~ by ArgoForg ~

PROLOGUE TWO 26th of Stormsmont, 876 CY         “Gods, Calli, look at you.”  Tanille giggled and then tossed her chin in an over-approximation of her oath-sister's expression, sending both her dark hair and the feathers twined within scattering.  “If the Ash'ani catch you wrinkling your nose so at their stags, you'll wear mark of dishonor for a month.”         Calendra smiled at Tanille's playful jibe, but her attention was quickly brought back to the wild stag the two young sisters had felled.  It was not yet dead— its flanks still moved feebly— but it no longer scrabbled on its bed of fallen leaves and roots and seemed content to expire resting against the thick trunk of the elm where it had fallen.  But where her and Tani's arrows had found their mark, thick red blood was pulsing through the fur in steady spurts.  That had caused Calendra to wrinkle her nose and pale beneath her tanned skin; the smell of blood always got to her.  Often she could laugh off her oath-sister's jokes about it, but for some reason today she found herself staring at the steady stream of crimson in a sort of detached, morbid fascination as it dribbled to the forest floor.         She wasn't even aware she was staring, in fact, until she felt Tanille's hand on her bare shoulder.  “Calli?  Sister?”         Calendra blinked, scolding herself.  She was only two short years, as the Aeri'col'quet saw time, from true Sisterhood; a couple short years from taking the trials to become a woman and— more importantly— an Ash'ani.  She'd never become a proper Ash'ani warrior if she couldn't even fell a stag without her thoughts becoming lost.  She shook her head, spilling a mass of nut-brown bangs into her face.  She brushed those back and busied herself with smoothing the pair of notched feathers that marked her and Tanille both as maidens.         “Sister, are you all right?”  Tanille's pretty face was drawn with concern; her almond-shaped brown eyes were large and worried.  If she hadn't been dressed in the simple buckskin halter and skirts of a huntress, Calendra might have guessed she'd switched places with her father— the village wise man always had such a piercing gaze that many said they felt he was looking through them.           “I am, Tani.  It… it'll pass.”  Calendra shrugged and met Tani's gaze with one of forest-green for a moment, but soon glanced to the forest floor again and smoothed her own short buckskin skirts.  As always, she felt envious of her oath-sister.  Tani was truly a Col'quet tribal daughter— her dark straight hair, her brown eyes, her high pointed ears and her deeply tanned skin were proof of that.  Tani's father and mother were Aeri'col'quet three generations or more back, and their daughter was the prize of such true-blood ancestry.           Calendra's mother had died of winter sickness when she was still a sapling, and she'd yet to find anyone to tell her about her father.  She had hair the color of chestnuts in sunlight, and it kept a slight curl no matter how much she washed it and pressed it.  She had forest-green eyes and pointed ears that looked far too delicate for a proper Ash'ani.  Her skin was placid and tanned, but it was the tan of someone who lived outdoors, not the tan of someone born that way.           And the smell of blood made her nauseous.         “Calendra Two-wolves,” Tanille finally said, using Calendra's given name as though she was making a grand pronouncement, “you are a horrid liar.”         Calendra slender lips drew into a wan smile.  “Mark that among the other things I cannot do, sister.”         “Cannot.  Say that if you wish, sister, but it was your shot that felled the stag.”  Tanille tapped on the green fletchings on the arrow in the creature's flank.  “There is far too much meat here for this to be a 'cannot'.”         Calendra felt her cheeks warm at the compliment.  “Thank you, Tani.”         The dark-haired girl's smile was wider, less tinged with worry now, and Calendra found her own smile mirroring it.  Tanille's warmth and humor had always overcome any obstacles between the two; whenever Tani saw Calendra mired in her own shortcomings and twinges of envy, it had only taken a jibe or a wry turn of phrase to pull Calli from her doldrums.  The two had been inseparable since they started hunting together a few short years ago, and none in the village were surprised when they became oath-sisters.         Tanille looked again at the deer, and then at her sister, and the smile faded with new concern.  “If I rig the deer, sister, can you help to carry it?  Or will the smell unsettle you?”         Calli nodded.  “It will pass, as I said, sister.  I will even help you to tie it.”         Tani's brown eyes sparked mischievously.  “That is good.  I would not wish to do all the work to bring your kill back, after all.” * * *         It was on the way back to the village that they heard the sound.  A shrill, high-pitched whistle on the edge of hearing caused Calendra to look up and forget the way her stomach still pinched at the smell of blood from their kill's wound.  She shifted her hold on the dressing pole they'd been carrying, and glanced back at Tanille, frowning.         “Do you hear that?”         Tanille's brow was furrowed.  “I do.  What is it?”         “I haven't heard it before.  Not a bird; it sings too long and too sharply.”  Calendra hushed and listened more closely.  After a few moments, the sound came again— it was certainly a piercing whistle up close; but here, far off in the forest, she could not tell.  But the second time did tell Calendra one thing, at least.  It came from the direction of the morning sun, which meant the village.         She was about to tell Tani when another sound— that of snapping branches— caught her ears and she looked to their right.  Through the brush scrambled another Col'quet maiden, Delina.  Her dark hair was bound into a tight ponytail, revealing the sharp points of her ears, but otherwise she was dressed in the same huntress garb as the two girls.  Her bow was strung and an arrow was already in her free hand.  What Calendra noticed most quickly was the expression on her face, however.  Delina's black eyes were narrowed and hard as diamonds, her face was flushed and her lips were parted to gather in breath as she came upon the other two girls.         Calendra glanced at Tanille, and saw the confusion on her face as well.  Delina was a good eight years older than the two of them; she had passed the tests and become Ash'ani.  To see an Ash'ani crashing through the wood rather than slipping along silently was enough to make both young women balk.  That and the look on Delina's face caused Calendra's voice to sound more like a question when she greeted the Ash'ani.         “Cilea'monthea, Delina.  What causes your rush?”         Delina looked to the east, toward the village and then took the two girls in her fierce-eyed gaze.  “You did not hear the warning arrow?”         Calendra shook her head and looked at Tanille, whose face was as blank as a well-worn rock.  Delina scowled and pulled a second arrow from her quiver; this one had no ordinary stone arrowhead, but a large, hollowed wooden bulb with slits cut into it.  She waved the arrow and the bulb whistled softly in the rush of air.         Tanille's brown eyes widened.  “That is the sound?”         Delina nodded curtly, her jaw setting.  “It is used only if the village is attacked.  String your bows and come, we may need your arrows.  We must hurry.”         The two girls quickly dropped the stag, heedless of the fact that their kill would likely become carrion or food for scavengers.  There were no more words between any of the three, until Calendra and Tanille's bows were strung and their quivers were snug on their backs.  Then Delina merely told them to follow, and led the way off the path, into the brush, making a beeline for the village.         As they hurried along behind the Ash'ani, the tightness in Calendra's stomach from the smell of blood was gone now.  It was replaced by a new sort of tightness.  And for the first time, Calendra Two-wolves thought she knew what fear actually felt like. * * *         She was wrong.         Calendra thought she'd realized what fear was like in those first few tense moments.  But the twinge in her stomach was nothing compared to the way it felt as though someone had clutched her insides in a fist when she saw the village through the screen of branches and leaves.  The three had found a place where they could see what was happening between the huts, and when they did, Calendra felt her fingers tremble as she nocked an arrow to her bow.         But she knew she was not alone.  Delina and Tanille were both staring, wide-eyed through the foliage; Tanilla had even whispered an unladylike profanity.         The Col'quet village was being attacked by a single human.  And not a particularly youthful or strong human, either, it seemed.  He had a slender frame, cloaked by dark robes, and his hair was long and graying in places.  He wore a thin mustache and beard, in the manner that Calli had heard humans sometimes did.  Other than the fact that he was human, he did not seem more awe-inspiring or formidable than a maiden; it was doubtful he could lift a six-month-old fawn without help.  And yet, despite the proud spears and skilled bows of the Ash'ani, the Col'quet were losing.  Calendra was not at all sure if it was the sheer fact that they were being beaten that put a knot of fear in her gut, or the manner in which they were being defeated.         Calendra watched as an Ash'ani, Giselle, and her mate— himself an Ash'rath, one of the village braves— burst from the brush across the village from them.  They rushed into the clearing at the human, their spears ready to run him through.         The man turned and looked at them and then raised a hand so pale that it seemed to glow in the light of the sun.  That was apparently it, and then a shaft of crimson light leapt from his hand and wafted over the two.  Giselle and her mate looked as though they'd seen the face of the Diseased One, Scourge.  Their eyes widened and their faces contorted in horror.  Their brave charge slowed and stopped, as if they had suddenly decided to quit charging in mid-run, and the color drained from their tanned bodies, a wash of paleness moving up their bodies from their feet until their hair and their skin matched one another in chalky grey color.  Even at this distance, Calendra could see the light fading from their eyes, the dark eyes becoming pale and unseeing.         In moments, they matched the figures standing all around the village, frozen in the middle of attacking, or fleeing, or looking on in horrified stupefaction.  All were pale and grey, unmoving.         The trio stole up to the nearest Ash'ani they'd seen that had apparently suffered such a fate, a warrior woman near the line of trees whose name Delina whispered as Leyelle.  The Ash'ani's straight hair was a grey waterfall stopped in windblown mid-motion, her eyes wide and without pupils, her lips parted in a scream.  Her arms were held at her sides, akimbo, and one leg was planted while the other was bent, as though she'd been fleeing and remained like that.  Calendra saw tiny cracks running along the once-tanned skin of her arms and face when they approached her, and she felt her stomach clench all the more.         “She is dead?”  Tanille voiced softly as Delina lifted her slim fingers to touch the face of the warrior woman.         “She is— ” Delina hissed, and then pulled her fingers back as though they'd been burned, staring at the woman's wide eyes and making a ward against evil.  “She is stone!  They have all been turned into stone!”         Calendra felt her breath catch.  “Turned into stone?  Can they be turned back?”         “I do not know.  It is dweomer'ke.  Magic.”  Delina's eyes narrowed and she turned her gaze back to the clearing between the huts of the village.  Her jaw set.  “We will find out soon enough.  But first, we must make sure he hurts no one else; many of the Ash'ani and Ash'rath have fallen.  They must be the last.  Spread out in the brush.  We will take him from three sides.”         The two maidens nodded, and split up in the foliage.  Calendra found a spot in the brush off to the human's right side and stoutly tried to quash the feeling of dread that twisted her insides, to no avail.  Questions thudded in her head.  Were all the Ash'ani dead?  What of Tani's family?  Did the man intend to turn them all to stone?  And if it was magic, why did he not use slaying magics, magics of fire and ice and lightning?  Why would a human attack the Aeri'col'quet in the first place?  She could not puzzle any of it out, yet that last question hammered her again and again.  Why?  The humans probably had no love for the Aeri'col'quet, but she had never heard of them openly coming to try to slay them— the two races just tended to avoid one another.         So intent on that question was she that she almost didn't hear the call of the jackaw— the arranged signal.  Calendra took a deep breath, steeled herself, and burst from the underbrush, her arrow nocked and ready.  She had almost made it past the first line of statues when the man in black robes noticed her and raised his hand.  She saw his eyes, then: they were not the eyes of a man.  They were red and began to glow as he took her in.  Calendra felt her legs go numb and her heart seemed to quit beating.  She thought she was going to topple over in a dead faint, so searing and horrible was the sight of those pinpoints of crimson.         And then an arrow struck him from the other side, sinking deep into his unprotected chest.  The man's arm dropped and he looked down at the shaft, buried almost halfway to the red-painted fletchings in the left side of his chest.  Calendra saw Delina rush from the row of huts and yell a warrior's cry of success as she rushed up.  Calendra felt strength flow back into her legs and a grim smile came to his face.  A wound like that, from an Ash'ani bow, was almost certainly fatal.         And then she stopped, as did Delina.  Because the man glared at her and yanked the arrow from his chest.  No blood flowed from the wound or stained his dark robes.  He casually tossed away the arrow and pointed at Delina.  For the first time, Calendra realized that his lips were moving— he was saying something.  But she was not sure what.         If Delina knew what he said, she would never say what.  The shaft of red light that reminded Calendra painfully of his eyes arced from his hand and touched the Ash'ani woman.  Her hand had been lifting to reach for another arrow and her feet were beginning to shuffle backward in the pitiful self-defense of gaining distance, but now they remained poised there, and as the color began to drain from her body, stealing the color from her legs and her skirts, the look frozen in stone on her face was the same as the moment the man had pulled the arrow from his chest.  Disbelief.  Astonishment.           The man slowly began to turn back to Calendra, and she knew her time was done, even as she felt strong, desperate hands clamp onto her arm and yank her to her feet.  Stunned, she glanced at who grasped her to see Tanille, her pretty face wet with tears.         “Arrows do not harm him, Calendra!  We must flee!”         Flee?  The word sounded so unbelievable from such a strong maiden as Tanille that for a moment Calendra was stuck with indecision, unable to move.  Tanille chanced a glance to the dark-robed man and pushed her oath-sister ahead of her.           “Run!”  She exhorted.         The word finally sank into Calendra's numb legs, and she broke for the treeline, skirting around the statues of the villagers with Tanille in hot pursuit.  And then she was outdistancing the dark-haired maiden, and she heard a sigh escape from her oath-sister.  She turned and saw the unthinkable.         Tanille was slowing down.         “Tanille!”  Calendra yelled, thinking at first that her oath-sister was out of breath, as ridiculous as it sounded.  But then she saw that she was horribly wrong.         The dark-haired maiden's eyes were wide, and same chalky tone that had engulfed so many in the village was starting to sweep up her feet, locking her toned legs in mid-run and turning them grey and stony.  A crackling sound seemed to fill the air around her as the stone crawled over her skirts and over her bared midriff, leaving her smooth stomach flawlessly colorless.         “Tani!  No!”  Calendra screamed.         The grey wave coated her arms, leaving them locked in mid-motion, her fists clenched as they'd been while she ran.  It coated her halter, and Calendra saw the breath of life stop in her oath-sister as her breasts quit heaving and remained frozen in stone.  But despite the situation, despite her own fear, Tanille's voice exploded from her.         “Don't stop, Calli!  Run!  Don't look back!”         Calendra's hand, halfway up to her lips.  Her vision blurred with tears that she desperately wiped away.  “Tani— ”         “Run, Calli!”  Tani screamed.  Her eyes, if possible, got wider.  The stone sucked away the dark luster from her hair, ran up her neck.  “Run!!”         The last word stretched out and softened, seeming to hang in the air and echo forever as Tanille's face succumbed at last.  Her lips paled and stiffened in that anguished scream.  The brown pupils that Calendra so envied disappeared into pale white-grey.  The brown hair took on the same hue, becoming a mass of stone rather than singular strands, inseparable from the stony points of her ears.  And just like that, Calendra's oath-sister stood no more as a warm, living, breathing woman, but as a frightened figure of cold stone.         And still the cry rang in Calendra's ears.         Run!  Don't look back!         Calendra took a long last look at her sister, and spun and launched herself into the brush, her vision again blurring with tears at the thought of losing her oath-sister and her entire village.  But she listened.  She never once looked back.         And she didn't quit running until she collapsed with exhaustion twelve hours later, when fatigue and grief finally outweighed the terror that lent her legs strength.  And ultimately, it wouldn't matter.  When she finally cried herself to sleep, her dreams were of blazing red eyes and her oath-sister's pretty face, forever frozen in stone in a mask of fright. †‡†