An autumn evening, shading into night. The ridge to the west of the village has already embraced it in shadow, though the trees at the crest are still touched golden by the last light of the day. The sky is clear. Stars are beginning to appear, but the moons have not yet risen. The scent of wood smoke and the sounds of peace drift through the air: a dog barks, in the distance someone is chopping firewood, and cattle and horses voice the occasional complaint as they are settled in for the night. The village has two watchtowers, and a small guard detachment, but nothing violent has happened there for as long as anyone can remember. Lights appear in the windows and twinkle along the roads. Night is almost here.
Up on the western ridge, far enough away to be able to see both the village and the farms and roads that surround it, there is a small dark group. Only one of them is human, a woman, silver-haired and slightly built, whose pale skin testifies to Breton ancestry. She is sitting on a patch of grass, watching the village go to sleep. She is dressed in faded black, patched and nondescript.
Behind her, a small figure snuggles against her back, humming tunelessly, wrapping her in its huge batlike wings to protect her from the cold night air. The woman is a sorcerer, and the creature enfolding her is one of her summonses, a Twilight Matriarch, Rielle. Her hands are busy braiding a golden ribbon into Rielle's hair. At her feet, a savage-looking reptilian creature rubs against her legs, a clannfear, Buddy, an oversized puppy constantly nudging her for attention. She scratches its neck when she has a hand free, and it whimpers with delight, wriggling on its belly at her feet. Now and then a small black head with bright red eyes appears from within the embrace of the wings to lick her on the chin or to tease the clannfear. A doom wolf cub, like the other two creatures cadging caresses from the woman, or leaning out to touch noses with its mother, a huge black beast that prowls ceaselessly, keeping watch on the slopes to either side. The woman smiles at the restless wolf, unsaddled for the night. "Settle down, Hel, this is friendly ground. No need to be paranoid." The wolf pads up on soft and soundless feet, touches the woman's cheek with its nose, licks its cub, and resumes its patrol. The woman sighs, a bit theatrically, still smiling.
Or it's supposed to be friendly ground, she says to herself, and resumes scanning the scene below. She is here because Lyranth had hinted she might be needed, that the "little mortals" who lived in this area might perhaps face some sort of threat. Of course, Lyranth, with the chilly and conscienceless sense of humor that is all that can be expected from a renegade member of the Kyn, might just have been pulling her leg. The woman shrugs. Lyranth's warnings are valid often enough to be credible, and with her wife away and her daughters busy, there is no place she'd rather be. Absent the human part of her family, these are all the beings she really trusts in this world, her summoned creatures and her mount. Night settles in around them as she watches and waits.
Hel growls softly, her blood-red eyes turned to the south. The woman follows her gaze. A dark flock is flying north, along the valley. They stay high as they approach the village. Giant bats, at least a dozen, steady on their course, showing no interest in what lies below them. Just passing through, the woman realizes. Bound north, to the barren mountain peaks there, no doubt. There is a fuss in the village, torches, the ringing of alarm bells, as the flock passes overhead, but that is all. In the end, nothing but a harmless incident destined to form the nexus of a tavern tale, perhaps a song or two.
I suppose we can go home now, she thinks. But she makes no move to leave. Family is home, all the home she wants, all the home she will ever have, she knows, and all of her family who are to hand are with her here. They will stay here tonight, watching over this village that will never know of their presence, seeing it safe to dawn's light, and then they will go to another place, another need.
She yawns. Rielle and Buddy are pretending to be asleep, a concession to her mortal weakness that never fails to amuse her. It touches her too: a unsought demonstration of sympathy. Of love.
Vanus Galerian had declared angrily that summoned creatures could have no true feelings. More fool him, she thinks, sleepier now. She knows better. She left too much of her family behind on a summer road long ago, her parents sprawled dead in pools of their own blood, to look lightly on what is left to her.
She sleeps. Soon after dawn, they depart, probably never to return. There will always be a need elsewhere.