Black Spruce

Prologue

A tainted wind bellowed from the north, gritty and intrusive. Hot fingered gusts curled under debris, flipping the ground cover, snatching hungrily at dust, and dried leaves, pulling up the crawling things then shooting them skyward to circle around thin purling trees. The snap and crack of breaking branches barely heard over the uproar of the storm. It was a storm with no clouds, nor rain. A storm which tore at the land, unashamed, beneath the mid-day sun.

The cave was hot, the wind screamed through fine cracks in the rock and the noise was relentless, it echoed in the dim, it echoed into the dark beyond and it echoed in their heads. Druszik sensed a fevered panic building beneath the collective tension. His group of El'Rothzani fighters were restless and Druszik noted the opening and closing of fists, clenching of jaws, wild eyes and simmering anger. It had been long hours of stilled voices, silence wrapped in the thrum and shriek of noise.

The storm had come suddenly, not long after daybreak, a wall of sand that ripped them from sleep, scattering his party over the camp as they scrambled to collect tumbling gear and contain the frightened Orszliän mounts. Wind, it was only wind, driving them back. The storm had thrust them to the mountain, pinning them within it. It was not long until their Great Cats succumbed to weather-frenzy. Warning growls followed closely by raking claws and biting, bloody snarls had left Druszik no choice but to order the beasts set loose before madness overcame them.

Druszik looked toward Juraszik, who was motionless, but awake. His smooth hands covered his small ears, worried brown eyes stared blankly forward. Waiting. When he felt his fathers gaze upon him, Juraszik looked up. Druszik raised a single brow in question and Juraszik nodded almost imperceptibly. Druszik exhaled a short breath, it was a small relief. Always the question. He had asked it countless times in waking hours as the days stacked up behind them and although Juraszik's answer had remained unchanged, Druszik was not blind to the anguish building in his son's mind. The storm-stolen day had cost the band precious time and the loss of their mounts would hinder their travel painfully.

Juraszik grew weaker each day that the pursuit wore on. The distance between the small boy and the witch was growing despite the bands best efforts tracking her captors. If the connection between the witch and the boy was severed then Druszik knew he would lose them both. If Juraszik perished the last of Druszik's line would fade into frost. And if his boy died, so would the witch. No witch-child could live without his mother, and no witch had ever survived the loss of her offspring. Druszik knew the chance of losing both his mate and his heir was growing.

The old chief found himself once again cursing the Great Spirit in his heart, then immediately regretting it. He could not afford to incur any more of the Grandfathers' displeasure. Instead, he breathed a quiet plea into the howling wind.. "Forgive us."