The Nameless Survivor (Valkyrie) Read Free Page B

steak, or perhaps even rabbit stew. Honestly, I would have settled for dried thistle buds and a pile of moose-shit, rather than go back empty handed. Anything would provide me with the confidence to endure this agony another day.
                  My thighs throbbed and burned as I continued on, my heart pounding hard within my chest like the rapid succession of a boxers fists. Calmly I gasp for air, struggling to feed my weak and overexerted muscles while attempting not to make any excessive noise.
                  The sound gradually became clearer and definitely more recognizable when I finally stumbled up onto a small crest. It was a soft, yet clearly distinct whimpering. My heart stopped in a sheer moment of fear, I was unsure of what to make of it. Could it be a wayward Necrotic, fumbling through the icy landscape?
                  The Plagued make quite a large selection of sounds; snarling, growling, hissing, moaning, and even shrieking. However, whimpering as of yet, was not one of them.
                  My knee sunk down into the bleach-white crust of the small knoll as I knelt down to get a better look around. The area descended abruptly before me, down into a small dell, with the far-side ascending steeply back up again. I gazed about the brilliantly white and green landscape looking for the source of that pathetic whimpering. An injured animal is what I was hoping for, something I can easily take down and sink my teeth into.
                  However I was soon disappointed at what I had found, yet even more astonished. Towards the opposite side of the glen I could just make out a large, army-green, canvas coat. Tattered and worn, it huddled in behind an ancient hemlock. Snow had slowly begun its drift down from the bare canopy, collecting upon the coat like a dusting of powdered sugar. The constant shivering that resonated beneath the canvas was my clue that this was not one of the dead - they do not shiver.
                  Shake, convulse, wobble and weave; yes, but no shivering.
                  Cautiously I stood back up, ready to make my way towards the shrouded figure below, but stopped abruptly when something – else, had caught my eye. Kneeling again, I peered further on down the valley, where something lingered in a swath of old cedars. Too shaded to get a clear look, yet something sluggishly swayed in the shadows. Quietly I pulled out my old binoculars to get a better look, adjusting the focus until the fuzziness magically became crystal-clear. And, within an instant I had begun to shake uncontrollably.
                  SLUGS! The partially frozen dead, their skin blackened with frostbite and peeling away like paint on an old barn. Maybe thirty or forty of them, all huddled together in the thickets, undulating in rhythm with the ice-cold wind.
                  Every winter they congregate together, for which I presume is an instinctual attempt to share what body heat they still produce. They wander for brief distances, sometimes taking only a couple of steps per week. Aside from their lethargic demeanor, the viscous trail of putrid secretions left behind in the snow is the root of why I call them Slugs.
                  I had first encountered them around my second winter in the wild, and carefully I tracked and observed the herd for about a week. At first I believed them to be of little threat. They appeared too weak and frozen to be capable of giving chase, yet I was dead wrong. Although their eyes were nothing more than cubes of ice within two dark trays, I uncovered that the slightest sound, or smell of fresh blood can awaken their slumber with terrible and ferocious haste. In truth, it is a skillful tactic for any lethal predator, to conserve energy and allow its prey to come to them. Those evil fucking bastards.
                  Fighting back fears frozen grip, I turned and