The next morning on Soratha's advice we went to visit Jaryan's uncle Karenstar. When we arrived we met his wife Deladra. Karenstar was away aiding the search for Esrala.
Wurk asked Deladra how well she knew Darastan. She said that she didn't really know him. Wurk asked her a few more questions, and then she mentioned a hunting cabin that she said she'd never been to and didn't know where it was, but implied that might be where Darastan and Esrala had gone. Eventually after Wurk talked to her further she confessed that she had been there with Fiedor and made us swear we wouldn't tell Karenstar. She told us how to find the cabin after we agreed that we would tell no one we learned of it from her. She gave us some food to take.
The journey to the cabin was hard. It was very cold, the wind had teeth like an alynx. When we arrived at the lodge we found that the door had been battered open and the stores of food had been scattered on the floor, except the meat, which had been taken. Strange signs and symbols had been written on the walls and there was a flint knife driven into the broken door. Snow had blown inside, obscuring the tracks of whoever had torn down the door.
Wurk spied something in the loft and drew his sword. Darastan leaped down and clung to Wurk's legs. He jabbered in fear. After a time Wurk patiently got him to tell us what had happened. He said that he and Esrala had wed and he'd brought her there to be alone. Wolf men had come and taken her while he was gathering wood. He claimed the carvings were wedding charms. They had been waiting to have a formal wedding before their families until they knew that she was fertile.
Wurk asked Darastan if Esrala was willing. Suddenly Collan drew his sword. Jaryan had gone outside to look for tracks and found tracks of both humans and wolves. He came back and asked Darastan who it was that had married them. Wurk told him that first we should find Esrala and then we could worry about the rest of Darastan's tale.
We left Daratan behind at the lodge and made our way to the Telmori territory. It was near Yelm-down when five people and five wolves came to meet us. Among them were Sees Far and Black Fang who we had met before. Others we met were Boar Killer and Running Wind. They told us they thought Darastan was crazy. They had rescued Esrala from him. They took us back to their camp where we found Esrala wrapped in furs and sitting with several Telmori women, all talking like old friends. My eyes were drawn to one woman whose name they said was Shadow, but she didn't have one.
Wurk talked to Esrala and she agreed with what Sees Far had said. Darastan had taken her against her will and the Telmori had saved her. Sees Far said he would speak to their pack leaders the next day to see what they decided about letting us take Esrala back. Wurk used the Stag's Leap to return to see Grandmother White Bark and let her know that Esrala was safe and that maybe Darastan wouldn't make it through the winter in the hunting lodge.
We stayed that night at the Telmori camp. Collan, Jaryan, and Wurk compared their battle scars with the younger Telmori men. Boar Killer told a tale of slaying a Tusk Rider, and explained that he wa a Heortling who had been adopted by the Telmori. Until then I didn't know that they did that. Jaryan told them about hunting down the witch and they saw that her magic was like Tusk Rider magic.
The next morning we went with them to their village to see their elders, the Father and Mother of their pack. Their father was Takes Teeth and their mother was Wind Chaser, who met us in her wolf form. Because we had returned one of their pack to them when we brought Kills Two Bears back to them, they returned Esrala to us.
The wind had stopped. The Telmori gave Esrala some warm clothes to wear and we took her back to Grandmother White Bark. We knew Grandmother would make good on what she owed us for that when the time came. Wurk asked her if she would sponsor him for the Issaries cult since he couldn't ask Borkar to sponsor him after what happened with Borkar's wife. We left Darastan at the hunting lodge. We didn't find out what happened to him after.
At the end of the season, after the worship ceremony, Wurk found that he had a scar in the palm of his hand that bonded him with the rainbow dragon spirit Shavashank.
Freeze Day of Death week in Storm season came. The time between Yelm-rise and Yelm-down grew short. Lashing rains fell with hail, and cyclones were seen in the mountains. As the year died the seeds of destruction were sown.
Our Vale was visited by Kallyr the Starbrow. Because we had defeated the witch and helped the Third Wind and found Esrala, Wurk and Jaryan and Collan and I were welcomed to join the Ring when they met with her and her company. I saw the gem in her forehead that gave her the name, and the mixed red and silver of her hair. She had a face that was both hard and beautiful. She was both a high priestess of Orlanth the King and a Storm Voice of Vinga, mighty in strength of arms. There we heard about Argrath. The members of the Ring seemed intimated by her, something I had never seen before. Wurk spoke to her for a moment about how his mother had died defending the Starbrow's escape. She asked to see his hand and he showed her the mark from Shavashank.
We were introduced to all of her closest companions and advisors. Ernaldesta, the priestess of Ernalda who wore ceremonial green dye so often that her skin was permanently green. Orngerin Holdfast, her porter, his skin thick with tattoos. Orlarant Dragonfriend, who had no hair but was covered in tattoos that seemed to move on their own. Insterid Fire-Eyes, guide and tracker, with hair dyed red in honor of Vinga and eyes that truly did seem to blaze with fire. Minaryth Purple of Jonstown, the purple-robed sage of Llhankor Mhy.
Jaryan asked if Wurk meant to tell her about the orb and Shavashank. Wurk said to him that the Ring knew about it and they would likely tell her. When Kallyr left the Hall he followed her and Insterid followed him. I spoke with Ernaldesta, and she told me of a cult of My Daughter, the healer of warriors on the battlefield. She spoke also of her five children and I wondered how often she saw them.
Wurk found a chance to talk to the Dragonfriend about the orb, which Orlarant was very interested in. Jaryan was given a chance to spar with Orngerin.
When we went back to the dragon temple with them, Ernaldesta watched over us as though she was our mother. Wurk had borrowed the leaping sword again. When we got to the cliff where the temple lay, we found the doors were gone! Starbrow tried to open it, but it would not bow to her. Orlarant tried his magic with no more success. Then he turned to Wurk, and when Wurk stepped forward the entrance reappeared. Kallyr and the others tried to move toward it as if to enter and it vanished again. Orlarant said some words, later I found in Old Wyrmish, but that did nothing. The doors were only there if Wurk went forward. Orlarant laughed and said that we had been allowed to enter because we had wanted nothing for ourselves, but Kallyr could not enter because she wanted the dragon soul.
We discovered then that each one of us had a magic stone, even though we hadn't asked for them or been given them by the Ring. Jaryan and I had the stones we'd been given before, black and green, and Collan had a red one. I still don't know how we were given those without our knowledge.
I used the green stone to rise up and anchor the rope as I'd done before, and the other three climbed up after me. Like before it was warm inside the temple. Shah'vasha came out and offered to unite with us. This time when Wurk put his left hand with the mark in his palm on the door the bronze door opened for him. A shower of dust fell. Stairs went down from that door. At the bottom was a small room with rubble on the floor where its ceiling covering had fallen in. We climbed over the mess and went down another stair.
That room seemed to be a place for writing and keeping records. The scrolls on the shelves turned to dust if we touched them. In the next room there was a skeleton still wrapped in a decaying robe of a strange design that I had never seen before. Collan found a silver ring on the skeleton.
We listened at the next door we came to but heard nothing. In that room two skeletons lay on top of several floor mats. After that was a room with stone benches, and then a room where the air smelled very bad and made our throats burn. We went back up the stairs and went down a passage to the other side. The walls there were painted with strange images, a goddess who looked like Ernalda fornicating with a blue dragon marked with Orlanthi runes.
We backtracked again and took another turning and came to more paintings on the walls, this time of Ernalda coupling with a troll. Then we came to a place where the passage was blocked by a big block of black obsidian. The surface of it rippled like water. It ate the light of our torches so we could hardly see. Shavashank said, Where the end meets the beginning. We found a way ahead and came to another black block, but it didn't swallow the light of our torches, it filled the passage so we couldn't get past.
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