"Threk!"
He roars again, a sound of frantic, guttural impatience, and shoves me harder, away from the door and toward the back wall of the cabin—the very wall we just repaired.
"Run," he groans, the word a guttural command ripped from his throat. Run.
I'm frozen, my mind blank with confusion. Run where?
He doesn't wait for me to understand. He shows me. He turns his massive shoulder and slams it into the wall we just reinforced. The wood splinters. He is smashing a hole. He is making an exit.
And cutting through his roar and the splintering wood, I hear it.
It is not the wind. It is not the Worgs.
It is a high, small, musical jingle of metal on metal. It is followed by a voice that sings in the cold air, a sound too beautiful, too perfect to be human.
My blood doesn't just stop; it turns to a thick, frozen slush in my veins as the realization hits me with the force of a sledgehammer.
Elves.
"It bled here," the beautiful, terrible voice chimes, terrifyingly close. "The spoor is fresh. It cannot be far."
Threk roars in defiance and slams the wall again. CRACK. The wood shatters and he tears an opening, a jagged, splintered hole big enough for me.
"Go!" he screams, the sound ripping from him. He grabs me by the waist, his strength terrifying, and throws me through the hole.
I fall into the snow, landing hard on my shoulder. I am behind the cabin, and the cold is a slap that shocks the air from my lungs.
Threk is right behind me. He crashes through the wall he made, his massive body tearing the rest of the wood apart. He is limping. Badly. His Worg-bitten leg drags, leaving a thick, black smear of blood in the pristine snow.
We cannot run.
He grabs me again, his arm locking around my waist like a steel band, crushing me to his side. He lifts me, half-carrying me, dragging me as he plunges into the woods behind the cabin.
"Threk! Your leg!" I cry, fumbling to get my feet under me.
He ignores me. He is a panicked, wounded bull. He is crashing through the snowdrifts, roaring with effort and pain, each step a torture.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
"This way!" the elf screams. "It flees! After it!"
They heard him. No.
I am sobbing, my breath tearing from my lungs. We are dead. He is too slow. I am too slow.
Threk stops so abruptly I slam into his chest. He shoves me hard into a crack in the rock face. It is the same ridge from yesterday, but not the cave from the blizzard. This is a different crack. A narrow, vertical crevice, hidden by a frozen, dead pine tree.
"In!" he roars.
He shoves me into the dark.
It is a tomb. It is a grave. It is barely wide enough for my shoulders. I slam into the rock.
I turn, my heart exploding in my chest. "Threk! There's no room!"
He ignores me.
He shoves his massive, ten-foot body into the crevice with me.
