Disclaimer: All things Velgarth/Valdemar belong to M. Lackey. All out breaks of WTF? Belong to me.
A/N: Happy birthday Sethi!
The Road Lies South
The road lies south.
Those are the words that the elders had told us just before we were told to prepare for a long journey. How long they didn't know, but it was going to go well beyond our normal hunting grounds. Several of the others don't seem very impressed.
The road lies south.
All of us seem to be short on temper and long on exhaustion. We've been walking for far too long. Mother, when we'd left, had been close to giving birth to my younger brother. My younger brother now lives with the clan's totem. He didn't survive the road.
The road lies south.
The very rocks are watching us. I know they are. Their eyes feel like a rough file dragged slowly along winter chilled flesh. Mother is still weak and simply snapped at me when I said something. Father... father is still mourning my brother.
The road lies south.
As we walk, it seems like the stamp of our feet, and the scrape of our sledges over the rocky path seem to say those words. They are words I'm beginning to hate. Everyone is so tired of the travel. Their faces, their movements tell of how many wish to stop.
The road lies south.
The clan elders are still urging us to keep moving. They, also, have dismissed me when I've said the woods were watching. Yet, I'm sure I've seen things watching us. Birds, if that makes any sense.
The road lies south.
Mother died last night. The fever that had started when my brother was born dead finally took her on to live with our totem. Maybe if we hadn't had to leave our homes she'd still be alive. Maybe my brother would be as well.
The road lies south.
I know I shouldn't. I know that the safety of the clan comes first. But my mother is gone, my father is dying a little more each day without her. My brother never even drew his first breath. And here I am, nothing but a young girl; lost in the sea of quiet despair that is creeping over the clan with each day we travel.
The road lies south.
Others have been lost, and the woods scare me. They are dark, and dreary. Something lurks within the trees, watching us. No one else seems to see it, or sense it. Even the old herb woman told me I was imagining things. But it makes my skin crawl.
The road lies south.
The night noises aren't the same here. I can't hear the hoot of an owl, or the call of a wolf. And when I do hear things, they aren't the same. Everything is so different.
The road lies south.
The elders are trying to keep up their spirits, but I can tell that each of them is beginning to doubt. We've lost both the young and the old. Nothing can bring them back, and not one person hasn't lost a loved one, either back with the other clans, or here on this totem-less road.
The road lies south.
The dogs can sense it now too. It's in the way they clamp their tails close to their bodies, in the way they silently snarl at the trees as we pass. They'll often whine and yip, darting away from the dark forest. At least I'm not alone in my fear of the strange trees.
The road lies south.
Those strange people⦠I can't even describe them. The elders are frightened. But trade, and possible settling, cannot be ignored. I hear snatches of conversation as I carry father something to eat. He hasn't eaten much since mother died. I cannot lose him too.
The road lies south.
No longer do those words haunt us. We've reached the end of our road. Now, it is time for us to settle, and time for us to heal from the wounds of the road. Walking slowly, I kneel next to my father. "We've made it," I whisper to him. "The road south has brought us." I say softly. He doesn't respond.
Hopefully, here, wherever here is that the road has brought us, he will heal. Hopefully, I will not lose my father to the road that lied south.
