Whatever I had expected of the Draddial and the uurnigath, the reality was beyond anything that I had imagined.
I had grown up on the border of the Wolfwood. My mother, Maosee, had had a handful of encounters with the Children of Enhyl over the years. Where the djuunan seemed to think of the uurnigath as wild animals, we had understood them as something like forest spirits. But the creatures we had fought, and who had subsequently offered us various hospitalities, were clearly mortal people. The Flint Knife pack had been hot and sharp and fast, clearly wounded in their hearts by their conflicts with humankind, and yet willing to recognize and reciprocate our desire to avoid violence. The Black Ears were more sedentary, more canny, and more cautious.
Songlover, and the young woman who had come to collect Elana, had borne a corona more like Derrek’s than any sorceress or priestess I had yet met. Thick, coruscating. Had Derrek shared with the Children of Enhyl the secrets of power that he and the Usurper had kept from their fellow wizards for fifteen years? Or was their power something else altogether, something I had never seen?
When Elana and Veralar left with the young woman, Rennin and Orland immediately began to concoct panicked plans for escape and rescue. Absurd. Elana had taken Veralar with her because, barred Derrek or myself, Veralar was the only one with any hope of keeping her alive if negotiations with Songlover and his counterparts went badly.
After about an hour, the young woman returned, this time calling for Derrek Rowan to follow her. He stood, gave the two Vencari men a look that clearly said “don’t do anything stupid”, and left. Rennin and Orland were now my responsibility, alone.
Frankly, in the case of violence, I was uncertain that any of us would make it out. The eight Flint Knives who had attacked us had almost overwhelmed us. We stood very little chance in an all-out battle against a larger pack. I did not think it would come to that, though.
Another hour passed, and the young woman returned again.
I stood and greeted her before Rennin and Orland could take point and make demands.
“You all may join us, now,” she said. “Please follow me.”
And so I did, pointedly not looking back at the violently skittish men, trusting that they would follow and hoping they would keep their weapons sheathed.
The path from our hut to the square was more open this morning than it had been yesterday afternoon. Clearly the whole village had not come out to watch these negotiations. Or perhaps they had, I realized a moment later, when we were escorted past a pair of outward-facing guards, but they had been turned away. Past the guards, the square where we had stood and faced Songlover now hosted two dozen Children of Enhyl, seated in opposing semi-circles around a blanket where our Elana sat, flanked by Veralar and Derrek. They, in turn, faced a dais that had been erected where the two semi-circles would have met. On that dais sat a pair of figures who made my knees tremble.
A woman and a wolf lounged atop the small platform, obviously made for this very purpose some time ago and piled with hides and furs for their comfort. The woman looked like the uurnigath, but built to a larger scale: taller and broader than any human I had ever seen, a giant out of legend. She was beautiful and terrible, naked as the dawn, powerfully muscled and thickly voluptuous, with warm dark skin like old mahogany and snow-white fur where the rest of her people had common hair. Her icy blue eyes pierced me, and then my companions, and she smiled, showing sharp teeth to match the claws at the ends of her fingers and toes. The wolf, with the same white fur and blue eyes, was larger than an ox. He watched us all, tongue lolling in lupine laughter. She leaned against him like a child might lounge against the side of the family dog.
“Welcome, daughter of Es,” she said. I heard my mother tongue, and the language of the Compact, and the uurnigath language, and that of the earth-gods, and a half dozen more that I had neither time nor wit to process. “Welcome, knights of Vencar.”
If the mere sight of her had not convinced me that she was a prophet of the gods, the echoing polyglot was certainly more proof than anyone needed.
“Hail, Prophet of Enhyl,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and bowing low in elven fashion.
“Sit,” she said, gesturing to the blanket where my companions were waiting.
I sat behind the prince, a little to her left so that I could still see. Rennin and Orland sat to either side of me, taking defensive positions just past Veralar and Derrek. A pointless gesture, but it was their purpose.
“Travelers from Vencar and beyond,” she addressed us, ever in that multivoiced beautiful disharmony of overlapping tongues. “We are the Prophet of Enhyl. You may call me Dapple, and him Blizzard. We welcome you to this Garden of Enhyl, which you call the Draddial and the Wolfwood. Know that you sit before the leaders of all the packs who could be gathered in time for your coming – huntleaders and loremasters and shamans, descendants of lineages as ancient and as noble as your own.”
She paused. We bowed. It seemed like the thing to do.
The names she gave were stunningly different in the three languages I knew best. Dapple, in the language of the Compact. Light Seen Through Spring Leaves, in the language of elves. Spring and Autumn, in the language of the lesser spirits. Blizzard, a word barely known in the Compact, was Wind Off the Ice Wall in elven, and Implacable Ice in the earth-god-tongue.
And it was not lost on me that she referred to herself and the wolf, jointly, as the prophet, not herself alone.
“You, Elana Traiana,” she went on, “have spoken to us of your regrets for the things your ancestors have done and permitted to be done. Easy words, to us – though, perhaps, harder for one of you, and sincere, to our surprise. You have spoken of the justice of your cause. You have also spoken of the things you can offer us, if you become emperor. And we have heard you.”
Elana bowed, again, more deeply than I had ever seen her bow before. But, of course, that was appropriate. This was no mortal ruler to whom she was ostensibly equal.
“You, Derrek Rowan,” the prophet continued, “have spoken of the friendship you have shown Songlover, and through him our people, in the past. You have spoken of Elana Traiana’s sincerity, and her quality as a potential ruler and ally. We have heard you.”
Derrek bowed, too, his head actually touching the ground. I had not suspected such piety, or such flexibility, from him.
“The justice you seek,” the prophet stated coldly, “is the Law of the Sun, arbited by the Eye. We are of the Earth, and care naught for the Sun’s Law. We are intrigued by the boons you offer, but we are packleaders, not kings. The favors you ask outweigh the friendship offered. You are outsiders, children of the Sun and Moon and of the Great Rivers as much as of the Earth. You are kin to us, yes, but distant cousins, not siblings. So, with all of you gathered before us, are there any among us who will speak for you?”
She stood as she spoke. She raised her arms as she asked the question, words echoing through my head in a cacophony of languages, and the wolf howled. In response to that howl, the Children of Enhyl once more filled the streets.
“Are there any Children of Enhyl,” she asked, “who know you? Any who are moved by your sincerity, your generosity, your deeds?”
Then came a voice from the crowd. Derrek translated it for us in a low, careful murmur.
“I will speak for them,” called the voice. “I am Shadow of the Flint Knife Pack. I was the first to strike these strangers when they crossed the river into our lands. My hunt was to maim and to kill. This woman, called Veralar Tann, was faster and stronger than any hunter. To cut me in half would have been easier for her than breathing. Instead she threw me back into the trees. She and her companions hurt the pride of the Flint Knife, but they risked their own deaths to avoid spilling our life’s blood. I will speak for them.”
Silence followed that proclamation. Then a low murmur, whispers from both the crowd and the assembled leaders. Then the prophet spoke, and silence fell again.
“Step forward, Shadow of the Flint Knife.”
Shadow stepped forward, coming out of the crowd to kneel at the feet of the prophet. She knelt to meet him, cupping his face in her massive hand. They exchanged words too quiet for me to hear. Then Shadow rejoined his mother and their pack.
“You have been vouched for,” said the prophet. “And so you may cross our lands, so long as you do not raise your hands against the Children of Enhyl ever again in this life, even in self defense. Shadow will guide you to the Eastern Veil, but we will give you no aid in your crossing. Stay today as welcome guests, and leave in the morning as questers once more.”
So saying, the prophet stood – wolf and woman rising in perfect, impossibly graceful unison – and stalked away from the gathered crowd, disappearing into the buildings behind the riser on which they’d lain. The leaders of the uurnigath, and the crowd that had gathered around us, waited in perfect silence for them to slip entirely from view.
Then chaos erupted. Cheers and howls. Jeers and shouts. Onlookers pushed past the guards, but balked at overrunning the packleaders. Some of the packleaders stood to face the crowd. Others stood to face eachother.
The six of us sat still, trying to project an air of confidence and calm.
“What,” said Orland, “the absolute fuck?”
“The Prophet of Enhyl just gave us their blessing.” Elana’s voice was strained with shock and awe. “And I … I think we have stood in the presence of a living god.”
Derrek and Veralar nodded in agreement.
“So, what now,” growled Rennin.
Elana looked to Rennin.
“We sit,” said Derrek. “And we wait.”
We sat there in the square, sheltered in the eye of the storm, for somewhere between a quarter and a half an hour before the young woman who had fetched us from our hut came out of the chaos and approached us with a small smile.
“Songlover suggests that perhaps you would be more comfortable out of the sun,” she said in her oddly accented but grammatically precise Compact-speech. “Would you care to follow me?”
“If it would not be rude to leave this spot,” said Elana, “we would like that very much.”
The uurnigath woman nodded.
“We appreciate your courtesy,” she said. “Please permit us to offer you better hospitality while we argue amongst ourselves.”
“Thank you, Crescent,” said Derrek, standing.
The rest of us found our feet quickly, and followed the woman – Crescent, apparently – to a medium-sized long house with heavy curtains and no doors. Like the hut in which we had stayed, the single room was mostly illuminated by the light filtering in through a smoke-hole in the ceiling, directly above the fiepit where Crescent directed us to make ourselves comfortable in and among the pile of blankets, furs, hides, and pillows.
The prince settled to one side of the fire, her knights quickly settling in at her left and right hand. Veralar took the position closest to the door. Derrek and I settled into the remaining space as best we could. Crescent did not join us right away, but disappeared into the shadows of the deeper house before emerging with a pitcher of cool water and a tapped keg of the same beer we had had the night before.
Derrek spoke to her in the uurnigath language. She responded in the language of the Compact.
“It is good to see you again, too,” she said. “Songlover will be with us once he has smoothed some raised hackles.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” said Elana. “It was a little overwhelming in the square.”
“It is my pleasure,” Crescent replied. “And Songlover’s hospitality.”
Elana was clearly uncertain how to reply to that, so we drank our beers in silence, which Crescent did not appear to find rude or off-putting. Eventually, Songlover appeared, slipping through his hide curtain deftly so that we were not blinded by the bright light of the outside.
“Greetings, friends,” he said, and settled onto the furs in between Veralar and Crescent. “Welcome to my home.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Elana said again.
“You are quite welcome,” he said with a smile. “Crescent, would you be so kind as to prepare us lunch?”
Crescent stood without a word, and once again disappeared into the other half of the building.
“Well, Derrek Rowan,” said Songlover. “You have brought us very interesting times, indeed. I did not think that I would be happy to meet a scion of House Traianum, but you have surprised me, your grace. I hope that I will live to see the world born from the fulfillment of your quest.”
“Thank you, Songlover.”
“I have been unable to convince the packleaders to provision you,” he went on. “But it is almost summer, and the hunting will be good.”
“Thank you for your efforts on our behalf,” said Elana.
Songlover waved her thanks away.
“You have been declared guests, it is my role as host. When you leave here, you will be under the protection of the Prophet of Enhyl and the Flint Knife pack. You will be in good hands.”
Elana bowed.
“To that end,” Songlover went on, “we will be bringing Shadow here, once you have eaten. Derrek Rowan will cast on him the spell he once cast on me, so that Shadow may learn your tongue swiftly.”
Was it my imagination, or did Derrek grimace at that before forcing his face into a mask of diplomatic neutrality?
“As you will,” was all he said.
I wondered at the existence of such a spell. There had never been many languages in the world we knew – the languages of elves and dwarves, and the pidgin trade-tongue we’d made that had formed the basis of Illustrian, Rasyri, and Old Namoran. The Illustrian and Rasyri tongues had merged after the fall of those empires and become the language of the Compact. Old Namoran had been all but snuffed out by Vencar’s conquest of Namora. There were the immortal tongues, of course – the various languages of the celestial and chthonic gods and demons, and of the small gods and countless spirits of the earth and the things which dwelled below, upon, and above it – but if such magic could be applied to those languages, surely every wizard would have found access to it?
It did not take Crescent long to prepare our lunch – an assortment of dried and salted meats, a hard, sharp cheddar that tasted like it had come from Georg, more winter-dry apples, and still more of the dark, woody ale that seemed to go with every meal in the clanhold. I was intrigued at how similar the staples were to what I had been raised on, but how differently it was prepared and presented.
Derrek made polite conversation with Songlover and Crescent, asking how they had fared the winter, if Songlover’s other apprentices he had known had taken posts in in other packs. Songlover, in turn, asked how Derrek had come to abandon his neutrality and travel with the deposed prince of Vencar.
“I refused her initially,” Derrek said. “Then the Usurper sent soldiers to my home.”
Songlover grunted and nodded.
“And so now you must chase him from his home, as he has chased you from yours. It is proper.”
We finished our lunch, and the Flint Knife called Shadow was brought to Songlover’s hut. I recognized him, now, from the grotto: the young man who had spoken with Briar and Derrek, who had watched Veralar at her morning and evening practices as if he might learn to move like she did.
“Now,” said Songlover. “You may cast your spell so that he may speak to all of you as you travel, and so that the Flint Knife pack may have a translator of Vencari speech.”
Derrek sighed and nodded.
“This will go better if we do not have interruptions or distractions,” he said.
“I recall,” said Songlover. “You may use my hut.”
So saying, he stood.
“Come,” he said to the rest of us, holding open the curtain and flooding the space with bright light. “Follow me, and I will show you the village, and make introductions to those packleaders who wish to know you.”
We stood as well, processing out of the hut. I was disappointed. I had hoped to see some of this spell in action, perhaps some clue to its formulation. So I moved slowly, and I was the last to leave, brushing past Songlover as he let the curtain fall behind us. And I was close enough for him to whisper, for my ears alone: “Do not trust Derrek Rowan. Everything he does, he does for his own reasons.”
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