The slushy snow whips through the pine trees, beats against my skin, and melts into my hunting clothes. As twilight deepens, I grip my spear tighter, and the frost on my gloves crack. I can't go back empty-handed.

Squinting through the storm, I search for the path the Elders restricted our hunting area to. In the gloom, it's almost invisible, but the marks of our tribe stand out to any well-trained eye. Three claw marks, not quite a bear's, scattered across chosen trees. The symbol fills me with both comfort and shame. For how many years has the strength of our bear been reduced to the skulking of rabbits in the brush?

The biting wind freezes some anger, and I forge forward to follow the marks' guidance. My foot dances over each new step, testing, lest the top layer of snow give way beneath my foot. All the animal tracks are buried in the snow, but lost footprints could hardly stop a child of our tribe. My head cocks, listening for the calls of flocking ravens or the scurrying of a hare in the brush. Over the wind, a sharper noise catches my ear, and I stiffen.

It comes again, and a grin breaks across my face. I scurry up a marked tree and circle around its trunk. The cry comes again, and I peer through the branches and snowflakes. My frosted breath plumes in the air. There, about thirty feet off the path struggles a treasure my tribe hasn't seen in many winters.

A young moose.

Its head shakes violently, antlers trapped in one of our old rope snares. It bleats a cry to its mother, and my eyes sweep the surrounding forest. I'm going to have to work quickly.

I scramble down, landing outside the Elders' path. I glance over my shoulder at the claw marks. There might still be small game on that trail—a bird that might feed me and my sister tonight, a mink to give the village girls warmer gloves and empty stomachs after a week.

The moose bleats, and my head snaps toward it. She'll be coming any time now. I pat the tree, making a silent oath to return with something worthwhile, and hurry that way.

Breaking the clearing, I creep as close as I dare, blood pounding. The calf sprays up snow as it twists wildly, and the snare creaks. Every speck of snow, every hair of the moose pelt, every fiber of the rope comes into crisp concentration as I pull my arm back, shoulders tensing.

My arm releases to throw, but as my aim proves strong and true, no success runs through me. The calf cries out, blood pulsing onto the snow as still it struggles, and I stand there frozen, a single realization dominating my mind. Those aren't our ropes. The mother moose bursts into the clearing, and from the trees come whooping war cries. Those aren't our ropes. Three arrows bombard the mother's face, and a second volley sinks into her thick pelt. I know whose ropes those are.

The calf's dead body falls among the snow.

I turn and run, fear bursting bright in my mind. The mother's dying cries ring through the forest, and I push myself harder. The Southern Savages have crept further north. Their trap, their arrows, and I stumbled in like a blind bird—

My foot cracks through the top layer of ice, and my leg plummets into a hole. I go sprawling, breathing hard, blinking snow out of my eyes. In the distance, the savage's whooping drives up in intensity, and I squirm, trying to push up. The fresh snow gives way under my hands, and I curse. Idiot! A half-trained child wouldn't have run toward a snow drift. I struggle to pull my foot back and up out of the hole, but the snow caves in around, trapping me.

As their cries grow closer behind, I struggle harder, and an image of the fighting calf burns in my mind. For years, these people have pushed us out of ancient hunting grounds, have stolen our food, have killed our men in our land.

Dread blooms through me. My tribe will never know what happened to me. The snow will take my tracks and my body—if the savages don't. My hands scrabble at the snow.

"Well, look what we have here." The voice makes the trading language sound bitter and sharp. I twist to see three boys my age striding across the snow behind me, testing their steps. Their bows hang over their backs, their hoods tight around shaved heads, as though they're too good for hair's natural warmth.

I sneer, not willing to disgrace my tribe with the fear shaking my bones.

The one who spoke stalks closer, and the other two fan out. "It's just a cub who thought he could ruin our hunt."

Bristling, I bite my tongue. My fifteen years is every bit a man in my tribe—more so a man than these land-thieves. And a man doesn't argue in the face of death; he watches.

To the left, wood creaks as one of the others draws his bow. "Should I put the cub out of its misery, Sresr?"

Shivering, I lift my chin and proudly meet Sresr's eyes. The arrow can not say whether I live or die. Snow and night fall around us as Sresr evaluates me, lip curled. The others' feet shift in the snow, and one lights a flickering torch.

As icy water seeps through my treated clothes, I speak. "If we do not move soon, we will all be out of our misery. The sky is angry tonight."

An arrow hisses through the air, and I flinch. No pain comes, though, and when I open my eyes, the end quivers on the ground near me. Sresr stands with his bow drawn, and the firelight twists his face into a wolf's angry glower. "Do not think to tell me what I already know, cub."

In one smooth motion, he leans forward, fingers wrapping around my arm and wrenching it behind me, and yanks. My leg comes free of the hole, and I collapse at his feet. I move to scramble up, but his boot pins my shoulder. "You know these woods, yes?"

My mouth twists in derision. "You hunt in woods you don't?"

A sharp kick to my side steals my breath and whatever small revenge I earned. "Cubs do not ask questions." His foot returns to my shoulder, pressing harder. "Do you know these woods?"

"Yes," I groan.

"Then you will find us a campsite." He says something in his language, and one of the other boys tosses him a rope. He jerks me to my feet, pulling me close to tightly bind my wrists. "And know this," he hisses, breath hot and rank against my face. "If you cross us, it is not misery you will be put out of." He pushes me away, holding onto my lead. "We head south. Find a good spot that way."

The three of them eye me with the intensity of starving coyotes. I nod, throat bobbing, and glance around to get my bearings. I ran heedlessly earlier; I won't make the mistake twice. With the torchlight, it is easy enough to recognize the grounds my father used to hunt with me. I orient with the direction of the branches, sheared on one side by the west wind, and with little landmarks: a twisted tree, an animal trail, a pile of rocks we stack for luck.

The path is near.

My stomach clenches. If they recognize our signs, they could take our hunting path too, just like they took the forest we used to call home in the winter. We would have no foothold left—no path left but starvation or war.

I swallow the doubt. The dark will hide our claws, and they don't have the eyes to see them anyway. I stop within the path's bounds where a tight-knit copse blocks the worst of the wind and the snow. They jump immediately to setting up camp, digging out a burrow in the snow and using skins for a lean-to. To my surprise, they tug me into their shelter and place the torch at the mouth. I shiver in relief with the slight increase of warmth.

They pull a tiny amount of food from their pack, rationing it between them, and I duck my head. Something cold and sad flutters in my stomach, and I try to call up anger to replace it. But even as they eat and I go hungry, I can't. They left the moose. No hunter in their right mind leaves a kill that big behind. They stalked that creature out, trapped the baby, waited for the mother to return—and just left it. Disgust at the waste threatens to rise but is swallowed by that cold sadness again.

They hunker over their morsels, and I bite my lip. These are not the boys of my village. These are savages. And they are not to be pitied.

Not even if they abandoned a trove of food just to chase someone who might know where they are.

Turning away, I shrug off my pack and dig with bound hands for dry clothes. Someone yanks the bag away. "Are you hiding food in here?" Sresr demands.

"A bear finds his own food." We don't take from the village to provide for ourselves.

"Cub boy thinks himself a full-grown bear. How cute." He sneers, digging through my things.

"There is no food in there," I say, voice edged. "And if you don't give me clothes to change, I am going to freeze to death before I can guide you home."

All three freeze. Sresr rises to his knees, head brushing the ceiling, and I draw myself up so he can't lean over me. "What," he bites, "did you just say?"

My bones quake, but my voice holds steady. "I said the truth. You are lost. I am not." I hold my bound hands out. "So if you want to find your way home, you will give me my clothes."

The other two watch us, coyotes hungry for a fight. The air in the tent thickens. My muscles tense. Outside, the wind howls, and a lonely wolf matches its cry.

Sresr lunges. I roll to the side, popping up on my knees. He twists, recovering, and I slam both hands across his face. Blood drips from his lips, and he dives forward, hands grasping my throat. I slam into the ground. Struggling, choking, I think of the moose calf, of my leg in the snow, of my hands tied tight. Straddling me, he pushes harder, and pain bursts across my eyes. He leers, dark eyes gloating in victory.

But I am not trapped.

My hands thrust up around the outside of his arm, and I push up with my legs and hips to toss him off of me. We both roll, and I come up behind him, bound arms circling his neck. I pull tight. "Do you give?" He snarls, scratching at my arms, and I yank harder. "Do you give?"

He scrabbles more fiercely, sagging as he loses air, each passing second draining strength. I grit my teeth. "Do you give?"

"Yes," he manages.

I pull my arms up and away, freeing him. As he leans over, catching his breath, I shift back to my corner of the lean-to and pick up my pack. I keep my eyes down, trying to ignore the weight of the onlooker's gazes. Fumbling, I shed my wet pants and pull on a dry pair. As I go to reach for my shirt, a hand catches my wrist.

I look up at Sresr, startled. The darkness in his eyes has been put out, replaced by something else that makes that cold sadness creep into my chest again. A small knife slices through my binds, and the ropes fall to the floor. "You will need hands to change."

Outside, the wind stops howling. In the quiet, I pull my wet things off and dry ones on. I wait a moment for them to tie me up again, but they're all huddled against the cold. Hesitant, I edge closer. No one pushes me away, and I lie down near their warmth.

One the outside of their group, but free, I close my eyes and drift to sleep.

I wake in the kind of quiet only snow can bring. Darkness covers the forest, the torch long since burned out. The songbirds are silent, huddled in sleep, and the predators of the night stalk soundlessly.

I roll over, trying to determine what woke me. Perhaps the temperature dropped. I shiver just thinking of it. The Elders didn't clear me to hunt overnight, so I have no tent, no blanket, no fuel for my own fire. I should have been back hours before dawn. Hours before I even saw the moose.

I wrap my arms tight around me. Once I take the southerners back to their village, who knows if I'll ever be back again.

I peer past the edge of the lean-to, where the stars dance past the leaves. Go, they encourage. Dance all the way back home! You're free. I bite my lip. Even if it weren't dangerous to travel alone at night, that would still leave these boys lost in my woods.

So what? the stars twinkle. They're not village boys.

"Well," I mutter, tucking my hands under my armpits. "They still can't be wandering around our path. So there." I turn away, satisfied with my reasoning. I roll over, but just as I'm about to sleep, a sound catches the edge of my hearing. It's a low growl, followed by a higher pitched whine. Sleepily, my trained ears pick out the details of the noise: a larger animal, not a wolf, and lynxes hardly make noise, especially when they're hunting. It sounds more like a bear, but bears don't usually roam at nigh—

The sound comes again, and my brain jerks into high alert. I jump to a crouch, startling the huddle of boys beside me. I burst out of the lean-to. "Don't throw!" I call in my language.

Invisible among the trees, an Elder's voice calls, "Tena?"

"I'm safe. Don't throw!"

"Who did you bring onto our path? I don't recognize—"

The boys from the lean-to crowd out around me, bows pointed into the darkness. Voices scattered around the shelter growl. In crisp, smooth trading language, one of my Elders shouts, "Savages, drop your weapons!"

The southerner boys snarl, readying for a fight. The trees rustle, and I can sense my kinsmen pulling back their javelins, confident in an aim that always ends with blood on the snow. The southerners press themselves tighter together, me packed weaponless in between them. Trapped, all four of us.

"I said, drop your weapons!"

"Do it," I hiss at Sresr. He shakes his head. This close, I can feel all three boys trembling, but their bow hands stay steady.

A hiss thrums through the darkness. "No!" The stars paint the outline of a javelin, and I explode out of the group.

Pain bursts through me. Sresr catches me as I stumble back, my chest aching worse than if a bear had sat on it. Warm blood pours down my torso. I look down and stare in shock at the javelin meant for Sresr.

The snowy silence I woke to dissolves now into muffled chaos. Someone—maybe more than one someone—calls my name. Snow crunches near my head; my head is on the ground. Thickly, a boy's sharp, bitter voice keeps repeating, "Why did you do a thing like that?"

A man's face floats in front of mine—someone with long hair, someone important. "Tena? Tena, stay with us." He turns away. "Someone go get the healer!"

A different face floats over me—a face with no hair, twisted in remorse. "Why would you do a thing like that?"

"Doesn't matter you got no hair," I slur.

"What?" Sresr demands. "What are you talking about?"

"You wrestle like a village boy an'way."

Something hard slides underneath me, and I'm lifted up, up, up. I reach for the leaves and the sky, but my hand won't move. The stars vibrate agitatedly. You should have left when you had the chance.

"No," I mutter.

"Hush now," someone says. "Save your strength."

"No, someone had to take them home."

The stars pulse, angry. You can't take them home if you're dead!

"They'll find a way back home," I murmur. My eyes close, shutting up the stars. "We all will."

Tena of the Bear,
Guide of the Wolf
a man of fifteen seasons

May this cairn rest you well
Marked on the Path where you fell.
Two tribes walk it now, to visit you
And remember how your courage true
Put an end to our blood feud.

Marked by the Elders of the Bear
And the Chieftain Prince of the Wolf.

May the stars guide you home.

Author's Note: This story was written for KirukkanGuild's January competition, based on Prompt 3: You stand at the edge of a path. They told you not to leave it, not at any cost. But here you are and here it is. You've followed it thus far and now you step off it. This is where the real journey begins. Our word count was 2,844.

This story was based loosely on the indigenous tribes of Alaska—more an idea of people that could have existed at some point in history than any particular group. However, I borrowed the names from the Tanana groups of languages. There, Sresr means "Bear" and Tena means "Trail".

Thanks for reading!