(USFB): Eighteen: Incursions

They had come with the night as unexpected as that lurking dark that called the flesh of the last sane caribou home. It was not without warning the Legion poured over hills and forded the Camora, but with the cries of those who thought they might escape the nightmare made flesh. West of the Spire, as well as from Seras itself and so many of the outlying hovels and family communities, the displaced and attacked Easterners fled. It was as night pressed into the dark palm of the Spiritcatcher, moonless with the heavens wholly desolate, that their cries reached the night watch.

Greshalin roused to the peeling of thunderous terror that was innocents caught up in the midst of a war they had no way to prepare for. She and her uncle stood stock still, the only motion LaRoux’s absent-minded though no less methodical packing of his pipe. Before them, with so many daggers of ice rounding his flesh, the captive spy began to split his mug with a smile. A grin crept further and further up that face until finally, in an accent divorced wholly from what either lynx had ever known, he answered a question left hanging for days, “The Great Syre, Orin Kammherit the Second, will come on the eve when Night himself has devoured the stars and beacon of the day’s love, and once the weeping daughter of light again sheds her tears upon the land, she will see that none have been left to stand in his way.”

“Gresh, I’ll rally the wagons and have them heading north before long. I’ll send our forces to you here; you call them to ranks. They’ll surround you and let you work your wonders.”

“Uncle?”

LaRoux whirled with a snap, “Don’t sit on your paws like I always did! Your pa, your ma, they were people of action. They would never let the moment they could do anything pass them by. You can do more than any. Don’t waste what you have, darling.”

With a flap of the tent, the old mariner vanished, and the last of his kin stared after him. It was not as though Greshalin hadn’t expected this day to come, but never had she thought she might face it alone. LaRoux taking flight, that much she could have guessed, but Gresh was confident that when the outlanders came to bring trouble to their end of the world, Razien would be by her side. He might not have been equipped as she was, nor the best among his regiment, or even one who could force rank over others, but he was her totem. With Razien by her side, she would not for a moment forget that the struggle was not a campaign without blood. Despite her nature, she would turn the river red, stain the glass daggers of her ice with her enemies’ lives, and keep that man, so strong yet so fragile, from harm’s way.

The lion’s sneer had taken an audible track as he rumbled a hardly deserved laugh, “It is as it should be, at home as it is as afar. The woman’s heart is weak, no matter the skill she might boast.”

“Weakness is bloodlust and tyranny. To protect, that is where strength lies,” she anxiously spat the proverb before allowing that first taste of malice to touch her heart. The spy would be an inauguration, a cleansing of conscience to know she had at once ended one’s suffering though, simultaneously, killed a bound and helpless man.

It had to be done, if nothing else, to not allow the functions of the Eastern forces to fall back into the paws of their enemies, but Greshalin could not face the skewered form that hung half from a post, supported by rope and ice. If she met that wretched image, she was certain her stomach would turn and be found not far from the trickling stream of steaming crimson that ran the length of the stalagmites of ice. To look back would also detract from what effect she might have on the first charge of the Legion, which, as she exited the tent, was only now coming into the furthest line of lanterns set just before the bridge. Closer now than even her wagon was to her tail were the battered, bloodied, and barely recognizable forms of those driven from their homes by the late evening attacks. A Soweyn, her coat so red that if blood did not play sole actor, she would be as a living droplet of the Goredrinker’s might. She stumbled into Greshalin as she entered into the night.

The lynx caught the rotund woman and helped her maintain her feet, “Wise one, what strength comes? How many, and what do they carry?”

“Too many, young Northblood. They wave currents of silver that make the work of the Goredrinker’s seed seem the lashing of a myter chick’s claws,” howled the fox.

Greshalin could do little but take in the notion and redirect, “Those wagons there. Take every one of yours and call to any not made for fighting to them. La’Roux, pale tan in the face and going gray, will grant passage in the wagons to all of you on the word of his niece. Greshalin, tell him the name, and go.”

The Soweyn did not manage a word of thanks, but the pathetic and harried twist of her muzzle told Greshalin what failed to pass audibly. As she pressed on, the fox whistled and called to the others who had followed her across the Camora. Moving with haste where they were not limping or being helped along, the foxes and myriad of other agricultural nomads summoned up the camp followers waking to the bedlam. Those outside of fighting age, cubs, nursing, pregnant women, and the like streamed for the wagons. Indeed, there were too many to fit even by hanging from the back gates, and if there was simply not enough room, their weight would hardly be made bearable by the heavy-boned shren that pulled the wheeled homes.

No sooner than she had assuaged fear that the bystanders would not be taken from the line of battle, another set of paws landed on her. Swiveling quick, she felt they were not affixed with the dagger-like claws of her own kin or that of so many of the invaders. Instead, the dull-nailed digits of an elk lay on her shoulders. The tall, gaunt Yerra looked down at her in confusion, “What have you done to our hostage?”

“What I had to. The same anyone else should have in my stead.”

“He could have been used to bargain. We might have held off the violence til dawn with the right deal. Don’t you savages ever think?” despite his people’s otherwise placid nature, the man seethed with a viciousness that better suited the lion than an elk.

Diplomatically, as though such matters still had weight between the tribes, Greshalin pushed Imfay’s paw from her, “He would have spread all the information he’s learned to them. His master would destroy us regardless and with far more ease. Tell me, is that the better course now!? Or is that why your people sit here now? Because of bargains and diplomacy, you thought to effect?”

The two shared a gaze that would turn insides out. The elk thought he must radiate power and control, not comfort, but an ease to take command and mold the situation in his own image. Gresh, however much she might attempt the same only could fill the space with an aura of defiance. She had thought to strike Imfay or even so simply as ice his hooves into place for a moment or two; instead was away to instruct the Northern fighters.

The group was a muddled mass, sharing very little of the same fur in either color or design, but they were, regardless, a unit not unlike a grand family. Dulsenor stood erect at the front of the charge. The battle-scarred puma was the foremost of military men from a land where war was done under sails and over water. However, the veteran, a saber at his hip with a score of nail-like daggers, was no less the fighter for what he had once called battle. She directed herself toward the man before the elk cried after, “There’s not a man in your ranks that will take heed of a single word you speak. You’re weak and timid, better left in whatever temple they had settled you in or tending the myriad of orphans your kind produce.”

“Dulsenor, if you have everyone assembled, form up with the Cubs and those of the West who have come to help and not instruct from the sidelines.”

Imfay erupted again, “Dulsenor, break your ranks, surround the cabins, and ensure the rest of the Western parties are able to flee.”

As though the first order had fallen on deaf ears, the puma twisted back and called to his charges what needed to be done. Without hesitation, he repeated the command from the Yerra to his company before splitting them into tight knots that jogged towards the development of homes. Greshalin could do little but watch, mouth agate at what had so easily come about in the face of such a force none of them could ever claim to have seen before.

Returning her attention to Imfay, Gresh found he was trailing a bundle of wolves who moved to staunch the influx of deer and elk turncoats who led the charge across the river. She nearly lost her nerve and felt a gout of ice ready to coat the man from tail to the nubs where antlers once stood proud, but caught herself before losing control. There may have been a benefit to allowing impulse to guide her paw and encase the man in a dense sapphire jem of cold, but it wasn’t what she desired. What was foremost was a want to understand why her people, good Northern folk who had named her a priestess in the first place, would so easily be swayed to the side of such a brash and unkind outlander. As she considered the foreign forces meant to bolster their defenses, her sights set on the rising, ripping roots of several pines along the bank.

Orathone stood not far from the river’s edge between the cabins and the bridge that allowed his former countrymen to flow in like a tide of vermin. To the buck, they were very much worse than any plague or infestation. Remembering the late Yerra Maxinimus, he couldn’t help but shake the feeling his homeland was rife with traitors and vicious contractors who sold themselves to the most beneficial master they could. If not the Goredrinker, it seemed to Orathone they would find comfort in an alliance that sought the end of their sovereignty, if not their lives. The way down, for those so unconcerned about the results, would be swift and, unfortunately, less painful than those who stood in their way. Still, he wouldn’t roll over and let them win, not by half.

The eruption of stone was barely drowned out by the rush of water sent as high as the trees whose roots so easily pulled up the bridge by its supports. Torrents of men were washed away in the rabble of brick and mortar. Blood poured and was diluted by the flowing stream, but that could do little about those already in the camp. Yet, rising to meet the insurgents were the Cubs and the nearkin, who had rallied with them against the onslaught from afar. Some were young, boys still, and there were those old enough to remember the tribal wars that Roya and the wolves had instigated and succeeded in, but not one was without the fervor of someone fighting for their life itself. And not only did they fight for their own lives but the lives of those escaping into the night in the many-colored wagons of the Northerners.

As the variety of Easterners scrapped and made short work of the turncoat invaders, Greshalin made her way to the buck now sitting on the bank. Orathone was half-slumped over, his eyes pressed firmly closed but was still conscious. At first, she wasn’t certain bothering him was wise, but very quickly forgot about whatever propriety hindered her. With a toe, she nudged his tail. He turned, but without eye contact, it barely registered as his attention. Disregarding the emptiness of the gesture, the lynx launched at him, “What do you people think we are really? Do you think we are really just savages, warring and spawning without aim or thought? Do you think we’re no more than cubs such adult guidance as only you and your people can advise with?”

“I think things are going to get worse,” his dull mahogany eyes sought hers, “I think things are going to get much, much worse before anything gets better. We’re not just fighting those who have turned against what’s right or just the Legion. We’re not even thinking of all of them and that shadow called Amirot. We’re fighting each other.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because some of us are fighting for life, for freedom, for something that escapes what we can hold and call our own. While others, through a means I don’t think too many folks can know, fight for ourselves, for ambitions that could build dynasties that would live eternally,” Orathone pressed a sack of salt against an open gash in his neck.

Greshalin knelt and, icing two fingers, pressed them to keep the packet in place and provide a chill, “How many more sons can the man produce now? He’s not as spry as you or most of his fighting force. His dynasty will shrivel and die with him.”

“Not if he doesn’t die.”

“All men die, his son, my mother, you, and me. Why shouldn’t he?”

“We, you and I, and he, are not flesh like them.”

A whisper curled through the night air and unwound in Greshalin’s mind, uncovering a truth she wished were anything but fact.