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ORIGINAL DRAFT - PRE-EDITING

This story was written as part of the 2016 National Novel Writing Month. It was written without edits between 12:01am, November 1st and 11:59pm, November 30th.

This story was written by David J Rust, aka Sylvan Scott, and is in a pre-edited state. The characters, situations, and concepts herein are property of the author and may not be distributed or altered without express, written permission.

Skylands: the Scorpion Spear, Part One - "Saeldrin", Chapter Four: A Cage of Wind and Ice

©2016 Sylvan Scott

Talston Spire loomed against the gunmetal grey of roiling clouds like a broken lighthouse against a hurricane. Built in the midst of the Eirion plain, its conical roof, a hundred feet into the sky, was cracked and half caved-in. Stone struts and supports, like the bones of a beached whale, were drowned in snow and caked in ice. Jagged, wind-blown icicles jutted from its worn contours with a fanged menace.

Raised by early ramessin explorers charting Saeldrin continent, it served as a high outpost, easily defended, allowing clear views for miles in every direction. During its occupation, no dagdarra expedition against it, succeeded. Only once the bronze city of Bartharran had been completed as southern anchor for numerous, eastern trade villages, was the tower allowed to slip into empty torpor. Even then, it was a stalwart sentinel, strong in its slumber.

Rith had seen it several times in his wanders. As recent as six seasons, prior, he had slept in the lea of its barbican, protected against tundra winds. Now, it was buried in snow up to its second storey. Shuttered and sealed windows were open and gaping like sockets in an empty skull. A pile of fallen, ice-coated rubble lay to its southeast. High above, a portion of the high crenelations had fallen away, whittled in recent days by the unseasonably powerful storm.

Yet even this did not bother Rith.

His eyes rarely left Tephen's form. To see him, now, he worried that the man he had once called "friend" was reaching the limits of his wits.

Four gates, iron-clad and thick as tree trunks, sealed the outer wall and protected the courtyard, within. And while one had been demolished by the fallen stone blocks from above, it was clear that something more fundamental was wrong. They had come due west, keeping an eye upon the stormwall to their south. But as they approached, they saw that the four compass-point gates were no longer facing their correct cardinal directions. It was as if the entire landscape had twisted and turned. Though they had found it, it had not been their goal. And, yet: here was the Spire.

Rith would have wondered for his mind had not a few others in the patrol commented to their commander about it. Tephen, himself, had clearly visited this landmark in years past. Whatever the stormwalls were, however they had been formed, it could not be denied they were twisting the land widdershins: moving Saeldrin, itself, on a truly godly scale. They surrounded them like a pen; like a cage. The tremors were, now, the Iron Patrol's constant companions.

Without any hard metals to carry, Rith had been able to assume wolven form and lope relatively easily beside the marching ramessin. He couldn't run but he wasn't sure he should listen to his inner voices telling him to. Somewhere, the Hand of Ishmar was watching. If he left the patrol, anything could happen. By obeying his captors, it reduced his choices to a narrow focus. It made traversing the storm, easier.

Several of Tephen's patrol had voiced the idea they might try spearing away from the stormwall, deeper into dagdarra territory, to avoid the more potent winds and snowfall. Now, it seemed that territory had twisted around to meet them, regardless of plans.

The Lieutenant pointed at the collapsed section of barbican. "Go in through there. Make sure no hoof-meat have made this home. Then set up camp. We'll spend the night, here."

The patrol decamped, quickly. Within a handful of minutes they determined they were alone, here. Within fifteen, they had their tents set up in the shallow snows within the wall. The solid, stone entry to the tower was covered with snow. Tephen directed two of his patrol to clear it. As they worked, he motioned for Rith to follow him up and along a semi-solid ridge of packed snow that peaked just beneath a second-storey window.

Tephen went first and, then, leaned out and down to give Rith a hand up.

Scrawny but strong, Rith managed to make his way over the lintel. He was barely inside the dark, wind-sheltered chamber when Tephen closed, pushed him back against a wall, and began to kiss him with a strident urgency.

Rith shivered, remembering their quiet courtship, years before. He put up his hands but couldn't push Tephen away. He suppressed his natural whimper at the larger ramessin's insistence. It was as it had ever been.

When Tephen pulled back, his eyes gleamed with reflected snowlight filtering through the window. "Rith: what happened to you?"

Rith looked down, anywhere but Tephen's golden eyes. He crossed his wrists in front of himself. All he could think to do was shrug. "You were there," he finally managed to stammer.

"After that. Where did you go? Why did you never come back?"

Again, Rith shifted from foot to foot.

He had been damned almost since birth. For a time, it seemed his accursed markings would fade as he grew toward adulthood. But after his twelfth year, it only grew darker - more pronounced. It became obvious what would become of him. Tephen had been more popular but something in him had drawn him to Rith. What had begun as a forbidden discovery of themselves became something more habitual ... something deeper. But no one could know. If they did, they might decide that despite his size and strength, Tephen was accursed, too. Association with a tethic's mark was tantamount to possessing it.

"I ... I had to live," he said. The softness of his voice was more than his usual tone. Tephen brought it out of him, as he used to. "I had to find food; shelter. If I came back--"

"No one would have hurt you. I wouldn't have let them."

And, yet, you refused to stand up for me when I was cast out, Rith thought. Immediately, he regretted it. Tephen had loved him. He proved that often and enthusiastically. He just hadn't done so openly.

"You were only just an adult. Others would have passed judgment..."

Tephen shook his head. "I could have hidden you; protected you."

Rith gritted his teeth and hunched his shoulders. "I had to go or beg them to kill me," he said. "Those were my choices; nothing more."

Tephen frowned and backed away, removing his body from its closeness. Already their combined proximity had melted the snow that had built up upon his shoulders and helm.

The smaller ramessin didn't know what to say. He chewed his lip and stayed put, next to the window. Tephen's presence was imposing. As always, he didn't know what he could do with him around. He returned, as he had so many times, long ago, to his position of waiting for Tephen to make the first move ... to give him permission and guidance to act.

"What were you doing outside Bartharran, then? You weren't going to give them leave to end you, were you?"

Rith's eyes widened and he shook his head emphatically. "No! No; never!"

"Then why were you there?"

He crossed his hands and stared at his snow-dusted feet in response.

"Damnation, Rith: tell me!"

He stood still for a long while. Then, without Tephen to give him leave to avoid the direct question, he shrugged, again. "There was a ... sound," he said.

Tephen's brown, furrowed. He said nothing but his expression was loud enough to compel Rith to elaborate.

"The storm: it's everywhere," he said. "And I heard it weeks before it first appeared." Rith spread his arms. "Moaning winds were everywhere - just out of sight. I ... I could hear the thunder. I didn't know how but I knew it was coming for everyone. So, I headed south."

"From where? Where were you living?"

Rith shrugged. The dagdarra had names for virtually every natural outcropping and hill in their vast, polar land. The ramessin took their names, sometimes, but often overlooked their nuanced meanings. More often, they gave places their own names. Rith had learned the old names for places. In his exile, it was the best he could do.

"East of northeast Myre," he said, at last. "The dagdarra had abandoned two valleys, there, but there was plenty of small game. I could catch rabbit, holell, squirrel, and the occasional ram."

"You ... hunted?"

Rith shrugged, embarrassed. "I had to," he finally said. "And, besides, I could always hear them ... no matter where the prey hid."

Tephen nodded once but looked skeptical.

"Besides, the dagdarra weren't around; they weren't a threat--"

Tephen spat. "As if they could be," he muttered. "And why do you call them that? You're not still soft on them, are you?"

"It's just ... that's what they call themselves, and--"

"They're meat, Rith; meat on the hoof."

"They talk, Teph; they have songs and art and--"

"Hoof-meat, Rith. Hoof-meat. There are birds that speak in the south colonies. How are the dagdarra any different?"

There was nothing else to say. Months and years away from any ramessin save as chance encounter had necessitated the occasional raid on a dagdarra homestead. He had been around them, in secret, for so long, he had learned some of their ways. He knew their words; had even found warmth in their cold songs of praise to their solitary goddess, B?nor. But he had kept his distance. They were no more his people than the ramessin.

"I headed south because ... I thought I heard something, there."

"Heard something? What are you babbling about?"

Rith looked up and started.

Behind Tephen stood the raven woman in long, tattered shawls and rags. Her deep, black feathers sprouted from the backs of her arms to make winds that folded against her sides. Her talons were wicked and long. One of them extended, pointing, and singled out Rith.

His breathing heightened and his eyes stared.

Tephen frowned and looked back over his shoulder.

The room was circular. It had four windows, one towards each former cardinal direction. Two of the boarded-up apertures still stayed mostly closed. A circular stair pierced the floor and ceiling in the center around a thick pillar. Radial beams of wood and arched columns of stone supported each fifteen-foot-high storey. And while carven stone chairs faced each window, halfway along the floor from the outer wall to the center stair, the chamber was otherwise empty.

If Tephen saw the Hand of Ishmar, he did not show it.

She lifted her talon to her thick, sharp beak in a gesture of silence.

Rith stammered and shrugged, uncertain what to say. As quickly as she had come, the raven-woman was gone.

"Damnation, Rith; make some sense!"

Tephen lunged and slammed the smaller ramessin against the outer wall. Then, gaze locked in Rith's, he bent in and kissed him, roughly. Rith did not resist. He could feel Tephen's heat and despite its ferocity, it was a reminder of times when he had not been quite so alone.

He felt himself spun around by tough hands; one of Tephen's legs sweeping Rith's stance, wide, as the larger wolf pressed his face against the wall.

Rith knew what was coming.

"Lieutenant!" The shout accompanied the crunch of snow underfoot, getting louder. "Sir! Permission to enter the tower, sir!"

Tephen sighed. "I'll meet you by the first floor door and push from within!" Then, leaning in close, whispered "We'll continue this conversation, later," in Rith's ear.

Rith didn't nod. He didn't move. He just listened as Tephen fell back and strode down the central stair to the first floor.

Rith gripped the stone lintel and looked out into the storm.

The Blue Ice, the dagdarra name for the vast, oasis-studden tundra to the east of their central mountain homes, stretched off into grey invisibility. The storm looked less intense in that direction. For a moment Rith wondered if he could make it far enough to find a dagdarra outpost.

But what then?

The voice that had called him south hadn't called him to seek out the dagdarra. In all his years of exile, he had spoken with members of their race only thrice. And in each case, it was a matter of life and death. But wasn't this similar? Rith wasn't sure.

Below, loud hammering blows reverberated through the empty spire. Then, with a stoney creak and shudder, more voices joined Tephen's. Within a half hour, the interior was scouted and fires had been set in hearths, decades unused. If Tephen had any inclination to continue their conversation, it did not happen that night. And although some came up the central stairs, no ramessin bothered with Rith on the second floor. Nor did they light any fire. It was as if he wasn't even there. Eventually, he found where the hot smoke from the floor, below, was funnelled through the rear of a chimney on his floor and packed himself into the bare hearth to keep warm.

For hours into the night, he heard Tephen talk and debate with his Iron Patrol, below.

A few times he was jarred awake by one of the patrol going up or down the stairs. Only once did he also spy the darker shadow against the walls of a raven watching over him.

It chilled his heart more than the storm.

Rith was wakened by a snowball in the muzzle. Unlike childhood there was no harsh, mocking laughter to accompany it.

"Wake up, tethic," the patrolwoman snarled.

He nodded at her as she retreated down the stairs to rejoin the rest of Tephen's group.

They shared their meal with him although he was only given the most mealy of biscuits and gristly of meat scraps. Their tea was strong, though, and woke his mind in a way little else had in a decade. He nodded with a grateful air to their patrol's cook.

The patrol's cook sneered back.

"I've decided," Tephen said as they finished their meal. "We break camp, now. This storm; the winds curl ever south as if in a large cyclone around the southern edge of Saeldrin. How much it encompasses, we don't know. But this is not ramessin land. We do best in groups, especially when surrounded by enemies. We should head northwest; make for the outpost on the far side of the Dry Canyons and Bone Hills."

"The Dead Hills," Rith said, almost without thinking.

The others in the room glanced at him with a withering gaze.

"It...it's just that, they're called that for a ... a reason, and..." He trailed off and crossed his wrists, staring fixedly at his large, furred paws.

"That's what the hoof-meat calls it, right?" one of the Iron Patrol asked. "You gone native with them, tethic?"

Tephen snarled and backhanded the patrolman. "I told you, that's enough of that!" He fully bared his teeth as his tail bristled beneath the hem of his metal-lined kilt. "This runt has been out here for years! He knows these lands well and we'll need him!"

"He's a curse," one of the others said. "Look at him: he doesn't even cover up his shame!"

Rith looked away. The mark on his forehead only showed more strongly when he looked at his feet. He had lost his head-wrappings somewhere in his flight from the tremors in the pass above the missing Bronze City.

"And we are forbidden to harm him unless he begs it," Tephen continued.

"Then leave him! We don't need him. We can get to Stellis outpost on our own."

"The dagdarra will be between us and them. Plus, they don't know about the outpost. They have villages in those hills. Rith, here, knows where they are."

Rith looked up. He did, after a fashion, know where several dagdarra outposts were--mostly, small villages and trading posts--but that was on the other side of the tall peaks that cut through the central part of the continent. He had been across the Blue Ice several times but never in company with the dagdarra. There surely were settlements in near the Dead Hills but they would be few.

"We don't need the runt for that," the cook offered. "There are other Iron Patrols out that way, right?"

"There should be," Tephen admitted, "but this storm is vast. Who knows which patrol is where and how well they are faring."

"So you expect us to trust this little curse rather than our own people?"

Tephen snarled. "I never used the word 'trust'." He paused. "Look, I came from the same village as this one." He pointed, vaguely in Rith's direction. "I know that he never brought calamity upon our community even up to the very point when he agreed to leave. Do I trust him? Of course not! Just look at that hoof-meat symbol on his forehead! But he's been living out here, outside the ramessin world, for over a decade. Who amongst us can say the same?"

The Iron Patrol traded looks and muttered.

Tephen finally shook his head in grudging acknowledgement. "Fine. So be it. Should he prove to be a liability, I'll personally make him squeal until he begs us to kill him. But until then, not a single hair on his pelt--not even the black scars of color that curse him--will be touched. Is that understood?"

One by one each of the members of the Iron Patrol lowered their eyes and tails in acquiescence.

Tephen gestured for Rith to return upstairs. The rest of the band, wordlessly, began breaking camp.

Within the hour, they resumed their storm-tossed trek.

The difference, this time, was that Tephen kept Rith near the front of the patrol in his sight. He also saw to it that he was given a non-torn cloak, boots, gloves, and headscarf. He could still transform but it was clear that the expectation was he remain upright.

Although the sun wasn't telling, they reached noon in sight of a distant ridge of hills. A patrol member, transformed with her armor left behind with the others as she scouted ahead and reconnoitered, came dashing back across the tundra. She transformed, coming to a skidding halt before Tephen with a salute.

"Sir: there's a campsite ahead. Not more than two leagues towards those hills."

"Hoof-meat?" Tephen asked.

She nodded.

Tephen scowled. "Those hills; we shouldn't be that near to the Dead...to the Bone Hills, yet." He looked at Rith and shook his head. "This storm has me all turned around," he muttered. The Iron Patrol member who had brought word, back, looked uncomfortable and looked away as if pretending not to hear. The rest of the patrol caught up and gathered around.

Rith listened.

At first, there was nothing: just the soft susurrus of the wind and its moaning through twisted spires of ice and snow. There was something spicy on the wind; a warmth just concealed within the numbing cold. He focused past those senses as his ears bent forward.

And there it was...

He never knew how to describe it to those not born with the sense. But it was a sound that carried with it a sense of still quiet; of rest that was, nonetheless, restless. A frustration lingered in that thrumming, deep base that conjured images in his mind of deep graves and tombs that had been dug, deep. There was a scratching, too. As if it had been going on since the first dawn, there was a clawing sound behind the sense of death's shroud.

He knew the sound, well. It was the same near every mass grave, on every dagdarra funeral pyre, and even in the old necropolis on the outskirts of the now-gone Bartharran.

The Dead Hills were called that for the periodic floods that washed down the slopes of the Salt Sisters to drown and sterilize all life in their wake. Most plants, when the spring thaws came, were well-adapted to the run-off. But every few decades or so, spring would come with a vengeance. The floods would be deep and briney: killing everything as it wound its way through the canyons south of the hills. It was a land few embraced. Even the dagdarra held few footholds in the region.

But Rith had been there, before.

He was about to tell Tephen that they had arrived when he heard something else.

A mournful wail rose from across the snows. It was low at first and then, rose to the higher registers of a ramessin's hearing.

This, unlike the echoes of the hills, was a sound they all could hear.

"A hunt," Tephen mused.

"I was about to say, sir," the Iron Patroller said, "I found signs of a small patrol, but weeks old."

"That howl wasn't weeks old," Tephen said.

The Lieutenant tilted his head back and sniffed the air. He closed his eyes.

Rith had a good idea what he was sensing. He looked in the direction of the hills and swallowed, hard. The black, raven stood not a hundred yards: cloak and robes whipped by the stormy winds and snow. He shivered and averted his eyes. She didn't need to speak. He knew she was watching over him; guiding him to whatever destiny she had in mind.

Tephen opened his muzzle, wide, and with lungs raging in defiance of the wind, raised his own howl in response.

The nuances it carried, ancient in ramessin culture, were not lost on a single member of the patrol. After another minute, the response came. Tephen turned to them with a nod.

They was prey.

The others needed aid to claim it.

It was time to hunt.