The Wemic’s Tale

When the plains sing their whispering song, it takes a subtle ear to hear it. Listen to the murmurs of the hills, listen to the brash shout of the mountains, but listen especially to the whisper of the plains, for they can tell you of things that lie beyond sight and suspicion. I could not say what it was the plains whispered of with such disquiet. I might almost think it fear, though what have the plains to fear?

I looked over my shoulder. My firstmate walked to my right; to my left, my son. Both had the same troubled expression, their gazes adrift in search of answers within themselves. I moved to walk beside her.

“I seek your wisdom, my first,” I said, just loud enough for my son to hear, but not the rest of the pride, ranged behind us.

Her eyes met mine for a long moment, shadowed in worry. “Something is amiss,” she confirmed. “More, I cannot say.”

“I, too, hear trouble in the wind.” My son — the windsinger, the goldentongued cub — spoke without looking at either of us, intent on the horizon. “There is … someone. Unwelcome.” I do not know how or why, but he hears things I cannot, for the spirits speak more clearly to him.

Beside me, my firstmate stroked her throat lightly, a sign that she has a question she does not want to ask. But she only hesitated a moment before speaking out loud: “It is not … us, is it, Tsig’Koril?”

“No, rakom,” he answered, passing a sidelong glance at her with his moonlight eyes. “The plains welcome us, as they always do. But a new tread weighs upon them, a tread they cannot abide. We must be wary,” he concluded, sounding very much like me.

I turned to my firstmate. ”Siab’Erd, alert the pride. Danger will not find us easy prey with many eyes watching.” She nodded and turned away. “Tsig’Koril, take the pride to the Circle of Wells. Chtok’Orom and I will run ahead to be sure the way is clear.”

“Yes, rokab.”

I reached the Circle of Wells after highsun. Chtok’Orom and Tsig’Koril sat at the perimeter, talking and watching the youngest cubs at play. Small fires burned in the Eyes of the Circle, roasting sides of meat spitted above them — perhaps from the same herd of antelope I passed heading toward the pride.

My son, of course, heard me approach and stood. I nodded to them both, looking first to Chtok’Orom for a report.

“All is clear to the north,” he said, shaking his russet-maned head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“We saw no one on the way,” Tsig’Koril said next.

“It seems safe to the south as well,” I told them. “But do not let your guard down.” Both lions nodded somber acknowledgment.

Then two of the lionesses towed us to the cooking fires, exhorting us to join them in celebrating our arrival. Of course, we obliged gladly.

Days passed. Our way of life is simple: we hunt, we eat; we live and move with the herds and the seasons. The land we know as Nkobele, the Center of the Sky — the Plains of Rheimdal, humans call it — gives us the antelope and the ostrich, and a rich abundance of new flint for our tools. On the gentle, quiet plains, the cubs learn to hunt.

All we lacked was the peace of past years. Although we hunted and ate, slept and talked, and watched the cubs grow strong, the plains yet whispered fear. Each time I paused to listen — and I did this often — the same unrest, the same disquiet that greeted us. My mates, my firstmate especially, all shared my worry. Tsig’Koril did not look so concerned, allaying our anxiety somewhat; but he might have been merely feigning. If the spirits spoke to him, they said nothing he saw fit to divulge.

Only once the pride was settled in for the season, more than ten suns after reaching the Circle of Wells, did we discover who it was the plains whispered of with such irritation. The entire pride became silent and somber all at once, watching a lone figure approach the Circle from the east. I recall only one other time when I saw the pride so apprehensive: when my father died. A cold wind blew through my heart as I went to meet the stranger — a tall beast, with skin the color of the sky and ice-white horns and teeth, wearing metal armor like an insect’s carapace, and a long curved sword at his side. He strode up to me and said two words: “Get out.”

“Out?” I inquired, both confused and indignant.

“Don’t be thick. You heard me,” he grated. “Get your lazy butts off my land.”

“We were not—”

“Yes yes, ‘we were not aware these were your lands, wah wah wah,’” the stranger said mockingly, rolling his eyes. “I swear, if you ignorant savages weren’t so pitiful I’d just wipe you all out and save myself the trouble.” He seemed to be muttering to himself, albeit quite loudly; all who heard him say this last drew a pace or two away.

“We were not,” I said evenly, “on anyone’s land. We have caused no harm.”

“Oh hey!” he cried, waving his long arms. “Look at me not caring!” he singsonged. “Now are you gonna get out, or what?”

I crossed my arms. “We take nothing we do not need,” I informed him coldly, “What claim have you to these lands?”

An instant of abrupt motion later, I had a sword-point pushed into my nose, and he was surrounded by nearly a dozen lions growling warningly. “This one,” he said, completely ignoring the spears pointed at him. “Now, if you know what’s good for you — and so far I haven’t heard anything that shows you do — you’ll get off my property or I’m gonna have to get rough. That’s your last warning.” He jerked his sword away and sheathed it in one motion, forcing one of the lions to dodge away from a slash across the chest. “You’re lucky you got even that. Outta my way,” he said imperiously, waving aside my defenders. I nodded to them, and they backed off just enough to let him through.

From behind me, Tsig’Koril said, “We won’t leave.”

The stranger, with grace unbecoming someone of his size and demeanor, spun around, unsheathing his sword again, and slashed once at each of the two lions closest to him, so swiftly neither had time even to flinch. My heart turned to ice, but all that happened was two tufts of mane falling to the grass. Kthek’Raluk clapped a hand to his right ear.

My defenders pounced upon the stranger, but he leaped high into the air and stayed there, out of reach, glaring down at us. “You will,” he growled. “If I find you here tomorrow, no one will ever find any of you again.” And he vanished, like a spirit, from sight and heart.

The lionesses looked considerably relieved to have him gone. I turned to look for Tsig’Koril — he was already at Kthek’Raluk’s side, murmuring contrition. The injured lion wore a fearsome grimace, from pain or anger I could not tell, but he nodded and let my son tend to his ear. As soon as he finished I took him aside and said, “You were unwise to provoke him.”

“My apologies, rokab.” Tsig’Koril bowed his head. “I thought to call his bluff.”

I sighed. “There was no bluff to call, Tsig’Koril.” His glance followed mine, at the gathered pride; some watched us anxiously, others spoke among themselves. “The pride is in great danger here. Some will want to stay and fight. Above all, I cannot allow that. I need you at my side.”

“I am with you, rokab.” He shut his eyes, brow furrowed. “Even the plains call out danger now, deadly peril. We cannot stay.” His moonlight eyes opened, gazing into mine. “But where will we go?”

“Utu’kdauk,” I said, as though it had not just now occurred to me. Tsig’Koril sighed heavily, echoing the sentiment I could not appear weak enough to express. “We cannot go back to where there is no food. We must go forward … and hope for the best.”

As I expected, some of the lions volunteered to challenge the stranger rather than depart; as I expected, I was called a coward to my face and behind my back; as I expected, the pride followed me away from the Circle of Wells, whether in accord with my decision or not. Only two lions, the ones most adamantly opposed to leaving, renounced the pride — no matter how I tried to convince them they were only sealing their doom, they vowed to stay and fight the stranger, eventually refusing even to speak to me. Sadly, I left them behind, mourning their loss — if not of their lives, then of their companionship.

Our journey to Utu’kdauk, the Black Stone Knuckles, passed much as it has in past years; only this time the sun was in the wrong place in the sky, and we gazed upon the herds of antelope and clutches of gazelle we passed with forlorn disappointment. Our efforts to guard against famine proved fruitless: despite every precaution we took, the carcasses we hunted and hauled along with us one day would disappear the next. Only as we drew within sight of Utu’kdauk were we able to — or perhaps allowed to — keep the few carcasses the lionesses were able to procure.

My mind was in too much turmoil to hear the spirits’ murmurs; Tsig’Koril hinted that Utu’kdauk felt more at ease than had Nkobele, but he sounded uncertain. I told him I did not appreciate being lied to, even for my own benefit. He seemed offended, and replied it was only the clearest impression he could manage. I relented, but he seemed uncharacteristically determined to hold on to his rancor, and we spoke little for the remainder of the journey.

And once there, we had no further opportunity to talk at all, for within hours of our arrival the stranger appeared. I was made aware of his presence by roars and screams of fright; by the time I arrived at the scene, a lion and a lioness lay dead on the savannah, cut to ribbons by the stranger’s sword. He cut down another lioness before my very eyes. I went blind with rage then; I pounced on him myself, heedless of my own safety, only to hear him cackle, “I warned you!”

The next thing I knew, I was running for my life, blind rage turned to blind terror at the stranger’s black-clawed fingertip — how weak my resolve, that I would be so suggestible! — I fled thoughtlessly into the foothills and the mountains beyond. By the time my heart and my paws slowed, and my sight cleared, I was deep among the Black Stone Knuckles; I was trying to find my way back when the ground suddenly gave out from under me, and I knew no more … until I woke again, and found myself among you.