The King of Winters

Chapter 45

Andrew

The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the ridgeline stark against the cloudy night sky.

He ran up back to the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Wolfswood opened up into a vast and cold empire of trees. The smell of earth and trees was heavy in his nose. He could make out the scents of pine needles and acorns and half a dozen other earthy scents. Had his sense of scent always been this good?

He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up the incline. It felt different now than when he ran with two legs. He had been fast then, climbing and leaping and vaulting across buildings, running along narrow beams and above sloping stone roofs but now he was faster. A silent wind passed through the branches as he raced by, making the leaves rustle in a sweet melody. He could hear the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.

Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet to stand upon the crest. The moon hung above the tall pines pale and round, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he could see or smell.

He was strong and swift and fierce, quiet as a ghost and quick as a lightning bolt, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.

Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now he could see more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.

He had a pack as well, once. He felt a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness. He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow.

These woods belonged to him, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. A grey stone hall had been his home once when he was with other half, the man half but the forest is his home now.

The wind shifted suddenly.

Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in him. He sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far side of the ridge was steeper than the one he'd come up, but he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The scent pulled him onward, ever faster.

The woods were darkening all about him and then he heard the sound.

Stark

The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for the voice, for a glimpse of the human intruder, but there was nothing, only...

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up forming a vast wide net of weirwood roots. The tree was big compared to other weirwoods he had seen, bigger than the one in Winterfell and Starfall, and it was growing still as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. A red eye looked at him. A white root was in the place where the other eye should have been.