There came a day that snow fell, though it melted readily on what was then a torrid world. Still, it was the first snowfall.

And as the stars wheeled throughout the aeons, and the Sun and Moon and bright wanderers traced endless journeys above, still the earth cooled.

And more snow fell, far in the north at first, or perhaps in the extreme south.

Slowly life came into being. From the simple to the complex it progressed, the forces driving it causing living plants and creatures to become more and more intricate, more capable.

But even before and after life came into being, the earth continued to cool.

The continents continued to drift, and the world itself at times grew colder and then warmer, as if slowly shifting farther from the Sun, then nearer, or perhaps it was the Sun shifting and drifting with respect to the world…who can say? Mayhap instead the Sun’s heat slowly waxes and wanes, just as does the light from the Moon, though on an epochal scale rather than monthly. Regardless, weather
patterns changed, for the elements depend upon the warmth of the Sun and the set of the lands to shape the world’s winds and its ocean streams, the engines driving the clime.

And winter came. Snow fell. Continents drifted. The earth and Sun perhaps wandered apart—or thė Sun waned—for the golden orb did not warm the land as it once had, and more snow fell. The world grew colder, more frigid. Oceans diminished as water became locked up in snow and ice. Slowly vast glaciers formed, towering, grinding across the land, until ice covered much of the world.

Weather became harsh and capricious. No longer did there seem to be seasons, or if there were, they existed at one and the same time: spring, summer, winter, fall…each depended upon which way the wind blew—from the ice, toward the ice, or along its rim. And it was bitterly Cold much of the time. Only in that part of the world where the Sun rode along the girth of the world did life thrive, though not well; elsewhere it grimly hung on at best, tenuous in its existence.

But then, as if the Sun waxed, or as if the world and the Sun gradually drew closer together, the ice retreated, melting slowly, until once again the oceans filled and the world grew green even in the north, even in the south.

And still the continents drifted, and still did the drift and the wander affect wind and wave, and still it seemed as if the Sun waxed and waned or the world and Sun wandered, close in some epochs, distant in others, for again the ice advanced…and retreated…and advanced…and retreated…

Many times the great glaciers formed, grinding down from north and up from south, plowing through stone and soil unto bedrock itself, forming moraines and horns and cirques and grooves and kames and domes, scraping out
U
-shaped valleys and carving knife-edge ridges, shifting great stones for hundreds of miles, the ice covering the face of the land.

Yet always they retreated, did the glaciers, leaving behind the evidence of their passage, the striae and shieldrock and vast boulders strangely perched, as well as other scars upon the land.

The last great ice age had loosed its frigid grip from Mithgar some twenty or so millennia past. Even so, far to the north and far to the south, vast stretches of snow and
ice cover the land a mile or more deep. Seldom do these great caps of ice melt away. Even over the long aeons, when the continents themselves shift utterly away from the north and from the south, still the ice caps remain…remnant of what once was, reminder of what is to come.

Yet here and there in other realms of Mithgar, the bones of that age remain as well: in the arc of the Gronfang Mountains and in the Grey Mountains of Xian as well as on the Utan Plateau, and in the northern Rigga Mountains, and the Chulu Mountains on the southern continent—these places and more yet hold reminders of the last age of ice.

In the great chain of the Grimwall Mountains, there on its northern slope, is perhaps the mightiest reminder of all, save for the polar caps themselves. It is the Great North Glacier, flowing down from the interior of that grim range. Miles and miles of ice, locked forever in a vast frozen river. Even though frozen, still it flows, does the main body—slowly to be sure, but flowing still…inches a day, perhaps feet, no more, coming at last to the high north wall, where it crashes asunder on the plains far below, massive chunks calving away from the face of the glacier, to tumble down.

In the summer, at the height of the warmth, the fallen ice melts, and a glacially cold stream, a broad, shallow river, feeds the land with water, white and grey, laden with powdered stone, silt, ground from the Grimwall itself.

Too, in summer, water flows down from the surface of the ice above, seeking to forever diminish the glacier, though not succeeding. Oh, should the summer stay, then the glacier might eventually dissolve, might melt after ages have passed. But the seasons always shift, and always winter returns, bearing its burden of snow.

And along the north wall of the Grimwall Mountains, throughout winter, storm after storm rages forth from the Boreal Sea, and during this time the snow falls as if it will never end, down on the glacier, for the glacier lies upon the prevailing storm track.

Layer after layer it accumulates, does the snow, ton upon ton, packing into ice, some white and pearlescent, some clear as frozen crystal. The weight of the mass itself causes the glacier to flow, inching along at varying speeds, depending upon the slope of the land below, and upon the mass pressing behind. And the Great North Glacier is massive, and the slope steep, and so the main body flows at an
astonishing rate—for a glacier, that is. Yet here and there are immense reservoirs of frozen ice eternally trapped, for they exist at dead ends, or are slow, spinning, grinding, solid eddy currents forever caught in the grasp of mountains cupped to either side.

The flow causes deep rifts to form within the ice, narrow crevasses, opening and closing as the ice accelerates and retards, like gaping maws, opening to accept whatever falls in, closing behind, crunching, splitting, cracking, crushing.

So it has been throughout time, since winter began, since drifting continents crashed one upon the other and mountains were formed, since the birth of the Grimwalls.

So it has been until lately, that is, as glacial time flows, for something has disturbed this mass of ice, this mighty glacier: Some three and a half millennia past—a flick of time in glacial terms—a Dragon was slain in the Grimwall Mountains. ’Twas Black Kalgalath, and his destruction had caused a great upheaval in the earth. Violent shudders wracked the world, the earth trembling and quaking. And this, even the Great North Glacier felt. Mighty cracks and crevasses formed, the ice rending and splitting, the whole of it sliding forward at a rate never before experienced by the mass. Huge chunks were rent from the face, falling to the plains below, there at its terminus. Still, in time the shudders quelled, though they have not yet stopped completely, nor will they; for the very continent had been faulted, there in the Grimwall, and the drifting of the land itself yet causes the plates to grind one against the other, the resulting slips and jerks manifesting themselves as a quaking in this unstable place.

And even the Great North Glacier is affected by this rattling and racking of the land, the consequences of a Dragon’s death.

Even so, the wind blows and winter comes and storms hammer forth from the Boreal Sea, snow falling upon the glacier, replenishing it, building it back unto what it once was, what it yet is, and what it will continue to be: the bones of an ice age, waiting for the resurrection to come.

Late Winter, 5E988
[The, Present]

I
t was yet dark when Riatha and Aravan awakened the others. But dawn came late to Mithgar in these northern climes at this time of year. Even so, Faeril felt as if she had not gotten enough sleep. Gwylly, too, seemed sluggish, groaning awake in the frigid night.

When they stepped outside to relieve themselves, both Warrows noted that low in the west the Eye of the Hunter yet rode the sky.

“Adon!” exclaimed the buccan, “makes shivers run up and down, eh?”

Faeril did not reply, her grim silence speaking volumes as she trudged through the starlit snow, her boots scrutching in the frigid white.

When the Warrows returned, the odor of freshly brewed tea was redolent on the air, mingled with the pungent smoke of burning
ren
droppings. They hurriedly ate a cold breakfast of jerky and crue, warmed by hot tea. And during the meal Riatha paced back and forth, anxious to be gone. Now and again she stepped from the ruins and peered southward through the fading starlight, toward the dark bulk of the distant Grimwall Mountains.

As they had done the previous night, the sledmasters melted snow for water for the dogs; they used copper pans and poured the melt into the many waterskins each team carried. As B’arr had explained, “Dog no drink enough Sledmaster make dog drink. Then have enough
makt
,
enough
strength
and
lasting
, to go long. Eat snow, bad. Eat snow, steal
makt
. Eat snow, dog get cold inside. Dog need more food get warm again. More food get
makt
back. But food sometime…sometime little, sometime not much when hunting poor, when fishing poor, or when go long way but not carry many food. We give water. Drink water, good. Dog stay warm inside when drink water, not get cold from eating snow, not waste food to get back
makt
.”

Even as snow was being melted, the sledmasters made several trips to the dogs, forcing them to drink, returning to fill more waterskins with fresh liquid, aided in this task by the Warrows.

Meanwhile, Aravan and Riatha busied themselves breaking camp, rolling up tightly the down-filled sleeping bags, packing away the supplies and utensils, bundling all.

With the dogs watered, the
Mygga
and
Fé
laded the sleds, while B’arr and Tchuka and Ruluk began hitching the teams to the tow line: the great power dogs in back, closest to the sleds, where their strength would best serve, the lighter and faster dogs fastened farther up the line, the swiftest in front, each team arranged as B’arr had said: “
Makt
in back,
hast
in front.”

Last to be hitched were the lead dogs—Shlee, Laska, and Garr—each sledmaster parading the dominant dog the length of the
span
.

At a nod from B’arr, Gwylly and Faeril settled into the sled basket and covered themselves with the warm furs. The sledmaster glanced back, seeing that the others were ready, too.

“Hypp!”
he barked, and the team surged, dogs leaping against their tug lines, lunging to get the sled in motion. Slowly it started, and then picked up speed, gliding across the frozen waste. Behind, Gwylly could hear the other sledmasters calling out
“Hypp!”
to their own teams.

And out into the vast wilderness they fared, the dogs trotting eagerly through the glancing light of the low-hung Moon, while stars yet shone dimly in the paling skies above and the Eye of the Hunter dipped beyond seeing over the rim of the world.

* * *

An hour they ran, the sledmasters calling out now and again
strak
or
venstre
or
høyre
to keep the team running straight or to swing left or right, and at last the Sun rose
low in the southeast, riding a shallow angle up into the sky. Before them the Grimwall Mountains loomed in silhouette, dark and foreboding, black and grey stone rearing upward snow-covered for the most. Faeril and Gwylly looked at each other, while their hearts pounded a desperate tattoo.