Sunlight, and the soldier opened his eyes. The clearing was quiet. Stretching stiff muscles, he rolled over to check on the wolf bitch and stopped dead. The wolf was gone, but a sleeping girl shared his camp. Possibly fifteen, maybe younger by a year or two, maybe older by a bit, she lay with her back to him, totally naked, fine white hair spread about— white hair? White hair and a bandage wrapped tightly around her leg. Of course, he thought wryly, beyond surprise at anything he encountered on this world. Why wouldn’t she be?

He rolled quietly to his feet, moving off toward the wood to the east. He’d seen a couple of the tuber plants that Blue Eyes had given him the day before, and they’d do for breakfast. He’d made it no more than a few steps beyond the sunlight, however, before he felt the eyes on him. He stopped in mid-stride, drawing the cumbersome pistol and his own combat knife. He needn’t have bothered. Turning, he found himself facing the old male. A pair of rabbits dangled from that one’s jaws, bloodying his muzzle. The man could have sworn he saw the beast raise an eyebrow at the pistol.

“Right. No silver bullets.”

Can a wolf laugh? The old grey set the rabbits down and his tongue lolled from between wide-spread jaws. Then he was gone into the dimness.

“Okay,” he thought, picking up the gifts. “Rabbit for breakfast. How do I cook them?”

The girl was awake when he returned, unselfconscious of her nudity. She gazed up at him half-frightened as he approached with the food.

“Do you speak in this form?” he asked quietly.

“Yiss,” she replied, “Bu’ no much. Too hard say holy tongue. Learn un...un? Not. Not good learn. Say...mmm...broken.”

“Broken,” he repeated, head throbbing with the concentration of trying to pick out the half-growled words of miserable Hopi. The concept of it being holy he’d leave for later pondering. “Okay, it’ll have to do. How do you like your rabbit?”

“How?” she was confused.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to cook them without a fire, and—”

“Cook? No cook. Eat.”

“Raw?”

She tilted her head and frowned. “Eat.”

Shrugging, he handed her one of the rabbits, which she tore into with all the manners one would expect of a wolf. He had to turn away. Not that he was squeamish, mind. He’d been a soldier for too many years, and had eaten too many raw meals himself for that. No, it was the relish with which she tore at the poor rodent. He’d eaten raw flesh, but he’d never learned to more than tolerate it. Shuddering, he tossed the other rabbit into her lap and went back for some tubers.

She was crunching the bones of the second rabbit when he returned, making small snarling noises, blood dripping from her chin. He left her alone while he checked on the horse and his gear. He could feel her watching as he performed the morning ritual at the poolside shrine. Let her be curious. Maybe it had something to do with memories that hadn’t quite come back. Maybe it just helped to mask the emptiness. He didn’t really know, and didn’t really want to think about it.

Finished, he moved back to her side. “You have a name?”

“Like this,” she indicated her humanoid form with bloody hands, “I call Keeli.”

“Keeli. My name is Storm. Braedonnal Storm.”

She shook her head. “No. Hotolai. Home Brother. Koli say so.”

“Koli?”

“Pack leader. Father. Say you Hotolai name.”

He sat cross-legged, facing her. “Why do you suppose he said that?”

“Have mark,” she pointed to his chest. “He see yesterday.”

Unconsciously, his hand went to the tattoo on his left pectoral, about where a policeman might wear a badge.

Coyote. The Trickster. Grandfather had put the marking there one evening when he’d been no older than eleven. It was who he was inside, the Grandfather had told him. Parts of that conversation still weren’t clear —hadn’t ever been clear— in his mind. It had been the night of their spirit journey, Sylvan and him. When they’d all taken the magic buttons and gone to the other world. Well, he grinned inwardly, realizing where he was — another world. There he’d met the trickster in person. Coyote had become his spirit animal — his guardian.

“I’m not sure that this makes me a brother, and it isn’t your kind of wolf in any case.”

“Coyote,” she surprised him. “Little brother. Prairie trickster. Many fun,” she giggled. “He say mark tell you no monster, you brother. We not kill. Instead, help home brother kill pig”

Right. Stranger all the time. “Any of the other marks tell you anything I should be aware of?”

She pointed at his forearm, frowning. “Man dog. No friend. Hunt us. Not understand.” She looked him in the eyes. “What mean?”

He took a moment, examining the tattoo carefully, running fingers over the faded ink. “Honor,” he tried to hide the quaver that always crept into his voice when he consciously considered the concepts that were the only solid things in his universe. “Loyalty. Duty.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“That?”

“The inscription? Semper Fidelis. It means always faithful in an old tongue of my world.”

“Good, then. Strange for man dog be good.” She reached hesitantly to touch the bulldog with the funny hat.

* * *

“We’re not supposed to be here.” the corporal insisted yet again.

“Just find me his trail, Corporal,” Belius was in foul manner himself this morning. The wood disagreed with him at every breath he took — almost deliberately so. The air was heavy and damp, almost visible with humidity, keeping his clothing wet and clinging. It was cold all the time. And it was murderous hard to get a fire going even with magic. Forget keeping a match lit. The matchlocks were so much scrap iron until they’d achieved open sky again.

“I’ve shown ye his trail, man,” the corporal insisted in no better mood. “It goes yonder into the bole of yon great tree. Nor does it come out the other side. I’d like to see me a man do that, I would.”

“Nonsense,” the old mage spat. “He spent the night in a sylvan waypoint. They hide them is all.”

“Listen to yerself, Belius,” the corporal pleaded. “Man or monster, he were no sylvan, an’ if we couldn’t find the place, how did he?”

Belius frowned, not liking the path that thought traveled. “No doubt he’s a wood runner. Familiarity and all that. Just find where he left, if he left. The trail should pick up within a stad or so.”

“Right.” Scowling mightily, the corporal turned to his equally surly command, which now included half of Bela. “A’right lads,” he called. “Spread out smart now and find me where the beastie reappears!”

It took them four span to find the outbound tracks, and they were, in point of fact, nearly three stad distant, appearing from a stand of ferns and quartering more directly south. Tired, thirsty and hungry, but mostly thirsty, the soldiers set out along the track. Not but one of them didn’t regret getting the mage involved in the encounter. Better, most of them figured, to have simply reported the dead men deserters and been done. This traipsing through Bayel’s Wood was the height of madness.

* * *

Awareness! It hummed through the network of roots and branches, tasting the air and the time. Bayel stirred. Slow to wake after so long on the other side, its awareness was at last fully within its physical form. Awareness that gathered as the oldest one of all awakened, lapping outward in waves of power.

* * *

The horse reared and tried to bolt as the soldier fell back against it, only to have the man’s desperate grasp upon the reins haul its head around at the last minute, snubbing it down short even as he lost consciousness.

* * *

Belius went white to the bones and sank abruptly to unsteady knees in the middle of the trail. Alarmed, the Corporal raced back since none other would venture near the powerful old wizard. He managed to arrive even as the old man pitched full to the ground.

Far out in the wood, the wolves were howling, hundreds of them, voices clearly discerned from the thousands of other screeches, howls, and bayings that were suddenly inundating the wood. The troopers closed ranks, pale and shaking. Holy signs were made, prayers uttered, in some cases upon virgin lips. Something awful was obviously happening, and they were in the midst of it.

“What is it, Belius?” the corporal inquired anxiously, rolling the semi-conscious mage over onto his back and brushing leaves and mold from his beard. “What’s happened?”

Battered by the power washing over him like a heavy surf, near delirium, Belius hadn’t the sense to hold his tongue. “Bayel has awakened!” he sobbed.

* * *

All throughout the great wood, the children of Bayel reacted. The Oldest One was awake! Once more would it cast its regard upon the second world and all who called it home. What now would happen? Would the Oldest One move against the dark man king, or ignore it? Would it move against the pigs who strove to destroy the wood and all it held? What would the man king do? What would the pigs do?

* * *

Far to the north and east, the sisters stumbled to a halt, feeling the rush of Bayel’s awareness pass over them on its outward journey.

“Bayel!” Swallow hissed. “Is the other attacking Bayel?”

“No,” Thrush Dancing answered, voice low. “He hasn’t had time to reach WoodHeart. Besides, it hasn’t the feel of a cry. More a questing. Bayel feels something and wants to know what it is.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No,” Thrush Dancing admitted. “I only feel it. Please don’t ask me how, I just do.”

But Swallow wasn’t so docile as that. “What has come over you sister? You’ve been acting peculiar—”

“Since we left the other?” Thrush Dancing completed the fading question. “I know. Oh how I know.”

“What... what...?” Swallow couldn’t finish.

Thrush Dancing sank to her knees against the base of a tall pine, feeling the pulse of Bayel’s questing beat in her blood. “I don’t know little bird, I simply don’t know. I fear he spewed more than his seed into my belly as we coupled, for I feel him within me still. Not only within my flesh, but within me.”

She paused, feeling Bayel’s touch and with only that slight opening of her guards, another, fainter touch as well; thin with distance, but yet tangible as the breeze upon her face. She tried for a moment not to revel in its caress, but failed. Squeezing her eyes closed, she bit her lip and concentrated, rebuilding the guard that kept him out, making of it an impenetrable wall.

“It’s as though, if I put less than all of my effort into the ward, I can feel his breath, his fear, his wonder, even from this distance.”

“He’s stolen your soul, then?” Swallow’s dread was subdued but plain.

“I don’t know.” Thrush Dancing admitted. “I don’t feel its lack, exactly. What I feel is more an addition to my soul, as though it were at once whole for the first time, and yet empty. Can that be?”

But Swallow was afraid to answer. She feared for her sister. She feared for herself. She feared for her home, for Bayel was awake and the other roamed the wood.

* * *

Hours later, and far, far out upon the plain, a weary dall raised his head, risking the lash of the overseer. The heavy iron collar dragged at his chafed neck and made standing upright difficult, but he strained to his full height for the first time in months and stared westward and north. There was something.... A pale tongue swiped at the greying whiskers of his muzzle as he strained to catch the scent he was hungering for. Nothing. Nothing but a strange prickling at the base of his spine that told him something was happening. Something important.

Smack! The lash bit hard into the dalla’s back and he winced, doubling over. Again, and twice again, the lash bit, telling him the folly of a dalla measuring his height in the world of men. The overseer was angry, but the pain cleared the dalla’s head and he had the scent at last. Change. Freedom.

He turned to the angry man and bowed, heavy neck chain touching the dirt at his feet as he apologized for his arrogance. Now was not the time, he told himself. The scent was still too faint — too far away. It would be coming closer eventually, and if a slave learned anything at all, it was patience.

* * *

Upon the plain of ice, the darkness went momentarily still — the endless twining and re-twining of countless limbs halting for the barest breath. The godling was awake at last, and questing. Let it. This world’s fate was already sealed. Still, the contest was half the goal, wasn’t it? The limbs resumed their endless weaving, building a wall. Brick upon brick of confusion, deception, oblivion, leagues high and wide as the gulf between the stars.