The Dawn King (The Moon People, Book Five)

by Claudia King

  “Why do you think I waited till Kiren ran on?”

  Despite the tickle of annoyance in Adel's throat, she allowed herself to return her apprentice's smile. What harm did it do, really, when they were alone? She would have to spend the rest of the night as her pack's den mother. She could afford to be Adel for a few moments.

  “I want you with me if we approach these travellers,” she said. “Orec still tells tales about how you put yourself between his hunting pack and a band of Sun People all those years ago. You've bargained for a peace like this before, and no one knows the Sun People like you do.”

  “I may not know them as well as you think. These Sun People who travel the rivers, they are different from the men and women of my village. Kale is the one who comes from their lands. He would understand their ways better than I.”

  “Then we shall bring him too. Perhaps if the spirits smile upon us some of these travellers will recognise him.”

  “That may not work to our favour,” Netya said softly. “Sun wolves are as unwelcome among their people as they are among ours.”

  A twinge of empathy tugged at Adel's heart. “You no longer call them your people.”

  Netya nodded, weariness tarnishing her smile. “Perhaps I've grown tired of some things too.”

  “Do you really never think of your life before? Of the people you left behind? The question of returning to them?”

  “It is not a helpful question to dwell on.”

  Adel shook her head. “I cannot understand how you do it. The phantoms of the past are always around me.”

  “They may be, but they are only echoes calling from the spirit world.” Netya reached out and gave Adel's shoulder a squeeze. “We are here. We are flesh and blood. When I focus on the people around me, I stop seeing the phantoms. Perhaps if you had someone to remind you of that it would be easier.”

  Adel shrugged her off. In the past it might have been a cold gesture, but this time it held a note of vulnerability.

  “You mean Orec. I know of his feelings for me. Yes, yes, it would make the clan happy. They would see great omens in the joining of their alpha and den mother. A blessing upon us all.”

  “I do not think you should do it for them. What does your heart desire?”

  Adel fell silent, resisting the urge to close herself off. It hurt to acknowledge these feelings. It made her weak, indecisive. She was the one who should be giving this advice to others, not fretting over it herself.

  “I want...” she said at last, “something that I am not yet ready for. But I will be.” She held on to that certainty, making it a point of focus for her troubled heart. “I feel something for Orec too. I could be his mate. Yes. I could.”

  “I understand. You need time to forget Jarek.”

  “No, he is long forgotten. I only pretended he was not.” Adel looked away, blinking hard. Her voice took on a strained quality. “One way or another, I know his love for me is no more. He is just another one of the phantoms now.”

  “You need time to remember your own self, then?”

  Adel nodded slowly. “Perhaps that is it. I must know what I am offering Orec before I give myself to him.”

  “If ever you need to speak of these things, please come to me,” Netya said. “Don't seal yourself away again.”

  Adel turned back to her with a smile. “I shall try.”

  Their conversation trailed off as they caught up with Kiren again. Before long the three women had reached the top of the ridge where sheer rock blocked any further ascent. Only a narrow fissure allowed passage through to the other side.

  “It was somewhere here,” Kiren said as she rooted through the overgrown summer plants.

  “Search quickly, girl.” Adel turned to look back down into the valley, a strange sense of melancholy suffusing her thoughts as she gazed out over the den her people had built. Purple-thatched huts and hide-draped cavern entrances stood out against the far ridge. They had accomplished much here. How would this place look a generation from now? Would it survive beyond Adel's years, becoming one of the great ancestral homes of the Moon People for their grandchildren's grandchildren?

  She did not know why the sudden moment of reflection had seized her, and she shook it off as soon as she heard Kiren calling from behind them. This romantic melancholy was of little use to her right now.

  From a narrow gap in between some rocks Kiren was yanking out a roll of leather. The end had gathered up a plug of loose soil and mud over the past seasons, but otherwise the nook seemed to have protected it from the ravages of the elements. Knocking off the mud, Kiren found a flat spot in the grass to unfurl it. An expanse of lines and symbols spread out before Adel, dark marks burnt into the leather the same way Caspian burnt symbols into pieces of wood when he wanted to make records of things. This was more than a simple reminder of objects or names, though. It was a story.

  “It looks like the murals in Khelt's cave of alphas,” Netya said under her breath. “How long must it have taken to make something like this?”

  “The shaman worked on it every day,” Kiren said, planting down some stones to weigh the map's corners. “He said it was the true treasure of his pilgrimage, more than any amount of metal he could bring home.”

  “I am sure a man could trade this for more metal than he would ever need,” Adel murmured, tracing the lines with her fingertips. She could already see the shapes taking form. Once she understood the line of peaks that represented the mountain range, the rest began to fall into place. Here were the plains of Alpha Khelt's clan. There the southern lands of her father. The forests of Netya's people. Parts of the picture were still strangely barren, but the passage through the lands of the Moon People was meticulously detailed. Dappled lines marked the flow of rivers leading inland from the great water, accompanied by pictures of intact canoes along some and broken ones on others. This was what Kiren had meant by a guide. It was not simply a suggestion of the lands around them like the mural Meadow had made, it was a detailed story that could be understood even without a seer to explain it. It showed which rivers were safe and which were dangerous. Small figures of men around a fire were depicted near the coast, while a large area of land in the southwest had a wolf's head drawn over it along with a stain of browned crimson. That would be Octavia's territory—land in which the Sun People's pilgrims had met battle many years before.

  Kiren and Netya were talking about something, but Adel had become absorbed in the lines of the map. The most detailed markings seemed to radiate out from a path leading away from the Moon People's territory, snaking down from the left edge of the map and back around to the right side. They passed the divide of the mountain range south, beyond the boundaries of Alpha Neman's territory, all the while following the coast of the great water. Eventually they bloomed into a rich picture of men, fires, and houses, all connected by lines of canoes and symbols that resembled the horned heads of aurochs. At the centre of it all was a drawing of many houses stacked atop one another, and an empty half-circle rising from a section of leather that had been burned a solid black. Was this where the travellers had come from?

  “Do you understand what this picture is saying, Netya?” she asked. When Netya hesitated she pointed to a swathe of tree symbols clustered around a single house on the eastern edge of the plains. “This is a settlement close to your village. Look even farther east.” She drew her finger across to the area with the stacked houses and half-circle. “Did you ever hear tales of this place?”

  Netya stared at the house among the trees for a moment before answering. “The traders always came from that direction. They were the ones who brought metal to my village. I barely spoke with them. I only knew that they travelled from a place far away.”

  “From a place where the Sun People's villages grow as large as our gathering. Where they learn the magic of shaping metal.” Adel looked at Kiren. “Is that where the man who made this map came from?”

  Kiren shrugged. “Where else would he have been taking his riches
?”

  Adel's eyes returned to the map, fascinated by the sheer scale of it. She felt that she could have gazed upon such pictures for days. How had she never recognised the value in recording knowledge like this before? Yet along with her fascination came a creeping finger of dread. When she looked from one side of the map to the other she saw a clear difference in the number of wolf's head symbols compared to the expanse covered by houses and men. The lands of the Sun People were vast, its settlements clustered in a way that suggested cooperation, not competition. While the Moon People's packs were distant and isolated, the Sun People spread villages across their lands like the unfolding burrows of an ant colony. And these ants knew where their enemies lay. Khelt's, Ulric's, Neman's, Octavia's, even Gheran and Halau's packs were marked with wolf's head symbols over their territories. The northern parts of the map were bare, leaving her own clan and Alpha Turec's absent from the picture. Many of the smaller alphas who dwelt inland closer to the mountains had managed to evade the notice of this mapmaker as well, but that did not change the fact that he had outlined with reasonable accuracy the territories held by most of the great packs.

  “The knowledge this picture holds could change these lands forever,” Adel said. “The Sun People are not forgetful wanderers. They have been recalling and recording everything they learn of us in their travels.”

  Kiren shook her head and gestured to the map. “Only the one who made this. He said no one else had ever done anything like it before.”

  “The Sun People's ideas are infectious. If one man thinks of this today, another will tomorrow. How do you think this new group found our territory, girl?” Adel shook her head in consternation. “There is danger here. Not in this map, but in the hands that crafted it. If their alphas gave the command then these Sun People could bring the same war upon us that they once waged against my father.”

  “Are you going to have them killed, then?” Kiren scowled at her. “Set Orec's warriors upon these people so they never come back?”

  “Have you ignored every word I just said, girl?” Adel retorted. “That is not my way. And this is not a fight that a single battle would win. Perhaps not a fight that could ever be won.” She stared back at the map, gesturing for silence when Netya and Kiren tried to speak. “I must talk with them. Some among the Sun People will listen. Fool though he was, Khelt managed to make friends of the villagers in the north. We must try and do the same with these travellers.”

  “I agree,” Netya said. “We could offer them safety. Supplies, even. Give them reason to see us as allies rather than enemies.”

  “Not all of them will listen,” Kiren said, “and the ones who do may still hide their true face while they pretend to be your friend.”

  Adel heard something emotional in Kiren's voice, but now was not the time to challenge it.

  “These ones at least seem willing to try,” the den mother said. “It will take more cunning than they have to trick me. I shall meet with them tomorrow at dawn. Come, both of you.” She rolled the map back up and slapped it into Kiren's arms. “Bring this, and guard it well, girl. It may be the most valuable thing we possess now.” Her fingers remained tight around the map for a moment before letting go. She hoped Kiren recognised the responsibility that had been placed upon her, and the implicit trust that came with it. The fiery girl remained as perplexing to read as always, however, snatching the roll of leather away and turning her back on them.

  “Maybe now we can hurry,” she said.

  By the time they reached Orec's den their group of three had grown into a larger party. Fern caught up with two of her huntresses and Caspian in tow as they made their way down the opposite side of the ridge, but upon arriving at the den they found the place eerily quiet. Only a few of the warriors had remained behind, with most of the others having joined Orec to keep watch over the Sun People in the south. Despite several offers, Adel declined to bring anyone else with her save for the sun wolf Kale. He seemed a timid and unsure thing, much like Netya had been at first, but he answered her call without protest. Kiren, however, seemed less than happy with the decision to bring him along, hanging back with the sun wolf and muttering under her breath even as he insisted that she need not worry about him. Adel knew that the pair had crossed paths with Sun People on their travels together, and it seemed that Kiren did not want to subject Kale to that for a second time. Compassionate, but too sentimental. The girl did not understand the importance of this meeting. A little discomfort on Kale's part would be a small price to pay for the help he might offer. Indeed, Adel reflected, the meeting that lay ahead of her might be one of the most important she would ever face. The burden of responsibility was a heavy one, but it only hardened her resolve.

  When their group of eight reached the forest Adel took the lead, hurrying through the dappled shadows in the shape of her wolf. Any summer weariness was forgotten, replaced instead by a fierce determination to succeed. This was yet another chance to prove herself. To face the same threat her father had confronted, and to resolve it in a way that would prove she was better than him.

  No.

  Adel's paws faltered as she ran. The loamy scent of the forest floor filled her muzzle, devoid of the scent of her companions. She'd run on ahead, just like Kiren had.

  I must not do this for myself, nor my father, nor my pride. I do it for them.

  Adel's determination ebbed, but as Netya and the others caught up with her she allowed something else to replace it. A feeling of... responsibility? No, that was not it. It was more than that. A sense of motherhood. Protection. Companionship. She went to meet these Sun People not for herself, nor anything in her painful past, but for something in the future. Something she wished to share with all those who called her den mother.

  The group ran on through the afternoon, pacing themselves when they were out in the open and stopping frequently to drink whenever they passed a brook or river. The forests Adel claimed as her territory were old, undisturbed by man or wolf, and the maze they wove through the surrounding valleys could turn around even the sharpest tracker. Their guide was the familiar scent path of Orec's scouts, strengthened now by the recent passing of the rest of his warriors. It led them to the very edge of the forest where the trees ended. From there a line of animal bone effigies stared out over the grassland beyond, warning travellers not to come any farther.

  Twilight had come and gone, leaving the sky a dark starlit blue. They were only a short distance away from the southern river now. Adel reverted from the shape of her wolf and called the group to a halt. Kiren bounded on past her, tail swishing impatiently as she prowled back and forth. It took another sharp word from Adel to make her turn around and rejoin them.

  “What now?” the girl said once she had abandoned the shape of her wolf. “We are almost there.”

  “Go on and find Orec if you must,” Adel said. “But take someone else with you, and stay silent. I'll meet these Sun People under the light of day, not before. We should all take what rest we can before then.”

  “Go if you wish, Kiren,” Netya said. “The den mother is right. Night is an anxious time for Sun People. They will be more willing to see us as friends if we come to them during the day.”

  Accompanied by Kale and one of the huntresses, Kiren ran on ahead. Adel and the others found a hollow between the roots of an ancient tree that looked out across the grasslands, giving them an angle that would let them spot anyone approaching from the south.

  “It's wise to be cautious with Sun People abroad,” Caspian said, squinting out into the darkness. “Someone should keep watch through the night.”

  “I shall be awake for some time yet,” Adel said. “I must collect my thoughts for the morrow.”

  They made no fire, though Fern did share a bushel of sweet fruit she had brought from the den. As the others curled up in their wolves' fur to sleep Adel sat apart by herself, the wind teasing her long black hair through the stalks of grass around her. She wished she had told Kiren to leave the map with them
. It would have absorbed her thoughts on a night like this, even if she had to squint at it with only the starlight to illuminate its markings.

  As she waited for her thoughts to still Netya and Fern came out to join her, seating themselves on opposite sides of the den mother.

  “It has been some time since I spoke the tongue of the Sun People at length,” Adel said, using Netya's language. “We should all become familiar with it again before the meeting tomorrow.”

  Fern smiled, looking over at her friend. “It reminds me of when Netya first came to us. I had to speak it all the time with her.”

  “I think I have learned to say more things in your tongue than I ever did in the Sun People's,” Netya said.

  “You still sound like one of them, though. Your words are heavy like falling branches.”

  “Perhaps that is something I shall never unlearn.”

  “Is there anything you can say tomorrow that might attest to your status, Netya?” Adel asked. “Your father's brother was the alpha of your village, was he not?”

  “Alpha is the wrong word for him,” Netya said. “He was the closest we had, but his status was not the same. Besides, he has been dead for many years now.”

  Adel put a hand on her apprentice's wrist. “Revisit those memories for me. Your family may be a painful thing to remember, but this is important. We must find a way to reach these travellers. To join a path between our world and theirs, just as a seer connects the spirit world with that of the living.”

  Netya nodded, only a touch of sadness in her voice when she spoke. “If any of these Sun People ever visited my village then they may have heard my uncle's name. Other things may have changed since I left as well. Perhaps my mother is a woman of greater status now, or my sisters—” There she faltered. “They will all be grown women. They may have found husbands of their own.”

  “Mates?” Fern asked.

  “Yes, mates blessed by the forest spirits.”