I called to Zengor to be still, and I watched them come down the hillside. It was a dream, it was an awakening. What Yorath was it who had lived so long alone, who had gone about in the world without his love? A tall dark-haired woman came on with sure unwearied steps and turned back to give her hand to a sturdy boy. He hurried on and ran past her and came running and sliding the last few yards until he drew up shyly, almost at my feet. I saw that he was tall for his age and straight, with fair skin and tawny hair, a boy of Mel’Nir.
“There now,” said the Owlwife to the child, leading him forward. “Did I not tell you he was the tallest man in the world?”
I looked at Gundril Chawn and saw no trace of the years in that loved face. I looked down at the boy, who stared with his mother’s clear brown eyes.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Yorath,” he said.
I knelt down to him and said, “I am called Yorath, too. I think you must be my boy . . .”
Then he came into the crook of my arm and let me embrace him.
“Is that your dog?” he whispered.
“It is Zengor,” I said. “He is a white wolf. Go and speak to him. He is quite tame.”
He ran a few steps towards Zengor. I stood up and took the Owlwife in my arms. It was five years and three moons since we had last seen each other in the Hunters’ Yard in Krail, at the time of the death of Valko Val’Nur. Now we stood in Ystamar, our magic valley, and watched the child and the white wolf run to the banks of the stream while the welcoming snow owls glided overhead.
We have been granted years of peace and contentment far beyond any dreams I might have had as a warrior in Mel’Nir. My son tells me that there is a girl child who comes out of a certain ash tree by the stream, and an apple tree that speaks in a baby voice. The Owlwife brought silver seeds out of Athron, and now a Carach tree is growing. I feel no wish to return to the world, but the world changes; the last word in the chronicle is never set down.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Cherry Wilder
Cover design by Frances Lassor
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2700-7
Published by Mashup Press™
Distributed in 2016 by Open Road Distribution
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New York, NY 10038
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Yorath the Wolf Page 21