Anna is rushing, building the pen.
Wooden, in the basement of the House — she'd been working on it for a week already, and now she was finally done. The pen was large and sturdy, big enough to fit a horse. She was hurrying while the hunters were away on the Hunt.
The HuntWaters, not far from Tarquein.
Dense fog.
The Vikings emerged from the mist suddenly, too close.
Lone sailors on their heavy handmade vessels had no time to turn, no time to run.
Ships were set ablaze, plundered, their crews slaughtered.
They took everything they could, belongings, bodies.
Flames would erupt where a moment before there had been only fog.
5 days until the end of the Hunt.
Anna is in the forest. She sets raw meat down on the ground.
Hearing the sounds of a Bear, she darts back and hides in the bushes.
The Bear approaches the meat and eats it.
The Bear turns to leave — but Anna hurls a rock at its head.
The Bear spins around and roars.
The girl bursts from the bushes and runs.
The Bear hears only rustling, only the shaking of branches — the girl is already far — and charges after her.
The girl stops.
The Bear starts sniffing. Another piece of meat has appeared beside him.
30 minutes later.
The Bear descends stone steps, following chunks of meat down into the basement of the House, into the Pantry.
The girl crouches, watching his back from the doorway.
The Bear begins to sniff. He turns.
No one there.
He keeps descending, reaches the last piece of meat — lying inside the pen.
He starts to eat.
The girl swings the gate shut and runs.
Five days pass.
The hunters return from the Hunt.
Ten-year-old Anna sits with a boy her age at night, staring out at the water. Cold wraps around them. A snowy haze hangs in the air.
"Mon... my brother is already three years old and he still hasn't gotten any stronger."
...
"Father wants to get rid of him."
...
"Mon. I'll kill him."
He looked at her — sadness on his face, and fear. He rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her, and started to cry. "It wasn't easy for me either, when that happened to us..."
The girl began to cry with him.
He stopped crying. Smiled. Looked at her and said — "But you'll forget. Like I did."
The girl stopped crying. She clenched her fists, stared down at the ground, breathing hard and sharp, her heart hammering.
Mon reached up and stroked her head.
With her right hand the girl hit him across the face as hard as she could, knocking him out cold.
"Sorry," she said — and then she ran. Fast.
One hour later.
The girl was hidden in the bushes, watching as the Vikings returned from the Hunt. Some of them were dragging bodies off the ships — people dressed in old athletic clothes.
The girl's father was smiling, talking with a Viking standing beside him.
Two hours later — the Agreyv house.
A dead man lay on the table, dressed in old athletic clothes.
Thwack.
An axe buried itself into his leg just below the knee.
The father swung again.
Thwack.
The leg came off.
Thud.
A rock struck the father in the head. He turned.
Anna was looking at him, a few more stones in her hand.
The father's face went red. The veins in his thick neck swelled. "You little—"
Thud.
The father set down the axe. He breathed in. Breathed out. His face went calm and serious. Both hands soaked in blood.
He started walking toward the girl.
Anna ran.
The father ran after her.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of her ducking into the Pantry — and followed.
The father stood in the Pantry, fists clenched, blood dripping from his hands onto the floor.
"Is this how good children welcome their hunter home?" he said, voice tight and low.
He moved forward slowly, eyes sweeping the room.
Creak.
"There we go."
He followed the sound.
A small wooden door — left open.
Blood was still dripping from his hands.
His face shifted into something like surprise as he looked at it.
A roar.
From behind the wooden door came the Bear, drool running from its jaws.
The father's face turned red. The veins in his neck stood out. He dropped into a fighting stance, blood still running from his knuckles. The Bear lunged.
Bang.
His right fist connected with the Bear's snout.
The Bear's head snapped to the left.
A roar.
Thud.
The father turned his head — just for a second — and the shock was plain on his face.
He lifted his chin. Exhaled. Smiled a bitter, crooked smile.
Anna stood there with rocks in her hand. Her face wore a wild, predatory grin. Her breathing came in sharp bursts. Her cheeks were flushed.
The Bear lunged again.
Knocked him to the ground and clamped its jaws around the father's right, blood-soaked fist.
The father drove his left fist into the Bear's skull again and again with everything he had.
The crack of bones.
The father's scream.
The Bear tore off his hand at the wrist.
The scream got louder.
Anna watched her father. And smiled. Then slowly, she reached out and closed the pantry door.
Click.
She locked it.
She pressed her ear against the wood.
Then exhaled.
Her body went soft. She slid down against the door and crumpled there, cheek resting against it, smiling faintly while the sounds came through — the Bear, and her father, and the end of things. Her breathing slowed.
A tear ran down from one eye.
She wiped it away with her sleeve.
She curled into herself, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.