Hour of the Wolf

They too, know the touch of winter.

Less so, perhaps, for what is skin compared to fur, in regards to keeping the chill at bay? And yet, they too must eat. Must kill. Like all, they seek the fire, as ice spreads across the land. Their howls spread their song, cutting through the night, however briefly. But sing they do, while our own songs are long forgotten, and what fragments we have offer us no comfort.

And yet we all hunger. We all kill. So having felled a deer, one of the few creatures left alive in this frigid wasteland, I am faced by a wolf of the wild. "My kill," says my arrow, lodged in the deer's neck, blood pouring out onto the snow. "Yet I hunger," says the fangs of the wolf. Barred in a growl, eyes locked with mine, as if his entire pack were here. And indeed, perhaps it is. One man, one wolf – perhaps all that remains alive in this world, bar those who live in death. Those who would see us all dead, and care nothing for what fills our bellies. A pack of one, a clan of one. The last two living souls.

But care we do, and so we pounce. Not enough meat to share, too hungry to broker peace. Fang and claw meet hand and blade. The wolf, stronger and faster. The man, taller and wiser. Before long, we both shall be gone from this world. All we can do is fight, to see who departs first.

The fight is short and bloody. A blade is plunged into the wolf's neck, while I die the death of a thousand cuts. Before long, we fall – too wounded, too tired to continue. Too content with death to rage against oblivion's embrace. Night takes us all, as surely as night covers the world. A night longer than either of our lives. A night that marks our deaths.

But no mark, says I, as the snow covers us, as if to give us sanctuary from those who might disturb our slumber. No mark, I think, but an arrow, jutting up from the snow. Even the blood shall be covered, as the tears of the sky fall all around us.

No, I think, as night whispers in my ear. Not tears. Only snow.

Only ice.