An icy chill ran the length of his body and fear seemed to pervade his mind from every angle. He fought it, countering the fear with pent-up anger and rage. He could not be stopped, would not be stopped. His blood seemed to run cold, and every part of his body screamed for him to stop. He hardened his heart, this was not real, it was summertime, the chill was just a figment of his imagination. Or perhaps… could it be? Could this actually be the same one as it had been years ago?
It was. It dawned on him. It was the same grove. Then, as a child, the trees had beckoned so cheerily, the sun had warmed the clearing in the pleasant blanket of summer. That is, until the darkness had risen. It rose as unexpectedly as this chill, but it was the same. The same fear, the same unearthly stink, the same figure bent over in the middle of the clearing. It could not have been real, though. Not then, not now, he told himself. Yet, there the figure was. He couldn't be sure it was the same being, but he wore the clothes of the Dunlendings, as the other one had. He knelt in front of something, and focused on an object that lay before him… just as the other one had. Well, it doesn't matter anyway. If it is real… all the more reason they deserve this.
The chill grew more intense, but it no longer provoked fear. It had hardened him with a singular purpose, and he began to move intently. Aided by his light frame, he crept quietly along the ground right up behind the kneeling figure. The figure, who surely had heard him approach by now, did not make a movement. He seemed entranced by whatever lay before him. Bregoan reached unconsciously for the handle of his knife. A thought flashed in his mind. I am actually going to kill a defenseless person? … One of those that had taken his family… wrecked his village… Mother, Leothross…
A tear sprang to his eye, but he could not stop himself. There must be justice. The cold gripped his whole body and he swung his blade around the throat of the man as if he had been butchering a pig. The man fell back without a struggle, and without a sound. Bregoan stumbled back, stunned. The cold drained from his body, and, if he could have felt anything, he would have felt a warm summer breeze streaming through the trees. As it was, he took a few halting steps back and fell to a knee, a feverish queasiness gripping him.
It took several minutes before he could again support himself. He forced himself to his feet, and finally saw what the Dundlending had been staring at the whole time. A gilded volume lay open on top of a coarse cloth. It was unlike any book he had ever seen. Wincing, and trying to avoid the body, he picked it up, momentarily running his finger over the leather cover that had been inlaid with fabulous patterns. He quickly wrapped it in the cloth and put it under his arm, all too eager to leave this place behind him.
