Krayzor's Arc

Chapter 16 of 16

Krayzor came back to the ivy-draped hut at first light. The old woman sat on the step with a bundle at her feet. She signed one word, slow: ready. Then she stood, and her knees shook, and he saw the truth. She could carry his message, but she could not carry herself across the deep-wild alone. She pressed a roll of cracked scrolls into his hands. Old ink. Faded marks in three tongues. She tapped her chest, then the scrolls, then the trees beyond the bone arch. She had walked this road once, long ago. She would not walk it again without a shoulder to lean on. Krayzor stared past the grinning skulls of the gate. A line of tall crystal posts shimmered faintly beyond, marking the old protected path. He could send a scout. He could send the chieftain's son. But every name he picked was a name he could lose, and the woman needed someone the deep-wild would not strike on sight. The gray wolf stepped out from the ivy. Yellow eyes. Same tilt of the head. It huffed at him and signed, paw turning slow: walk with. Then it signed safe. Then it waited. Krayzor knelt and tied the scrolls into his pack. He lifted the old woman's bundle onto his own back. He offered her his arm. She took it. Together they crossed under the skull arch, past the first glowing post, the wolf pacing at their flank. He had meant to send a messenger. Instead he became one. The council would wait. The banner would wait. He set down the man who led and picked up the man who walked beside a frail woman into a country that did not know his name.