The settlement lay a mile along the coast. Instead of clearing the forest the Wolf People made their home amongst the trees. They were mostly pine mixed with birch, tall and strong enough to support the walkways constructed between them, their branches liberally adorned with ropes and ladders. The larger dwellings were all at ground level, wooden conical structures, part covered in moss and seeming to flow around the trees as if they had grown in their shade like great mushrooms. They were led to the largest structure, an impressive circular building constructed around the tallest tree, its trunk sprouting from the centre of the wooden floor and ascending through the multi-beamed roof. The interior featured numerous low tables but no chairs, the Wolf People habitually sitting on piles of fur they carried from dwelling to dwelling as the need arose. Many had already begun to fill the space by the time Vaelin and the others were led in, Astorek ushering them to a set of tables arranged around the central tree.
“This is your council chamber?” Vaelin asked, sitting on one of the fur bundles with Dahrena at his side. “The place where decisions are made,” he elaborated in response to the young Volarian’s baffled look.
“Decisions.” Astorek sighed a faint laugh, glancing over to where the man he called father was taking his seat, gesturing for Wise Bear to join him. “All decisions were taken long ago. And not by us.”
Alturk slumped down opposite before Vaelin could ask anything further, muttering, “My people would have fed us by now. Or killed us.” The Sentar war chief had lost weight on the march, as had they all, but whilst the others had mostly recovered in recent days, the depredations of the ice seemed to linger in him. Lonak men did not grow beards and his face had a skull-like leanness, his once-bald head now sprouting a disordered jumble of black hair and his arms lacking the same thickness of muscle. The depth of sorrow Vaelin had seen in him back in the mountains also hadn’t lifted and he wondered if Alturk was deliberately holding to it, allowing the sadness to reduce him, perhaps even hoping the ice could do what battle could not.
“You should rejoice,” Dahrena told the Lonak. “Now you have the greatest story to tell when you go home.”
“Alturk never shares at the fire,” Kiral said. “Though my sister once told me he has a story to shame all others. For Alturk, as confirmed by the Mahlessa herself, once heard the voice of a god.”
Alturk slammed his hand on the table, grating something in his own language and glowering fiercely at Kiral. Vaelin made ready to rise in her defence but the huntress just smiled, meeting his gaze with a complete absence of fear and saying something in Lonak which she quickly translated for Vaelin and Dahrena: “A story not shared is a waste of riches.”
Food was brought in shortly after, wooden platters piled with roasted meat, also bowls of nuts and berries. “Tastes like seal,” Alturk observed, taking a large bite of meat. “Though not so tough.”
“Walrus,” Astorek explained, coming to sit down at their table. “Winter meat. We eat mostly elk in the summer.” He gave Alturk and Kiral a curious glance, his gaze switching between them and Vaelin. “You are not from the same tribe.”
“No,” Alturk confirmed in an emphatic growl, chewing and swallowing. “We are Lonakhim. They”—he jerked his head at Dahrena and Vaelin—“are Merim Her.”
“We were enemies for a long time,” Vaelin said. “Now we are allies, made so by your people.”
Astorek gave a sigh of annoyance but this time refused to display any offence. “These are my people.”
“How do you come to speak our language?” Dahrena asked.
Astorek glanced at Whale Killer, now engaged in animated conversation with Wise Bear. “A tale to be told soon enough.”
The meal lasted into the night, the copious meat supplemented by a heady brew that smelt strongly of pine. Vaelin took only a sip before setting it aside although Alturk seemed to appreciate it. “Like drinking a tree,” he said, voicing a rare laugh as he drained his bowl.
“We ferment wild berries and pine-cones,” Astorek said. “Let it sit long enough and you can use it to light fires.”
“Lights a fire in my belly, true enough.” Alturk lifted another bowl to his lips, drinking it down in a few gulps. As the evening wore on Vaelin was relieved to find the hulking Lonak a morose drunk rather than a fighting one, watching him slump forward, head rested on his hand as he continued to down the pine ale, muttering to himself in his own language, much to Kiral’s evident disgust.
“You shame the Mahlessa Sentar with this display,” she sniffed.
Alturk curled his lip and said a few short words in Lonak. From Kiral’s furious reaction Vaelin judged they were not complimentary. She snarled a curse in Lonak, getting to her feet, her knife half-drawn.
“Enough!” Vaelin told her, voice heavy with command and loud enough to herald a sudden silence in the hall. “This is not your home and you insult our hosts,” he went on in a quieter tone, his gaze shifting to Alturk. “And you, Tahlessa, should go and sleep it off.”
“Merim Her,” Alturk slurred, half rising, fumbling for his war club and promptly dropping it. “Son killer!” He braced his arms on the table and tried to lever himself up. However, the task seemed to be beyond his diminished limbs and he collapsed, his face connecting with the table with a painful thump. He remained in the same position and soon began to snore.
“Varnish,” Kiral sneered, sitting down again and glaring at Vaelin. “You should have let me kill him. My song finds little of worth in him.”