Krayzor's Arc

Chapter 15 of 16

The candles had barely guttered out before Krayzor turned his mind to the next closed door. The deep-wild clans did not answer drums. They did not answer envoys. They spoke with their hands, and no one under his banner knew the shapes. He set the chieftain's tusk in his belt and walked out into the cold dawn alone. He followed an old hunter's trail to the edge of the deep-wild. A wall of stacked skulls rose where the pines thinned. Bone teeth grinned down at him from the arch. He stopped at the line of cracked stone and did not cross. Past that gate, an unknown hand would cut him down before he spoke a word. A gray wolf stepped from the trees beside the gate. Its yellow eyes held him. It lifted one paw, turned it, set it down. It tilted its head. It bared its teeth, then closed them soft. Krayzor watched. He copied the paw. He copied the head. The wolf huffed and trotted a slow circle, showing him three more signs before it slipped back into the brush. Krayzor practiced the four shapes until his hands moved without thought. Then he walked the boundary east until he found a small round hut sunk in ivy. An old woman sat on its step, hands folded. He raised his palm and made the sign for listen. He made the sign for safe word. He made the sign for trade. She studied him a long moment, then patted the stone beside her. He sat. She poured water into a clay cup and pushed it toward him. She signed back, slow, so he could follow. He could not send an envoy yet. But he had found the one mouth that could carry his words into the deep-wild, and she had not turned him away.