Chapter Four
His prey was cringing beneath him, its large eyes squeezed tightly shut against the inevitable blow that would sever its head from its scrawny body. The nameless creature allowed himself a brief second to savor the moment, to feel the trembling of his prey before landing the final slash. A broad grin spread across his rugged features, his flint-black eyes narrowed in savage anticipation. He brought his arm down, his claws extended, his blood near boiling with the thrill of the kill...
All at once, the creature's senses were blinded by a brilliant flash accompanied by a muffled BAMF of exploding air and the sudden, inexplicable reek of brimstone. A narrow, wiry weight was twining itself around his torso, then, BAMF! Just as suddenly and inexplicably, the creature found himself "somewhere else." His prey and its young companion were nowhere to be seen. His senses were running wild with confused disorientation as the mysterious weight that had wrapped itself around his chest let him go, sending him spinning and completely off-balance into the snow.
Leaping to his feet with a furious yowl, the creature spun to face his attacker, extending his claws with a metallic SNIKT. To his shock, his claws were met with a flash of steel that seemingly came out of nowhere.
"If you are going to attack defenseless children," a deep, accented voice threatened, "you will find you must get through me first."
The creature's attacker was a tall, slender man wrapped from head to toe in warm, fur-lined clothing that, despite its bulk, somehow managed to accentuate his lean, powerful physique. All that was visible of the man's face were two eerily glowing yellow eyes, apparently floating in the black shadows of his hooded cloak. The creature felt an involuntary chill run through him when he saw the deadly intent gleaming in those golden eyes. The shocking sight was enough to allow him one single, brief moment of clarity before the unthinking rage overpowered his mind once again.
"I know you," he managed to grunt out, feeling himself rapidly losing the battle against his baser instincts.
"I am pleased to hear my reputation has preceded me," the mysterious figure responded with some humor in his voice, twisting his swords to force the creature's arms to his sides and taking up a simple defensive stance that was wrought with menace.
"Be warned, fiend," the cloaked man said, his accent lending a clipped edge to each of his words. "Any who attack the innocent and the defenseless unprovoked must answer to me. For I am Schwarzwald Kurt, and it is my sworn duty to protect those who cannot defend themselves from those who would persecute them."
"Grand speeches and noble causes ain't my line, bub," the nameless creature growled, rubbing his knuckles as he retracted his claws. "You separated me from my dinner. Sooner or later, you're gonna know first hand what it feels like to have your guts skewered on six inches of cold, hard adamantium."
To his surprise and growing anger, the cloaked man laughed, sticking one of his swords into the snow and leaning on the hilt with the non chalant air of one who is completely confident of his abilities. With a slightly foppish tip of his shadowed head and a mock salute with his remaining sword, Schwarzwald Kurt said, "Then we agree to disagree. I have no doubt as to your word, mein Herr. But before I leave and we begin this little game of asking ourselves who is the hunter and who is the prey, might I have the honor of my enemy's name?"
The nameless creature stiffened. Schwarzwald Kurt's question rattled in the gaping chasm of his memory, knocking loose several disassociated images. A strange lab that looked like something out of a bad science fiction movie... A young girl with a long, brown ponytail looking up at him with such trust in her eyes, so certain that he wouldn't hurt her despite his fearsome rage... A small, fierce predatory animal running through the snows of Canada, its bloodied fangs bared... A man's voice, cruel and smooth with just a hint of the South lingering at its edges "...Wolverine..."
The creature gasped and stepped back, growling fiercely when Schwarzwald Kurt moved forward. The strange man's scent and body language suggested that he was concerned. How dare he presume....!
"I am the Wolverine," the creature snarled, furious at himself for displaying such weakness in front of an enemy.
The cloaked man stopped his advance and nodded once.
"A fitting name," he observed. "Fare well, Herr Wolverine," he said, his formerly playful tone deadly serious once more. "We shall meet again."
Sheathing his swords with one fluid, well practiced movement, Schwarzwald Kurt vanished in a puff of blue-black smoke and a BAMF of imploding air. If it weren't for the lingering stench of sulfur and the memory of the man's accented voice ringing in his mind, the Wolverine would have been tempted to believe he had imagined the entire episode. As it was, the Wolverine's tattered mind was already working to find a suitable revenge to wreak on this Schwarzwald Kurt, once he tracked him down...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
"Calm down!" Jamie cried, frantically struggling to still the panicking deer.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
"Take a breath, for goodness sakes!"
" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
"He'll hear you if you don't stop that screaming!"
"AAAAAAA--!" Rudolph broke off, taking a deep, ragged breath. His scrawny body was trembling so badly it looked as though he was standing on the lid of a kettle on the verge of boiling over. Tears streamed from his wide eyes as his frantic screams died down to violent sobs that racked his small frame. Never before had the young deer come so close to death. Never before had he felt such fear grip his soul. Jamie's desperate words of comfort did nothing to soothe him. It was doubtful he even heard them.
BAMF!
Jamie spun on his heel, nearly losing his balance in the deep snow and risking multiplication. He had heard that sound before, just before the horrific monster that had leapt from out of nowhere onto his friend had so inexplicably vanished. Terrified almost beyond the capacity for rational thought, Jamie forced his mind to work and his eyes to focus as he took in the dark, shadowy figure before him.
"Guten Tag, Kinder," the cloaked figure said in some strange foreign language Jamie didn't know. "I have come to help you. I have taken the man who attacked you far away. It should be several hours before he can find your scent again, but believe me, he will find it. When he does, it will not be good for your little reindeer friend."
Jamie narrowed his eyes, unwilling to trust such a dark, malevolent figure on words alone. "Who are you?" he asked, trying to keep his trembling voice strong and steady. "Why would you want to help us?"
The shadowy figure tilted his cloaked head forward in a curt nod of acknowledgment. "A fair question, mein Junge. I am called Schwarzwald Kurt. It is my sworn duty to protect those who are in trouble. And right now, mein Freund, you are in very deep trouble indeed."
"What do you mean?" Jamie squeaked, no longer able to keep up any pretense of false bravado.
"I mean that the Abominable Snowman is not a legend or a myth," the cloaked man said darkly, his yellow eyes glowing eerily from the depths of his shadowy hood. "A blizzard is on its way, and if you two do not make it to shelter before it hits, the Wolverine will be the least of your troubles."
An anguished, impassioned groan sounded from the snowbank. Jamie turned just in time to see Schwarzwald Kurt appear next to Rudolph, holding him back from ramming his head into the side of the icy mountain.
"Harming yourself at this moment would not be a wise course of action, mein Freund," the cloaked man berated gently. "You must be strong if you are to survive the night."
Rudolph groaned again, louder this time. "Why me?" he demanded. "Why does everything bad and rotten always have to happen to me? It's not bad enough that I have to live with this horrid, red schnozz glowing in my eyes every waking moment, oh no. I have to be ridiculed by all the other reindeer, pitied by Santa, attacked by a wild man with claws, and hunted by an Abominable Snowman in the middle of a blizzard. I ask you again, why me?"
Schwarzwald Kurt shrugged. "Why not you?"
Jamie blinked. Clearly, Schwarzwald Kurt was not one who approved of self- pity. Rudolph's responding groan was closer to a frustrated roar.
"Hey look," Jamie said, resting a comforting hand on the deer's narrow shoulder. "If it's any comfort, we're both in the same boat."
"Yeah," Rudolph snorted. "A boat full of holes." He sighed. "We're sunk."
"Please, Kinder, have some faith!" Schwarzwald Kurt protested. "I've told you I'm here to protect you. And protect you I shall."
He held out a mittened hand. "Do you accept my services?"
Jamie looked to Rudolph, who looked to Jamie, who looked back at Kurt.
"What do you look like under that hood?" Jamie asked, amazed at his boldness and terrified of how the strange man might respond to the blunt question.
To the shock of both youngsters, the cloaked man laughed. It was a warm, slightly bashful sound; the laugh of a man who was not too proud to laugh at himself. "Of course," he said. "If I want you to trust me, I must first offer a gesture of trust in you, is that right?"
Jamie and Rudolph looked at each other, then nodded.
The dark man sighed, appearing strangely nervous as he reached up with his mittened hands and pulled back his fur-lined hood.
Both Jamie and Rudolph gasped as one, their eyes wide with fear.
"Oh, come on," Schwarzwald Kurt said, sounding slightly hurt. "I'm not all that bad." He grinned, his sharp fangs flashing in his blue, fuzzy face. "I've been told by quite a few Frauleins that I'm actually rather cute--in a dashingly handsome, roguish kind of way."
The two boys just stared at him. Kurt sighed.
"Look, I was born this way, all right? I'm just a harmless, blue fuzzball really."
Jamie couldn't help it. He broke out laughing at the expression on Kurt's face. "I'm not so sure about the harmless part," he said. "What did you do to that Wolverine thing anyway?"
"Ach, that is my special power," Kurt explained, with a grin. "I am a teleporter. A very useful gift for getting out of tight spots in a hurry." He rubbed at his sharply pointed ears with a furry mitten. The tips, which poked through his short, wavy hair, were already at risk of frostbite. "Do you mind if I replace my hood now?" he asked. "There seems to be a slight chill in the air."
Rudolph shrugged, a strange-looking gesture for a reindeer. "Go ahead," he said. "Wouldn't want you turning any bluer."
Jamie shot him a disapproving glare. "That wasn't very nice," he scolded. "Don't you see? He's a misfit like us!"
Kurt blinked as he tied his hood securely in place. "I don't know about being a 'misfit', but I do know what it is like to be hated and feared for being different. That is why I have sworn to devote my life to protecting those who cannot defend themselves from those who would persecute them out of hatred and fear. Or, in the case of the two fiends we must worry about at the moment, out of hunger."
Rudolph shuddered. "Do you mean that wild man really wanted to eat me?" he asked softly.
Kurt nodded, his glowing eyes surprisingly gentle. Rudolph shuddered again and lowered his head. Jamie reached over and scratched him companionably between his stumpy antlers.
At that moment, a sudden, biting wind blew over them, bringing with it the first fat snowflakes of the approaching blizzard.
"We must get a move on," Schwarzwald Kurt said briskly. "I know of a safe place we can stay for the night, only a couple hours walk from here. I would teleport you, but I am afraid the strain would leave us too weak to prepare a decent fire. Follow me."
Jamie turned to Rudolph as Schwarzwald Kurt turned on his over-large fur- wrapped feet and headed off at a brisk pace.
"Well?" he asked the deer. "This whole running away thing was your idea. Do we follow him or what?"
Rudolph looked back at the large crater in the snow behind him, the only physical evidence of the wild man's ferocious attack aside from several throbbing bruises on Rudolph's legs and side.
"Yeah, we follow him," he said. "Hurry up! It's already getting hard to see him in all this snow!"
"Not that we really have to worry about that," Jamie laughed. "Not with your nose lighting our way!"
As the two children ran to catch up with their new guide, a white mound-- easily mistaken for one of the many snow-blanketed hills that defined the blank, white landscape--began to move. With a yawn and a sleepy blink, the living mound rose to its enormous, padded feet, shaking the clinging snow from its long, tangled, white fur.
...R..r..r..uu..uuu..mmm..mm..bbbb..bbb..llll.lllll..eeeeeee....
The creature looked down at its ample stomach with an almost comical expression of befuddlement. Resting a huge, dangerously clawed paw over the offending area, the sticky gears in its tiny brain slowly lurched into motion. A rumbly stomach must mean that he was hungry.
Looking around for any sign of food, the enormous creature's dull eyes were drawn to a tiny, moving dot, nearly invisible in the thickly falling snow. The dot was glowing with a faint, reddish light. Maybe, if he followed it, it would lead him to something crunchibly, munchably lunchable.