North Dark | Chapter 8 of 21

... he removes one hand from the sled and draws his crossbow. He lowers himself and braces the stock of the crossbow against the wicker handle.

Two Crows arrives at a small, windswept Maunder camp. Shabby shell tents stand clumped in a townlet of three. Thrall could have camped here. Perhaps he even stayed here. It is early in the day. There is a chance he is still here.

Two seamy, leather-skinned women stand outside their tent. They stare at Two Crows as he rides in, slows the dogs and stops. He stares at them, lifts his chin. How many people are here? Where are your men?

The women wear steely, impassive faces. He steps off his sled and hoists his fire iron and knife. He gestures with the weapons. Step aside. The women abandon the doorway of the first tent and he ducks beneath the fly and throws open the flaps. A thin gust of hot, salted odor. Only dirty blankets within.

He opens the flaps of the second tent. Three dirty children sit looking up and blinking at him.

In the final tent, an old man pretends to sleep.

He looks at the women and both of them, simultaneously, wordlessly, point northward toward Dusk.

Camping that night, the wolf returns. The dogs notice. They stir, bark at the woods, and when the wolf steps into the light, all of the dogs lower and cower. The wolf paws forward and Two Crows leans toward the animal, staring into its face. Its breath is warm and meaty.

Who are you?

“You are being followed,” the wolf whispers in a hissing, papery voice.

The wolf slips back into the woods and scampers away, upsetting the stillness of the trees.

Two Crows catches sight of a rider ahead of him in the distance. He mushes the dogs forward and after a while, sees that the man on the sled is too hunched, too small to be Thrall. He and his team pass the rider. It is an old man wrapped in blankets. He is bald and his skin is as white as his eyes. He looks like some small ghoul wrapped in wax. He travels slowly. His team is only a single pair of ratty gray dogs. Two Crows rides on.

---

Late in the night, a tall boy wrapped in wolfskins walks into Two Crows’ camp. His face is cloaked in shadows but his yellow eyes glow like small chemical fires in the darkness. He looks down at the low burning fire and spits into it. The dogs do not wake; they do not notice the boy. Two Crows grips his knife and his fire iron but feels, for no reason he can name, that this boy wrapped in wolfskins is not here to do him harm. Or if he is, he will at least speak of it first.

“I know you’re awake,” the boy says.

Two Crows sits up, stares at the boy, then climbs to his feet and walks over to the fire. He squats down and jabs the barbed head of the iron into the smoldering embers. The boy in wolfskins squats down opposite him.

I don’t have any food to share with you.

“Not asking for any.”

What do you want?

“I came here to warn you.”

Warn me about what?

“You are being followed.”

I am. I’m being followed by you.

“Not just me.”

Who else then?

“Two young men.”

My brothers.

“Yes. They’re traveling separately.”

Why separate?

“To maximize their luck. One is considerably closer than the other.”

I’ll find Thrall before they find me.

“Thrall?”

The hood that killed my father.

“A hood killed your father? Not you?”

No. Not me. The hood Thrall.

“Killed him with that fire iron?”

Two Crows looks at the fire iron resting in the heat. Yeah. That one.

“I see.”

Do you?

“Who do you think I am?”

Don’t care.

The boy in wolfskins raises his chin a degree. His face shows in the light. His skin is entirely without color. “All right.”

The boy in wolfskins stands and the bones in his knees pop. He turns and walks out toward the shadows of the woods.

You’re not my father, Two Crows calls out.

“No. I’m your Obsidian.”

Two Crows does not have any response to that. He watches the boy in wolfskins step further into the dark, merge with it, vanish from vision.

When the boy is gone, the dogs perk up. The lead dog turns his alert young head out toward the trees. He makes a curious sound. He knows someone has been in the camp and has defeated his abilities of detection. The dog looks to Two Crows for an explanation but receives none.

---

Mushing through the daylight, an overturned sled blocks the trail a mile ahead. Two Crows prepares himself for an ambush. Without slowing the dogs, he removes one hand from the sled and draws his crossbow. He lowers himself and braces the stock of the crossbow against the wicker handle. He rides on, aiming, ready to fire at whatever evil springs out at him.

He passes the overturned sled and the two young boys in need of some kind of rescue. Their dogs seem fine, standing on the side of the trail, watching Two Crows and his team pass. The boys, each no older than ten, might be brothers. One is holding the other across his lap. He seems badly injured. Both are crying.

Once Two Crows is ten yards beyond them he slows and stops his dogs, steps off his sled and looks at the boys. What.

“We need help!” the uninjured boy screams. “My brother needs help.”

Two Crows is unconvinced that this is not a trap. He walks toward the boy cautiously, the crossbow level in his hands.

What’s wrong with him?

“He’s been sick for days. Something bad.” The boy lowers his brother’s scarf to show Two Crows the sickly, yellowed skin of the child’s face. The boy is barely awake. His eyes are swollen and crusted. His clothes are sweated. His veins are blackening beneath the skin of his cheeks. His spine is arched slightly and his fingers are splayed and rigid as though ossified.

Two Crows recoils.

The boy pleads, “He’s sick. Can you help us? Can you take him ahead? Get him to a doctor?”

Two Crows shakes his head no, walks back toward his sled, mounts it, whips the air.