The Legend of the White Wolf

The night was as cold, and with the owl gone as still, as the heart of Ngoto, the fyadaya of the dead. Sepoyyad suppressed a shudder, thinking of the garun trader. He should not have died; that he did was Sepoyyad's fault. Did garun join the feyad of the dead? Sepoyyad did not know. He would be careful in the mouths of caves and in the shadow of the garun's house in any case, until he could make his peace with Ngoto.

A slight breeze rustled the leaves above him, blowing up the hill from the ruins, stinging his nose with the smell of charred timber. Did he smell blood as well? No -- that was in his mind. The smell, faint but unmistakable, was the fresh, clean smell foretelling snow. He glanced up at the sky, so hard and clear that the stars did not twinkle. Not tonight, then. Perhaps tomorrow the snow would come. And would it bring Etavo?

Eighteen days -- no, nineteen -- had passed since the attack on the factory. Nineteen days since he had sent the Kressan whore with the message for Etavo. What were they doing? What were they waiting for? Why had they not come, at least to let the widow burn a candle for her dead. Or did one do such things for garun? Mossik would know, or would know who to ask. But the candle should have been burned within two days of the death, or how would the trader find his way to Ngoto? Now it would just confuse the other lost shades, and bring them down from miles around. Sepoyyad did not want to be here should that happen, for that would draw Ngoto's dread sister Itaio, the Eater of Souls, and her vicious little son Gom. He might have burned the candle guide himself, but then it was too soon to bring himself to the attention of Ngoto, and now it was too late to do the garun any good.

The breeze shifted, and he caught a new smell, a man smell, of stale sweat and bear grease and woodsmoke. The smell of a man many days in the woods; Sepoyyad probably smelled that way himself.

He slowly tensed and relaxed the muscles of his legs, to get the blood flowing, and slid his hand along the inside of his heavy cloak toward his knife. He closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated on his ears. He quickly discounted the soft rustle of the breeze, and the equally soft rustle of his own breath. His fingers found the knife and curled around the hilt, and he found the sound he wanted. There, a few paces to his left: the tense, shallow breathing of a man trying to be silent, and the softly squeaking feet of a man trying to stand perfectly still in deep snow.

Sepoyyad leaned slowly forward onto the balls of his feet, shifting his feet back and forth to make sure of his footing. He drew his breath in slowly and waited, for what he did not know, but he knew it would come.

It was the owl, and it took him by surprise.

With a clatter of wings, the owl appeared directly before his face and swooped up to its perch in the oak. Sepoyyad flinched. The other man fell back a step and gasped, and before the owl had settled in the tree, Sepoyyad made his move. He rolled to his right and shot to his feet, flinging his cloak over his left shoulder to free his knife hand. He slipped around the tree and found himself behind the other man, who now took two hesitant steps forward, toward where Sepoyyad had been. Before he had time for a third he was on his back in the snow, Sepoyyad's knees pinning his arms and Sepoyyad's knife at his throat. The owl, disturbed again, complained bitterly and left.

"One sound and the snow turns red," said Sepoyyad harshly. The other man heaved upwards once against Sepoyyad's weight, and fell back silent in the snow. "Now, who would disturb my owl?" Sepoyyad pressed the point of his knife into the hollow of the man's throat and leaned forward to examine his face in the dim light.

Sepoyyad laughed. "Slepko, you're a fool to try to sneak up on me like that. You're lucky I'm a patient man or you'd be a dead fool." He tapped the man lightly on the cheek with the flat of his knife and helped him to his feet.

"I didn't know you were there, Wolf," Slepko said, rubbing his throat with one hand and slapping the snow off Sepoyyad's cloak with the other. "I really didn't. I just came out to piss."

Sepoyyad sniffed and glanced down at the man's trousers. "Next time do it outside."

"Now, Wolf." Slepko stood a head taller than Sepoyyad and was considerably broader; Sepoyyad had seen him fell a full-grown bull with one blow of his mighty fist. Now he blushed like a maiden and turned away. "You sure took me by surprise there; what are you doing out here, anyway?"

Sepoyyad's eyebrows arched in surprise. "Don't tell me you've not pulled sentry, Slepko. Or you've forgotten what it is."

Slepko shook his head sadly. "You're teasing me again, Wolf. You know I pulled sentry first thing tonight. I just didn't think you'd be out here."

Sepoyyad chuckled. "I keep trying to tell you I can pull sentry as well as any of you, even if my eyes aren't as sharp and I am half deaf."

"You know what I mean, Wolf. You need your rest, is all."

"Ah, Slepko, you are a wise man. That I do. And you, my friend, will take my place." He slapped the big man on the shoulder. "You come out to relieve yourself, and you end up relieving me. Strange how the wind shifts."

"Yeah, strange," said Slepko, staring down the slope. "What are we looking for, anyway? There's nothing down there but ghosts."

Sepoyyad frowned, his mouth a tight white line against the black of his beard. "Then you're looking for ghosts."

Sepoyyad's circuitous journey back to the camp took him past the other three sentry posts. At the other post overlooking the factory, the brothers Mashka and Direshka were playing a hand game, the normal slaps replaced by gentle touches in deference to the night. They each glanced occasionally down the slope, toward the ruins on the left and the river crossing on the right, but neither looked toward the woods behind them.

On the opposite side of the hill, the northwestern post commanded a view of the approach to the river as well as the crossing itself. There Paryesh of the Cicatrix squatted on his hams beside a fire pot. His black-bladed spear leaned against his shoulder; his fingers danced a flute-song on it as he stared into the night. As Sepoyyad crept nearer, he heard a soft rumbling: Paryesh was singing to himself.

The final sentry post, on the northeast corner of the hill, faced due north across the Sea of Grass. It was unlikely that any but Sepoyyad's own people would come from that direction. If he were attacking the hill, he would come from there, for the approach was protected by a series of rills and the slope of the hill was gentle. But both Etavo and Kressan would have to detour around the hill to take that approach, and that would require them to know he was there, and that he thought unlikely. Still, the unwatched hole lets in the hare.

Grupak of the Fenbolg manned this post alone -- or in the company of a wineskin Sepoyyad had not managed to hide from him. He sat leaning against a tree, his legs stretched out before him; he was possibly asleep. Sepoyyad frowned. He would have to do something about Grupak. He was a fine enough warrior, and even half-drunk he was an acceptable sentry; but the sleeping eye does not see the sun rise. Sepoyyad himself had fallen asleep on sentry, but that made him even less willing to overlook it -- especially combined with the other thing.

Grupak had killed the trader.

Sepoyyad told them not to, that garun blood would do them no good, that the trader was useful alive -- and Grupak killed the trader. Thought he was running away, he said; thought he was running for help. So what if he ran away? Where would he run? Where would he get help soon enough to do any good? Grupak didn't think about such things. He killed the trader, and the blood stained Sepoyyad's cloak, and now there was Ngoto to answer to. It seemed likely that giving Grupak to Ngoto would satisfy the debt, but that would have to wait -- he could not touch Grupak while Grupak was of his feyadin.

"What will you do with him?"

The whisper came so close that Sepoyyad at first thought he might have spoken himself. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and a man squat down behind him.

"Mossik, I see you," he said.

The other man chuckled. "Only when I allow it, my son. Only then."

"How long have you been stalking me?"

"I followed Slepko out. You move quite well, you know. He knew you were there, of course, but you still took him by surprise. And I doubt anyone but me could have followed you through the woods."

Sepoyyad turned and smiled at his white-haired uncle. "You are still the fox, ampaya."

The old man winked. His eye disappeared for a moment in the wrinkles of his face, and then he grinned. "And don't you forget it, lad."

Sepoyyad returned to his study of Grupak. The sentry had not moved, but Sepoyyad thought he looked too still; he looked tense, on guard. That was good. Perhaps he wasn't asleep after all. "Why did you follow me, ampaya? Just to remind me you are my master?"

"Do you need reminding, then?"

"Never. Did you want something of me?"

Mossik pointed his chin at Grupak. "What are you going to do with him?"

Sepoyyad sighed and shook his head. "I don't know. I suppose I owe him to Ngoto."

"If you owe Ngoto anything."

Sepoyyad looked deep into the dark blue eyes of his uncle. "There is some question, then."

Mossik shrugged. "This is no place to discuss it."

"Come back to the camp, then, for I will have it discussed."

The feyadin's camp had changed much in its eighteen days, at first becoming more homelike as the men settled in and sought comfort, and lately becoming more shabby as the men grew restive. Soon, Sepoyyad hoped, it would return to its natural state, a slight hollow near the top of the hill, with only a blackened circle of stones to show they had ever been there. Now it was littered with men, their belongings, their refuse. The fire circle was surrounded by stretched hides, linked together and held aloft by fresh-cut poles to mimic a tent with a very large smoke hole. Around the circle ten men snored, wrapped in stained cloaks, with their weapons close at hand. The fire, almost dead, smoked, masking the rank smell of the camp, far worse than the smell of Slepko with the addition of sour wine, rotting kitchen debris, and a poorly maintained latrine.

Sepoyyad's sleeping skin was spread at the head of the fire circle, as far removed as possible from the sleeping men. He drew Mossik down, and offered him a wineskin from the snowbank just in reach behind him.

Mossik drank, not touching the skin to his lips, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Grupak," he said.

"Indeed." Sepoyyad took the wineskin and filled his mouth.

"Will you give him to Ngoto?"

Sepoyyad swallowed and shook his head. "You said there was some question."

"About what you owe, not about what you will do."

"Then let's make the questions one. I will give him if I owe. So, ampaya, do I owe?"

Mossik shook his head slowly and pursed his lips. "The garun do not know Ngoto," he said, slowly, as if the argument was farming even now in his head. "But what the garun do or know is unimportant. The real question is, does Ngoto know of the garun? And if he does, does he claim them? If he doesn't claim them all, might he have claimed this one? He died on our land, after all, and had lived among us for many years. Might Ngoto have thought him one of us?"

"If so," mused Sepoyyad, "would he not have quickly learned his error?"

Mossik chuckled. "Perhaps, but Ngoto never gives anything back. If he is looking for the trader, the trader is his."

"So again, what Ngoto thinks doesn't matter. Only what he does."

"Yes, and who's to know what Ngoto does? The way I see it, the only way you'll learn if you owe Ngoto is if Ngoto comes to collect."

Sepoyyad swallowed another mouthful of wine. "I suppose that would be too late."

Mossik frowned at his nephew. "Your little jokes can be misplaced, my son. Use them on Slepko, use them on Garun, use them even on me; but please, think long and hard before you use them on Ngoto. He does not laugh easily, and is unpleasant when he does."

"I lower my eyes, ampaya," said Sepoyyad, suiting his actions to his words. He got up and put dry wood on the fire and blew it into a steady flame. "Are you suggesting," he continued, returning to his skin, "that I give up Garun because I might owe Ngoto?"

"No, no, no. That is cynical beyond belief." Mossik spat toward the fire. "You sound almost like Etavo himself. There's a man who would sell his sister for a debatable advantage."

"Does that surprise you? He is my kimpa, don't forget."

"I've been trying to forget since the day you were born. You may spring from his seed, Sepoyyad, but kimpa means more than that. You never sat by his fire and drank in the smoke. You never heard from him the ways of the spirits, of the winds, of the clouds. What did he ever give you that a kimpa ought to give? You each spent some moments between the thighs of the same woman -- that is all you have in common."

Sepoyyad was silent for some time. "Perhaps. But what then are you saying I should do?"

Mossik drank some wine and stared into the fire. "I am saying," he said slowly, "that you should give up Garun if it is the right thing to do. You should give up yourself to Ngoto if that is the right thing to do. You're not trying to get away with anything; you're not trying to fool Ngoto, or to bribe him. You are redressing a wrong. Nothing more and nothing less, and nothing else will do. If you give up Garun and it is the wrong thing, Ngoto will surely come for you, for then you will have two wrongs to redress."

Sepoyyad watched the smoke up into the sky. "How can I know what is the right thing, ampaya? How can I be sure?"

Mossik reached over and took the young man's hand. "You can never be sure," he said. "But you must decide. That's what it means to be a man."

Sepoyyad closed his eyes and bowed his head over the old man's hand.

The stillness of the night was shattered when Mashka burst into the tent circle, tripped over a sleeping body, and went sprawling into the fire. Half a dozen men sprang to their feet, swords in hand, their eyes still heavy with dreams. Ashes and smoke hung thick in the air. A blow struck -- flesh on flesh -- and a dozen tongues cried out in confusion.

"Watch out there, clumsy ox!"

"Get off!"

"Attack, attack," at least one sleepy voice cried.

Sepoyyad waded into the thick of the melee, pushing men aside, throwing them to the ground, knocking down naked blades. "Stop it, all of you! If there was anybody to attack, this'd be the perfect time for it, you all acting like idiots!"

Gradually the men calmed down. Mossik and two others gathered the scattered fire and returned it to the hearth. Dremilar, the man Mashka had tripped over, grumbled and dragged his sleeping skin as far from the fire as the snow would allow.

"Now, Mashka," said Sepoyyad sternly to the lad before him. "What is that requires turning the camp upside down?"

Mashka was still panting from his run. "They're here," he managed to say.

The men gathered more closely, muttering.

"Hush," Sepoyyad said. "Mashka, you know how to report. Try again."

Mashka caught his breath and drew himself fully upright. He looked Sepoyyad in the eye and said, "Party of twenty horse approaching the ford. They should be nearly across by now."

Sepoyyad clapped him on the shoulder. "At last," he said. "Etavo has come."

Mashka frowned. "I don't think so," he said. "They come from the west. Kressan. And it looks like they've been in a fight. Twenty horses; sixteen men, but only twelve astride."