The woman’s gaze turned to Vaelin, her eyes tracking him from head to foot before she nodded at the young man. He greeted Vaelin with a cautious smile, conveying a sense of youthful discomfort at an important gathering. “My mother asks your name,” he said in Realm Tongue, the vowels clipped and heavily accented but still easily understood.
“Your mother?” Vaelin’s gaze switched between the two of them as he raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” the young man replied. “Many Wings, shamaness to the Wolf People of the Tree Isles. I am her son, named Long Knife by consent of the people.”
“Really?” Vaelin stared at him and let the silence string out, noting how the young man held his arms loose at his sides. He wore no weapon but Vaelin was certain he had at least one knife under his furs and knew well how to use it. He also noted a sudden alertness in the surrounding wolves, their heads rising as if in answer to an unheard call.
“Your . . . mother is not the only shaman here,” Vaelin said. “She commands the hawks and you the wolves.”
The young man gritted his teeth and forced a smile. “Yes. And we ask your name.”
“I’ll hear yours first, Volarian. Your true name. I’ve been obliged to kill far too many of your countrymen to give trust so easily.”
The wolves rose from their haunches as one, a snarl sounding from every throat as the young man bridled, stating in implacable tones, “I am not Volarian.”
Many Wings spoke again, a terse few words but evidently enough to make the young man suppress his anger, the wolves relaxing once more as he took a calming breath. “My birth name is Astorek Anvir,” he said. “And I ask your name.”
“Vaelin Al Sorna, Tower Lord of the Northern Reaches by the Queen’s Word.”
Many Wings waved her bone at him, uttering a guttural exclamation, her face suddenly drawn in irritation. “Mother says you have another name,” Astorek Anvir related.
“I am called Avenshura by the Eorhil,” Vaelin said. “And Beral Shak Ur by the Seordah.”
“We do not know these words,” Astorek said. “Explain their meaning.”
“Avenshura is the bright star that appears in the morning sky. Beral Shak Ur is the Shadow of the Raven.”
Astorek and Many Wings exchanged a glance, faces suddenly grave. They said nothing but from the way Wise Bear straightened Vaelin divined they were communicating by other means.
“Gather your people,” Astorek said after a moment. “You will follow us.”
“To what purpose?” Vaelin asked.
“Follow and find out.” The Volarian turned and started back to his sled, the wolves rising as one to fall in on either side as their master cast a final word over his shoulder, “Or stay here and perish when the Long Night falls.”
• • •
The island stretched away on either side for several miles, liberally covered with trees, a steep-sided mountain of snow-speckled granite rising from its centre. “Wolf Home,” Wise Bear called it in rough translation of its unpronounceable true name. “I not see this for many year.”
The journey had taken four days hard trekking across the ice, which became noticeably thinner the farther south they travelled. It was unnerving to see through it when the sun rose high, light playing on the bubbles visible beneath a barrier no more than a few feet thick. “It melts in summer,” Astorek explained. “And the islands become isolated, reachable only by boat. Though we have plenty of those.”
He had been an affable guide so far, unwilling to take offence at the instinctive suspicion of the Sentar or the open hostility of the Realm folk. “Offering trust to such as him does not seem wise, my lord,” Orven advised, his dark expression a mirror of his soldiers as he regarded the Volarian. Like all the men from the Realm he had been forced to abandon a daily grooming regimen and was now of somewhat wild appearance, the unkempt beard and long hair rendering him nearly unrecognisable. “We know to our cost how well they use their spies.”
“He’s no spy,” Kiral said, the only one in their company besides Wise Bear to display no enmity towards the young shaman. “My song tells of no deceit.”
“These people trust him,” Vaelin pointed out as Orven plainly found scant reassurance in the huntress’s words. “And Wise Bear trusts them. Besides, we have little choice.”
A large gathering of Wolf People waited on a spit of land on the island’s west-facing coast, several hundred men, women and children staring in open curiosity at the newcomers. Clustered among them were several wolf packs each numbering ten or more with a single shaman at their centre, whilst a great flock of spear-hawks circled above. Many Wings raised her bone-staff to order a halt as a man came forward to greet them, a little taller than her with a broader build than most ice people. From the closeness of the embrace he shared with Many Wings and Astorek, Vaelin deduced he was witnessing a family reunion.
“My father bids you welcome,” Astorek related. “He leads here. In your tongue his name means Whale Killer.”
