Inky black hooves, smooth as polished onyx, crunch through the icy crust that covers the snows, crunch and snap like bones being ground for the loaves and pies that would feed the armies of hell. The sound makes the traveler snicker, black smoke coughing out of ox like nostrils with a deep snort. Snake eyes, pupil’s dark and red as dried blood, fill with a frightening glee. The whole face contorts into something resembling happiness, but something much more disturbing at the same time. A passing bird looks to the countenance, falls from the air, dead, into a snow bank at the sight. Nearly as tall as a two story house, this beast has to duck and weave at some of the sturdier branches of the trees that line this path through the deathly still woods.
Great twisting ram’s horns frame the nightmarish head, boar’s teeth protruding from a wolf’s mouth. His flesh is tinted with the hues of burgundy and night sky, the huge torso clothed in the skins of dozens of black bears. Such a sweet delicacy the bears were for him to find, reaching into the dens of sleeping beasts like a child plunges a hand into a pickling jar for a treat. This thought made him laugh out loud, a great black noxious cloud issuing from his mouth, filled with lit embers and burning debris. A small family of deer nearby scattered at this sound of twisted joviality as though they were fleeing from a pack of a hundred wolves. The eldest of the small herd dropped dead, landing comically on its back with legs sticking straight up.
He snaked a blood caked finger through his mouth, licking at the dried life that encrusted it. Relishing the last taste of his meal, he moved on. How he enjoyed these forays into the world of man, so many interesting sights and tastes and sounds. He was a hulking figure, but he moved with a belying grace so contrarian to this form that he chose. His true form was horrible in its beauty, for his people hadn’t always been denizens of the scabrous clime in which they currently resided.
Once, every so often, this being came forth onto the world from his plane of existence; to take a stroll about the back woods and lonely places of this world. It was a brief holiday in this land of lesser beings, was the way he thought of it. He called himself Winter here to any whom had the chance to make his acquaintance; this was the name he had picked since the humans had come up with the word. This was his favorite of the seasons in this place. The quiet cold desolation of snow shrouded lands, when everything was dead or sleeping in restful obeisance of the rules of nature.
Summer was for the living, for playing and noise and song and life. That was the time for lovers and children, for flowers blooming and the crops green and growing out in the field. While he liked the prospect of having more people about to potentially frighten out in the forests away from the small towns (and the occasional societal dreg to eat), Winter preferred this cold and still time. It matched his insides, or at least the way he felt inside. It was an interesting dichotomy from the fires that actually smoldered inside him, but the desolation was what moved him most. In this cold and dead and lonely place, this was where Winter was in his element.
Snow caked the fur of his lower legs as he clomped through the empty forest. He hummed a tune to himself, and pulled the thigh bone, from under his hides, of a particularly large bear he had found to suck out the remaining marrow. The sound of the song was reminiscent of a drowning cow, with a backing choir of strangled cats and the lament of starving orphans. It was one of Winter’s favorite tunes, a ditty that his wet nurse had been croaking out during his hatching long ago.
Tossing the bone aside, Winter licked his fingers clean, and found himself at his first destination. It was the first place he stopped upon coming to this plane of existence on his brief holiday; the local graveyard. Winter loved his work in the pits, torturing and maiming and pulling apart all the poor souls that were sent his way. And at every chance, he thoroughly enjoyed finding new and varied ways of continuing and improving upon that work. This was a place he had stumbled upon only a century before. It was nirvana to him.
This place was a conduit of sorts for the spirits of the deceased, and lead to the place that Winter called home. This wasn’t where Winter entered this plane; he did that many miles from here, in a place where very dark things had been done by the people of this land against others of their kind. But here, at this hoary old graveyard, Winter could access his home plane.
He pushed open the old iron gate with a creak. He had to bend down to fit under it. Stepping into the graveyard, he looked at the field of tombstones and mausoleums. Gnarled trees stood in quiet reverence of the deceased. Freshly placed flowers and wreaths stood shoulder to should with dying and dead bouquets and garlands and small drifts of snow. From the most ornately carved stone to the plainest marker, the everlasting legacy of so many lives, all marked for the living, wearing away under the elements, time and fading memory. He thought he heard something, the sound of a choir. He stood stock still for a moment, wolf like ears moving all about, straining for any sound at all. The cold wind blew small soft puffs of snow and the staunchest of dead leaves from the trees.
Convinced he was alone; he reached beneath his pelts and pulled out a small music box. It was old and had some disturbing stains on it, but the gold and lavender paint still shown brightly where it was unblemished. With a large black claw, Winter flicked open the top of the box. A small ballerina stood inside. As he gazed at the tiny dancer, an odd feeling came over Winter for the briefest of moments, something very alien and disquieting. He chalked it up to an unsettled stomach from too much bear meat.
He held the small box over his head, and began the familiar chant.
“Of this plane, so thou were born, lived thy life so full of scorn. Thy hate filled heart, thy unspeakable deed‘s. And now thy soul, do daemons on feed.”
The small box began to tinkle. The sound of a child’s laughter came from somewhere very far off.
Winter closed his eyes, spoke a brief mantra in his own tongue, and then repeated the chant much louder.
“Of this plane, so thou were born, lived thy life so full of scorn! Thy hate filled heart, thy unspeakable deed‘s. And now thy soul, do daemons on feed!”
The small ballerina started to glow and spin slowly in the box. Winter opened glowing red eyes, looked about the graveyard. The graveyard now populated by hundreds of scurrying souls. Sometimes when the time comes, the spirits of the deceased move to the places that they will go for an eternity or however long they will reside there. Sometimes they have unfinished business here and can’t quite let go of the mortal world and its vestiges.
“Run! He’s here for us! Run you fools!” one of the spirits shrieked.
Winter chuckled to himself. ‘Even in death, they are like scurrying rats. What a noble race indeed.’
“Cease your braying, you motley lot.” Winter said in his deep baritone. He brought the tinkling music box down, and cupped its light with a large dirty paw. The ghosts continued to move like a school of frightened fish. Red eyes flaring, Winter took in a deep breath.
“Cease your noise now, lest I drag you all into the pit and rip you to shreds with mine own teeth and claws! I will suckle out your eyes and throw the rest of your putridity to things that would not be as kind as I. Now silence all of you, silence now! There is but one that I am here for and I must bring him round myself. Back to your holes like good children, and cease this chatter! Any one of you useless bags of skin makes a sound, and I‘ll see to it that your mouths and throats are choked with spiders, slugs and vermin for a millennia!” Winter boomed out.
The crowd stopped. Nervous glances were cast from the collection of spirits at each other and then to the hulking figure. Winter looked on at the scene with amusement. He always so enjoyed lording over lesser beings than himself. Taking a softer tone, he continued. “I am truly and deeply sorry that I had to raise my voice to such a lovely group of kind people, but this hysteria simply will not do.”
Winter took a few thudding steps into the graveyard, the crowd parting before him but calmer then before. He closed the music box and tucked it back into a fold of hide. Softening his features, as best he could, he spread his arms wide in a pose of supplication. He grinned with his wolf mouth and boars teeth and spoke with a genial, confiding tone.
“Good people of these cold lonely grounds, I am sure more than a few of you recognize me, as I know your very faces from my visits here in the past, and from other, less savory places. For the new, shall we say, tenants, of this fine field, allow me to introduce myself. I am Winter.”
He bowed deeply to the still quivering mass. Some sounds of acceptance came from the gathered crowd of spirits, which made Winter smirk to himself. He stood upright, and tenting his coal black claws, spoke.
“Now, those of you that know me, know that I can be trusted to keep my promises. You know that the threats that I have made will most definitely come to the bitterest of fruition, far beyond your greatest imaginings. But you know that I can be merciful, even kind and pleasant, when my wishes are met. Is this not true?” Winter asked, pointing a very sharp claw at one particular man.
“Of-of-of c-c-course Winter.” the man stuttered. “You have always been most decidedly true t-t-to your w-words.”
Winking at the man, Winter continued.
“See there good people, an honest opinion from an honest man.”
Winter looked back at the sallow, translucent face.
“Samuel, isn’t it? How have you been old friend?”
“You know exactly how I’ve been, beast.”
Winter arched a brow, but didn’t interrupt.
“You are the one that applies hot coals to my backside, and feeds me the gruel of maggots and glass shards are you not?”
There were a few surprised gasps from the ladies in the crowd, and Winter chuckled knowingly.
“Come come, Samuel; I am merely a servant for my lord, such as you were not for yours, and am simply going by the proscribed endeavors I must carry out, and that you have so rightfully earned.”
Winter took two quick steps towards the little man, the crowd parting like so many sheep at the lithe quickness of the large form.
The hulking brute bent to a knee, and looked into Samuels face with a grin,
“Would you care to enlighten these good folk as to why you are in my work shed, and will remain as such until all the stars in the heavens have been extinguished, or shall we keep that our little secret, and allow you this brief respite from such an, ah, unseemly, interminable and painful existence such as you normally know?”
Samuel removed the translucent hat from his incorporeal head, and grasped it to his chest. He looked nervously about, then back into the eyes of Winter with a weak smile.
“No sir, so sorry sir, I didn’t mean to take liberties with your kindness. I do appreciate the time away from, that other place. I‘ll be more respectful in my actions sir.”
Winter opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a harsh laugh from the back of the crowd.
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