Ike Frostthread's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ike Frostthread wanted the honor of dressing the seer for the Glowflight Festival. To earn it, he needed frostglider pelts, more than he had ever taken at once. The best dens sat deep in the frost belt, past the edge his father ever mapped. His father trapped that belt for fifteen winters and taught Ike to read frost by making him watch, never explain. Now Ike stood at the frost line alone, and the patterns on the ground were wrong. The frost lay in curling ridges he had never seen. His father had never named them. Ike knelt and pressed a hand to the crust. The ridges ran in loops, then broke. Broken frost meant something moved through here often and heavy. He could not read the rest. He could not tell a den from a trap of his own making. "You are reading it backward." Sivara Frostwhisper stood ten paces off, blowgun resting across her shoulder. She hunted the Frostbark forest with poison darts and rarely wasted words. Ike had traded her furs before. He had never asked her for help. Pride sat heavy in his throat. "Teach me, then," he said. Sivara crouched by the ridges. "Loops point downwind. Dens sit where the loops close." She traced one line with a finger. "Frostgliders feed here. Something bigger feeds on them." She stood. "Set your traps at the closed loops." Ike carried his frostbark traps to the spots she marked. Jaws, snares, a wide cage frame. He baited them with glowfrost berries and buried the trigger lines. Sivara watched, said nothing, which he took as approval. The growl came from the ridge behind them. A frostclaw stepped from the frost, coat pale as bone, cyan light burning along its ribs. Broad jaws. Curved claws that raked the crust. It fixed on Ike and lowered its head to charge. "Down," Sivara said. Ike dropped. The frostclaw sprang. It cleared the low gravity in one long leap, claws out. Ike rolled under a trap frame and the beast crashed past him. It wheeled fast for its size. Sivara had her blowgun up. She waited. The frostclaw gathered to leap again. She breathed out and the dart flew. It struck the beast in the neck, deep. The frostclaw screamed and thrashed. It swiped the cage frame to splinters. Ike scrambled clear as the poison worked. The beast's legs buckled. It fell against the frost, sides heaving, then went still. Silence returned. Ike's own glow pulsed hard blue across his arms. "Dose was right," Sivara said. "Meat's clean." They dragged the carcass aside and reset the traps around the closed loops. Time would fill them with frostgliders now. Ike looked at the deep frost he could finally read. He had his den line. But the frostclaw was a hunter, and hunters run in ranges. If one worked these dens, more would come for the same prey. His traps sat right in their path.