Yarla was kissed by fire. A trait that was not all that rare, but not too common either. There were a lot of different stories and rumors about women like her, especially with their red hair. Most of them were as fictional as the dragons the kneelers and the crows talked about, but there was a glimpse of truth in their stories. A single one. Fire-kissed were hot-blooded, impatient, and impulsive.
This meant that her act of staying as still as she could was a legendary feat by itself, yet it was a battle she was slowly losing. Her grey eyes peered from her spot beneath a bush, and she searched for her partners in justice. There were seven of them in total, although despite how much she searched, she could only make out three figures hidden in different spots.
Dirk and Isha hid underneath bushes like hares, their bodies wrapped in furs to protect them from the snow, while Briar stood perched on a tree that could handle his weight. They had been there for what felt like hours, but judging by how little the sun had moved in the sky, it could not have been minutes at most.
Any longer and she would—
"Stop fidgeting, sister, you're going to give yourself away."
The hushed voice of her brother called out to her as quietly as he could. She turned her face to find him inches away from her; her surprise was greeted by a soothing smile from him. Gavin was her twin brother, but other than their similar features, they couldn't be further alike.
He was calm where she was fidgety, silent, and could be mistaken for a child of the forest, where she was as subtle as a giant rampaging through the haunted forest. Yet despite their differences, Yarla loved him more than anything in the world.
Before she could ask how he was able to sneak up on her, she heard the footsteps. And like a switch had been flipped, Gavin's features hardened as he raised a hand up to silence her, his face tight in concentration. Shortly after, he raised his hands, displaying his fingers. An open palm and one finger. Six people. Yarla smiled fiercely. They outnumbered them. Even if there had been ten of them, with their ambush and the general unpreparedness her foes had been showing, she had expected her group to win, but now, now it was certain.
She gave a nod and watched as Gavin crawled away, most likely to inform the rest of their group. Unlike what it looked like, this was not a raid or a true attack. This was retaliation upon the bastards from the Sealskinners, a small tribe like theirs that lived beneath the foot of the Frostfangs.
A group had ambushed, robbed, and then stabbed Isha's elder brother just a few days ago when he had gone hunting. The older boy had only managed to crawl back home and tell the tale before he returned into the embrace of the Old Gods, and as had been their practice since dawn suddenly began to rise slowly, they had burnt the boy's body.
Despite the words of their elders, the group refused to sit back and allow the attack on one of theirs to slide. The Sealskinners were a tribe just as small as theirs, with less than a hundred people total. There was no reason to fear them, so they had decided on a reverse ambush, to steal whatever they had hunted. If they also managed to shank one or two of them, it was no skin off her back.
She watched from her spot beneath the bush as the group of six joked and laughed as they walked by her, although it seemed like two of them were slower as they carried something heavy, most likely whatever they hunted. So when Gavin shouted "Attack," Yarla knew her opponent.
She burst out of the undergrowth with a yell on her lips and her arms mid-swing. The brown-haired boy that was the closest to her, his arms still carrying his side of the small white beast they had hunted, barely had time to blink in surprise before the haft of the wooden spear in her hand slammed into his face.
Then the screams started. She only had time to see Isha dive out of her hole in the bush, the fire-sharpened point of her spear first. The spear plunged into a surprised boy's neck. Yarla was no stranger to death, yet the emotion on Isha's face as she leaned forward, forcing the spear deeper into the boy's neck, as well as the look of horror on the boy's face, froze her on the spot.
Her tribe was not one of raiders. They were one of the few tribes that could grow some of their own food, and that skill made them soft, less bloodthirsty. Why attack your neighbors for food when you can just grow whatever you want?
"That's enough, surrender!"
The sound of Gavin's voice echoing in the road path finally managed to shock her out of her stupor, and she realized the fight was over. The rest of the five youths had been beaten up, and with Gavin's call, the two that still held weapons, one a stone axe, the other an unstrung bow he had been using as a stave, both dropped their weapons, but not without glares toward Isha, where the young woman continued to stab down frantically at her dead foe, with tears in her eyes.
It took Gavin walking up to her and placing a cautious hand on her shoulder to stop her rampage. "It's over, Isha," he said soothingly. "It's done, he's dead. Your brother has been avenged."
That sentence must've given the group an idea of their identity because the biggest boy, the one that had dropped a stone axe, let out a bark of a laugh. "Wait a minute, you lot are from the grass munchers, aren't you?" Yarla glared at him instantly, but her glare had nothing on Isha's glare.
The boy looked unconcerned. Instead, he bent and picked up his axe, a cocky grin on his face. "I can't believe a group of grass munchers managed to ambush us. Shame," the boy started, before letting out a shrug. "Still, I assume this is revenge for the fool that refused to hand over the rabbit when we asked. Anyway, Oren over there has been killed by the mad girl, so your blood debt has been paid. This is over. Now we have to leave, we have a great trophy to return to the village."
Ignoring the condescending tone and the way the boy acted, Yarla instead looked down. She was the closest person to the dead beast the bastards had hunted, and if the death of one of theirs didn't seem to hurt, then stealing their prey and trophy should.
From what little she could see, it was some sort of white-fur beast. A wolf? She wondered. Not that regular wolves were worth the stress of hunting them. The meat was too stringy, a good trophy perhaps, but not a good hunt for food. Yet when her feet kicked the beast over, the features of the beast froze her.
"You stupid fucks actually killed a baby snowbear."
She found the words slipping from her lips, surprise, shock, and horror staining her voice. The rest of the group turned to where the dead bear lay. It was too big to be a wolf, and those features made it clear. Beady eyes, a shorter snout than what could be found on a wolf, the stubby ears, and the stocky body.
She looked up to see Gavin was just as pale as she felt. Even Isha looked scared. Gavin turned toward the leader of the group. "Tell me you killed the mother as well?" Her brother's voice was as frigid as the wind from the Land of Always Winter.
"What mother? The beast was alo—"
The big stupid bastard was cut short as a powerful roar blasted through the forest. Yarla didn't need to be a warg to tell the feeling of sorrow and pain that was in that roar. More importantly, how close it sounded.
The next few seconds happened like a dream. The foolish bastard that led the group barely had the time to turn as a wall of white fur burst out of the forest on the side.
The snow bear killed the boy with a single swipe.
One moment he was standing, mouth half-open with some smug reply caught between his teeth. The next, his chest exploded inward as a white-furred paw the size of a full-grown man's torso hit him. The impact cracked bone and caved in his ribs with a sickening crunch. His body flew backward into a tree, struck the trunk hard enough to split the bark, and then slumped lifeless to the ground.
The bear didn't pause. It lowered its monstrous head and bit clean through his neck. The sound was wet and final. Then it looked up and black eyes found them.
It turned, slow and deliberate, toward the dead cub lying beside Yarla's feet. Steam rose from its maw. Thick white fur bristled with snow and blood. Its breath came out in great, heaving puffs that fogged and hid its features. And for a moment, everything stood still.
Yarla's legs refused to move. Her blood had gone to ice. All she could do was stare as the snow bear lowered its massive head toward its dead child. It let out a sound that shattered whatever part of her still believed animals didn't feel grief.
Then it looked up again, and this time, it was looking straight at her.
It looked ready to charge, but before it could, the sky cracked and lightning split the heavens, slamming into the forest what felt like a half-hour trek away. The impact shook the earth as a blinding red flash lit the forest, followed by a blast of heat and static that made her bones hum.
Gavin was the first person to recover. "SCATTER!" he bellowed.
The world erupted into motion and Yarla stumbled back. Briar leapt down from his perch. Isha dropped her spear and scrambled backward. One of the remaining Sealskinner boys tried to run the wrong way and was trampled before he got two steps.
The bear roared and swatted wildly.
It was placed in the middle of the path and it tore through the group like a hurricane of meat and muscle. She scrambled back up, heart pounding, just in time to see the bear tear into Dirk. He screamed once before being crushed beneath a swinging paw. Another paw lashed out, and another Sealskinner boy died with a single hit. The body rolled to a stop at her feet. The blank eyes and mouth opened wide in regret snapped her out of her terror.
"RUN!" Gavin's voice rang again.
Yarla didn't argue.
She bolted through the snow. She didn't know where she was going, all she knew was that she had to run. Her muscles burned as they propelled her forward. Her skin smarted as the branches slapped against her as she pushed through them and the roots of the trees tried to trip her. Still she ran.
She didn't know how much she had been running, but by now her breath steamed in front of her, legs pumping, heart hammering so hard she felt sick. Still, behind her, she could hear the crunch of snow, the low growl of something massive moving fast through the forest, and the sound of people dying.
It was hunting them. But she didn't look back. She couldn't. The trees blurred. More branches whipped past her face. Her lungs burned, and her legs threatened to give out, but still she ran. She didn't stop. Didn't stumble.
Until she saw it.
It rose from the snow like a dark mountain that had taken root in the earth and grown out overnight. A gigantic black structure with multiple offshoots and buildings held up by crafting that could only be performed by the Old Gods. The air around the building, no, the castle shimmered with a heat that shouldn't have been there, the snow around it was still melting into steaming puddles at its base. Its doors were titanic, wrought from some dark metal, and carved with symbols she didn't recognize. Lightning crackled still in the air around it, static crawling across her skin.
She didn't realize she had stopped. Her feet froze in place. What… was this? It looked like something out of a nightmare. She had been born and raised around this area and she had never seen the structure before today. Did it have something to do with—
There was a crack behind her, and before she could respond, Yarla was thrown into the snow as someone collided with her and she was flung sideways. She barely had time to blink as she watched a massive paw bury itself into the ground exactly where she'd been standing a second before.
She shoved and shook her head as she rolled further away. When she finally made distance, she opened her eyes and Gavin was standing above and in front of her. He had been the one to slam into her and save her from getting squished.
He stood between her and the bear, spear raised, face grim. His arms shook, but he did not step back.
"Get up," he said. "Keep running, and no matter what, promise me you won't look back." Gavin turned and gave her a half smile. "Promise me, Yarla."
The bear roared before she could reply, and it charged forth again. Gavin leaned forward, spear pressed against the ground, and eyes focused as he looked ready to sell his life for her. Then there was a blur of black, and an explosion of force that sent snow flying as well, blocking her view and flinging her back once again.
When she recovered, wiping snow from her eyes, she was greeted with the figure of a man. He was enormous, taller than even her father on the rare days he remembered to come visiting, if only to fuck her mother. The figure was cloaked in black like a crow, with long black hair flowing behind him. She could only see his back, but his sheer presence sent a chill down her spine, one that had nothing to do with the cold. He stood where the bear had been just a split second ago.
Yarla's gaze dropped to the man's feet, where the beginning of a trench had been carved into the snow, stretching from where he stood to where the bear had been hurled, only stopping because it slammed into a tree. The beast rose shakily, then let out another deafening roar.
The figure tilted his head slightly.
"Tell me that is not The Wall in the distance," he said, his voice a low drawl, almost annoyed, if it hadn't sounded so damn regal. He shifted, now fully facing the distant gleam of ice on the horizon, the colossal wall that separated the true north from the southern kneelers and the black-cloaked crows. "I'm going to have a serious conversation with Castlevania," he muttered, "about what I call home when I'm done here."