Matabar

Ardi knew this feeling well. That moment when you’re awake but don’t want to open your eyes. You lie there, peeking out slightly, letting the morning sun of the approaching autumn kiss not only the cozy blanket around you, but also the tip of your nose.

The warm rays tickle your eyelids, and your ears catch the rare, quiet footsteps around the still-sleeping house. Somewhere, a floorboard creaks, signaling to the kitchen that Mother will soon be preparing breakfast. Maybe she’ll even make blueberry pancakes...

The water in the hanging sink gurgles — Grandfather, snorting in that amusing way of his, manages to wash not only his face, but half his body with cupped hands.

And you’re lying in bed, listening to all of this, knowing that you’re already awake, but not wanting to get up. Because there are chores ahead, worries, things to do, places to go, and it’s so peaceful in here.

Just a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes… In the warmth. The comfort.

At home.

Ardi knew this feeling. And that was why he couldn’t mistake it for what he was feeling right now.

He was lying on something frozen and rough, which was poking his side and bruising his ribs. The sun, bold and sharp, was almost cutting his face with splashes of still warm, golden dawn. There was no blanket, no creaking, no smell of blueberry pancakes. The air smelled different here.

It smelled of dampness. Mustiness. Stones and snow.

Ardi curled up.

He was cold.

But he was not as cold outwardly as he was on the inside. Scene after scene flashed before his mind’s eye, where a mighty hunter fought a monster. He was on the verge of victory, the beast would soon fall at his feet, but no — the creature tricked Hector. It tricked him. It stole the victory he’d earned. No, his father couldn’t lose. He couldn’t...

Ardi curled up into a small ball. Large tears ran down the child’s cheeks, leaving hot streaks behind.

He didn’t care why it smelled of stones and the mountain around him, why the wind was piercing him to the bone. All the boy wanted right now was to wake up. To have the comfort of knowing that the nightmares would torture him again, but as soon as he reached his parents’ room and touched the rail of their bed, everything would disappear. All his worries would pass. The nightmares would become ridiculous and insignificant in the light of his mother’s warm gaze and his father’s laughter.

But he didn’t wake up.

"I know you’re not asleep, cub."

Ardi jumped at the inhuman growl. At first, he thought he’d imagined it, then he couldn’t understand why the growl seemed vaguely familiar, but as soon as he found the strength to open his eyes, everything fell into place.

He was lying in a dark, slightly damp cave. But it wasn’t damp because rain was pouring in or water was dripping from the sloping ceiling, no. Not at all.

Ardi recoiled involuntarily.

In the years he had spent living in that house at the bend in the mountain river, the boy had become accustomed to the sight of blood. He’d seen it often enough when his mother had skinned game, or when his father had returned from a successful hunt and peeled the hides from his catch.

Blood wasn’t something strange or unpleasant to Ardi. He was indifferent to it. Both that of others and his own.

Still, there was a vast difference between something that flowed thickly, like swamp mud, over the rocks of the dark cave and what the boy had seen in the kitchen.

It was like a deep and dark abyss.

The boy did not stare into it.

Something else drew his eye. It was the snow leopard that was the size of a wild horse, like the ones that Ardi sometimes watched from the heights of Hawk’s Cliff. A normal boy would have probably been frightened by his long, bloodied fangs the size of a hand, and his claws that were ripping through the still-twitching flesh of a mountain goat, but not Ardi. The child wasn’t even fazed by the fact that the goat’s eyes, not yet glazed over and still clinging to the last few remains of its life, were the same amber color as his own.

One might’ve liked to say that this calmness, or rather, detachment from what was happening, was because Ardi had recognized Ergar the snow leopard and his slightly twitching, intertwined tails. After all, he had, until recently, considered him merely a toy, but no.

He just didn’t care.

He didn’t care that the beast’s white fur covered with blue spots had clumped together to form disgusting red splotches, or that the whiskers on his snout resembled garlands. Not the kind his parents had made on the Eve of Ascension, but... ugly. The kind made from shreds of internal organs, flesh, dripping blood and saliva on the floor.

As he watched the goat twitch less and less, Ardi felt neither fear, nor disgust, nor horror. Now he truly knew what those words meant. What feelings adults hid behind a series of letters and sounds.

But he did feel something else.

Something that seemed to be pulling him, something heavy. A stone pressing down just above his chest. This something pinned the boy to the rocks, squeezing his lungs, preventing him from breathing deeply and freely. His thoughts were confused, muddled, returning again and again to the scene of smoke and soot.

Ardi’s eyes could no longer shed tears, but he felt like the hot marks on his cheeks had never cooled and might stay that way forever. Maybe it was this invisible burden inside him, or maybe-

"You need to eat, boy," the snow leopard growled, still tearing into the pliant flesh.

Bones crunched, muscles and fat were crushed. The goat no longer twitched, and its eyes were now covered with a cloudy film. Ardi recognized it. He recognized death. Strangely, he wasn’t even surprised that it looked no different than the one that had come for his father. It looked the exact same. Gray, motionless and turning living beings into broken toys.

Ardi wanted to say that he wasn’t hungry, but his stomach betrayed him with a growl.

When had he last eaten or drunk? What day was it? How long had he been in this cave, and how did he get here? Where was his mo...

A prickly lump tightened in his throat. His eyes burned with sharp, hot moisture.

Ardi turned away, trying to block out the cave that was gradually filling with the smell of blood and flesh, and closed his eyes. He wanted to wake up. Maybe if he fell asleep now, he would wake up in a new day, and everything that had happened would indeed turn out to be an extended nightmare.

The boy didn’t see the snow leopard pause over his prey, wait a moment, then shake his head in a very human gesture, and continue his feast. Soon, there were only gnawed bones left on the cave floor, soaking it with blood.

***

Ardi saw long tendrils of darkness crushing his father’s body. A blurred form loomed over Hector. It had curved, knife-like fangs, and its eyes were glowing red as it laughed. Ardi tried to scream, to warn his father, to help him somehow, but he couldn’t even move. He just stood there and watched as the cloud of smoke engulfed Hector, plunging the boy deeper and deeper into the darkness of loneliness.

"Cub."

The boy barely opened his eyes. His lips almost didn’t move at all, and when they did, they bled and hurt. His hands were thinner than twigs, the skin on them first turning gray, then transparent. Sometimes, the boy thought he could even see his bones. Perhaps he could.

His eyes were failing him. Everything was blurred, swirling as if reflected in the shards of a broken mirror. Or a vase... Ardi didn’t remember what he had broken. Or where he was.

"The moon has visited six times, cub. I hear the whispers of the spirits above your head."

The boy closed his eyes again.

He still couldn’t wake up. But that was okay, this time, he would definitely make it. He would close his eyes, and when he opened them again, he wouldn’t see the stone cave and the snow leopard, but his room at home and his mother’s smiling face. She might even have made blackberry pie and blueberry pancakes. Ardi could almost smell them... probably.

***

A warm, soft blanket covered Ardi up to the top of his head. He reluctantly climbed out and looked around. He saw that same wooden floor, slightly sagging in places from age and dampness. Father had always said it needed to be redone, and Mother would just laugh secretly. Hector had been promising to fix the floorboards for as long as Ardi could remember. It was probably a tra-di-ti-on with his parents.

At least that’s what Grandpa had said about it.

On the far wall hung a small tin washbasin with a wobbly tongue. If you didn’t drain all the water out of it, big drops would always fall from its tail. That was why a bucket was kept nearby. It served several purposes beyond the obvious — it also saved Ardi from having to run outside at night to answer nature’s call.

He did have to wash it every morning — Mother was strict about this, but Ardi considered himself a responsible child and never forgot about his hygiene or cleaning.

A bedside table, a ventilation grate, a chunky wardrobe. Everything was in its place. Even the shelf with his toys.

The boy turned to the window. The wind seeped through the unsealed cracks and crevices. It playfully tugged at the curtains his mother had sewn, causing the glass in the frame to shake slightly.

Winter was coming, and Father had promised to teach Ardi how to take care of the windows and doors to keep the house warm. The boy was waiting eagerly for those lessons. He liked learning new things, and working with Father around the house made him feel very important and grown up. He felt equal to his mother, grandfather and father during those times.

Ardi stretched with gusto, washed and dressed quickly, and looked at the shelf of toys. Skusty, Guta and Shali were still sleeping. They could sleep for days, sometimes weeks. Grandfather had once explained to him that the boy’s friends might have their own things they had to do and that they didn’t always have time to entertain a "little brat" like him.

But that was okay. He would tell them about his nightmare later — when they woke up.

His nightmare...

Ardi couldn’t remember exactly what he had dreamed about, but he could feel the lingering, sticky fingers of fear gripping his entire body. If he looked closely, he might even find their fingerprints left behind. Though it was probably just the crumpled sheet.

After casting another look around his domain and finding nothing unusual, the boy sighed with relief and ran downstairs.

"Mom, Grandpa!" He called out, jumping over the steps. "I’m up! What are we going to do today? Maybe we can fix the greenhouse supports?"

His only response was an unusual silence for such an early hour. His mother wasn’t shouting her usual reminder to stay off the stairs, and his grandfather wasn’t offering to take him for a walk in the nearby woods.

And there was no smell of food, even though Ardi couldn’t remember a single morning when his mother hadn’t made him breakfast. So, it wasn’t surprising that Ardi’s first stop was the kitchen. The sun’s rays sent amusing reflections chasing each other across the surface of the cabinets and the floor.

His mother was nowhere in sight.

Neither was his grandfather.

Ardi frowned. Could they have started setting up the greenhouse without him? It would be strange of them to do so, but it was worth checking out. Grabbing his hat from a nail on the cupboard that served as its resting place, Ardi ran outside.

The cold autumn wind immediately crept under his shirt and licked his neck, covering his body with goosebumps. Gray clouds crept down from the high peaks of the Alcade. Their shadows lay like smudges across the slowly-yellowing carpet of tall grass. The treetops rustled more quietly, gradually losing what Grandpa had called their "summer plumage."

Ardi smelled something familiar and smiled. He turned his head to see a tall, broad-shouldered man. He wore a brown leather jacket, high boots — worn in places, patched in others — a thick vest, and the ubiquitous holster on his right hip. He sat on the front steps, smoking a pipe.

The boy often asked his father why he inhaled the bitter, acrid smoke, to which Hector would always reply:

"Just don’t make my mistakes when you grow up."

His father’s voice, deep and resonant as always, had a reassuring effect on Ardi. He moved closer, sat down beside him, and leaned his head against Hector’s forearm. He felt the same as when he sat in the grove and leaned against a tall oak, one that couldn’t be felled by a hurricane or lightning.

"Where are the others?" The boy asked after a while.

Father took the pipe out of his mouth and pointed to the foot of the mountain.

"There," he replied.

Ardi frowned again.

"What are they doing there? Mama never goes down to the village."

The wind blew a little harder and colder then, but the boy paid it no mind. He sat with his legs dangling over the next step, listening to the rustle of the trees. As Grandpa had taught him how to do, he tried to hear their conversations, but all he could make out was the faint rustling above him and the quiet creaking of swaying trunks.

"They had to," his father replied, exhaling a puff of gray smoke. Mom always reminded Hector not to smoke in the house. "Your mother is renting a room at Mrs. Bayreg’s inn. She’s a good woman. Lost her husband when they moved here from the east."

"But why does Mom need a room there?"

His father, as if he had not heard his question, continued to speak dryly, monotonously, without a hint of emotion.

"Your grandfather found a job as a bartender at the same inn. I don’t think he’ll be able to work much longer. He has always had a difficult relationship with alcohol. But until Ertan grows up, Shaia won’t be able to work, except as a laundress. But don’t worry, they’ll still manage."

Those same sticky, cold fingers began to crawl up the boy’s legs again. They rose higher and penetrated deeper until they reached his heart, making it skip beat after beat.

"Dad?"

Something hot burned the boy’s cheek. He touched his face and saw salty drops on his fingers.

"I didn’t want to go, Ardan," another puff of smoke drifted into the sky, turning into a large, gray cloud. The wind swept over the roof of their house, ran across the meadow, and made waves of white foam across the river. "But what happened, happened."

"Dad, I don’t understand-"

"You will," Hector interrupted him. "Later. Not now. Right now, it’s important that you understand something else, Ardan. Understand that you must live. And understand that no one but you will preserve or save your life. No one but you will take care of Shaia and Ertan. No one but you will take care of you, Ardan. You must become strong. For your mother and your brother. For yourself."

The boy suddenly realized what had been troubling him. All this time, he couldn’t remember how he’d ended up in bed, what he had done last night, and why his father smelled not only of smoke but also of hot iron.

Hector suddenly hugged the boy tightly. Very tightly. It was as if he wanted to take his son into himself and never let him go. Ardi found himself in the warm darkness, sinking deeper and deeper. He no longer understood if he was sitting on the stairs next to his father, sleeping, or... if he was even still alive.

There was only darkness and warmth.

"Listen to Ergar, son," his father’s voice came from somewhere far away, barely audible, as if he were underwater. "He will help you become what I never wanted you to be. But remember, only half of you is Matabar..."

***

Ardi opened his eyes.

He was back in the dark cave. Outside, the wind howled, bringing lightning and pouring rain with it. Heavy raindrops, merging into wide streams, ran down the stones, trapped in a small stone pool from which the giant snow leopard lapped water.

"Uh..." The boy wanted to call out to him, but he couldn’t.

His lips immediately cracked and bled, causing him excruciating pain. But he didn’t even have the strength to scream. His dry throat produced only a wheeze, like sandpaper scraping against his larynx. And so Ardi lay there, watching the snow leopard drink. The boy thought he could almost taste the cold water, which would be slightly reminiscent of milk, so strong was his thirst.

His encrusted eyes were failing him. Everything gradually blurred into a single image, until suddenly, frosty moisture touched his lips and something warm and furry was washing his face.

Ardi managed to open his eyes wide and see the whiskered, furry, snow-white snout the size of a pony’s head leaning over him. A small stream of cold water was trickling out of a slit between the black stripes that served as the beast’s lips.

The boy glimpsed a short, stern command in Ergar’s blue eyes. And judging by the bright glint of the steel claws that had extended from his front paw, the boy had little choice.

He began to drink. With great difficulty, he licked the stream of water, which tasted and smelled bad. It reminded him of blood.

But the boy hardly noticed. His thirst was so overwhelming that when the stream dried up and the snow leopard moved aside, Ardi continued lapping at the air for a while.

"Now sleep, cub."

Ardi tried to protest, but his eyes closed on their own and the world plunged back into darkness.

***

Ardi awoke to all sorts of sensations. He remembered a time during the hot summer when he hadn’t let down the mosquito net stretched between four boards over the window. As a result, by some miracle, or maybe Skusty had decided to play a prank on him, a snake had come into his room. The boy hadn’t yet learned how to distinguish between these unpleasant creatures, and so, when he’d felt something cold and slightly wet crawl up his leg, he’d jumped up as if he’d been stung.

Fortunately, no one had actually stung him, and the snake had turned out to be a harmless grass snake.

Up until that moment, Ardi had thought that the grass snake incident was the worst awakening he had ever had. Unfortunately, as Grandpa had said, nothing in life was permanent.

Waking up with a gnawing feeling in your chest, a stomach growling with hunger, and teeth chattering from the cold — this was now the undisputed king of unpleasant awakenings for Ardi. Still lying in the deep cave, he barely found the strength to prop himself up on one elbow and look around.

Nothing had changed: there was that same, damp ceiling with hanging stone cones, the same floor littered with bones, clumps of matted fur, and rotting remains that gave off a foul odor that crept in right under his skull. In the distance, on a small rise, lay Ergar. He was pretending to be asleep, but Ardi knew from the slight twitching of his tail that the snow leopard was faking it.

The boy turned his head toward the entrance. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but there was still some water in the small stone basin.

"Water," the boy croaked pitifully.

Silence. Not the kind that hangs in an empty room, but the kind of the forest. Silence mixed with the whispers of the wind, the distant cries of birds, the night song of crickets, and the occasional howl of wolves on the moonlit path. Ardi knew these sounds well. He had been born among them.

But there, within the walls of his home, they’d sounded different. Not so sharp, not so harsh, and not at all... dangerous.

"Water," the boy repeated.

Ergar opened his left eye, stretched lazily, yawned, and rolled over to the other side.

"The water’s right over there," he said, flicking his tail in the direction of the pool.

"But-"

The snow leopard, like a giant cat, turned away from the boy and covered his nose with his right paw, shielding it from the wind. The cave fell silent again. Ardi felt a lump in his throat. Something hot was just about to burst from his eyes when he heard a soft, familiar voice amid the many sounds of the night:

"You must become strong. For your mother and your brother."

Ardi turned away from the snow leopard and looked back at the pool. Six meters separated him from the life-giving water. Six meters of wet, uneven ground covered in sharp stone teeth, crushed bones, brown stains from dried blood, and gusts of mountain wind were also blowing into the cave.

The boy gritted his teeth and tried to stand. Using his hands to cling to the wall and tearing the skin off his fingertips and breaking some nails in the process, Ardi somehow managed to rise on shaky, unbending legs. He took a step and... couldn’t make it a second. Slapping his palm against the wall and his knees and shoulder against the floor, the boy collapsed where he stood.

A sound escaped his throat that was neither a scream nor a groan. And it was not so much caused by physical pain, but by another kind that Ardi had never felt before. It hurt somewhere inside him. Where everything had always been whole before, filled to the brim, there was suddenly a void. It was hungry and ravenous, like a wild dog tasting blood for the first time. And for some reason, Ardi knew it would never go away.

No matter how hard he tried to silence it, or what he tried to fill it with, it would always return. Again and again, it would rear its ugly head, biting off new pieces, until not even a memory of the Ardi who’d hidden on the cliff, watching the eagles race through the clouds, would remain.

"You must become strong."

Sobbing and swallowing snot and tears through the haze of this pain, Ardi looked straight ahead. At the pool of water. His father had never asked him for anything. He’d just quietly done whatever the family needed him to. No matter what. And only now, after his... After his... After Hector’s departure, he’d asked for only one thing from him.

Take care of Mom.

Take care of Brother.

Take care of Grandpa.

Ardi sniffled again and with agonizing slowness, fighting through the pain and tears, reached out his right hand. He grasped a bloody stone protrusion and pulled himself forward.

The sharp edges of the ground scratched his skin and tore his clothes. With each movement he made, the boy left new, bloody marks behind. His small, fragile, emaciated body was soon covered in twisting, red lines and painful spots of various shades.

And those six meters, which he would have normally crossed without even noticing he’d done so, took Ardi almost half an hour, if time even existed at all on this mountain.

Whimpering, gritting his teeth, sometimes crying out in pain and swallowing his tears in frustration, the boy managed to pull himself up and bring his face to the pool. He only had enough strength left to occasionally purse his lips and suck in some water along with a bit of air.

After quenching his thirst, the child collapsed to the floor again, but this time, he felt nothing — his strength had left him completely, taking him into the darkness.

***

Ardi had never thought that he would one day be able to feel his very eyelids lifting. He then remembered last summer, when he and his father had dragged planks with nails in them up to the roof. They’d creaked and rubbed against the walls of the house, sending shivers down his spine.

Right now, the boy was experiencing similar sensations. There was just one small difference about these ones — the shivering under his tattered clothes was causing him excruciating pain.

No matter how Ardi turned, everything hurt, ached, and burned. And he would’ve probably cried if there were any tears left in his eyes. But instead of tears, there was only a burning sensation under those insanely heavy eyelids and a prickly lump pressing into him from the inside of his throat.

From the child’s cracked lips came a faint, barely audible moan that was instantly drowned out by the howling of the wind, rejoicing in the approach of its reign as the quiet and peaceful summer days receded into the past.

"It’s good that you’ve woken up, cub," loud, wet chewing made Ardi turn his head toward the cave. He was lying almost at the entrance of it. How he hadn’t frozen to death was a mystery. "During the night, it seemed to me like the spirits had already taken you to your ancestors."

Ergar was gnawing at the leg of some creature again. The leg of something that was somewhere between a mountain goat and a small deer, by the looks of it.

Ardi couldn’t remember the name of the animal. Or maybe he didn’t know it. Grandfather had always said that in the forests and mountains of Old Alcade, one could find shards of legends and myths from the past, not yet drowned in the dust of history... Whatever that meant.

His stomach growled, and surprisingly, faced with the sight of the bloody flesh the snow leopard was tearing off with his fangs, along with the skin and bones, Ardi didn’t feel the urge to vomit, but a pang of hunger. In the past, when his father and grandfather had asked his mother to leave some raw meat for them, sometimes doing so a couple of times a month, Ardi had always left the kitchen. The sight of his older relatives’ bloodied faces had been enough to make him sick, not to mention the smell.

The boy, who was feeling not only pain but also like he had a little more strength than yesterday, crawled toward the food. The movements were still hard, and every jerk or push left new scratches, bruises, and even cuts all over his body. But something new, still quiet and unnoticed inside Ardi, made him move toward his goal with increasing persistence and even some ferocity.

And when he was within reach of the meat, Ardi noticed that Ergar was still. The snow leopard was standing there, the creature’s thigh clamped in his jaws. Viscous blood mixed with bits of flesh dripped down his silvery fur. They fell to the ground in a shower of red splashes that reflected in the beast’s eyes. His pupils, now narrowed to thin slits, followed the boy unblinkingly.

Ardi suddenly realized, as if it were his own thought, that if he moved any closer to the flesh...

The boy glanced at the long claws with which Ergar held his prey.

"Food," Ardi croaked.

The snow leopard made a sound that was both a growl and a snort.

"This is my catch, cub," the beast said sternly and menacingly. "And I don’t remember you joining the hunt. My hunger is not yet satisfied. When I’m finished, you can have your share."

The boy, who was accustomed to waking up to a delicious breakfast, a hearty supper at night, and any treat or rare sweet always being his first, lay there on the cold ground and watched as the snow leopard’s fangs and claws tore into the flesh and huge chunks of meat disappeared into his bottomless maw. Even a small piece of any of them would have been enough to satisfy the boy’s hunger, but the snow leopard was relentless.

Minutes passed before the snow leopard finally regurgitated some of the blood and bone fragments and stepped away from what had once been his "catch." Now the animal’s carcass lay on the ground, with just small pieces of meat that the snow leopard hadn’t bothered with hanging off the bones.

"You can start," the snow leopard said almost mockingly, stretching out on his bed and beginning to lick the blood from his fur.

Ardi picked up a small bone from the ground. To say that it stank would be an unusual compliment, for that simple word couldn’t fully convey the sulfuric, metallic, slightly rotten, fecal odor emanating from the bone. But the boy hardly noticed that.

That "something" that had made him reach for food despite his pain, fatigue, and many aches was now literally making him gnaw at the remaining flesh on the bone. Ardi didn’t even notice that he had swallowed the first portion, then the second, the third, and... He only stopped when he realized that he had been sucking on a "clean" bone for quite some time.

Tossing it aside, the boy looked in horror at his bloodied hands, which were now covered in unidentified slime. The realization of what had happened hit him like a wave, cresting along with that same stench from before. Only now Ardi wasn’t just inhaling it, he was recreating it in his own mouth with every movement of his tongue.

His stomach churned and the boy barely held back the urge to vomit.

Something told him that if he got rid of the food now — the thought made his stomach churn once more — there was no telling when he would be able to eat again.

The snow leopard, lying in the distance, grumbled gruffly with a hint of contempt:

"Human."

***

And so the days dragged on, turning into weeks.

Ardi awoke each morning to find that his clothes were wearing thin, exposing more and more of his rapidly darkening skin to the harsh autumn wind. After waking, which was easier and less painful each morning, the boy drank what had collected in the stone basin overnight.

After that, the boy would hide in the farthest, darkest corner of the cave and simply lie there until his strength left him and a new cycle of waking, drinking, and sleeping began. Sometimes, Ardi would lie alone in the cave for days. Usually, Ergar would return with fresh prey, and then the boy could satisfy his hunger with a small amount of meat from the bones.

The only other activity the boy could really do was to venture out of the cave occasionally, but not far — just a few meters. As the weeks went by, he even managed to create a rough "visual map" of the immediate area, as Grandpa had called it.

Grandpa had taught him that even when he found himself in unfamiliar territory, the first thing to do was to imagine the center of the new place. The center for Ardi was, of course, Ergar’s Cave. Then, once the center was established, the next step was to find the most prominent landmark that could guide him back to it.

Usually, when he played this game in the forest with Grandpa, it was no problem to find a crooked tree that had given way to a hurricane when it was young. Or maybe an old animal track, sometimes even a bush that stood out from the rest of the foliage.

But here... Ergar’s Cave was high above the ground. So high that, for the first time in early fall, Ardi was seeing snowfields in front of him. They were so deep that if he stepped on the wrong surface, he would sink in up to his head. Fortunately, he had tested this by rolling a small boulder down the slope — he hadn’t had the strength needed to use a larger one.

And the forest below, at the foot of the mountains, looked like toothpicks painted gold and orange. Mother had used such sticks to make meat rolls in the oven. This had usually been done on special occasions and...

The boy pushed away thoughts of home and family. Over the past few days, he had discovered that such memories caused him more pain than the scratches and cuts on his body. So, shivering with cold, the boy stood on the icy slope and stared at the high peaks of the Alkadian Mountains, searching for anything that resembled a landmark.

On clear days, he sometimes managed to make out… something. But more often than not, strong winds and snow obscured his surroundings. And so the search for a landmark lasted for days that turned into weeks.

During this time, the snow around the cave grew thicker, the wind stronger, and the weather, surprisingly, clearer. Heavy clouds shrouded the slopes and mountain peaks less often; instead, they often descended into the valley like floating stones. Massive cumulus clouds looked like the hands of mythical stone giants — extensions of the mountains themselves. They covered forests and fields, meadows and valleys, rivers and lakes. Gently, with the care of a mother and father, they caressed the land, lulling it to sleep.

On one of these clear, cold days, the boy noticed a strange peak in the distance. Unlike the others, it was curved like a fang, and instead of being white, it seemed to be tinted with a bluish hue. It was as if this distant peak was covered not with snow, but with pure, transparent ice.

Finally, the boy decided to call it the Ice Fang, giving it a name. From then on, Ardi’s excursions became more daring, but he never ventured far enough for the entrance to the cave to not still be visible to him.

He then discovered that Ergar’s Cave overlooked a small plateau a few hundred meters across, which he promptly named the Foyer. Below the plateau and the Foyer, winding paths snaked through the black rocks peeking out from under the white blanket, which he decided to call the Stairs. Similar "stairs" led up to the Attic — a group of other gentle slopes that crowned this peak he called Ergar’s Cave.

After making sure he could at least orient himself a bit, the boy tried to find a way home, even just visually, but... wherever they were, Ergar’s Cave was so deep in the mountains of Old Alcade that Ardi couldn’t even imagine where exactly it was.

After another such foray, during which he had to part with his boots, their soles now secured to his feet with sharpened bone fragments, the boy returned to the cave just as the snow leopard, who had been absent for a few days, was finishing his meal.

As Ardi approached the pile of bones, barely noticing the stench of dead flesh, he found... nothing but the pile of bones. Even the smallest ones had been so cleanly licked that they were drenched in saliva. Ergar, lying on his stone bed, demonstratively licked the remaining bits of flesh from his long claws.

The boy, who had sifted through the remains of the unknown animal several times, looked at the snow leopard questioningly.

"I was hungry," Ergar replied simply, then turned away and fell asleep almost immediately.

Ardi had no choice but to return to his corner and wrap himself in the scraps of clothing he had decided to use as a blanket. With each new day spent in the mountains, the cold grew stronger, and its particularly harsh bites, sometimes leaving behind dark marks on his skin, lasted for days at a time.

Three more days passed. The water in the pool was running low, but the boy knew what to do. Warming his hands under his arms, he filled the basin with snow, and when it melted, he quenched his thirst.

He never left the cave — he waited for the snow leopard to go hunting. On the fourth day, when hunger had already driven the boy to gnaw on chunks of ice, Ergar returned with prey. And as soon as Ardi took a wrong step toward the meat, there was a fierce roar:

The proclamation of "Mine!" shook the cave.

The boy sat down nearby and watched for nearly an hour as the snow leopard licked the bones clean, being deliberately slow and with an almost human glee in his expression. And as before, not a single sinew was left behind on the remains. Moreover, Ergar cracked every bone and slurped out all the marrow, leaving Ardi with nothing.

"I was hungry again."

Ardi said nothing and quietly returned to his corner. Small, emaciated, his skin darkened by wind and sun, he wrapped himself in the scraps of clothing. All he had left was a thick sweater knitted by his mother, pants that hung loosely around his left leg, and that was it. His jacket, socks, and shirt had become completely useless and now served as a bundle in which the boy kept his treasures.

Wrapping himself in the sweater as a blanket, the boy hugged his knees to his chest and tried to fall asleep. And only his father’s words, echoing in his head, kept him from thinking that he wouldn’t mind so much if the hour of awakening never came. If he fell asleep and... stayed asleep. Maybe the old gods his grandfather had told him so many stories about would grant him a dream.

A dream in which he was home, with his loved ones, with a blackberry pie waiting for him in the kitchen.

Maybe the gods really did hear the child, or maybe it was the influence of his hunger and fatigue, but the next time the boy opened his eyes, he saw a small bone in front of him, probably from a rabbit. A bone covered in meat.

Ardi gnawed at it with his teeth and claws like never before. In just a few moments, he had stripped it of flesh, licked the bone clean, struggled to break it against a stone, and then sucked out the marrow as well.

"Let’s go," said the snow leopard, who had been standing nearby the whole time.

"Where to?"

Ergar looked into the boy’s eyes. His vertical pupils seemed to pierce the boy’s face, a sensation he could physically feel, like a prickle on his cheeks. Or maybe it was the wind.

"This is the last time I share my prey with you, cub," the snow leopard growled. "You’re here to learn the ways of the hunters, so let’s go."

Ergar turned, flicked his tail, and headed for the cave entrance. Ardi had no choice but to follow him.