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Fire. Fire and ash. Hunger pangs, sharp and unrelenting. Death. So much death. Red and black everywhere. Cries of the young and old mixing together in a catastrophe of pleading until it sounded like one wail that continued until one's ears felt like they might bleed.
And then silence. Just the acrid smell of fire, smoke, and rot.
And then silence. Just the acrid smell of fire, smoke, and rot.
Why now?
Stars dappled the cloudless sky and the moon bathed the slumbering wolves in its resplendent glow. This peaceful stillness came only in the late hours, well after they'd eaten their fill and Ran had done them the routine courtesy of blessing their dreams. Kaho knew this was not magic, but a merciful lie. Most, it seemed, believed her wholeheartedly, and for that he envied them.
Now more than ever, Kaho struggled to indulge in certainties, a cruel fate for a wolf of his rank. No matter their provision for the future, their sagacity, no matter how they proved themselves, none among them had what he did. When he spoke, all listened... So Kaho started to cull every ambiguous word from his vocabulary. There were days he said nothing at all rather than risk unintentionally playing the role of chaos' harbinger.
They still mourned the loss of the Black Forest, ironically christened as such because the copse of trees and their lush branches cast shadows over any below. The fire had done justice to the pack's namesake for a more macabre reason, coating the ground with ash, burning everything until the charred skeletons of trees and wolves were all that remained. Since then he couldn't so much as permit his gaze to linger on a raincloud without someone fretting inclement weather would drive them from the salvation they'd barely managed to find.
What he longed for above all was the one thing he'd never expected to want: Family. Solan, his mate, with wit sharp as her fangs and loyalty so unwavering it could define the word. And his son, killed as much by his father's reluctance as the flame. They would never return, nor would Thable's father, two of Blue's pups, or Selly's brother. Every wolf he looked upon now was equal parts victim as survivor. Almost.
His somber eyes swept over Kara, their leader, a savior of her own making who brought them to this river and vowed to fend off any aggressors. This was the third night he spent asking himself the same questions: Should he rouse her? Should she know?
Kaho could no longer dismiss these nightmares. He saw corpses he didn't recognize, felt the kind of depraved hunger that once cost him a leg, and finally acknowledged this wasn't the past haunting him. These were mantic visions meant to presage disaster not solely inflicted on them.
But what if he was wrong? Or what if these were lands far from here? What if —
The air became so frigid that Kaho exhaled wisps of fog, yet the warmth of familiarity permeated through him and he turned with a smile to the array of butterflies. They clung together, fluttering haphazardly about until the silhouette of a wolf stood before him.
Kaho bowed his head. "It's been a long time, old friend."
Lately, Tahara's spirit had been more reclusive than usual, twice now ignoring Ran's beckoning. It hadn't manifested for him at all, though Kaho hadn't tried — which made it all the more peculiar it expended the effort. There was no time to waste adhering to customary pleasantries.
"Have you sensed it too?" Kaho implored.
The spirit turned its head to look out over the ledge. Not to the wolves, but instead to the sky. Passing overhead, a flock of tawny crows. It wasn't what they did that alarmed Kaho, but what they didn't do. A deathly silent murder of crows with burnished feathers all the same hue...
"Those are Aleu's birds." Her servants were migrating and their master was nowhere to be seen. The reality of it all suddenly crashed down, and Kaho, left to shoulder the burden, succumbed to the weight of it. He dropped to his belly, staring at the crows even as the butterflies dispersed and followed in tow.
The shamans' guardians were leaving.
Kaho stood on tremulous legs and howled the loudest he ever had.
"Everyone, get up! Listen to me!"
Kaelyndra
