Migratory Birds- Chapter 18- Whiteout
#23 of Migratory Birds
Migratory Birds- Chapter 17
Turbulence
by kodayu
Edited by Beezle (aka The Curious Creature)
NOTE: This story is marked "ADULT" for violence and abuse! It is not pornographic!
Cold. It was totally cold. It was the kind of cold that one doesn't feel anymore, that covered up everything, every little urge. It was like a deadly friend nobody could resist.
It surrounded her entirely, it was everywhere and it weighed down on her, buried her. Every breathe she took felt as if she drowned, was dragged deep down below, where nothing but darkness surrounded her and the cold pulled at every hair on her body and the fibers beneath. She opened her mouth wide, but it did not obey her anymore. She wanted to raise her hand, just to move a finger, but she couldn't. She couldn't even feel her fingers anymore.
There was only cold. And the sound of water somewhere.
Every breath hurt in her lungs, she felt like it was slowly filled with water.
She felt tired and wanted to close her eyes, but every time she felt how they were about to close, an instinctive impulse forced them to open again, she clung to this last moment. There was no space for anything else inside her mind, her instincts left no space for anything but her will to hold on to anything, anything at all.
It was snow that came to her mind, the physical memory of how it felt to be buried under, snow that covered every inch of her body and that did not melt anymore.
She was so tired and wanted to sleep.
Suddenly something flashed up and she tried to hold onto it, tried to attain it and suddenly there was only white all around, crystal clear and freezing cold.
Snow, somehow she knew that some of it had to be snow she lay in and that she had been traveling through.
She wanted to tremble, she wanted to feel a little warmth, something that could heat her legs long enough to allow her to stand up. She just wanted to stand up, to grit her teeth in order to get going. But it was impossible.
There was only the cold and the white all around.
A bluish light flashed.
Something moved, some sort of blurred shadow which was suddenly over her.
"Is it still alive?"
Another shadow appeared. She wanted to raise her head, to have a look at whoever was there, she had not heard any words in such a long time, yet they seemed to be so far away and it was impossible for her to raise her head at all as she was completely powerless, nothing but cold flowing through her veins.
"Hardly." The shadow got bigger. "It's still blinking."
"Check her sex, if it's a female we can sell it."
Something moved her, she could see it because the shades of white were suddenly shaking all around, but she could not fell a thing.
"Yep! Her tits are just little zits, though!"
"That's the cold. Let's take her along; if she survives we can sell her in Koodashai."
"Yeah, right!"
One of the shadows reached out, a blurred hand showed up and grabbed her hair, took hold of it and pulled her upwards, pulled her out of the snow that fell down all around and now she could see the sky or what was left of it: There was nothing but the white of snow and ice all around and the sky hiding behind fog which was so thick that there was no way to distinguish where it began and where it ended. She knew that the hand in her headfur had to hurt her, but she did not feel a thing. She felt weightless as she was raised off the ground. A moment later she was thrown upon something, the smell of a large dirty animal was suddenly there at the edge of her mind, but another moment later something dropped down on her and the white disappeared. Suddenly everything was black.
The voices were far away and muffled. "Where did she come from? There's nothing around here except the wasteland."
"Who cares! I just hope she survives until we reach Koodashai. This whole trip has been a waste of time. Damn these rumors about the fugitives. Nobody survives in this cold."
"Yeah, except this one, wherever she came from... She is in a pretty bad shape though."
"Yeah, but then we will make a little bit money at least. It's not like any of the bounties but better than coming home empty-handed."
There was a grunt, followed by silence.
No sound reached her senseless ears and in the darkness she could feel a little warmth she clung to. With all of her feral instincts' power she buried her claws into it and hang on to it and beneath her paws it transformed into a bluish surge that echoed to and fro like a bodiless voice's laughter.
The animal grunted and a moment later she could feel movement as she was being carried away by the huge furred Keelavo1 reptile. There was the creaking sound of the reptile's stumpy legs sinking into the snow.
How did she know it was a Keelavo? The thought rushed through her mind and a moment later it was gone again, as her body succumbed to the lack of power. Somehow she knew that she was not supposed to fall asleep. All of her senses told her that this was a dangerous situation and yet she was unable to fight the ever increasing darkness.
The punch was strong and as she was bound she had no chance to evade it, it hit her with full power and for a moment she blacked out, the little contents of her stomach shot upwards through her throat as she dropped down. She felt as if she was surrounded by water, drowning, but then she was lying in the snow again and the man stood above her and looked down.
"Damn little critter bit me again." There was blood dripping from his hand.
"She is getting back her strength. We will get a better price for her on the market."
"I will get my payback tonight," the other man snarled. "And this time I will tie her up for good."
A strong hand grabbed her by her hair and pulled her out of the snow. She glared at the man, her teeth gritted, fighting the ropes that bound her with every muscle of her body.
"You're a ferocious one, aren't you," he said and grinned.
She snarled and suddenly her muzzle shot forward as she tried to bite the man again.
The male in the thick furred clothes laughed out loud and then he hit her again, punching her again with full force.
Blood shot from her muzzle and the over-whelming pain threw her over, yet it only fueled her rage which shot throughout her like white hot fire. She bucked and threw herself around in the snow, drops of blood dyed the snow around her.
"Get her on the mount again. I don't want to spend any more time in this damn cold. We still gotta get her to the market or she won't have been worth all the trouble."
The hand grabbed her once again and tore at her hair, the pain was intense and a gurgling noise escaped her when thick blood welled up through her mouth and nose. She opened her mouth wide and showed the man all of her teeth, trying to fight his hold on her, but he held her by her hair and her fur and there was nothing she could do.
A moment later he had tossed her on the mount again and she could feel how he started to tie her to the mounts' tack again. One last time she tried her best to fight him, but the moment she bucked she could feel the man grabbing her tail and an instant later tears shot into her eyes when he pulled at it with full force. A high-pitched whine escaped through her gritted teeth.
Then he was suddenly in front of her, his hand grabbed her headfur.
A soundless scream escaped it while he yanked it downwards, then he tore at her arms and tied them to the tack as well so that she was fixed in the position, lying on the back of the large beast, unable to move at all.
A thick, dirty, stinking fur was thrown over her and everything went black again.
"You can get some payback when we set up camp for the night."
"You bet, I will!"
Her scream was inaudible. The moment she raised her voice to such an extent, it turned useless and the gag took care of the rest.
The man above her panted and trembled a little bit. "Yeeeess..."
His hand came down on her face and blinded her, it pushed her deeper, forced her head against the frozen ground while he used her as a support to get up again. Once he stood above her again, he closed his trousers. "You should try it. It's as even better and she surely understands that this is her punishment now."
"If you hurt her, she won't last until we reach the city."
"Bah!" He had sat down next to the campfire. "We just train her. That way she will be even more valuable."
The other man laughed shortly.
The second man poked around in the fire with a wooden stick.
"You know we could..."
She was quivering powerfully, every muscle of her body was tense as she fought her restraints with all of her power, but it had been no use. Her teeth had sunken deep into the thick cloth they had used to gag her. Very slowly she turned her head to look at them even before she knew that she had to, as there was something she had to see...
Some sparks flew up from the fire and lit up the shadows of the surrounding trees, except for one.
The two sitting men stared at it.
"Who are...?" one of the men tried to ask, but he would never finish the sentence.
A long piece of metal flashed.
The other man tried to get up but before he was fully on his feet, the metal came down on him. The man screamed, held his throat where a fountain of blood shot from his body, he screamed on, stumbled towards her and fell down on her, writhing, gurgling, rocking a few more times. Blood shot all around and its warmth spread on her body while the dying man bucked and struggled above her.
At the same moment another blade had fully penetrated the first man's chest, he couldn't scream anymore, but he struggled, tried to push the weight of his chest, but the shape above him just turned the blade, the man bucked, blood shot everywhere, he threw himself around as far as the blade that had went straight through him allowed, he writhed, cramped, struggled, trembled, and with his wide opened eyes he stared at her, still fighting against the blade. He shook, his arms and legs waved all around until a foot came down on his face, pushed him down, pulled the blade from his body. The man gurgled, more blood shot from his chest, his fingers cramped around the receding blade and then it left his body. The man bucked a last time, gurgled, but the foot on his head pressed on, pushed it against the hard frozen ground beneath the snow and slowly the sole squashed the skull with a scrunching noise.
Blood was all over her and her instincts kicked in. Every fiber of her body tensed and pulled at the strings that bound her.
She did not even notice how the shape approached her before it was right in front of her and suddenly...
...for an instant her mind cleared and showed her a face, something she should not be able to see in this darkness and her state of mind. Something she would never forget. She saw it and the sight terrified her. She doubled her efforts, she bucked and tensed even the tiniest of her muscles to get the strings off her. She tried to scream. A sense of panic overwhelmed her.
The figure above her seemed to be unimpressed. It grabbed the corpse that lay on her and threw it aside.
"The trouble a man has got to get through to get some pussy..." the stranger said.
She tried everything to push him off when he came down on her. She struggled, tried to roll over, threw her head around, anything.
"Fuck! I fuckin' hate..." The man tried to get a hold on her, finally got hold of her long felted hair, grabbed it with full power and...
She had recognized his scent by now. He was dead! He was dead! He had died a long time ago! He was dead! He was dead!
...when her head slammed against the ground she almost welcomed the blackness.
The blackness wasn't consistent, she felt like being underwater. So far deep down that no light could ever reach her.
Somewhere there was some hammering sound. Was it her heartbeat?
There were pictures on her mind: The smile of a woman, the harsh feature of a man with prominent sideboards, chimneys and smoke everywhere, soot on her paws... Black soot as dark as everything around her.
Her eyelids quivered and burning light penetrated her skull. Her entire body was in pain: Something had cut into her arms and legs, her entire abdomen was haunted by an intense, but untraceable ache, her head was heavy and every beat of her heart made it hurt terribly and still the pain she felt the most, was the one from between her legs.
The scent of spilled blood was around her, it was so strong that it overshadowed every other fragrance.
Slowly she opened her eyes, seeing the world upside down: The campfire had almost died down, it was hardly enough to illuminate anything but her eyes were sensible enough to reveal the shape that stood beyond the fire and cleaned long metal blades. They shimmered brightly in the dying light of the fire while he turned them, slowly wiping off the blood which had stained them.
It was a coyote, large for his kind, powerful muscles moving beneath the thick clothes he wore. His long silvery hair was combed backwards, revealing a stern, scared and wrinkled face and a mouth full of sharp teeth.
Her heartbeat quickened. She knew him and instantly something took a hold of her heart and squeezed hard until she felt as if it stopped beating. It was like an invisible hand strangling her while every fiber of her body responded to his presence: Tensing, her eyes narrowing... She knew him! The thought hit her like a fist. She knew him and she knew what she would do in just a moment...
Then she was already up and jumped him, a growl escaped her, her barred teeth flashed in the darkness when she tried to get at his throat.
He was thrown over, but instead of falling he rolled over and she was thrown to the ground, lost her grip, but instantly caught the next best thing she could: One of his legs.
The man screamed when her teeth cut through his leather clothes in no time. But then his free foot slammed against her head and she let go of his leg in order to evade the worst, blood shot about. Somehow she knew it was her own. She had been foolish, she had never had a chance against him, not at this time, not until, until... what?
His foot hit her again and despite the pain she was able to roll over absorbing a part of the power. She got to her feet, she could not see straight, it was too dark, her vision was blurred, everything was white and black, but despite that she saw open space in front of her and she dashed off in an attempt to get away. Her body released what little power was left to her while she headed for the space between two trees, just obeying the panic which controlled her now.
But before she could get away, he had caught her by her tail. With full power he yanked her backwards, pushed her to the ground. Just a hoarse yip escaped her. He threw her around, his hand closed around her throat and she was pulled to the air.
She gurgled suddenly deprived of air and for the first time she saw into the face again with the huge scar all over his muzzle, from his right eye to his mouth: It was him! The realization was worse than the hand that strangled her.
Every fiber of her body told her to fight on, but her fear was stronger than her rage in this moment and so was her need for air. She struggled for every breath, tried to get as much of it through her closed throat. Both of her paws tried to pull of the coyote's hand, but his grip did not weaken.
The face of the coyote was right in front her. He studied her and slowly a toothy grin started to show on his face.
Her feet kicked around as she tried to break free.
"You may act like a..." She did not understand the word. "It won't help you. But as you are obviously still alive..." His breath was a white vapor in the cold air.
Her breath rattled in her lungs as she wheezed for air. Yet she remembered the voice now, the low throaty voice full of contempt and she knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth again.
"Let me inform you..."
Her heart stopped beating. My name is Seerye...
"...My name is Seerye! And you are..."
She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, not wanting to hear what he would say. Feline, female...
"...Feline! Female! Feeble! A pathetic little piece of pussy in the midst of nowhere. So let me get this straight right from the start."
You have got three options...
"You have got three options: You can defy me and I will kill you right here! Second..." He hissed the word. "...you can stay here and freeze to death. Or third..."
She had closed her eyes, pressed her eyelids shut until they hurt, just like her burning, air-deprived lungs.
"...you can come with me, but then you are mine to do with what I want, just to make that clear right from the start." His breath flowed over her face, she could smell it even though she tried to block it out, the freezing cold of the snow and ice felt more comfortable than the breath of the man. So...?
"So... what will it be for you?"
His hands opened and the lynx dropped to the ground, attiring hard, yet it did not matter to her, as she did nothing but cough and tried to get air into her lungs again.
Finally she dared to look around, unable to believe that it was really him she saw. It seemed to her as if his head was already disappearing in the fog which was all around, which hid the landscape and blurred the edge between the snow-covered ground and everything above it.
For a moment she was convinced that she was able to remember something very important, but in the same moment she could feel how the rage arose again, accompanied by a sense of panic as she tried to keep it at bay, but suddenly her body was all tensed and almost instantly shot forwards and with her jaw wide opened, her sharp teeth shot towards his neck.
He evaded by mere inches, his hand tried to grab her, but she dodged and fell to the ground.
He could feel how her feet were suddenly between his legs and she tensed and threw him over, he landed in the snow and the lynx tried to get towards him, tried to get up, but his fist shot around with all of his power and hit her so hard that she was thrown over, rolled over herself until she lay in the snow. She tried to get to her feet, but her entire mind was suddenly contorted as intense pain shot throughout her body. She dropped to the ground, suddenly stripped of all her powers. Blood dropped down from her face, right in front of her eyes, she could see how it dyed the snow in front of her. She opened her muzzle as if she wanted to scream but no sound escaped her. She quivered, it was too much for her and for a moment somehow she got aware how hurt she truly was. Powerlessly the feline collapsed entirely.
Black spots danced in front of her eyes. All of her strength was suddenly gone, suddenly she started quivering powerfully. She could feel nothing but pain anymore, it was as if every fiber of her body, everything that had fought by itself a moment ago had suddenly transformed into nothing but burning spots of pain.
Something flashed up, catching the light and then she felt the cold metal of a blade against her throat.
"I should kill you, cunt!" a canine voice hissed.
She could not raise her head, but she shook it. It hurt to do it, but she gathered all of her power to achieve just that. She tried to remember, she tried to overcome the darkness that was about take over her mind. She knew that she could do it, she just had to find the... words, yes, it was words she was searching for, something she had not used in a long time. A raspy sound escaped her. She pressed her lips together and snorted, lacking any other means. Desperately trying to shape her mouth, to get her squirming tongue under control while the flow of air left her lips until she could utter "Preeez..., preeeasss..."
Nothing happened.
"Preeeez... preeaaazzz!" It was hardly more than a growl.
Despite the blade at her throat, she started to move. Every breath hurt in her chest, she could feel the warmth of her fur where blood was still coming forth from a wound on her head. But in this moment she needed all of her strength to move over. Her fingers dug into the ground, and she pressed as hard as she could, tried to move her legs. First they slipped off and she tried another time and finally they moved and she turned her hip and her shoulders and then she fell down on her back. Pain shot through her body, it almost knocked her out completely, but she whad not finished yet.
She started to spread her legs.
An instant later the blade was gone completely.
"Now we are getting somewhere!"
The face of the coyote got closer, he showed his teeth and the blade shimmered in his hand. "Alright, you seem to understand how this is gonna work: Submit to me and maybe... Maybe!" He turned the knife which reflected the light of the surrounding snow. "Maybe I will let you live! Defy me once again, and I won't be so generous. Your decision..."
Then he sat up and started to undo his trousers.
"What is it that you want?"
He wanted to an instant. "I don't see you move." He grinned and pushed down his trousers.
She gritted her teeth and waited for him to come down on her.
"It is your choice."
She woke with a start. She did not feel as if she had slept at all. Her muzzle was buried deep in the snow.
For an instant she tried to remember, but even the memory of the previous day was nothing but a blur in her head. Everything was nothing but a blur. It was so hard to concentrate. She knew that she had had been driven by her own instincts for days, but why did she knew this...?
Her hands and her feet were bound as she lay partly on a thistly cover of fir needles, partly in the snow. She tried to remember how she had gotten into this position and into this place, but the moment she started to move, her thoughts derailed as if the physical movement hindered thinking. Somehow she understood that she was powerless, that she needed every effort just to stay alive, to keep moving, despite the circumstances, despite the cold which she could feel despite her fur and despite...
She froze the moment she perceived the faint hint of a scent...
The snow creaked as the man stepped closer.
He snuffled shortly and then leaned over. There was the sound of him getting a knife from his waist belt and instantly she tensed.
He kneeled down, she could feel the blade against her arms.
With a snap the coyote cut the cords which bound her.
Her eyes shot around as she tried to understand what happened.
The man leaned towards her feet and cut the cords there as well, before he stood up again and put the knife away.
"Alright, pussy, now you decide: Follow me or try to get out of here on your own. But if you follow me don't complain about anything..." Suddenly he rose his foot and let his boot come down on her ass. Without applying much force, he pushed her ass so that she almost rolled over. "There ain't much cats2 like you are good for besides fucking..."
She could feel his boot leaving her ass alone. Then he turned around and walked away.
The lynx was still all tense, breathing hard. She tried to sort out his words: What did he want, what was the deal? What did it mean? Where was she? She tried to hold on the fleeting pictures of a snow-covered landscape, of walking around without any sense of orientation... It was all so far away...
An involuntary whimper escaped her, she tried to focus, she tried to think. Instead of any reasonable thought she could only feel the pain of the cold cutting into her skin, the way her stomach cramped deep inside her quivering body and she realized that she had crouched during all of the night, trying to find sleep underneath the huge snow-covered tree. Everything was so painfully familiar, but the bits and pieces in her mind made no sense at all, no matter how hard she tried, she was unable to penetrate the fog which covered her mind.
In the distance she could hear the man throwing something on top of the Keelavo's thick hide, there was the sound of leather straps being removed.
There were the noises and grunting of the large reptile mount who tried to resist the man who had killed its two previous owners the night before and who was about to pull it away.
"Come on, you big fatso! Get going!"
Even his voice made her want to puke and a split-second later all of her muscles tensed again in an outbreak of sudden rage and it wiped her mind of any other thought or sensation. When it had mostly passed by again, the sound of the man and the large reptile had already gotten considerably weaker as they were about to disappear in between the snow and the fog.
Her instincts forced her to get up. She almost collapsed again as her cold muscles were unable to support her body.
In the distance she could already see how the man was about to walk away, deeply hidden in his fur coat, pulling the large mount by a leash and slowly vanishing in the drifting fog.
Snow covered most of her furred body, ice had molten and frozen, hanging in her thick fur just like her hair hang into her face.
She knew that she had to follow him and yet every fiber of her body told her to get away from him as fast as she could and yet she used every ounce of power that her body could muster to follow him. She forced herself forward, through the thick snow she had to wade through, through the fog, her teeth gritted until her jaw hurt. No matter what she had gone through up to this point, she knew that the worst was yet to come.
The punch hit her with full power, she had not had the chance to dodge it and she was pushed over and fell hard against the rock, slowly sliding to the ground.
The coyote laughed and kneeled down again, holding the small piece of meat in his paws, right in front of her muzzle. She could smell it and her empty stomach hurt in demand of this little food.
"Come and get it!" He grinned.
Crouched, the rock in her back, she stared at the man, her eyes nothing but slits.
The coyote was still smiling, thus showing her his formidable set of sharp teeth. He waggled the piece of meat.
It was one of the first nights she had followed him. She had tried to do her best to keep up with him, even though he had more than one advantage, knowing the way and wearing large boots. He had never turned around to look if she followed or not, nor had he slowed down at any point, not even when she had fallen into a large snow bank where she had hardly been able to get out of due to her small size. When she had finally managed, he was nowhere to be seen anymore and she had had to follow his footsteps as fast as she could, fearing that she might loose track due to the falling snow.
He had ignored her until the moment where he had finally stopped in the shadow of a large boulder where a small space was relatively free of snow. There he had tied up the Keelavo and used some dry wood to create a small fire.
She had observed him from a safe distance, until she had been able to smell that he was about to produce some food. Her hunger had driven her closer.
The revolting feeling in her belly that overcame her when she observed the coyote was powerful, so was her instinctive fear of him, but so was her hunger as well.
She exhaled and her tail started wagging.
The coyote was still smirking.
When a jump the lynx was up again, shooting towards the male, who tried to evade her, but this time she was faster. She caught him with her arms, the power of her jump pulling him off his feet and in this instant he lost the meat which flew about. She let go of the man, rolled over and grabbed the precious meal when it fell to the ground. She was just about to devour it when a kick hit her in her back. She gasped.
She lay on the ground and instantly the canine's foot was pressed against her neck.
"You are stupid. It's not only about getting something, it's also about defending it." Slowly he leaned over, took the meat which had lied on the ground and casually flipped it into his own mouth.
The lynx went totally out of control, with all of her power, with every limb of her body she tried to get the man, struggling the best way she could.
The canine smirked down on her and enforced the pressure of his foot, effectively choking her while he chewed the meat.
She retched and gasped for breath and tried to get air into her lungs, her hands around the man's leg.
When he finally raised his foot again, all she could do was gasp for breath. Her claws were extended and she would have felt the pain of the short scuffle, but right now the emptiness of her stomach was everything that occupied her mind. It was as if something inside her belly was sucking at the rest of her body, trying to gain a little bit of power from the other organs as her stomach could not feed on anything else. Everything inside her fought against it, she did not even return his glare anymore when she started to spread her legs.
The coyote started to grin. "You are getting a hang at the game, don't you, pussy? That's how I like girls: Well trained!" He stepped aside and grabbed the bone that was left from his meal. With a powerful move he broke the bone apart. It splintered when he slammed it against his knee and he threw the two ends at the lynx, the bloody bone marrow now exposed.
Without even thinking about it the lynx jumped at the two pieces of bone, and grabbed them instantly. But in the corner of her eyes she saw something flashing up and instantly she ducked and rolled aside, all teeth and claws again, growling at the coyote.
Where she had been instants before, one of his daggers stuck in the ice.
He was grinning once again. "You are clever for a female." His grin widened.
From the spot where she crouched she observed his every move from her narrowed, slanting eyes. She knew that she should not allow herself to let him out of her sight, but her hunger demanded that she turned her attention to the bone in her paws and instantly she put one end of the broken limb to her lips and started to suck the raw, bloody marrow out of it.
For a moment he observed how she sucked out the marrow and finally started gnawing on the bone itself, crushing it with her sharp teeth as her hunger was still overwhelmingly strong.
Suddenly he kicked her, not using all of his power, but enough to throw her over.
The bones dropped from her paws and an instant later he sat on top of her and let his knife circle above her head. "Come on, speak to me! You are clever, I know you can."
She stared into his face.
"Come on!" He grabbed her hair and pulled at it with full power.
She squealed and tried to grab his hand with her paws, but a moment later she could feel the freezing cold of his metal blade at her throat again and she let go of his hand again. She let her head fall down again.
The expression on his face had changed again. He showed his teeth and slowly he came closer to her face with his own. "I told you not to. Are you that stupid?"
She could feel the heat of his breath on her face and she forced her lips to close as tightly as possibly because the urge to bite him was overwhelming. She wanted to, she wanted to kill him.
"Is it that?" He studied her face. "Is it that? Is it because you are too stupid?" He paused for a moment.
His scent made her want to puke.
"No, you understand me and you tried to speak the night we met. So it is not that..." The blade came closer. "Is it your tongue? Don't you have a tongue?"
This was the moment when she lost it again, her hand shot upwards with her claws exposed, he had to fall back so that she would not get him which offered her the possibility to throw his weight off, to get to her feet while he was still about to get up himself. With a hoarse roar, she jumped him, but he had anticipated her move and he ducked her easily. His fist hit her with full power, send her to the ground again and while the pain of the blow was still numbing her, he was above her, yanked her head upwards by pulling at her hair and then he pushed her head hard against his knee. She could feel how the veins in her nose exploded. Blood shot around and he let her drop to the ground again, where she hunched into a ball of fur and quivering muscles, the pain overcoming the fury.
The coyote growled in satisfaction as he saw the lynx writhing on the ground. "I can hardly believe that you are this stupid...! Not the slightest trace of self-control! What a joke! Is that the reason why you don't speak? Too stupid? Not smart enough to get that right?"
The lynx girl stared at her blood covered paws. The dull pain in her nose gave way to a numb feeling, yet the taste of blood upon her tongue triggered instincts which she struggled to keep in check as long as he was this close. She was hardly able to.
"I will take care of the Keelavo, you better not be bleeding when I am back," he said and went away towards the large reptile.
Helpless rage shot through her, tensed every muscle of her body, she pressed her teeth together as hard as she could. She could feel herself loosing control again and she could not allow this to happen as she knew that her punishment would be worse than the first time. Her own paws dug deep into her fur as she tried to control it as well as the disgust and the humiliation.
Endless white, cold, snow, ice and chilling wind. The few words she knew were not able to describe what happened while the coyote dragged her through the winterly landscape. She had no idea where they were, she never had had any at all. She was as lost as one could be, the only one who knew a way out was the coyote she was forced to follow. All around was white: The ground, the trees and the constant fog. Sometimes blue lights danced in front of her eyes, she blinked and they were gone. She was loosing her mind if she ever had had any left.
She was cold and her unprotected feet would had hurt due to the mere distance they covered every day, but the ice and the snow made it worse. He had told her that he would let her die and she knew that he was able to do it. She knew he was able to do anything. He was Seerye. She knew him, she knew him so well, at least it felt that way. She just did not know why.
Her thick fur was insufficient against the ice-cold wind, she was constantly feeling cold. It cut into her skin like a thousand tiny shards. Her breath molt the snow on her muzzle and when it flowed down, it froze again, until ice was sticking to her fur.
Sometimes they crossed frozen rivers and wandered through snow-covered woods. The high firs on the banks looked like white spears that were buried in the foggy body of a giant beast that had collapsed onto them and all the land.
After some time she realized that he had to follow some invisible path that she could not see as he was always getting them to places where they were relatively safe during the night, which offered a minimum of protection against the cold and the ice. Sometimes it was nothing but a few trees standing close by each other and thus creating a tiny space for them to rest in, sometimes it was nothing but the overhang of a rock or a small cavity by a riverside. Yet he never checked any map or used a compass, he seemed to be perfectly sure of the way he was going, hardly ever stopping at all.
Without any remorse he forced the Keelavo to follow him, which was hardly able to keep up with his pace and which he beat heavily until even the large, underfed mount realized that it was no use resisting him. Yet even the reptile was at the limit of its capacities as it could hardly find enough food between the snow.
Unlike the Keelavo the lynx did not matter to him at all. He ignored her entirely most of the day, going along as if she was not even there at all. He never slowed down when she fell into the snow due to her weakness and her lack of any equipment. He never asked about her condition, nor did he seem to care at all, while she had to muster all of her strength in order to follow him. Most often she tried to follow as close to the Keelavo as possible, because the large reptile's body was a little protection against the power of the elements and the track it formed made walking much easier, but very often she was not able to do so. Then he almost disappeared from her sight and she had to hurry up in order to keep track of him, as the fog offered very little visibility and falling snow covered tracks within short time.
It was during one of these days when she had lost him again. She had been walking mechanically, just following the tracks in the snow while trying to the effort it required and the strong wind which carried snow along and swirled around her with such strenght that her fur fluttered around her body, so that it offered even less protection. When she rose her head he was suddenly nowhere to be seen anymore. As quickly as she could she followed his trail which went up a rather steep hillside where some trees grew.
In this moment she heard him scream.
For a moment she was paralyzed, unsure what to do, but then she went on quickly and finally reached a rock face he was standing in front of. It was several times the size of a furr, running along the side of a hill. It was almost perfectly vertical except for one spot, which looked as if it had totally collapsed. It took her some time to understand that this must have been the entrance to some cave some time ago, but now there was nothing left of that anymore, except a huge heap of snow covered rubble. It looked as if the entire rock face had collapsed in this place.
She studied it from a certain distance, as she did not dare to get closer.
"They can't have!" Seerye cried at the top of his lungs. "Damn you! Damn you! I will make you pay for this! I will pay you back!" The coyote was furious, screaming out loud, walking up and down and then pulling one of his swords from his belt and mindlessly hitting one of the rocks of the heap with it. The sound of the metal blade against the stone rung throughout the fog.
"I will make you pay for blowing it up! You hear me? Seerye is coming for you and make you pay!"
Furiously he spun around himself and looked around. "KITTY!" he screamed. "Get your sorry ass over here!"
The lynx girl instantly ducked behind a rock she had supported herself on.
"KITTY! Don't make me come for you!" Rage distorted his low voice.
She cowered behind the stone and tried not to move, even though she quivered from the cold.
"KITT-EEE!" There as a pause. "DAMN YOU!"
She did not leave the spot this night anymore. She suffered terribly from the cold, she did not sleep as her instincts kept her awake, so that she did not stop quivering. When it was entirely dark she dared to stand up and move around a little bit, staggering erratically through the snow, trying not to go too far as the darkness was so profound that even her sensitive lynx eyes were not able to distinguish anything.
Then she cowered behind the stone again and wished for the day to arrive, swaying to and fro with her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Snow gathered in her fur and her hair. At first she was still shaking it off, lateron she did not worry about it anymore. Her senses were starting to play tricks on her as she heard strange noises and lights danced in front of her eyes and then she woke with a start realizing that she must have dozed off. Or didn't she? She could not tell it apart anymore and it dragged on and on while snow gathered around her and she lost the feeling in her limbs.
At one point she was convinced to see the coyote in front of her, also hearing his voice, but then he was gone again, but more pictures swirled around her. She tried to fight back when she was convinced that the coyote was back and attacked her. She did not realize that it was an illusion until she lay in the snow. Quickly she retired to her spot again and shut her eyes. A dangerous, treacherous feeling of warmth spread in her body.
She hardly noticed the arrival of day, but at some point she started, having almost dozed off again and in this moment she noticed that the surrounding fog was brightening up.
Standing up demanded so much power that she was hardly able to and when she was up on her feet she staggered to and fro, unable to recognize her surroundings. Somehow she was able to get towards the spot where the cave once had been and where the huge shape of the Keelavo was resting. She bumped into the resting creature and pressed herself against it, the little warmth of the reptile body was all that she craved for in this moment.
She was not even aware of the man until he stood behind her, his scent slowly flowing into her nose.
He did not say a word at all. He picked up the furs he had rested under, next to the Keelavo and readied himself for the day. When he had undone the Keelavo, he forced it to follow him, not paying any attention to the lynx at all.
She almost fell down into the snow when the reptile moved, but she gathered all of her power to keep standing. She held on to the reptile's harness, her fingers closing as tightly around the leather straps as she could and she was simply dragged along. She did not look down, she just tried to put down one foot in front of the over, tried to keep walking no matter how hard it was.
The movement and the little rise of the temperatures due to daytime helped her. Yet at some points she was still stumbling and almost fell, but her hands held on to the harness and she was dragged along, until she was able to get to her own feet again.
She was totally oblivious to the man who led the reptile, until they finally stopped again at the end of the day.
Still at the total limit of her powers, she was almost unable to eat the food that he threw on the ground in front of her. She dropped to the ground in order to eat it, hardly able to pick it up with her numb fingers.
Later she was almost happy when she felt how he forced her into his bed, undid his pants and came down on her that night. She did not care about what he did with her, but the warmth of his body upon her own eased her.
The landscape around them changed very little, they were passing through low hills, it was obvious that the ground had to be marshy during the other seasons, but due to the winter it was entirely frozen and covered with snow. There were few trees which could grow in this landscape and where they did they clung to rocks which were scattered here and there or the trees formed small groups which held on to each other. Sometimes there was a ridge between two or more hills were the wetness gathered into real brooks and small rivers which were equally frozen at this time of the year and thus they could cross them easily, sometimes even walking upon them as the frozen surface offered a flat ground, easy for walking.
Whenever she looked around in order to study the surroundings, she had the nagging feeling that something was amiss, but she could not see anything due to the fog which never fully rose. Sometimes it got brighter, sometimes it got darker. It was hard to keep track of time, if not for the total darkness of the night.
She did not know how many days were passing by, they were all the same: Endlessly marching through the snow, little food and the torments the coyote put her through whenever he wanted, she did not even take him taking advantage of her during the night into account. It was his brutality that was always triggering her instinct for self-defense and which made things worse for her as he paid her back with even greater ordeals. He regularly provoked her to attack him by withholding food which drove her insane as her hunger was overwhelmingly strong. Sometimes during the day she broke off an icicle just in order to have something she could chew on, even though its coldness usually made her stomach hurt even more.
Sometimes Seerye stopped the marching and got a crossbow which he kept on the Keelavo's back. She watched him while he stood perfectly still for what seemed like a long time. Finally he pulled the trigger and he always hit what he had aimed at: A three-eyed snowshoe rabbit, a three-eyed fox or sometimes some small feathered reptile which he would add to their provisions. When he had done this for the first time and she had dared to move he had walked up to her, stricken her down with a powerful blow which had knocked her of her feet and then with one foot on top of her head, pressing her into the snow he had resumed his aim. She had struggled like mad beneath his foot, yet without any chance to get free. Afterwards she tried not to disturb him anymore when he hunted for something on their way.
Up to now the coyote had not cared about her following him, but from now on Seerye occasionally forced her to go on, he pulled at her fur, at her hair, he beat her, he kicked, he tried to hit her with his weapons. She evaded his weapons, but he always found a way to hurt her anyway, he was faster, he was skilled and in the end she never had a chance to escape him as she had no choice but to follow him. She was lost and she needed him to guide her wherever he was heading. During the night, before sleep knocked her out, she considered escaping, but where could she go? She did not know how do deal with the snow and the ice. She had never seen so much of it before. There had never been that much snow or ice in that... other place...
Suddenly she heard the sound of splashing water and she pricked up her ears under the cover of the ragged cloths she had settled under.
Carefully she looked around, she did not want to wake the coyote, his sleep was as light as hers. When she had sneaked up at him for the first time, he had instantly waked and had beaten her up. The following day she had been in constant pain. He had laughed whenever she had fallen and she had almost lost him because she had not been able to follow him.
She did not want to wake him, but she had to look around when she heard the noises. She had not found flowing water those last days, everything had frozen over, but there she was and had clearly heard it.
When she looked around there seemed to nothing in the darkness, the sky was clear and the moons looked down on her and the land. For a moment she looked at the Keelavo, wondering if the mount might have created that noise, but it was as lifeless as everything around her.
She inhaled the freezing air. Thinking made her head hurt, she was not able to focus at all. Everything was a blur, it felt so strange.
She lowered her head again and tried to resume her sleep.
Suddenly she started, her head spun around and she looked towards the sky: Hadn't it been clear a moment ago, hadn't she seen the three moons? Yet she could see nothing anymore, there was only the ice, the falling snow and endless fog.
Her mind raced and instantly the aching pain of thinking too hard emerged again.
In this moment she felt like the man above her moved and an instant later she could see his glistening blue eyes shimmering in the darkness. "Obviously you want more," he growled.
She tensed when he started to move above her, she gritted her teeth until her jaw started to ache. She just did not want to feel what he did all over again.
In the morning he forced her to fight for her breakfast. As usual hunger was tearing her apart, but he never let her get anything more than absolutely necessary and he always teased her. She lost control and attacked him and he fought back. When she was lying on the ground, writhing from yet another blow of his, he threw the bloody innards of a caught rabbit on the ground before her. She started to swallow them mindlessly. Her muzzle was dyed red.
"Just look at you!" The coyote spit on her.
She glared at him, but went on, consuming the squishy, bloody innards as quickly as she could, instinctively fearing that he might take them away again.
In the meantime the coyote stared into the direction of a distant line of low mountains that was hardly visible in the fog.
"Let's go!" he said and grabbed her by her hair.
She squealed when she pulled at her hair, but she got to her feet as quickly as possible so that he did not have to force her anymore.
She followed the coyote at a few steps distance, carefully stepping into the trail he left behind with his shoes or the trail of the Keelavoo. By now she knew the shape of the coyote by heart: The strong, sinewy shoulders that stretched under his thick clothes, the curve of his back, the relatively short tail that extended from a muscled backside, his extremely muscled legs and arms. He wore no cap, nor did his fur-coated jacket have any kind of hood. She knew by now that he was constantly alert, constantly studying their surroundings, listening carefully to every muffled sound in the snowy landscape. It was no use attacking him from behind, she had not tried that yet, but she knew anyway. It was hard to control her rage that flared up any moment she thought about her situation. Her claws did hardly sheathe anymore. So she just followed him, staggering through the merciless cold.
When he chose their camp for the night, a relatively protected spot underneath an overhanging cliff, she watched him from a safe distance. But soon he looked over to her and made a sign that she should join him.
The lynx bared her teeth and snarled.
In return the coyote started to grin. He readied himself and an instant later he dashed towards her and jumped at her.
She dodged his move, but he had expected her to do so, rolled over, was instantly on his feet again and this way he could dodge her move now. He tried to grab her arm and bend it behind her back, but she let herself fall to the ground and rolled over, her foot shot upwards and hit him hard. The kick threw him over and the lynx tried to jump him from above. But the man hit her with his knee and rammed it into her stomach. The lynx gasped for breath and fell to the ground. He tried to get hold of her neck, but instantly she slashed about with her claws and hit his face. Instinctively he retreated, which gave her the time to get to her feet again. Her belly hurt and she was hardly able to breathe because the pain was so intense, but her rage fuelled her.
The coyote ran his hand over his cheek and noticed that she had cut it.
She jumped at him again.
"Enough!"
He swirled around and his fist hit her in mid-air and instantly sent her to the ground again. Intense pain shot throughout her body, her instincts took over and despite the pain she tensed to get back to her feet. But before she was able to, he was above her. He grabbed her head and slammed it against the ground. She cried out.
"This was fun!" he hissed. "Hurt me one more time and I'll kill you!"
He was lying on her back and violently pulled at her hair, she moaned through her gritted teeth, locked by his hold.
Panting the coyote started to get out his sex.
She pressed her eyes together.
When he was done, his hold on her headfur loosened a little bit.
"At first, I thought you were just stupid to provoke me every time, but now I think you are actually into this," he hissed into her pointed ear.
She wanted to damn him, but instead nothing but a grunt escaped her throat.
"Be careful, no matter how much fun you are, I will kill you, if you ever hurt me again!" He pushed her head away and thus let go. He got up and thus removed his sex from her body. When he was standing he buttoned his trousers again, looking down on the lynx girl who lay in the snow.
The man turned around and walked towards the spot where he had gathered some dry wood in order to light a small fire.
She was starting to feel the cold again. She had forgotten about it, first her rage, then the pain and the humiliation had occupied her mind. But now she was feeling cold again. All she could remember of the past days were the same things all over again: Hunger, cold, pain and humiliation. Every day seemed to be a vicious circle of the same ordeals over and over again. There was not even a way to distinguish one day from the other, it was all the same.
Her entire body ached when she stood up again. Something wet flowed down between her thighs and she gulped. Her eyes twitched while she walked towards the small fire that was burning by now, casting away the increasing darkness. It illuminated the coyote who had taken a piece of meat from the provisions and was about to eat it.
When he noticed how the small female lynx came closer, he threw a small piece of meat on the ground.
She kneeled down and picked it up, carefully eyeing the coyote. As soon as she held it in her paw she started to eat it as quickly as she could.
In the meantime the coyote finished his own meal and started to poke the logs in the fire with a stick, pushing them closer together so that they burned more intensely. After some time he started to study her. She tried not to return his glare.
"Don't you know me?" he asked suddenly. "Everybody has heard my name..."
The girl quickly ate the last remains of her meat, following her instinctive fear that he might take it away from her.
"Come one!" He poked her with the stick which he used to spur the fire with. When the partly glowing tip met her fur it fizzled and burned parts of it, instantly provoking pain.
Immediately her head shot around and she snarled at him, showing her teeth.
The coyote smiled in response. "Come on, even you are not that stupid, you know who I am." He waited for a reply, but the lynx girl just glared at him, trying to keep her emotions in check.
"I am Seerye, have you never heard the name?"
The girl turned her face away.
"Hey, I am talking to you!" He tried to poke her with the glowing stick again, but this time she noticed its movement and her head shot around and she snarled once again.
The man started to grin. "Nice one! You are getting better, you know... So, tell me: Don't you know the name Seerye!" He waited for a response.
She did not do anything.
Suddenly he shouted at her: "HAVE YOU HEARD MY NAME? SEERYE!" And he raised his stick up high as if he wanted to hit her, instantly the lynx started and tried to protect herself.
The coyote watched her and slowly he lowered the stick. "I won't hit you, do as you are fucking told!" he said slowly. "Now give me a fucking answer. Have you heard the name Seerye before?"
The lynx was quivering, protecting herself beneath her arms, twitching, her tail wagging strongly. Her eyes shot around as she tried to make sense of what he had made. It was difficult for her as she was still too alarmed by his behavior, but she clung to the words and tried to sort them out one after the other until they were starting to make sense.
"I know that you understand me, don't play dumb!"
She tried to calm and finally lowered her arms and simply shook her head.
He watched her for a moment and finally shook his head. "You are as dumb as a post..." He prodded the logs of the small fire which kept the cold away. "I really wonder where you are from, you can't speak properly, you know shit and don't even have got any clothes. The only thing that you can is lash about. If that's what your kind was supposed to be able to, then you were nothing but a joke..." He raised his head and looked at her. "You certainly are! You are pathetic!"
The lynx girl had calmed a little bit again. She did not want to get away from the fire as she could feel the cold of the night like tiny needles slowly piercing her skin. The fire was the only thing that could keep this away and thus she did not want to leave it even though it meant that she had to stay in the coyote's proximity. All of the time she kept an eye on him, observing any of his movements.
"I wonder where you are from?" he said suddenly. "I have never even heard of a slave being in such a poor state. It's just waste of material..." He stroked his chin. "Well, I admit that I know little of... Still... You do understand me, so you must have understood those around you. Where do they not know my name?" He laughed shortly and shook his head again. "I should go there! Unfortunately you are too stupid to be a guide. You can't even tell north from south... You would be so dead without me." He wanted to poke her with the stick, but when he raised it, her eyes instantly started observing it.
"For the sake of the Holy Mother! How stupid are you?" he yelled at her. "Don't look at the fucking tip! Look at me!"
For a moment she was still staring at the stick, then she raised her eyes quickly and looked at him, but an instant later her eyes went back towards the tip.
Like a lightning bolt the tip shot forwards and hit her arm. Burning fur fizzled and the lynx girl started in pain, hissing strongly.
The man pulled the stick backwards. "What did I tell you?"
The girl tried to keep herself under control. She was about to loose it again, but she tried not to, as she knew his games by now, he would only use the chance to torture her even more. It was hard for her to keep focused. She clung to his words, deciphering their meaning kept her mind occupied while the pain of the burn and the rage subsided.
"Alright! One more try and this time, look at me and not at the stick!"
She blinked and finally managed to direct her eyes towards him. She was still jumpy.
Noticing that she obliged, he became completely motionless. It was not as if his body turned to rock, none of his muscles tensed, it was perfectly natural as if every muscle knew it precise position and the lynx girl exhaled and observed him, not taking her eyes of his shape until neither of them moved anymore.
It had started snowing again and the flakes fell in silence while the lynx suddenly felt an odd contact with the canine's physique, every muscle of his body finding a counterpart in her own body.
A muscle on his wrist twitched and instantly the lynx fell backwards, rolled over and faced the coyote with bared teeth, while the man started laughing out loud. The stick had advanced a little bit, if she had remained where she had been it would have hit her.
His laughter send a chill through her spine.
"Good, good! Now get your ass on your place again and show me that this was not just a lucky strike."
She was awake with a start. As usual sleep had not offered any repose for as it felt as if she had slept at all. She could remember lying down and she had the feeling that no time had past at all, but it was morning now, she could see the faint, reddish shimmer among the fog.
Despite her own thick fur and the thin, ragged furs he had given her she was cold now. She could see her own breath as an icy cloud in front of her muzzle and she shivered even though she had snuggled up as well as she could.
She moved her head a little bit in order to look at the coyote, but she noticed that he was not under his furs, they were empty.
She tried to look around without moving too much, she did not want him to know that she was already awake and finally she saw him. He was standing at the edge of the frozen river, in the proximity of the Keelavo which tried to find something to eat beneath the snow.
The coyote's sword shimmered in his paws; it caught the dim sunlight and reflected it brilliantly, while he was nothing but a dark shadow that was standing still in this moment. But an instant later he started to move, yet it looked as if he was not moving at all: All of a sudden he was simply in another place, the sword having already pierced the first of his invisible opponents. And then he started to swirl about, the sword glistening in the light of foggy dawn like a deadly flame, he stabbed, he thrusted and cut his invisible enemies, dodged their blows, ducked their every attempts, anticipated their moves, instantly ready to kill whenever they showed a sign of weakness. He threw himself on the ground, rolled over, slipped off on the ice and despite that he slashed about with his sword, gaining the space and the time to jump to his feet again. He was quicker than any adversary and everyone of his moves was not only precisely calculated, but performed instinctively.
Her eyes had narrowed while she observed him carefully for the first time, like she would do so many times from now on.
Instinctively her muscles tensed and her pupils followed everyone of his moves. Beneath her cover her teeth gritted and an inaudible growl rattled in her throat. She studied his movements carefully and the muscles of her body twitched beneath her skin.
Snowladden trees framed their daily wandering and constant fog hid the way ahead. The mist never disappeared, it was hard to tell if there was anything beyond it and yet the coyote was never misguided by it. He tramped through the snow, a lean, muscular figure in a thick fur and leather coat which hid countless weapons underneath, two swords, a waist belt full of daggers and two pistols he never used, rather relying on his crossbow when he shot some animal that dared to cross their way.
Very often it started to snow and everytime it did, there was so much snow coming down from above that even more of the surroundings disappeared, until there was nothing but indistinguishable whiteness all around.
Wherever she looked around there was nothing but white, while the snowflakes flew around her muzzle and gathered in her fur. Except for her own breathing there seemed to be no sound at all and no scent in the air. Everything was alien and she lowered her face and tried to focus on the footsteps in the snow and the trail of the large reptile which she followed all of the time.
Even though she was unable to understand what guided him, she did understand that there was a purpose to it, as there were places they headed towards.
A large burned down cabin.
Another collapsed cave.
A reinforced natural dugout which had been blocked with trunks.
A grown shelter of trees which had been cut down.
Another log house, burned to the ground.
Seerye snapped every time, but the nature of his rage changed over the course of time as he grew grimmer with every destroyed site they discovered. Yet his rage was still scaring her and despite the days they spent traveling from one place to the next, she always dreaded the next arrival at one of these places as she knew that he would provoke her in one way or another, trigger her rage, engage in a fight and defeat her as he always did, in order to take out his anger on her. He also did this whenever he felt like doing so, but his attacks were especially vicious, brutal and painful when he had to face the fact that yet another place he had headed for had been destroyed.
During the ensuing fights, he had started to mock her. Taken away by her instincts, she did not understand what he said, yet she attempted to piece it together when she lay in the snow afterwards, fear, rage and pain from countless new wounds tearing her body apart. With gritted teeth she tried to suppress any urge to show her emotions, as she did not want to give him any satisfaction for his pointless brutality. Instead her muddled thoughts tried to focus on the words he had spoken to her during the fight. She tried to recall and identify them, to piece the idea together. Sometimes her mind clung to the insults and curses, but beyond those obvious attempts of provoking her even more, she could discern how he made a mockery of her fighting, how he commented on every little failure that she made in her rage-induced ferocity and she swore to herself to remember these lessons, even though she could hardly remember fractional amount of what he said. She focused on the way he moved whenever she was clear-thinking enough to study him.
Yet she did not know if she would get a chance to defeat him at all. The scarce food, the constant strain of their journey and the new wounds he added to those she already had took their toll on her, no matter how resistant she was. She could feel it.
Seerye did not seem to care. He was laughing about her wounds. One night where he had kicked one of her legs so hard that she was not able to stand anymore, he had observed her helpless attempts of getting closer to the fire he had made and the obvious amusement he had shown had made her mad again. Yet her attempts of getting towards him had been so helpless, that the coyote had laughed out loud and his laughter haunted her the entire night when she had tried to sleep and had not been able to as the leg had hurt too much. At least he had not raped her that night.
The next day she lagged behind, her leg had gotten a little bit better, but the pain came back during the day, until she could not put the leg down anymore without a brutal strike of pain shooting through her entire body. With clenched teeth, hissing like mad, tears of pain running down her cheeks she had walked on. There was nothing on her mind except the way ahead. She could feel the fury of desperation lingering at the edge of her mind, triggered by the constant pain, yet she tried to stay as clear-thinking as possible as the coyote was already far ahead of her and she had to hurry in order to keep up with him.
Yet at one point she started and stood still, feeling something...
She rose her head and looked around, realizing where she was: They had walked down the side of a hill, Seerye already about to head up the next one, having crossed a frozen river she was standing on right now.
She knew that the ice would break even before her sensible ears could perceive any sound. She knew it, as she knew this place and yet she could not help it... She knew that it would at some point in time, yet she had forgotten when it would happen. It had been so long...
Instant panic crawled up her spine. She was trembling from teeth to toe, she knew that the ice would break any moment and that there was no way to stop it, that she would fall into the ice-cold water, that she would nearly drown and that the coyote would not help her, no matter how much she screamed in panic and pain.
She saw the man and the large reptile mount slowly walking up the hill ahead.
Beneath her feet the ice started to shift. It was the tiniest of movements but she could it feel beneath the thick leathery skin of her pads.
She wanted to jump away, but she was frozen.
There was a cracking sound.
Cold sweat broke from every pore of her body. She did not want to fall into the river. She screamed at the top of her lungs and in that moment the ice gave way.
The noise was deafening, the broken ice shot all around her, while her body fell past the frozen surface of the river she had tried to cross.
The cold was like a shock, it hit her like an axe that rent her body. Her heart stopped beating, water filled her mouth and instantly her skin tensed around her body. Instinctively she gasped for breath and the water invaded her lungs. She struggled; she fought against the water that seemed to pull her deeper, blue light shot all around her, bubbles shot about while her arms and legs slashed around in the water that clung to her body like a giant claw of cold.
Her mind had been wiped blank the moment she had broken in and now her instincts told her to swim, to get to the surface again. She desperately waved her arms, the panic having set free all of her energy, but she could feel how the cold crept into her, how it consumed the warmth of her body. Her skin seemed to burn and the water seemed to pull her even further down as if it was a living creature that pulled at her.
Any rational thought had left her mind, she was fighting now, her arms slashed all around, she could see the light ahead, her lungs hurt like hell, the cold was too intense.
She stretched out her hand and it hit the frozen surface from below.
Panic struck her and she screamed. Something flashed up. The water gave way.
Suddenly her hand reached out of the water and got hold of the ice's edge, she pulled herself upwards and gasped for breath when her muzzle broke through the water's surface.
Her entire body was trembling uncontrollably due to the intense cold. She slammed her hands into the ice, her claws dug into the ice and with all the strength she had left, she pulled her heavy, totally soaked body out of the water.
Her mouth gasped for breath like a fish ashore. But the muscles of her arms kept on pulling her out of the water, inch by painful inch until she was safe upon stable ice again.
Instantly her muscles started to quiver uncontrollably due to the intense cold that came down on her body like a smothering gas. She broke down, she huddled up. She could not feel anything anymore, she was just shaking.
There was no pain, nothing but numbness as the cold crept beneath her skin and deeper into her body with every moment. She could feel it even though she was not supposed to. Tiredness was about to come over her and somehow she instinctively knew that it was anything but ordinary tiredness. She struggled against it as she had fought against the cold water, but this time her body did not obey her anymore. She tried to kick and buck and punch and yet a faint twitch of her fingers was all that happened. The lynx girl lay on the icy ground while the countless drops of water on her skin and in her fur started to freeze, slowly covering her body under a thin white coat of fresh ice. It was the same feeling that she felt the moment...
Her eyes wide open, as she was certain to understand...
Her body twitched erratically sometimes, and her mind was drained by numbness that was so familiar. But the panic she had felt at first subsided, as the cold took over and the strange numb pain of not being able to feel one's limbs anymore.
Ahead of her was nothing but the snow-ladden landscape of the river and its banks and fog drifting along, one of it merging with the other until there were no edges to be seen anymore, nothing but white, which vanished little by little while her breathing got weaker.
She was feeling tired, she wanted to sleep.
"I wondered if you would make it."
Her teeth clenched as she tried to look upwards. Her field of vision was totally blurred. But she could recognize the color of this fur.
"But I doubt that you can make it any further."
The quivering of her body was far beyond her control but nevertheless her paws reached out for his foot and took hold of it. It took all of her strength to pull herself closer but when her muzzle reached the leg she opened it wide, exposed her teeth and bit.
The coyote laughed, turned around and started to walk away.
Her arms cramped around the foot and the coyote dragged the half-conscious lynx through the snow. It stuck to her fur, mixed with the freezing water but she did not let go. No matter how much he tried to walk faster, to shake her off, her arms held onto his legs, she could not have moved her arms if she had wanted to, she had no longer any control over her shaking body. All that was left were her instincts which held on no matter what.
The shaking was so intense that she could not get any rest. She just lay next to the fire the coyote had lit and did not move except for her constant shivering.
She was starting to feel pain again and it was so intense that she whimpered helplessly from time to time. Sometimes she had to cough and whenever she did it hurt in her lungs as if she was being stabbed.
The coyote had dragged the lynx under the cover of a large boulder. It was a small spot without snow. He had shaken her off, had tied up the Keelavo and had broken of some branches of a nearby tree that he had set afire. Carelessly he had thrown a ragged fur over her. Then he had eaten something, while looking into the grayness of the foggy landscape. Dusk was not that close yet. But finally he had simply gathered his furs and had wrapped himself up inside of them and had dozed off while the light started to diminish.
It was completely gone for a long time now, but the lynx had not even noticed. Her mind was empty, most of her limbs were without any feeling and yet they hurt so much. It was like burning fire, feeling hot and ice-cold at the same time. She threw herself around, tried to shake off the flow of pictures that shot down on her, engulfed her. She lashed about with her numb limbs, tried to throw off the ragged fur, coughed, felt like suffocating, tried to inhale and her lungs rattle powerfully, yet she kept on inhaling until a feeling of vomiting became overwhelmingly strong. Her body spasmed and she bucked and was thrown around by her out-of-control muscles, her face suddenly lying in the snow again. Cold sweat flowed down her frowns, yet her body craved for warmth.
She screamed in sudden panic and it transformed into a whimper while her body bucked again. She tried to get up, but she had no control of her limbs. Mindlessly she started whimpering, throwing herself around again and again, expending the last remains of power that her body had in a futile attempt to get away from the inevitable, until she finally collapsed and lay still, a sudden rush of calmness starting to take control of her like a smothering shroud.
The light of the day had already vanished, it was entirely dark and now her sight started to vanish as well.
One of the last things she saw was the coyote who was suddenly above her, he seemed to speak, then he vanished. Then there was a wild desperate roar. Maybe it was her own.
She did not care.
It felt like being underwater again, deprived of air she had to get to the surface and every inch was an effort as if there was something that tried to pull her further down. For every inch she had to swim, she had to pull several times her own weight from the ground of a deep river. Things got clearer little by little.
Or maybe they did not as her head felt like being filled with water as well, heavy and unstable, unable to contain anything at all, yet filled to the brink of being blown apart by the constant pressure, a numbing pain accompanying every movement or every fragment of a thought. As if the different parts of her body were suddenly intertwined with each other and somebody pulling at it in order to unravel it, every additional effort just tore at its fabric while she was being pulled into a certain direction against her will as there was nothing to attain, because the surface was elsewhere. There was no solution, just the strain and the pain.
She opened her mouth and inhaled. A part of her was surprised that there was no sudden influx of water which would invade her lungs and suffocate her, a different part of her knew this already and she understood neither.
And then she twitched powerfully and everything around her was blood.
Mindlessly she tried to get free of the blood which had soaked her, which had drenched her fur while she had lain between the entrails and the hide of a giant dead creature.
Yet her body did not obey her at all and all she could perceive was the blood all around which triggered a sense of panic which told her to get away, but the numbing pain inside her head was smothering everything else, even her sense of balance.
Suddenly a large hand got a hold of her and pushed her down again.
"You stay, kitty!"
The words made no sense to her, she raised her arm to push the hand aside which hindered her and almost in the very same moment she was slapped so hard that she fell down again, her face falling into the entrails she was lying in between.
She was unable to make any sense out of this, but following yet another instinctive urge she opened her mouth wide and even though lacking most of their power her teeth sank deep into the bloody intestinal loop. Instantly more blood welled up around her muzzle and filled her mouth. As it flowed down her throat a sudden feeling of warm satisfaction started to spread inside her belly.
Slowly she sunk down again and she wanted to close her eyes when she was slapped.
"You stay, kitty!"
She twitched as if she could shake off the disturbance, while she relaxed again.
Another slap hit her. "Stay awake!" She was shaken and she tried to see what was disturbing her, but she was unable to focus, her head rolling around as she was unable to hold it up straight.
A hand grabbed her chin and she was slapped again.
Her mouth opened as she showed her teeth to somebody or something, yet she was unable to focus on this. There was nothing solid inside her head, nothing but a random haze and a lingering aching that seemed to be nowhere and everywhere at once.
She shook her head, trying to shake off whatever kept her from thinking straight and following a sudden instinct she tried to move again, until the strange hand got a hold of her and pushed her down once again.
"You stay there, I don't want to have killed that beast for nothing."
It took a long time before she grasped anything at all. She was at the brink of loosing consciousness all of the time, yet the slapping kept her awake. She tried to fight it off, to get rid of it, partly jumpy due to the presence of blood all around which she drank from when she was overcome by thirst and hunger.
With another intestinal loop in her mouth she finally realized where she was, the sudden realization hit her like a yet another slap: She lay inside the corpse of the Keelavo, which had been killed and cut open. She lay right in between its entrails, nothing but her head looking out of the dead body.
The thought confused her terribly, as she was unable to piece anything of the past events together. None of them seemed to make any sense at all, yet the overwhelming feeling of having been threatened by water, of having been deprived of air and warmth remained.
She did not even recognize the man who slapped her, yet she felt such a strong, instinctive hatred towards him that only her helpless condition kept her where she was.
It was not until the early evening until she was able to piece things together, despite the headaches and the feeling of repulsion that every clear thought incited: The river, crashing through the ice, the near-drowning, her hands clinging to Seerye who dragged her along and the man killing the Keelavo in order to keep her from freezing to death. She knew that there was still more to it, but it was too hard and too tiring to go on.
She had almost tried to resist Seerye when he tried to feed her, but he had lost his patience and had held a knife at her throat. It was little incidents like this that re-awakened memories in her numb skull, even though she obeyed him.
He forced her to stay inside the Keelavo for two days while he kept a huge fire alive, constantly searching for new firewood when he was not by her side, making sure that she did not loose consciousness by slapping her, by insulting her, by fueling her rage.
Being trapped inside dead animal did not feel repulsive to her at all. In a few clear moments, this amazed her, but she even felt rather secure inside and even though the dead animal's body heat was slowly decreasing, it was enough while her body was about warm itself again. It was the presence of the blood that addled her, that reawakened her instincts and triggered sudden outbreaks of instinctive rage when the smell became too powerful in her nose. These outbreaks were always countered by the coyote who did not allow her to resist him at all. She had learned by now that she was no match for him. It was almost an instinctive reaction to his presence or at least to his threats, because on the other hand her instinctive attempts to resist him reawakened again and again, despite her impairment.
But the fading warmth of the Keelavo revived the powers of her own body after the shock of the ice-cold water and the ordeal she had gone through afterwards. Little by little her body was regaining her strength, the fading life force of the Keelavo and the fire Seerye was feeding slowly bringing back her own strength.
Seerye used every moment he had to punish her physically and verbally, at the same time keeping her conscious and enjoying slapping and punching her while she lingered in a half-conscious state. He kept her alive, yet he punched her much more forcefully and much more often than necessary. As she had totally lost track of time, it felt like he tormented her without stopping. She saw him going away to gather food and firewood, yet a moment later he seemed to be back in order to slap her in the face, to pull at her ears or her hair, to grapple her muzzle with the full power of his hand or simply to punch her in the face. She responded to it and a moment later he punched her again.
As far as she knew it seemed to be the third day since she had fallen into the river, when he was suddenly standing in front of her and looked down on her.
Weakly she tried to look at him as well. His features were partly hidden by the shadows of his own body while his greatcoat and his shawl fluttered around his lean body. He starred down at her and she squeezed up her eyes and she knew that she would never forget this picture... As she wondered how she was able to know this, an aching pain shot through her head as if a part of it had suddenly frozen.
A powerful fist grabbed her and instantly brought her back to the ice and the snow of the land around her. It grabbed her by her chestfur and pulled her upwards, the mere pull hurt with powerfully intensity as she was pulled out of the dead animals. A moment later she stood by herself.
The cold of the day instantly paralyzed her as it reminded her of the moment she had fallen into the water. Her fur bristled, while a dizzy feeling spread inside her head, she felt like loosing consciousness at any moment. Her eyelids quivered.
"Hey! Hey!" He shook her powerfully.
The coyote slapped her hard. The pain drove out the haze that clouded her mind.
"I haven't allowed you to die on me, kitty and now I don't allow you to lie down again. I lost too many already, as well as every place to stay I ever had! Do you get this?" He stared into her eyes, his perfectly blue eyes glistened strongly. "Do you get that, kitty?"
Fearing punishment if she did not respond the way he wanted to, she tried to nod, guessing that it was what he wanted her to. The movement was not easy at all, as her strong muscles were stiff.
"Good!" He grabbed her arm once again, forcefully pulled her closer, hanging down from his shoulder while he dragged her along. "We gotta find new resources soon, so you better start damn walking again or I'll beat it into you!"
With all the power she could muster she tried to pull her feet off the ground which was the carcass of the Keelavo. Her feet quivered powerfully while she moved, there was very little power in her leg, but finally she managed and put it down again, while rising the other one, finally leaving the corpse that had kept her alive. Her paw sunk into the snow on the ground.
Looking down on her own body she saw that she was dyed by blood, every strand of her fur had absorbed the dead reptile's blood. There was no trace of her natural fur color left, neither was there any strand of felted fur that did not hurt as she tried to move.
Without any gentleness the man forced her to start walking. She tried as well as her powerless muscles allowed her to, making one helpless and painful step after the other.
The day they started to resume wandering again seemed to be even foggier than those before. There was nothing to be seen ahead of them.
Seerye gathered his belongings and those that he had taken possession of. He went through all the bags which the dead Keelavo had carried, threw away most of the stuff, keeping only a few things which he put into a backpack which the mount had carried up to now. He also put on all of the weapons he had: Two swords, the crossbow, the knives and daggers, two pistols, shuriken he had found in a small bag and a decorated tonfa.
Then he shouldered the backpack and started to walk away without saying any word.
The lynx girl had observed him. She had tried to clean her bloody fur with some snow, but it changed very little. When she had seen him walking away, she rose to her feet. For a last moment she looked around and studied the spot: Beneath the large furs which they had used as shelter, there was still the cold corpse of the Keelavo, frost was gathering upon it and there was the circle of the large fireplace where lots of ash had gathered.
Slowly she turned around and eyed the man who was walking ahead: His back hardly visible beneath the huge backpack and the large crossbow which he carried on his back as well. Unlike the long days before his steps were slow and heavy now.
Reluctantly she started to follow him, carefully stepping into his footsteps in the snow.
It was obvious that they could not travel fast without a mount. Seerye was much slower than before due to the load that he carried. His mood deteriorated considerably and he started to play around with her again, making her fight for the little food there was. Yet he never allowed those fights to last for a long time, as he was obviously tired as well. Thus he quickly ended the fights again, sending her to the ground with kicks or punches and throwing the food in the snow in front of her. She tried to avoid these fights as best as she could, but her hunger weakened her control, so that it was easy for him to make her mad.
Nevertheless she understood that food was scarce. On the other hand she did not realize that he had changed directions, yet she was sure that he had done so, even though she did not know why as the fog did neither reveal any landmarks, nor the sun or the moons. Thinking too much about this made her head hurt again.
It took some days before he seemed to have found what he had been heading for: A small defile on some rocky hills which was hardly visible under the snow which had gathered inside of it. Yet it seemed to be enough for Seerye who changed directions once again, traveling parallel to it.
She went on following him as she had done all of the time since he had picked her up, yet she could see how his attitude changed, how he became very careful, regularly checking his surroundings. She observed him like she did when she observed his combat practice, carefully studying the way he listened, how he stuck out his nose and how he checked for traces in the snow or other signs.
On the third day since they had reached the defile, having hardly eaten anything since then, Seerye woke her early.
She could noticed his suppressed anxiety and followed him moments later when he was already about to set off, even though there was so little light yet, that it was hard to see anything at all.
Quickly they reached the defile again and then she could see what had made him anxious: There was a fresh trail in the snow, the traces of several furrs and mounts.
For a moment Seerye studied them, then he set off again, walking away from the defile again and searching for a parallel way to it, making sure that he never got too close to it. He hurried, walking much faster than before and she had problems following him, because she could feel the lack of food by now.
When she fell into the snow and was just about to get up again, Seerye who had been walking ahead, turned around, grabbed her hair and yanked her off her feet.
The lynx shortly screamed in pain when she fell down.
The man did not care and simply pulled her along, his hand firmly holding the strands of her thick felted hair.
She struggled and as she tried to get a hold of his arms with her paws, claws unsheathed, but his coat was too thick. Instead her claws tried to cut his hands, but for the first time she had to notice that he was wearing gloves.
One more time she struggled to get free, but this only made the pain of his hold worse, she had to endure it, while she tried to calm. When she struggled one more time, she managed to get her feet on the ground and she made a few steps on her own which finally prompted him to let her go.
She dropped down into the snow and furiously she spun around and dashed after him, ready to attack him. When she had almost reached him he spun around as well and grabbed her instantly by her throat.
Unexpectedly she was suddenly hanging in the air, deprived of air.
"This is not playtime, Kitty! If you are going to make one more sound or get any bad ideas, you are going to pay for it, got it?"
He stared at her, his perfectly blue eyes sparkling.
"Got it?" he asked once again.
She gasped for breath and tried to nod.
He let her drop.
The lynx struggled to stay on her feet when she fell down, inhaling deeply.
Seerye walked ahead and she tried to follow him again.
He hurried through the snow, almost unhindered by the load he carried on his back.
Much later he headed for the defile again.
She noticed instantly that there were no traces in the snow in this place.
The man chose to head into the opposite direction, following the defile which was hardly anything but a big trench in this place, framed by some boulders and a few trees.
He finally stopped in a spot where the defile went through a hollow. A few large gray rocks pierced out of the ground, scattered at the hollow's edge as if they had been accidentally lost there. The hollow was deprived of trees, but they grew in a few places all around, hardly enough to be called a forest or even a clump of trees. Several large snow banks had formed between the rocks.
Seerye grabbed her chestfur.
The lynx winced but did not fight back, while he pulled her towards a snow bank and pushed her down behind it.
Quickly he undid the backpack and put down any additional weight until he carried nothing but his swords, the knives in his waist belt and the tonfa.
He checked the sharpness of the swords and she observed him while he did so, slowly rubbing her chest where she had pulled at her fur.
Suddenly he raised his sword and held it to her neck.
The cold of the metal froze her.
"Not one sound!" he whispered. His blue eyes glistened.
She nodded.
Crouched behind the snow bank, they waited for a long time.
It started snowing again, light flakes dancing around them while the cold crept into her limbs.
After a long time, she could hear something.
At first it was hardly audible, but little by little the sounds became more distinct: It was the snow creaking beneath heavy feet, the snorting of large animals, the ringing of metal harnesses and faint, irregular chatter.
For a moment she was hardly able to breathe, while Seerye approached the edge of the snow bank they hid behind and looked over it.
As careful as she was able to she tried to get a glimpse of the things on the road as well, but as soon as Seerye noticed he grabbed her hair and forced her down again.
She obeyed without making a sound as she had been able to get a short look of the things upon the road: At first it had been nothing but dark shapes among the foggy, snowy surroundings, hardly recognizable, but then she could see large, thick antlers and large, tottering shapes of reptiles. There were five furrs in thick coats which led two Keelavos with a huge load on their backs through the snow. All of the furrs carried long rifles over their shoulders.
Seerye chuckled and turned around to her, showing his sharp teeth as he grinned at her.
"I will tell you one thing, kitty..." he whispered. "...long range weapons are useless unless you are in a battle. Now watch!"
His fingers cracked when he stretched them and enforced his hold on the tonfa, with the other hand he pulled a short thick blade from his waist belt which he put between his teeth, the he pulled out another one, a long, thin stiletto.
The lynx girl's eyes were fixed on his movements, carefully eyeing the weapons as well, while the man turned around and looked over the snow bank again, noticing how the men and the two mounts were about to walk past them, down the snowy path.
Seerye tensed.
She could smell that he was about to attack, it was the same kind of smell that she had perceived whenever he had provoked her, yet she had forgotten about it... Why? What did it remind her of?
Low chatter was carried along by faint gusts of wind. Swaths of the constant mist swirled around.
The men seemed to sway while they walked and there was still the smell of imminent danger in her nose, making her heart beat faster. She could feel how her chest seemed to contract, her muscles tensed as the feeling that something terrible was about to occur was getting stronger. She tried to remember, she tried as hard as she could, until her head hurt...
Fog drifted along and snow fell down on her muzzle.
Like a shadow Seerye dashed off. He made almost no sound at all when he jumped over the snow bank and ran down the path, his feet hardly sinking into the snow as he ran over it with fast steps, his wide opened coat floating behind him. The blade between his teeth and the stiletto glistened in his hand.
One of the group's mounts noticed something and grunted.
The last man started and slowly turned around. The man besides him hesitated when he noticed this.
A split-second later Seerye closed in.
There was a deafening scream. The stiletto pierced through leather, cloth and fur, right through the man's flesh, until the tip emerged through the man's chest on the other side.
"STOP! WE ARE..." The second man cried out in the same instant.
Without ever stopping Seerye, jumped off, his arm with the tonfa rose and with he full power of his run-up the tonfa came down on the second man. The weapon's hard wood crashed into the man's head, blood shot around, the sound of cracking bones echoed around with deafening intensity. The man's head was twisted in a strange unnatural way while the large shape fell to the snowy ground.
Seerye let go of the tonfa, fell to the ground, rolled over, pulling his sword from its sheath and deflected the first blow of one of the other men as soon as he was on his feet again.
The coyote's blade swirled around and instantly the three standing men retired, even though all of them had weapons in their hands now.
Seerye grinned and eyed his opponents: Despite their thick clothes the three men were easily identifiable as a chamois, an ibex and a donkey. They held short swords in their hands as they stood around the coyote.
The man Seerye had stabbed was twitching on the ground, a large puddle of blood having formed around him while his screams were getting fainter by the moment.
Seerye grinned. "What? No time to load your rifles? Such a pity! And no time to save your buddy who is drowning in his own blood either..."
With a cry full of anger the chamois attacked him. Seerye dodged his assault, but this move drove him towards the ibex. The coyote's blade slammed against the sword of the ibex and deflected it, while the coyote's elbow hit the man's breast with full power. The ibex gasped for breath and tottered backwards.
The sound of ripping leather echoed around as the donkey's sword cut Seerye's coat apart, but missed the man who evaded. Seerye spun around and slapped the equine's face with his coat's edge.
"Agh!" Partly blinded the man stumbled around while Seerye rose his sword to stab him, but then shot downwards and deflected the chamois' attack who closed in again. The two men dealt a few blows.
"I already killed two of your friends and this is all you can do?" Seerye cried.
The chamois roared furiously.
"Pathetic, herbivorous vermin!"
Seerye kicked the man in the crotch in order to get free from him, he spun around himself and dodged the sword of the ibex who had tried to stab him. Seerye jumped backwards, pulled a knife from his belt and threw it at the chamois.
The chamois suppressed a scream when it hit his shoulder.
"Sorry, I aimed for the heart!" Seerye yelled, ducked in order to evade a blow by the donkey, threw himself to the ground, rolled over.
The ibex' sword hit the snow where the coyote had been instants before. Seerye kicked him, pushing him over and jumped, his sword high in the air. He struck for the donkey who tried to block it, but the power had been so strong that the equine lost hold of his sword and it was torn out of his hands.
"GET IT, GET IT!" the chamois screamed. "I will hold..."
"No, you won't!" Seerye blocked the chamois' blow high above his own head, dived under it, reached out for a knife and threw it at the donkey who was just about to run for his weapon which stuck in the snow.
The equine screamed as the knife hit him in his back.
Seerye spun around himself, suddenly seeing himself face-to-face with the ibex and his sword which shot closer. The coyote dodged, yet the sword cut through his fur coat and hit his arm, a deep bloody wound opened and almost instantly the surrounding fur was soaked, but Seerye did not even seem to notice.
Fully erect his elbow hit the forward leaning ibex' head and sent him to the ground while the coyote already spun around again, blocking one blow of the chamois after the other, returning fierce strikes himself, driving the chamois ahead, who stumbled backwards.
"Can't fight properly, goat? Killing two of your friends is not enough to make you move?" Seerye hissed into the chamois' face as they were getting closer and closer.
Seerye struck with full power and the chamois blocked it above his head, but in this moment Seerye grabbed his arm, rose his foot and slammed it into the other man's stomach with full power.
The chamois gasped in pain, blood shot from his lips as he was thrown off his feet, Seerye instantly closing in, the sword above him.
"I got him, I got him, Lenya!" the donkey yelled.
"No, I got you!"
The sword dropped out of the donkey's hands as Seerye's blade pierced through his body.
The injured equine had rushed closer to help his endangered friend, but Seerye had spun around in an instant and the donkey had run right into the coyote's blade.
The tip of the sword protruded from the man's back, just above the spot where the throwing knife had injured the man before.
The donkey twitched, blood welled up to his lips and flowed from his mouth as he stared into Seerye's face.
"How does it feel to die, you worthless scum?" Seerye hissed into his face. "Hope you enjoy the pain, because there is going to be more!" With the full power of his paws, the coyote started to turn the blade in the donkey's body.
The man tensed, opening his mouth wide as if he wanted to scream, but there was nothing but blood shooting from his mouth. Drops of it dying the snow all around him while Seerye eyed the face with wide opened eyes.
"YOU MONSTER!" The ibex attacked.
Seerye simply let go of the weapon that had pierced the donkey who fell to the ground with one last gurgle in his throat.
The coyote cast aside his coat and pulled out the second sword, easily blocking the ibex's blows when he had reached him. "You are nothing but animals for slaughter," Seerye cried. "This land will never belong to you scum! Now get back, to where you..." He grabbed the ibex's shoulder with his free hand and pushed him backwards... "...belong!" ...and he spun around to dodge an attack by the chamois.
"From the right, from the right!" the ibex yelled.
Seerye returned the chamois' attack with forceful blows while he saw the ibex closing in again.
He dived, fell to the ground, rolled over, pulled a knife from his belt, rammed it into ibex' body, came back to his feet, turned around, dived under another attack by the assaulting chamois and pushed his sword upwards while getting to his feet again.
The sword easily pierced through the cloth of the chamois' clothes and into his heart.
The man collapsed onto the coyote who held him, the sword dropped from his hands into the snow while blood shot from the wound in his chest and around the coyote's paws who held the hilt of the sword.
"You are getting away much too easily, you scum!" Seerye hissed, seeing the chamois' quivering, breaking eyes. With one movement Seerye pulled the sword back, even more blood poured to the ground, the chamois collapsed to his knees. For a moment the man lingered, then Seerye pushed him over and with a powerful kick he slammed the chamois' head into the snow.
Panting from the exhaustion of the fight, the coyote turned around and looked towards the ibex. A long trail of blood marked the man's way, as there was still Seerye's knife deep within his thigh.
The man tried to recede, groveling on his belly as fast as he could before Seerye got any closer, to reach his weapon which he had dropped when he had been stabbed...
The silhouette of the coyote stopped in front of him. Slowly the man turned his head.
Snow and wind flew past the coyote's grinning face.
For a moment the man was totally motionless, staring at the coyote's face which he had not been able to study like this before. "You!" The word had formed slowly on the injured man's lips. "It is you!"
Seerye's eyes narrowed for a moment as he eyed the injured ibex.
The man on the ground started to show his teeth. "I knew it; it could have only been you! There is no other man who could be able of such brutality! It could only be you!" He hissed the words, holding his injured leg while he did so. Blood ran down his thick pants.
"Do you think your judgement matters to me?" Seerye said coldly, his blood coated sword pointing at the man. "I am..."
"You are nothing but a murderer! A cold-blooded murderer!" the ibex yelled. "My brother gave his life to stop you and your pack! And dying by your blade will unite me with him, even though I regret that they were obviously not able to kill you back when they wiped out your pack!"
"How dare you speak of my men? You hunted us down one by one. You burned and destroyed every single one of our shelters. You..."
"Cutthroats, rapists, scum even in the Holy Mother's eye!" the ibex yelled into the coyote's face. "Despite her boundless love, she rejoiced the day your pack was drowned in its own blood."
Seerye's face was frozen as he stared at the ibex.
The wounded man leaned forward and faced his opponent. "Now kill me!"
For a moment there was no sound to be heard at all.
Then Seerye stood up straight again, pushed his coat aside and let his sword glide into its sheath again. "No! That would be too easy! I will enjoy the thought of how you will freeze to death, because that is your certain fate all alone and without any mounts and any help." He turned around.
"What..." The ibex stared at the coyote who was about to walk away.
Seerye walked over to the two Keelavos of the men who had fled the fight and retreated to the shadows of two large trees. "Come here, kitty!" Seerye yelled. "We are leaving!"
"You dastardly scum, you dirty dog3," the ibex howled. "May the sun burn off your fur and roast your skin!"
"KITTY!" Seerye shouted impatiently.
He had just about enough time to dodge. Instinctively he jumped backwards, bumped into one of the Keelavos, but was fast enough to evade her claws.
"What? You...!"
She did not leave him any more time for words as she jumped him again. She was faster than ever before. There was no thought on her mind, nothing but pure frenzy driving her as her claws and her jaw reached out for his throat. She got a hold on him, but he had shaken off his surprise by now and reacted instantly, his arms shot upwards. She was hit hard by his fists, but let go off her hold, allowing herself to fall to the ground. He tried to kick her, but she retreated so fast that his foot hit nothing but a heap of snow.
Snowflakes and ice shot about and slowly fell to the ground where the lynx was crouching now. She was on all fours, her sharp teeth exposed as she observed the coyote.
"You were smart enough to let go of me in order to escape my blows," Seerye stated. "You learned something, but this is not a game..."
She lowered herself even further and from her throat came a deep hoarse snarl like the rattle of a box of rusted nails, her breath welled up all around her muzzle, billowing around her bared teeth.
Seerye pushed his coat aside and drew his sword again. "No. This is not a game."
The lynx crouch-jumped.
Seerye threw himself forward, using his sword like a lance.
"I saw that comi..."
She fell down to the ground, rolled over, Seerye spun around himself, his sword slashing through the air with a whistling sound, but missing the small lynx by mere inches.
Rolling over one of her claws struck him, but she hit nothing but the thick fur of his coat. His sword came down and she evaded the glistening blade as well as she could. Blood shot about.
A large cut on her forearm started to bleed.
The pain hit her like a hot iron thrusted into her skull and her rage exploded within her as she shot forwards again, every muscle of her body crying out for the coyote's blood whose picture was imprinted into her brain like a painful scar and so were all the movements she had seen him perform during the endless days she had suffered in his presence.
Seerye's blade shot upwards in order to protect him, but she had not aimed for his body as her claws and paws grabbed his coat and with the full power of her jump and the weight of her body she yanked him to ground. He lost his balance and a short yelp escaped him before he was thrown into the snow.
The blade shot around as he tried to fend her off if she tried to attack him in this moment. Blindly he slashed around as snow had gotten into his eyes. A moment later he jumped to his feet again, his blade shot around, but it hit nothing at all. He needed a split-second to realize...
His fist shot upwards and hit her muzzle hard. Once again her blood shot about, a yelp escaped her and she fell to the ground. He spun around, having realized that she had been in his back all of the time. He saw her blood among the white snow, saw how she tried to get up after having received the blow.
Jumping forwards he aimed at her with his blade, she dodged it and her claws reached out for his arm.
He screamed in pain when her claws slashed the coat, he saw her maw shooting forwards and he raised his hand just in time. He grabbed her face and using all of his strength he stopped her teeth from getting any closer.
Her claws locked in his arm holding his sword, his other arm caught up in holding her, they were both locked in this position for a momentt.
The most ferocious cry escaped his throat when he kicked her with all of his power. The lynx girl was thrown backwards and fell into the snow. And instantly he was above her again and his sword shot downwards. He snarled, growled, his hair waved violently around his body while he mindlessly attacked the girl again and again.
She evaded as fast as she could but his fury gave her an opportunity and her foot sunk deep into his crotch and he stumbled backwards so that she could get onto her feet and instantly she dashed off bounced against a snow-laden rock. The coyote followed close behind. She jumped off and thus his sword sunk deeply into the stone where she had been moments before. She tried to attack and he had to duck behind his sword. A kick of his sent her to the ground and gave him the time to loosen his sword again. When she was hardly on her feet again his sword was already coming for her again.
"I will kill you..." he hissed breathlessly.
She did not hear. She was beyond words, she was nothing but claws, teeth and muscles driven by instinct.
He leaped forward and she ducked and rolled over to stop behind him but he had already spun around again. This time she was not fast enough and she received a cut in her lower thigh. The warm blood flowed down her leg but she did not even notice, instead she kicked him right into his face and he was driven backwards and almost stumbled. She jumped backwards when he hurled his weapon into her direction and suddenly turned around and ran. The coyote instantly followed after her. She was panting heavily and her strong muscles were as tense as steel but she was much too young and much too feline to outbalance his natural canine strength.
A fast kick of his threw her to the ground before she had been able to get away. She hit frozen ground and she yelped in pain because sharp stones beneath the snow cut into her flesh but she had no time for that as the coyote was right above her.
He growled in satisfaction.
Her eyes widened, she was completely frozen for a short moment and then her muscles exploded into another jump as she dashed off.
Snow flew all around as his blade hit the ground. She could feel the rush of cold wind it caused.
The coyote screamed in frustration while she ran off, jumped against another rock and leaped towards him in no time. He was just able to throw his weapon around and he heard the cry when the blade cut into her flesh but it did not seem to affect her at all, because she was back on her feet with a snarl and jumped at him and this time she was fast enough to get him and she pushed him over. For a short moment he was looking straight into her distorted face where no trace of control was left. Her rhombic pupils burned like fire. Both of his hands shot upwards and slammed against her shoulders. The lynx girl yelped due to the injury she had received before and this momentary weakness of hers was all he needed to push her off before her sharp, predatory teeth had been able to reach him. She was thrown around, mewling in pain and he jumped to his feet and closed in.
The blade hit her arm again, blood shot around, she was thrown to the ground again and he slashed after her, but she rolled over and thus his weapon just hit the snow again.
All around her blood stains were about to dye the snow red as it dropped from her wounded leg and arm.
He got her with one foot when he jump-kicked her and the small feline was hurled down by the power but nevertheless she was able to hit the ground on all fours and thus could jump at him in return. This time she grabbed him and her claws slashed him while her teeth snapped at his throat. Uncountable small wounds started to cover his face, but he evaded her teeth and he spun his sword around in his hand and pierced it into her shoulder from behind.
She screamed with pain.
He got a hold on her and threw her off with all his strength, hurled the small feline away and instantly went after her.
The lynx writhed on the ground, some whimpering sound escaped her throat while she tried to get hold of the large wound on her back, mindlessly struggling like the wounded animal that she was.
He raised his sword to finish her.
There was the noise of something ripping apart.
He gulped and very slowly he looked down. The sword fell out of his hand and there was a dull sound as it fell into the snow. The bloody blade instantly dyed the snow around it.
The claws of her unhurt arm were buried deep in his stomach, her clawed fingers had cut a way through his coat and slowly blood started to pour out of the four wounds where her sharp claws had pierced through his fur and skin, deep into his flesh. She was faster than he had expected.
She clenched her fist and tore her claws out of him. Blood, veins, skin and flesh threw around and fell down into the white snow.
He gasped, his fingers cramped around the gaping wounds and he staggered, forward, backward. He turned around on the spot, his hand reaching out for one of the knives at his waist belt, but then he was thrown over as she pounced him from behind.
She sat on his back, her hands got a hold of his head, the claws cutting deep into the flesh and then she pulled at it with all of her power, every muscle tensed to the brink of being torn apart.
Then there was a snap and the head on the twisted neck slipped out of her hands and she fell backwards into the snow.
She stared breathlessly into the sky ahead. Suddenly she could feel cold and pain, she could feel the wounds and the blood running down from her arm, her thigh and her shoulder. Despite all of this she felt a totally unreal sensation of fulfillment that defied the mindless state she was in.
It was finished.
She closed her eyes and...
She woke with a start and all that she felt was cold.
The limbs of her body had no feeling anymore as the cold surrounded her entirely and kept her down, kept her from moving even though she wanted to open her mouth just to inhale. She wanted to have a look at her surroundings, to move her hand and her fingers. She could not feel her fingers anymore.
There was only that familiar cold that reminded her of...
Every breath hurt in her lungs, she felt like she was drowning.
And she felt tired, wanted to rest from the strain of what she had gone through, but her instincts kept her from closing her eyes. She only wanted to rest as she already knew what was waiting ahead. Everything was so strangely familiar.
Snow fell down on her and did not melt anymore.
Suddenly something changed and before she could see what happened, she knew it: There were two men and those men were coming for her and the first one would walk over to her, while the other one would say...
"Is it still alive?"
She would not react because she would not be able to react and the first man would come even closer, lean over her and reply...
"Hardly, it is still blinking."
Then the first one again: "Check her sex, if it's a female we can sell it."
Everything inside of her tensed as her mind started to revolt. She could not devise a single rational thought as there were no words inside her head, everything was nothing but a mess of pain, fears and urges and yet her mind felt like it wanted to blow up her skull while she tried to make sense of what happened around her.
"Where did she come from...?"
The men and their voices were nothing but shadows at the edge of her perception while she threw herself against the pictures with all the power she could muster. Everything felt wrong and she reacted instinctively, clenching her teeth, pressing her eyes shut, trying to block everything out, tried to shut out the cold, the winter, the men, everything she saw and felt and did.
The events rushed past her, the journey with the men on the Keelavo's back, how they treated and abused her and suddenly she could feel something warm splattering over her and she opened her eyes. Fear hit her again, frighteningly familiar. It took hold of her heart and squeezed hard.
There was a dying man upon her, she could still feel him twitching, her fur was soaked with blood while his murderer came closer.
"The trouble a man has got to get through to get some pussy..."
Everything stopped.
And then she threw herself against it, with her body and every fiber of her body she fought the ropes that bound her.
"Fuck! I fuckin' hate..." The hands of Seerye were all over her as he tried to grab her and she fought against him, tried to push him over.
Then his hand was in her hair and she knew what would come next. Pictures flooded back into her head, pictures of things that had happened a long time ago, how he had treated her, how he had used and abused her, how she had tried to fight him again and again and... then her head hit the rock again and she blacked out again, having concluded nothing at all.
Yet every fiber of her body fought against it and she felt as if she was about to push forward to the surface of a river she was drowning in and when she gasped for breath she was there again.
Bright light pierced into her eyes, she could feel the pain of her body again, feeling feeble and miserable, her stomach and her head hurting worse than the other limbs of her body, yet she could feel something having cut into her arms and legs as well and at the same time she knew that her fur was soaked with blood.
She opened her eyelids, and held her breath while doing so, as she was almost certain what she would see: A campfire and him.
She jumped up and attacked him, overcome by instant rage and the desperate feeling of having to defend herself again him.
He fell down when she tried to get at his throat, but she got one of his legs. She bit it and then came the foot that hit her with full power. It hit her again and she rolled over, she got to her feet, seeing nothing but her environment spinning around her, yet she tried to run away. He caught her tail, pulled her backwards and then grabbed her throat and strangled her, holding her up high, just to prove that he could.
With all the power of her body she tried to get free, tried to fight the grip of the man.
Every fiber of her body told her to fight on, but her fear was stronger than her rage in this moment and so was her need for air. She struggled for every breath, tried to get as much of it through her closed throat. Her both paws tried to pull of the coyote's hand, but his grip did not weaken.
The face of the coyote was right in front her. He studied her and slowly a grin started to show on his face.
Her both paws tried to pull of the coyote's hand, but his grip did not weaken. Her feet kicked around as she tried to break free.
"You may act like a..."
And suddenly she started, as she understood the word he used.
"..a feral..."
Her eyes opened wide and she stared at the man, remembering him having used that word, yet she also remembered having heard this word elsewhere, used by an antelope onboard a flying ship where..., where...
He was dead! She suddenly realized that she had succeeded, her claws having been buried deeply inside his body: His blood had shot all around and yet she had not stopped until she had broken the strong man's neck. It had happened! It had happened a long time ago!
There was snow and ice all around, hiding the surrounding forest just like the fog did in an impenetrable, icy white and she stared into the coyote's face, not feeling his hands at her throat anymore. She could feel the snow upon her skin and her fur and how it melted upon her warm skin, single drops running down her muzzle, over her lips and into her mouth.
The man did not react at all and slowly she lowered her gaze as if he and his hands were not there at all, as if he was not holding her by her throat and on her chest she could see a silver pendant, consisting of two birds and a fish in their middle.
She raised her eyes again and looked at the man in total disbelief and suddenly the picture of him started to ripple like the surface of a pool.
She opened her mouth wide and buried her teeth in his arms. Ice and snow shot around her teeth, water splashed all around while the whole figure broke apart. It splashed all over her and over her surroundings which melted under it.
They started to collapse around her as the ice was no ice anymore, loosing the shape it had taken when she had remembered, when she had tried to understand what happened around her. Now that it lost its meaning, the pictures of the past faded and everything fell apart like the delusion it had always been.
She did not fully understand, but she felt that this what she wanted to attain and her bite got stronger with every moment.
Even the fog seemed to solidify and then came crashing down like giant chunks of ice breaking off a glacier and collapsing into a pool underneath. Ice, snow and water was all around her and as finally the arm was shattered by her teeth and as she was not held anymore, she fell down as well and hit the water's surface, dived deeply into it until it surrounded her.
Ice swirled around her and even more water bubbled out of the gaps in between, formed something like a pool beneath a glacier where she drifted around until the power of the current took hold of her body and a giant river carried her away.
Being swirled around she felt a sudden pull on her neck and looked down: There was the silver arc hanging down from her neck, glistening in the dark water around her, pointing into a specific direction.
She tensed and with powerful strokes of her arms Jiddy headed towards the water surface which could not hold her back anymore.
Annotation 1: A Keelavo is a large reptile, a close relative to the Nalavaa. Unlike the Nalavaa, the Keelavo is larger and sturdier, not very useful as a mount, but very suitable as a pack-animal. Furthermore, the Keelavo has got a thick, matted fur and is more adapted to cold regions as the Nalavaa.
Annotation 2: As there are only wild species known in this world, the term "cat" is a very strong insult for any kind of feline, hinting at general weakness, lack of willpower and therefore slavery.
Annotation 3: Just like the term "cat" for felines, "dog" does the same for canines.
End of Chapter 18- Whiteout. To be continued!
Copyright by kodayu.
Thanks for reading.
Note: The special edition pdf-version for offline-reading is available on my website http:/www.furry.org.au/kodayu