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.She knew them by heart, however.With one finger, she traced the stone: Dolan Callas.First Duke of Dolan.Levoreth Callas.Beloved Wife and Mother.Her namesake.Her own self.A smile crossed her face.She sat down upon the grass, the headstone at her back, and closed her eyes.Two years ago.The coming of the wolves.That was why she had left Andolan for the solitude of the country manor in the east.At least, that was the practical reason.She would have left sooner or later, for she could never bear the town that long.Too many memories.The wolves had hurried her decision.Two years ago, she had been woken in the night by the wind murmuring at her window in the castle.She had leaned against the sill to listen.Normally, she did not trust the wind, for she found it fickle, given to fits of whimsy and equally quick in turning to violence.It was not tamable, at least not by her hand.But that night had been different.She could not ignore the melancholy in the wind’s voice.And in its murmur she heard news of an approaching winter, of shadows stirring on the far side of the mountains, and of wolves coming west.The following night, midwinter’s eve, she had heard the howl of a wolf lingering in the wind as she trudged back to the castle after compline.She had stopped, surprised, for there was fear in the wolf’s voice.The snow drifted in her hair as she listened.Fear in a wolf was something rare.And then the reports had started trickling in from the shepherds in the far reaches of the Mearh Dun.Huge timber wolves, the likes of which had never been seen west of the Mountains of Morn.Fierce beasts that terrorized the folds where the flocks were wintering, unafraid of dog and man alike.It had been only days later when the first one was sighted near the walls of Andolan.Children were no longer allowed outside the town.One day, the remains of a trader and his packhorses were found dead in the snow, three miles from the gate.On that evening, she had wrapped herself in a cloak and slipped out of the town.A full moon was rising, and its light shone on the snow.Her breath steamed in the air.For half an hour she trudged through the snow before stopping.She stood on a hill, bare of anything except the snow and her footprints.In every direction there were only the rolling slopes of the Mearh Dun.There was not a cottage or tree in sight.She stood and listened to the land.Then she had heard them, far to the north.She sent forth her thoughts and called.She subsided into silence, waiting in the cold, under the night and a scattering of stars like jewel shards and the moon with its pale eye.They had come in a rush, shadows loping over the next hill, vanishing down into the divide and then hurtling up the hill she stood on.Snow flew through the air from their paws as the pack surged around her, a few daring to brush her hands with their cold noses.Tongues lolled and eyes flashed amber, blue, and polished as wet stone.They stilled their pacing and stood around her—near a hundred, she counted.A black wolf stalked forward.His eyes, gray as a winter sky, met hers, and then he dropped his head to nose at her palm.Mistress of Mistresses.“Drythen Wulf,” she said.“The Mountains of Morn are the home of your folk, not the Mearh Dun.”Aye.You speak truth.“What has brought you and yours west? Does your clan entire think to chase the sun?”He had laughed at that, soundlessly, his yellowed teeth glistening and his eyes half closed.And then his head drooped, and a shiver ran through the watching pack.Nay, Mistress.We have no heart for legends anymore.We have run away from our land.We run, echoed the pack.Their voices were doleful.“What follows after you?”But his head had drooped lower at her question.She knelt in the snow and took his shaggy head between her hands.“Drythen Wulf, what follows after you?”A sceadu, Mistress.A cursed shadow out of our ancient legends.The home of our ancestors has become a haunt of shadows and dread.The mountains are no longer ours.The deer took herself away, and the rock hare vanishes since summer’s sun.Our small ones dream of horrors and no longer wake, leaving us to chase the sun.He trembled with anger.His teeth snapped shut on the air.“Are you sure of this? It has been many hundreds of years since such a one has been seen in this realm.There were three of them from days of old.”The wolf did not speak, but only gazed at her with his gray eyes.She nodded, then, in acceptance of his words.The pack waited in silence around her.“The Mearh Dun cannot be your home.Your coming has brought great distress to its folk
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Tematy
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