A single ray of sunlight filtered down into the cave. He saw it only as the faintest of pale glimmers on one of the scattered skulls, but recoiled instantly, cowering to the farthest and most dank corner of the room. The shadows enfolded him in an instant, and his quivering muscles relaxed. One of his slaves lay motionless close by, but he paid it no heed; his mind had retired to a colder time long past, away from the hated sun.
The ship plowed through the trackless wastes of the northern sea, the shrieking wind lashing white spray from the roiling gray waters. The showers of frigid water had drenched the wolverine's fur, and, freezing almost instantly in the bitter cold, soon shrouded his wild dark pelt in ice. He felt it not, however, roaring with savage excitement as his craft crested wave after wave, and staring straight ahead with burning eyes.
As the rest of the wolverine's horde clung to the rails of the heaving ship, or huddled, sick with fear and dull-eyed, on the deck, one white fox dared to climb the rigging and stare out ahead. He saw nothing but huge swells of steel-gray sea, crested with foam, and its vastness mesmerized him... His eyes grew wide as he saw wave crash upon wave upon wave, all the way out to the horizon and the sweep of cold blank sky, and he did not feel the ship buck underneath him, nor see the mighty wave that pounded into its side, splintering wood and catapulting him off the rigging, into the torrid, icy water, unfathomably deep and deathly cold.
He felt the water's grip upon his fur, moaned with pleasure at its chill, a light glinting deep in his sunken eyes. The sun could not reach him now; he was under the water once more.
Bubbles trailed from his nose and mouth as he gulped for breath and found that only the water rushed into his lungs, chilling him to the marrow of his bones... The few white bubbles of air, his air, that he could see soon faded away into the enfolding dark, and he felt nothing more as he sank.
Shivers wracked his emaciated frame, and his soft cries became steadily more fearful as memory brought him pain in place of joy.
Then he was awake, and lying sodden and starving on some hellish shore, and a sun with ten times the heat was beating down upon his brow. He wandered away, desperate for shade and shelter, only to find the land covered in innumerable trees; he soon became lost among the labryinth of trunks and leaves, all of which looked alike to him. It was then that he felt the first stab of pain for his lost northlands, for the cold and for open, untouched space; for the silent frost of the tundra that was his home.
But it had not made him deaf, oh no, he still retained all the razor-keen senses and predatory cunning of his species. He knew what the woodlanders said of him.
The mad white fox in the underground cave, they called him, and left him well alone despite their hatred of his kind. "A necromancer," they said, "he raises and talks with the dead, and such perversions robbed him of his mind. He eats the bodies, too, once he has finished his black magic."
It was not long after he had found the cave. It was after he discovered to his delight that a natural spring within gave him fresh, cold water, and that in its furthest reaches no light could venture.
A band of foxes, the red-furred ones that inhabited the heated forest, had burst into the cave, demanding that he surrender all his possessions (of which, in fact, there were none) to them. A great fury, and a greater hunger, came over him then, and despite his weakness he fought with all the savagery of the northern wastes. The swords cut him many times before their owners fell, but he did not mind the pain too much; he had triumphed, and it was worth every wound.
After such exultation the hunger returned tenfold, and after the custom of his kind he fell upon the still-warm flesh. Yet even the swiftly-fading heat of the corpses disgusted him, and he ate only enough to sate his immediate hunger. So he waited, there in the cave, surrounded by torn meat and scraps of fur, stained, rusting weapons and cracked bones, his ragged, dirtied pelt still dripping blood. He waited for a span of time unknown, until all he felt in the still air of the cave was cold, and the gore dried black and clotted over his wounds.
And while he waited, he talked to the bodies, deciding that since he had vanquished them, they were his to control, and it was all the better for that they could voice no protest in the matter.
At some point, a young woodland creature, overcome by curiosity, entered the cave. It stood, confused with a dawning awareness of the surrounding horrors, in the entrance, and he could see the glint of its wide eyes, smell its appetizing scent, and worse, so much worse, feel the heat from its living body.
He snarled, leapt; the creature screamed at this ghastly white beast pouncing from the shadows, and did not stop screaming until he had torn the last shred of life from its throat. He felt his muzzle and chest drenched in hot blood, and, turning away, retched again and again.
But the colder time came once more to soothe him, and leaving the woodlander to its own devices, he laughed and spoke to the foxes even as he feasted on them. His wounds healed, leaving a patchwork of scars, and despite his newfound food source he was still gaunt in the extreme. His sunken eyes glittered from his skull-like, hollowed face, his rotting, yellowed fangs showing in a perpetual macabre grin.
Then came one horrific day, where he woke and could feel warmth even in the furthest shadows; the sun had redoubled its attack, seeking to roast him alive. He took to lying over the icy water, slowly bubbling up from its crack in the stone, and sighing with relief at the cold weight of his sodden fur. But this torture passed as well, as lucky accidents added to his horde, and unknown to him the wild legends began to spread slowly through the woods.
He had no name, no title to strike fear into the hearts of the moral and innocent, but they knew him as the mad white fox, who could not die by ordinary means, who resurrected and talked with the dead before devouring them. He robbed graves by moonlight and feasted on their inhabitants; he commanded legions of crows; those of the dead which he did not eat after practising his evil art were forced to serve him for eternity.
He felt subtle shifts of heat and cold in the cave, and less often the sun sought again to destroy him; after which it slowly retreated, and for a time there was blessed cold. It was at those times only, when the hideous landscape was covered in snow, that he ventured out and made his kills. Over the course of several of these cold times he amassed a great horde, some soon reduced to bones, others yet retaining various amounts of flesh and viscera. All made a wonderful audience for him, and all accepted his words without complaint.
In time, the body of Gulo the Savage lay, headless and rotting, thrown away outside the gates of Redwall Abbey. The fox, who never learned of his former master's death, remained in his cave, surrounded by his personal horde.
Yet something strange was happening to him now, day by day. His limbs steadily weakened, he coughed with each rasping breath; he barely had the strength or will to eat. He took to reliving his experiences, sometimes so vividly that he saw the water crashing around him, felt the bite of the swords cutting into his flesh, felt the joy of his kills and the companionship they brought him. Yet that brought back memories of heat, heat that he had long ago evaded or destroyed, but it haunted him now.
Safely away from the sun, he lay down to sleep, next to the cold water of the spring, and felt black silence enfold him; he was lost again in his memories, feeling the familiar darkness of the northern deeps consume him.
Now it was colder even than the sea, colder even than his northland winters, and he lay motionless, his last sensation ecstasy at this new ice that seized his old heart in wolverine's claws.
The woodlanders never knew of his death; they had long since shunned the deep cave in the forests, with its impenetrable shadows concealing its ghastly occupants. The cave with a stench like the pit itself, home to the white devil from the north, the cannibal, the necromancer. Soon he became a mere figure of legend, a creature far more powerful in imagination than he had ever been in life.
He was only a white fox in the horde of a beast far more savage, the victim of ill fortune, driven mad by the sun. Yet he became the snow demon, the dark magician, second only to the Great Vulpuz in unholy power... the Eater of the Dead.
A/N: Just a little ramble. I got bored and couldn't really work on my actual fic right now, basically. Hope all of this nonsense made at least a little bit of coherent sense, although since it's being told from the viewpoint of a beast rapidly going mad maybe it shouldn't... Thoughts welcome.