Chapter 46: Old Man Charges
A howl tore through the mountain.
"ROOOOOAAARRR!"
Danny froze mid-motion, one hand in air, knee half up, half standing from snow. His whole body locked, muscles refusing to move.
The sound wasn’t like wolves. Eyeless wolves howled like they were in pain, like they were hungry and hollow and wanted you to feel it too, like they were crying for something. This was different. This didn’t want anything.
It was deeper.
Heavier.
It seemed to shake air itself, vibrate snow off pine trees hundreds of meters down slope, rattle teeth in his skull, rattle stones in the low wall along the road. It wasn’t sound an animal should be able to make. It was sound of stone grinding against stone deep underground, of avalanche starting inside a throat, of mountain clearing its throat after sleeping a hundred years and finding humans in its mouth.
A massive shadow passed over him, blocking what little grey light filtered through snowstorm, blocking sky.
Danny looked up, neck craned so far back it hurt, snow falling straight into eyes, blinding.
For brief moment, through curtain of falling snow and kicked-up ice dust, through haze of powdered stone from its last smash, he saw Mirebeast’s enormous body fully, not just claw. Its back arched like a cat about to pounce, its six limbs dug deep into mountain on both sides of road, claws sunk into rock and earth, holding road like it owned it, like road was its and it was angry someone built it. Snow slid off its back in sheets, revealing more bark plates, more moving things underneath plates, things like roots, like veins. Its head — gods, it had head like broken wolf skull fused with rock, with that vertical slit that opened sideways — was thrown back as it roared, slit wide open, red eyes glowing deep inside like coals down a well, like furnace eyes.
Then—
BOOM!
Another impact shook mountain path, much closer this time, less than ten meters from Danny. Another claw, slamming down, testing, searching, blind but knowing, feeling for vibration. Snow jumped a foot into air and fell again slowly.
Danny covered his ears with both hands, palms pressing hard. Sound was too much. Too big for human ears, too big for human chest. Pressure made his nose bleed, thin red dripping onto snow and freezing there in a line.
A deafening chorus of screams filled mountain, mixing with roar, humans finally finding voices.
The thin prisoner screamed, high-pitched, broken wail that cracked in middle and became sob, became wordless noise, became name of someone, maybe his own.
Danny heard grey-haired man shouting something, a command, maybe a name, maybe "stay down!" but sound swallowed instantly by chaos and wind and beast’s breathing, eaten by snow.
The Mirebeast had begun its attack. It wasn’t hunting anymore. It wasn’t testing road. It was demolishing. It was reclaiming. It was angry that these small things still moved.
Danny’s vision finally cleared, tears from cold and wind making everything blurry and bright, blood from nose mixing with snow on lip.
And what he saw made his blood run cold, colder than snow in his boots, colder than mountain air in lungs, cold that went to marrow.
The grey-haired man was standing directly in front of creature.
He hadn’t run. While Danny and thin prisoner had been scrambling in snow like insects, like trash blown by wind, like children fighting over blanket, old man had moved forward. Two steps, three steps, into range, into shadow, into death’s reach. He had chosen forward when everyone else chose back.
His sword was raised. That plain, nicked, old sword that had looked so useless before, that rusted thing he had used to kill wolves. Now it was only thing that looked real on this road. A faint, pale blue light, his Echo, was beginning to flicker along its edge, fighting against snowstorm, catching snowflakes and melting them before they touched steel, making small hisses. Light was thin and unsteady.
Light was weak. Tired. Like old man. Like old man’s hands must be tired, like his knees must be tired. But it was there. It hadn’t gone out. It burned.
The Mirebeast towered over him. Comparison was insane. Wasn’t fight. Wasn’t even David and Goliath. Goliath was human. This wasn’t human versus human bigger.
One was human. Old man with grey hair and tired eyes, with body that should have been aching in this cold, with prisoner clothes too thin, boots too broken, shoulders hunched from years of carrying.
Other looked like mountain itself had come alive, had decided it was tired of letting humans carve roads through it, and had stood up to crush them for insolence, to erase road with its body.
The grey-haired man tightened his grip on his sword, both hands now. Snow landed on his shoulders and didn’t melt immediately, because Echo was warm but not hot, because old man’s heat was inside steel. He bent knees slightly, same stance as before against wolves, but lower now, wider, rooting himself like old tree that refused to fall.
Then, without single battle cry, without hesitation, without speech about logic or sacrifice, without looking back to see if anyone followed, he charged.
He ran straight at nightmare. Straight at death that was size of house, that was size of barn and cart together, straight at roar.
The Mirebeast saw him. Its massive head snapped down, eyeless face focusing, three red eyes inside mouth flaring brighter, like it recognized challenge, like it was amused. It raised one of its front claws, bigger than a cart, bigger than a horse and cart together, and brought it down to simply smash him, to swat him into road like he smashed wolf, like man swats mosquito, with casual, absolute force.
Steel met stone.
CLANG!
Impact was nothing like before. This wasn’t stone hitting road. This wasn’t beast missing. This was Echo against ancient flesh, old human will against old mountain will, blue against black and red.
Impact sent shower of bright orange sparks flying across snow, sizzling as they hit ice, hissing like angry insects, and shockwave of blue light rippled out from sword, cutting through falling snow, lighting up whole path for half second, making night of snowstorm into day.
Danny stared, mouth open, heart beating so loud he was sure wolves could hear it from valley below, sure Mirebeast could hear it and would turn, sure old man could hear it too.
Old man hadn’t been knocked away. Boots slid back foot in snow, two feet, carving trenches, but he held. Sword held against claw, blue light screaming, old arms shaking but not breaking.
Battle had begun.