A chilly wind blows into our faces as we lay prone against a snowbank at the tree line watching a small flock of wagglers strut awkwardly across the snowy meadow.

“Took us two days to track these down, I don’t think its worth it Sil.” Arturus grunts, peering through a pair of field glasses past the flock and into the opposing tree line. “I don’t trust the meat after Widow Rinston’s boy, and I dunno much about Ma Tamerynn no more.”

Arturus is a big man, tall and bulky. He’s clean shaven, not a hint of stubble, a rarity for us mountain folk who are usually marked by their large beards like me. Perfect for the cold. Arturus is bundled up with a drab blue scarf that matches his thick wool coat. His son, Roland, is suited up the same.

“Pa, what’cha lookin for?” Roland pipes up. About 16, Roland doesn’t seem to take much after his father except for the clean look. His scrawny frame and baby face contrasting heavily with his father’s.

“A shepherd. Unusual for a waggler flock to be without a shepherd. Real creepy fucks too. Sil and I had to deal with one a couple years back, mostly if you can just ignore them, they’ll leave alone, but they don’t take too kindly to stealing from their flock.”

Arturus shuffles down the bank, his face is red from being nipped by the cold. “No sign of a shepherd, but the flock is small, I’m not sure a loss will go unnoticed.” He says turning to me. He peeks back over the bank, scanning the opposing tree line.

“Sil, we got game plenty, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Last batch, I promise Art. I’ll wean Ma off the meat come next winter – you’ll see.”

“You best, I feel like we’re treading on some mighty thin ice here.” Art and I reach for our repeaters. Roland starts taking out his, but Art stops him with a firm hand and hands him the field lenses instead.

“Just watch this time, son. Keep an eye on the far trees. Let us you know if you see anything like a bipedal deer.”

“Shepherd?” Roland manages. Art nods gravely and sets his attention back down his optic.

Arturus and I once indirectly came into conflict with a shepherd as it came sniffing around our camp a couple years back, and even if it did eventually recede back to the woods after we managed to ignore it long enough, it was an experience neither of us wanted to repeat if possible. Neither of us had actually seen a shepherd, but the strange faceless humanoid deer-like form that had invaded our thoughts with its savage grin was burned into our memory. Not much was known about the shepherds, their waggler flocks, or where they came from. But there were stories. Most of which pointed back to when Lihara the provider - dead god of the summit - abandoned us and placed a curse on our people for our gluttony. According to the stories the Mountain folk only survived because of the aid of those in the valley and the crisis marked the founding of the reclusive Fast as a vessel for our pentinance to lift the curse. That had supposedly been centuries ago. 

I peer down my optic, despite the chill wind, it has been a clear day today with small occasional flurries but not much more to obscure our visibility. I set my sights on a straggler in the group. This must be the fourth of fifth time we’ve hunted these things, but they never get any less disconcerting. The body struts unnaturally across the ground as if a person tried to walk belly up on all fours – it just gives the feeling they weren’t meant to move like that with the way their limbs flail out. The base of the neck is abnormally wide – Art has commented before it almost looks like a person’s face squished against the chest, the mouth agape with an overgrown tongue waggling in the wind. It’s an image I wish I could forget, but the name stuck. The tongue itself is covered in strange glistening scales that protrude upwards from the flesh almost like teeth spiraling down the elongated neck tapering into an uncannily familiar skull shaped face.

Ma Tamerynn and the other mountain Avoracian elders swear by the meat’s healing properties though.

Another slight breeze kicks up nipping my face with a slight rancid odor. I gesture to Art letting him know my target, he nods and repositions. I peer down the optic again, line up the crosshairs with the swaying little skull and pull the trigger.

The guns roar, the resounding boom sending the flock scampering and a throng of birds evacuating the far trees in an uncoordinated mass. Two of the wagglers violently snap against the wind and fall to the ground leaving a pool of red in their wake.

Arturus lays his repeater down against the snow and looks at Roland who is dutifully peering through the glasses. Roland glances at his father and shakes his head. Still clear. Arturus and I move quickly, scramble up the snowbank and across the field to our two targets. I glance at mine, clean shot through the head, the brains splattered against the white snow like some strange artistic statement. Arturus gives me a slight shake of the head as he lifts the neck of the waggler. His shot cleaved the throat just below the base of the skull, it should still be dead. The necks of the wagglers are slimy like thick mucoid saliva glazing a soft malleable tongue. The neck slips and slides through my gloved hands, finally I’m able to wring it like a damp cloth to get a better grip and Arturus and I began the task of quickly dragging the bodies across the snowy field back to the shelter of the trees. Not only did we not want to get caught out by a shepherd, Ma Tamerynn had been full of tales that the wagglers could return to life if one was near. It was excruciating trying to move through the thick fluffy snow, like wadding through syrup. Maddening when every second could mean getting caught red-handed. Even with Roland carefully scanning the trees behind us, my ears strain against the whispering breeze for any sign of a shepherd and it isn’t until we’ve managed to haul our scores through the snowbank that Arturus and I let ourselves catch our breath. Our bodies desperately trying to recover from the strain of our mad dash.

Roland reaches for his knife to start skinning the wagglers like we had the deer and rabbits, but Arturus holds out his hand signaling him to stop.

“Not here, we’ll do it further away, back at camp.” Arturus manages between heavy breaths.

After a short respite we manage to pull the two corpses to our horses we left tied to a small grove of trees a bit from the tree line. It was a struggle getting the corpses on the backs of the horses, the smell had always been an issue in previous years, but Arturus noted that the horses seemed more skittish than usual as we began the trek back to our camp. Arturus and I both ended up having to stow our guns with the two of the three horses we had loaded the wagglers onto. Even with all hands free, it was all we could do to keep them from unloading the rancid corpses off their backs. 

It takes most of the rest of the day to skin and carve the two wagglers and we found ourselves in the dark, digging in the snow to bury our carved meat when we finally finished. It was an old trick Arturus had learned from a small family living about a day’s ride from us on the slopes, not only helped keep the meat fresh, but hid the strong smell from any shepherd that might be wandering nearby looking for their flock. All we could do now was to finish burying the meat and sit by our fire, roasting herbs to cover any scent on our hands and hope that our theft had gone unnoticed.

The first watch of the night went smoothly, Roland stayed up with the fire as Arturus and I caught some sleep. When it was time, he gently shook me awake and as he curled into his furs I stood up and stretched the sleep from my eyes. Walking a bit away from the warmth of the fire, I hugged myself tightly and let the stillness and biting cold finish tearing the sleep from the rest of my body.

Despite everything, I loved the stillness of these cold nights, the stillness as if the cold winter air had swept through and changed the world around us into a painting. If not for the soft crackling of the fire behind me these woods would sit in utter silence, in a quiet - like a deep slumber. I stood staring into the dark for a while, getting so lost in my thoughts, I had forgotten all about the wagglers and shepherds when the horses started whimpering softly behind me. I turned back to the fire and started moving towards the horses to comfort them.

“Probably just some small animal skittering by.” I murmur to myself in a haze. The whimpering turned to loud braying as I started to cross over the sleeping bodies of Arturus and Roland. Arturus wakes up, and as I turn towards him, we both instantly freeze and sit-down on our furs staring, wide eyed into the fire. Two of the horses have bolted, the last one I can hear neighing pitifully as it stands, paralyzed with fear like us. Roland bolts up, woken up by the uneasy feeling tickling his spine that myself and Arturus feel. He starts to turn his head, but Arturus stops him, I see the fear in his eyes as he whispers something to his son and Roland jerks his head back towards the fire and slowly gulps down his breath, beads of sweat already starting to form on his brow.

I can see it, despite my eyes being fixated on the fire, I can feel the burning yellow eyes from a featureless empty face being scorched into the back of my skull, being burned into my vision, clawing its way deep into my thoughts. I can feel it before we hear it.

“My lambs … where are my lambs?” The voice trails behind us, a shrill whistle filled with an overpowering melancholy. I see Arturus begin to wrap his and Roland’s eyes with cloth to try and fight the scorching of those eyes on our brains. I begin to follow suit. The voice continues.

“I hear them, crying from the ground, their pain wounds me.”

My hair bristles on my neck as I hear the voice as if right in my ear.

“What have you done to my children?”

Warm, moist breath tickles the back of my neck, the heat sending a burning sensation through my body. And I can see it through my closed, blindfolded eyes: the deer-man with the featureless face, breathing down my neck with its warm rancid breath, breathing with a low wheeze directly into my ears, just waiting for me to crack. I can barely hear Arturus whispering to his son, desperately trying to calm him and himself, through the incessant pounding of my heart. Despite the cold, I’m shivering in a cold sweat, the hairs on my arms standing on edge as whatever it is behind me sits. And waits.

It can wait an eternity. We don’t have that privilege.

Cracking open my eyes, even through the cloth over my eyes I can see how pale Roland has become by the light of the fire. I can barely make out Arturus clasping his son’s hand and Roland – poor boy – is muttering ramblings about eyes like a mad man. Time slows to a crawl, the sweat on my brow starts trickling down my face as the shepherd begins to sniff at us one-by-one, taking its time. I glance at the pile of snow where we had buried the meat and wonder if the shepherd knows and is simply playing with us. In my mind, I can hear the calls of the wagglers crying from the snow. But, between the inaudible singing and the invisible eyes being scorched into my mind, I feel like my grasp on reality is slipping. I begin to feel a terrible empty gnawing at my stomach.

A deep endless hunger.

Visions begin engulfing my mind, visions of myself back home desperately clawing my way through bodies. Through the frenzy of my fingers ripping through flesh, sinew, and bone I barely recognize the faces of Ma Tamerynn and little Fae. My mind screams for me to stop, but the maddening hunger drives me forward as I begin to engorge myself on their flesh. I begin to weep silently. Back in front of the roaring fire, with the faceless shepherd slowly tormenting us for our sins, I bite down on my lip, the feeling of my warm blood scalding my frigid lip. The pain helps anchor me to reality.

 I can only imagine what Roland is going through.

The sniffing sounds like its behind Arturus now, but instead of retreating back into the woods like years past, it begins to work itself back towards me. I can feel my mind beginning to crack as the eyes and visions claw into my thoughts.

 It passes Arturus a second time and begins to just sit behind Roland. I can hear him whimpering and Arturus whispering frantically to calm him down. It’s all for naught, Roland finally breaks, trading his low whimpers into  screaming as he tears at his eyes and  bolts aimlessly into the darkness of the forest. A shrill shriek pierces the air behind us, shattering the stillness and a single word hangs in the air:

Guilty.

Arturus loses no time, throwing the weight of his body in the direction of the shriek. He must have managed to hit the beast as I hear the crack of wood as they slam into a tree. I lay in the snow, useless, blood trickling from my ears. Still wearing his blindfold, Arturus batters the creature, bark flying off the tree from where his flurry of blows miss. I can see blood trickling from his knuckles as the light of the fire shimmers off the red liquid.

He begins to tire, the cold beginning to take its toll and exhaust his strength. The creature, seemingly barely harmed despite the beating it just received knocks Arturus to the ground. It picks up Arturus by the neck and in the flickering light of the fire it seems to take measure of the man and declares, out of some strange sense of generosity, that a deal will be struck. Despite them being for Arturus, the words burn themselves into my brain:

You alone have not been found lacking. A child for a child, a deal is made

It then looks at me, the empty face seems to smile as I get the impression that I will not suffer tonight as my debt has already been paid. I begin to black out as a waggler slowly rises from the snowy darkness beyond the fire, I swear its face bears a strange resemblance to Roland.

We did not find the boy or the other two horses the next day.