Prologue
Peter stood on a shallow bluff in his oiled wegskin cloak and surveyed the trail ahead, not sure what he was looking for. The mist and rain obscured the mountains, and turned the conifer forest into a formless swath of shadows. He could just barely make out the unkempt path winding away into the fog. Empty and dreary, obscure as a wisp of smoke, but he could see its shape for miles. The stillness of the forest didn’t falter.
“See anything?”
Peter turned to look down on the man who called him. Demyan Belka stood blinking the misty rain from his eyes as he waited for his apprentice to answer. Beside Demyan were two other men, fur traders traveling with them from the village. Peter didn’t know them well.
“No more than a lot of mud and wet,” Peter barked.
One of the traders shook his head. “I don’t know what’s gotten these damned animals so spooked,” he said, sauntering over to his rough wagon piled high with animal skins. Hitched at the front was a big garjen, its amber eyes wide and frightened as it tip-toed in place on its hoof-like claws. The frill down its neck was fully raised and stiff.
The other two garjen, one hitched to Demyan’s smaller cart full of wrought iron wares and the other in riding tack, were not much better off. The smaller unhitched animal was the calmest of the three, but even she was clicking her beak in agitation.
“It’ll be dangerous for us to keep going,” Demyan growled as Peter started climbing carefully down from the small bluff. The rocks were slick and muddy.
“You joking?” the other trader snapped. “We’re halfway to Yorgov already, I’m not turning back now. We’ll be there by tomorrow.”
Peter stumbled the last few feet down the bluff to Demyan’s side, where he stood watching his master’s face warily. Demyan seemed to be undecided. One of the traders was now trying to calm the big garjen, but the animal hissed and tossed its head, keeping away from him.
“Come on now,” the trader crooned, “get a hold of yourself. You’re an embarrassment to your kind, you are.”
“Couldn’t be huroden, could it?” Peter asked Demyan under his breath.
Demyan chuckled. “Remember we call them direroden here in the south, lad. They’re bigger than your parent’s northern breeds. And even if it were a direrodi or two, we haven’t got anything to fear from them. We’ve done nothing to attract their attention.”
Peter frowned. He suspected Demyan’s assurance was grounded at least partially in superstition. The blacksmith was a fount of fables. But… if it wasn’t direroden, then what did Demyan think was so dangerous about going on?
“Probably caught scent of something back along the trail that’s long past,” said the trader trying to calm the big garjen. “If we keep going, they ought to calm down.”
“Yeah, we should move along,” said the other trader. “They aren’t so spooked to bolt. Besides, whatever they smelled could be busy catching up to us.”
“That’s no way to talk now, Kiov,” Demyan grumbled. “No use getting ourselves worked up, or we’re no better than these beasts.”
Peter nodded in agreement.
“No use standing around here kicking the ground either,” Kiov mumbled.
“That I agree with.” Demyan gestured enthusiastically and started toward his cart. He’d made up his mind, it seemed. “Like you said, Harov: We’ll be there by tomorrow. Peter, take the pied up front. Hopefully seeing her as steadfast as she is will put these two at ease.”
Moments later, the sodden group of travelers took up the reins and carried on down the narrow, muddy trail, the two traders balanced on their pile of furs and Demyan on his rattling cart. Riding in front on the small pied, Peter could hear the other two garjen making their anxious noises and occasionally giving their drivers trouble, but he refused to look back at them. He had to stay focused on keeping his own mount composed.
“Peter remember,” Demyan called up to him, “the trail up ahead will probably turn to grass. Just keep heading the same way.”
Peter nodded without turning or speaking. He knew that, of course. He’d been down the trail with Demyan many times. Granted, on these trips he usually busied himself chatting with Demyan’s intrepid thirteen year old daughter, not paying too much attention to the trail, but he wasn’t entirely useless. The inscrutable girl wasn’t around this time to distract everyone by riding off into the woods at every opportunity.
Suddenly Peter noticed the sound of Demyan’s clanking iron-filled cart cease, and he gently pulled his garjen around in an easy stop. She hissed and flicked her frill but otherwise kept calm. Looking up, Peter saw that Demyan’s garjen had frozen in its tracks, face turned to the woods left of the trail.
“Come on now,” Demyan offered quietly. He twitched the reins over his garjen’s back, but it didn’t move. “Eh, Peter. Keep on ahead. Perhaps-”
A branch snapped somewhere in the trees, and Demyan’s garjen erupted in a frenzy of screeches and flailing legs. The animal flung itself sideways, tipping Demyan’s cart over on top of him. The rails of the cart trapped and brought the garjen down, kicking madly, into the mud.
Peter’s mount reared and screamed, and he could no longer pay attention to whatever was happening to Demyan or the others as the pied garjen suddenly bolted into the trees.
Wet branches whipped at Peter’s face and shoulders, and he had no choice but to crouch down close to the garjen’s neck and cling tightly with his legs to the saddle.
It seemed like hardly any time passed before Peter realized his garjen was no longer in the woods. He looked up to see she had returned to the trail, galloping back along it towards home. Peter acted quickly, taking the reins tight in his hands and pulling back hard to one side, forcing her to circle round and come to an unwilling stop, hissing and stamping at the ground.
“Easy now,” Peter murmured, patting the side of the garjen’s leathery neck as he glanced around, taking in the situation and trying to keep calm. Empty path before him, empty path behind, and nothing but mist beyond the bends of the trees. It was as if his companions had fallen into the earth. Peter tried urging his mount forward, to rejoin them. He had to help! It looked as though Demyan could have been badly hurt by the cart falling on top of him.
But that garjen wouldn’t take another step down the path. She stubbornly tossed her head and clicked her beak, taking more steps backwards than Peter could get her to take forwards.
Ah, but that little bluff was nearby, with a shallow enough slope on the back side to lead the garjen up if he was careful. Maybe he could at least see what was going on. Peter turned the garjen back around and urged her down the trail until he came upon it. He didn’t dare dismount, fearing he would lose her if he did. It would be a very long walk home, or anywhere, without a garjen.
Up the slope Peter went, his mount barely cooperating. He began to doubt the wisdom of this venture halfway up as she danced and fidgeted on the treacherous ground. He could have dismounted and tied the garjen to a tree, could have walked down the trail on foot to rejoin the group, could have done something else, something more wise. But when Peter could finally see from the top of the bluff, he forgot all of that.
At first, Peter couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Down the trail, far enough that the mist blurred everything into vague forms of light and dark, Peter could make out the traders’ wagon. It was overturned with its garjen half under it, unmoving. Demyan’s cart was still laying on its side where it had fallen, but the garjen lay still. Peter couldn’t see Demyan or either of the traders.
But what he could see, standing beside the scene and partially concealed by the trees, was an enormous, dark shape.
Impossible.
Peter blinked and squinted. He had to be seeing it wrong.
But then the thing moved, and Peter knew he wasn’t mistaken. He watched in horror a moment longer, his heart trying to beat itself to pieces in his chest. The screams of Kion and Harov reached his ears.
His garjen turned and bolted again, and this time Peter never stopped her.
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