2.

It was weeks after Yule. In a strange way, the snow on the ground was loudly white, its brightness an affront to the eyes. The trees were wreathed in more of the same. The mountain air had a cold edge that abraded the skin. But Alena didn’t cover up, nor even shiver. In a way, she found it all pleasing, invigorating.

Having stretched out two whole days just coming down the hills, Alena was beyond what one might call ‘dawdling,’ and she knew it for a fact. But she wouldn’t admit outright that she was quite purposely dragging her feet. Having to go home, and wanting to, were definitely not the same thing.

Alena looked over at her little ramshackle tent. It had been as cold inside as it was without. She poked at her meager fire. The tiny pot dangling over it was just beginning to let out a little vapor. In no time, she’d be gripping a steaming cup of kaf while her bones slowly thawed. Make no mistake; she liked the cold, but she liked being warm a whole lot better.

Old Highway 18 unspooled in a series of lazy switchbacks down into the San Bernardo valley. Behind her, up about a quarter mile up the mountain, lay the Arrowhead, a natural landmark that looked almost like it had been seared into the hillside. Its origins were a mystery—members of the hill-tribe said it was older than any of their lore—but whoever put it there had made sure its tip pointed directly down to a bed of natural hot springs. If Alena had been closer to them, she might have spotted the steam plumes stretching skyward, and would surely have caught a noseful of their sulfur stink. Once upon a time, yon springs might have drawn tourists from the valley below or served as a sacred space for the pagan locals. Instead, they were known as a hotbed for haints and ghasts, and the hill folk gave the place a double-wide berth.

Haints? Ghasts? Who the hell comes up with these words?

Alena had no answer to that, of course, but you can be damn sure she took a long detour around those springs on her way down the mountain. And she turned her back on them as she fetched and sipped her hot beverage, never to look their way again. It was time to strike her tent, cinch up her bedroll, and—since she was doing her damnedest not to hurry—savor a small breakfast of hardtack and jerky before heading out.

Alena knelt to place her cup by the meager fire, and doing so quite certainly saved her life.

Just as she bent her knees, there came a commotion from behind her—the snap of a twig, a bootheel grinding into snow, followed by a grunt of effort. The crude spear that would have impaled her from behind passed instead through the space where her upper body would have been. It didn’t quite fly true, for there was a wobble in its spin and the point was not quite centered, and it jabbed the ground about six feet past the opposite side of the fire. Its haft-end wiggled slightly, its business-end buried in the snow.

It was a bad throw that would nonetheless have killed her had she been standing upright. A wave of shock hit her once she realized exactly how lucky she was to still be breathing.

“Gesher ‘anzuff,” came the voice from behind her. She chanced a glance backward. The words were muffled by the fur scarf wrapped around the stranger’s face. Their eyes were but pinpricks under the brim of what had to be a hat made of roadkill scraps. Alena could tell neither gender nor age.

“Gesher ‘anzuff,” came the voice again. Alena surmised the person was saying, Get your hands up.

“Ee ‘ownonna hurcha-nun. Jes gib’s wha’ wewaw, n’wll go way.”

Alena let her brain chew over those words. We don’t wanna hurt ya none. Just give us what we want, and we’ll go away.

There were more soft crunches in the snow as her assailant closed the distance. And there were others approaching from her right. Her ears honed in on their footfalls. Were there two more? No; she counted three. Adding in the miscreant with the bad aim, that made it four against one. And she, their ignorant mark, had left her blade in her shelter.

“It sure sounds like you have harmful intent,” Alena said. Her heart was rabbiting away in her throat.

Think fast, think fast.

With an outstretched pinky, she gestured at the spear on the other side of the fire, saying, “And that sure as hell looks like you mean it.”

But the waggling pinky was really a misdirect—she had the first two fingers on the other hand crossed, just so. Tommy had taught her a neat trick: to ‘prime’ herself with that little mudra, then summon a candle’s flame in her mind’s eye, and funnel herself into its light. Once primed, she could take two steps and make herself thin—not quite invisible, mind you, but definitely hard to see.

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Alena did those things now. Fingers. Candle. Flame. She stepped twice deosil ‘round the fire, and then...

“Whur a’ fugg she go?”

Her thin glam must’ve worked, for that last sentence didn't need much in the way of translation.

Alena looked down, seeing snow where her feet should’ve been. The all-white glare probably made her glam that much easier... long as she stayed low to the ground. More confused yells rose from behind as she made for the tent and her blade. Crunch-crunch-crunch went her feet in the snow. The noise should have signaled her to caution, but it didn't, and she gave no consideration to being heard nor how her footprints might stand out—

“There!” someone yelled.

—and then something nailed her hard in the back of her head. It felt like a brick with a particularly sharp corner, and Alena went down with stars bursting behind her eyes. What followed was dizziness and crippling nausea.

The others were cheering, jeering. She tried to push their voices away and failed.

Then the one with the mumbly mouth was on her, all coiled muscle on a wiry frame beneath a half-ton coat of furs. A clumsy fist cuffed her while the other hand, clawlike, reached for her throat. Alena bit that one but couldn’t get her teeth through the tough leather glove. She clawed for her assailant’s eyes but had too short a reach. Panic crept in, with desperation close behind. Seeing no other options, she hitched up her knee as hard and fast as she could, hoping to smash a very vulnerable male groin.

The impact had the desired effect. Mumble-mouth grunted and relented just long enough for her to get out from under him.

Alena sucked in her breath, rolling onto her belly and in the direction of the fire ring. A hard tug on her ankle pulled her backwards so fast that her fingers hooked and left claw-marks in the snow.

“You son of a bitch!” she wheezed.

Her fear gave over to anger, and she welcomed it. Alena kicked that grip away and crab-crawled toward the fire. She jammed an arm into that red-hot mess and snatched up a handful of burning coals.

The pain was immediate.

But Alena held on to that pain as she rolled over and shot upright. She brought the fistful of embers up behind her ear like she was winding up for the perfect sockball pitch. Mumble-mouth squared off against her. He—she guessed he was a he—was shorter than she expected; he’d seemed much bigger when he was on her chest, punching and trying to suffocate her. Though the cap and scarf kept his face in shadow, she again caught a glint of his piggish little eyes.

His three compadres had quickly gone silent. Odd. But they didn’t matter at that moment. They’d get their time soon enough.

Alena hadn’t been sockball champion for nothing. She finished her wind-up and threw. Forearm and elbow worked in tandem, putting just the right amount of arc into her throw, and she finished with the perfect spin of the wrist. The fistful of coals hit mumble-mouth right in the face. He was screaming his muffled screams and beating himself about the head and neck to quash any flames before they could start. Alena dashed around him to her tent where, in an instant, she retrieved her blade.

“Owww! Damn!”

Fool that she was, she’d gripped the hilt with her good hand, the one she used for shooting guns, swinging swords... and throwing coals. The white hot pain had her in tears. But it didn’t matter—she wouldn’t let it. When Alena was younger, her blademaster had insisted she be just as strong and skilled with a weapon in her non-dominant grip. So she passed the weapon to her off-hand as he lunged for her again.

And she was ready. Not only had he hurt her, he had frightened her—Alena would never admit as much, but it was fear that rankled her in those moments. It was the kind of fear that’d have you snapping awake and biting off a scream on the coldest of nights, the kind that left you in a fog of raw anger at the overall powerlessness against it.

But, now she had the power, and he would learn.

All that winter gear was an obvious hindrance, and Alena easily sidestepped his clumsy charge. With a deft and economical swipe she cleaved straight into one of his knees, leaving the leg almost severed and the leg bending in a way that was unnerving to see.

He went down. Alena opened his throat before he could scream.

Her assailant landed on his back, flailing and spewing a crimson mist. His nauseating gurgles didn’t carry on for long.

Alena turned on the other three. They’d all pay for their audacity, God damn it.

Except, they were all dead.