Crisis at Sorrow's End
Part One
“How does the air feel, Windkin?” Grayling called from the horn of the Bridge.
“It gets thicker ever day, and the land is drier than I’ve ever seen.” He glanced back over his shoulder, and the wind whipped his long brown hair about his face. “It looks bad, Grayling.”
The chief of the Jackwolf Riders glanced to his lifemate Hansha, but the mild metalworker looked equally sombre. He shook his head. “I’ve never seen it this bad in my life.” His green eyes drifted over the parched land. “No hint of rain for months – they’ll be no flood and flower this year... or many years to come, at this rate.”
“I know,” Grayling brooded, and his eyes darkened. “I hoped we could see some sign of an end to the mountain’s effect. But we’ve only confirmed my fears. The ash has settled right to the horizon. Have you ever seen it smoke like this?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
Again Hansha should his head. “Smoking Mountain’s always rumbled now and then, but never this steady plume of ash. What... what happens if it really blows?” His eyes searched Grayling’s face. “What will we do?”
Grayling touched Hansha’s cheek tenderly. “We’ll figure something out. I was driven out of one Holt in my life, I won’t lose this one too.”
Hansha’s gaze shifted, and he looked over the hillside west of the Bridge. Three mounds of earth, darker than the rest of the rocky soil, sat on the gentle slope. He shivered thinking of those graves, the first he had ever seen dug in Sorrow’s End. Leetah the Healer had always announced proudly that none had ever died since she came into her full powers. No longer. A rockslide next to the outlying farms had claimed three lives before she could reach them.
Three graves. Tanah; Rasha; Ingen; Hansha repeated the names in his head.
They could have counted the rockslide as bad luck, were it not for the drought and the ash cloud, and the gentle tremors that laced through the ground every eight-of-days.
Sorrow’s End lived in the shadow of rocky cliffs. The next rockslide could claim more than three farmers. And if Smoking Mountain were to erupt...
“Ayooah, Coppersky!” Windkin called, and Grayling and Hansha turned to see the lanky Jackwolf Rider silently racing up the rocks with a predatory grace that was reminiscent of Rayek. Grayling flashed Windkin a little smile. Were it not for the Glider’s warning, Coppersky could have snuck up behind the two lifemates without making a sound.
Coppersky reached the peak of the horn, barely out of breath. Grayling marvelled at his tribemate, smaller than Hansha but long-limbed like young Dart, doe-eyed and delicate-looking but a fearless rider and a deadly shot with a throwing dagger. How could such meek creatures as Vurdah and Ahnshen have produced a consummate predator?
“Anything new in the village?” Grayling asked.
Coppersky flashed him a cruel little smile. “Oh, nothing. Just that the well is dust, that’s all.”
Only three months ago the Palace had come to Sorrow’s End to the sounds of mourning. Now it returned to greet an even graver crisis.
Swift and Rayek joined Savah and the leaders of Sorrow End’s inside the Mother of Memory’s darkened hut. Everyone noted how the clearstone wall behind Savah’s throne did not glow with the vigour it once had.
“The solution seems simple,” Rayek said. “Smoking Mountain is destroying the land, sucking all the life out of the rocks. Your crops will fail, even if the rains finally come. The only option is to leave here. The Palace is large enough to house all the Sun Folk. Once the mountain quiets, you can return. Or you can settle somewhere new and build a new village.”
Leetah leapt up from her little stool. “We are not Wolfriders, Rayek! We don’t just pull up and ride off to Land’s End whenever we feel like it. Sorrow’s End is our home! Great Sun – you should know that, Rayek.”
“Easy,” Scouter touched his lovemate’s shoulder, bidding her to sit down again. Then he turned a harsh glare on Rayek. “She’s right. This is our home.”
“And it is killing you. Great Sun – I helped bury my own sire not three moons past! Two of his friends keep him company in the earth. How many more die before you understand?”
“How would you feel if we showed up and told you that you had to leave the Great Holt?” Scouter countered. “Or the Palace?”
“Sorrow’s End isn’t the Palace! How can you compare the two?”
“Peace, my children,” Savah said.
“Yes,” Swift crossed her arms over her chest. “We won’t get anywhere by arguing. Savah. Is it the consensus of the Sun Folk that leaving Sorrow’s End is not an option?”
Savah glanced at Sun-Toucher and Toorah. The old mystic felt the Mother of Memory’s gaze and nodded. So did Toorah. Swift glanced at her brother Grayling, and he too nodded.
“It is,” Savah said at last.
“All right. Then what can we do?”
“We need water,” Grayling said. “The floods won’t come, and the spring that served our well has dried up. We have large storeholes, but they are fast becoming empty.”
“No problem. Rayek, you and Skywise can shape the rooms in the Palace to hold water. We can find the closest lake in the Everwood and bring back enough water to fill all your storeholes.”
“We could dig some more,” Scouter said. “Better yet. Ahdri.”
The wide-eyed handmaiden looked up. “You could shape us some new cisterns,” Scouter said. “It’s no substitute for a well, but it’ll do... until you find us a new spring.”
Ahdri bowed her head. “I will do what I can.”
“Let us hope it is enough,” Leetah muttered under her breath.
The spring that fed the well bubbled and filled the bottom of the deep shaft with a slick layer of mineral water, but it was as undrinkable as the water that once bubbled in the hot springs.
They too had gone dry. Save for the occasional eruption of superheated water, the springs were now no more than dry rock beds, punctuated by hissing fumaroles. And that was what the well became again – dry rock.
“It’s finally gone,” Scouter brooded as he glared down into the shadows of the well. “All we have left is what’s in our store holes.”
“Ahdri,” Shushen pressed, “don’t you sense any water... anywhere?”
Ahdri bristled at the Jackwolf Rider’s tone. “Believe me I have tried, Shushen! I know it means life or death for the village!”
“Easy, Ahdri,” Scouter said. “We’re all worried. Please, keep trying.”
Ahdri turned away from the dry well. “Do not expect too much of me. My rock-shaping powers are only now beginning to bud. There may be water far beneath the village or under the mountains... but I cannot tell.”
“But you’re of Yurek’s kin,” Shushen said. “The only rockshaper we have! Can’t you feel something?”
“Don’t you think I would have said if I had?”
“Hey,” Windkin flew into view and settled down at his lovemate’s side. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing!”
“No, nothing at all,” Shushen grumbled.
“Enough, Shushen,” Scouter said. “Take it easy. If even Ekuar can’t find us new water under the village, we can’t expect Ahdri to.”
“Well said, Wolfrider,” Ahdri said icily as she strode away, her sandals slapping softly against the dry dirt. Scouter turned towards Windkin, a proud smile on his face, but it faltered when he saw the cold glare in the Glider’s eyes.
“What?”
Windkin shook his head slowly. “Up your ass, Scouter.” He left the bewildered Jackwolf Rider standing by the well and flew to join his lovemate. “Ahdri, wait up.” He glided alongside her as she paced back to Savah’s hut. “Don’t listen to anything he says. You know he hasn’t the brains of a zwoot.”
**He’s right. If Ekuar cannot find water, what good am I? A useless cringing maiden without the skill to apply her own birthright.**
“This isn’t your fault, Ahdri.”
She balled her fists in frustration. “I am the many-times granddaughter of Yurek who first dug that well. The rockshaping powers have always run strong in my family. And then... here I am, nearly a thousand years old and as weak as a kitling. Were it not for the Palace, I might never have learned of my powers. And even now I can do little but make dainty sculptures. And now... when my village has real need of me – I’m useless. Worse than useless.”
“Don’t talk like that, Ahdri. You kept the water flowing right to the end. I don’t know if Ekuar could do that.”
Ahdri smiled wanly. “Thank you, lovemate,” she murmured. But Windkin could see that his praise had done little to cheer her.
Rayek noted the signs of drought everywhere as he paced down the lanes of Sorrow’s End with his former lovemate Leetah. It was hard to believe that only four years ago the richest flood in years had saturated the ground and fed thousands of new bloom.
“It reminds me of my childhood.”
“Mm,” Leetah nodded. “We have not had a drought like this since before my birth. And the mountain – so sudden – a cruel blow dealt without warning.”
“There have been many deaths of late. How is my mother faring, truly?”
“She has a strength in her.”
“I expected her to wilt. I expected to find her stricken with grief, not up and about in the fields again.”
“Are you disappointed that she is not stricken, making a monument to your father with her tears?"
“No. Of course not.”
“But you are disappointed that she chooses to stay, to return to the fields.”
“Fields stained with the blood of a lifemate, yes. Fields that are dying.”
“It is our home, Rayek.”
“Stubbornness keeps you all here. A dirt-digger’s obstinacy.”
“Is that any worse than a hunter’s obstinacy?” Leetah glanced at him. “You criticized Scouter for likening the village to the Palace. But to us it is the same. Home is home. Home cannot be uprooted.”
“Scouter. You seem... content with him. And Shushen.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“A little. I did not think they would suit you.”
“We are more alike than you might think.” She bowed her head to watch her steps. “And Scouter and I both know the pain of losing a dear friend to Recognition.”
“It was not Recognition that lost you my friendship, Leetah, but your haughty ways around Swift and the Wolfriders.”
“It is not easy to be the spurned one, Rayek. Scouter found it no easier to remain near Dewshine knowing her lost to him than I found it to be around you, knowing our days of sharing were gone.”
“But I was never of a mind to share.”
She smiled softly. “I know. You longed to possess. To own, to devour and be in turn devoured. And Recognition found you such a lifemate.” Now she laughed lightly. “Swift stumbled into our lives with nothing but an empty belly and a vest full of fleas. And only the High Ones know what exactly drew you to her. But it was something stronger than the base instinct of Recognition. You two are... I think I see now, matched in a way we could never be. But the blue mountain you spoke of will rebuild itself before the wolf chief I come to any accord.”
Rayek chuckled at that. Even after ten eights of years, Swift and Leetah continued the cold antagonism of long ago.
“But Scouter and I understand each other. And I do not mind sharing him with Shushen, as he does not begrudge me my pleasures... my freedom,” she added with a certain edge to her voice. Again Rayek chuckled.
“Then I wish you the best; for you still are my friend, in spite of all.”
Leetah smiled softly. But her eyes drifted to the dry ground where once had bloomed a flowerbed, and her smile faded.
The Palace returned with specially shaped rooms filled with lake water. Soon the cisterns were refilled, and the new storehole Ahdri and Ekuar shaped was filled to the brim. Already the farmers were hard at work digging new irrigation streams to reach the failing crops.
But the storeholes would run dry soon enough. And then the Palace would have to fly to the nearest lake again. The Sun Folk brooded. Few liked having to rely on the Palace. It did not seem right somehow, that after eighty years of being taught how to be self-sufficient, they once again had to depend on the Wolfriders.
“If only the spring that fed the well would return,” they whispered.
“The well has lasted since Yurek was alive. How can it be dry now?”
The Jackwolf Rider hunted further afield to bring in enough meat to feed the villagers, since the crops were failing and the first harvest was barely one-third the usual yield.
Ahdri spent her time from dawn to dusk in Savah’s hut, meditating on the Little Palace. She stared at it until the crystals vibrated and hummed, until Savah gently touched her shoulder and bade her rest.
“You can’t keep pushing yourself like this,” Windkin said gently when Ahdri fell into bed exhausted at the end of the day.
“How can I rest when the Sun Folk depend on me?”
“They don’t depend on your alone. Ahdri, you can’t shoulder this burden alone.”
“No, lovemate. I can. I must. I am the only one who can make the well fill again.”
Windkin sighed wearily. He rolled over and fell asleep, while Ahdri sat up in bed late into the night.
“These are squatneedle roots,” Jarrah explained as she eased the long root out of the ground. She held it up for Ekuar to see, and the old elf weighed it in his hand thoughtfully. “They were our only source of food during the last great drought, when Rayek was born. The taste is... like chalk, I fear, but with a hint of sweetness that the tongue becomes accustomed to. Well, usually. I fear my boy never developed a taste for them.”
Ekuar lifted it to his lips to take a bite, and Jarrah shot out her hand to stop him. “They must be boiled first,” she insisted.
Ekuar chuckled at his mistake, his eyes dancing with merriment. Then Jarrah’s hand lingered on his, and Ekuar’s smile faltered slightly. Jarrah looked away.
“I fear you won’t find me fit company, Ekuar,” she said sadly. “I – I should return to my work.”
“Work keeps the mind busy.”
“Yes,” she smiled. “Exactly so.”
Ekuar cleared his throat. “I... I know what it is like... the pain, the wanting to dull it. I’ve lost many dear ones in my life. Friends... lovemates... children – yes, children too – little Go-Backs babes born over the years and now scattered to the winds. And I lived long enough to return to the Palace and see all those souls again. Ingen’s in the Palace now. You can see him there. You can talk to him.”
Jarrah laughed softly. A blush rose to her cheeks as she shook her head. “No, no, I’ve never really learned to send, not even with the Little Palace to guide me.”
“It’s different in the Palace.”
“I... I wouldn’t know what to say,” she admitted. “Ingen and I... well, my son, in his youth – in his crosser moments, when I tried to guide him to temper his passions for Leetah – he used to shout that we became lifemates out of comfort and habit, nothing more. We could never understand passion. I must say... when I saw him suffer for want of love from Leetah, I did not envy him his passion. But lately... as I wake at night and remember yet again that I am alone in bed, I wonder if my love for Ingen was nothing but habit... and if the breaking of the habit is what pains me, not the loss of a lifemate.”
“There are worse things than a good habit,” Ekuar shrugged.
“Perhaps I’m secretly ashamed of how well I am enduring this... change. Perhaps I fear to see Ingen’s spirit... with this burden.”
Ekuar mopped the sweat from his brow and readjusted his wide sun hat. He gazed out over the sun-parched field. “My great regret was that I never said goodbye to my two dearest friends. Osek and Mekda. We were children together in the Frozen Mountains, and we were slaves together under the heavy hand of the trolls. I was lucky. I was found by... oh... her name – Kahvi!”
“The snowland chieftess?” Jarrah asked, remembering the stories her son had told her.
“Yes. But... I don’t think there was snow when she found me. No... It was years ago... not in the Frozen Mountains, but in the forests south. Oh, it’s a long story, I can’t even remember most of it. But I remember it was long before the Go-Backs were called Go-Backs. And I was shaping a hole to the open air – why? Why was I? I think so old Guttlekraw could have a pit to trap the giant forests beasts. But the Go-Backs – should I call them something else? But they had no name then... they were simply... elves. Where was I? The Go-Backs attacked the trolls. And they found me bound at the bottom of the pit. And they set me free. But I couldn’t convince them to go back for Osek and Mekda. And anyway the trolls were too powerful, and Osek and Mekda were far away – at the other end of the troll caverns. But I was free, with only a missing finger and a cold head to show for my years with the trolls.”
Jarrah giggled as Ekuar cheerfully lifted his hat to show off his bald pate.
His gaze grew solemn again. “But Osek and Mekda... so many years for them before they were freed by another friend – the friend that visited your lifemate. Worn away to nothing. Osek with one arm and one stubby little finger, if his bones tell the story right. And Mekda – there was almost nothing left of Mekda before she was freed. No arms. No legs. No mind. And all those years they suffered I was feasting with the Go-Backs and shaping my own little rocks.”
Jarrah shuddered. “I can’t imagine.”
Ekuar smiled and shrugged. “So you can see I felt really awful – not having had the decency to say goodbye to them the last time we were all together. But now they’re safe and in the Palace and I can speak to them whenever I want. And when we all touched souls that first time inside the Palace, I wept for so long I cried away all the grief I ever knew. You should go to the Palace. You’ll feel better. And you can go back to the Holt with us – I know Brownskin would love to spend time with you.”
“Rayek? Oh, we have nothing in common.”
“You’re his mother.”
“And a stranger to him, as he is to me.” She shook her head. “Besides, if this drought continues, we will need every hand here to dig out the squatneedle and the tuftroots. I cannot leave the village now, in the time of its greatest need.”
“And Ingen would never abandon the fields.”
“Yes.” She smiled softly. “Exactly so.”
Ekuar knelt down on the ground next to her. “Then perhaps I'll stay too, and lend you another pair of hands. Now, how do we find these squatneedle roots?”
With the Palace’s departure Ahdri and the Sun-Toucher kept a careful record of the water consumption from the cisterns. They reckoned they could last for three months before they required more water.
“Every three months,” Scouter growled. “Dependant on the charity of the Palace.”
“That’s no way to look at it, Scouter,” Grayling said. “When we first came here all those years ago the Sun Folk took us in and offered us everything we needed. Now Sorrow’s End is in need. And the Wolfriders are repaying their debt. It’s as simple as that.”
Scouter shook his head. He had accepted aid without complaint as a child, but now as a grown elf he chafed at relying on anyone beyond the rock walls of Sorrow’s End.
“Can you not sense any water in the rock?” Ahdri asked Ekuar helplessly. Ekuar shrugged.
“Rock is all I know. Look where the rock isn’t, and you’ll find your water.”
“Double talk!” Shushen exclaimed when Ahdri related her conversations with the old rockshaper. “We need water now, Ahdri!”
“You need to shut your face,” Windkin snapped back. “Don’t blame Ahdri because it won’t rain.”
“Windkin,” Ahdri asked one night as they lay in bed together, “if Sorrow’s End becomes dust, will you go back to the Great Holt and your parents? You’ve only been here four years, after all. You must long for the endless waters in the New Land.”
“I’m staying put, lovemate,” Windkin held her close. “I’m staying right here, with you.”
Ahdri lay awake long after he fell asleep, wondering how long his youthful passions would last, once the crops failed again and Sorrow’s End became as barren as the Burning Waste.
It was early in the morning when Grayling rose to make his morning rounds about Sorrow’s End. Hansha stirred sleepily as Grayling climbed up out of the pit-bed and donned his panelled loincloth. “Mmmhmm,” Hansha mumbled, groping in vain for his lifemate.
“Keep sleeping, green-eyes,” Grayling whispered, turning to drop a quick kiss on Hansha’s forehead.
“Mm, stay...” Hansha caught his wrist.
Grayling wriggled his hand free. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
Hansha made another vain effort to rouse himself, then settled back in the blankets. Grayling smiled. The metalworker could never drag himself out of bed until the sun shone right through their bedroom window. Grayling imagined that if they ever installed a heavy curtain in the window, Hansha would never get up.
“And you’re as bad as he is,” Grayling muttered to the dozing jackwolf draped across the doorway. Tawny lifted her head and blinked at her elf-friend, then collapsed back with a heavy sigh.
The farmers were already in the fields as Grayling made his rounds. The ground was parched and the plants stunned by drought, but the elves continued to coax and tend the shoots as best they could.
Grayling finished his inspection of the village boundaries as the day’s heat was making itself felt. Turning back for his hut, he decided to walk past Wing’s house. Behtia was already sitting outside on a stone bench, thoughtfully hemming and mending her daughter’s tattered clothes. The little elf-child was stretched out on the sand, her face buried in the soft fur of a golden jackwolf.
“There you are, Goldenmane,” Grayling chuckled. The aging wolf looked up, sniffed, then set her head down again. Ember looked up at Grayling and grinned.
“My wolf-friend,” the two-year-old chirped. “She’s mine now!”
“She’s pretty old, Ember. And fat. And lazy. You won’t be able to ride her.”
“She’s a good pillow!” Ember shot back.
Grayling bent down and gave the old jackwolf a scratch behind the ear. Goldenmane had carried him in hunts for nearly thirty years, but now she was too tired to keep pace with the pack, and the pack in turn had spurned her. Cheerful as ever, she now spent her days sunning herself and limping from hut to hut to beg for scraps. Far too many scraps, Grayling thought, patting her full belly. “You’re a fat old lass, aren’t you?”
Behtia smiled. “Ember will be bonding with her own wolf-friend before long.” She returned to her stitches. “She’s already tearing every tunic I make her. You’re lucky your uncle is a weaver, little one.”
“She needs some leathers to keep pace with her,” Grayling chuckled. “I’ll take the next hide worth saving I catch to Ahnshen and we’ll see what we can make for her.” His eyes lingered fondly on the cubling. “Seems only yesterday she was a babe in arms. She’ll be riding with the hunters before long.”
**You want one of your own, don’t you?**
He turned, surprised. **Am I so obvious?**
**I see the way you look at her – the way you’ve looked at her since she was born.** Behtia patted the stone bench beside her.
“How do I look at her?”
“Like a lovesick pup.”
Grayling chuckled softly. “Guilty.”
Behtia nipped off a stray thread. “Recognition strikes when you least suspect it.”
“It certainly did in your case.” He smiled as he recalled that moment when eyes met eyes in the middle of the dance four festivals ago. Wing had caught Behtia’s gaze and suddenly fallen flat on his face in the middle of the circle, tripping two other dancers in the bargain.
“My greatest hope and greatest dread,” Grayling added softly.
Goldenmane lifted her head and whined in fear.
“What is it?” Grayling asked his old wolf-friend.
They heard a distant rumble, and the ground seemed to tremble underfoot. Grayling and Behtia felt the bench rock softly, and Ember let out a yip of fearas Goldenmane began to shiver.
“What? Mama?” Ember looked to Behtia.
“Just a little tremor, that’s all,” she soothed. “We’ve had them before.”
Again they heard a rumble, like a roll of thunder in the distance. But this time the noise did not fade away, but grew louder and louder, an angry roar that swept through the village. The ground shook again, and the bead curtain in the doorway danced. Soon even the clay tiles on the roof began to clatter.
“Get away from the house!” Grayling shouted. Behtia sprang up from the bench and clasped Ember to her tightly. They hurried out of the shadows cast by the huts and they huddled on the open ground until the shaking subsided. Goldenmane hauled herself to her feet and crept over to join them. The jarring vibrations sent a thick crack running up the wall of the hut, and the bead curtain fell to the ground and the beads scattered in all directions.
“We’re fine,” Behtia said, before Grayling could even ask.
“Behtia?” Wing rushed down the dusty path. “Ember – are you –?”
“Fine!” Behtia laughed with giddy relief. “Just a good wake-me-up, that’s all.”
“Wing, can you–?” Grayling nodded meaningfully towards Ember and the wolf. “I have to go find Savah.”
Grayling jogged through the village, passing other dazed villagers, including one maiden who was bleeding from a head wound. Most, however, were simply shaken and confused. It had been a long time since a quake of such magnitude had struck Sorrow’s End.
“Savah!” Grayling came to Savah’s hut just as the Mother of Memory came outside, followed closely by Ahdri.
“What is this, Mother of Memory?” Ahdri asked nervously.
Savah’s voice was calm. “A ground quake, Ahdri. The mother prepares to cast her children from the nest.”
“We aren’t leaving, Savah,” Grayling said. “Sorrow’s End isn’t finished.”
“Nothing endures forever, young Wolfrider.”
Scouter rushed up, Shushen close on his heels. “Grayling! Remember the last time Smoking Mountain made the ground shake?”
“The zwoots,” Grayling growled.
Scouter stood on the Bridge of Destiny, overlooking the dust-filled canyon. The mid-afternoon heat had taken some of the strength out of the stampeding zwoots, but the beasts’ great stamina kept them on course for the village.
**They’re on their way, Grayling,** he sent, and he turned to sprint down the rocks. The Jackwolf Riders had already positioned themselves at the base of the bridge, weapons at the ready. Scouter climbed astride his jackwolf and looked to Grayling for the signal.
The Jackwolf Riders had lost three of their number years ago when Dart, Zhantee and later Woodlock had left for the New Land. But now with Wing and Coppersky grown and astride their own jackwolves, and Scouter joined the pack, the Riders numbered eight-and-four, eight-and-five including Windkin, who now hovered above them, ready to spot for them.
“All right,” Grayling said. “We take no chances. First we turn the herd, then we single out the old and weak for the hunt. We’ll peel off into two lines. I’ll lead the left line. Scouter – you remember how we turned the herd back in the day. You lead the right column. Wing and Coppersky, you’re the fastest riders, you take the outskirts, herd in any stragglers. Windkin, you keep your eyes open. If even one zwoot makes it to the garden Minyah will never let us hear the end of it.”
The Riders laughed.
Grayling looked over his shoulder. The Sun Folk sat on the rocks just outside the village. No one wanted to retreat to the caves, not with the memory of a successful zwoot-hunt still fresh in the memories of those who did not dwell in the Now. There was no fear on their faces, only excitement. Behtia kept a firm hand on the little leash Grayling had fashioned for Ember, to keep the cub from scampering down the rocks and joining her father in the hunt.
Grayling caught sight of Hansha. He smiled and gave a little wave with the head-scarf Hansha had given him.
**Good hunting, Kel,** Hansha sent back. **And stop preening.**
Grayling smiled at the use of his soulname. Obediently he slipped the scarf over his chief’s lock and wrapped it about his neck. The zwoots were now just visible through the distant dust cloud their hooves had churned up.
Eighty years before, the Wolfriders had waited until after the zwoots passed under the Bridge. But this time the elves rode jackal-wolf hybrids adapted to the hot afternoon sun and searing desert air. Grayling led the charge under the Bridge. They raced towards the herd. At the last moment the riders broke into two columns, forcing the herd to turn as they harried the zwoots relentlessly. The fastest wolves nipped at the heels of the zwoots, then darted back to avoid fatal kicks. The older wolves snarled and barked, intimidating with their voices. Tawny darted in and out of the herd, almost uncontrollable in her delight. The two-year-old wolf had never been in so grand a hunt, and she fought Grayling’s every attempt curb her enthusiasm for the chase. Grayling felt his latent wolf instincts rise to the surface and he laughed, hanging on for dear life.
“Ayooah! Jackwolf Riders!” he cried, forcing Tawny out of the fray. “We drive them past the hot springs. Let them run on through the pass. We’ll take the stragglers, no more! Scouter!”
“Here!” Scouter shouted back. Grayling caught sight of him weaving in and out of the herd, the recognizable by the blue moth-fabric scarf Leetah had given him.
“Fall back! Let them see a clear road through the pass!”
**We’ve got trouble,** Windkin sent. **One large zwoot breaking away, heading for the outskirts of the village!**
“The herd’s turning!” Vurdah exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Oh, my brave Saen, he’s turned the herd!”
“Of course they have,” Behtia grinned. “They’re Wolfriders – this isn’t the first time they’ve herded zwoots. And don’t take all the credit, dear sister. My Wing taught your son everything he knows about riding.”
Ahdri stepped down from the rocks, intrigued by the sight. She caught sight of Goldenmane, Grayling’s aging wolf. “Look!” Ember cried, pointing a chubby finger. “Gol’mane! She’s come to watch! Gol’mane! Gol’mane! Over here!”
Goldenmane limped across the sand, wagging her tail at the sound of Ember’s voice. Suddenly the great zwoot broke through Minyah’s fenced garden, barrelling down the sandy lane.
“Goldenmane!” Behtia shouted. “Go back! Go back!”
Goldenmane turned and saw the zwoot. She whimpered and crouched, flattening her ears to her skull. The zwoot snorted and reared up on its hind legs.
“Gol’mane!” Ember wailed.
Ahdri broke from the rocks and ran across the sand. She did not think of the zwoot, rearing and beating the ground with its huge padded hooves, trying to intimidate the terrified wolf.
“Get out of the way, Goldenmane!” Behtia cried. But the wolf was transfixed, snarling and whining at once, looking about vainly for help.
“Goldenmane!” Ahdri shouted as she raced towards wolf and zwoot. Her sandaled foot caught on the trailing hem of her gown and she fell flat on her face. She felt the drumbeat of the zwoot’s hooves through the dry rock.
“Ahdri!” she heard Windkin cry. She looked up in time to see Windkin sweeping in on the air. With his dagger bared, he charged the zwoot, driving his blade square between the beast’s eyes. The zwoot collapse to the ground, twitching in its death throes. A moment later Coppersky arrived on the scene. He bounded off his jackwolf in mid-stride and hurried to Ahdri’s side.
“You all right, rockshaper?” he helped her up. Ahdri’s gown was torn and her left knee was skinned. Her face was bruised and she had bit her lip on impact.
“I’m fine,” she brushed his hands away, mortified at her state. “Is the wolf?”
“Goldenmane’s fine, just a little nervous.”
“By the Great Egg!” Windkin exclaimed as he floated down to the ground. “Ahdri, what were you thinking? You could have been killed.”
“For precious little,” Ahdri grumbled, brushing the sand from her gown.
“You’re bleeding! You need to see Leetah.”
“Windkin, I’m not some wilting flower. It’s nothing.”
“You know you’re not made for the hunt, Ahdri,” Windkin brushed her hair back from her face. “You should have stayed up where it was safe.”
She bristled. “I was trying to save Goldenmane.”
“Just leave the fight to the fighters, that’s all I’m saying,” Windkin said. He tried to right her golden circlet on her crown of curls, an action that struck her as patronizing, and she slapped his hand off angrily.
“Oh, Saen!” Vurdah raced down from the rocks and threw her arms about Coppersky’s shoulders. “You were so brave!”
“Agh, Mother!” Coppersky whined, wriggling out of her grasp. “Not in front of the hunters! Look, I’ve got to get back to things, all right? Go back to Father, will you?”
She gave him a big hug and nuzzled his cheek. “I worry so much, you’re such a little thing.”
“Mother! Please!”
Ahnshen hurried down from his perch to claim his lifemate. Coppersky gave his father a grateful tip of the head and climbed back on his jackwolf’s back.
“Did you see him leap off Catspaw?”
“Yes, lifemate,” Ahnshen sighed, tenderly yet wearily.
“He has to be more careful.”
“I know. I know.”
Ahdri was still in a rage of thwarted ambition that evening as Windkin daubed at her skinned knee gently. “Stop fussing!” Ahdri insisted. “I’m not a child, I’ve had scrapes like these many a time, long before Leetah was born.”
“I don’t know what you were thinking –”
“I was thinking I could actually be useful, instead of sitting idly by and squealing like a... like Vurdah!”
“You’ll never be a Vurdah.”
“The village is dying and I’m sitting on the sidelines, with nothing to do but study and hope that somehow – somehow I’ll find water! I can’t stand it, Windkin! I have to do something!”
“Well, you don’t have to go running around and nearly getting yourself killed–”
“Don’t you put on those Glider’s airs around me, Windkin! I may not be a Wolfrider, but I can do something!”
“Of course you can,” Windkin picked up the bowl of blood-tinged water and turned to cast it out the window into the rocks below their hut.
“I’m more than just Savah’s meek little handmaiden, you know!”
“I never said you weren’t.”
“Why do you even want to be with me, if I’m no more use than a pet cat?”
“Ahdri...”
His tone was wearied, and it infuriated her. Ahdri looked down at her torn gown. Pathetic. Nothing but flimsy moth-fabric, coaxed to curl at the ends. Fitting perhaps for the Mother of Memory, but not the village’s rockshaper. How would she ever find a secret channel of water if she wore clothes that tangled about her legs at the slightest exertion. And her hair, a useless mass of curls better suited to the old days when she did nothing but study at Savah’s knee and fetch her the occasional goblet of water. Now, her dress in tatters and her hair snarled about her face, she resembled nothing so much as an ill-used child’s doll.
A doll better left on a shelf.
She saw Windkin’s dagger sitting bare on the nearby table. She snatched it up.
“Ahdri, if you really think–” Windkin began as he came back inside. His words died in his mouth as he watched her lift the silvery blade to her hair and slashed away a handful of bronze curls.
“Ahdri! What are you doing?’
“What does it look it?” She dropped the curls and seized another section. She gritted her teeth at the pleasant tension as the knife grated against her hair. A tug, a sawing motion, and another handful of hair fell to the floor.
“Stop it!” Windkin fell to her side.
“If you’re not going to help, then leave me be,” Ahdri sawed through another hank of hair.
“All right, all right,” Windkin took the dagger from her. “At least do it properly.” He reached into her hemming basket and drew out the thin sewing knife. “Sit still.” He seized a hank of hair and gingerly cut it. “Augh, you cut it ragged. I’ll have to take it pretty close to the scalp to make it even.”
“That’s what I want,” Ahdri said.
It was early morning when Ahdri sought out Ahnshen at his hut. Her torn dress hung uncomfortably off her shoulders, and the rip in her skirt had extended all the way up to her left thigh.
“Ahnshen,” she called as she hurried down the stairs. “Ahnshen?”
“Whaaat?” a whine came from the room behind the heavy cloth curtain. A moment later Ahnshen stuck his head out behind the curtain. His hair was mussed and his eyes were bleary with sleep. “Ahdri? It is even light out? Great Sun, what happened to your hair?”
“Dawn was a full hour-glass ago. And never mind my hair. I need your help. I need new clothes.”
Ahnshen moaned. “Uh-huh. One moment.”
Ahdri paced as she heard Ahnshen rustling clothes behind the curtain. Ahdri allowed herself a little smile. Before his Recognition with Vurdah, Ahnshen was always up at dawn, ready to woo a new set of maidens. Now he was slow to rise every morning.
Ahnshen finally staggered out, barefoot and minus his customary headband. Vurdah stuck her head out through the curtain a moment later, and by the way she clutched the curtain about her neck, Ahdri doubted she was wearing anything more than her annoyed expression.
“Oh, that fall did wonders for your gown,” he drawled sarcastically. “Well, I think we can sew that up, but you’ll probably be happier with a new gown. I have your measurements, so I can make you a new one before the end of the day–”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not the same old gown, trailing skirts and cowl-neck. I want something I can really move in. I want trousers like Coppersky’s. And for a bodice – something snug-fitting, nothing that can snag. No cowl-neck, no hanging cloak, nothing. And no moth-fabric. I want something strong, as strong as leather.”
“Uh...” Ahnshen’s mouth hung slack. “All right. Well, you’re about Coppersky’s height. I can use his measurements for some simple trousers, but I’ll have to measure you for the exact cut and for the bodice – I’ll need some time.”
“Can you alter my dress until then? Give me something to wear?”
Ahnshen knelt down and gathered the fabric from the torn gown. “Well, if I gather this here and tuck this here. And if I take some ribbon and tie this off here, reinforce this before it frays... yes, I think we can make something.”
Ahdri stood, arms extended, and Ahnshen rushed about with cord and knife. Before long the tear in her gown had been used to create a split skirt that was wrapped and bound about her knees and ankles with golden ribbons. Her bodice was slit at her navel, and the loose ends brought to the sides to lace the formerly-loose tunic tight about her ribs. Ahnshen dabbed at his work with cold water to tighten the threads and wash out the dirt and dried blood. “There,” he proclaimed at last. “It’s loose work, but it will serve until I can make something proper.”
Ahdri looked down at her new tunic and trousers. “It’ll serve,” she agreed, running her hands through her close-cropped hair.
Grayling found Windkin waiting uncertainly at the edge of the well. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where’s Ahdri?”
Windkin indicated the well shaft with a weary nod of the head.
“What? What is she doing down there?”
“Looking for water,” came the muffled reply from below. Grayling bent his head and looked down the well. He couldn’t see anything. “Ahdri?”
“I’m here, Grayling,” the distant voice came again.
Down in the well, Ahdri lay on her stomach as she probed the crevices in the rocks. **It’s strange, you know,** she continued in sending. **I’ve lived here all my life, drawing water from this well, and I never realized what it looks like inside.**
**Well... what does it look like?**
**The...** “Uhn,” she moaned as she pulled a muscle in her leg. **The high water line is at my shoulders when I stand on the floor of the pit. There’s a tunnel,** “Hsss!” **That... is just barely large enough to fit through – extends... straight across from the shaft... about three arm lengths. And... and I’m stuck.**
“Do you need help?” Windkin shouted down the shaft.
“She’s a rockshaper, Windkin,” Grayling remarked.
Ahdri sent out a gentle wave of magic to widen the tunnel, and she slowly backed out. **There we are. And I think this tunnel extends...** she sent her awareness down the tunnel. **Five arms lengths beyond reach, before it narrows to a mere crack in the rocks.**
**Ahdri, I don’t want to dampen your newfound enthusiasm, but what is the point of this?**
**Ekuar told me “Look where the rock isn’t, and you’ll find your water.”**
**So?**
**So, the water that used to feed this well came from a deep underground spring – or – or a underground river. I can see – feel – where it used to come from, welling up in the fissure and filling the well. And the fact that the well never overflowed means that either we were always drawing out just enough to match what was the spring was putting in...”
**Or?**
**Or that Yurek made a little dam in a great underground river.**
**Ahdri, I’m afraid I’m still not with you.**
**“Look where the rock isn’t, and you’ll find your water.” I’ve found the fissure the water came from. Guess which way it leads.**
**South.**
**South-east,** Ahdri corrected. **On a straight line to Smoking Mountain.**
**So you’re suggesting...?**
**We follow the fissure, we’re find where the water comes from, and maybe where it went.**
“I don’t know what made me think of it,” Ahdri confessed when they gathered inside Savah’s hut. “But when I dropped down into the well I suddenly – understood! And the longer I listened to the rock, I more I wondered why I didn’t think of it earlier. All this time I’ve been searching the rocks around Sorrow’s End, trying to find a drop of water hidden somewhere under our feet. I’ve been thinking of water as – as little pockets in the rock. Single gemstones. But I should have been looking for rivers, like veins of crystal. Our river has dried up, just like our hotsprings. No, more than that, I think it has been diverted.”
Leetah frowned. “Diverted? By what?”
“Smoking Mountain. It’s drawing all the moisture back into itself. To what end, I do not know. Perhaps it needs the water to make that smoke. Perhaps it is simply a side effect. But Smoking Mountain is active drawing on the liquid fire underneath our feet – the same fire that has heated our hotsprings, our hotsprings which once filled with water very similar to our well water. They both dried up at the same time. Everything is connected, and all paths lead to Smoking Mountain.”
“What do you propose to do, child?” Savah asked.
Ahdri stood taller. “Follow the underground river. Go to the foothills of the mountain, find where the water has gone, and steer it back on course for Sorrow’s End.”
Leetah chuckled low in her throat. “You don’t ask much, do you?”
“How will you do that?” Scouter asked. “I mean, Ahdri – just a few days ago you said you couldn’t find any water anywhere. Now you’re convinced you can just go up to the mountain and bring the water back – like diverting a creek!”
“Exactly.”
“Ahdri, this sounds like something more complicated than building a beaver dam.”
“Not for a rockshaper.”
“You yourself said your powers are only just starting to emerge!”
“I can do this, Scouter! Ekuar!” she whirled on the old rockshaper, sitting in the cool shadows. “This can be done, can’t it?”
Ekuar shrugged. “I’ve never known it done. But that’s no reason why it can’t be.”
“So you two will go to Smoking Mountain?”
Ekuar shook his head. “Oh, no, no, no. I wouldn’t know where to begin. But Ahdri has the right idea. She’ll know what to do, I’m sure.”
Scouter looked over at Ahdri. “Ahdri, I want to believe you can do this – I do. But it’s a full two-day ride to Smoking Mountain in this heat. And between here and there are wild zwoots, mountain lions, ground-quakes, and High Ones know what else. And if you can’t turn the course of the water, and if Smoking Mountain decides to get angry while you’re there? It’s too dangerous!”
“I agree,” Leetah nodded. “Who knows, Ahdri, you might divert the wrong ‘stream’ and unleash the mountain’s wrath upon us all!”
“Life is never without risk, healer,” Grayling said.
“You may feed on danger and blood, Wolfrider, but we do not. And we cannot risk the village’s safety on a whim.”
“Then we’ll stay here, dependent on the Palace for water and food – until Smoking Mountain finally erupts and we’re forced to turn to the Palace for shelter and a new home. We’ll sit here and let the zwoot eat our gardens. Curse it, Leetah, you’re the one who cannot stand to lose control – who rages and screams when one stray flash flood destroys one little garden. But you can’t have it both ways – if you’re not willing to risk something, you’ll never have control! I see we do it. The Jackwolf Riders can give Ahdri a safe passage across the Waste to the foothills of the mountain. And then – well, I’d rather risk unleashing the mountain than sitting back and waiting for life here to get worse.”
“Mother of Memory,” Ahdri turned to Savah. “We will follow your counsel.”
“There is grave risk in what you propose, child. However, it is a hard truth of which Grayling spoke. Without risk there can be no growth. This is a risk none must be compelled to take. Yet if you all choose freely to brave the danger, then you have my blessing.”
Ahdri smiled nervously. She glanced over at Scouter and Leetah scowling faces, then at Ekuar’s trusting expression. At length her gaze locked with Grayling’s.
“When do you want to leave?” he asked.
Elfquest copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2014 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts