Tal'Marin stooped in the deep snow and carefully examined the ground. There were drifts up to her eyes or higher in places, but here under the firs the snow was not as deep. She was surrounded by the huge boles of ancient fir trees in a primordial forest that stretched away for leagues in any direction. The snow here was fresh, which was usually a help to her in exercising her craft. Tal was a ranger and tracking wild beasts was as much a part of her daily life as protecting the forest. Snow was usually her ally, but this snow was very powdery and the whipping wind blew it around so much that tracks were gone in minutes. This time she could only make out the faintest outline of her prey's track. The track was nearly filled with snow and only the keen eyes of an elf enabled her to make out the indistinct outline. She was at least a half hour behind the beast, maybe a little less; it was so difficult to estimate because of the uneven nature of the winds in this forest. It was hard to see beyond the next tree because the wind was whipping up now and gusting hard enough to dump snow from the fir boughs. The sun was still shining and would be for several hours even though she had been on the trail for over thirteen this day. This far north there was never really a night during winter, just a brief period of semi twilight.
"Soon Snowclaw," she said to the winter eagle that perched restlessly on her gloved arm. He was one of the rare breed of eagles that made their eryies in the inaccessible peaks of the Spine of the World. They were small birds, but extremely quick and sharp eyed. Kept as pets by many aristocrats they were prized above almost all other breeds for their intelligence and trainability. Snowclaw was not tame, but he was her friend. She spoke his complex language of shrills and whistles, another skill she had picked up along the way and they had traveled together for many years. Snowclaw knew her better than anyone alive save perhaps her best friend, T'Larin.
She was in the Freyareth, the eternally snow covered land that was the farthest north you could go on the continent of Talor. Here the craggy mountains known as the Spine of the World rose in unbroken majesty to dizzying heights and fell to the icy sea in sheer cliffs no man could scale. No elf had passed this way in many lives of men, for this was a land of snow covered forests and dangerous creatures. Demon haunted was the term men used to describe the cold wastes, but the elves knew what monsters lay here and demons were the least of the many perils.
Once her people had made their homes here, but that was before the coming of the Shaggarath. The Shaggarath were a race of semi intelligent barbarians related to, but different from humans. They were dark eyed, light skinned, and ate the flesh of their enemies. Tall and fierce in battle they had driven the Northern clans completely out of Freyareth in a time beyond reckoning to all but the most ancient of her people. Their onslaught had been so swift and brutal that only a handful of the snow elves had escaped. Over time this remnant had joined and interbred with the high elves until only a handful of pure bloodlines remained. Now she dared venture into this icy domain seeking one of the north's most fabled beasts, the Sha'logan.
The Sha'logan were almost mythical creatures and were feared even by people who had never ventured into the snow. They were large, typically weighing in at over thirty stone, but some had been seen that reportedly weighed up to one hundred stone or even more. They walked on four legs, but could stand on their hind ones alone and could be as tall as thirty hands. Their fur was thick enough to turn sword blades and as white as the snow, providing excellent camouflage. Each foot ended in five claws that could tear through chain mail and their mouths were full of razor sharp fangs. Enchanted shields and armor made from their hides were among the prized heirlooms of her clan's noble houses. They were not natural beasts, but some evil mage's experiment gone awry and they were innately resistant to all forms of magic save the very strongest. Rumor held that arrows bounced off them and swords would not bite, but Tal'Marin had yet to face a creature that could not be. She took these rumors with more than a grain of salt and relished this opportunity to return to Hoarfast in triumph yet again.
Her best friend's brother, Dei' Nolan Aviandore was a mage at the school in Hoarfast. Long ago he had won an ancient tome in a wizard's duel and found a very old and powerful incantation within. The spell would grant life everlasting to one of the lesser races of Talor, but the components for the spell were so rare and hard to obtain that it was unlikely he would ever cast the spell. It was even more unlikely that Dei, who hated most of the lesser races, would ever grant such a boon even if the components were as plentiful as the snow. It had been of little consequence to him and he had forgotten about it soon afterwards, but he had mentioned it to Tal when he was fresh from his victory and in a bragging mood.
Tal had never forgotten it so when she received a letter from her best friend T'Larin with strange tidings it immediately came to her mind. T'Larin had fallen in love with a human and even though they had been together but a short while she was now afraid of loosing her love to the ravages of time. She begged for any hope Tal might be able to provide from her years of wandering. Remembering the spell book and against her better judgment, Tal had gone to T'Larin's brother with the news. Dei was appalled, but mindful of the legend of Da'miel he had dug out the old book and started a quest to find the components. Tal'Marin was his sister's best friend and daughter to her protector Ral Nir Thronin. She was also one of the greatest wanderers of her age and was a natural that she should try to acquire the most rare of the components, a Sha'logan's heart. She had readily agreed, but had kept one secret of the letter she had received from T'Larin. Only she knew the truth about T'Larin's love. Dei would have been incensed to find his sister had chosen a woman as her lover.
Tal'Marin found the news strange, but had not reacted with the outrage most of her peers would have. While she found humans repugnant she had never found the males of her tribe attractive in the least. She was known as the ice maiden among them, more for her steely rebuffs of any suitor than for her obvious lineage from the snow elves of old. She was short for an elf at only five foot six inches and delicately built. Her skin was a soft white, like the sun on new fallen snow. Her long legs were trim and well formed, but not bulky or heavily muscled. Slim hips and a narrow waist made her full breasts seem larger than they were, an effect not lost on the males she encountered. Her eyes were usually blue, but turned to smoldering green when she was angry. Her long blonde hair was worn down and nearly reached to the small of her back.
She had set out from Hoarfast three months ago and now she was less than a half an hour behind her prey. She stood and hurried on through the snow, alert for any sign of the beast. Alert and yet, too careless, for she failed to notice beady red eyes following her every movement. She knew she was closing the distance when she found fresh spoor in the snow and the tracks became less indistinct. This one was a monster; even for its kind and she started to draw her longsword now that she knew the end of the chase was near. She would have been well rewarded had she heeded the legends of the Sha'logan. Not truly intelligent, but possessed of a terrible cunning, the stories often told of hunter becoming hunted.
She never realized that the creature knew it was being followed. It never crossed her mind that the tracks she followed doubled back not far from where she stood, or that the act of drawing her sword would bring forth an attack. She never had the chance to use her weapon for as she drew something incredibly heavy smashed into her back, knocking the sword from her hand.
If she had underestimated her opponent drastically it could be said the beast had done the same. This small delicate creature seemed only a tasty morsel and its initial attack should have left the meal lying in the snow. Instead, Tal rolled on her shoulder and came up facing the beast. She could see nothing, in the swirling wind and snow; only the creature's eyes gave it away and it was cunning enough to know that. What followed was an hour of cat and mouse, with the creature rushing suddenly from the snow and Tal'marin dodging away. Several times she escaped only due to shrilled warnings of Snow Claw. The little Eagle circled constantly and to his eyes, even the snow was no deterrent. As time wore on her strength began to ebb as the brutal cold, constant vigilance, and hair's breadth escapes from flashing claws and snapping fangs sapped her stamina.
Her cloak was ripped from her shoulders, her stout chain armor hung in shreds over her shoulders and she was bleeding from several wounds when the end came. A particularly heavy gust dumped snow upon her from an over hanging limb. As the falling snow knocked her off balance she realized with despair that the beast had maneuvered her here, under the tree line on purpose, with just such a result in mind. She wondered fleetingly how many others had died in such a way when she felt a great weight slam into her unprotected back, driving her to the ground.
She rolled over quickly, but not fast enough to regain her feet before it was on her. She looked up only to find a face of nightmare bearing down on her. Red, beady eyes stared at her with hunger and cunning deeper than any animal had a right to have. A maw filled with yellowed fangs and dripping thick saliva was descending to her throat. She threw her arms up desperately, but its strength was incredible. She felt the jaw lock about her throat and the world faded into darkness.
*********************
Her vision swam and she cried out in a strangled voice, but there was no monster on top of her. There was no sky above either, instead she found herself staring at a ceiling made of cunningly cut and fitted, but unadorned beams. She sat up and looked around, wondering fleetingly if this was the afterlife she had heard philosophers debate so much about. In the stone fireplace to her left a cheery fire popped and sizzled. A simple table was set up in the middle of the room with four sturdy chairs made of roughhewn logs. A few cabinets were placed against one wall with a small counter and in the corner closest to the fire a simple rope bed had been built into the wall.
She heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening and it cleared the last of the cobwebs from her aching head. As she turned her head to find the door and started to sit up, the blanket slid down and her chest was exposed. It was only then that she realized she was nude. She quickly snatched up the blanket and pulled it tightly over her chest, but not before the person at the door got a good look at her pert breasts. The stranger was an elven female of indeterminate age. Her hair was long and black as a raven's wing. She was taller than Tal'Marin, perhaps five foot seven or eight and more athletically built. Beneath her red hose the muscles of her legs stood out in bold relief, especially those in her thighs. She wore a white shirt that readily displayed her plump breasts and trim waist. A broad girdle of red encircled her tiny waist and from it a strange curved sword hung, along with a dirk and several small pouches. She held a long bow in her hand and a quiver of arrows rode at her shoulder. Her skin, what little of it was exposed was a queer red color, not the ruddy red of someone stepping in from the cold, but an almost metallic red. All of these things impressed themselves upon Tal's consciousness at once, but they all paled in comparison to the woman's eyes. They were incredibly intense and felt as if they were boring into her body, dark red eyes which seemed like banked fires, ready to explode into flame at a moment's notice. The woman's stare seemed to reach out and grab her, holding her pinioned on the points of those eyes.
Tal'Marin felt a shiver pass through her body. Not from the cold that had come in with the stranger, but one of raw excitement. She could get lost in those eyes, just trying to plumb their unfathomable depths and her tiny nipples hardened in response to that stare. It was elemental, powerful and on some level highly erotic.
"I see you have awakened," the stranger said slowly. The language was an archaic form of high elven. The high elven tongue was only spoken among the noble houses now and Tal'Marin had never learned it as child. She had picked up a bit of it over the long years, but many of the words had changed with time and she had to concentrate before she spoke.
"Who are you? Where are my clothes!"?
"I'll ask the questions here," the woman said imperiously. She leaned against the table, but Tal'Marin's practiced eye saw that it was only lightly and the bow was still in her hand. The woman could easily fit an arrow to that bow and strike Tal down before she could close the distance, even if she could avoid that arrow, she was naked and weaponless while the woman had both sword and dirk.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was hunting a Sha'logan," Tal said. The woman burst out laughing.
"You are either a fool, a liar, or recklessly brave. The question is which. Hmmm? But I shall find out."
"I'm no fool, nor a liar, nor has anyone called me reckless in many years" Tal said defensively. The woman chuckled but said nothing else.
The woman's eyes traveled up and down her body and Tal felt naked even with the blanket. She clutched it tighter and searched the room for her clothes.
"At least let me have my clothes back."
"Why would I do that? I like you naked."
"You what!"
