Chapter III Rauthara's end

The season of Sumara passed back to the south, yet vibrant were the colors of Rauthara. Red was her hair, and of amber were her eyes. She came to the northern lands, where her doom met her, bleeding into the eastern waves from the blows of the Fifth. So too was Talina, wife of Agdas, for her kin bore the image of the buried goddess. Fallen leaves were blown about Skalla-Holl, whose guests had all departed to prepare for the long sleep of winter. Velda remained, with her son and his family, as did their small household of Ulfar and Marunnai. Heavy rains were driven from the north by frigid winds, and so, restless with boredom, Finras and Hetta went to their mother.“Mother, what are the sky people you spoke of?” asked the son of Agdas, ever full of questions. “Do they bring the rain?”“They are a folk who dwell in cities built upon the clouds,” Talina answered, drawing her children close. “They are light as feathers and swift as thunder. Perhaps they bring the rain—or perhaps not. I have never met them.”“Are they frightening?” Hetta asked.“When they are seized by wrath,” Talina replied, “it is said the sky itself burns red—like my hair.” As Hetta braided her mother’s crimson locks, the rain ceased. Then Agdas rose, took up his axe, and departed with most of the men and wolves to hunt.“May the gods be with you,” Talina called, raising her hand.“Fret not, dear,” he answered, lifting his arm in return. Velda watched as he closed the gate behind him. Not long after, as the skull of Velda’s husband rested upon her lap, its markings gleamed faintly—and then the skull stirred. After only a few heartbeats, howling screams rose from outside. Velda leapt to her feet, donning her she-wolf breastplate and seizing her battle-axe, her husband’s skull bound to her back. Talina hurried the children to the far side of the hall.“Finras, protect your sister. May Vuulk guard his house,” Talina cried, panic sharp in her voice.Velda threw open the gates—and beheld horror.The northern tribesmen were upon her kin and they had giants.Agdas fought like a crashing wave against sharp rock, felling many with the strength of his host, yet hope of victory was denied him, for the size and might of his foe were far greater. Too late did Velda arrive to see the three-eyed giant seize her son’s broken body in one enormous hand.No words could describe the chill scream she let out charging at the monster.With all her strength she split the giant’s club in two and hacked into his leg. In agony, the monster released Agdas, who fell upon the soaked grass. The giant’s fist struck Velda’s head, shattering her skull—but still she did not yield. She carved a crater into his face.Velda collapsed beside her son. The giant toppled like a fallen hill into the Riven, where **Vatnur** filled his lungs and silenced him forever. Yet he was not alone. One more giant remained, having slaughtered the rest of Agdas’s host and begun his feast, for giants grow stronger by consuming the flesh of the Marunnai. Enraged by the death of their leader, they charged. A spear struck the torso of the tusked monster. Battle erupted in full fury as the remaining members of the household joined the fray, led by Talina herself. Velda, bleeding dark blood, one eye barely open, grasped her son—but he did not stir. She screamed until blood and tears mingled upon the grass. Talina surged forward with a valorous cry, loosing an arrow into a the northerner's gaping mouth, silencing him forever. But a rock torn from Vuulk’s altar shattered her chest.The den mother felt the skull:“No… no, I cannot… please, my dearest.” Cold and desperate was her voice.Yet she rose for the final time. The strength of her ancestors moved within her, and she hurled herself at them. Three men fell beneath her blows, for she severed their heads. Alas, a dark stone boulder struck her in turn, killing the den mother Velda, mightiest of her race. Yet she did not fall, for Sifjara herself kissed her, freezing shut her grieving eyes. Frost traced her bloodied flesh, and so she remained standing—an unmoving pillar of ice. The last giant recoiled in astonishment as the chill passed through his very being. But seeing the den mother’s stillness, the lust for Marunnai flesh drove him onward. He came upon the hallowed hall of Vuulk and smote its gates until they broke. Silent were the wooden wolves. Silent was the howling hall as the monster entered, gazing with three eyes. Fear filled the hearts of the children, and Saelas let out a growl that doomed them. The giant seized Hetta, who clutched the whelp, while Finras did not stir—even as his sister screamed his name. The vile creature dragged them outside, before the eyes of Velda and Talina. With her dying breath Talina cursed him:“The gods shall avenge me, and may you choke upon the sorrow you have wrought!”The giant opened his mouth, intent on devouring the girl. Yet this was not meant to be. Above the clouds, the wives of fate sang their songs of wyrd and wove into then the screams, and being of Marunnai blood were filled with wrath and pity. They descended and clawed at the giant’s eyes. But the monster seized one by the tail and dashed her upon the ground, crushing her beneath his leg. White feathers were stained with blood as her companion screamed in agony and tore out one of the giant’s eyes. So great was the pain that the monster flung Hetta and Saelas away. Talina smiled—and was no more. Finras waited. He waited, holding his breath, until no sound remained. Dark was that autumn night, for all laughter had fled Skalla-Holl. At last he stirred, moving slowly toward the shattered gate. Looking out, his eyes filled with hope, for there stood his grandmother, proud in the starlight. He rushed to her, heedless of blood and death, reaching out for her embrace—yet the figure was fixed beyond time. Finras called out:“Grandmother, grandmother!” As he came close, touching her, he recoiled—for she was so cold. Tears filled his eyes. He knelt before her and begged her to speak, to move, to help him, yet only a fierce gleam remained in her eyes, defiant beyond the end. The bodies of the Marunnai were no more, their very essence devoured. Even the white-feathered were not spared the most foul sacrilege. In that silence Finras remained, hearing only the bitter fall of his tears, knowing well his shameful cravenness.When morning came, a piercing howl echoed through the forest. The great hunter was near; the defiling of his hall had led him here. Yet so great was the sorrow of the child that he paid it no mind, gazing only upon Velda. A vast shadow passed through Skalla-Holl and into the battlefield below, and the eight eyes of Vuulk fell upon Finras. His blood froze. A great wolf passed westward like the wind, followed by a hundred howls, and the boughs of trees quaked beneath the onrush of power. Yet one of the sons of Vuulk—a beast taller even than Velda—remained. He approached the weary boy slowly, took Finras upon his back, and ran upstream until he found a safe place, a small cave in which to nestle. The wolf did not let the son of Agdas out of his sight, keeping watchful vigil, ever lying beside him. All day Finras neither spoke nor ate. He lay upon the ground, and though the hallowed beast was insistent, he could not lift the dark mood that had befallen the child. Only as the day drew to its end did Finras look upon the son of Vuulk and realize who he was—yet not even gods could undo what had been done. Deeper and deeper he sank. The bright feathers of Eldrafugl were darkened by clouds of despair. Even the rushing waters of the Riven calmed him not, for he was lost in darkness with no redress. Nightmares hunted him that night, calling him craven and traitor—a cowardly son who had let his sister perish. No morning sun did he see, even as the beast took him by the neck and dipped him into the cool river. The son of Vuulk pondered what to do, for he was failing utterly to mend the wounds of the boy. For neither food nor sleep healed the broken child.Thus the wolf, seeing the utter downfall of High Clan Lupas, bore the shattered boy farther east, deep into Sumara-Stjup, into the territory of the herds of Clan Dyras. Many days passed before the wandering companies were found, and Finras’s condition worsened swiftly. At last, upon a hill standing proud, was Yrnis, still bearing the weight of his antler crown. The son of Vuulk presented the child to the wife of Darr, to the astonishment of the horned one. Yrnis struggled down from his great stag to inspect Finras more closely, and seeing that he was uninjured, he felt relief—for a moment. Yet he questioned the son of Agdas and sought to feed him, but availed in neither. Perceiving that something had gone grievously awry, Yrnis sent a company to Skalla-Holl and led his herd southward, nearer to the Glade of Faces, Glathr-Andlit—the holiest site of Clan Dyras, where most of the rooted wives of Darr gather in silent council.The days passed as Yrnis reached the hallowed place, and the clans people that were sent west to check on High Clan Lupas returned not. Then, guessing what had happened, he sent a raven to Hramnfjall, informing Muninn of what had transpired. Thus he took Finras’s arm, and together they walked into the sacred glade, and blank faces on the trees espied them. A circle of horned trees surrounded the clearing, and their hair moved in the wind, and forms of Marunnai and wood were blended together in that place. There were voices in the swaying of branches and the cracking of bark, yet in the middle there was a tall ancient oak, the first of its kind in Aeskenia. On its trunk was bare Darr, painted with green dyes in his humanoid shape, with antlers like a stag extending to the branches above, and Sumara was depicted there also below, with her large belly covered by an oak leaf.The two now stood in the shadow of the miracle of Sumara, and Yrnis spake: -Here Darr hid from Vuulk in the olden days.- His head swayed, but Finras remained silent. -Now rest on the roots of the tree awhile, and gods will make their will known to thee, son of Agdas.- Then Yrnis gave the boy a mushroom with a dark green cap, and he left the boy to the spirits.For a few hours did Finras sit there unmoving, till finally he tasted the magic shroom. It was bitter and sweet; he was cold and warm, sweat poured down, or was it tears. The visions flooded his mind. He saw his parents standing there, his father three-eyed, his mother a fox. Then he fell. He drowned. His sister was there screaming as her lungs filled with water, and an unfamiliar boy with a wolf’s head dived in. The faces on the trees moved and whispered: -The five eyes have opened, the sleeping wake upon our kind, the mountains crumble, bogs deceive, the white crow holds a bloody secret.-Roots tangled his legs; Finras was stuck, stuck in his season. Then Darr was above him, and Sumara held him in her embrace. She suckled him, and there was life in him yet. Beasts came before him to answer the call of their father. Many faces looked on Finras, and he felt expectation. Sumara held him up, and Darr lifted him high up his stem unto the branches. He saw the world: the Amber Isles of his mother, where leaves are ever crimson, and the flowering vales where Aevara laughed, but now her smile left him. The wide forest of his birth embraced him fully as he gazed from above with the eyes of a god.But then a chill wind came from the north, and the brown leaves were carried to the frozen lands, where the five-eyed giant, like a mountain, raged by the sea as he awakened from an ancient slumber. A branch broke, and he fell down and down into the earth, into the roots far beneath, into the darkness.Finras awoke as the son of Vuulk licked his face, to hunt he called. The boy stood, but now he was a whelp no longer, and he accepted his doom. Yrnis watched, sitting on the edge of the glade, awaiting his own fate, as Finras walked up to him. -You remind me of Velda now.- The horned one spake, and closed his eyes as he began to root himself into the earth. -Thank you. You are a true friend of High Clan Lupas.- solemnly did he answer. -I am, but that is what the gods needed me to be. But now your wyrd has been spoken. Go on and make the ancestors proud.- The wife of Darr was raised up by his roots, and last words left his lips. -A new season is about to begin.-Clan Dyras was about them, with skulls of bison and stag where they danced around, chanting. Like green vines tangled around bark, so was their flesh marked and adorned with flowers. Their skirts of wood fern shivered about; the clan celebrated the new tree of the Glade of Faces. Revelry, food, and song accompanied the occasion in the end of autumn, and Finras thought of what to do next.To the east his thoughts turned, and he desired to pass through Hramnfjall to seek the council of Muninn, but the coming winter halted all his plans, not to mention the giants. The power of Sifjara silenced all the land in the cold snow, and not even the bitter enemies of the Marunnai could move. So for now Finras had to postpone his quest for wisdom and his vengeance.With Clan Dyras did he stay as the swift northern wind blew, ending the season of Rauthara. Most grievous was her fall into the dark eastern waters, yet from her death came the isles where life abode, and where Talina, mother of Hetta and Finras, the wife of Agdas, was born and raised. The memory of her haunted Finras when he saw the color of her hair in the last gasp of autumn as the first snowflakes fell on rotting leaves. There was no laughter or joy, but he moved on. He had to grow from a sapling to a tree.His twentieth cycle was coming to an end. The son of Vuulk yawned while moving closer; as he got his head patted, he let out a growl, clearly displeased by such childish treatment. -You really are a grumpy guy.- Finras smiled a little. The wolf howled in wrath and pounced on the man, forcing him to the ground. -I yield, I yield!- shouted Finras as the fangs were on his neck. The son of Vuulk let him go, satisfied in showing his superiority.The son of Agdas got up, and Sifjara beckoned all to slumber, so he went with Clan Dyras and fell into deep sleep, as all Marunnai do when winter comes, except for those that have been taken utterly by frost, the white-haired elders of renown. He dreamt long as months passed on, as sun and stars crossed the wide skies above the blanket of snow.In his dream he was with Velda, Hetta, and his parents in the happy hall of his forebears, yet he was a boy no longer and knew that gods beckoned him forth. Vuulk was there also, his eight eyes ever watchful, baring his fangs as blood dripped down, for the sacking of his hallowed hall was to be repaid in giants’ blood. The god hunted long after, and his howls made the monsters fly in the wind like startled birds, and many of the cursed kindred felt his jaws upon their necks. Yet by some chance the one that had defiled his hall escaped, and his scent was lost in the winding tree mazes of Sumara-Stjup. This insolence he did not forget nor forgive.