Chapter 1 - In the Mountains

A/N: Chapter one for The Last Man Standing, week 7. 1992 words.

The clucking noises became more and more rapid, until they seemed to float together into a raspy hissing. Just before it turned into hissing I took three steps forward, and then froze again, daring a quick glance upwards before looking back down on my feet.

“A white face is like a beacon of light to them,” my father had told me when he taught me how to hunt. “Don't look up unless they're still playing, or you'll scare them.”

I stayed still, hardly even daring to breathe, and waited, waited through a silence that seemed too long, until the bird finally gave another cluck. I took another three steps and glanced up, finally spotting the black lump among the branches, the dim light making it seem like nothing but a growth on the tree. Once again I waited, gripping the crossbow tighter, taking a deep breath. When the bird was right on the brink of starting to hiss, I looked up, aimed and pressed the trigger. As always there was that moment of uncertainty, when I could feel my heart plummet into disbelief, thinking that I had missed, or just graced it, but then the force of the bolt pushed it off the branch and it landed on the thick lingonberry bushes and reindeer lichen with a dull thump. I pulled my knife and hurried up to it, in case it was still alive, but it didn't move, nor breathe, so I assumed that the bolt had hit its heart. Working quickly I pulled the bolt out and used a string of leather to tie its feet together, and then tied it around the strap of my satchel. My mouth watered at the thought of the stew I'd make, but I knew I'd have to keep eating salted meat for at least one more day, until the bird was done hanging.

The crisp cold air of the early morning has a way of making people hungry, and I was no exception. The early spring had come as a blessing, as I had run out of dried vegetables and only had salted meat and a little dried fish left. Sure, I was able to kill a hare now and then, as well as catch some fresh fish, but the best places for that was always too far away, as the streams near my cottage had frozen to the very bottom this winter. It had been tough, and I could feel that my clothes were looser than they usually were in spring time, but I had made it once more. As soon as I had cleaned out and hanged the bird in the shed I'd put a tap in one of the many birches that surrounded my cabin. I never really liked the taste of birch sap, but I knew it did wonders for the body after a cold winter, and I needed to get ready for the long walk into town soon. Carrying meat and hides down the mountain was far from easy, but I needed to trade for supplies. My axe was beyond repair, and due to the bad harvest last year I didn't even have enough left to plant the small field behind the cottage. Everything needed to be prepared, and it needed to be done quickly, or next winter would be even tougher.

*

After the bird had been taken care of, and birch sap was dripping down into a bucket, I took the last dried fish I had hanging in the shed and sat down on an old log that I had placed along the souther wall of the cabin. My father always used to bring out an old stool and watch the sun rise while he ate breakfast, and even though there was still a nib in the air I liked to uphold that tradition. I had a view over the field, over the treetops, into the valley bellow and all the way to the mountaintops on the other side. I couldn't exactly make out the houses in the town, but I could see the big fields that they all shared, as well as the river running through it and the whole valley. I leaned back against the log wall, blackened by years of exposure to the direct sun, and watched the sky turn from dark blue to the same light blue colour as my eyes. The chirping birds grew louder, and in the distance I could hear a woodpecker start a long day of work. As the first sharp rays of the sun climbed over the mountains I couldn't help but feel grateful. Grateful to be alive to watch another beautiful sunrise, grateful that I had caught that capercaillie, grateful that the birches would soon be green, and the ground would sprout both flowers and mushrooms, but most of all I was grateful to live in peace, far away from the war and its horrors.

*

When the sun was at its highest there was a knock on the door. I was sitting on the log again, making a new shaft to an old hoe, when I heard it and got up.

“Hello there, young man.” The friendly voice and the big grey beard made me smile instinctively. His was a face from my childhood, with eyes as good-natured as the bear's, and the arm strength to match – even after the last winter.

“Hello there, old man.” I nodded at the bow in his hand. “Hunting?”

He nodded, and I smiled a little. My father had always cursed at our neighbour for doing everything in such a tardy manner, hunting included. Any other seasoned hunter I knew would never head out after sunset. “Could I borrow your dad's old crossbow?”

I went inside to get it, and gave it to him without a doubt. We were the only two still living up on the mountain, as most others found its solitude too much to bear. Malte and my father had always been close friends, and I had known him since I was a child. Before I was old enough to walk down the mountain with my father, Malte and his late wife had looked after me while my father was gone. “What did you see?”

“Moose tracks, fresh. I'll fetch you if I kill it.”

“Don't follow it too far, it'll be a lot to carry.” He simply raised an eyebrow, his grey eyes quizzical, before nodding and heading off. In retrospect I realized that I didn't need to tell an old man like him what to do, as he knew better than I what happened when you killed a big animal too far from home.

I returned to the hoe, and couldn't help but think of the old stories my father had told me of their hunting trips. How the bear had led them in circles, how they had to dig a hole in the snow to take cover during a storm... And then of course there was the near-legendary story of how father had used a rock to break through the ice and get Malte out of the water. I didn't know how much of it was actually true, but I had always enjoyed hearing those stories late at night, or after a hunt.

*

I kept working the whole day with repairing both tools and the house, only taking a break to eat. When the sun dipped bellow the mountain, a little later than it did the day before, I started to grow worried. I had been anticipating Malte back just before dinner, even taken out some extra for him; in case he wanted something to eat, but he hadn't returned. Maybe he had taken a wrong step and broken his leg or gotten stuck, or maybe his age had finally caught up to him – though I found that close to impossible to imagine, or maybe he had come between a female bear and her cub?

After tossing and turning on the straw mattress for far too long I finally got up and decided to go looking. I couldn't just leave the old man out there, not when he had been so good to me. I made sure to put on my extra tunic, as well as my father's thick old wadmal cloak. It still got close to freezing at night time, and I didn't want to get myself sick when there was so much work to be done during the days.

Even though the sun had been down for some time it was still more than light enough to track Malte. During spring and summer it never really got dark, making it possible to travel through the woods or go hunting at any time of the day. The light was a blessing after the long and dark winter, where most of the work had to be done in the light of a wax candle.

It didn't take me too long to find the moose tracks, crossing the path between Malte's and my house, and I followed it hastily. I found a few tracks where the low vegetation exposed the wet ground, as well as chewed off branches and patches where the cropped off heather and blue- and lingonberry bushes showed that the moose had stopped to graze. It led me further up the mountain, far past Malte's cottage and eventually above the tree line – where tracking it immediately became much more difficult. I couldn't understand why in the world Malte would follow it so far, nor why it would risk stepping outside the protection of the forest. It didn't make sense, and it made me even more worried than before.

I pulled the cloak tighter around me to keep away the frigid wind, wishing that I had put on my winter boots rather than the lighter summer shoes as I kept walking up the mountain side. When I looked behind me I could no longer see the bottom of the valley, nor the little town that it embraced, and I suddenly felt how desolate the mountain really was. I was going to climb to the top, and hope that I could see Malte – or the moose – from there, but I didn't know what to do if I couldn't find him. I was already so tired that I didn't know whether I could make it home again without stopping to rest, so to keep on looking was not really an option. I could walk down to the town and talk to his sons, and hope that they'd go look for him, but by the time they reached the mountain it'd be too late – especially in this cold.

As I reached the mountaintop the wind turned a gust grabbed me and forced me to take a step back before I found my balance and could look up again. Normally I'd take a deep breath of the absolute smell of clean, fresh nothingness, but this time I did smell something. It was the smell of too hot metal and stone; like the time I had tried to sharpen my knife on a dry grindstone, but far stronger, so strong that it made my eyes sting and tear up. Before me lay a vast mountain plain coloured by fire, a strange sort of fire that gave no light and made no smoke. There seemed to be a small crater in the middle of the field. “

Far beyond these mountains there is magic. You should never get yourself involved with magic.” My father's warning was as clear to me as if he had been standing beside me, but I didn't listen to it. I couldn't tell why, but the crater scared me more than anything ever had before, but even so I stayed. As I stared into the flames I felt something stir within me. Something I had long forgotten.