If we were back home, Taigan thought as he guided one of the horses by the halter, it would be spring. Is it because we are so far north?
The mountains loomed over them more than they ever had. They were taller than the mountains at home, these had gray stone that raked the sky with their jagged teeth. White ice coated the tops of them, and the wind that flowed from them was chilly.
“We have almost reached the Juniper Mountain clan. The liana have agreed the new clan name will be Juniper Wind.” Taj said, tilting his wings and coming down carefully and landing on Taigan’s shoulder pad carefully so he did not miss.
He rubbed under the hawk’s beak a little, “I honestly can barely remember when we became Wind Water clan from the Wind Walker.”
Taj closed his big golden eyes and leaned into the scritches. “I think it is appropriate to hang onto the wind part of the name. There are changes coming, I can feel them.”
Taigan tilted his head, and the image of Rosalea sitting calmly in front of her tent, weaving a basket while listening to a liana came back to him. Because of her?
There was no answer from his liana, though he had learned a long time ago Taj was aware of literally everything he thought. “Done with sharing? Privileged information of the Gods?”
The large hawk hissed at him a little, clearly sassed, and it made Taigan smile. “I must only say true things, so I cannot agree to guesses or supposition without knowing it.”
Taigan closed his eyes, feeling the pressure of the smile on the muscles of his cheeks as he leaned his head slightly against his liana. Taj lifted a wing and rested it on his head with another little disgruntled hissing noise, but clearly forgave Taigan his insolence.
True to his liana’s always true words, they did arrive a little later to the Juniper Mountain clan, guided by their liana. Everyone was worn out, some people had to be healed repeatedly to avoid catching colds. The relief was palpable everywhere as they at last saw the painted green tents of the sister tribe.
I hope that things are more peaceful at last, he thought, but the idea that Taj felt insecure about change had settled a sense of anxiety in him that did not want to fade even when he was relieved.
***
Beryn carefully used her belt knife to cut a a diagonal end to the end of the budding twig she held in her hand. She cut a matching one into the end of one the branches and then delicately held the two pieces together.
“That is the cherry one?” Arit asked as he cautiously entered the green house.
“Yes. They have been difficult to identify in these woods, since most of the trees are supernatural, but yes, soon, we will have cherries.”
He stood a good distance back. He was the shortest of her men, and sometimes she wanted to tease him that he might be half dwarven because of the rugged face he possessed with such a wild beard… and of course, his stone magic was paralleled by none. Except sometimes the smallest of the damn animals. “Everyone will be happy for that. I believe some of the little ‘uns here haven’t had ‘em before.”
“Spring should be coming soon. This tree will be covered in blossoms. With a little patience, we will have cherries, plums, peaches, and nectarines from this one pet of mine.” She was pleased to glance back and see him looking excited, or at least longing for food that was actually fresh and not what they could scrounge and stretch out.
“The siege has been pretty intense. Man almost lost his head when a deer came barreling out of the trees this mornin’. They are not giving us an inch,” Arit said as he watched her magic knit the two branches together.
She knew. She took the other sprig, carefully cutting the edge. She moved to the second tree she was cultivating and grafted it onto a new branch. Apples and pears, she thought. “Well, it was bound to happen after we killed one and gave one to our Lady.”
“So what are our choices? They decimated both attempts at supplies that were sent.”
“We let them siege us, or we change how we set our traps maybe,” she said.
“The dragon will not help?”
“Not for a while. She told me she had a project in mind for that raccoon we caught.”
“I see,” Arit said.
She fed a good bit of her magic to both trees. She could not grow enough food for everyone here, and spring was still weeks away. Even so, the first food could only come in summer, if she got others growing it.
She breathed out. “I will walk the walls with you a bit later, and we will make a plan. Everyone not working on rebuilding things should be guarding us against a mystic attack.”
“Understood.”
She sighed, cupping some of the delicate leaves of the tree. “Do you know what I miss from home?” she asked Arit as he was turning to leave. “Olives.”
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He smiled uncertainly. “Perhaps we will get lucky and find something.”
***
Rozner sulked. He stood just outside the wall, where spring plants were trying hard to push their way through the half-frozen ground. His belly growled. This was rough. Hunting had been lean the last six weeks or so since they sent that forest god off with the dragon.
There was a big stag lurking just inside of the green woods, eyeballing him. He didn’t know what good he was going to specifically do as a sentry in this spot as he watched it. A dozen arrows hardly deterred these beasts. It seemed to him that trying to kill them with arrows was about as effective as trying to kill a man with pins. The only that had worked was when Lady Beryn had hacked that badger to bits.
But the reinforcements that had come kept going even when they were speared. The creature watched him for awhile and then seemed to wander into the forest. He felt himself a little watery in the knees as it did so. Good, just stay there, he thought at it.
His stomach growled after a while. He looked up at the sun, it was still hours until evening, and he was stuck here in the meanwhile. A little while after things seemed quiet enough, a couple of men who had been working the lumber details would come out, “Hey, we’re gonna see if we can get anything down. You guards come with us.”
He looked out to the woods. He had not seen the stag out there for at least the last hour, and nothing else seemed to be happening. It seems like maybe the forest gods have wandered off? He felt uncertain. “Well, we best be willing to drop what we are doing and get out, because there was definitely a big stag here recently.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. They crossed into the green, greener now that the winter was starting to wane, and the chopping started. He watched very vigilantly at first, but nothing was happening. The forest was its usual forbidding self, the town was making all of its normal noises, and nothing was out of place. He became painfully bored again.
He looked around for anything at all that could be edible, but there was not much. Some stubborn, probably enchanted, flowers were pretty much all there was.
He lazily pulled an arrow from his quiver and upon spying a green plant with large, somewhat withered from cold leaves growing next to him, he stabbed it. When he pulled the arrow, the leaf shredded a little, leaving a neat little tear in a straight line from where his arrow entered to the point it broke free. He stabbed it again and pulled, but this time, instead of ripping, it just came off.
He scraped it off and stabbed it multiple times; it started to make a mushy, sticky, gooey green lump. At least somewhat entertained, he looked around to see if there was anything he could add to his gooey creation to improve its color. He spied a yellow plant with pointed and serrated leaves growing a little ways off. It was supposed to have mild poison. People who ingested it would get fevers.
Since he had no plans to eat it or put his arrow tip into his mouth, he pulled a leaf off it after a few awkward stabs with his arrow. He mashed that into his goo. It turned it a sickly green with strange yellowish lumps. It looked much less appealing than it did before. He looked around again and noticed a mostly withered flower growing on some brambles with bright blue petals. They were considered weeds, but most people tolerated them because the blue was pleasant. He stabbed at it a few times, getting a few of the petals on his arrow. These he added to his goop... It didn't help either, the blue, instead of mixing in its color just made blue lumps mixed in with all the other disgusting colors. He wrinkled his nose, and covered his concoction with the dirt using the toe of his boot. He settled back and looked toward the woods, when he realized that he should have been paying better attention.
Three large mountain cats, one large stag, and four wolves where bounding full speed at him. “RUN!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “RUN! THEY ARE COMING!” And with that, people were grabbing tools and the fallen tree they had managed and were sprinting back toward the safety of the gate. He raised his bow, knocking the arrow he had out, and fired.
It struck the cougar in the flank, and, instead of it continuing as if nothing had happened, it screamed, coming to a stop. It distracted the other mystics, and the next instant the injured mystic burst into flames and ran back into the forest. The others scattered all in different directions, obviously alarmed.
“Rozner?! What did you do?!”
“I- I don't know... I'm not sure.”
He was surrounded by the men. “What happened right before you fired the arrow?” one asked above all the rest. He blinked, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the people surrounding him. “Come on, man, you just turned back eight mystics with a single shot! What did you do different?”
“I was stabbing some plants with my arrows,” he slowly remembered.
“Which ones?”
***
Rosalea was not allowed to go out and help with the raids. Nakai now had a rather scary-looking scar that sat just above his eye from having an arrow glance off his skull. Amalia had come back smelling like smoke the last time, with her fluff a little singed.
Mere, Miri, and Rosalea were kept out of it. All three were determined to be too fragile to engage in war with the humans.
There is a weirdness in the air again, she thought as she got up. She was surprised to see Nekana awake, staring down into the valley, her hackles a little up. The last time Rosalea had felt this way seemed to be because of the dragon. She peered out into the sky, let by an early morning sun, but she didn’t see anything. “What is it?” she asked.
“I am not sure,” Nekana said softly, and Rosalea followed the angle of her eyes downward.
There was a giant cougar in the valley below, staggering soundlessly, moving in a way that Rosalea associated instantly with Madness. She felt her palms tingle… the thing seemed to be on fire, but the flames were an unnatural sickly green-blue haze, and nothing around it caught fire. “Can we help it?” Rosalea whispered back.
Nekana shook her head, “It killed another mystic a minute ago - a rabbit, and just left it. It’s like it has Madness or something normal animals get.” Her voice was a hushed whisper back. “I have never seen anything like it. I want to tell the Moryshin, see if he knows more, but I am afraid to take my eyes off of it.”
The flames seemed to slowly be diminishing as they watched, and then, they went out. The cougar let out an unearthly yowl, and tore through the trees, toward the west. “Rosalea, please stay here.”
“No, please take me with you,” Rosalea said.
She hesitated but nodded. Rosalea clambered up on the big wolf’s shoulders, and she clung onto her as she galloped along the edge of the drop-off, trying to keep the cougar mystic in view. They lost track of it as the drop-off became just a steep hill and the trees became too dense to see through.
There was a whole lot of screaming of cougars at each other, and Nekana slowed herself, picking her way a lot more silently through everything. When they finally got a view of the situation again, the cursed mystic was downed, everywhere its blood touched the snow, it was boiling and hissing angrily. A couple of cougars were rolling in the grass and snow to get its blood and fire off of themselves.
The body literally dissolved into the earth, and where it had been, everything around it withered and died.
Nekana backed away, quietly retreating, there was a lot of sadness for the mystics still there.
Once they were far enough away, “I will speak to the Moryshin again… I have no idea what that was. It is like the magic inside it became… dark… or corrosive somehow.”
Rosalea shook her head, whatever it was, was really wrong.
And yet, somehow, the smell of it seemed almost familiar to her. She just did not understand why.
Nekana dropped her off at the den, and the other wolves all came out, “What happened? Did someone attack the cougars?”
“Another cougar. Rosalea, please explain. I will be back.” Nekana crouched just barely long enough for Rosalea to get off.
Then the wolf was off. Rosalea cleared her throat, and she began to explain. When she was finished, it was Raisa who asked the most important question.
“If the humans did it to them… do you think they can do it again to someone else?”
Rosalea felt her chest tighten with anxiety. “I do not know.”