Skybound

Rella trailed a hand through the waters of the fountain, letting the ripples wash the scene away as Jacob Ward collapsed, attended by his wife and the healers of the Black Lance. The satisfaction of his success was tempered by the weight of the lives lost in his wake; thankfully, though, more Deskren fell than did his own forces. There was one possible future, albeit an unlikely one, wherein he did not survive the charge; that fate turned on Jacob taking the bridge, and he casually sidestepped it by simply choosing to ignore the bridge entirely. He had to have suspected the traps that had lain in wait, as well as the likelihood that he would have been pinned down and buried in numbers; even still, the decision to avoid it had been as brilliant as it had been unlikely. Indeed, it was only during the last day or two of the march that the Frozen Charge had risen to the forefront of fate’s tapestry, and her predecessors still relished the memory.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen tricks like that,” said the armored woman, with her helm tucked under one arm.  "He put that siege on ice."

The other former women turned to stare at their sister.  She shrugged in response, using her teeth to remove her gauntlet from her right hand. “Most entertaining thing I’ve seen in a century!” she exclaimed with a grin.

Ruga snorted. “You’d see more if you weren’t spending so much time in the armory. The wolf-boy’s well on his way to repaying the Debt and returning the spirits to their rightful place.”

“I can’t help it,” Koma replied, working her fingers and cracking her knuckles. “You know what this means.”

Rella’s confusion must have shown on her face, because Ingra leaned in to explain. “When she gets like this it means things might get bad soon,” said the flamboyant once-Oracle.

“Nothing so dire as that,” rasped Koma with a knowing smile. Even though she retained none of her scars here in the dream, the memory of her death still left the warrior’s voice harsh. “But if you need to call on me to swing a sword, I want to be ready. You’re marching to battle, after all. Don’t count it out.”

Rella nodded. She was constantly learning new things about her abilities; the most recent was that she could allow her predecessors to take control of her body should it become necessary. As with all her abilities, it would exact its own price, and it would become worse with use. Still, she appreciated the offer, for all that it made her nervous.

She furrowed her brow, turning her attention to the pool anew and turning her attention to the Hammer -- Adrin Holt -- and the Children of Ka’Na Oko. “I need to See the Hammer,” she remarked softly. “He’s somehow able to fully shift, and I don’t know how.” She glanced between the three former [Oracles], each as curious as she. “Blinding the Deskren has blinded me, as well.”

The image in the pool shifted, showing an endless field of tents staked in ordered rows across frostbitten grasslands. Ordered and functional rows and neat sectioned districts made the Weldtir camp look like a small city in the making, while the Forvalen encampment seemed  far less organized, content to cluster together. There, large and gaudy pavilions sat, pompous and proud, surrounded by the dirty and dingy chaos of the dregs of their own infantry. Meadowspire’s troops, some half a league to the northwest with thousands of wagons and horses in tow, were less orderly than Weldtir’s camp, but far more organized and disciplined than Forvale.

Like a broad, curving line, the armies of three nations lumbered their way east and south, and at their head was a pristine white tent surrounded by a dozen supply wagons and horses for mounts. It was odd, to Rella, to look down from the dream at her own location, though the sight of Wyatt near her tent did serve to steady her. One would have been forgiven for mistaking him for a statue, posted to the side of the tent’s opening, gazing away from the fire lest his vision be diminished in the night. His sisters could not be seen, but the ghostly glimmers of wards stood out around the tent -- and Rella knew they would waken even more quickly than she would from their shared bed.

Tens of thousands of tents, rows of campfires, entire herds of horses and trains of supply wagons followed -- but one group dwarfed them all. Ahead of the armies of Man, another force spread across the horizon in a melange of teepees, hastily-dug burrows and piles of fur and flesh gathered together to ward off the night’s chill. When the Children of the First Beast marched to war, they spared none but the elderly, the young, the pregnant, and the sick. The royalty and nobles of Forvale and Meadowspire stood aghast at the sheer number of bodies that had melted out of the forest, but Mette Weldt had snorted, unphased, and then proceeded to out-drink several Ursaran chieftains. Diplomacy with the Tribes was for neither the faint of heart nor weak of liver, and the Warrior Queen enjoyed more harmonious relations with them than did her fellows.

The beastkin camps sprawled for miles, but it was one seemingly-ordinary tent that drew Rella’s focus. Adrin hadn’t offered much explanation for why he had mobilized -- or even been able to mobilize -- the Tribes as he had, and the nature of the Debt was so old that she had been obliged to dive deeper into the Dream than she ever had, seeking the memory of the Silent Prophet. Her recent actions had obscured her sight as well, and it was only now that she could spare the attention.

She cast her gaze upon the Alpha, the waters of the fountain rippling again as the picture shifted closer to the leader of the Tribes. He seemed unaffected by the cold, conferring with several hulking Ursaran chieftains and a small group of Luparan and Panthren scouts. She was certain of one thing: the respect the Tribes showed this new Alpha was earned and not demanded out of false pride. What she didn’t know -- and urgently sought -- was how he had earned such regard.

“Show me how,” she murmured, tracing a fingertip across the surface of the water as light as the brush of a feather. The vision in the water spun and swirled, colors fading in the maelstrom to reveal the camped armies several days in the past. The swirls continued, and she saw the same road through the valley she now took.; this time, however, it was the General and his Lancers who walked it. Another swirl, and she saw herself at the Gathering, as the Alpha approached.

“Further back,” she said in a whisper.

The image ran and swam again. Trees. Low mountains. The first snows of winter in the higher elevations of the northern highlands. In the shadows of the snow flurries, she saw shapes moving through the trees; first a few, then many. Hundreds of Luparan loping along, then thousands, all following the massive shape of the fully-shifted Alpha. Behind them, slow but steady, came the bears and badgers, the Ursaran and Ma’akan Tribes lacking the fleet-footed speed of their more canine brethren. Along the edges of copses of trees and the higher ridges, Panthren flowed like water. The gracile cat-folk seemed almost slow, yet their lazy gait was an illusion as they kept pace with their canine cousins while the long-limbed and lighter Corovan stepped across the gaps between the trees without touching the ground.

The water swirled again, and Rella could see a funeral pyre burning, its colors washed out. Adrin, as a human, stood before it, a jagged, fresh wound on his chest. Blood matted his hair, coated his hands, and dripped from his mouth and chin, while Iroko sobbed and held her children away from the flames.

“They’ve remembered something of the Old Ways,” Ruga said quietly. “Giving them a voice didn’t teach them how to be people overnight.”

“People are just as savage, if not worse,” answered Koma. “I always respected the Tribes for not trying to dress up their reasons for war in lies and sweet words of false diplomacy. It’s either territorial disputes or mates or retaliation with them, none of the facade of the noble’s courts.”

Rella shook her head, gesturing at the fountain. “That doesn’t explain how he united them so completely, or how he found the means to call upon the Beast. He isn’t even of the Tribes!”

“Look closer,” said Ingra, waving a hand over the water as her dress shifted to buckskin leathers, adorned with  bone charms like ivory sequins.

The waters spun, and revealed a giant form stuck halfway between wolf and man standing in the middle of a circle of stones. The clearing around the circle was packed with thousands of beastkin of the Tribes, and she again saw Iroko, screaming over the broken form of another Luparan with twisted limbs and a gaping wound where his throat had once been. The silent image of the waters made the howls ring even more poignantly despite the lack of noise. An older Ma’akan with a grey-furred muzzle pulled Iroko and Adrin away while another followed with the body. Several snarling chieftains approached the stone circle, more challengers for the enraged wolf-man in the circle.

“Now we’ll see what really happened,” said Koma, stilling the waters with a touch. The liquid rippled one last time, color bleeding back into the vision like a painter spilling out a bucket. Then came the sound of snarls, screaming -- and howls.

================================

Adrin Holt looked down at the broken form of his friend, fear like lead in his gut and outrage singing in his blood, his heart roaring in his ears. Tarag had almost defeated Khotzan in his challenge, but his wounded leg had at last betrayed him. It slowed his shifting, compromised his footing -- and, in the end, undid him. Were it not for the wound, it would be Khotzan’s corpse lying here, on the furs of the shaman’s longhouse. Iroko’s keening was taken up by her children, but Kamaga’s sudden snarl cut through it, and Adrin’s warring emotions as well.

“Gather your wits, girl! You know what Khotzan will do!” The old badger thumped her cane on the rough plank floor as punctuation. “Burz Aras of the Whitefur clan is no match for him, and he’s the strongest contender we have. If only Foz were here…” she trailed off. “Pah. Wishes are nothing. Khotzan will claim you as spoils of the victor, and exile Tarag’s cubs to the northern ice.” This, not said unkindly, but with the inevitability of the tides. The old badger bent down with a grim expression, driving her claws into the flesh below the fallen Luparan’s sternum.

The children wailed anew, and Iroko took a step towards Kamaga, snarling. “What are you doing?!”

“What Tarag wished for,” snapped the elder. “You’ve adopted this manling into your clan, yes?” Kamaga turned to face Adrin, tapping his chest with one prickly sharp-clawed finger. “Would you take a chance to avert this disaster? The Spirits are close for the Meet, yes, but I cannot force this bargain upon you, not even in their name.” 

“What bargain?” asked Adrin, still afraid -- and now, terribly confused.

The Shaman tapped his chest again. “I can send you to meet the Spirits...drawing on the last of Tarag’s strength.” She clenched her paw, and the sickening, meaty crunch of Tarag’s breastbone drew fresh sobs from Iroko’s children.

“But he will die!” snapped the newly-widowed Iroko. She shook her head savagely. “The spirits haven’t answered for centuries, not since we forgot how to shift and lost the old ways!”

“They haven’t given the answers we would wish for,” growled the badger. “No child likes to be told no, but no is still an answer! Khotzan, however, would lead us all to ruin! Will you try?” she demanded, her eyes boring into Adrin’s.

“Will it bring Tarag back?” asked Adrin, suddenly calm. The clamor outside faded, as if a curtain had been drawn around the longhouse. Mist began to creep in, from the cracks in the floors and walls. He felt a power growing -- the same power he had felt when he heard the story of Ka’Na Oko. It was waiting for something, expecting something.

Kamaga’s expression grew sad, and she sighed. “I don’t know. I can’t know. I can only send you to meet them; what they ask and what they offer...that shall be between you and they.”

“You must not do this!” whimpered Iroko, clutching her children close. “I will never escape Khotzan, but you can take the cubs to a safer place!” 

“That will never work, and you know it,” Adrin replied. “He’ll see me as a threat no matter what we do.” He knew he had already decided, and further debate was pointless. He looked at Kamaga, and the sad cast of her eyes held only the faintest of hopes. “Do it.”

The old badger didn’t hesitate, ancient strength swelling her form as muscles bulged and a savage snarl emanated from deep in her chest. One clawed hand ripped its way out of Tarag’s corpse with something red and radiant with power in its grip, while her teeth suddenly sank into Adrin’s chest. Panic gripped him, sudden and animal, but her other paw on his shoulder held him fast. She pulled her jaws away, and in the same motion, thrust Tarag’s heart deep into the man’s body.

In that moment, Adrin came to understand a brutal truth of Anfealt:

The wild magics were never kind.

***

Adrin thrashed his way to consciousness as the pain in his chest faded. He rose from sand, mists obscuring his vision in all directions. Overhead, the dim glow of the moons served only to lend an eerie glow to the mist, which cast their own, constantly-shifting shadows, swaying like living things in the night. His heart raced, but it felt strange -- as if it gave an extra beat every handful of breaths.

Something flew past him, then, in the mist -- inches from his head. His whirling thoughts stopped short as the sound was followed by panting, and scratching in the dirt, just out of sight ahead. More sounds, forest sounds, wild sounds -- the rustling of leaves, the echo of clashed antlers. The growls of all manner of beasts, rising and falling around him. Eventually, the cacophony coalesced into a voice, faded and muted as if heard from underwater, coming from around him and inside him and from nowhere at all.

Another comes…

“Who’s there?” he said, spinning around before he realized he had felt the words, and not heard them with his ears.

This one is weak…

“What do you mean, weak?”

Shadows deepened, as did the growls and yips and the snap of teeth in the darkness. Instinctively he ducked away, and the noises gave chase, sending him headlong into the mist.

He is not of the Children, but with the heart of one of our children…

We cannot wait for another.

We weaken…

Growls and snarls bracketed him on either side as he stumbled across the sand, only coming close enough to turn him this way or that. “You’re herding me,” he said out loud. “What do you want?” The voices in the night seemed to be having a conversation with themselves, and they continued their discourse without answering his question -- indeed, may not have even heard him.

He would come to bargain, as the others did before.

They were not strong enough for our gift…

We are weaker than before. It may not destroy this one…

“Gift?” Adrin shook his head, uncomprehending. “And what do you mean you are weaker than before?”

We are weakened by the Debt, manling.

You must see, before you bargain for our gifts.

We are trapped, though we chose it.

The wound must be contained, but we are weakened.

We fade…

Suddenly large shadows loomed out of the mist. He reflexively shied back from a statue of marble so white and pure that even the dim light of the moons threatened to blind him with its reflected gleam. A woman, over thirty paces tall, a lantern in her left hand and a book in the other. The folds of her robes and the locks of her hair were carved in such exquisite detail they seemed to move in a non-existent wind.

We are bound.

“Who is this?” Adrin couldn't take his eyes off the statue, and saw more shadows to the left and right, details lost in the darkness and mist.

Asima, the manling goddess.

They are all here. All of us, to bind the wound from which the world bleeds…

We weaken and fade…

The Debt must be repaid.

Our children have forgotten…

LOOK! a voice suddenly demanded.

A sudden swirl of wind dispersed the fog, kicking up sand and tugging at Adrin’s entire form. Less wind and more a flow like sliding downhill, he stepped forwards before catching himself with one hand on the leg of the statue of the goddess. And then he gasped.

More statues stood to either side, describing a circle that had to be at least a mile across. To the left of Asima’s statue was a short and stout form that could only have been a dwarf carved from rough grey rock. A hammer and tongs hung on his apron. 

To the right stood another statue, tall and slender, made of polished jade, pointed ears and aquiline features leaving him sure she was an elf -- or whatever Anfealt called such creatures. Beyond the elf stood a statue of a giant wolf, with glowing amber eyes and raised hackles. Past the dwarf stood a massive bear, frozen on its hind legs, mouth agape as if roaring at an unseen foe. More forms stood in the circle, all looking inwards. A tall man leaned on a spear, pointing inwards. A woman stood on one bare foot, clad in diaphanous robes of stone so sheer and thin he knew it would have been impossible to carve, frozen in a moment of dance. Another form crouched low, a dagger in each hand and sculpted from stone so dark it drank the light around it. In the far distance he could see what looked like a dragon from Earth’s fiction, looming over the statues nearby, wings outspread and maw gaping as if about to breathe flame.

Dozens of figures, dozens of less human forms.

We weaken…

The sound of cracking stone spun him back around, and looking up, he could see a new fissure along the arm of Asima’s statue. Light briefly glowed through the crack before it slowly mended itself, leaving a darkened blemish in its wake like a scar. Now that he had seen the one, he noticed many more lines painting a web across the statue. Looking left and right, he could see similar degradation on the others closest to where he stood.

We are not enough…

Repay the Debt.

“I don’t understand,” he said, turning in a circle before an invisible force nipped at his ear and turned him back to face the center.

Look.

See.

This place was once green and wild.

Shelter in the great sands.

The prophet came.

Came to die.

Where all the statues faced, in the very center, the sand was black and dirty and melted together like tainted glass. Floating above the center of the black glass, distorted space twisted and dove into itself, a pocket of absolute nothing held in the center. Occasionally, bits of dust and sand were drawn in to disappear into that pocket.

“What is that!?”he demanded, revulsion in his voice.

The end.

The world bleeds from the wound. 

Life.

Power.

Magic.

The manling put the band around the Prophet’s neck.

She gave herself to the ending to break his power…

But the world was wounded in the giving…

And now the world is dying.

More cracking sounds, from different statues. The damage healed, slowly, but left its marks. Adrin Holt did not consider himself gifted with all that much intelligence, but neither did he consider himself stupid. The severity of the situation was not lost on him, even through the shock of the experience.

“What must I do?”

Repay the Debt.

Weakened honor weakens a people.

We are made stronger by the faith of our children.

Restore their honor.

To give us more… time…

Tell the Prophet.

Seek a way to heal the wound.

Before the sands consume the world.

“I don’t know how to repay the Debt!” Adrin objected. “The tribes will never follow me!”

They will.

Our Gifts.

They have lost, long ago.

We weaken, but we must be enough…

One last Gift.

“And what must I do with it?”

Conquer them.

The oldest of ways.

Challenge the Alpha.

The heart of our child in your chest shows us the path…

Receive our gift.

Repay the Debt.

The mists swirled again, cutting off the statues, the world, choking him in a whirlwind of sand and power. The pain in his chest burned anew, magnified a hundredfold, and his heart -- no, he realized, his hearts -- raced at a terrible, unsustainable pace that threatened to bury him in their sound. With the pain came unbidden rage, and it found voice through a snarl and clenched teeth. He only realized Kamaga was still holding him up, that only moments had passed in the real world, when he fell to his knees, gasping and choking.

A deep, guttural voice broke through his haze. “What have you done, Kamaga?” Khotzan demanded, his bestial form looming at the entrance to the shaman’s house, a terrified Iroko pressing herself and her cubs against the far wall.

Uncowed, Kamaga stared the Alpha down. “Only what the Spirits bade me,” she replied wearily. 

“It won’t save the manling.” Khotzan stalked forward, knocking Kamaga aside with an almost casual brutality. She hit the far wall and slumped, unconscious, to the dirt.

Pressure built up in Adrin’s head and chest, making it difficult to draw breath. He had not forgotten, not the pain, nor the fire, nor the memory of his vision. “Tarag….was my friend,” he growled, vision reddening from the outside in.

Khotzan snarled. “Then join hi--!”

The pressure broke free, like a wave from the core of his being. He felt his bones snap and reform, from his toes up through his legs and back, to his face and arms and hands. His teeth popped and changed shape as his blood roared in his ears.

Then, he snarled, and the sound wasn’t human at all.

=========================

Rella’s head snapped back, kicked from the man’s perspective by the sudden and overwhelming pressure of the sheer rage emanating from the Hammer as the towering form of a wolf quickly shattered the longhouse around itself. Adrin gave a most canine shake, shrugging the timbers off his back while crouching to shelter Iroko and her cubs from falling debris. The force of his howl had propelled Khotzan back into the stone circle as if swatted by a giant, and the wolf stalked forward, snarling.

The beastkin tribes had always had an unspoken hierarchy, with more deference given to those who could shift closer to their full beast forms. Until now, Khotzan had been the one who could shift closer than others, pushing himself almost-but-not-quite into a full quadrupedal wolf form. His arms were elongated and his hands viciously clawed, as were his digitigrade feet, with broad and muscular shoulders almost akin to the greatest of jungle apes.

Before him now, however stood a true wolf, twice as tall as a man at its shoulder. With fur blacker than the deepest night, the golden eyes gleamed, reflecting the light of the campfires around the Meet. Khotzan was no coward, however, and immediately pressed the attack, lunging to meet the wolf at the edge of the circle.

The wolf spun, teeth flashing in the firelight, and though Khotzan scored a hit -- raking a deep gash down his flank with his claws -- he found those teeth buried deep in his forearm, and then with a vicious yank, Adrin tore it away, along with Khotzan’s hand. He sprang back, snarling, as Adrin advanced, hackles raised, blood dripping from his fangs. Looking around, Khotzan buried his stump in the nearest fire pit, biting back a shriek as the stench of burning fur and meat filled the area.

Seeing that the battle had left the confines of the circle, the rest of the tribes had fallen back -- some in awe, others in fear. The Alpha roared, plunging his remaining hand into the coals and slinging them into Adrin’s face --

-- only Adrin was nowhere to be found. As if the wolf were made of liquid night, he flowed into the mist that had, by this point, entirely suffused the valley. The moons hung overhead, seeming to be watching the events unfold. Power, naked and raw, hummed in the air, and a sad, mournful howl seemed to echo down from the larger moon. Khotzan, eyes wild, spun left and right, slashing wildly at the mists but catching only air, before a shadow blurred into existence before him. A flash of black fur and white fang and it was past him, leaving only a vague impression. A moment later, Khotzan stumbled, his left leg hamstrung and bleeding freely into the dirt.

Two more snarls preceded two more flashes, and Khotzan screamed in impotent rage as he toppled backward, nerveless legs refusing to support him. At last, the massive wolf materialized from the mist, bringing one massive black paw down on the Alpha’s chest, pinning him to the dirt. He flailed uselessly at that gigantic limb, screaming imprecations as Adrin regarded the assembled tribes. They regarded him in turn, waiting expectantly.His jaws dipped down and the Alpha’s screams ceased.

A moment later, the Alpha raised his head...

...and howled.