Eli knelt on the cold earth examining the frozen dirt clumped below the bows of a tree not too distant from their camp.

A cold wind blew past him, biting into his cheeks and ruffling the fur of his hat as he followed up with his eyes to where the tracks led out into the snow.

There had been a mild winter storm the night before, and the tracks had been partially covered by a light dusting of powder in the early morning, but that was still enough to recognize them as human footprints. He leaned back on his heels and stared off into the woods, listening to the quiet of the snowy landscape.

He was looking for movement, any sign that they were being watched, but the trees around him were cold and silent, oppressive like the weight of fog before it's burned off by the sun.

"Eli?"

He jerked upright, nearly falling back into the snow as he turned using the tree to rest his hand at the last moment.

Behind him, Peter stood with his hands up, "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Camp is packed up."

Eli nodded, turning his eyes back down towards the ground, "How'd you sleep."

Peter paused and then grimaced slightly, "Well, it was cold and plus." he glowered down at Eli's satchel, "Little scab crawled into my shirt halfway through the night."

A baleful eyeball blinked at them from inside the bag.

"It was either that or freeze into a Wink shaped Brick. Believe you me, cuddling up to your odor wasn't exactly pleasant either."

"Why me?" Peter grouced, "I mean Eli would have been fine. You've known him longer anyway."

Wink snorted, which seemed like a feat in itself considering he didn't have any visible nostrils, "Eli, horrible idea, I've never met a human who ran as cold as he does. It's like cuddling a slab of ice."

Peter laughed, though his laugh was cut short when he realized Eli wasn't paying attention.

He moved a little closer to kneel next to Eli, eyes scanning across the ground just as he did.

"What are you looking for?"

Eli took a deep breath. He hadn't slept well the night before: could have been due to the cold, or thoughts about his father's involvement with the order of hope, either way his temper was beginning to show.

He had no desire to speak, but forced himself to be polite and cordial like he should. He pointed to the dirt below his fingers and then up to where the trail vanished into the snow, "Someone was here last night."

Peter grew stiff, voice halting and hesitant, "I.... are you sure?"

Eli stood and glanced back towards the forest, "Pretty sure... pretty sure we have been being followed for the last week now."

Peter's eyes widened even as his lips turned down in a frown, "Followed!, why didn't you tell me!"

Eli shrugged, "I wasn't sure until now, and I saw no reason to bother you with concerns that might have been unfounded."

"I feel like it should be my decision what I do with information. You should have told me."

Eli met Peter's eyes, and the two of them glowered at each other.

He didn't know if it was the cold, or something more, but the two of them had been on a short fuse with each other this past week. Eli bet that it was most likely do with the cold and the lack of sleep, or at least that is what he told himself.

Peter eventually took a deep breath and looked away, closing his eyes to calm himself, "Who?"

Eli glanced back down at the ground where the footprint had been immortalized in the dirt below him, a perfect footprint from someone's left boot, "We are in the territory owned by Stalk, so I have a feeling Stalkers have the highest statistical likelihood.

Peter glanced nervously towards the trees, "Why haven't they attacked?"

Eli walked back to their snuffed campfire and pulled his bag over one shoulder, "There are a few options. First being that whoever is hunting us isn't particularly skilled, either young or new at their craft, which might be why they have allowed me to see signs of them in the first place. If the Stalk didn't want me to know they were here, then I am sure they would do better than leaving a track through the snow for me to see."

Peter shifted on his feet.

Off in the forest there was a soft thud, as a pile of snow slid from a branch.

Eli turned his head towards the forest eyeing the darkness between the trees. Peter did the same.

"What are the other options?"

"Well the second, and not so pleasant one is that Stalkers enjoy playing with their food."

"Food?"

Eli nodded but did not deem it necessary to elaborate further, he was sure Peter's head could come up with explanations along the right path of gruesome, "They like putting fear into their prey before they strike. It could be likely that they WANT us to know they are here, kind of a..... We are here and despite knowing that there is nothing you can do to stop us.'

Peter fumbled with the straps on his bag, "And why aren't you worried? I think they make a good point." He glanced over his shoulder towards the silent forest. Overhead the sky was still overcast, and it was only the diffused light of a blocked out sun that they were able to find their way at all.

"I never said I wasn't worried." Eli said, reaching down to his hip and withdrawing the cold metal cylinder he had shown Peter only once before.

"The compact!"

Eli nodded, he had bought more ammunition for the weapon while they were in Kurshing, it might as well have cost him his first born, and even then he only had ten more shots left. He doubted the man even knew what he was selling.

Compacts were rare, and the ammunition used to work them even more so.

"So we have an advantage! You can just...." he made a motion with his hands like he was shooting the compact.

Eli shook his head, "It isn't that easy. The compact is only as good as the person using it. I am afraid up against a trained stalker, I would have very little time to use it."

He slipped the weapon back into his bag.

Peter went quiet for a long time after that, and they picked up their bags and began trudging through the snow in silence. Eli kept his ears perked and eyes narrowed on the trees. This was only the edge of Stalk's territory, but the entire place was known to be filled with dangerous animals of all kinds, and the sort of people who chose to live there were no less dangerous than the animals themselves.

You had to be to survive in a place like this.

Even the environment was predatory. If it wasn't cold, it was too hot, and if it wasn't either of those then it was probably lightning storms. All in all, the coldest reaches of the Stalk were the most hospitable.

Despite all of this, Eli did not intend to be easy prey.

He kept their journeying close to the treeline making sure never to bottleneck them in a location where they wouldn't be able to escape. The thick tangles of foliage in the waist high snow caused their route to be circuitous and slow going, but that was fine by Eli. It would make it more difficult for their pursuers to sneak up on them, for he was sure at this point that there were pursuers.

At this point in the day, he was relatively sure whatever it was wasn't a human despite what he had witnessed in the early morning. Whatever was hunting them now was much too silent to be human, and ghosted through the white forest like a phantasm in the dark. He never caught sight of the animal itself, but rather impressions of where the animal had been.

A patch of foliage would twitch here, a branch would crack in the distance, and on occasion he thought he heard the huffing and puffing of distant animal breathing.

And it was growing closer.

He should have expected this, in the stalk they were bound to run into hunters of all kids, and not just the human ones.

He kept his hand close to the handle of his compact, the cold metal burning his skin even through his gloves.

Wink Kept watch out the side of his bag, watching the forest behind them with his great, wide eye.

Eli took a gamble in the late morning, and took them up a small snow capped ravine. There was always the chance that someone could hunt them from above, so he made their movements quick through the shallow snow and rock.

A cold wind kicked up, and on that wind Eli thought he could detect the sweet tang of blood sharp and cold against his lips and skin. The clouds rolled in overhead, covering the sun and darkening the landscape around them as black stone and white/ gray snow caused his eyes to ache with patterns of dark and light.

Halfway up he ordered a halt in their group.

The world around them had gone silent. Eli could feel it, and he could see that Peter felt the same way. The slow rustle of the wind had gone, and now the crushing of their feet in the snow was gone as well. They stood back to back with Peter facing up the trail and Eli facing down, the compact held at a low ready near his hip. His eyes scanned the rock and snow below them in the small ravine, nervously aware of all the rocks blocking his vision, and the strobing of his eyes as they attempted to pick up movement against the repetitive white and black landscape.

Off in the distance he heard the howling of wolves.

Peter crouched down next to him as they looked down the canyon, "What do you think it is?" He asked, glancing over the boulder and down towards the canyon base.

Eli pressed himself up against the rock, "Probably a snow leopard. But that's if we are lucky. Stalk itself roams these woods, and it would be against our good interests to run into her. They lapsed into cold silence as Eli tilted his head towards the opening of the canyon waiting for any sign of pursuit.

It was the distant rattling of a rock on stone that made him sure of what he was hearing.

But Eli had a plan.

WIth one hand, he motioned Peter up with him, and together they pressed their backs against the nearest rock. The snow under their feet was slick making it difficult to gain traction. Another rock thudded and clattered off the stone, closer now than it had been before. They pushed harder holding back groans of pain and discomfort as their shoulders dug into the rock.

After a moment, there was a sudden crack, Peter's foot slipped and he hit the ground hard. Eli staggered and fell to his hands and knees as the rock began rolling down the hill collecting snow as it went. Other rocks were dislodged from their places, causing a small rockslide turned avalanche.

Over the sound of the rolling stones and spitting snow, Eli thought he heard an animal cry of alarm from behind them as the rocks roared into place, slamming into the narrow opening of the valley and blocking the way behind them.

He huffed and panted as he looked down, and after a moment an eye peered out from inside his satchel, "Well that wasn't very subtle."

"Hopefully that will startle it enough to give us some time." Eli reached over and Grabbed Peter by the hand, "We should get moving." Peter didn't make any argument, having heard the animal's cry of pain, and so scrambled behind Eli as he made his way towards the top of the canyon.

Eli was hot and sweaty by the time they reached the top, but he didn't dare remove his coat. Being hot now was a welcome blessing to the sort of cold he would be exposed to if he took off his jacket.

Instead, he waved a hand to Peter and the two of them sat staring out over the snow which was fresh and white, glittering in a beam of sunlight cast down from the clouds. They were sitting at the very top of a snowy slope on the side of a mountain pass. Below them the snow was pristine and unbroken plunging down towards the Valley below which was surprisingly green in comparison.

Cold bitter wind blew past them from the Stalk's territory, bringing with it the distant howling of wolves.

Eli reached into his satchel and pulled out his book on the dreads, flipping through the pages until he landed on the passage dedicated to the dread of their current location. Peter peered over his shoulder, and so Eli cleared his throat and began to read

She hunts the forests in the north, a location where all life is a hostel and even the weather attempts to drive spikes into one's very soul. The wind is cold and the ground is hard, only the bravest and toughest live among the silent forest branches under the eyes of the mightiest of hunters.

And there the greatest of them all prowls in the darkness mother to nightmares. When she walks, she leaves no trail, when she breathes, her breath does not steam in the cold, and when she runs her footsteps are silent but for the slightest whisper in the forest, a silent warning to those she hunts. No one has ever seen her, or if they have they did not live to tell the tale though stories paint a gruesome picture of her coming. Beware of a night that is too cold and too silent, beware of a day where no bird sings and all seems well, for she comes like the lengthening of shadows at dusk.

In legend and myth, her head is the head of a wolf, her eyes those of an eagle, in her mouth there are seven rows of razor teeth to cut and bite and tear and break and rend. Each one a fang to deliver deadly poisons as she chooses.. The fur of her body is modeled with the colors of her hunting grounds, white for the winter, sand for the desert, and brown for the forests. So immense is she, that when she walks her back brushes against the tree canopy high above, and her footprints would leave small craters in the snow if she left a trail.

To see her is to know the everlasting terror of prey terrified and trembling against the goddess of predators, sent to rein silent terror through the night. Even her own followers fear her for Stalkers are who she chooses. If they cannot kill for her, then their bodies will become her sustenance to bear. For if you are not the hunter, then you are the prey.

Another cold wind whipped past them, and Eli reached up to press his hat down upon his head. Peter sat morosely in the snow.

"How the hell are we supposed to avoid that?"

Eli opened up his pack to pull out some dried meat, "Easy enough, if you think it's hunting you, you have to kill something for it, if you don't it kills you. Pretty simple."

Peter frowned, reaching into his bag and retrieving his own food.

They didn't speak as they sat and ate, making the stop quick before moving on. They didn't want to give the snow leopard time to catch up with them, if that was, indeed what it was. It was halfway up the next mountain when they heard a sharp cry of animal pain in the distance, both turning around to look down at the treeline behind them. A flock of birds peeled away from the upper treetops cawing and screeching as they fled. The scream echoed off the mountains and snow, almost like the agonized cry of a woman, though something about it wasn't quite human.

Peter opened his mouth to say something but Eli quickly squashed him, urging him forward even faster.

He would have bet his life that was the sound of a dying snowcat.

And whatever could kill one, wasn't likely someone they wanted to run into.

Overhead, clouds were growing in thickness, blotting out the sun and casting deep shadows over the forest, the once sparkling snow went dun, the sparkles snuffed out like candles. A chill wind blew past them bringing with it the first miniscule flakes of snow. Peter shivered and pulled his jacket up around his face. The darkness between the forest tree trunks seemed to grow deeper, blackening as the sun drew behind the clouds.

"Come on, we don't want to stay in one place too long." Eli's voice was low and cold, dropping hard to the ground frozen by the cold rather than carried by it.

Peter nodded and shouldered his bag.

Eli led them up through the thick foliage, keeping away from the open plains of snow where they would be easily spotted. He tried to keep their path through the forest tracks already chewed up by animals, rocks or the bowls of trees, though with such snow it would be impossible to cover their tracks completely. He would have to rely on the fall of night to obscure them when they bedded down to sleep for that night.

Eli had Peter keep moving into the trees while he stopped to the side of the hill, pulling out his spyglass and peering through the lens down into the treeline.

At his side, wink peered out from his bag, "And?"

Eli shook his head, "I'm not sure."

"Here." WInk offered, crawling out of the satchel and up Eli's jacket. Eli cringed and shivered as Wink's freezing slimy surface passed over his own skin as he crawled down the front of Eli's jacket. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as Wink leached away at his body heat, leaving on the stock of one eye peering out from inside Eli's jacket.

"Hand it over." Eli reached out a hand, and wink grabbed for the copper tubing holding it up to his single large eye. He was just beginning to warm back up when Wink dropped the telescope, "it appears as if your assumptions were correct."

Eli began walking again, keeping to Peter's tracks, which were doing a passable job at following animal trails, and walking upon bare rocky surfaces to avoid footprints. However, if Eli was able to track him, then their pursuers sure could.

"What did you see?"

"Movement, flashes of color. There are at least four, maybe even five of them. They move slowly through the trees following our trail,"

Eli grunted. He was afraid of that

They had traded one hunter for another.

He kept walking and looked down at wink, having expected him to crawl back into the satchel, but when he looked down he saw the strange creature cuddled up against his chest and neck looking rather comfortable for a pile of jello. Eli frowned, "You aren't going to stay there all day are you."

"You are selfishly hogging all the body heat, so yes. Consider this a forced lesson in charity."

Eli breathed in and he felt wink slowly begin to peel away from his ribcage as he did, before breathing back out again.

"Disgusting." He muttered through Wink and chose to ignore him.

They followed the tracks further up to where Peter was sitting in the leeward side of a rock waiting for them.

"Did you see anything?" his eyes trailed down to Wink's single eye peering out from Eli's jacket.

"It seems as if we are being followed, like I suspected, but this time it isn't just a snow leopard."

Peter wrapped his arms absently around himself and rubbed his shoulders absently, "That's what I was afraid of."

Eli turned his head towards the sky, "Don't worry, it will be dark soon, and it will be far harder to track us in low light. They will have to stop for the night."

Peter nodded his agreement and motioned Eli to take the lead.

He did so with no complaint, aside from the discomfort he felt at Wink being stuffed down his shirt.

Overhead the clouds opened up and it began to snow softly at first, then growing steadily heavier as the wind began to pick up. Their tracks were being quickly obscured with the falling snow, and Eli had them moving faster than before, hoping that their trail would be rendered less identifiable in the failing light and the falling snow.

Eventually it grew so dark that Eli was unable to make his way anymore without making their trail too obvious\ and he stopped in an open clearing.

He tilted his head listening for signs of pursuit.

Peter came trudging to a stop beside him, "Are we camping here for the night?" He wondered.

Eli shook his head as he looked up at the sky blinking snowflakes from his lashes. Ice crystals were slowly beginning to form on their ends, and as he blinked his vision was partially obscured by the white frost.

"No, we aren't, but we are going to make them think we are."

"Quick, help me build a fire."

Peter didn't ask questions and went to work, pulling out some of their spare dry kindling, though he used other fallen branches from the bowls of trees for the rest. Eli left Peter to the fire as he was far better at provoking the flame than Eli had ever been. With the blowing snow and the cold he wasn't sure he would have managed it, but within fifteen minutes Peter had a small blaze going, and, with Eli's instruction, he built up the fire until it was roaring and crackling.

The heat was pleasant and warmed his skin.

With the wet wood there was also plenty of smoke, but the important thing right now was the fire.

A great part of Eli wished to spend the rest of that night near the fire cuddled up to its warmth, but he knew that would be a poor idea. While Peter was working on the fire, Eli busied himself in making a sort of makeshift lean to, and even left out a few supplies they could bear to leave. From a distance the camp would have looked occupied.

Once that was done, Eli ordered Peter back into the trees, and both of them melted into the shadows, staring back at the fire with longing expressions as the cold slowly began to creep in again. His face stung with the cold where once he had been sweating from the fire. The further they went the more he missed the fire, though he tried to keep his attention on the ground, leading them very slowly and very carefully away from their fake camp, to the real resting location.

They found one such location about halfway up the hill within 100 yards on the bonfire. It was a large rotted out tree within a dip in the snow, and was just enough shelter for two people huddled up together. The way the ice and snow hung over the bark, it lent itself to a perfect shelter. Plus, it was very difficult to see from most angles. The only reason he had seen it at all was quite by accident, when his foot had slipped on a root, and he had almost fallen into the thicket, his eyes in the perfect position to see their new hiding spot. Peter didn't see it right up until Eli grabbed him and forced him to look.

The ground below them was so chewed up with fallen leaves and plant detritus that it was easy enough to cover their tracks, and together they squirmed through the trees, careful not to break any branches before making it inside the rotting trunk. The ground there was free of snow and littered with moldering leaves which made the space as comfortable as it could have been considering the circumstances.

Eli left Peter there with strict instructions to stay quiet, and not move for any reason other than imminent death before vanishing back out into the forest with a wink still tucked in his coat. He left his bags behind, and was more easily able to move through the darkness. The snow was falling heavily now and it was only by the faint light of an overcast moon that he was able to see anything at all.

Snow drifted down from above

The closer he grew to the fire the better he could see, until he had wedged himself against a log under the low hanging branch of an evergreen waiting and watching the fire below him. From here he had a very good vantage point on the camp,

He kept very still, allowing the falling snow to collect on the fur of his hat and coat, hopefully allowing him to blend into the background and the darkness.

He waited.

And waited.

For some time he sat assuming that no one would come, and he was just thinking about heading back to Peter when the flickering of a shadow made him freeze. The minute movement he was about to make was frozen in its place as a shadow crept past him on the left slithering through the forest as soundless as the darkness it emulated. Ei kept very, very still knowing that, in the darkness, any movement he made would attract eyes like a carcass attracts maggots.

Another shadow appeared on his right this time, so close he could have touched it.

Had he been down next to the fire, their approach would have been impossible to distinguish with his nightvision ruined by the fire.

Even so, he didn't see the figures on the other side of the fire, until they broke the wall of light and stepped silently into camp. Where once they were shadows, the figures coalesced into lumpy humanoid shapes -- men and women dressed in layers upon layers of fur. One of the women was wearing a cloak from the fur of a freshly slain snow leopard, its white pelt still stained with streaks of matted blood, and she wore its face over her head like a hoodit's teeth resting against her temples. Another of the men wore a massive bear pelt around his shoulders, while still another had clothes made purely from the fur of a wolf. Through their furs, Eli spotted a myriad of weapons including hand axes, bows, spears, and massive bone handled knives glittering at their belts.

They clustered in loose formation as they made their way towards the leanto.

Eli held his breath as he watched one of the men crouch down and draw a hand exe from his belt fingers flexing around the leather wrapped bone handle stained red and brown with years of use.

The man drew his hand back quietly and plunged it downward into the bedding inside the lean to.

There was no hesitation.

Something cracked loudly, and the man drew back angrily throwing aside the threadbare blanket with a hand to reveal.... Nothing more than a bundle of sticks underneath . He cursed loudly and drew back.

All around him the men and women did the same, drawing back to their full height from predatory crouches.

One of the women snarled, and in the firelight Eli could see that her teeth had been filed to points.

"Where are they!" one of the men demanded in his voice a low growl like that of the bear he wore on his back.

The woman wearing the bloodied snow leopard wandered around the encampment for a minute sniffing at the air like a dog, "Well they clearly aren't here." She said, motioning her spear to the trees.

The wolf huffed, causing a gout of steam to come spilling from his mouth, "More clever than they look."

The bear snarled, "That doesn't matter. If we don't find them we could be-"

Snow leopard cut him off, and now that she wasn't attempting to be stealthy, the necklace around her neck clattered and jangled as she moved. Eli couldn't help but notice that most of the beads appeared to be teeth..... Human teeth, "Calm down, we aren't the only ones looking for them, and we left our offering back over the hill." She jerked her thumb backwards into the trees, silencing the man for a moment as he grumbled and sat down on one of the logs by the fire.

From the side, a woman who hadn't spoken until now -- wearing red fox fur -- stepped forward, "The money to buy what we need to survive, everything is on the line here. The dreads themselves are at our backs, the stalk, and the revealed for the broker's son, and the outbreak for his own brat" she spat in the snow

Eli felt his hand clamp down hard on the log underneath him, but he forced himself to take a long, slow breath. He would think about that revelation later.

The bear slammed his fists into the log, "This is about more than that. We know what they are trying to do, why do you think Stalk is following US. She wants to make sure we do things right before these two cause the Dreads any trouble."

Wolf -- busy picking his teeth with a knife snorted, "How dangerous can two children be?"

Fox crossed her arms over her chest "It's never wise to underestimate prey, lest you make a miscalculation and they turn out to be the ones hunting you." she motioned to the ground around her, "Clearly they have already proven to be more clever than we originally gave them credit for."

Bear lifted his head and sniffed at the air. Eli resisted the urge to do the same, continuing to stay as still as possible, "We should get moving, it will be too dark out to track them, so best get some rest. And put that damn fire out before it attracts anything."

Wolf began kicking snow onto the fire while the others headed for the trees.

Soon all that was left was a smoldering pile of kindling.

Eli waited for almost half an hour before daring to move again, slowly inching himself back to his feet, bones creaking with the stiffness and cold before carefully making his way back to their hiding spot. He kept one ear tilted to the side at all times.

Worried he might hear the wind stop.

If stalk was hunting the hunters, then odds are she wasn't very far away.