An owl hooted from the forbidding wall of pines beyond the refugees’ camp. A sliver of moon offered Avara, huddled fireside with her slumbering children, only hints of the world beyond the low flames.
Past lumpen piles of dozing forest-folk, silhouetted barbarians minded the perimeter with their long knives. Too few sentinels for Avara’s liking. Deterrent enough for prowlers and bears—but what of rebels and savages? She yearned for city walls and palace guards.
Avara cradled her young son’s head. His little brow was knit with some silent worry. Her daughter lay beside them, snoring lightly and clutching her brother’s ankles.
Her possessions were lost. Her folk were lost. To me, leastways. These two were all she had left.
A lament sprang from her soul and escaped her throat as a whisper. The tune was old; the song was new. A city burning, a city drowning. Her son whimpered at first, and her daughter murmured, but Avara’s voice soothed them back to sleep.
Her son’s head weighed heavy on her lap. How quick they’ve grown. So long of limb for so few years. Pernicious memory reared its head. Recollections of their birth, and their father, brought her song shuddering to an end.
Avara removed her deerskin mantle and laid it defiantly over the little ones, so each was only half-covered. She kept her shawl and tugged it tight about her shoulders. The three of them required proper fur garments if they were long to endure the north country. But I know naught of stalking or skinning beasts. Nor have I any wish to learn. Her children might, though, if their sometimes vicious play and their fascination with the barbarians were any indication.
She imagined her perfect babes as wee hunters roaming the frost-barrens—and nearly wept. What wouldn’t I give for a soft bed and a warm hearth. And a ripe pomegranate to break fast in the morn!
All of those comforts were gone. I have naught anymore without my little aurochs and my little she-wolf. We need these rough-hewn ruffians, like it or not. They were, after all, preferable to her other allies.
Avara sensed crawling eyes and peered into the night. A familiar, hulking shadow lurked near the sentry line. The Hunter was always watching everyone and everything, but his gaze had a distinctly greasy feel.
She looked to the Hunter’s companion, the hooded woman in repose on the far side of the fire pit. Flickering flames betrayed a violet iris unhindered by sleep. The mystic was studying her surreptitiously, sure as the sun rose over the Fangs. Not just me. Fear flooded her innards.
Avara did the only thing in her power: she cast her eyes back toward her children. She set her heart to guard them from all the evils of their precarious present. But what of the morrow? Against that yawning void, she knew no defense.