by Tony Daniel
Wulf gazed once more at his father.
I have no idea what to do, he thought. Tell me.
Nothing.
All he had was Ravenelle. His mother, the rest of his family, and his friends were in Raukenrose.
She was in Raukenrose.
As he had during the past four watches, whenever his worries started to get to him, he called up a picture of Saeunn in his mind. He didn’t know why it worked, but it did calm him. He’d used his dagger to carve her name on a small piece of wood. He took it out when no one was looking and just held it tightly until his fear and worry died down.
“What are you thinking, von Dunstig?” Ravenelle asked. “As if I didn’t know. I can tell by the look on your face when you’re thinking about her.” She took his arm and led him out of the wigwam. Outside, she located a fire where there was a pot with stew cooking. “Let’s see if they have any extra.”
The buffalo people by the fire did, and soon he and Ravenelle were standing near the warmth sipping thick stew from the lips of wooden bowls.
Ravenelle smiled at the buffalo women who served up the stew and accepted it gratefully. The woman, who dwarfed Ravenelle, curtsied.
Ravenelle seems relaxed, Wulf thought. More relaxed than I think I’ve ever seen her. It was strange. Ravenelle was the last person he would imagine fitting in here at Buffalo Camp, and yet she did.
After they’d eaten enough to take off the edge of hunger, Ravenelle pointed toward the rising sun.
“I suppose that makes this breakfast,” she said. “I kind of lost track of what bell it is.” She dug out a potato from the stew with her fingers and plopped it in her mouth. “You know, von Dunstig, this may be the best breakfast I’ve ever eaten.”
Wulf nodded. “It’s good.”
“That owl of yours looks hungry. Why don’t you feed her a few chunks of meat?”
Wulf blinked. He’d almost forgotten that Nagel was perched on his shoulder and had been since he’d come out of the wise woman’s wigwam. “Oh, right,” he said. He dug a nice piece of meat from the bowl and presented it to Nagel.
“You should say thanks to Ravenelle,” he said to the owl. “I would have forgotten to offer you any.”
Nagel looked at him without betraying the slightest hint that she could talk. She took the meat. After downing two more chunks, she flew away and settled on a nearby birch tree’s lowest branch.
As he was taking another sip, it came to him. He might not have his father for advice, but he might have one of his father’s closest advisors.
“Earl Keiler,” he said to himself. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“What did you say, von Dunstig?”
He put a hand on Ravenelle’s shoulder. Keiler had defeated the army of Vall l’Obac at Montserrat. He’d been the one to suggest Ravenelle be fostered at Raukenrose castle.
“We have to go to Bear Hall,” he said.
“You know I used to wake up screaming about bears eating me when I was little.”
“Yes.”
To his surprise, Ravenelle patted his hand. “Yes,” she said. “It makes sense.”
“You used to get in bed with Mother and Father or you couldn’t go back to sleep.”
“Or with Saeunn, and have Ulla sing me a lullaby when all us girls slept in the same room.”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d it have to be bears, von Dunstig?”
“I think it’s because those barbarian divine ones you don’t believe in have a sense of humor.”
Ravenelle nodded. “Could be,” she said. “You know, in my dream…the place where the bears were after me was really beautiful. It was this kind of wooden hall with a bunch of lanterns on the walls stuffed with fireflies, and that was where the light came from, and there were huge tapestries with pictures of bears fishing in rivers, and roaming in forests, and standing on the tops of mountains.”
“Maybe it’ll be like that.”
“And a door opened up and…they came in.”
“Then the bears ate you?”
“Yep.”
Saeunn heard clattering from the student armory as she made her way across the bailey on the way to class. She paused and watched the entrance for a moment.
Rainer and several other castle boys rushed out. Rainer was trying to pull a hauberk over his padded arming shirt and having a hard time with it. He saw Saeunn and ran toward her.
Saeunn felt a stab in her chest.
Then darkly fell Amberly Reizend.
The phrase from the poem, the song her star had sung to her, leaped into her mind.
The soul of an elf
Is the starlight itself
Why was she suddenly thinking of this?
Rainer ran toward her, a very serious expression on his face, but his arms in an odd position. One of his arms was jammed up against his cheek, while the other hung down. He seemed to be stuck putting his shirt on.
He stopped abruptly in front of Saeunn.
“Rainer, what’s going on?” she asked.
“Every man in the castle has been called to the town walls,” he replied. “Looks like we’re under attack.”
“I mean with your arm.”
“Oh, yeah. Can you help me with this?” He had yanked his mail shirt on hurriedly and it would not pull down all the way in the back. It was stuck at a spot he couldn’t reach.
“Turn around and I’ll straighten it,” Saeunn said. Rainer did what she asked, and she tugged on the hauberk. “What about armor and a buckler? You don’t have a sword, either.”
“We’re supposed to be issued what we need when we get to the township wall,” Rainer replied.
“It is Sandhaven, then?”
“Yes, we think so. That’s what Captain Geizbart reported.”
Saeunn felt a flush of anger at the stupidity of the situation. “If they can’t take the mark by forcing a marriage, they’ll try to do it with swords.”
“And bows and halberds and spears,” Rainer said.
“I’ll stay with Anya and Ulla,” she said. “You’d better get going.”
“Yeah.” Rainer gazed at her for a moment. Then he reached down and took her hand. “Sister,” he said. He kissed the top of her hand.
“Brother,” she replied and pulled him into a hug.
They stayed that way for only a moment. Then Saeunn watched as Rainer made his way through the front gate and into the town.
Saeunn turned and headed into the castle to find her other sisters, the song still resonating within her.
She gave me her light
To burn out the blight,
Then darkly fell Amberly Reizend.
And again, and again the one phrase repeating . . .
Then darkly fell Amberly Reizend.
Bear Hall was the name of the main town in the Shwartzwald Forest. It was also the name of the meeting place the town was built near. It was where the bears and other Tier of Bear Valley got together for their law-speaks.
Law-speaks were meetings that dealt with everything from politics to marriages and judging personal disputes. Anyone was allowed to speak, but it was the leaders of Tier groups and clans who did most of the talking. They were part of the County Law-speak Council. The chairman of the council was the Earl of Shwartzwald, the bear man named Keiler. Wulf and Ravenelle had met him when he was in Raukenrose to speak with the duke. He was huge, shaggy, gray-haired, and scarred from the Little War. Ravenelle had been afraid of him since she was a toddler.
The road to Bear Hall left Buffalo Camp and headed west five leagues. It crossed the eastern Shenandoah Valley, then switchbacked up the side of Massanutten Mountain through a high gap and descended into Bear Valley, which was on the other side. Bear Valley was strange because it was a valley on top of a large, wide mountain. Some thought it might be the crook between the Shenandoah Dragon’s side and its upper leg.
Bear Valley lived up to its name. The biggest population of bear people east of the Mississippi lived there. But there
were many other Tier in the valley. Bear Hall Township was about halfway down the valley. The village was built up around the entrance to a huge cave, which was Bear Hall itself.
The road to Bear Hall was dusty. Ravenelle rode beside Wulf, while Dirty Coat and two other buffalo men were in the lead on the huge draft-size horses the buffalo people rode. Fifty buffalo people armed with spears rode behind them. The horses in front kicked up a cloud of grit that made Wulf’s eyes water. He couldn’t take his hand from the reins to wipe them, though. His left arm was strapped to his chest in a sling. He was glad of this, otherwise the jostling of the horse would have hurt a lot more than it did. But with his whole body bouncing up and down, it hurt enough.
Puidenlehdet had had treated the wound, and it felt much better already. She’d also told him that it would take a week to know whether or not it would have to be cut off due to the green rot, so not to worry until then. Wulf hoped the wise woman had been joking because she thought this was unlikely and not because she was trying to tell him nicely that he was going to lose the arm.
While they were climbing up Massanutten Mountain, it rained.
Dirty Coat gave Wulf and Ravenelle calf hides soaked with beeswax. They wrapped these around themselves and stayed dry, although their heads still got wet. At the top of the ridge, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Dirty Coat took away the calf-hide slickers and tied them back onto a packhorse. A light breeze kicked up.
“Great,” Ravenelle said. “I’m dripping wet.”
After a while, Wulf looked over at Ravenelle and was startled. The breeze had dried her hair. Normally her hair was a mass of ringlets hanging down past her shoulders, thick and shiny black, and she tied it back with a scarf hair band. She used a lot of hair clips to contain it, and had even found a way to brush it in Buffalo Camp.
It wasn’t contained any more. The scarf was out, and her hair had exploded into what looked like a wild hedge bush sitting on her head. Her curls were soaring out in every direction and hung to her shoulders like a tangle of winter briars. Her black-brown eyes, crimson lips, and brown skin were startling in that fountain of black curls.
Wulf had always thought Ravenelle was pretty, but he’d never thought she was strikingly beautiful—until now.
She looks like a warrior queen from the sagas, Wulf thought, like Sturmhilde Ragensson from Sigurth’s Saga might appear on her way to battle. A man could totally fall in love with Ravenelle. Even he could, if his heart didn’t already belong to—
He tried to put that thought out of his mind as quickly as he could.
He forced his thoughts back to Ravenelle.
Yep, some Roman lord of the south was going to scoop Ravenelle up the moment he laid eyes on her. Or actually, she would scoop him up and make him prince consort, since Vall l’Obac was ruled by the eldest female of the royal family, and Ravenelle was firstborn.
“Poor Rainer,” Wulf mumbled. He shook his head. “Not a chance in cold hell.”
“What did you say, von Dunstig?”
“Nothing,” Wulf said.
“I heard you say something about Stope.”
“It’ll just depress you. I really don’t feel like talking about it.”
She turned away and stared forward again. “Fine, then.”
Then she was just his foster sister Ravenelle again to him. Part infuriating, part charming.
Ravenelle, for her part, was trying to think about anything except where they were going. They rode on the huge horses the buffalo people bred to hold up their bulk. Although the gait left her sore, Ravenelle liked the height the horse gave her.
Maybe I’ll ride one of these when I’m queen. It might be a good thing to bring some of the northern things with me when I go back. They’ll think I’m half barbarian anyway.
It often worried her that she had very little idea what anybody would think of her in Vall l’Obac. She hadn’t been there since she was a year old. And, though she was able to pick up images of Montserrat from her mother and her mother’s bloodservants when the queen visited Raukenrose to see her daughter, she couldn’t put them in any kind of perspective since she didn’t know the city.
Messengers had been sent galloping ahead, and most of the village of bear people turned out to see Wulf and Ravenelle ride in.
Ravenelle sat as expressionless as possible, while Wulf nodded to the crowd, trying to look serious. He did wave at the cubs, though.
“How’re you doing?” he asked Ravenelle out of the side of his mouth.
I’m surrounded by bears, she thought.
“They seem pretty well fed,” she replied.
“It’ll be fine.”
They finished the ride through town and approached the eastern mountainside. High above on the mountain, Ravenelle could see white splashes of waterfalls through the budding trees.
Then they arrived at the yawning cave entrance. Beside this opening were two statues that were carved from gigantic oaken trunks as big around as the Olden Oak. The pole on the left was painted dark red. It was shaped in the image of the divine being Sturmer—although Sturmer had a very bearlike look to his face. On the right was a black pole. It was carved as Brenner, divine being of the fire and the wife of the Allfather. They didn’t stop to look, but rode into the cavern.
The cave was not dark. Torches were set in wall holders, and they lit the path. The walls seemed to sparkle with crystals of quartz embedded in the rock.
After they’d come far enough in so that the entrance was a round circle of blue daylight behind them, the bear man who was leading them dismounted and signaled them to do the same. More bear people appeared. They took the reins of the horses to lead them down side passages.
“What are they going to do with my horse?” Ravenelle asked. She had gasped when the reins were taken from her unexpectedly, and she knew she’d let a trace of panic creep into her voice.
She couldn’t help imagining that the creature was being led off to be eaten.
“They’re going to the stable,” said their escort. His voice was deep pitched, and his valley accent was thick as honey. “They’ll be well taken care of, m’lady princess.”
“Oh,” Ravenelle replied. “Well, that’s all right, then.”
The escort indicated that they should follow him farther into the mountain. Ravenelle tried to hang back a bit. Behind her the press of the buffalo guard kept her moving forward, however.
Instead of getting darker, the way ahead got brighter. They came out into a vast room as large as the cathedral nave in Raukenrose. A huge brick chimney led up to the ceiling a hundred hands above them. The chimney vented a room-size fireplace. The burning logs were bigger around than a man. Each was at least twenty hands long. It was an even bigger fireplace than the one in the great hall in the castle.
No tapestries, though, thought Ravenelle.
On either side of the fireplace stood what looked like two trees, one a willow, the other a hickory. Their branches had a few fall leaves clinging to them, and the tips were budding out.
They have to be otherfolk, Ravenelle thought. There was no way a tree could grow here without sunlight.
The light from the fire and from many beeswax candles bathed the entire cavern in a warm glow. There were hundreds of cave formations. Stalactites, stalagmites, limestone curtains, and formations that resembled sides of bacon or frozen waterfalls. Most of the formations were white and shone as if they’d been polished. The rising sides of the cave had been cut into steps that were used as seats for the law-speak audience.
And there was an audience here. The steps were covered with dozens of Tier.
Bear people, raccoon people, bobcat people, beaver people, wolf and fox people, badger people, deer and buffalo people—the only type of animal person missing was the reclusive bird people who kept to themselves in the high Greensmokes. There were also humans. There were several villages of men on the north end of the valley.
The cavern was filled with the excited murmuring of the Tier when W
ulf and Ravenelle entered. It seemed as if the meeting had been going on for some time. Some took advantage of the break provided by their entrance to stand up and stretch, and some ignited willow wands off candle flames to light tobacco in clay pipes and papyrus-rolled cigars.
Bear people were notorious smokers. This was not a surprise since they had built a lot of their wealth on growing tobacco. Ravenelle couldn’t stand the stuff, even though she knew that the kingdom she was going to inherit one day had tobacco plantations everywhere.
Even with the fire, the air was damp.
But the cave doesn’t smell like a hole in the ground, Ravenelle thought. What is that odor? She considered for a moment, then she had it.
Tobacco flower mixed with vanilla from the Spice Islands.
The fragrance must be in the candle wax, she decided. The bear people were famous for their beehives. It smelled wonderful and welcoming.
Which made Ravenelle tense up even more. Some part of her suspected it was all a trick, and the bear and other Tier would come for her with their tearing claws, biting teeth, and those beady, angry eyes from her childhood dreams.
Near the fire was a large bear man with silver hair. This was Keiler, Earl of Shwartzwald. The bear man rose from a large oaken chair and strode toward them.
He bowed to Wulf.
“Lord von Dunstig,” the bear man said. “It is good to see you again.”
“Earl Keiler,” Wulf said. “I’m really glad to see you, too.”
“I implore the divine ones for your father’s return to health,” the old bear man said. His voice was thin and reedy, as Ravenelle remembered, and surprisingly high-pitched for anything that big.
“Thank you, Earl,” Wulf replied.
Keiler turned to Ravenelle and bowed deeply. “Princess Archambeault. It is the greatest of honors to have you in our home.” He spoke as if he meant it. But then he was a practiced diplomat who could literally talk a mother into giving up her child.