Seven Princes

5

The forest smelled like a woman. Vireon inhaled its heady blend of fragrances: the perfume of hanging blossoms, the clean musk of pine and naked earth. In his twenty-four years Fize="he had known many women in every shade of beauty. None claimed his heart as fully as the wild lands of Uduria, or stayed as constant in his thoughts. The forest was his love and it satisfied him in ways no woman ever had. Her mysteries were manifold, her secrets well hidden, yet he understood her better than any other man. Only the Uduru, his Giant relatives, knew the northern woodlands as well as Vireon, but they did not love her as he did. They had walked her depths for two thousand years, carving paths and scars along her surface, but Vireon loved her verdant soul.

Now on the edge of winter, before she donned her veil of virginal white, the forest wore a gown of myriad colors. Her leaves fell like teardrops of gold, saffron, orange, and scarlet. The moss on the boles of the mighty Uyga trees faded from green to pale indigo and mottled ochre. Still she wore a crown of late-blooming flowers, the Otha, the Narill, and the colossal Aduri, filling her windblown hair with sweetness. She was quiet mostly, demure in her vibrant garb, though she spoke in breathy whispers to those who knew how to listen. Vireon had learned to speak her language, to hear that faint voice, and to read the patterns of her silence.

He knelt between the massive curling roots of an Uyga and listened to her now. She sang to him sadly of the coming frost, yet there was a hopeful melody woven into those windy tones, a dream of spring’s promise that would sustain her through months of snow and ice. Today would be the last great hunt before the weather turned and the forest settled to sleep beneath a blanket of snows. He leaped atop the tallest root, which was solid as an oblong slab of granite, and sniffed the cool air. An acrid tang of animal spoor broke the forest’s spell.

He whistled, imitating the call of the arrowbeak, and the forest rumbled behind him. Fangodrim lumbered between the great trunks of the Uyga, trying his best to make no sound and failing miserably. Uduru could never travel with the silence and grace of human hunters, and Vireon did not expect them to. The Giants were not stealthy creatures, but this was their ancestral hunting ground. They had mastered the game here through other means than stalking. The Long Wait was their traditional method of hunting. Sitting like stones curled between the Uyga, they simply waited for bucks, boars, or bears to wander by, and they rose up to cast spears that rarely missed. The hunt of the Uduru was a hunt of patience. Patience and skill. They knew the paths game took toward watering holes, the routes from lair to hunting grounds, and they haunted these animal thoroughfares like towering specters… until they struck and carried home their kill. They were the masters of the northern forests, even if the towering Uyga trees dwarfed them.

Vireon had learned all the hunting tricks of the Uduru from Fangodrim, his great uncle. The Gray One, they called him at court, First Among Giants. Not only did he serve as the King’s personal counselor, but he was the oldest and wisest of the surviving Giants. Fangodrim’s brother was Vod’s father, Fangodrel the First, who died in the fall of Old Udurum. Fangodrim had been Vod’s closest friend, man or Giant.

The graybeard sank to one knee, bringing his great eyes level with Vireon’s own. His pupils were discs of sharpest blue, and the eyeballs sat in beds of leathery wrinkles. Now the smoky odor of his uncle’s beard filled Vireon’s nostrils. Using the head of his spear, the Prince pointed in a northwesterly direction.

Fangodrim grunted his assent, hefted his own spear across his l K acghteft shoulder, and followed Vireon as he leapt from root to ground and sprinted ahead. The Giant’s steps were great strides, the typical Uduru manner of walking which ate up the miles quickly. Vireon could outrun any Giant, but a light sprint let him match his uncle’s huge gait. For days now he had led Fangodrim on the search for an unspoiled herd of Welka, the Giant deer that roamed Uduria. Usually they were too fast for Uduru hunters, so if the Giants missed the Welka migrations, entire populations of the animals would thrive unculled in the upper ranges. Vireon had talked them into tracking the Welka to their distant haunts years back, and every year since he managed to find a valley full of the prized game. Now the scent of the Welka wafted strong. He found evidence of their passing, piles of dung left carelessly among the glades between Uygas and smaller trees.

Vireon raced ahead, topping a low ridge scattered with tonguegrass and spittleweed. Like a squirrel he clambered up the creviced bark of an Uyga. Looking down from his lofty perch, still far below the spreading branches, he saw into the valley beyond. An oval lake gleamed silver beyond the foliage of intervening trees, and a herd of Welka gathered to drink. The creatures’ pelts glimmered black as jet in the mottled sunlight reflecting off the water. Antlers stood white and deadly sharp from narrow heads, and their eyes gleamed like onyx. Each one stood twice the size of a healthy ox, some of the bucks even larger. There must be at least three hundred in the herd; a fourth were immature younglings the size of horses with pale gray coats and no antlers. Vireon was glad he had brought only Fangodrim along, for the approach of even a few more Uduru would have shaken the ground enough to startle and scatter the beasts.

Fangodrim knelt atop the ridge now, his shaggy head directly below where Vireon had climbed. He leaped down to stand at his uncle’s side.

“A fine herd,” Fangodrim whispered. He smiled at his nephew, which made him look much like Vireon’s father. They had the same broad-set lips. “I’m hurling for that tall buck, the one at the near bank.”

“A good choice,” whispered Vireon. “But I see a more impressive display of antlers there… near the Yagga bush.”

Fangodrim nodded. Uncle and nephew took up their spears and crept over the ridge’s spine. In a fluid motion they stood and tossed their twin spears simultaneously. The weapons soared through the air, turning at the apex of their arcs and plunging toward their chosen Welka. Fangodrim’s shaft hit its mark a half-second before Vireon’s, impaling the great buck through the spine and pinning it to the ground. Before the death of their herd-lord could spread a ripple of fear among the herd, Vireon’s weapon took its target in the left side. The steel head and two feet of the Uyga-wood shaft exited from the right flank with a splash of hot blood. Vireon’s kill hit the ground and the herd broke in every possible direction, powerful legs beating silver hooves against the sward, carrying them toward the high ground with a sound like rolling thunder.

“Hah!” Fangodrim shouted. He clapped Vireon on the back, and Vireon could only smile. It was Fangodrim who had taught him the spear and the ways of the hunt. Vod had rarely hunted, and when he did it was in the company of other Men, not Giants. The wilderness had not been Vod’s home. The Uduru hunting ritual was alien to him, raised as he was in the Old Desert by humans. Once Vod had told Vireon, “Son, you are far more an Uduru than I ever was.” Vireon ne K”their chosver forgot those words. He carried them next to his heart like precious jewels no one else could see.

As Fangodrim and Vireon walked down the slope, galloping Welka turned aside, speeding away from them with the natural instinct of prey avoiding predators. The beasts could probably trample Vireon, but never Fangodrim. Vireon wondered if he could outrace a charging mass of them. But they fled like frightened squirrels now, up the slopes and out of the valley.

The hunters approached their kills. Vireon’s buck had some twitching life left in it, so he drew his long knife and finished it with a clean slice across the throat.

By the time they finished draining the carcasses and roping the legs together for carrying, the sun reached its zenith and the lake lit up like a shield of diamonds. They reclined in the shade of a twisting Uyga, taking rest before the long trek home. As always Fangodrim offered to carry Vireon’s carcass for him, and Vireon refused. Often it seemed, perhaps too often, the Uduru, even Fangodrim, forgot his great strength and that of his brother. It seemed impossible for most Giants to grasp the fact that both brothers, although standing barely higher than a Giant’s knees, possessed all the strength of a true Uduru, with twice the endurance and speed. As if two Uduru spirits had inhabited human bodies.

Vireon stared at the brilliant lake, lost in thoughts of spirits and flesh. There were none in the world like Tadarus and himself. Never before had a human woman and an Uduru man produced offspring. Never before had an Uduru possessed the sorcery to take on the form of a man to make this possible. In many ways Tadarus and he were as much children of sorcery as they were of Vod and Shaira. His father had never spoken much of his magic, but Vireon wished he knew more about it. He supposed he never would, now that his father had given himself to the mercy of the Sea Queen.

“You miss him,” said Fangodrim, his voice like the rumbling of distant storm.

Vireon watched clouds move across the water. “My brother?” He smiled.

“Your father,” said Fangodrim.

Vireon shrugged. “You know me too well, Uncle.”

“There is no shame in it,” said the Giant. “A boy may cry, but a man bears his sorrow in silence, and that you have done.”

“My mother weeps enough for all of us,” said Vireon. Hardly a day went by without his mother’s tears glistening like palace opals.

“She loved him,” said Fangodrim. “ Loves him. As you do. As you always will.”

“What use to love a dead man?” Vireon sighed.

Fangodrim grunted. “You are too young to be so grim, boy. Do you think death is an end of things? Death is only a door, and those who die await us on the other side. They are never truly gone as long as our memory keeps that door open.”

Vireon said nothing.

“Do you understand?” Fangodrim asked, looking into his eyes.

‹ Keigth="27"›div› ‹p height="0em" width="27"›‹font size="3"›Vireon nodded. “Tell me about my grandfather.”‹font›

Fangodrim looked upward, into the sun-speckled mass of Uyga leaves. His back leaned against the wide trunk. Vireon lay atop a nearby root on a bed of lavender moss.

“My brother, your grandfather… Fangodrel the Bold,” he said wistfully. “You know his story already.”

“I know only what you’ve told me,” said Vireon. “How baby Vod was stolen by a black eagle. How Fangodrel searched for years to find him and returned to the city empty-handed. He died in the fall of Old Udurum, trying to slay the Serpent-Father.”

“See? You already know your grandfather. Great deeds live on, even after Giants and Men die.”

“What was he like?” Vireon persisted. “Did he laugh? Or was he dour like you?”

Fangodrim considered the question. “He… did laugh. When he was with your grandmother. She made him very happy. I never… I never understood it. To me, one woman is as good as the next. But Fangodrel had eyes only for Oidah. When your father was born, it was the happiest day of his life. He laughed and held the baby high so the sun would kiss him. Those were peaceful days. Our city was strong and our numbers were great. Now… now we dwindle.”

Vireon shifted his weight to lie on his side and look into his uncle’s gnarled face. “Is it true that my father was the last baby born to the Uduru?”

Fangodrim nodded. A cold wind blew through the valley and yellow Uyga leaves fell about the glade, one of them landing across the Giant’s outstretched leg. He took the leaf in his great hand, cradling it gingerly. “Now our people fade. Like this tree shedding its leaves, the earth sheds Uduru. There are so few of us left, and we grow old.” He crumpled the leaf to saffron dust in his hand. “It is the autumn of our kind, and winter will be upon us before we realize it.”

“Still I wonder why,” Vireon said. “Why can’t the Uduri bear children anymore?”

Fangodrim opened his hand. The wind caught his leaf dust, spilling it across the ground.

“It is the Curse of Omagh.”

“The Serpent-Father?”

“Your father slew him and rebuilt Udurum, but he could not destroy the evil spirit that dwelled within the beast. It is this power that keeps our women barren.”

“Another curse?” Vireon frowned. “Father said the Mer-Queen cursed him. Is there no end to curses? Nothing that can be done?”

The corners of Fangodrim’s mouth rose to wrinkle his eyes. “ You are the end to Omagh’s Curse… you and Tadarus.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You and Tadarus… you are the link between Uduru and Men. You are something entirely new. Something great. A new breed for this world. Your children will be mighty Killn U one day, a new race that will spread across the kingdoms of the earth. It all begins anew with you.”

Vireon never thought of having children. He had lain with many girls, many women, but his seed had never taken. If his uncle spoke truly, then the responsibility to have many children lay upon his shoulders, and that of his brother.

A new scent, moist and green, came to his nose. His true love, the forest, once again seducing him. It was the smell of rain. A gentle shower began to fall and the sun fell behind a bank of gray clouds. Vireon studied the bowl of the sky. This would not be a great storm, only a passing wash. The lake danced with ripples, its silver mirror illusion broken. He stood upon the Uyga root and dove into the chill waters.

Gliding through the murky depths, he passed shoals of rainbow-scaled fish and skimmed a forest of dark waterweed, an aqueous wonderland that mimicked the wood outside the lake. What secrets lay buried in the sediment among those drowned roots? That was the world, he supposed. Secrets within secrets within secrets.

He emerged on the far side of the lake, stepping out to sun himself on the green bank. Looking back, he saw Fangodrim dozing now under the Uyga’s rustling canopy. The rain shower had already faded to a drizzle, and the sun hurled a rainbow across the eastern sky. Vireon watched it in quiet wonder, airy strings of jewels like a new crown for his love, arcing gracefully over the gigantic trees. The air, stunned by the wet glow of the sun, took on a golden quality, and nature shimmered like a glassy vision.

Suddenly a flash of purest white caught Vireon’s eye. He turned his head and found himself staring at a curious creature. Some distance away from the lake a pale-furred thing crouched atop a green boulder, staring at him with narrow black eyes. It blinked once, and he realized it was a fox. Twice as large as a normal fox, larger than a wolf, with a regal tail swishing low behind its lean body. He stared, and the white fox did not move.

“Vireon?” Fangodrim’s voice rolled across the water. A second time he called out, but Vireon did not answer. He was staring at the fox, unable to turn away, knowing it would disappear like a dissolving dream if he did so.

A third time and Fangodrim’s voice broke his reverie. He turned and shouted across the lake. “Uncle! I see a white fox!”

Fangodrim rose to his feet and his voice boomed. “It is only a dream,” he yelled. “Many of us have seen it. We call it the Wyrial, the ghost dancer. You must ignore it! Swim back to this side.”

Vireon looked back and the fox was gone. The flip of a white tail dove into the shadows of the trees. He ran after it.

Fangodrim shouted after him. “Vireon, no! Do not chase the Wyrial! It’s only a vision! Come back!”

The Giant’s voice echoed across the valley, but Vireon was gone.

“Vireon!” he shouted, standing between the carcasses of the two cleaned Welka bucks. Their dead eyes stared blankly at nothing. “Vireon, come back!”

It was too late. The chase had begun.

Vireon ran, and the forest became a blur of green, brown, and gold. He leaped over narrow ravines, fallen branches big as logs, and piles of mossy boulders. The white fox glided between the trees like a low-flying bird, a pale shadow with the speed of a winter wind. Hours he ran after it without tiring, until the sun sank low in the sky and darkness flooded the forest. Now the fox gleamed silver in the moonlight, sometimes stopping to look back at him with its dark, almond-shaped eyes, pink tongue lolling. Then it was running again, a gleam of white threading the hem of night’s dense cloak.

The sinking of the sun on his left told Vireon the fox was heading north, probably well beyond the realm of the Giants’ hunting ground. How far north did the great forest extend? He had no idea. It might stretch all the way into the frozen wastes at the top of the world. He put such matters aside, reveling in the joy of the run, the thrill of the chase. His spear had been left behind with his uncle, but he had his knife of Uduru steel. All he would need to skin the fox’s pearly coat when he caught it. Such a fine pelt it would be, a raiment fit for any Prince.

The last of the day’s lingering warmth faded from the forest, and his breaths came in gusts of white fog. He lost sight of the running fox every now and then, but he already had caught its smell. It was unlike any animal odor. A cloying mix of jasmine, rose petals, and raw green earth. More like a woman’s smell than a beast’s. It incensed him in some primal way, and he pushed himself faster, running on across moonlit valleys, splashing through creeks foamy with whitewater, launching himself up the sides of fallen Uyga trunks and leaping wolf-like to the earth on the other side. The ground grew rougher and a range of wooded hills rose about him. Still the white fox led him on by sight and smell and sheer audacity. His hunter’s pride hung in the balance. No beast could escape a Prince of Udurum.

He ran on through the depths of night, along pitch-dark hollows where moonlight could not reach, across bony hilltops bright with legions of spreading moonflowers. He barely noticed when the rain returned, this time falling hard and cold against his skin. He ran through the rising wind and the whirling storm; the damp only made the fox’s scent stronger. Just before dawn the rain turned to sleet, and the ground became slick with gray slush. He fell once, sliding down a hill on his backside and slamming into a tree bole, but he was up and running again even before catching his breath. The icy rain washed him clean as he ran.

In the cold glare of sunrise, he saw the fox mount a hill no more than a spear’s cast away. He stopped dead in his tracks, blinking at it. Atop the rise now stood a gorgeous young woman, barefoot on the frosty ground. Long hair fell bright as sunlight about her naked body, and she glowered at him down the hillside. Vireon held his breath. Her narrow eyes were dark as night, just like the fox. Her flesh was pale, the alabaster of a nocturnal being, the inhuman beauty of an airy spirit. The falling sleet turned to snow in that instant, and black clouds swallowed the early sun. The white fox raced down the hill’s far side.

Vireon followed, snowflakes steaming against his hot skin. He ran through the frosty morning, ignorant of the cold. Shirtless he had come into the forest, and his buckskin leggings and boots were soaked with the night’s rain. His slick black mane swirled behind his head as he crowned the hill and sprinted down its back. The white fox already mounted another hill up ahead. A thin lay Kd. night’er of snow had covered the autumn colors of the forest floor. The Uyga still grew here, but there were many other, smaller varieties of tree. The undergrowth was thicker here, and often he jumped a cluster of white-leaf fern or a knot of tall skyweed. He ran north, into the cold lands where summer only ever visited briefly before fleeing southward.

The second day of running brought him deep into the snowbound clime of northern Uduria. The ground was lost beneath ankle-deep snow, icicles hung from the branches of trees, and he leaped across frozen streams. Ice crystals hung in his hair and on the fringes of his boot-tops. The cold was a constant companion. He felt no pain, only a distant sense of discomfort. What would have frozen a human man to death in hours was harmless as a toothache to the son of Vod and Shaira. He would not let small things like ice and snow keep him from the white fox.

It was no animal, he knew that now. He no longer wanted to skin it. He did not know what he would do with it, but he would capture it. Time later to decide its fate.

The white forest turned to scarlet as the sun sank into the western hills. Once again he saw the pale girl, closer this time. She squatted on a low crag of icy granite, her blonde tresses mingling with the icicles along its summit. Again he stopped, a steaming icon among the wintery landscape. Her feet were bare upon the ice, and her black eyes met his own. Her lips were soft pink, the color of the fox’s tongue. She watched him watching her, and she smiled. He walked closer, snow crackling beneath his boots. She raised a lithe, colorless arm and pointed southward, the way he had come.

Her eyes said, Go back.

Vireon shook his head, shedding bits of frost from his hair. His heavy breaths filled the space between them like a warm mist.

Without warning he bounded toward the crag, but she was gone. He climbed its face and saw the white fox leaping through the snow.

North… always north. Who is she?

He looked southward for an instant. Hunger gnawed inside his belly. The cold wrapped his skin like a rough fabric. She was the most stunning girl he had ever seen. If he turned back now, as she seemed to want him to, he may never see her again.

He scanned the white hills ahead; they stretched like a pallid blanket across the northern world. Who knew what lay among that white waste? What secrets did the frozen north keep to itself?

He had seen one of them.

Jumping from the crag into a snowdrift, he ran toward the fox-woman’s delicious scent. Now that snow and ice muted the forest, her fragrance was easier to follow than ever. He sped through the winterland like a wild buck fleeing invisible predators. But he was the predator. He would catch this gorgeous treasure and hold her in his arms and… at least he would know her name. He would caress her marble flesh, swim the intimate depth of her eyes… taste those ripe lips.

All that day and into a frozen night he ran. Snow fell again, and he ignored it. He delved deep into the winterlands, far from any recognizable landmarks save the frosted Uyga trees, which grew sporadically from Kdic dethe snowy ground. A range of white-capped mountains stood on the horizon, rising over walls of eternal fog. He had no name for those peaks, nor had any Uduru every spoken of them. The snow was knee-deep here, and far deeper in places. Several times he fell into fissures and had to claw his way out with knife and bare fingers. When he emerged from these white caverns the fox stood nearby as if waiting… but it fled again at first sight of him.

On the third day a pack of wolves ran beside him, snarling with hunger. He ran faster, hoping to outdistance them, but they matched his speed. The reek of their carnivore breath and matted pelts obscured the fox’s scent, and this irritated him. He turned on the pack’s frothing leader, grabbing it around the neck. Locked together they rolled down a frozen slope, the other wolves loping behind, eager for a kill.

Vireon’s knife slit the big wolf’s throat as they tumbled, and at the bottom of the slope he left it bleeding into the whiteness. The wolves had their feast. The sound of their gnashing and chewing receded as he raced northward. The scent of the fox-woman was faint, but he caught it on the frigid wind and ran faster, the knife clutched in his fist and smoking with wolf’s blood. It finally went cold and red crystals froze along the blade.

On the fourth day the icy mountains loomed closer, and Vireon’s weariness caught up with him. He stopped in a deep ravine, standing up to his waist in snow, and sniffed the air for the fox-woman’s scent. She was near, but he could not pinpoint her direction anymore. His vision blurred. He was tired, at last, after days of running. His limbs ached with cold, or fatigue, he could not tell. He was beginning to know his limits, something entirely new to him. But still he would not give up.

The world turned to shades of gray about him as he followed his nose and trudged up the ravine. On either side the walls rose thousands of feet, and Uyga trees topped them like snow-crowned sentinels. He stared up at the trees, seeing for a moment the image of his Uduru cousins garbed in white, looking down as if to cheer him on. Or warning him to go back. Go. Return to the land of sun and warmth, they whispered.

No, he breathed. His face had begun to sprout a shallow beard, frosted to the color of snow.

Then he smelled the sour stench of unwashed Uduru, and thought somehow his cousins had actually followed him. The walls of the ravine shook about him, shards of ice and shale sliding into the gorge. Six great figures rose before him, blue-skinned giants draped in reeking pelts of bear and mountain tiger. He stopped, blinking exhausted eyes. His cousins could not be here… This was a trick of the mind. Was the fox-woman a sorceress, and this some final trick to elude pursuit?

Vireon squinted, looking up into the face of the nearest blue-skin. A necklace of bones, fangs, and claws hung about the great neck. The face above it was heavy-browed, flat-nosed, with a jutting chin and a beard entirely frozen into jagged icicles. The wild mane of hair was snow-pale. The eyes, however, were crimson. Pupils as red as fresh-flowing blood, a marked contrast to the indigo skin. A ring of bronze hung from the broad nostrils, two more from the big flat earlobes. Vireon’s head spun.

Are they ghosts? he wondered. Spirits of frozen Uduru who wandered too far north in some ancient age?

They barked at him, a few guttural syllables in tones of primordial contempt.

Surrounded by the stink of their moldy furs and sweat-caked bodies, he had lost the scent of the fox-woman entirely. He moaned.

The blue-skin before him raised a tree above its shaggy head. Not a tree, a mace of black iron. He realized this too late as the blue-skin brought the weapon crashing against his bare skull.

Thunder and sparks.

The snow rose up to greet him like a feather bed, and at last Vireon slept.

A ribbon of crimson flowed from his scalp, melting a tiny rivulet into the snow.