Chương 83: There Was Glowing Fur on the Ground

The shape of the road changed after they left the market. Packed earth worn down by people and beasts ended, replaced by frozen grassland and low rocky ridges. The wind grew thinner and colder. White breath scattered briefly before being torn away. Kichan closed his collar once but did not slow. Light appeared at the end of the sky each night. Green and blue became visible only after full darkness. At first, Kichan thought distant clouds were moving. As they drew closer, the sky itself seemed to fold and unfold.

The light stretched, folded back, then descended over low valleys and stained the edges of the snow blue. On the third night, Kichan finally asked,"That's the aurora?" Argaon nodded.

"Antlers grow beneath that light."

"They grow by eating light?"

"Some kinds do." Kichan walked faster. Riphiel did not bother stopping him. It was already too late for that. Reindeer antler. Wolf teeth. Aurora cold. His hand was on the opening of the magic bag before he finished imagining all three. By morning, the grassland had grown whiter. The layer beneath them was too thin for snow and too coarse for frost. It crunched underfoot. The saber-toothed tiger left deep tracks. Cold air sent Valkyrie hiding more often inside Kichan's sleeve.

Dust still refused to leave the piece of dragon horn, though it occasionally poked its head from the bag when the sky grew brighter.

"Dust must like the aurora too." Riphiel answered,"If something shines, Dust looks first."

"At least it knows what it likes." Around noon, Kichan stopped abruptly at the front of the party. A few fine hairs had caught on wind-swept snow. They were not ordinary white fur. The tips held a faint blue glow of their own, as if thin blue threads lay across the ground. Riphiel crouched first and picked them up. Cold remained against her fingertips. Any thought that they were pretty vanished at once. Some tips were scorched black, and frozen clots of blood clung near the roots.

"Wolf fur." Kichan took it and examined it. The strands were long and tough. Their density suggested they would resist matting when wet and would not burn immediately near flame. But the middle had been torn apart.

"Ripped out." Riphiel added quietly,"Signs of a fight." The saber-toothed tiger smelled the spot for a long time, then growled low. Its body sank even lower than when it tracked prey. Kichan examined the terrain again. Low hills. Sparse rocks. Sky open for a great distance. There were few forests where a wolf could hide. It was, however, an excellent place to hunt from above. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Something came down from up high?" Argaon did not answer. He only read the wind. A little farther up, they found an antler. Half of it lay beneath the snow. Its branching shape marked it as reindeer. A faint sheen remained across the surface, just as Argaon had said about aurora reindeer. It was not intact either. One side had been torn away. Dense, ragged bite marks covered the broken face. Kichan lifted the antler. The weight was good. It was harder than it looked, and cold slowly circulated against his hand.

Whole, it could have supported several combinations. But its end was ruined.

"Something ate it."

"Something ate it in a hurry," Riphiel corrected. The marks were not from sharp fangs. Broad teeth had crushed the antler, then twisted and ripped. No wolf fight or human ax had left this. Argaon brought his face close to the broken surface. The smelling motion was small, but his eyes deepened for an instant.

"A predator descended from the sky." Riphiel asked immediately,"A dragon?"

"Not a dragon." The answer was absolute. Riphiel relaxed for only a moment before tightening her grip again. Kichan turned the antler in his hands.

"Does it look like one?"

"It can appear similar." Argaon stared toward a high, distant ridge.

"But this is not a creature that thinks for long. It is a hungry beast with wings." Kichan did not relax at that. His expression worsened. A hungry beast meant something had already been eating the materials carelessly. The traces multiplied as they climbed. Drag marks through snow. Blood that had frozen and thawed. Places where wolf tracks ended abruptly. Wide spreads of hoofprints where reindeer herds had changed direction in panic. Some places held only pieces of bone.

They looked white in sunlight, but in shadow their surfaces reflected the aurora faintly.

"Even what it leaves behind glows." Kichan did not walk past a single bone fragment. He put the usable ones in the bag and rolled the worst pieces over with his foot to inspect them. Riphiel no longer tried to stop him. At some point, she realized he was doing more than collecting materials. He was reading the traces—calculating what had vanished, what had eaten it, and whether anything remained. As afternoon shortened, light descended more strongly.

Though there were no clouds, the entire grassland seemed submerged in blue evening. The saber-toothed tiger stopped and crouched. Valkyrie nearly disappeared into Kichan's sleeve. Dust held still with only its head outside the bag. Cold ran across the back of Kichan's neck at the same instant. Above. He looked up. At first, there was only aurora. Then one fold of light shifted, revealing a darker shadow passing across it. Far larger than any bird, far lower than the clouds.

One opening and closing of its wings blocked part of the aurora. It vanished beyond the ridge without a sound. Riphiel whispered,"Did you see it?"

"Yeah."

"One creature?" Argaon did not answer immediately. He smelled the wind again, then looked from the distant ridge to the tracks beneath their feet.

"At least one is hunting." Riphiel's hand returned to her bowstring. Kichan held the half-eaten antler and stared at the ridge. He had come to find materials and found only signs that they had been eaten.

"Let's move faster."

"It is dangerous."

"That's why we move faster." That night, they rested briefly beneath a rocky ridge sheltered from the wind, then moved again. The aurora spread wider overhead. Low light washed the edge of every field. The view was beautiful. The ground showed only things eaten, dragged, and driven away. Kichan felt the broken antler and glowing fur inside the bag. They were valuable materials, but there was too little. A herd should have been here. He stopped once and looked at the fur again.

The blue light at its tips was not merely cold. It was oddly clear. Better to dry it and preserve the grain than to burn it. The antler was the same. Even broken, a living core would still hold cold well. But everything in his hands was only a remnant. That bothered him most. Riphiel asked softly,"You still intend to follow it?" Kichan returned the antler to the bag.

"Of course."

"We do not know whether one creature made all these traces."

"That's more reason to go. If anything is left, we collect it. If something ate it, we search its stomach." Argaon showed neither admiration nor concern. He gestured toward the next ridge.

"Then hurry. The denser the aurora, the lower they circle." A shadow passed far away again, lower this time. The aurora broke around it for an instant. Kichan spoke very quietly.

"So that's the culprit."