would have missed it until it was upon him. He had seen polar bears before, but even if he hadn’t, he would have known this beast instantly. In the wastelands of the north, what else could it be?
Larten tore his shirt open, dropped the startled baby and leapt forward. The bear was female, not as large as some he’d seen, but still taller than Larten when erect. She looked scraggly and starved. An elderly sow, well past her prime. She had been tracking Larten for an hour. A more cunning creature would have waited even longer, until her prey was too weak to defend himself. But when she saw the man slip, her mouth watered and she could hold back no longer.
Larten threw himself at the bear as she reared up on two legs and bellowed at him. He was in worse shape than the sow, but he had a child to protect and that gave him a slight, desperate edge. He didn’t care what happened to him, but he wasn’t going to let this ferocious carnivore feast on the hot, steaming innards of the baby.
As the bear wrapped her limbs round Larten, he dug for her eyes with his thumbs. All vampires had hard, sharp nails, but Larten’s were longer and more jagged than usual, since he hadn’t trimmed them while suffering with a fever on the ship. The nail on his left thumb found the bear’s eye and speared it at the first attempt.
The sow yowled and shook her head, snapping at Larten’s arm. She had endured much pain in her time, but nothing like this. She had already forgotten the promise of food. All she cared about now was killing the brute who had hurt her.
Larten couldn’t afford a drawn-out fight. He knew that even with one eye the bear would soon wear him down if he tried to spar with her. If he didn’t finish her swiftly, he would die, and the baby too.
Ignoring the threat of the gnashing fangs, Larten dug the nails of his right hand into the bear’s neck. The fur was thick and the skin was tough, but Larten pierced both coverings and his nails sank into hot flesh and drew blood.
As the sow howled and clawed at his back, Larten grabbed the fur on the other side of the beast’s neck and pulled so that the skin beneath was stretched tight. Opening his mouth wide, he latched on to her throat and bit hard. He worked his teeth savagely from side to side, biting and chewing, ignoring the pain as the bear’s claws cut deep into his back. Blood shot up his nose and he almost choked. But he snorted it out and jammed his chin in further, sliding his lower teeth left and right like a saw.
The bear spewed blood and her grip slackened. But Larten didn’t relax — he wasn’t going to fall into the same trap that she had when she saw him topple. He continued to chew until the sow collapsed, convulsed a few times and fell still.
When it was over, Larten rolled aside, panting, warm for the first time since he’d stepped ashore. His eyes were bright and he was grinning horribly. He was going to die in this godsforsaken land, but at least he’d squeezed in one last, decent fight. It was a pity the bear hadn’t been younger and stronger — this would have been a good way to perish. Perhaps he could find another to finish the job.
The baby cried out weakly, reminding Larten that he wasn’t alone and hadn’t just his own fate to consider. He could track down a fiercer bear later. First he had to deal with the baby and find a final resting place for the boy, somewhere safe from the creatures that would otherwise pick his bones clean.
Larten crawled across and picked up the trembling child. As he settled the baby back inside his shirt, he paused and glanced at the dead polar bear. He was keen to press on, but there was no telling how long it might take to find a cave. If he fell before he laid the boy to rest, he’d fail in his quest to secure the baby a tomb. It was a pointless quest, but Larten had fixed on the idea. He had done much wrong in his life, but he didn’t want to add to the list at this late stage. Finding a cave where he could lay the child’s remains wouldn’t change anything in the grand scheme of things, but it mattered to Larten. In that land of the lost, it was all that he cared about.
Larten scratched at his injured back – the wounds were deep, but not life-threatening – while considering his course. He could dig through the fur and flesh of the bear’s stomach with his nails. There would be hot juices inside. Digested food which he could mash up and feed to the baby. It would make for a foul meal, but the boy wouldn’t complain once his stomach was full. And Larten could fashion wraps out of the fur, one for the child and another for himself. Protected and fed, they could maybe march for another day or two. Surely that would give him all the time he needed to find a cave for his young, doomed charge.
Grimacing against the pain in his back, Larten wiped blood from his lips and knelt by the bear. He said a quick prayer over its carcass, then made a blade of his fingers and set to work, staying hunched against the snow, which never stopped blowing while he sliced open the dead bear’s stomach and trawled through a maze of steaming, gooey guts.
CHAPTER TWO
A storm was raging. It had whipped up without warning and had been blowing for hours. Larten struggled through it, face buried in the rough cloak he’d made from the fur of the polar bear. The baby was covered entirely and was gurgling happily in the dark, sticky warmth.
Larten had slipped many times and almost fallen through cracks in the ice. This was deadly land if you couldn’t see clearly. Very easy to wander off the edge of a ridge or drop into an icy abyss. It would have been best to sit, covered by the fur, and wait out the storm.
But the baby would soon be hungry again. Larten had brought some strips of meat, which he could chew up and feed to the child like a bird feeding a chick. But he didn’t know if the boy would be able to stomach such an offering. He hadn’t reacted favourably to yesterday’s foul feast and had vomited up most of it. Larten was resigned to the fact that the baby would die, but he hated the thought of the infant starving to death in his arms. So he pushed on, preferring the idea of the baby falling into a chasm with him than perishing of hunger.
Larten pictured faces of the dead as he stumbled forward. Vur Horston, Traz, Wester’s family, Zula Pone and of course the faces of the people on the ship, the doomed crew and passengers, fresh in his memory and with more cause than the others to haunt his thoughts.
But mostly he found himself focusing on the face of poor Malora, filling with guilt and regret when he recalled how she had died protecting him and how he had failed her in her hour of need. He would never forgive himself for not being there when she had needed him most.
Seba had said, many years ago before blooding him, that a vampire had to prepare himself for a lifetime of death. When you lived as long as they did, most of the people you knew would die before you. Larten had accepted that. He wasn’t afraid of death or the grief he must endure when losing a loved one. That was the way of the clan and he faced the hardships without complaint.
But in that icy wilderness, his mind still askew from the madness that had consumed him on the ship, Larten cursed his long years and the choices he’d made. He felt that the dead were jealous of him, that they hated him for being alive. He cringed as he imagined their voices on the wind, their hands snaking round his ankles, an army of ghosts rising up to drag him down and torment him.
Something shimmered far off to his right. Larten thought his mind was playing tricks, but then it came again, a flash of yellow and green. He stopped and squinted. The snow was thick as ever and it was almost impossible to see anything further than a couple of feet away. But Larten held his position and kept his eyes open. Moments later the flicker of colours came again, but further off this time.
Larten didn’t know what it might be. An animal? He couldn’t think of any green or yellow animals in this part of the world. A human? Perhaps he was close to a town or maybe this was a hunter in search of game.
“Hey!”
