Following Game Trails and the Language of Winter Forests
The first snow came lightly, as if testing the land’s patience. It coated the trees with silence, dulling every sound but his breath and the quiet shift of pine boughs above.
Ragnar welcomed the change.
Snow was a storyteller. It whispered of what passed and what lingered. And this land, strange and ancient in its own right, now spoke in a language he could read.
At first light, he stepped from his shelter. A clean layer of powder covered the forest floor. Already it held tales—the path of a fox, low and zigzagging toward the river; a broader print, perhaps deer, pacing near the ridge before retreating again. But one trail caught him still.
Three-toed. Broad. Heavy.
It was not elk, not moose. Not anything he had seen before. The steps were wide apart, unnaturally so. The creature walked upright.
He crouched. Pressed a hand beside the mark. It was old—a night’s frost had softened the edges. But the weight had been great. The prints carried deep through snow into earth.
Ragnar rose slowly, scanning the treeline.
He followed the trail uphill, every sense on edge. Not in fear. In purpose.
Whatever left this mark had moved with intent—a straight path, no weaving, no pause to graze or sniff or bolt. This was a creature that knew where it was going. And that thought, more than anything, unnerved him.
He followed for hours. Once, the prints vanished at a stream where the rocks had gathered heat. He circled wide and picked it up again where the melt gave way to colder ground.
By midday, the trail veered into older woods—thick, dark, and quiet in a way that only the deep forest knew. The prints became erratic here, the spacing closer. As if it had slowed… or listened.
He paused.
If it listened, so should he.
He squatted near a pine tree, steadied his breath, and let the stillness wash over him.
Nothing moved.
The wind had stilled. No birds, no chatter of squirrels. Even the stream behind him was distant now.
He marked the direction on a fallen trunk with a charcoal slash and stepped back.
For now, he would return to camp. The day was fading and snow would come again. But he would remember this trail. And he would return.
Because whatever walked there… was not a beast.
It was something more.
