Rune Bearer

#1. A strange white wolf in the thicket

In the mine of Cirdanoth stood human men and women with hunched shoulders and swollen knuckles, many of who have since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces were too raw and clumsy.

"You may take our land but not our soul." The old man said, pressing his arm around the axe in his hand.

"To us, a King is promised." The man screamed and the soldiers stared at him with morbid curiosity.

"A king is promised!" A roar escaped the crowd of people. His right hand held onto the scabbard and the blade was too exquisitely balanced in the man's left hand.

"And he will come ripping your head apart." Chimed the old man. "You leeching masked." he enunciated the last word with spite. "Elvish Mongers!" He muttered slowly to the Elven soldier before him.

"To him, the songs of the Sky and Storm shall be sung and he will unite all of us. Until then we shall protect our land. To the north!" The roaring continued; it smelled of courage and life, the smell of hope.

"Bunch of sacrilege!"

"We will make our new home upon the bone of our. . ." the hearing killed into dust.

A blade slashed through the air, the man gagged gasping for air, seeing things staggeringly. On the release, his eyes were plunged behind and his skull hung on a spike pointing at the Elven soldier that had blood splattered all over his armour and face was a satisfied smirk.

They saw his head decapitated and his body fighting with red. The slaves just saw a man die, one of their own. Blood flowed like a river on the floor.

"Hang his head to serve as an instance to each of them." Commander Nikolai's shoulder stiffens.

"The king of the feeble." One of the Elven soldiers blurted and the rest bursts into a roar of laughter. ''Who doesn't exist? He is no match for our lord Satchel." The human slaves were spent as the night, nervous about who is next whereas there is no hope for them, the king that they have spent decades waiting for.

"This today will serve as an instance to any of you who sired mutiny! I won't hesitate to feed you to the worms in the pit! Or send you to the Nugs!" A warning tolled in increasing the panic.

The clear street gave the commander a better vantage point than anyone else by the side, he walked the cobbled street not too slow not too fast pride emitting from him.

>>>

Only that it been years and no grass has dared sprout on the land, summer, autumn and winter. Hope had forebodingly gone awashed like the shore that no longer bounced with the hummingbird or the sound of mercenaries, a boundary had erupted and only a fraction of what remains is called the false North with the false hope of a king after the Elves had occupied the land called Cirdanoth. The agony was written too plainly across the land.

The forest had become a labyrinth of snow. Tactfully and slowly a young man with barely a stubble walked along, he had been monitoring the parameter of the mass. And his view in the crook had turned useless. "Can't a man hunt in peace? The mount found me, never to let it obvious, let nature surprise us with a catch." Elrond's voice clicked into a whisper shutting his companion.

The wind blew along his path, hunger had brought him farther than he could think from home but winter was a hard time. The animals had pulled in and gone into hibernation. Making him pick the stragglers one by one hoping it would last them until spring.

Beside him stood Elton, he wiped his numb fingers over his eyes, brushing away the flakes clinging to his lashes. Here there were no telltale trees stripped off bark to mark the deer’s passing.

"Half brother, I knew this idea was stupid," Elton said breathing raspily. "Put in the damn call, you know how this goes."

They would remain until the bark ran out, then travel north past the wolves' territory and perhaps into the land of Cirdanoth where no mortals would dare go, not unless they had a death wish or wishes to be slaves digging up the stones in the mines. Elrond's determination went this far.

"I told you Elrond this search will land us in vain, nothing still I shouldn't have come with you to freeze my leg to numb in this cold," Eton said.

Elrond sighed through his nose, digging the tip of his bow into the ground, he leaned his forehead against the crude curve of wood.

"We wouldn’t last another week without meat. We have run out of the last catch. And too many families had already started begging us to help. I’d witnessed firsthand exactly how far their charity went." He said in a deep yet young voice. ''We agreed we're not backing down without—" The word twisted in Elrond's belly like a knife, and for a while, he was lost.

"For what I know it's dangerous out here, and should father —"

Elrond raised his hand to his mouth, shushing Eton.

He eased into a more comfortable position and calmed his breathing, straining to listen to the forest over the wind.

"My guts are not so frail, I sense something. We might catch a deer, hare, bunny, anything just trust me." Eton nodded.

The snow fell and fell, dancing and curling like sparkling spindrifts, the white fresh and clean against the brown and grey of the world. And despite himself, despite his numb limbs, Elrond stood, young and dark ready to lunch forward, he quieted that relentless, vicious part of his mind to take in the snow-veiled woods.

"No way I'm staying here to be clumped out by snow." Eton slouched and rubbed the palm of his hand together. "I have no choice other than to join you." He shrugged and joined Elrond.

The howling wind calmed into a soft sighing.

The snow fell lazily now, in big, fat clumps that gathered along every nook and bump of the trees.

Thinking about the lethal, gentle beauty of the snow. They will soon have to return to the muddy, frozen roads of the village, to the cramped heat of their cottage. Some small, fragmented part of Elrond cringed at the thought of going without even a bowler, but he paid no hindsight to it.

"You know what Elrond I should die from starving than to be turned into a—"

Bushes rustled across the clearing before he could finish. Eton reluctantly shrugged.

"Listen, there is hope for us, just stay put for now Eton."

Drawing his bow was a matter of instinct. He peered through the thorns, and his breath caught.

Less than thirty paces away stood a small doe, not yet too scrawny from winter, but desperate enough to wrench bark from a tree in the clearing. A deer like that could feed their family for a week or more their eyes lit up with a sigh,

"See." He points ahead. "This is what I was telling you about." There was a smile of hope etched across his lips.

Their mouths watered. Quiet as the wind hissed through dead leaves, he aimed.

Well, they could dry half the meat, and the rest could be used to make a rich stew to be eaten immediately. Her skin could be sold, or perhaps turned into clothing for one of them, but Grace will fight until she gets a new fancy coat out of it. He thought and focused on his target.

"You sure that deer or doe over there didn't see us?"

The doe continued tearing off strips of bark, chewing slowly, utterly unaware that her death waited yards away.

"Shit, keep quiet else I will use you as bait." He demanded and Eton rolled his eyes.

"I'm older than you!" He retorted.

Elrond ignored and his fingers trembled. So much food, such salvation. Elrond took a steadying breath, double-checking his aim.

But there was a pair of golden eyes shining from the bush adjacent to his.

The forest went silent. The wind died. Even the snow paused. The mortals no longer kept gods to worship, but if they had known their lost names, a prayer would have been said to them, all of them now that he was hooked in the throat. All of them. Disguised in the thicket, the wolf inched closer, its gaze set on the oblivious deer.

He was enormous, like the size of a pony and though he'd been warned about their presence, the monsters that had this kind of furs, a rare monster strikingly visible among everything reluctantly Elrond surrendered his bow wondering if he would ever get to hold it again, his mouth turned bone-dry.