Stormrider

Stillness, galvanizing in its intensity, overwhelming in its suddenness, a stillness not her own, surged from some inner repository, filled Tanith, pushed all else aside.

Her head jerked up. The important work of gathering plants for food and medicine was forgotten and the stillness transformed into an unmistakable, undeniable pull. Her heart took up a skipping rhythm. Ears buzzed with silence, a void soon filled.

Come, it beckoned, rippling softly through her mind, disturbing the great stillness. Come.

Tanith Aesir grasped her collecting bag tighter and bolted to her feet, rising from the mottled forest shadows into brilliant sunlight. Tension snapped through her body like a whip crack as a sudden breeze surged, swaying the surrounding trees. Their movement dappled the sunlight, flickering shadows impairing her focus. The grove’s serenity evaporated in an instant.

Expert training strained to the fore. Years of it. Green eyes rapidly swept her surroundings, adjusting, that adjustment delaying her only a moment while she analyzed the throbbing quietude about her. Barest moments of time were swept away on an indrawn breath and then she began to run.

She ran not with the small, mincing steps of a maiden, but with the long, athletic strides of a female warrior, muscles flexing, blood heating. Her hair, the color of rich, well-aged Octurian brandy, streamed unbound in a silken wave behind her, caught upon the chill wind of her passage. Her stomach wanted to knot but she forbade it, calling upon iron control as she sought to hold firmly to that mind-touch which drew her.

More urgently now-he voice; the thought; rippling across her mind-come, swiftly, come.

Not words precisely, more like impulses of knowledge threaded through with an urgency she had never felt before, crashing over her with the power of cascading waters. She had a general direction, but no more. It drew her on with its power, its compelling urgency, this voice, this presence in her mind. She no longer feared it as she had at the very beginning when first contact had been initiated; instead she feared for it. This was not a normal contact. This was something very different with something very much more deadly underlying the summons. And there were plenty of things here in Nashira which were deadly.

The mind-touch held and Tanith increased her speed. Her chest burned inside and her extremities felt the chill of blood loss as it was diverted to her laboring heart and lungs. Hide gathering bag clenched in one fist, half-blunted digging knife in the other, she answered the anxious call--without words, but answered nonetheless.

I’m coming, coming - let me feel you-where?

She ran, direction determined by those impulses throbbing through her soul.

Her feet clad in leathers, soft wraps nearly to her knees, hardened sole pounding softly, nearly soundlessly, against pliant soil, she swept on. With the wind at her back, she ran. Blood pumped heatedly through veins and sweat misted her forehead in a fine, gathering sheen. Mind tried to take over, threatened to imagine all kinds of disasters to foster such an urgent call. Fear threatened to blossom, but, with the years of studied discipline at her beck, she deftly turned the imaginings aside and pressed on.

Suddenly the silent communication was lost. Link broken. In its place, echoed the familiar, wolfish, yips and howls of Strongheart, Littlefoot and One Eye. The three wolves, sensing her nearness, had begun vocalizing, beckoning to her, giving her more than the power of the bond to draw her on. Understanding her need better than she did herself, the sound of the haunting chorus brought the hair at the nape of her neck to attention along a rippling wave of goose-flesh.