Black Mountain

PROLOGUE

The creature screamed as the arrow punched into its neck. Ripping it free, it turned to roar in frustration. The wound was deep and bled heavily, but the sticky blood quickly froze on its coarse, blunt fingers.

The small ones were coming fast, sending more of their arrows flying through the air. The creature roared again, wanting to rush back and fight, to crush those small, loud man-things down to nothing. But that would mean its own death, and then the end of all of them. There were now barely forty members of the group remaining, and some with young; they would be slaughtered. The leader snorted and drew its clan higher, moving quickly now. When it looked back briefly, the man-things were a crawling multitude that whooped and ran and hurled their sharp sticks.

The time for peaceful coexistence had long since passed. The creature looked to the sky — cold, iron grey with heavy cloud down to the peak — then it grunted, calling the group. There was one place they could go, where they could defend themselves and save their young. The deep, wintering cave that they used for hibernation when the season was unusually long and cold. Down there, deep inside the mountain, where the lichens glowed green and things slid and wormed their way in the darkness, there was safety. Deeper still there was a black river, with pale, sightless things swimming within it — food.

The leader urged the group to greater speed, forcing them on, higher up the mountain, along the old pathways, steep and narrow tracks on the cliff edge that fell away to a depth so great its bottom was invisible in the heavy mist. Up, up, and into the cave, through the small and narrow opening, into the inner world of the mountain. There was no way out, but they could wait. If the man-things followed them in, then they would have to fight; they’d done it before. The small ones wanted their heads as trophies. If they came into the mountain, then their heads would be taken.

Deep in the dark they waited, the large adult bodies pressed to the front, the young behind, all breathing heavily, fear sharp and acrid in the air around them. And then the man-things came, but just to the mouth of the cave, throwing fire inside.

The great beasts waited still, but instead of an attack, there came a scraping, grinding and pounding noise, over and over. Then, to the creatures’ horror, the light from outside began to diminish. A mighty wall rose up before them, stone by stone.

The adults screamed in rage and surged forward, but were answered with more fire and stinging arrows. They fell back, pounding the ground, their rage loud but impotent as large, interlocking blocks continued to be piled and fixed in place, until the last square of light was blotted out. Still the sounds continued as many more layers were added.

Finally, there was silence, save for the heavy breaths of the creatures themselves. The leader shuffled forward and rested a large and bloody hand against the stone — it could sense the many thick layers and doubted they could break through. It also sensed the man-things on the other side, waiting for them to try.

It turned back to its clan, a decision forming in its mind. There was food, and there would be weak light from the lichens in the deeper caves below. They could survive. They would wait, and eventually their world would be given back to them. They had walked its surface before the man-things had arrived, and they would walk it again.