Exiles
“Oh, fine!” Kahvi growled. “Is he dead?”
“No! He twitched!” Clearbrook exclaimed. “Help me pull him out, lifemate.”
One-Eye and Clearbrook dug the exhausted Glider out of the snow.
“Well, blackhair!” Kahvi announced. “Anything else you’d like to do? Knock the mountains down? Blast the sun out of the sky?”
“Why did you try to destroy the Palace, Rayek?” Clearbrook asked.
“No...” Rayek brushed the snow from his face. “It was the Gliders. I could not hold their power any longer. Their souls hurtled into the Palace with such joyful force, that it shattered the dome.”
He turned, and his breath caught in his throat as he beheld the familiar spires of the Palace now glowing with unearthly light. “By the Scroll...” he whispered. “Look... the greatness of the Gliders’ magic... so long suppressed in Blue Mountain... it has renewed the home of the High Ones! The Palace... it is truly ours at last.”
Kahvi snorted. “It glows like a beacon now. Every troll within reach will be hungering for it.”
Rayek whirled on the Go-Back Chief. “With all the splendor before you, is that all you can say? This is the Palace! As it was the moment the High Ones landed on this world. Where is Timmain? Where is Ekuar? They will rejoice to see their home restored. Why are they not here? Why... this sight alone would be enough to make Timmain cast off her base wolf skin and become her true self again.”
“Base, is it?” One-Eye grumbled.
“I doubt I would want to see the High One’s true self,” Clearbrook murmured. “I doubt you would either, Rayek.”
“Where are they, Kahvi?” Rayek pressed, ignoring the Wolfrider elders.
Kahvi shrugged. “That white wolf of yours always runs wild. You know that.”
“And Ekuar?” Rayek’s brow darkened as he sensed deception in Kahvi’s body language. “Where is Ekuar?”
“I’m not his keeper. Like as not he’s been kidnapped by the trolls again.”
“What?” Rayek advanced on her. “I told you what would happen if you failed to protect him!”
“I’ve been ‘protecting’ that crazy old rockshaper since long before you were born, black-hair–”
“You dare speak so of the Firstborn of the High Ones–”
“Firstborn nothing! He’s a crazy old owl and a damned nuisance. If you wanted him safe, you should have had your Wolfriders take him with them when they ran off baying for you and your fool-headed chief!”
Rayek drew his hand back, but Clearbrook caught his wrist. “Think, Rayek. You can send, can’t you? Find Ekuar yourself.”
“Of course!” Rayek whirled around, ignoring Kahvi completely now. The Go-Back chieftess fumed silently as Rayek closed his eyes and sought out Ekuar’s presence.
“What’s with him?” she asked Clearbrook. “His bow’s unstrung, that’s for sure.”
“He and Swift... had a rough time of it at Blue Mountain,” One-Eye said evasively.
“What’s all this rot about the souls of the Gliders?”
Clearbrook exchanged a furtive glance with her lifemate, then quickly summarized the events of the past month. She left out Winnowill’s assault on Swift’s blood and the Great Egg, for she herself could not begin to fully understand what had happened.
“So he carried the spirits of hundreds of dead in that little head of his?” Kahvi sneered. “No wonder he’s got a few furballs up there.”
Suddenly Rayek took off into the air, apparently on Ekuar’s trail. Kahvi spat on the snow once he was out of earshot. “Who does he think he is?”
One-Eye turned back to the Palace. “The Master of... that...”
Clearbrook clasped his hand tightly. “Oh.... if only Swift could see it... feel it like this!”
“Should we go in?” One-Eye asked.
“It... doesn’t seem right... we should wait for Rayek.”
“Fish guts,” Kahvi turned on her heel. “If you’re just going to gape about like dipper-birds, I’m going to do something useful. The pieces of the dome are good troll-metal. I’ve got a few little tinkerers back at the lodge who would love a chance to try melting these over the firepit and forging spearheads for us.”
“Are you at war with the trolls again, Kahvi?” Clearbrook asked. “Picknose has given us so few problems since we settled here.”
“Aside from trying to lift that cursed rockshaper at every turn. Peace never lasts. And now that the Palace is glowing like fire, we have to be ready to protect it.” She hiked down the little hill towards the Go-Back lodge. “Come down to the lodge if you want to warm up. I’ve got a fawn to see to.”
“Should we go?” Clearbrook asked.
One-Eye slowly walked up to the pearlescent wall of the Palace and touched his hand to it. He drew in a sharp breath and stepped back.
**What is it, Sur?** Clearbrook asked.
**And I thought staring into the Scroll of Colors would feed my soul...** he reached for her hand and pressed it against the glowing stone in turn. Clearbrook felt a rush of warmth running through her blood, infusing the very marrow of her bones. The presence of countless elfin souls washed over her, welcoming her home. Where before the outer walls had been nothing but dull rock, now she felt she could close her eyes and sink into the stone as easily as through a shower of pure light.
Rayek returned with Ekuar in his arms. The rockshaper was weeping with delight as Rayek set him down on the ground. “Oohhh... Mekda... Osek...” he whispered. “All my friends... here with me again... can you feel it?”
“Where’s Kahvi?” Rayek asked.
“Gone, but she’ll be back, blackhair,” One-Eye said. “And Clearbrook and I would like it if for once you two could share words without trading blows.”
“Clearbrook, One-Eye!” Ekuar turned to them. “How was it in Blue Mountain? Did that nice floating girl catch up with you?”
“Aroree?” Clearbrook asked. “Didn’t she stay behind with you?”
“She flew off a few days later... I think. Something about... oh, great sadness.” Ekuar looked at Rayek. “Something’s changed, brownskin. Have... have you grown?”
Rayek looked down at the cuffs of his red jacket, now a little above his wrists. Carrying the spirits of the Gliders for so many days must have affected him. “Heh. I guess I need new clothes. But I’ll explain as we–” Rayek’s eyes widened and his hands rose to his forehead. “Great shining sun!”
“What? What is it?” Clearbrook asked.
“Suntop! What power, to reach me even here! A sending... wild... confused...”
“Has something happened to the tribe?” One-Eye asked.
“Is Swift ill?” Clearbrook asked.
“I... I cannot make sense of it. But he is in pain! Come. We cannot tarry out here.”
Rayek led them to the doors of the Palace, no longer hanging ajar but closed and shimmering with a rainbow of subtle hues. One-Eye expected Ekuar would have to shape his way inside, but the doors swung open easily under Rayek’s touch.
“I’ll be... light as featherdown,” One-Eye whispered as they stepped over the threshold.
“Oohhhh,” Clearbrook breathed. Her eyes roamed over the crystal pillars and curving walls – the stairs and hanging prisms. “It is as if I’m seeing it all for the first time.”
“I didn’t know what to make of it before,” One-Eye whispered. “Now... it’s everything I dreamed – more!”
“The Holt of Holts...” Clearbrook agreed.
“Timmain! Where is she?” Rayek fretted. “She should be here, to see this.” He hastened to the Scroll Room, hoping to find her there. But the white wolf was gone.
“Why? Why now? She has had ample time to return from the forests! She should have felt it – even though she is so confined in wolf form, she should have felt it. Why? All that I promised – I have restored the Palace! Timmain should rejoice. She should already be here, already transformed...”
“Maybe she knows what you don’t!” a taunting voice called. “Polish it or not, it’s still the same Palace, no more and no less.”
Rayek turned. The Go-Back contingent was marching on the Scroll Room.
Kahvi led the way, a little infant bundled in a sling against her breast. Vok, Urda and Kiv flanked her.
“What are you doing here?” Rayek sneered.
“Making sure you’re not up to any mischief in our trophy, black-hair.”
“Trophy?” Rayek’s face contorted with sudden rage. “Trophy? You worthless fool, too mired in the mud to ever understand. This is no trophy. This is the Palace! Our true home! Our great ship – our ship of time and space. Can you not feel it? The spirits of the Palace are ready to join with the wind again. The limitations we have endured for untold years are at an end.”
“So you woke up all this muckin’ magic, and you’re going to decide how to use it all, and dung to the rest of us?”
“I am the Master of the Palace.”
“What a beautiful child,” Clearbrook said, trying to lighten the mood. She drifted to Kahvi’s side to admire the little gray-eyed infant. The baby was being remarkably quiet, considering the shouting match that was once again beginning. He looked up at Clearbrook with timeless eyes.
“What is his name?”
“Teir,” Kahvi remarked off-hand. “So, tell me, blackhair. You’ve got the Palace. You got all the power – all this power serving you and you alone. Sounds like you’re making yourself a little king like Ol’ Greymung. We going to be your slaves now?”
“I serve all elves – all elves you remember who they are!” he sneered. “But I will not waste my words on you – aagh!” he doubled over, his hand on his forehead. “I have it, child. Enough!”
“What is it? Suntop again?”
Rayek sat down on the edge of the dais that held the Scroll. “Oh... he is good, my little one. Very good. He... he has heard something – in his mind. A cry! The cry of elves in a distant place. They call for help.”
“Elves?” Ekuar asked. “You mean... those we have yet to know.”
“So he swears. And I do not doubt him. He is locked with them.” Rayek winced. “Oh... my brave child... they are tormenting him without rest. Only he can hear them. Only he knows where to find them.”
Suddenly Rayek got to his feet. “Of course. I can feel them... the spirits of the Palace. They are ready to join with the wind again...”
An unnatural wind lifted Rayek’s cloak and blew his hair about his face. “We will fly,” he announced, spreading his arms wide.“Fly! Spirits of the High Ones – spirits of all who have come before. Guide me, the guider. We will fly–”
“Hey!” Kahvi shouted.
“By my eye!” One-Eye slapped Rayek’s arms down about his sides. “Don’t do anything foolish, Rayek.”
“Foolish? Don’t you understand, One-Eye? We can be at the Forbidden Grove in a mere heartbeat. We can bring the Palace to Swift – to them all. No longer will my child cry into the night alone. We must go to the Forbidden Grove, fast as skyfire – faster.”
“You mean you’re taking the Palace away?” Kahvi snapped. “No chance. No chance, blackhair. The Palace is ours too. We won’t lose it.”
“Yours? Don’t make me laugh!”
Kiv raised his spear and rushed at Rayek, but One-Eye intervened. Baby Teir began to fuss and gurgle.
“Now, wait a minute,” One-Eye said. “Clearbrook, let’s talk this out, right?”
“Yes. There must be an accord we can reach.”
“You wish me to parlay with these... beasts?” Rayek bristled. “We are wasting precious time! My lifemate and my children need me. I promised them their birthright and they shall have it!”
“You’ll have to kill us first,” Kahvi swore.
“A fine suggestion!”
Teir was sobbing now, choking on his tears as he worked his way towards a lusty howl.
Rayek drew his fist back. Clearbrook caught his arm. “Rayek! You wouldn’t strike a mother with her child, would you?”
“You’re right,” Rayek relaxed his posture a little. But only a little. He locked eyes with Kahvi threateningly. “Clearbrook... would you please take the baby for a moment?”
“Oh, just try it, blackhair!”
“Enough!” One-Eye snapped. “You’re both brawling like children.”
Mardu rushed to take Teir from Kahvi, and the chieftess yielded up the crying baby. “The Palace will not leave this spot,” Kahvi insisted.
“I will not be grounded in the dust of forgetfulness!” Rayek swore. “The Palace will fly. And my son and I will guide it. Leave your smoky lodge and join us, or be left behind. There is no alternative.”
“Oh, I can think of one!” Kahvi reached for her dagger.
“Please, stop it,” Clearbrook begged. “Kahvi. Rayek is right, there is plenty of room for all the Go-Backs. You always wanted to be one with the Palace. Now is your chance.”
“And live under the hand of this one? Never.”
“Then stay here and freeze, and lose your chance at the stars!”
Ekuar silently padded over to the nearest wall and bent his hands to the stone.
“We will not be slaves of some high-handed magic-user with delusions of power–”
“Peace,” Ekuar said softly, yet his voice somehow carried over the shouts.
They turned towards the rockshaper. He held a large prism in his hands, a rough glowing stone of the same brilliance as the walls around them.
“Ekuar? What have you done?” Rayek asked.
“I’ve made a... a palace-stone,” Ekuar decided. “Now the Go-Backs can keep a piece of the Palace with them.”
Kahvi frowned at the glowing stone, all strange angles and twisting filaments of light. Ekuar held it out, and she grudgingly took it in her hands. “Ooph,” she said, amazed at its weight. “It’s heavier than a troll-sword.”
“It was light as a feather to me,” Ekuar said.
Kahvi frowned. “This thing, light as a–” and suddenly she felt a great weight lift from her hands, and the stone became light as air. The crystal hummed and vibrated softly as Kahvi held it up to her face to get a better look. “But the Great Ice Wall...” she whispered. “I don’t know what it’s doing... but it’s doing.... it’s... breathing...?”
“It feels the Palace,” Ekuar said. “And it feels the hands of a pretty young elf.”
“Buckwads! It’s just a rock. It can’t... feel...?” Kavhi shivered at the strange sensation pulsing up her arms. “Open skies... what’s it doing to me?”
“Do we have an accord?” Clearbrook asked hopefully. “If Ekuar’s right then you can use this to send to the Palace if you ever need it – or simply if you’d like to see it again. And you have your trophy, filled with the souls of those who gave their lives for it. It is...” she smiled, thinking of her great-grandson the stargazer. “It is your lodestone, and a greater prize the Go-Backs will never find.”
Rayek paced nervously. “We should be going – Suntop–”
**Patience, Rayek,** Clearbrook sent.
**I have none! Swift is still heartsick after Winnowill’s attacks. And my son is in pain! I cannot wait.**
**Well, you’ll have to. At least until this is settled. Or you’ll be taking a crew of very angry Go-Backs along for the ride.**
“Do we have an accord?” Clearbrook repeated. Kahvi was still marvelling at the crystal in her hands.
“Kahvi?” Urda prompted.
“Yes...” Kahvi murmured. She looked up at Rayek and her gaze hardened. “But I want your word, blackhair, that you’ll answer us if we call for you, and that the rest of the time you and your mucking magic will stay out of our affairs.”
“Nothing would please me more!” Rayek bit out.
“I’m certain we will return soon,” Clearbrook said. “Skywise will no doubt want to see little Yun before long. But I think Rayek is very desperate to leave for the Forbidden Grove.” She ushered for the Go-Backs to leave as subtly as she could.
“How do you know he can even fly this fool thing?” Kahvi growled under her breath. “Doesn’t look like a bird to me.” She glanced at Kiv, Vok and Urda, and she nodded. They fell into line behind her as Clearbrook nervously escorted them to the threshold.
“What do we do now, chieftess?” Vok asked when they stood outside the Palace.
“What do you think, Vok? We go on.” She looked down at the Palacestone and smiled as it hummed in her hands. “With this... our trophy.”
Teir fussed in Mardu’s arms. “I think he’d like his mother to hold him now,” she said.
“Oh, you hold him a little longer – you’re better with fawns than I,” Kahvi murmured. She would not take her eyes off the Palacestone. “Look how it glows... oh, I would not give black-hair the satisfaction of seeing my wonder before... but this – this is a trophy worthy of the Go-Backs. No mucking magic Scroll of Colors that leaves you spouting gibberish, no relics ready to float up off the ground and wink away. Just this... crystal that breathes and shivers like a living thing.”
The Palace lifted up off the ice and rose high into the air, like a bubble rising through the Vastdeep. The Go-Backs watched the Palace shivered, then soared high over the pine forests.
“Well... that’s that,” Kahvi whistled as the Palace winked out of sight, like a shooting star burning up overhead.
“It will be strange, not having the Palace around anymore,” Mardu said.
“It’ll be back soon,” Kahvi dismissed. “That furmate of yours will want another look at your fawn soon enough.”
Mardu smiled. “I’ll be glad to see him again. So will Yun. She keeps singing ‘Baba, Baba.’” She smiled down at baby Teir. “When this one’s a little older, he’ll make a good playmate for her.”
“You coddle her too much. You’ll do the same with Teir if I let you. Come on, let’s head back to camp before the trolls start roaming abroad again.”
The Palace did come back many times over the years that followed. Skywise showed what Kahvi saw as a most inappropriate interest in Mardu’s baby, and soon Yun and Mardu spent months away from the mountains with Skywise in the New Land. But when Yun grew up she chose to stay with her father, and as the years passed the Palace returned less and less frequently. Kahvi found she preferred it that way. The Palace was too tempting a prize for the trolls, who never did stop sniffing around the surface, believing Ekuar the old rockshaper still lived with the Go-Backs. And with the Palacestone sitting in its place of honour at the center of the lodge, the Go-Backs had no real for flashier trophies.
The seasons passed as they always had. And the euphoria of victory slowly faded for the Go-Backs. With the Palace won at last, what was the new purpose to their lives? Kahvi had no answer for those who asked. And as years turned to decades, a bored stagnation slowly encroached on the Frozen Mountains. A new generation of Go-Backs were born knowing only peace.
Ninety-one years after the Palace War, the peace was shattered.
They didn’t understand at first, why the trolls suddenly turned violent. One day the old games of taunt-and-retreat continued as always, the next an entire hunting party was slaughtered, their bodies dragged into the tunnels, blood-stained furs and a few strands of hair all that remained.
They lost ten of their number before they caught a troll scout and tortured him for answers.
“Why has ol’ ‘King’ Picknose turned on us now?” Kahvi demanded as they set the troll’s beard on fire.
“King Picknose? Picknose is gone!” he howled, and they doused the fire, eager to hear more. “The corrupt elf-loving lump of lard – he’s gone! Driven out on pain of death! King Slagg rules now. Long live Slagg! Death to the elves!”
Kahvi showed the troll mercy and killed him with a single sword-thrust before roasting his flesh over the central hearth.
“So... now we have a new war...” Kahvi smiled grimly.
The trolls struck with frightening regularity. The Go-Backs struck back with the many brightmetal weapons they had forged from the shattered Palace dome. It was not long before the warriors fell into the old routine once more.
More deaths, more births to balance the scales. When the younger elves complained, Kahvi had the same answer ready.
“That’s how it’s always been. And that’s all there is. What more do you expect?”
The war had raged for four crustings when the conflict escalated in the troll’s favour. For four years every dead elf had been balanced more or less by a dead troll. But the trolls were growing craftier. They ambushed three Go-Backs who had snuck out under the cover of a morning fog to collect the highly coveted fluff-throat bird’s eggs. One of the gatherers had been heavily pregnant. But Go-Backs did not cosset their lifebearers.
And now they were gone, and the trolls could celebrate the taking of four lives.
“We must strike back!” Kahvi raged. “Arri’s death cannot go unavenged.” She rounded on Vok. “Where is Teir? The chief’s heir should be here as we plan the counter-attack. Where is he?”
Vok shrugged. Enraged, Kahvi stalked out of the lodge. “I know where I’ll find him!” she shot back. “I have only to follow that cursed howling!”
Sure enough, as she climbed into the forest surrounding the lodge, she found Teir sitting on a rock, practising with his wind-whistle. Six huge gray wolves lay in the snow at his feet. The largest of the wolves growled menacingly as Kahvi approached.
“We’re calling a war council!” Kahvi announced.
Her son looked up from his little flute. Kahvi fought back a sneer. He was every bit Vok’s creature, from the gentle planes of his face to his calm gray eyes to the almost-oblivious grace with which he carried himself. An ethereal Go-Back, as out of place as that glowing hulk of the Palace.
How she despised him.
He seldom joined the hunt, and when he did, he never used that strange almost-magic of his that allowed him to blend in the herds of wild deer and mammoths. He always stood apart, whether outside with his wolves or in the far corner of the lodge with Mardu and Vok. He was hardly even a Go-Back, she thought contemptuously. She should have left him in the snow years ago.
“More war?” Teir asked. “More deaths? Now there’s a chief’s answer.”
She was oddly cheered by his naked loathing of her. She summoned her best sneer. “Our dead must be avenged. What of Arri and her fawn?”
“And what of Mardu, and hers?”
Kahvi started at that. Teir noticed it. “You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t know whether I was supposed to know,” she lied smoothly. But Teir was never fooled. “I don’t suppose there’s any doubt who the buck is, eh?” she added crudely.
“Jealous, Mother?”
“Why? He’s not mine. And I’ve had little use for him of late.”
“That simple, is it? Must make life easy, never having to care about anyone but yourself.”
“You watch your mouth, infant, or I’ll knock of those pretty teeth loose.”
“We can’t stay here, Mother. We can’t just sit here and wait for the trolls to pick us all off one by one.”
“Run?” Kahvi laughed. “Run like scared fawns, like the Wolfriders ran, taking the Palace with them? We are Go-Backs! We stand and fight. We fought the trolls and won before–”
Teir got up from the rock. “Aye, and it took the Wolfriders and a troll arsenal to do it! But you won’t call for help! You won’t sound the retreat! You’ll just sit here and die of pride!”
“You... coward!” She raised her spear. “While I’ve lead our warriors into battle and lost friends and tribemates, you hide behind these thrice-cursed beasts and tell me I should run!”
“You’re not the only one who’s lost friends!”
“We claimed this hill with blood and fire! We will not let the trolls have it.”
“You won the Palace. And you have it – you’re holding a piece of it in the lodge. What is this hill to us, now? Let’s go, Mother, away from the trolls, away from war. We can start a new life–”
“And let the trolls win? Never! We beat them before. We’ll beat them again.”
Teir sat back on the rock and resumed his flute-playing as Kahvi disappeared down the hill. One of his wolves growled menacingly at the receding figure, but Teir reached down and gave the wolf a friendly scratch.
Night was beginning to fall over the taiga when a lone Go-Back emerged from the cover of trees.
“Come on, Wolf-father. It’s getting late. The trolls will be on their patrols, even around here.”
Teir looked over. He gave his friend a faint smile. “All right, I was getting cold anyway.” He got up from the rock. “Take care of yourselves,” he told the wolves.
“You and Kahvi had another row?” Kirjan asked, patting his agemate’s back.
“Always.”
The lodge was smoky, full of raised voices. Teir smoothly moved to an alcove formed of leather curtains, where Mardu lay on her sleeping furs. Vok sat at her side, pointedly distancing himself from Kahvi.
His place as Kahvi’s favoured lovemate had already been taken, even before Mardu’s pregnancy. The chieftess was flanked by Zey and Krim, both hardened warriors who charged into war with the same zeal as Kahvi. Krim was a veteran of the Palace War, a blunt female with sharp cheekbones and thick lips. Zey was younger than Teir, reckless and bloodthirsty, with cold eyes all the Go-Backs had learned to distrust. Kahvi approved of their bloodlust, and seldom let them stray from her side.
Teir glared at Zey. Krim was a headstrong fool, but her love for her chieftess seemed genuine. Zey was an opportunist with loyalty to none but himself. He would feed his own chief to the trolls to save his skin.Yet Kahvi seemed blind to his faults – or perhaps she even approved of such ruthlessness.
“We strike at their main tunnel tomorrow,” Kahvi declared. “We’ll send a pair of scouts to draw the guards out... out in the daylight they’re vulnerable. Then our main force will surround them and force the door open. We’ll strike hard and fast, then withdraw to the forest.”
Teir snorted. Kahvi never invented strategy; she simply reused old manuevers. Sooner or later, her luck would run out.
“Have you something to add, Teir?” Kahvi demanded.
Teir held his tongue.
“If the chief’s son doesn’t like our battle plan, maybe he should come with us and teach us a better way,” Zey sneered.
“I don’t fight in pointless wars,” Teir replied.
“It is right this coward should enjoy the warmth and safety we warriors fought so hard for?”
“Be quiet, Zey. I was hunting for this tribe before you were off your mother’s teat.”
“He’s no good to us in battle anyway,” Kahvi said. “Let him stay here and nurse the fawns.”
No further plans were needed. As always, the Go-Backs celebrated imminent death with a Dance of Life, and Teir lurked behind a leather curtain as the young warriors gave themselves up to frenzied couplings. As a child forced to hide in the other room, he had thought the Dance of Life something wondrous and powerful. Now it seemed something meaningless, almost vulgar. What was the point to life, when one spent one’s days risking pointless death and one’s nights senselessly pounding every warm body in sight? The Go-Backs had become nothing but mindless, killing, rutting beasts.
Mardu snuggled up against Vok under their bearskin. Teir glanced at them.
“Must you fight tomorrow, Mardu?”
She sighed. “Kahvi is our chieftess. And at the end of all the shouting, we must follow her.”
“She’s mad. And you’re with child.”
Vok shook his head. Sure enough, Mardu only sighed again. “And many out there may have caught by tomorrow.”
**This war will destroy us. We should leave.**
**You’ll never convince Kahvi of that,** Vok sent back.
Teir brooded as he watched Vok and Mardu fall asleep even as the shouts and moans of the celebration outside their alcove continued long into the night. Then perhaps Kahvi shouldn’t be chief, Teir thought to himself.
The next morning Kahvi led the warriors out and Teir found himself hoping that a troll’s crossbow bolt might silence her once and for all.
The trolls did not take Kahvi. But they took others. Of the thirty elves that went out, only twenty-one returned. Mardu was limping from a glancing blow to her thigh. Teir stitched the wound closed with sinew, then confronted Kahvi again.
“If you want to kill yourself, fine, but leave the lifebearers alone. We’ll need them to rebuild.”
Kahvi backhanded him angrily. “Mardu knows her place, at least!” she growled as he crouched on the ground, his hand to his bloody lip, his eyes burning with murderous rage.
“You can’t fight her,” Mardu said as she in turn tended Teir’s wounds. “Kahvi is the only one who’s ever kept us all together. She was keeping us safe from humans and snow-bears when I was a child. She’s still keeping us together.”
Teir looked down at Mardu’s flat stomach. “How many fawns have you dropped?”
“This will be my eleventh. You know that.”
“How many of them died because of Kahvi’s fool choices?”
“What do you want of me, Teir? I won’t challenge Kahvi. And you won’t find one here who will.”
“You think we have to leave here, don’t you? Or at least call for help if we’re going to stay here.”
“What good would that do, Teir? It was one thing for the Wolfriders to help us in the Palace War... when we were fighting for the same thing – our birthright, our destiny. But now... Swift would only tell us to leave here. That’s why Kahvi won’t call for aid. Because she won’t move from this hill... no matter what it costs her.”
“We have to leave.”
“You ask the impossible of us, Teir.”
Teir leaned his head out of their private alcove. Kahvi was sitting by the central hearth, her eyes pinned to the Palacestone.
“Teir,” Mardu touched his shoulder. “We’ll survive. We always have.”
The winds blew down from the north as the weather turned. The sun disappeared for all but a few hours a day. Yet despite the heavy snow, the trolls ventured outside their tunnels more and more, ambushing Go-Backs before the elves could breach the tunnel doors. Teir’s frantic pleas for the Go-Backs to barricade themselves in the lodge went ignored. Urged on by Krim and Zey, Kahvi’s battle plan grew more offensive, and with each encounter, the Go-Backs lost more ground.
Every night Teir heard Kahvi’s heated coupling with Zey and Krim. And every night Mardu lay in bed, recovering her reserves of strength while refusing to listen to Teir’s murmuring plans of insurrection.
In the depths of winter trolls and elves clashed again. Kahvi emerged from the fray with a huge helmet wrenched from the head of a massive guard. She had already returned the trophy to the lodge and mounted it on the wall before she realized that her old friend Urda had not returned from the raid.
“She fell,” Zey said gruffly when Kahvi interrogated him.
“Did she die well?”
“She was still alive when I had to leave her.”
“And you let them take her?”
“I had to leave her. She chose to bring up the rear.”
“We’ll take our revenge for Urda!” Krim insisted.
“Mother, be reasonable,” Teir pleaded. “Urda is dead now, and beyond all this! What good is vengeance to her? And you won’t avenge her death if you lose more elves.”
“Go and sit with the infants, if you haven’t the guts to avenge your fallen kin.”
**You’re right, you know,** Kirjan sent one night. **About leaving. About... forcing Kahvi to see reason. All the young ones agree... well, except for Zey and Chot and Roff. But we have Jirda on our side. And Kaiya. And Kiv and Yim. I think we can get Jekko and Cheider too. I bet even Mardu would go along, if you took a stand.**
**Challenge?**
**I don’t want to die here, Teir. A glorious death is what we’d all like, but there’s not glory here, no trophy to be won. Skot was right, all those years ago when he left. We should be able to think about other things than fighting.**
The warriors returned to the rocks and crevices near the troll tunnels. Zey and Kahvi led the attack to avenge Urda’s death.
Kahvi returned. Zey did not.
Kahvi was devastated at the death of her lovemate. No Dance of Death, no mourning songs were enough to honour his fallen body. After Zey’s death she ordered no more raids, no more jaunts past the protection of the trees. And she sat by the hearth, her eyes fixed to the humming Palacestone, her cheeks slowly growing hollow as she refused to eat.
“We have to fight, Kahvi,” Krim urged.
“Who can I look to now?” Kahvi murmured, so softly Krim had to bend her ear to Kahvi’s lips to hear. “Urda is dead. Zey is dead. Mardu will be fat with cub and useless to me. Vok has turned against me. My only child is a disgrace. Oh... if Vaya were here she’d teach the trolls something...”
“I’m here, Kahvi. Let me be your sword-arm.”
“Who can I look to now?” Kahvi repeated dully. “Oh... Zey... there was a mate worthy of a chieftess...”
Krim sighed miserably. “Aye, chieftess. Zey was a good warrior.”
“Krim’s eating her heart out,” Kirjan chuckled one afternoon as he, Teir and Jirda sat in the forest with Teir’s wolfpack.
“I don’t care about Krim,” Teir grumbled. He scratched a great furry wolf’s head. The wolf panted happily. Seated in the snow, Jirda eyed the wolves uneasily. Though she respected her half-brother’s way with the forest creatures, the daughter of Vok and Arri never entirely trusted his ability to keep the wolves from turning dangerous.
“Where could we do, if we did run?” she asked. “This is only home a lot of us know.”
“Mardu’s the next oldest after Kahvi now that Urda’s gone,” Kirjan suggested. “She still remembers the Wandering Days.”
“Mardu will never turn on Kahvi.”
“We have to do something,” Teir said. “That’s my little brother Mardu’s carrying, and yours too, Jirda. I won’t let him die in the womb because Mardu’s off fighting trolls when she should be resting. And I won’t let him die as a newborn because we’re too busy playing war to keep the hearth fire going.”
“We could call the Palace,” Jirda said gamely.
“No,” Kirjan said. He doffed his furred hood and scratched at his ragged brown hair. “Nhhh... poorly tanned pieces of dung we’re using these days. No, we can’t call the Palace. If we say we’re going to go crying to ol’ blackhair we’ll lose Kiv and Cheider and half of the others. We’re Go-Backs. We can get out of this dung hole ourselves.”
Jirda hugged her knees. “Mother always said a good Go-Back isn’t afraid of dying. But I don’t want to end up like Mother.”
“Only fools want to die, Jirda,” Teir said.
One of the wolves snapped upright and growled low. A young Go-Back jogged up the hill, her hood thrown back from her wild blond hair and wind-burned face.
“Teir!” she called.
“What is it, Yim?”
“Kahvi’s up in arms again! She’s saying she’s waited too long! She wants to launch a full assault on the trolls tomorrow – all of us, any lifebearers who haven't fattened yet, and all fawns over two-eights.”
Teir looked at Kirjan. Kirjan shook his head. Teir sighed. He shrugged off his furred hood, and his brown-black hair fell about his face. “I need your help, Jirda.”
“We’ll teach those filthy trolls to meddle with us!” Kahvi swore as she marshalled her warriors. “We’ll attack the heart of their kingdom, right down their main weapon’s shaft. Let’s see them shoot us with one of their giant crossbow bolts!”
She heard gasps behind her. She turned, and saw Teir stride into the lodge. His hood was cast back, and his long hair had been braided into multiple strands. Two braids hung in front of either ear. His right hand held his seldom-used spear.
“Well, well, don’t you look handsome?” Kahvi taunted.
“You’re not leading us into certain death, Kahvi,” Teir said calmly. “Do what you want with your own life, if you cherish it so little. But I am leaving these mountains, and I am taking all those who’ll follow me.”
“Are you now?” Kahvi seized her own spear. “Challenge, infant?”
“I don’t want to fight you, Mother.”
Kahvi threw down her spear. “I need no weapon to teach this pup a lesson.” She balled her fist.
“Mother–”
She swung at him, clipping his jaw. Teir yielded to the blow, then looked back at her again. “Does that make you feel better?”
Enraged, she punched again. This time Teir moved. In a blur, he raised one arm to divert the thrust of her arm. As she wobbled, momentarily off-balance, he pulled her forward, then flipped her around, her back to his chest, and hooked her own right hand around her neck.
“Aghh!” Kahvi swore, but Teir held her firm. A knee to her back brought her down to the ground.
“Enough, Mother!” he growled in her ear as he crouched behind her. “Stay here with your tribe. But I’m taking mine and leaving.”
“Nnnghh!” Kahvi struggled. She forced her head up. “You would follow this... this backstabbing child?”
For a moment no one spoke. Then Kirjan stepped forward. “We’re tired of war, Kahvi.”
“We don’t want to die tomorrow,” Jirda said, almost apologetically.
Slowly, others moved to join Jirda and Kirjan. Kahvi’s lip curled back as more and more of the younger warriors stood by her son’s friends. But when her old friend Kiv reluctantly joined the dissenters, Kahvi sagged against Teir’s chest helplessly. “You are all set against me,” she muttered.
“It’s over, Mother,” Teir said. He got to his feet, releasing her.
“Dung to that!” Kahvi got to her feet. But when she once again confronted the staring faces of her tribemates, she knew she was beaten.
“I’ve kept you all safe for more years than any of us can remember!” she challenged. A few guilty parties looked away, but most just stared back calmly. It struck Kahvi how few there were. Before Picknose’s downfall, the Go-Backs had numbered nearly sixty. Now there were only four-eights or so.
Mardu moved to Teir’s side. Her belly was beginning to swell with the child within her. “Mardu?” Kahvi pleaded. “Vok?”
“I want my fawn to have a chance in this world,” Mardu said. “He has none here.”
Kahvi turned away, defeated. Krim hastened to her side.
“Let them go, the cowards! We’re still with you, chieftess. Chot, and Roff and the others... they follow you. As I follow you. Let me be your second, Kahvi. We’ll teach those trolls a lesson–”
Kahvi only shook her head. “I’m chief of the Go-Backs. I’ve been chief since before we called ourselves Go-Backs, since before your grandmother was born, Krim. This tribe is all I’ve got. And I’m not going to lose it to some runny-nosed pup.”
She turned back to the others and raised her voice. “If we go, we go together! Whether you think you need me or not, I need my tribe, and no soft-bellied infant like you is going to take it from me, Teir!”
Kirjan turned to Teir. “Where do we go?”
Teir noted the sneer that contorted Kahvi’s lips, the way the others were following Kirjan’s lead in looking to Teir for guidance. He considered it a moment. How long had he been urging a retreat now? Yet he had never actually thought where they could find safety.
Not through the Palace. Kirjan was right about that. The war-hardened Go-Backs would never stomach calling on Rayek and Swift for aid. Not to the south, for the trolls held all the land between their mountain and the Snow Country.
“We go west,” Teir said. “We make for the sea.”
Once the decision was made, no time was wasted. Four days after Kahvi lost her authority to Teir, the Go-Backs left the mountain. They did so under the cover of darkness. All their possessions on their backs, all their fur blankets hastily converted into cloaks and coats, they trudged into the treeline, the young and the lifebearers riding on their stags.
Kahvi rode at the head of the string, but it was clear her power was gone. While the older warriors continued to follow her lead, and the younger ones went through the motions of deference, Teir was the clear leader of their march. He rode on the edge of the party, astride not a stag, but one of his great wolves. Kahvi sneered. Had she not been sticking to Vok the month Teir was conceived, she might have wondered if he was not a half-Wolfrider, sired by an elf who had come to her by cover of darkness.
They travelled due north for a night and a morning, then rested in the afternoon. By evening they camped on a ridge line overlooking a great barren valley. No trees grew below. No rock formations rose from the sheet of ice. All was white and still. The valley stretched several days’ journey before it blended into the foothills of distant mountains.
“The Great Ice Wall,” Mardu breathed. “Or should I call it the Roof, for that’s what we’ll be crossing.”
“No one has ever crossed the Great Ice Wall,” Kahvi scoffed.
They slept fitfully in shelters of pine branches and snow caves. Come daybreak Teir and his wolves hunted for meat, and brought back a large wild deer for the tribe to share. The eager youngsters ate the liver and haunches raw and blood-warm, while the rest was charred over the fire and gulped down by the others. By noon there was little left of the deer, save for the tough muscles and the bones, while the wolves happily cleaned up.
They spent the day carefully descending to the valley. No one wanted to camp against the rocks where a hidden troll tunnel might disgorge a host of enemies. So despite the darkness of the long winter nights, they lit torches and continued out onto the ice. The full moons overhead helped guide them, as did the northern lights blanketing the sky.
The ice cracked and moaned under their feet. Several elves stumbled into small crevasses, and had to be hauled out, cursing all the way. A stag fell and broke its hind leg. They killed and butchered the beast and made camp on the cold ice for the night.
“The ice is moving,” Mardu murmured as the last of the torches were snuffed out and they tried to sleep, bundled in crude tents of furs, snug against their smelly beasts for warmth.
“We’re walking on the back of a snow-beast,” Kahvi grumbled. “It’s only a matter of time before it realizes and shrugs us off.”
For two more days they crossed the ice, travelling in loose single file. A deep fissure opened up on the second days and took Shurka from them. By the time an elf was lowered by rope into the crevasse, he had already died from his injuries. They left his body down the crevasse, but scavenged his warm furs and weapons. On the third day the hooves of a stag opened another long fissure line. The stag and rider managed to leap away in time, but the fissure soon grew too wide for an elf to jump. The tribe was separated, and the march had to stop while those behind the fissure slowly hiked north, trying to find a way across.
Late in the third night, when the moons had set and only the northern lights illuminated the glacier, they reached the western edge of the Wall. Great seracs of ice rose all around them. Carefully the thirty-three Go-Backs and ten stags picked their way through the icefall until they were once again on solid rock.
They camped on a ridge for the next few days, hunting for fresh meat and planning their next move. Mercifully, there were no signs of trolls on the mountain.
Old Klar, scarred from many battles and hard winters, developed a bad cough that shook his sides. Teir made him a broth of hot bear fat and forced him to drink it. But on the seventh day since they left the lodge, Klar began coughing up blood.
He died in the night, and they found his frozen body under his furs come the fleeting morning light. Teir decided it was time to move on.
Mardu’s boots were old and the seams were giving way. Her feet was nearly white with the sting of frost. Teir and Vok wrapped her feet in soft rabbit-skin and laced Klar’s boots to fit her.
“You’ll ride on your stag and you won’t get down, even if I have to tie you down myself,” Vok said. Mardu threatened to knock his teeth out, but obediently mounted the stag.
Teir smiled at the easy love between the two. Though Go-Backs seldom lifemated – with the force of Recognition long extinct they saw little reason for it – Teir suspected the two might well choose lifemating. It was no secret Mardu had long desired Vok, and now that Kahvi had distanced herself from both of them, the two had naturally drifted ever-closer together. Now Vok was looking forward to the birth of Mardu’s child with a love he had never felt before.
“Most of the time I don’t know I’m the father of a fawn until it grows up a little and I can see myself in its eyes,” Vok once said to Teir. “But with you and Vaya I knew I was Kahvi’s only lovemate when she caught. And oh, I couldn’t wait to see you both. But Kahvi... my feelings for her never changed. She was my lovemate, my chieftess, my friend. With Mardu... she’s more to me now, because of the fawn! And I can’t wait to hold them both in my arms.”
His father and the woman who should have been his mother. It seemed the perfect match to Teir.
“Sentimental fool,” Kahvi growled.
Kahvi was jealous of his love for Mardu. Everyone knew it but Kahvi. But Teir had no sympathy for her. His infant memories were full of trauma: of being pushed from his mother’s warm breast; of having his rag dolls kicked aside and replaced with toy spears; of watching her stalk off in anger, leaving him crying on the floor.
Kahvi marshalled the hunters to look for game in the new mountains, for Teir’s six wolves were not enough to feed the entire tribe every day. She recovered some of her authority and wielded it cruelly, scorning the young and the lifebearers who could not hunt. She repulsed Krim’s attempts to comfort her and instead took the sullen Chot as her new lovemate. But even he couldn’t den with her in her crude tent, and she slept alone, her body wrapped around the Palacestone.
Krim bore her rejection stoically, and took her anger out on Teir and the rival faction.
“You’re all milk-soft pups not to trust in Kahvi! She was your chief, and your parents’ chief, and your parents’ parents’ chief and beyond! How dare you turn your backs on her and stand by some wolf-kin magic-user!”
“We didn’t turn our backs on Kahvi,” Kirjan retorted. “She turned her back on us.”
“Don’t you understand that she needs us!” Krim exploded passionately.
“You love her, don’t you?” Teir asked her one night. “More than a tribemate loves a chief, I mean.”
Krim screwed up her face in a grimace of contempt. “You’ve been hanging around that doe-eyed father of yours too long, Teir.” But he was not fooled by her bluster.
“She is our chief,” Krim murmured later than night. “The greatest chief we could ever want... the greatest warrior...”
Many of the Go-Backs wanted to stay on their new mountain, but after a month of carefully building a new camp, two scouts found fresh tracks of trolls in the snow.
“What do we do?” Kirjan asked as he, Teir and Jirda sat inside the cramped tent made up of stitched-together deerskins.
“We have to keep going,” Teir said. “We started this. We have to finish it. We have to find a place where there are no trolls.”
Jirda bit her lip. “We’re with you,” Kirjan said confidently.
“What about the lifebearers?” Jirda asked. “What about Mardu?”
“They’ll all be safer if we can get away from the trolls,” Teir said.
“Kahvi won’t like it...” Jirda murmured.
“Kahvi doesn’t have a choice!” Kirjan retorted, a clumsy grin on his face. “The tribe will follow Teir.”
But Teir was more gloomy. “I don’t want these.” He shook the braids in front of his ears. “I don’t want to be a leader of many.”
“I know who you want to be our leader,” Jirda said. “We all know. Or maybe you just wish she were your mother.”
“She is my mother,” Teir countered. “In every way that matters.”
“So where do we go?” Kirjan asked. “West?”
Teir fiddled with the two cat’s teeth necklaces he wore over the fur neckline of his parka. At length he sighed. “West. To the sea.”
They hunted for another eight-of-days to gather supplies. And then they set out again, climbing up through the mountain passes, crossing through the snowfields and dense forests, then descending through glacial valleys until they once again saw flat land. Only it wasn't land.
“Oh... dung chips,” Kahvi moaned as she caught sight of it. “Well, you’re playing chief of this pack of rats. Do we try to cross this... this valley of nothing?”
Teir looked down at the valley that stretched out, a great sheet of white dotted with specks of rock. In the poor light, the sheet extended all the way to every horizon.
“Where is the sea?” Kirjan asked.
“Somewhere beyond,” Teir said.
“Maybe this is the sea, and its frozen over,” Jirda mused.
“No,” Mardu said. She got down from stag-back despite Vok’s fretting and looked down in the dark valley. “No, I remember the sea. Years ago... when my third-born was still alive... or was it my fourth? No, the sea freezes in great chunks and blocks that float over the water. But the water underneath is always flowing free, churning and rolling in whitecaps.”
“The sea’s beyond this valley of ice,” Teir said. “We just have to keep going.”
“Why the sea?” Kirjan asked. “Why make for the sea? Why not go south? Maybe to Blue Mountain... or whatever’s left of it, if ol’ Suntop wasn’t lying in those hearth fire tales of his. Or the Snow Country.”
“The sea,” Teir said simply.
“Tell me about the sea again,” Teir asked Mardu as the four of them shared the tiny tent. Mardu lay on her back, her legs tucked up because of the lack of space. Vok curled at her side, an arm hooked protectively over her breast. Teir lay down on the furs, his hand on Mardu’s swollen stomach. The fawn kicked, and Teir chuckled under his breath.
“Mm, it’s a warrior for sure,” Mardu smiled. “Ah... the sea again. The sea... was like a dream. Blue-grey water stretching out to the horizon... dotted with little floating islands of ice. Cold wind... sharp against my face. Fishy smell. And salt. Whenever I’d like my lips, there’d be salt. Endless hunting – seabats, we called them, that would come onto land to pup. And birds. And bears and deer that came down to lick the salt along the rock beaches. And we’d dig in the sand for these creatures in shells... like snails but in all shapes and sizes. No one else remembers... it was so long ago. But I remember. I loved the sea. But I loved the land too,” she added quickly. “The plains of the Snow Country. Long winters... long summers... riding over endless valleys... you could always see what was coming, what you’d left behind. I loved the plains most of all, I think. But there were too many many humans in Snow Country. So we moved north, just south of the Great Ice Wall. And that’s when we heard the Palace call us.”
“We’ll find you your plains again, Mardu,” Vok promised. “Somewhere.”
They descended into the Valley of Ice. The desolation made the Roof of the Great Ice Wall seem hospitable. There was no sign of life anywhere, and when the sun set early in the afternoon the long night brought such a sense of emptiness than even hardened warriors shivered with fear.
The wolves howled at night, hoping to hear their distant kin. The moaning of the shifting ice was the only answer they received.
Kahvi sat out on the empty ice when everyone else had hunkered down for the night. She held the Palacestone in her lap, close to her chest, and the ball of crystal hummed and pulsed with light. Her eyes drifted up to the sky, and the echoing lights overhead.
“I wonder what she sees in it?” Jirda murmured the next day as they continued their trek across the ice.
“Who knows,” Kirjan shrugged. “Kahvi was all against ‘mucking-magic’ when I was a cub. But as soon as she picked up that cursed Palacestone she’s never been able to take her eyes off it.”
“She sees something in it,” Teir decided. “Her past maybe... those years when she was something... beautiful. When the Go-Backs would have followed her down that tunnel into certain death and nothing you or I or anyone could have said would have mattered.”
“I wonder how old she really is?” Jirda breathed.
“Older than the mountains,” Teir shrugged. “Older than any elf should live to be, maybe. Maybe that’s why she needs the Palacestone. It’s timeless... like her. It remembers everything she’s forgotten.”
Two days on the ice turned to three. Three days turned to six. They wandered in a vaguely westward direction, but as clouds moved in to hide the stars they could not find their way. Occasionally they reached a rocky outcropping that made it through the heavy layer of ice. “A once-mountain top,” Mardu mused softly when they camped on one such outcropping.
But there was no life on the mountain top, not even lichens. Nothing but bare rock.
Their supplies began to run low, and careful rationing began.
A ferocious blizzard struck them on the seventh day. As first they persevered. But the winds grew, and the snow assaulted them into the long night. They could only try to bury themselves in the snow and wait out the winds. But despite the blizzard, there was little snow they could hide in... just ice. Hard, creaking, ice. The Go-Backs huddled behind their deer, trying to keep out of the wind.
**This is bad!** Teir’s cry echoed through the camp.
**Dungchips, do you think so?** Kahvi shot back.
Teir struggled to wedge his body even further into the shallow pit they had dug, forcing his shoulder and leg against the ice-hard pack, shoving snow aside to made a deeper shelter. At his side Mardu shivered, her skin already taking on a blueish cast even as Vok shielded her with his body.
**It’s a bad one... Won’t break... until morning... wouldn’t think.... I’m so cold.... Where are you.... Just hold fast.... I’m scared!** scattered sending stars pierced the air, some rallying cries, others desperate pleas. The moans and cries of the deer joined the wail of the storm, until the winds rose so high that even the deer were silenced. Teir lowered his head, sinking deeper into his little shelter, drawing the heavy furs over the shallow bowl dug out of the snow.
**Keep moving,** Kahvi’s call sounded as the storm increased, as the wind silenced all sound with its unearthly howl. **No one fall asleep. Not in this. You’ll freeze if you fall asleep. Keep moving, and keep your head down.**
**We’ll all die in this...** one anonymous call – or was it many, all voicing the same fears – filtered through the confusion. Individual voices soon become lost in arguements and cries, pleadings and prayers. As no one voice could be heard in a screaming mob, so it became impossible to make out one sending in a sea of overlapping telepathy.
**Keep sending,** Mardu ordered. **Sending is good, it keeps us active.**
**But I’m so cold...**
When morning broke, two deer were dead, and so were two elves.
Teir counted the dead under his breath. Shurka, Klar, Tratt and Ref. Thirty-four elves had set out, and only thirty remained. How many more would die before he found Mardu’s sea. Was it even out there?
“Their deaths are on your head,” Kahvi growled.
“As the deaths of Urda and Zey and all the others are on yours,” Teir countered.
If she was seized with an urge to strike him, she did not show it. Teir was surprised.
“They died nobly at least,” she finally said. “Not cold and alone on the ice.”
“Death is death, Mother. We all go the Palace in the end. Does it really matter how we get there?”
And if I was wrong... and we don’t find Mardu’s sea... I will be the one who killed the tribe, Teir thought. And it won’t matter how hard I tried. Death is death.
In anger, he finger-combed the braids out of his hair, then rebraided it back behind his ears. He would wear no chief’s mark.
After another day of travel, the glacier was no longer flat, but now steeply inclined, and shattered into sharp steps. Teir guessed the ice was being forced over the underlying rock. It was hard going. Another stag fell and had to be killed. At least now they had fresh meat. But only six stags were left. Hopefully they were find new ones once they settled. If they settled.
They camped on the ice that night, their sixtieth night since leaving the Go-Back Lodge. The moaning and cracking of the ice was louder than ever. “Sounds like thunder,” Mardu murmured.
“How is the fawn?” Vok asked, massaging her swollen stomach. “Is it still kicking?”
“It’s fine,” Mardu smiled. “Strong as ever. Don’t worry. We’ll have a beautiful little baby in another crusting.”
Again they heard the crackle of distant thunder. Yet there were no clouds in the sky.
“I smell salt,” Mardu murmured as she fell asleep.
* * *
“Teir! Teir!” Kirjan called. Teir slowly woke up and crawled out of the shelter of snow and furs. He scrambled up the hillside, chasing the excited shouts from Kirjan and the others. The sun was just rising in the north, and the sky was painted with rose and orange. Again Teir heard the din of thunder, yet again there were no stormclouds in the sky.
“What is it?
“Come see!” Jirda shouted. “It’s amazing!”
Teir raced up the hillside. At length he reached Kirjan, Jirda, Cheider and Yim on the crest of the hill.
Beyond the hilltop the ice spread out in a great shelf. And then abruptly it ended. A jagged line of crumbling ice lay less than half a day’s journey away. And beyond lay dark gravel beaches. And the grey-blue sea.
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