The Silver Creature's Impossible Gaze

Story So Far

A forest ranger intercepted poachers dragging a silver-furred creature through the Ashenveil, and the creature appeared to look directly at the ranger through the canopy. Three men from Durn had trapped the creature in a rope net, citing Durn permits and livestock losses; the lead man drew a short sword, a younger man gripped a hammer, and the creature lay with shallow rapid breaths and a forelimb bent wrong in the mesh. The ranger held a drawn bow from the trees, the hammer man lost his nerve and let his weapon hang, and the lead man sheathed his sword and stepped back from the net. An arrow struck the dirt an inch from the lead man's boot, he raised his hands and nodded to the others, and all three men retreated into the birches and left empty-handed.

The ranger dropped from a branch beside the netted creature, whose left foreleg was cut deep and dark with blood. The net was cut open with a hunting knife, a strip of cloak lining was torn to bind the wound, and the creature stood on three good limbs with bleeding slowed and looked at a birch whose bark pulsed silver-white once. The ranger kissed the creature's forehead, it went still, then walked carefully into the undergrowth favoring the bound leg while the nearest tree shivered once without wind. The ranger pulled the arrow back into the quiver at nineteen, folded the net under an arm, and started along the forest's edge with the deep Ashenveil to the left.

At grey evening the ranger heard a heavy rhythmic sound about thirty yards deeper in the undergrowth, set the net against a birch, took the bow grip, and pressed still against the trunk under the green cloak. The sound halted, resumed closer and parallel, a branch snapped, and silence fell while an unseen heavy creature stood in the dark roughly knowing the ranger's position. The creature smelled of mud, old blood, and iron, and the grey light was nearly gone. A low, broad-muzzled, mottled grey-brown beast the size of a large wolf stepped from between the trunks and stopped in the last grey light, facing the birch without charging or fleeing, while the ranger held a nocked arrow and the net looped over the left forearm.

When the beast launched itself, the ranger stepped left, let it pass, raised the bow without loosing, and gave a low three-note bird whistle; the creature skidded, wheeled, and showed uncertainty with ears partly lifted. It charged again, the ranger dropped low, slipped past its jaws, slammed it sideways, rolled with it, and came up on top with a knee on its shoulder and a hunting knife pressed flat to the back of its neck until its thrashing stopped. Old poorly healed parallel wounds showed on its flank. The ranger held it until the stillness was real, noted six even scars on its flank, sheathed the knife, and let it rise and walk into the birches. The dead silver creature's head was tied to the belt, the ranger returned to Durn, set the head on the salvagers' table, and found a place to sleep, with a shallow cut on the left palm that had stopped bleeding.

In the morning the salvagers had already left and taken the silver head. The ranger rose, settled the quiver and green cloak, and left through Durn's gate toward the west road with an empty waterskin and a palm gash closed to a stiff dark crust. On the flat frost-rimmed country west of Durn the ranger walked a familiar road, flexed the scabbed left palm, and thought of the scarred creature, the salvagers' dead silver animal, the shimmering birch bark, and a father's old stories.

The father was splitting wood in the yard when the ranger came through the gate with the crusted gash. He seated the ranger at the table, cleaned and tied the hand with linen, heard that salvagers had killed a silver creature and that the mottled one had three evenly spaced old scars, and said his grandfather called such paired animals vethkin. He warned that if one vethkin is dead, the other is looking for it. The ranger told the father where the silver body had been left in the birch stand, and the father said the vethkin would find it and might grieve and move on or might not, then fed a log into the fire. The father forbade the ranger from going back that day and said to eat first before talking further, while the bandaged palm showed a pink stain and frost remained outside.

Three families had lost animals to the Ashenveil edge. The father named the Maren family and the Ostfeld boy, put on his coat, and went out to ready the cart and horse to deliver split firewood behind the shed. He told the ranger not to walk yet, to stay until the hand closed properly, said he would take the cart, split the loads, and leave word that a ranger had asked after the affected families.