VARJOSTAJA
Based on Tales of the Wretched by C.W. Hawthorne
PROLOGUE
Nuuskamuikkunen finally pulled in his fishing line as the sunlight set down over the pines on the other side of the frozen lake. It had been a lovely, chilly midwinter day, and he'd had a grand time writing little songs about the clouds and the frost and the trees. The whole of the woods was pale with cold, and he was looking forward to cooking his fish and settling in for the night with a hot cup of tea.
The yellow tent was pitched in a cozy clearing with a view that was to die for—the soft slopes of old hills faded into a flat quilt of river farmland, then sharpened into the jagged peaks of the Kruunun Vuori, the Crown of Mountains. And what a crown they were! Ghostly silver rock bedazzled with frozen falls that glistened in the sunset, taking on the deepening violet hue of the Veil of Venus overhead. They were majestic and awe-some and better to admire than to climb, as he'd found out. Nuuska stared out at them with a gentle contentment while his fish crackled over the fire.
It was as he was just taking one of the fish down to eat that he felt a tingle in the back of his skull. He did not ignore it, no, but casually peeled his fish and took a bite before addressing it. Slowly, unrushed, he chewed and looked around him at the dark forest. Trees, shrubbery, boulders—it was all as normal as any hilltop until the glint of eyes caught his own. There were yellow eyes out there, a little ways off, whatever face they were set into untouched by the light of his campfire. He blinked. They blinked back.
He was not afraid yet, he decided. There was no reason to be. There were plenty of strange and alien creatures in this world, and very few he'd met were dangerous in any capacity. Usually, they were just out for a stroll or coming to complain about his harmonica music. The eyes disappeared silently behind a tree, and there was solitude again.
Nuuska peeled a bit more of his fish and idly wondered if he should have offered them some.