Hellfire

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An unnatural silence gripped the wide valley floor. It was yet another sign that something terrible had befallen the land.

Gray Wolf raised his hand and warily pulled down the tree branch blocking his sight. He silently looked out from the thick pine forest; his dark-brown eyes studied the snow-covered ground. He saw nothing dangerous, but his instincts told him to be cautious. He brought a long, sharpened, stone-tipped spear up to his chest and clenched it tight in his callused hands. His scraggly black hair hung down onto the dirt-encrusted fur clothing he wore to keep his body warm. In his twenty-sixth summer, Gray Wolf was the second-oldest person in his ever-diminishing clan.

Gray Wolf glanced up and saw the sun hanging high above his head. He shook his head. Spring had come late this year. The snow had only just begun to melt under his feet, and the nights were still bitterly cold.

It had been three full moons since the night sky was brilliantly lit up with hundreds of shooting stars that streaked and danced across the top of the world. The clan’s shaman, a toothless and crippled old man, joyfully said that it was a good omen. He told everyone around the fire that night that the spirits of their ancestors had flown across the night to bless them with a good hunt this year.

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