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Odd shadows danced on the wall and ice crystals glittered brightly in the orange light cast out from the hearth. The fire popped, crackled, and hissed in its stone enclave as a figure moved slowly in the cold, the fog of each breath a wreath around his head that slowly dissipated in the winter air. He approached a small frost encrusted window, and paused motionless before it for a moment. Shortly he stooped and a mark was scratched on the wall beside the window with the point of a knife, becoming another one of many already etched into the frozen wood. Metal grated on wood as hard as granite as the knife was repeatedly moved up and down, the line becoming deeper and more permanent with each stroke. Beside this line was an odd group of marks. Four short vertical scratches with one longer diagonal line running through them. There were other similar groups of scratches there, six of them to be exact, separated by inconsistent spaces and nearly obscured by the frost that glittered on the wood. There was a brief pause before a sleeve was used to wipe away some of the ice crystals that clung tenaciously to the wall. A pale hand hesitated in the cold air and the knife point wavered uncertainly for a short moment. Slowly, the knife point tapped each group of marks, and Chris's lips moved soundlessly as he counted the days that he had been stranded in this cabin.

The line he had just scratched on the wall was the thirty-first mark. That should have put the current date at somewhere around the first week of December but he wasn't so sure of that. The weather over the last month had been nothing short of brutal and very unlike early December for the part of the world he was familiar with. At least a metre of snow had fallen in that time and there had been days of such bitter cold that he thought his lungs were going to freeze solid in his chest with each breath on the rare days when he dared to venture outside of the cabin. The cold held him prisoner within the four walls of the old shack that he now called home and on those dark, frigid days he rarely strayed far from the hearth. He kept the fire burning constantly yet there were some days where even the fire seemed unable to push back the icy cold fingers that crept in through the walls of the old shack and the temperature indoors remained well below freezing. There had been times in recent weeks when Chris had wondered if he would ever know the simple pleasure of being warm again

His lips pressed into a grim line, Chris used his sleeve to try and scrape some of the frost from the small window and looked outside. It was dark out there, clear and wickedly cold under a sky of fiercely bright stars. It was almost always dark outside now, the amount of sunlight during the day had slowly dwindled into nothingness in recent weeks. On the rare occasion where the sun was actually able to shine through the frequent clouds it did lingered for so for barely half an hour, little more than a twilight glow devoid of warmth mostly hidden behind evergreen trees frozen into winter stillness as the yellow orb lingered briefly on the southern horizon before fleeing to warmer climes. Each day saw less and less of the sun and soon, Chris knew, day would blend into night and his sense of time would be lost as the world around him settled into one long seamless night that would seriously screw with his body's circadian rhythms. The worry he felt was betrayed in the lines of his face. He now knew that he was much farther north than he should have been and he wasn't quite sure what to make of that. The other worry was that he knew that the solstice had yet to be reached and he understood with a sinking feeling in his gut that winter was just getting started. There was a whole lot more snow and cold to endure and Chris wasn't sure how much more of this life he could take.

He had grown thin, his face pale and gaunt under a sparse brown beard. He stunk and he hadn't had a shower or brushed his teeth in well over a month. His hair was disgustingly greasy and his clothes had become stained and ragged in a few places. Hunger had become his constant companion and at times the empty gnawing in his gut nearly drove him mad. He hadn't felt well in some time and he often wondered if the periods of famine and the simple fact that nothing but meat had made it into his belly in over a month were slowly killing him. A balanced and nutritious diet was something that his surroundings definitely couldn't provide. Fresh fruits and veggies were hard to get when the world was frozen solid beneath a thick layer of white.

Finding food had been a constant struggle even with Kendri's help. Going out hunting and fighting the deep snows sapped his strength and the cold winds stole away his precious body heat faster than it could be replaced. He really needed snowshoes if he was to get anywhere in the wind sculpted maze of drifts that lay outside of the cabin but he really had no idea how to go about making a pair. He'd tried to build a set a couple of times but had achieved nothing but frustration. He just didn't have the knowledge needed and he had come to understand that lack of knowledge would likely be trap him in the cabin for the duration of the winter. He didn't relish the thought. His situation had already deteriorated to the point where even going outside to answer the call of nature or gather firewood was a herculean task and the trek up the wall of the valley beyond the cabin on par with the climb to the peak of Everest.

God knows he'd tried to go out in search of food the last couple of weeks, even at great risk to himself, but such attempts had been futile efforts. The duration of daylight was just too short for him to get very far before darkness took over again. He was just too weak, the snows too deep, and the signs of game too few and far in between to take the risk of getting caught outside in the dark and potentially getting lost. The forest was eerily silent on those clear and cold winter days and he really didn't like the feelings that came over him every time he wandered out among the trees. There was this unsettling sensation that had wormed into him over the last few weeks that there was something out there in the forest that watched him from places that he could not see. Sometimes it was hardly noticeable, that odd sensation but other times it really freaked him out. Some times the feeling was so strong that he found himself looking uneasily over his shoulder at the silent forest for a long moment before hightailing it back to the cabin as fast as his hunger weakened legs would let him. Chris shook his head. There were times when he thought that his sanity had long since fled into this snowy wilderness that he could not escape from. There were even some times that he thought he could even hear the distant shrieks of anguish it made as it fought to escape from this godforsaken place.

Kendri had taken to hunting on her own more and more frequently of late. She was doing so even now, out there in the dark and the wicked cold, searching for something else to keep them alive for a few more days. Chris had done his best to hunt with her but he was holding her back and slowing her down, he knew it and she did too. He suspected that much of the reason she had allowed him to accompany her was because of his rifle and the advantage it provided. Even so, big game had been scarce since the heavy snows set in. One deer was all they had managed to bring down and it hadn't lasted long. The occasional grouse or rabbit that Kendri managed to catch was the only thing that had sustained them for the last two weeks and Chris found himself clinging to the faint hope that a moose would wander out into the clearing in front of the cabin during the brief hours of daylight. A slim chance, to be sure, but only in such unlikely circumstances would he be able to put his rifle to good use. The margin for surviving the winter had become razor thin and Chris knew beyond a doubt that had Kendri not brought him to this cabin he would already be dead, frozen into a human popsicle somewhere down in the valley for the wolves to gnaw on and the ravens to peck away at. It wasn't a very happy thought.

Despite all that Kendri had done for him, Chris still had problems trusting her. He often wondered what exactly her motives were in bringing him to this place. Nothing made sense and all of the pieces he weighed in his mind just didn't add up. Was he a simply a companion to help ease the loneliness of the cold and dark winter days? Maybe he was just a hunting partner with an exceptional weapon and an extra set of strong hands that came in handy when the excitement of the kill was over and the hard and dirty work began. Perhaps those things were true, but he had a hard time believing that there wasn't some other purpose behind the wolf's actions. His face darkened and a frown grew on his lips. As their situation became more and more desperate would she look at him as food to fill her belly as the world outside slept under the weight of winter? Would she use those sharp teeth of hers to rip out his throat while he slept? Such things weren't outside of the realm of possibility and he didn't like to dwell on them. There was also a better than average chance that he was slowly losing his mind. Extreme hunger does strange things to people's thought patterns, his included, but he couldn't bring himself to wholly trust the wolf. He would have to watch her very carefully in the months ahead.

Maybe his gun was the only thing that had kept her at bay so far. It was obvious that she was terrified of it and wouldn't even go near it. Score one much needed point in his favour. He recalled one evening when he had begun to strip down the weapon and became very absorbed in the familiar task of cleaning it. The click and rattle as carefully machined parts snapped and moved together was like a beautiful song in his head and his odd situation had suddenly seemed so far away. He had been so engrossed in his actions that it had taken him a long moment to realize that Kendri had backed into a corner and was crouched there, eyes wide and glistening in the firelight, absolutely terrified, shaking, and thinking she was about to get shot. He figured that the only reason she hadn't bolted out the door and disappeared into the woods was because that particular escape route would have meant running right past him. He felt a bit bad for scaring her like that but at the same time he had realized that her fear of the gun could be a very useful tool if the need ever arose.

Chris closed his eyes and sighed. He really hoped that he wouldn't have to threaten the wolf with the rifle or be forced to shoot her if things went sour. He was not a violent man by nature and he didn't like inflicting unnecessary pain on any living creature. The wolf had done many things to help him and there was no question that he would be dead right now without the aid she had so freely given him. He sincerely hoped that she wouldn't turn on him but if things went sour and she forced his hand against her, he figured the cabin would prove to be a very lonely place with only one occupant and he didn't know if his sanity could take that situation and survive. It was having enough trouble already.

One last glance out the window and another sigh escaped Chris's lips. He slowly meandered back to the hearth and stood silently beside the single chair that had been placed right in front of the fireplace. He lingered there only for a moment before he moved to pick several pieces of wood in an absent-minded manner from a pile stacked haphazardly along one wall. As Chris leaned forward to carefully place the fresh fuel on the fire, the orange light brought the features of his face to life. The heat from the flames revitalized him and brought some warmth back into his thoughts. He tried to remind himself that not everything was bad this winter.

One bright point over the last month was that Kendri had been putting considerable time and effort into learning how to communicate with him. The language lessons were an excruciatingly long and very often frustrating process but the ability to communicate, even with a few mispronounced words was an indescribable gift that almost made the dark winter days worth enduring. Hearing a few understandable words from the wolf made her seem a lot less alien, less worrisome and almost a person.

The wolf often became just as, or sometimes even more, frustrated than Chris during those language lessons. Chris was quickly learning that her language was very odd indeed and he suspected that there were some terms that Kendri sought to teach him that just wouldn't translate. The wolf had considerable trouble with a few of the English words that Chris tried to teach her and there were times when many hours were spent trying to get the meaning of a single word or phrase across to the other with no success. Both of them often grew so frustrated that not a word would pass between them for nearly a day. In those situations, Kendri would often stalk away into the forest to be by herself for a while and doubtless think about just what she was trying to accomplish communicating with such a strange creature as the human. Chris, more often than not, would haunt the cabin and dwell deeply on this odd situation that he could find no way out of.

Despite all of their communication problems, some progress had been made. Chris had learned enough of the wolf's language to be able to name a few animals and tools, some words describing the weather and to say if he was hungry or thirsty. Even those small things had helped immensely in making the winter seem a little less bleak and lonely. A small bright point in an otherwise dismal situation.

Chris sat down heavily in the chair before the hearth. He had yet to eat today and the hunger pangs in his belly cut deep. For what must have been the thousandth time he looked around the cabin for anything that might be edible. His eyes came to rest on the pile of deerskins he used for bedding and he wondered if his digestive system would be able to pull a few calories from old leather. He grimaced horribly at that thought. There were some old deer bones buried under the snow outside the cabin and he was about to brave the weather to dig them up and crack them open for marrow when he remembered he'd already done that several days ago.

A very long and worn out sounding sigh escaped from Chris and he sagged in the chair. His gaze came to rest on his rifle where it stood propped up in a corner. He had to find a way to get outside and hunt otherwise he would sit in this cabin and slowly fade away until either the cold or the hunger ended his miserable existence. Shortly he stood up and wandered over to the old table. Resting on the top in a mess of wood shavings and leather strips was his third and rather poor attempt at making a snowshoe. Chris stalked around the table, thinking furiously. This one thing was a crucial key to having some mobility and surviving the winter. Unfortunately, he'd only used snowshoes once and that one time had been many years ago and he knew next to nothing about how they were built. He'd seen pictures of the traditional native style of snowshoes and recalled a wood frame with leather webbing. He tried to mirror that design but had very little success. He had done a lot of thinking and had wracked his brain for anything he might have learned over the years that might come in handy but there wasn't much there that dealt with this kind of winter survival. After breaking several of the wood frames he'd finally clued into the fact that he had to heat and steam the wood to get it flexible enough to bend without snapping. He had eventually managed to come up with something that approached a traditional teardrop shape and a hard lesson was learned when he discovered that he had to wedge a couple of pieces of wood across the frame to keep it in that shape as the wood cooled and dried. He had tied the ends of the frame together with strips of leather and that is where he began to have real problems. He was finding that the leather wasn't strong enough, or maybe he just wasn't using the right method. Chris picked up the snowshoe and eyed it carefully in the firelight. The webbing and bindings he had tried to make for his foot didn't last very long before breaking or coming unraveled and it wasn't a good thing to be caught out in the deep snows away from the cabin with a broken snowshoe. He was lucky that he didn't get very far the first time. The snow had been up to his waist...

Even if he could come up with something better and stronger than leather, Chris was hesitant to trust his life to his homemade snowshoes. He would have to build two sets and pack the extras as a backup, just in case something bad happened. He thought about that for a minute and shrugged. Better to die fighting to survive than slowly wasting away inside the cabin, waiting for a rescue that was likely never to show.

Chris brought the partially finished snowshoe back to his seat in front of the fire. He stared at it for long moments, a thoughtful frown on his face as he contemplated how to build the webbing that had troubled him. He turned the frame over and over in his hands while his mind sorted through memories of pictures he had seen of native style snowshoes. They used leather for the bindings and webbing but obviously they had a technique that was better than the one he was trying to use. Long moments of hard thinking passed and suddenly and idea sprang into his mind as he stared into the fire.

Maybe, just maybe, rawhide was the answer. He'd never worked with the stuff before but he had watched Kendri make and use it to bind her spear points to the wooden shafts. From what he'd seen, the stuff was resilient and tough and had a tendency to shrink as it dried out. If he braided it and let it dry and harden, it could very well work better than the cured leather he'd been trying to use. He jumped to his feet, eager to try out this new idea. He needed water and one of the uncured deerskins, both of which were frozen into granite-like solidity outside. He grabbed the old blackened pot from the floor beside the hearth and nearly ran out the door with it.

The outside air was bitterly cold and stung eyes and nose as Chris packed as much snow into the pot as he could. Flakes of snow and ice crystals wafted in through the cabin door as he returned to set the pot on the edge of the stone hearth. He returned outside once more and after a brief glance at an unbelievably dark sky littered with the hard, glittering diamonds of stars he pulled a frozen deerskin from a snowdrift beside the door. This skin was from the deer he had shot three weeks ago. He and Kendri had long since picked it clean of any fragments of flesh and had tossed it out into the snow until the wolf could find the time and energy to cure it. The skin was as rigid as a piece of plywood and Chris had to fight to manoeuver it through the door. He propped the skin up against the chair in front of the fire and settled down to wait for it to thaw, the light from the fire reflected in his eyes as he thought about how exactly he was going to build his snowshoes.

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In a dark and unending landscape of trees and wind-sculpted snowdrifts, Kendri took a break from her hunt for food and paused for a moment underneath the dubious shelter of the low branches of a large spruce tree. She had hunted long and hard without success and she had grown worried at what the future might hold for both her and the human who had become trapped in the cabin. Game had become increasingly scarce in recent times and the snow was strangely devoid of any sort of animal tracks whatsoever. The forest held a despairing emptiness and nothing but the empty scents of trees and snow had come to her nose during her long trek. She had not even seen signs of rabbit or grouse in several hours. It seemed that only her meandering trail through the woods gave a clue that there was anything left in this forest that still lived and moved.

The stars in the sky above were hard pinpoints in a velvet black curtain. The crescent moon had gone to sleep in the west many hours earlier and darkness smothered the forest under a heavy hand. Trees cracked and groaned in the bitter cold and the winter air had sharp fangs that bit deeply into her nose. The world around her slept or hibernated in the cold, or maybe, she thought, it was dying under the heavy weight of this strange winter.

Kendri had never experienced a winter like this one. While the two other winters she had survived here in the mountains had been colder and snowier than the ones she remembered when she lived on the plains to the south, this particular winter was far worse than anything she could recall. Her prayers had gone unheeded and Kendri hung her head in despair. The Gods truly were angry with her and sought to teach her a hard lesson, she thought, and she wasn't so sure if she would survive it.

She'd known hunger at times in her life, but the hunger that grew within her over the last week was a new and more sinister sensation. She had gone days without eating a thing and strange thoughts often clouded her mind. A seed of desperation had grown within her and she had seen the same thing reflected in Chris's worried eyes. The poor human had grown thin and gaunt. He hadn't looked or smelt well in some time and Kendri knew that his outlook was bleak. She often worried about him. She worried that the winter would soon claim his soul and she worried that he might use Thunder to strike her down and eat of her flesh if he realized that doing so might be the only way for him to survive for much longer. Some times, Kendri thought that it would be best for her to not return to the cabin at all but strike out on her own instead and try to find where all of the animals had gone.

Not for the first time Kendri wondered if her decision to bring the human back to the cabin had been the wrong one. Had she been on her own, she would probably not have had much trouble surviving the winter. There was an extra mouth to feed now, and that had really complicated things. She had thought that Chris's weapon of Thunder would be a great help in hunting and for a while it had been. However, hunting success required animals to hunt and those had been very scarce recently. She also hadn't expected Chris to become trapped in the cabin. His large size and weight had become a liability in the deep snows. With each step he sank deep into the drifts and struggled mightily just to make the next step. Kendri's lighter weight and large feet gave her a big advantage in those situations. She was able to traverse the deep drifts without too much trouble. She sank into the snow, but nowhere near to the same depth as Chris. She'd seen the hopeless exhaustion in his eyes and knew that he really wanted to help but he just couldn't. She could see how that nibbled away at him and lent to the despair he so often felt.

The outlook for surviving the winter had become very bleak, Kendri knew that well. However, not everything had turned bad this winter. She had been trying to teach the human her language over the last cycle of the moon. She hadn't really known what to expect and the lessons had been slow and incredibly frustrating but there had been some success. Kendri's heart had leapt at the joy of actually being able to communicate with someone again, even at a level that a second summer pup would have put to shame. One of the things she had missed the most over the last two years was being able to talk to someone and hear another voice other than her own. She had never liked being alone and here, at last, after two long and lonely seasons was someone she could talk to. It didn't matter that he wasn't of her people it just mattered that there was someone else around to ease the loneliness of the empty winter days. She sometimes even thought that it would be better to die of starvation in the company of a friend than it would be to survive and live alone.

Kendri blinked and yawned in her sanctuary. She was tired, but she knew better than to try and sleep in her current state. There was the possibility that if she did she might never wake up. She shook herself and stretched, feeling the cold's icy grasp around her fingers and toes the longer she stayed immobile. She had to get moving again or risk becoming a permanent part of the landscape. She was hesitant to move from her hiding place though. The Watcher was out there somewhere, following her. She'd felt its presence for most of the day. The sensation of eyes in the trees had been much stronger today than most other days and many times her worried gaze had darted to the odd patterns of shadows in the forest, expecting to see something there. Each time her eyes found nothing and her nose caught only the scents of snow and trees. She would listen intently and wonder if she was actually hearing voices in the groaning creaking trees or if the hunger she felt was playing strange games with her mind.

Pushing her way through the thick spruce branches Kendri stood and stretched uneasily in the perpetual winter darkness. She could see well enough in the starlight that the shapes of trees were distinct against the snow. However, it was her nose that told her the real story of her surroundings and she trusted it more than her eyes in the dead of night. She moved away from her hiding spot slowly, following a trail she had been down before that she knew would lead her in a wide and long circle back to the cabin. The Watcher's presence around her was strong and fluid and Kendri did her best to ignore it. The Watcher was a little worrisome but for now it was a benign entity. There were far more important matters to attend to and Kendri slowly picked her way through the silent forest. Her short spear she held carefully in her right hand and often used it to steady herself as she trudged through the deep snowdrifts. Her nose tracked her surroundings constantly and her ears listened for any signs of life among the dark trees while her eyes scanned the snow for any signs of life whatsoever.

And so Kendri stalked through the forest under the gaze of the glittering stars. Trees creaked and groaned around her as she searched for anything that might be edible. She wandered the untracked snow and her preoccupied mind wandered elsewhere until something brought her to a sudden stop. She sniffed the bitterly cold air currents and an ear twitched. A trail intersected her path a few paces ahead and it was relatively fresh. She knelt beside it and sniffed intently. A wolf trail, one of her four legged cousins had recently passed by here. She stared at the huge prints for a moment and the looked in the direction they led. There were other sets of prints in the snow as well, four, no, five more sets of big paw prints marked the snow several paces away, winding through the trees with long strides and a quick pace. Kendri moved forward and sniffed at the other trails carefully. Below the wolf tracks, trampled and almost obscured were the solitary tracks of a moose. Kendri's head snapped up and hope swelled in her breast. Her cousins had been on a hunt. She turned and fairly ran along the tracks the pack had made in the snow. The cold air stung eyes, nose and tongue. If her four-legged cousins had succeeded in bringing down that moose, there might still be something left at the kill site for her and Chris to eat. Carrion meat was still meat and one couldn't be picky in matters of survival. Her pace quickened as she followed the trail through the trees.

The chase had been a long one and Kendri followed the tracks of the moose and the wolf pack for almost two hours. She read the story of the hunt in the snow and knew that the moose had been weak and starving. Still, the wolves did not have an easy time on the hunt. One moose, even weakened by hunger or sickness was still a formidable foe. Soon, all of the tracks became flat out running trails and the snow became trampled and littered with sign. Tufts of moose hair and drops of blood soon marked the pristine snow. The wolves had chased their prey into an area of deep drifts and had used such things to their advantage. Moose had long legs but their hooves cut through the snow until the reached the forest floor. The wolves simply ran along the surface of the drifts and they tormented the hapless animal as it struggled in the deep snow. More and more blood littered the snow among the chaotic mess of tracks. The smell of blood made Kendri begin to drool, and she trotted along the trail, nose held high in the winter air.

The kill site was close Kendri could smell it. She crested a small rise and stopped cold. Six sets of yellow eyes regarded her suspiciously from around the corpse fo the fallen moose. She could sense the wolves unhappiness at being disturbed in their meal. Normally Kendri would have left them to their hard earned food but these were not normal circumstances. Here was food, and enough of it to last her and Chris for some time. Here was an opportunity for them to regain their strength as the Long Night settled over the world. Here was a gift from the Gods themselves, the precious gift of life and it would be more than foolish for her to turn her back on it.

It took only a millisecond for her to make her decision. Kendri took off at a flat out run, brandishing her spear and screaming her head off, running right into the midst of the wolves at their kill. The animals scattered, but did so unhappily. They stalked around her and watched from the shadows, trying to get up the nerve to retake the kill that was rightly theirs. Six sets of angry yellow eyes followed Kendri's every movement as she stood at the kill with her spear clenched in numb hands.

Okay... That was really stupid, she thought, as the wary yellow eyes never left her. Now what am I supposed to do?

A low growl came from the leader of the pack and he edged closer. Kendri gulped nervously and stood her ground. There was too much at stake for her to give up now. She quickly stooped and grabbed a handful of snow and threw it at the alpha wolf. He snarled at her and jumped back, pacing back and forth suspiciously. Kendri growled back. The alpha of the pack stopped his pacing and looked at her uncertainly when he heard that. He cocked his head to the side and his yellow eyes bored right into hers. Kendri lifted her lips and flashed her teeth, letting him know that his stare was not appreciated. The Alpha didn't flinch and Kendri started to get a little worried. At six to one odds she figured that the wolves wouldn't be long in trying to retake their kill. She startled them, for sure, and they didn't really understand what she was, but soon enough they would listen to their bellies and be on the attack. She had to get a fire going and quick. That was likely the only thing that would keep the wolves at bay.

She wasn't quite sure how she was going to do that though. She didn't want to turn her back on the wolves and the warm scent of blood and fresh meat from the kill was driving her nuts. Making a fire meant letting her guard down and likely an attack from the wolves.

Eventually, she moved slowly to nearby trees, her eyes never leaving the unhappy wolves. She picked as many of the smallest and driest brittle branches from the surrounding spruce trees as she could and carefully arranged them in a small fire bundle beside the carcass of the moose. When she looked up, the wolves had come closer, circling warily as their hunger began to overpower their fear.

Kendri quickly pulled her flint and steel from the pouch on her belt and began to strike the two in earnest. Bright flashes lit up the night and the wolves suddenly stopped to stare. Most of them were nervous but the alpha seemed to show little fear of the bright sparks and edged closer, a growl rumbling from his throat. He was pissed and she really couldn't blame him. Had their positions been reversed Kendri would have felt the same as he. Kendri sensed the inevitability of an attack and slowly put the flint and steel back into her pouch, her eyes never leaving the alpha's. The presence of the Watcher intensified, swirling around her in an invisible curtain.

She slowly began to reach for her spear and the alpha chose that exact moment to lunge.

Kendri had been ready for his move. Teeth snapped empty air where her arm had been and she brought the spear around in a wide arc to slam against the side of the wolf's head. There was a solid thump and a pained yelp and the alpha went tumbling in the snow. He quickly regained his feet and winced and pawed at the side of his head, one eye half closed. Kendri growled low and long at him and held her spear at the ready in case he tried something else. Her heart hammered in her chest and her hands shook slightly. She tried not to show her fear and stared down the wolf. This went on for a long moment before the alpha began pacing nervously back and forth again. He was unsure about attacking again and Kendri breathed a sigh of relief. The rest of his pack watched warily from the shadows as Kendri turned her attention back to the fire.

One eye was always on the leader of the pack as she struck flint against steel. This time the wolf made no move towards her. A couple of tense moments passed before a thin tendril of smoke curled up from the fire bundle. Kendri knelt and blew on the embers and a tongue of yellow flame licked up through the branches. She added more branches to the fire and as the flames grew bigger the wolves melted away into the darkness. The alpha was the last to leave. He didn't want to give up his kill but the mysteries of fire were too much for him and he left to lead his pack in search of easier prey.

Kendri ate her fill from the wolf kill once she was sure her four-legged cousins had left. There was still a lot of meat left there and she became reacquainted with the happiness that came with having a full belly. She had to get some of this meat home to Chris or somehow get the human out here, but she dared not leave the kill alone. The wolves would soon be back, she knew, and if she let the fire go out they would once again claim it as their own.

She wasn't too far from the cabin, and she decided that after she got some much needed sleep she would build the fire up as high as she could and then go on the trek back to the cabin. She would bring some food for Chris and once he had eaten and gained some strength, she would lead him out here if she could and they would try to bring the rest of the kill back to the cabin.

That would not be an easy task but it was their only hope for surviving until more food could be found.