Step… pause… shift… pause… turn… pause… step.
Slowly, slowly, move and pause. Voices rising. Voices falling. Gliding notes from the dawn of the world itself. Harmony. Euphony. Step… pause… step. Riatha turning. Talar turning, Dylvana turning in unison. Darai passing. Alori pausing. Counterpoint. Descant. Step… pause… step…
And down among the shifting Dylvana and treading at Talar's side, Tip and Beau were lost in the ritual, Tip singing, Beau pacing-step… pause… step-just as Rynna and Linnet and Melli paced alongside golden Riatha, she of the argent eyes.
And out on the fringes and among the silver birch stood a tall figure of leaves and twigs and vines, Lark asleep in its arms, Prym singing along with the rite, a rustle of leaves in the wind.
In early October two Pysks-Nia and Kell-came riding their foxes through the autumnal forest, leaves golden and red and russet and brown. The cool summer past, frost had come early, and chill was in the air. Into the vale they rode, into the ward camp, where they sought out and spoke with Tynvyr for a time. Finally, Tynvyr came to Rynna and Tip-perton and said, [The Stone you found in Darda Stor among the shattered Eio Wa Suk in the broken dell, it is ancient beyond counting, and sorely does it grieve from an ancient hurt as well.]
[What happened?] asked Tip, speaking Fey.
Tynvyr shook her head. [Though yet alive it is damaged and no longer knows what befell the aggregate, and only the sorrow remains.]
[Damaged?]
[Aye. As you have seen, it had nearly been uprooted.]
Rynna looked at Tipperton. [It was tilted.] She turned to Tynvyr. [Would that do it? Tilting I mean? Damage but not slay?]
Tynvyr's eyes filled with tears. [This I do know: when one falls or is moved a distance from its source, it no longer speaks.]
Rynna turned to Tip again. [When this war is done, Tipperton, we will ask the Baeron and others to set it upright again. Mayhap that will restore it to its source and repair the damage done.]
Tipperton sighed and nodded and gazed out on the autumn woods. [Can it speak with other Stones?]
[Nia and Kell say not. It was all they could do to reach past its grief and find the Stone within. Its voice is given to soft mourning, and not to speaking afar. Mayhap, afflicted as it is, it can no longer do such.]
October faded, the leaves turning brown, yet nought else nigh Eryn Ford seemed to change-Warrows and Fox Riders keeping station, watching the maggot-folk, guiding a traveller or two past the Spawn now and again. But in the first days of November [The Rupt are on the move!] came the cry. Both Tynvyr and Rynna looked up to see Picyn come racing into the camp. Tynvyr stood and jammed two fingers into her mouth and blew, and although Rynna couldn't hear it, she knew a shrill whistle pierced the air. Picyn called out to his fox and it turned for the damman's hut, where Rynna and Tynvyr had been conferring. Up the slope raced Picyn, his fox to skid to a halt before the bower. Breathlessly he leapt down and repeated, [The Rupt are on the move!]
[How many and which way?] snapped Tynvyr.
[All, and north, and they have a dark-haired, pale-skinned man with them: a Human.]
[A surrogate,] hissed Rynna.
[And some Ghuls on Helsteeds have ridden ahead,] added Picyn, [or mayhap raced ahead is a better way to put it.]
Rynna frowned. [For those two segments to be marching north and with a surrogate, and for Ghuls to be riding ahead and swiftly, something momentous is likely afoot.] She turned to Tynvyr. [Fetch as many as you can, and send word by Eio Wa Suk for others to foregather in the woodland along their route.]
At Tynvyr's nod, Picyn leapt astride his fox and started to turn, but Rynna cried, [Wait!] Picyn turned back. [Tip-perton, what does he do?]
[He trails north, Lady Rynna, wide on their eastern flank, Nix too.]
Rynna's hand flew to her mouth. [Oh my!] But then she looked at the Fox Rider. [Thank you, Picyn. Now go, go, time is of the essence.]
Rynna once again turned to Tynvyr and said, [Raise the camp. We must hie.]
Tynvyr called her fox and mounted and rode swiftly away, rousing those in their huts 'round the perimeter of the dell.
"Aunt Melli!" cried Rynna, dashing into the bower.
At the small table the eld damman looked up from her work, Lark standing on a stool at her side looking up as well, the child's face and arms streaked with flour. "Bread, bread, bread," said Lark, holding out her white-powdered hands to show to her dam.
"What is it?" asked Melli, trying to keep her voice calm in front of the child, but her words quavered regardless.
"Bread," said Lark, looking at Melli.
Rynna snatched up her arrows. "The Spawn are on the move," she said as she fastened the quiver to her hip. "Heading north. Tipperton is on their east flank." She strung her bow and looped it over her shoulder. "With Nix." Now she took up her saddlebags and blanket roll.
"Nix? Going north and on the east flank? Riding the open wold between the maggot-folk and the mountains?"
"Yes," gritted Rynna.
"Oh my," groaned Melli, "but that means they're trapped."
Lark looked back and forth between Melli and Rynna, anxiety coming over her tiny face.
"No, not trapped. Not trapped. Not precisely," averred Rynna, as if to assure not only Melli but herself as well. "Yet if the Foul Folk turn…"
Lark began to cry.
Rynna set down the saddlebags and bedroll and scooped her up and said, "There, there," but Lark only cried all the harder.
Despairing, Rynna turned to the eld damman. "Melli, I must go."
Melli stepped forward and took the child from Rynna and embraced her and in spite of her own tears muttered a soothing word or two, the tot inconsolable. But then Melli asked, "Do you want me to go back to the Springwater holding?"
"Perhaps it's best," said Rynna, taking up her bedroll and saddlebags again. She stepped to the door. "I'll be there as soon as I'm able."
And then she was gone.
And Lark looked up at the empty doorway and said, "Bye-bye," and she rested her head on Melli's shoulder and sobbed, Melli weeping as well.
"Why are they marching north, and in such a hurry?" asked Nix, urging his pony 'round an outcrop of rock.
Riding in the lead, Tipperton glanced back. "I don't know, Nix, but with a surrogate, and what with the Ghuls racing ahead, I think it must be urgent."
"Well, should we double back and cross at the ford? The Rissanin is somewhere ahead, you know."
"I don't think so, Nix. I mean, I don't think we should double back. I don't know where they are going but, wherever it is, we've got to keep up."
"How will we cross the river?"
"Swim, bucco, swim."
"Argh," groaned Nix. "I suspected as much."
"Oh my," exclaimed Beau. "On the wold on the eastern flank? That's not good being out in the open like that."
Linnet, riding on Rynna's left, said, "Can't they always double back and cross at Eryn Ford? I mean if it is abandoned…"
"It may not be," said Rynna. "They may have left a contingent behind. But fear not, Tip and Nix know what they are doing."
"I hope," said Beau. "I hope. -Oh, I should have been with him, not Nix."
Rynna shook her head. "Not so, Beau, for who better to take Linnet under wing than you? -as fond of her as you are."
Linnet gasped, and Rynna reached out to her cousin. "Linnet, 'tis nought but the plain and simple truth. You needed someone skilled in the ways of war to apprentice under, and since Beau cherishes you, I knew he would-" Rynna's words came to a halt, for they had reached the eaves of the darda.
"Here they come," said Farly.
In the distance out on the plain the massed Foul Folk boiled northerly.