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Chapter 2 - Of Rivers, Empires, and Coming Storms

A month, it had taken, for the five riders to cross the mountains west of Amarthane's great open plain. They'd ridden hard, living off the land and their forest warden's fine bowmanship, and their skill at slaying the once-dead. They sought the Lion Tree, as ancient Halciform had bid them, riding ever into the west towards the setting sun, following the skeins of prophecy and ancient eldritch wisdom.

In that time, through the snows and hardships, the companions showed no sign of their struggle, the uncertainty that weighted upon them heavier each dawning of the sun, as they drew further and further from anything any of them had ever known. They had only one another for comfort, to help them renew their faith in the mission they had all agreed by hook or crook to pursue.

Vanyal returned to the edge of their campfire, an umbral shape given the slightest flickers of life as the wicking flames reflected from his dark eyes, and off the lustrous polish of his beloved bow. Tomasj raised his head only with difficulty, unable to stifle the raspy wet cough that had plagued him more and more seriously since Amarthane.

"Back so...Soon? I would have thought...Yanking your prick would take longer...For a married male!"

Vanyal ignored the crassness of the remark, as he crouched down by the light's edge, and drew his vulpine claw tips through the tough, gravelly, barren soil of the hill-lands in which they now traveled. A week ago, they had emerged from the great World's End Mountains, blessedly without being trapped by the terrible blizzard that now blackened that eastern horizon with an ominous wall that never seemed to stay far enough behind. The fox looked off that direction, keen night-vision unnecessary for knowing what was told to him by his instinct; that the path they had traveled, they would never return upon again.

"We make poor time, but to our west there is flat open ground, full of tall dead grass. I would wager there's a large river there, somewhere, and farmsteads not long before it."

The black wolf, eyes red with fever that never seemed far from him, pulled his heavy wool and leather coat in tighter around his slowly withering frame. Vanyal refused to allow any bit of sympathy into his eyes, knowing full-well how the wolf would react; with derision, insults and pandering, all bravado to cover the madwolf's knowledge of his own approaching mortality.

Only Toryen Casso, the vicious, maddened little tiger that lay sleeping with his head in Tomasj's lap, had shown open signs of hope for Tomasj's condition and not received a laughing, hacking, coughing, phlegmy and billious rebuff.

The ascerbic creature, almost invisible even within the campfire's light, responded to Vanyal's observations with a yellow-fanged sneer.

"Good...Then perhaps we can...Kff...Abandon our cock-led priest and his whore...And go about...Men's business..." He trailed off into raspy, gasping coughs after that, though softly enough not to wake the slumbering tiger.

Vanyal shook his head, knowing full well that word-dueling with Tomasj was like arguing with a polluted river. It would always deliver something disgusting and foul and novel, regardless of one's logic. Nonetheless, he felt obligated to at least say something.

"You had best not call her such within her hearing, wolf. She's no whore, and she's stronger than you...Faster now, too, I'll wager."

Coughing again, light of the fire glinting black off the blood dripping from his lip, Tomasj drew the eldritch, ominous, fire-scarred and blood-stained pistol from his hip, holding it up so its barrel pointed toward the dim and distant moon above.

"Good...That will make her a challenge..."

From the far end of the firelight, Vanyal's keen, tall ears heard a tent flap flutter, and his eyes went to it, as Father Timid emerged, slender but muscled feline torso bare over simple rough-spun woolen breeches. The young male had such old eyes, Van could see the weight in them even through the darkness and from yards away, before the housecat stretched, yawned, and approached the firelight carrying the iron crook with which he'd defended them all, at one time or another.

"Evening, Van. Any sign of the Lion Tree?"

The fox shook his head, and let out a soft breath.

"No trees yet, but we do not even know what tree to look for. I've never heard of such a thing."

"Halciform-Narisha seemed confident we would know it when we saw it."

Tomasj spat a mess of phlegm and blood, causing Toryen to stir and snuggle into his leg, a quick flash of firelight off saliva showing Van, to his bemusement, that the mostly-sleeping tiger was licking at the wolf's clothed crotch.

"You would trust...That fucking demon? Agh...This whole thing...Kff...Hngh...Fool's..." The wolf trailed off, chest shaking like a frightened robin's, as Timid set down his crook and walked to him, placing a paw gently on the struggling wolf's back. He whispered words that seemed to slide from Van's ears like slugs, making him shiver in the dark.

"Ari-Eliath, hebn il'tar." Giver of strength, gift him the endurance to continue.

Tomasj's coughing eased, as it always did, though Timid's ears and nosepad seemed even more pale in the dim and flickering light.

"You would be dead already, if not for his help, Tomasj."

"And yet his 'help' does nothing but prolong my suffering," the wolf snarled, throaty and low, voice full of tired viciousness.

In response, Timid simply sighed and patted his compatriot's shoulder, while looking past him to meet eyes with the ever-quiet forest warden.

"I am sorry, Tomasj. I don't yet know enough words of power, or have the strength in myself to heal you fully. I would if it were possible."

"Pah," the wolf spat, and waved the priest away. With a sigh of annoyance that was nonetheless sympathetic, Timid straightened his legs and stood, pacing away from the wolf and tiger to stand at the edge of the firelight. As Van drew jerked beef from his pouch, he spoke, while dipping the leather-tough stuff into a bit of water poured from canteen to bowl.

"When we find this Lion Tree, Father Timid, what then?"

For a short time, the shirtless cat stood, gazing out into the blackness of night. He looked somehow taller, Vanyal noted, though he knew the cat was past the age of growing in spite of his youth. Since being named the High Father of the Church of Many in Amarthane, it was as if the young and frightened cleric had found some store of strength deep within that had straightened his spine, given him the anger to dare the darkness to come for him, rather than huddle in fear of it.

Perhaps, he mused, that strength had always been within the little priest, whom he had seen stand toe to toe with horrors beyond naming, battering back the dark with iron crook and sacred Names.

"I do not know...The Frozen One's prophecy said we were to give a Name to the enemies of the people there, so that they could fight to protect themselves. I...Don't know in specific what that means, except that whatever this 'enemy' is must be one of the Nameless. An agent of the Shadow Masters, like that singing monstrosity that led the attack on Amarthane.

Van's nod was slow, as he let his senses wander, carrying on the evening wind that blew chill from the east, down off the mountains and heavy with damp mist that spoke of coming snows. He spared no thought to the Singing Child, that thing that had led the undead legion until their confrontation a month ago. Meanwhile, Timid continued, as the cat found a rock upon which to sit.

"Cel's womb has stiffened, and she wakes feeling ill. She's with child, Van, for certain now. I have...I have a premonition, that we will not be done with this before the babe is born. How she can fight gravid, I...I don't know. How I could let her risk the life of our unborn child..."

Van's ears twitched slightly, at some catch in the cat's voice. Voicing his uncertainties was something Timid rarely did, though not for lack of them; more because the young cleric was determined to aid others more so than himself.

"Is the child yours, Timid?"

A flash of eyes, reflective in the dark, would have told a lesser fox to back away from that point. Van merely met them, cool and calm as was his wont, and waited.

"It...Doesn't matter if the child is or is not mine. The child is an innocent, and deserves to be protected and nurtured. Even if the seed isn't mine...Of which I cannot be sure...The child will be hers and mine together."

That certainty was precisely what the fox had prodded for. A tactical strike, with a few simple words. He nodded, more to himself than Timid, before speaking.

"I would have been disappointed to hear anything but what you just said."

"So would I," the priest responded, though his voice did carry a vague grouchiness, likely having realized the manipulation yet grudgingly understanding its necessity.

Content to switch subjects and seeing every sign the priest was as sleepless as he himself, Van sat down on his heels, perched next to the fire with perfect balance.

"When we find this Nameless, what will you name it?"

"I...Do not know. Somehow, I know that giving it a Name that does not fit it will be worthless. We have to know the creature first...Understand its purpose and...I don't know."

"I thought the Nameless Ones were supposed to be benevolent spirits...That the Shadow Masters used Names to take control of them?"

"Yes, but there are other Nameless things than mighty Tauriel's ilk...Or more appropriately, things whose Names are not known...And thus they can't be controlled or killed."

A feather-soft rustle from the tent brought both of their attention, two necks turning in the firelight to gaze toward the shadowy figure who's head stuck from the held-shut flaps. The terribly scarred face, patchy with fur that slowly re-grew through the white-pink ridges of ruined flesh, bore what Vanyal thought might be a tired half-smile as she spoke in a carrying murmur.

"Everything all right?" she asked, voice hoarse with bone-weary fatigue.

The smile that lit Timid's face in response to the once-beautiful woman knight's question gave Van a moment of wistful warmth, as he imagined himself in the cat's place, and his own wife in the lady knight's. The fox shook his head softly, as Timid utterly forgot their conversation in his hurry to stride across the camp and back into Cel's waiting arms.

Then he was alone with shadow and darkness again, the pair of mad-furs his only company. Vanyal knew the symbolism was all too appropriate; he, the forest-walker, road warden, sworn to a mad lord, the only one welcome in both tent and firelight, friend to the loving if troubled couple and ill in mind and body vicious creatures that stayed out in the fire-flickered shadows.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he looked to the west, and wondered how long their peaceful sojourn would last.

Johan Longstride's battle fury carried him forward, up a frost-capped dune, and down again into the swirling mass of bristle-black furred Jackal warriors, howling in rage as his sword slammed through one and into another, spraying the warrior wolf's face with a bath of viscera even as he twisted and spun, hacking and hewing and slicing through warriors taken flat-footed by his mad-wolf charge.

All the while, blood sang in his ears, and spirit words in his soul, chanted thence upon his lips as he laughed and cleaved and spun, hacking with every ounce of his hard-won skill and inborn talent, honed by years of duels and demonstrations and communion with the memories of his ancestors in song.

From river to river, my son,

Always remember, through all of your days,

That from the river we are born, clad in the blood of our mothers, shrieking in terror,

And to the river we return at death, clad in the blood of our foes, solemn and silent.

As he went, he prayed in ancient tongues for the safety of his friend, the gentle king whose father he'd served as hostage to, after Yskar had defeated the Atarasi High King in a duel of honor so many years ago. Down there amidst his enemies, young King Nallak, the hope of his people, darling beautiful boy and brightest mind the bard-wolf had ever met, lay bleeding and in danger. Johan Longstride was not about to allow himself to fail in this, his moment of honor. The odds against him some fifty warriors to his one never entered his mind as an issue worthy of consideration.

In the days of our youth,

The river soothes and plays kindly with us,

Brings us strange wonders from places far away,

And carries away the dirt and blood of our youthful injuries.

So, even as blackened iron spears hurtled toward his face and chest, the lupine warrior and tale-spinner let nothing delay his bloody advance.

From somewhere to his rear, a guttural roar in the Jackal tongue seemed to entice a redoubling of his enemy's efforts, solidifying their number, stealing his moments of surprise. A long, wickedly curved and notched iron dirk whistled snake-strike-fast toward his face, to be driven wide by his crossguard as he switched grips, pointing his blade down at an angle toward the icy sand. His greatsword then arced up and around, feet pivoting as he rolled the blade, seamlessly turning his parry into a cross-body stroke that felled the ebon-furred and spittle-flecked monster. Another came at him from the side, and was ignored, as the wolf leapt into the space his previous foe had vacated, smiting his blade into and through the skull of a third Jackal.

All the while, a roaring blood-song of his ancestors flowed through him with the power of a raging river, through his ears and veins, and from his lips came the eldritch song in his peoples' ancient language, reserved for use by bards and the deep forest-dwellers. Its ancient cadence lent strength to his limbs, speed to his feet, savagery to his eyes as foes fell about him one after another and yet came on with all the courage he knew to expect from the desert nomads.

In the days of our manhood,

The river teaches us of war through song and wave and current,

Teaching us to strike, with a mirror of its flow, its unwavering strength and speed,

Our swords are born in the river, quenched to make them stronger and wiser than we.

A burning pain in his ear vaguely registered, as a slicing sword took off half the tall, well-loved appendage. He struck that way like a lightning-strike, felling the warrior before it could register its small victory. Johan then lowered his shoulder, slamming into the hard gut of another foe-jackal, hurling him bodily backward as another hot lance of ignored agony flew up the wolf's back. Bulling forward, he left the swords-jackal that had sliced him open from shoulder to hip behind, as the Atarasi bard swiped his greatblade through the air in a terrible arc that had enemies falling back or else spilling their guts at his feet.

In our dying days,

The river teaches us of life passing ever-forward,

Teaches us to smile at futures we will never see in this life,

And reminds us to have no sorrow that our time is done, for all rivers flow forever.

Then his eyes alighted upon his goal; there, amidst a pile of slain, gutted and bled-out foes, a paw covered in golden fur spiked up with blood just beginning to dry protruded upward, still clutched hard to the ancient Obsidian Spear of his people.

Johan's legs felt numb, as he threw himself forward, roaring, slashing out at the Jackals that tried to hedge him away from the boy. They leapt back, yelping and yelling, trying to get in range to strike with their shorter blades while avoiding his impossibly swift, silvery sword.

He uncovered the boy with a powerful blow of his booted footpaw, sending the dead jackal that had pinned him sailing aside as if it were no more than a rag doll.

In our deaths,

The river carries us onward,

Our failed and rotting forms made anew at its end,

Just as the river becomes sea and sea becomes sky and leads again to life.

King Nallak lay amidst his slain foes, in a river of gore, bloodied and bleeding, his scalp broken open like an overripe fruit. But his chest still shifted, rising and falling, and Johan knew there to be hope, even as one of Kimbek Talroth's heavy throwing axes slammed into his back and pitched him over the boy. He didn't bother rolling to his feet, simply giving a bloody-fanged smile as he let his sword fly in a one-pawed throw that skewered an oncoming Jackal.

His off paw landed on the boy, and he sang the final words of his song.

_ _

So remember, my son, through all of your days,

That there is balance in all things and in all rivers,

And that since you came into the world screaming, clad in the blood of your mother,

When the river carries you away, placid in the blood of your enemies, go to it smiling.

As the wolf's vision faded to blackness, he felt only sand under his outflung right paw. Sand and wind, that graced his snout with the scent of mistletoe and elderberry, as the song-spell's called spirit did as it was asked.

The last thing he felt was a rush, as if of water, cool and soothing in the desert.

Nallak floated through a void, misty with obfuscation and throbs of a sensation he couldn't identify that seemed to radiate out from the center of his over-heavy head. Weightless in a timeless place, he drifted, thoughts empty but for the knowledge that he was floating and that he was tiredly aware of his own thoughts. He seemed to hang suspended there for all eternity, watching entire universes of nothing slide by from void to void.

Then, under his back, he felt the slightest touch of something seeking, searching, probing at him with gentle fingers. Like a leaf prodded downstream, he felt his non-momentum shift, and those gentle fingers guided him into its flow. A cool, soothing sensation strummed along his sleeping soul, balming hurts he hadn't realized until that moment he possessed.

With a shock of agony, the placid sense of timelessness was gone, replaced by an eternal suffering that exploded from his skull and outward to the smallest furs of his lower limbs. He tried to scream, to curl up or arch to project news of his suffering, only to find his corpse-like shell utterly unresponsive, entirely unable to move even enough to roar out its helpless agony.

He felt as if his soul were trying to batter its way out of his flesh in response to the searing, horrid, coiled scourging that blasted out from his skull to his muscles, the cool of that dark and senseless river a distant and yearned-after memory by comparison.

Then a voice spoke, sundering through his lightless reality with soundless thunder that shook him to his core.

Child of the Golden Ones,

Your gods have fled, long hence.

Follow their path to save your people,

See through the tainted Lie of Flesh.

_ _

Be strong, through what is coming.

Seek the Star-Bearer.

Seek out the Life Source,

For from the Heart comes purity.

_ _

Water rushed into his lungs, and Nallak choked as his strong, cramping muscles heaved, suddenly free of the sluggish timeless black that had bound him motionless. Whirling, spinning, his eyes showed him a craze of light and color, reflection and bubble, limned in blackness that threatened to sweep him back to the eternal black.

With an explosion of effort, fighting his own half-paralyzed body and the swimming, crazily jerking and twisting world, Nallak's athletic young body struggled towards shore, muscles burning with an agony of fatigue unlike any he'd endured even during his trials of adulthood. Those days of exertion without rest, two years ago, had seemed eternally long and incredibly difficult. They paled in comparison to this.

He struck a boulder along the shore with a water-muffled crash that sent nauseating streamers of light arcing through his eyes, and the little lion monarch choked out a cloud of vomit as he was yanked underwater again by the current, dragging at him like a hungry beast as he scrabbled his well-trimmed claws against the rocky river floor for purchase.

When something grabbed at him in the water, he threw himself toward it, thanking the gods for his salvation from that roiling watery grave. Powerful paws grabbed him by the sodden ruff of his mane, yanking, dragging his soaking form at sacrifice of a pawful of his fur and skin that almost allowed him to be dumped straight back into the murk.

Gravelly sand crunched under his knees, as the shivering, soaked to the skin royal was dragged from the water, paws pulling away to let him vomit and hack and spit up water until he could do no more than lie shaking upon the shore. Then, finally, a noise split through his burning headache. The noise drew icy talons up his spine, even as claw-tipped fingers grabbed his scruff again and lifted the near-paralyzed boy.

He was staring straight into the eyes of a blood-splattered hyena, his bleary eyes letting him know with unmistakable horror that another dozen were behind it. And behind them, a grand tree that rose high above the farming fields that were thick with the smoke of pillaged households. A tree from which hung horrid fruit.

The creature's fetid breath stank across his face in a burning streak, as a rope wrapped tight around Nallak's throat.

He thrashed and struggled, as his eyes alighted on the blood and water-drenched form of Johan Longstrider, laid out unmoving on the water's edge, his lips spread in a wide, fierce smile even as murderous Jackal raiders robbed him.

Katerin, mother of the king, warrioress and sojourner for many years before meeting the male that was to be her husband in a clash of swords and fists, stood in shocked silence, paws balled shaking-hard at her sides, as the perfumed minister bowed, face to the floor, and begged formally for her mercy. When he had finished with all the formalities, asking for forgiveness in delivering bad news, scraping his sleeves against the floor, her voice boomed out through the cavernous, arched court hall of Al Zar Castle, startling courtiers who had never heard the black-furred foreign lion speak before.

"Enough of this! Where is my son?" she demanded. The courtier, a slender tawny sandcat, looked up at her with eyes shooting wide, nostrils flared in terror as he scampered backwards. Katerin followed him, powerful strides eating the stairs down from the royal dais so she could catch him by the throat of his silken courtly garb and lift him one-armed off the floor until his footpaws dangled.

"Where. Is. My. SON?!" she roared, blowing the fur on his face with the closeness of her bellowing lips.

"H-his noble entourage were ambushed by the hyenas! On the way back from their meeting w-with the Jackal lord! H-h-he...H-he was killed!"

Every instinct said to swat the cat to the floor, or to hurl him toward the windows that would plunge him to his death ten floors below. Her claws slid out, pricking through his silks to rest against the lesser feline's flesh, as Katerin's gut rumbled with the urge to bite out his throat.

Instead, knowing just how Nallak would react to such a thing, and that the courtier's words were just a message, she set him down, and ignored the sudden blow of agony in her chest at hearing those words. She could not believe them, and resolved never to believe her son was dead until seen with her own eyes.

"What of Sortan? I presume he leads a rescue party to search?"

The cat shook his head, eyes gone to tears in hysterical fear as he staggered away, paws raised in supplication against what he believed to be her divine wrath.

"H-he...The nobles say h-he returns, w-with the Jackal chieftain, f-f-for his safety!"

To her left, murmuring voices suffused the greater nobles of the courtly chamber. There, amidst the shadow-dappled archways that lined three of four walls, they discussed in hushed tones what was to be done. Furious, Katerin turned toward the Harem Guard, all thirty of them still within Al Zar that had not been sent by Nallak's orders to his cities requesting aid, and yelled out a command.

"Zirha, Kirren, take eight others. Go find my son. Leave now, before the hyenas have us locked in!"

The two hurried to obey the renowned woman, rushing away with eight others through the chamber's rear door and into the royal apartments. They would not return until successful, she knew, exiting through rear passageways of the castle. An order from Nallak's mother, in this case, was as good as an order from the gods themselves.

"As for the rest of you," she glowered out, glaring eyes trailing over the assembled panderers and aristocrats, soft-pawed and long-nailed and effete, "I suggest you run home, or prepare to make warriors of yourselves."

As black clouds crossed the Great River, commoners huddled into their plastered and bricked homes, shivering in their blankets in fear as much as cold. Winter had come, come early, and with snow none had seen fall in daytime in known memory. The desert could become freezing-cold at night, when the golden sun had passed beyond the horizon, but even in winter daytime would be warm enough for work and farming.

Now, as white crystals fell from the sky at noontime, as rumors of military defeat against the interlopers came in more and more frantic with every passing messenger and traveler, a pall of doom settled over terrified farmers, many of them too young or too old to fight.

As yet another bull-drawn cart full of frightened, evacuating villagers rolled past the stone flood wall surrounding his family's ancient estate and tenant farms, Barahan braved the snow storm to greet and question them. Striding with confidence despite his slender build and bookish face, the young tawny-furred wolf's brow furrowed upon noting how the small caravan's males shied and backed away even as he raised a paw to greet them.

To his side, Barahan's scarred old bodyguard put a paw to his khopesh, the old badger's fur gone all white even where the black stripe used to be. Nonetheless, his skill in a fight was enough to give Barahan himself, no warrior, pause to be concerned for the commoners more than his man.

Extending a slender, bony paw, he touched the badger's scarred old wrist while speaking in low, quiet tones.

"No violence, Farhad. I'll approach and talk to them. Just because they shy away doesn't mean they're enemies."

"No, m'lord. But they are oath-breakers. They flee without their lord's permission...That is why they are scared. If they think you will send them home, they will try to kill us both. We should double back to the house and have our archers up on the walls when we approach."

Barahan was shaking his head, his serious brown eyes fixing Farhan's watery blue ones, until the old badger sighed and stopped talking.

"No. They are frightened because they believe death is on their heels. Most of the lords are off fighting with the Golden King, may the ancestors smile upon him. If these people are in need of help because of some trouble in their lord's absence, we should do what we can for them."

The badger bowed his head, though his sigh sounded put-upon.

With that minor disquiet settled, Barahan straightened himself, tugging his fine white woolen body-wrap to straighten it and knock flakes of snow aside before taking the few more paces that placed him firmly in the road's wagon ruts, blocking the wagon's passage. He held up a slender, well-manicured paw, as the white-furred badger stayed at his rear, a baleful and watchful guardian presence.

For a heart-thudding moment, Barahan thought the peasants had failed to spot him, white on grey-brown on white amidst the snow. Their bullock was almost too close to stop, when the exhausted, frightened-face peasant in the driver's raised seat slowed the thing, and with a shaking voice made a request that rested someplace between squeaking terror and shivering fear.

"P-please step aside, m'lord...We got no way t'pay yer toll, an' got nowheres back t'go..." he pleaded, his eyes continually shifting backward, to the side, as if looking over his shoulder without turning his head. Other peasants, Barahan saw, were catching up now, straggling in like drunkards, their footpaws leaving tracks of bloody red from their frozen, raw footpaws. The young lord furrowed his brow, leaning to peer past the babbling rat, only to see a wagon piled high with belongings, quite a few bedraggled, shivering, pathetic-looking farmers, and one figure sitting shiver-less upon the wagon's end, wrapped up in cloth.

Barahan stepped forward, and placed a paw on the bull's flank. Its heard juddered, shivering in its chest just as its muscles shook from the chill. He could smell a scent like a rotten bandage, and kneeling down, saw the decaying bites along its legs.

"Good farmer, this bull will not survive another day. Stay with me tonight, rest your people, and tell me of what you flee. I will do what I can to help you."

"N-no m'lord!"

Barahan looked up, shocked more than offended. For a commoner to refuse a noble, so bluntly, would be cause for a lesser lord to slaughter the male, rip his guts open in front of a crowd of his peers, and scatter his viscera upon the earth.

"Flee with us! They're coming, and they're not far behind!"

"Who? Who is coming?" he asked, looking down the road, into the blowing snow that wreathed everything in a sheath of blinding white.

"The hyenas! They sacked our homes!"

"A raiding party?"

"An army!"

Barahan stood, blinking at the peasant's terrified face. Truly, such a claim could not be true, he thought. They were hundreds of miles east of the front, with Jackal territory five days' walk to their south and south-east, across a border created by impassible rock faces and rampaging rapids. The only entrances to the Golden Kingdom via that direction were firmly controlled by garrisons in fortresses that would never be breached quickly, and most certainly not without warning.

Yet something about the piss-scared cat and his straggling, exhausted, injured band sent shivers up Lord Barahan's spine. Something, or someone...Then his eyes alighted upon the stranger, cloaked and robed, that sat quietly upon the back of their cart. Not one of the farmers seemed to be looking at him, nor walking near him, as if they somehow both knew he was there and didn't. Their eyes would dance past him, shivering and shaking, their steps would veer away from him. Or it.

And as his eyes staed on it a moment, Lord Barahan's head began to ache, as if his eyes were focused upon something misshapen and badly lit, straining to make sense of a thing that made no sense. Then it turned, ever so slightly, and a voice emitted from its cowl that seemed for him alone, as not a one of the commoners reacted to it.

You...Can see me?

The voice sounded strange, as if made of wind and caverns, and dry leaves blowing by. It was inhuman, and yet quietly miserable, desperate in a way that made the young lord's heart ache in uncomprehending sympathy.

"Of course I can," the wolf said in a gentle tone, as he moved away from the drover, and toward the rear of that rickety carriage. Curiosity bore him forward, though every ache in his suddenly-pounding head told him to go the opposite way. As he did, the refugees gave him exhausted, frightened looks, and backed away, somehow more frightened than before.

They cannot see me. They think you are mad now.

_ _

Again Barahan shook his head. Another excuse, offered by another, for him to ignore what was right to do. He'd have none of it. Upon reaching the back of the cart, he peered up at the stranger, while offering a paw to help him down. All he could see there was a hooded robe, as he'd seen from the back, but with cloth covering its face and even its eyes.

"Are you a leper? Your wrappings seem sound, so let me help you down..."

I am not. I am...I am not certain what I am. But these good folk speak the truth. An army of a million nightmares comes, and your land is doomed.

_ _

A wrapped, bone-thin paw touched his, and Barahan resisted the urge to pull back. He felt as if the creature within that concealing robe were no more than a skeleton, skin stretched tight over bone, and filled with more shadow than fat and flesh and blood.

"If an army is coming, then I have a duty to perform. How far behind you are they?"

Two days, the creature said, as it looked up toward a sky none of them could see, through air filled with swirling white. Upon the hour the storm clears, they will be at your gate. They and their hungry dead. You must run. While you yet can.

_ _

"And what of you?"

They cannot see me...Cannot hear me...I am in no more danger than the air that blows about them. I...I am trying to save who I can...But you are the first who could hear me...

_ _

Barahan didn't stop to wonder at why. He'd already realized the creature was speaking into his mind, without words, by the stares and fearful looks of those around him. Only Farhan seemed to think there was something else there, sharing conversation with the young lupine lord, and the badger's old wrinkle-mapped face was scrunched up in confusion as he tried to see that whose paw Barahan held.

As much as a kindness to Farhan as anything, he began to bark orders.

"You farmers, stay here. Farhan, go rouse the garrison and inform them that a hyena army has found its way through the border. Too large for us to stop on our own. Send messages to the lords up-river and up-road from us, and message-pigeons to the royal army at Al Zar.

"I want Iksir to organize evacuation, and damn the storm. We have two days to get all away from here that are not warriors. Tell Soro to fortify the walls with our archers...We'll hold the hyenas as long as we can, to let the commoners and wives escape."

The badger looked confused, but loyalty, trust, and the urgency in Barahan's voice had him immediately turning and running back toward the walled manor and its flood walls. Lord Barahan shouted at his back one last command.

"And bring these farmers two fresh bullocks! This one's dead on its feet!"

He could have sworn, though he would not have commented upon it, that the strange shrouded being whose paw he held was crying. Its shoulders shook, with the silent gratitude of the powerless given voice.

"What is your name, friend? You may have just saved my servants' lives, I would at least know who you are."

I...The Frozen Soul tells me I am...I am called the Nameless One.

His skull throbbing with pain that felt as if it were to burst his head open, Prince Sortan forced his eyes open, only to immediately regret foolishly letting light stream into his pain-wracked eyes. Groaning softly, he tried to sit, tried to stand, only to find himself unable to move more than a few hairs. Something soft but strong was tied tight to his wrists and ankles, across his waist, and Sortan fought back the childish urge to panic.

First, he recalled his mentors' training. He sought his other senses, to learn what they could tell him.

From his sensitive snout, he knew that his captors had him among a large number of bulls, by their earthy, sweaty scent. A rocking sensation suffused him, and he knew that meant they were moving, and he was likely inside one of the Jackals' roofed palanquins.

His ears heard his own breathing, and the dull thud of his heart, suffused with the sound of thousands of marching feet in the shifting ice-sand.

A gentle breeze across his forehead, and he knew he was not alone. Daring the light again, Sortan's eyes slowly slitted open, to gaze about for his captor.

There, at his side in the large and silken palanquin, sat Kimbek Talroth's daughter. Dressed in a purple silken robe that draped from her shapely, glossy-furred shoulders, belted at her waist with a length of rawhide cord, the beautiful, tall, slender woman was dipping a rag into a silver bowl. As she raised it, and pressed the warm, soothing rag to his aching forehead, Sortan growled, and their eyes met for the first time.

They had spoken at great length, since his arrival at the Jackal camp to bear Nallak's message. Kimbek had made no real effort to conceal that he was throwing the girl at him, likely as a prelude to making marriage proposals. Sortan had even admitted to himself that he'd likely accept, if it would be to his brother's benefit, and to the kingdom's. But as was tradition among her people, a female that wasn't a warrior wasn't to meet eyes with foreigners lest they taint her somehow.

He had wanted to see her eyes, of course. Her reputation, as the most beautiful of the Jackal women, had preceeded her even into the Golden Lands. He hadn't, at the time, known of this quite clearly-planned treachery. If he had, he told himself, he'd have gouged her beautiful, jungle-green orbs from her sleek and exotic and all-too-pretty face.

Despite his body urging him to lie still, Sortan growled, bared his leonine fangs, and squirmed his head away from the soothing cloth and gentle paw.

"Damnit! Get off me woman!" he yelled, though his throat was dry and the sound not near as loud a roar as he'd hoped. For her part, Tessira seemed unintimidated, and shook her head with a look of ocean-deep mystery in her smouldering green eyes. A paw dipped down to the water again, gathering a palmful of it, which she then pressed to his lips.

Left with little choice, and no reaction to his venting anger, Sortan sullenly lapped at her palm, drinking the warm, clean water from her warm, clean paw. By the time he stopped drinking, the cloth was against his head, being gently dabbed over his aching skull.

Tessira's voice issued forth then, as her soft chest rose and fell beneath the concealing silks.

"I am sorry for the headache. Father told me you would fight, and that he could not defeat you without killing you. Please forgive me for interfering."

With a shock like cold lightning, Sortan remembered what his muzzy mind had been struggling to grasp.

Kimbek Talroth had betrayed them. The very great warrior who he had, himself, studied and idolized, had thrown away everything his people believed in. Had turned on Sortan's brother Nallak, flung him into the crowd of Jackal warriors to be slain. He remembered, as the wind to his brain had been cut off by Tessira's deceptively strong arms, the look of glee and smugness on his own nobles' faces.

Sortan's face was suddenly hot, bitter at the eyes, as salt and water welled from them. He had failed, in the most utter way imaginable. To survive the death of his own brother, the king, was unspeakable. For a time, he lay there, tied down in Talroth's own private palanquin, bathed by the beautiful jackal girl until all aches but the ones within his soul were gone.

Finally, she spoke again, drawing him forth from the black pit that yawned in his heart.

"My father has a proposition for you, Sortan."

"Heh," he bitterly grunted, turning his eyes up towards her sinking-deep ones again. "Will he show it the same honor he did my brother's?"

Her smile, normally placid and unreadable, the very image of the demure maiden, now bore a hint of a curve to one edge, speaking of mysterious intent and knowing comprehension. With a start, just as she began to speak, he realized she was no pawn in this political game, but herself a player within it.

"My father never broke his deal with your brother, and does not intend to do so. He will save your kingdom, Sortan. Your kingdom. You are the only true heir left."

His muzzle filled with a bitter taste, harsh and metallic, as he clenched his jaw and fixed Tessira with a furious glare. The glint in hers was like fire, in reflection, the Jackal woman's mysterious depth of character seeming no less voluminous than his anger.

"I'm a bastard son! The nobles will never accept me. Even if they did, I'm prisoner to the Jackals, and they've no way to pay a ransom."

"That," she mused, "is where you are wrong. The reason father did as he did was because he knew Nallak would never be able to feed us all. The nobles have been lying about their food reserves to your brother, while proving to us they have what is needed to feed all our people. Besides, we have no intention of asking a ransom. We will simply imply that your brother was attacked by Hyenas, and we are escorting and protecting you home."

Sortan felt as if his chest were aflame. Hot rage bubbled there, simmering in a furnace of his captivity and distance from those smoking, impotent, vicious slime. In their bonds, his paws clenched tight, claw-tips digging into his palms until he was sure they would bleed.

"So your father betrayed my brother because...Because your people are starving. Just as mine are, because some fool nobles are pretending to be struck by famine?"

"That is the thrust of it, yes. We did not have the time to see a civil war through...Which is what your brother would have engaged in, if we had revealed what we knew to him. In father's own words, Nallak was too just and honorable to save us."

"Heh. And I am not?"

She smiled, one corner of her lips again, while reaching down to dab at his now-seeping paws.

"You are both just and honorable. Otherwise, I would not have agreed to court you, lion. When we are done saving your people from the hyenas, with you at our head, father will help you purge the tainted blood of those worthless creatures. But only if you will agree to help us. Your people will never accept the Jackals without royal say-so."

Sortan's scowling, bitter-grinned face ached, as he let the expression slide away. To allow passion-fueled rage to control him would be the worst disservice to his own duties imaginable. The warrior-prince shook his head, and blew out a sigh that failed to relieve the pressure that boiled in his chest.

"Then untie me and give me a horse. This palanquin is slowing us down, and we must hurry if we're to strike the hyena horde before it wipes out Al Zar and all of the royal armies.

"As for your father's murder of my brother...And any matters of your courtship...That will wait for a later time."