I took a step around Cosette who crept after me. As we approached the body, the large crows became agitated, snapping their beaks and beating their wings violently.
The body of the boar was enormous. It was covered in brown, setal bristles that joined into a long black crest along its spine and four white tusks jutted out from its gaping mouth. Much of the stomach had been picked at and devoured by the crows and whatever other animals that had happened upon the carrion.
"It's new," Cosette muttered to herself as she circled the body, "that's why we didn't smell it."
The coarse fur was splattered by red flecks and clean claw marks cut deep into the face and neck. Any animal that could take down a full-grown boar had to be as large as a bear and meaner by half.
"It must have been a fight," I murmured back to disturb the growing quiet that had befallen us, however the silence rang heavier in spite of it.
"Look at this print." Cosette was pointing at the ground by the boar's mouth. "These were left here recently."
Sunlight bled through the branches above us, providing a little bit of light for me to take a closer look at what Cosette was talking about. I leaned in, careful to circumvent the boar's tusks.
The palm print that had been preserved at the foot of the tree was shaped like a man's but much larger, with five spidery fingers. They could almost be compared to the crow's feet with their sinewy, thin look, but it was far more monstrous.
Cosette placed her tiny palm on the indent, unafraid. "I bet no one's seen a creature like this one."
"We should leave before we see it too.” I didn't want to test the theory that whatever beast the boar had met was still lurking nearby.
A black pellet whistled past my cheek and a wave of fire burst at the contact point. The smell of blood and iron stifled my nostrils just as a second pellet sailed over my head. It collided with a black blur that stopped dead in the sky and then plummeted into the path with a thwack. Dead.
The crow twitched on the ground, black marble eyes peeled open.
“Cosette!” I cried, hardly able to reason what had just happened.
Her red hair bounced as she had dropped to grab the crow. I grabbed Cosette's wrist and yanked her forward, destroying the monstrous hand print.
Insidious laughter erupted from the surrounding forest, the feral cries of excitement tumbling out of the branches. The wild hunt bellowed behind us and the crackling, fiery voices set our palace of ice aflame with red shadows.
Cosette cried out. She moved, I didn’t, and I was the one who crashed into the other body. We rolled to the ground, a yelp coming from whatever I had hit.
"Let go of me!" I cried out and scraped my cheek hard on the grains of dirt along the frozen path.
A ragged pack of boys appeared in the trees around me, five including the one I had run into. Their dirty, wild faces snarled.
"You alright, Dier?" one asked.
The boy I had hit shrugged them off with a snap and yanked me to my feet with one pull. "Why were you running? Did you see the monster?"
I wrenched my limb from his grasp and backed into Cosette who squawked. Oh- not Cosette. It must have been the crow she had rescued.
One more pale, angry face slipped out from the trees. Gotthard Bonenfant, Cosette’s older brother. I had heard a few stories about him, none good.
“That bird is ours," Gotthard’s icy blue eyes pierced through me with a sharp intensity. "I hit it fair and square.”
My eyes widened and I touched my stinging cheek which came back red. “You were throwing rocks at it?” I asked, horrified.
“It’s good luck to kill a crow. They’re messengers of death.” Gotthard Bonenfant mused as he swept passed me towards his sister who sheltered the bird from his grasp. “Looks like you brought it back to life, Cosette. Bet that means you’re cursed now.”
The boys puffed out their chests and poked us with their fingers, smirking from behind the tips of their button noses.
“She’ll probably fall down dead.” Their voices chattered excitedly.
I hissed, successfully smacking one of them and watching as they all flinched back in response.
Cosette had crushed the crow in an effort to protect it from her brother. The animal, no longer dazed, wriggled free and snapped at her fingers, biting one of them hard. It launched into the air and eagerly fled our petty feud with all of its animal heart.
“You’re all a bunch of beasts,” I said angrily and wedged myself in front of Gotthard. “The crow is gone, leave us alone.”
“I didn’t do nothin’!” Dier snapped. “You saw the monster, didn’t you!”
“We didn’t see your stupid monster and we’re not afraid of your stories.” I made direct eye contact with Gotthard and a sneer revealed his grey gums.
"You should be.” Dier poked a finger into my chest, bruising my sternum. "He'd sneak up on you without you even knowing it, just as the sun hit the trees."
All the other boys had been teasing, but this Dier was as serious as the Old Crow. His voice never rose above a whisper, but it commanded the fear shifting through the forest. The boys quieted, and their faces were masked by anxious expressions. Each and every one of them turned their gaze outward of our circle to the secretive branches. The boys were just invaders of the ice palace and they feared its true lord and master.
"Netvor," their pinched mouths whispered the name with a terrified reverence.
My eyes widened in recognition and the boy named Dier took this as justification for his harassment.
“Tell us what you saw,” he persisted.
“You better leave us alone!” I kicked my leg out in a round quarter-circle because I thought it looked intimidating and raised my fists defensively, Cosette still hidden behind my shoulder. "And if you don't get going right now, Dier. I'm going to knock your head off!"
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