Luna did not speak to Guo the next day, nor the following. And the rain didn’t fall, turning the days thicker and greyer under the layer of clouds. Guo wandered the camp, hearing the songs slowly woven, the story shifting. For some the story became the story of the story. Luna telling the story to her lover and the old woman. The sights and smells of the tavern. The way the silence fell. How everyone hung on every word. For others the story became grander. Every moment of Luna’s life pregnant with significance, not only for her, but for everyone. For humanity. Even for the gods.

  On the third day, hundreds of refugees gathered at the north end of the encampment. The Dragonroad led north and north, bisecting farmland and forest until it met Luca. The thousands came out to wish them luck. Singers, dancers, bards, actors—all the various refugees who flocked to Luna came to say goodbye to new friends and old. Even Luna stood and smiled and spoke to each who went on north.

  Guo spoke to herself, “Each will carry those final words with them for the rest of their lives.”

  Flok slapped her on the shoulder and laughed, “S’right true! Won’t none of us forget the Wolf.”

  Guo turned to the old man and saw Flod and Brod beside him, still carrying their old, rusted spears. She said, “Ye go with them?”

  Brod nodded and Flod said, “Came all this way together, seems wrong to leave them at the halfway point.”

  “I thought ye sought Luna.”

  Brod smiled, “We’ll be back.” He turned to Luna with a smile of awe and pride. “Nothing could keep us from her for long. We’ll bring even more back with us.”

  Flod said, “Thousands will want to meet her. See what she’s done here. The whole world may descend on this river!”

  The three old men laughed.

  Guo wished them good luck and imitated their gestures of friendship and farewell.

  She wandered wider. To the surrounding farmlands, to the refugees who became sharecroppers, laborers, and even farmers of their own patch of land.

  “Auntie, come sit with us!”

  Guo turned and smiled to the group of women sitting around a fire. Kuu, Unelma, and Tahti. Three Lapsan women from the far north. They were just off the central thoroughfare formed by the thousands who walked back and forth through the encampment. Reuban’s was east, on the other side of the Dragonroad. Guo yawned and stared northwest to the market that had sprouted up. Merchants were taking down their wares and closing shop for the night. Past that, the lives and camps and communities sprawled from this path that led from Reuban’s door to the farms and forest beyond.

  “Too far to go out to the edge, auntie. Come eat and talk with us.” Kuu smiled and slapped the ground beside her.

  Guo yawned theatrically and approached, “Don’t know why I settled so far from the river.”

  Tahti laughed, “Why did you?”

  Unelma blew a puff of air out, “None business of ours, yeah?” Her face was serious as she set her eyes on Guo. “You don’t got to tell a thing you don’t feel like. People came for all reasons and all reasons just as good as another. Where you sleep is your own, yeah?” She nodded firmly, as if settling the matter.

  Guo sat with a grunt. “Nothing so meaningful as ye might think. I set myself there the first night I arrived because everywhere else seemed taken.”

  Tahti and Kuu smiled. Unelma only nodded again with the same solemnity.

  “The real question,” Guo leaned in, “is how did ye three get such a spot as this? So close to the river, the road, the market, and Reuban’s.”

  Tahti stirred the pot and breathed in deeply, “Oh Mother, almost ready.”

  Kuu said, “When we got here there was no market. Not yet. The market didn’t come along till the Wolf had swooped up a few caravans. The first few came by force, but most didn’t bother fighting after word spread. The Wolf descended upon them and they bellied up, followed her here and set up shop like that was their goal all along.”

  Unelma said, “It was accident that we come upon this place, as you know. Far north end of Lapsa is where I am home, but I came with these two for a celebration in the south. Kynttilanvalo. A festival. Maybe you hear of it?”

  Guo inhaled deep, “It smells delicious. What is it?”

  Tahti said, “Wild corn and goat stew. Plenty of basil to round out your mouth and dragon peppers to blast it back out.”

  Guo smiled, “Unelma, tell me of this festival.”

  Unelma snorted and folder her arms. “Tahti thinks now that we’re in the south we should eat like the Dragon People. Our tongues were meant for ice, not fire. She burns us out till my asshole will leak all day.”

  Tahti said, “Our hearty kettu matron’s belly is a delicate thing.”

  “Not my belly,” Unelma shook her head. “My asshole must be red and raw as a burn from all this demon spice.”

  Kuu and Tahti laughed, while Guo covered her smile with her hand. Unelma stared at the pot, her expression one of foreboding.

  Guo blew a few notes on her boneflute. “What kind of food do ye find at this festival?”

  Unelma blew out a puff of air. “We did not find out. Waylaid here now for a full turn of seasons.” She shook her head and looked at Guo. “In the north our seasons are fewer.”

  “Cold and colder,” Tahti said.”

  Unelma gave her a stern look. “Our summers are pleasant and beautiful. The grass very green. The dirt very black. The leaves always red. It is beautiful and without such heat. Here it is like always I am swimming. Even my bowels are wet.” She shook her head.

  “Food ready?” Kuu said.

  Tahti shrugged. “May as well be.” She stood and served the stew in wooden bowls so smooth they felt like glass in Guo’s hand. They ate, and conversation wandered to different topics. The weather, the differences between the three nations, the crowds and theatre of Luca, and how they all missed the snow.

  Unelma set down her half-eaten stew, her face covered in sweat. Panting, she said, “I’ll be able to shit a pumpkin by the time we return north.”

  Tahti and Kuu, sweating as well, only laughed. Kuu said, “Heat don’t bother you, auntie?”

  Guo licked her thumb and moaned appreciatively. “For such as me, food can never be too hot.” She pulled out a bottle of clear liquid and passed it to Unelma, “This will help settle ye. Wash the burn from your mouth. Or at least replacing it with a sweeter burn.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Unelma took a pull and sighed heavily. “I needed that.” She passed it to Kuu who drank and passed it to Tahti who drank and passed it back to Guo. A pattern formed in this way. After the second mouthful, Unelma spoke. “Kynttilanvalo is a festival that happens only once in many lifetimes.”

  “Allegedly,” Tahti said.

  Unelma’s stony glare silenced her. “Long ago, when our people were only in the far north with the great ocean gods, before the fox gods tricked us away from our homes and led us through the forest, there was a light that shined. A light ancient and powerful. It was the light of the Deep.

  “For season after season, the light of the stars and suns crashes into the ocean and breaks through the Deep, where it is swallowed by those ancient ocean gods. The nameless ones. Have you heard them called such? No? It is said you know all things, auntie.” Unelma smiled. “The nameless ones. Their names are not lost. They were never given. These gods of the Deep are not like these southern gods. Gods who come to human calls or play in the sky like the Angels. The gods of the Deep are impossible. Unknowable. Eternal and neverending. They can wrap around the heart of the world and squeeze it till the lands rip open and bleed fire. Gods many times larger than the dragon the Wolf’s mother faced. The mouths of the Deep ones could swallow a dozen of those dragons whole and barely notice it. So great were they that they broke through the ocean and into the sky. One of them bit the moon, breaking it apart. They traveled onward to the third sun, which once lit up our skies. They consumed it and then returned to the Deep.

  “Kynttilanvalo is the commemoration, not of the swallowing of the third sun or the breaking of the moon, but of the days of darkness. The sunless season of the farthest north that only our people know. Though we’ve not seen it for a thousand thousand seasons, we carry it in our blood. The great darkness. Kynttilanvalo was the day the gods of the Deep broke the great darkness of the impossible north and gave light to our people.

  “Times change. The fox gods fooled us and now we are all southerners to the land of our eldest ancestors. We no longer know the oceans or the Deep, but the stories remain, even as our people stretch all over this world. It is said that Kynttilanvalo is a celebration of the blood. Our people from all over the world will converge to celebrate the light given back from the Deep.” Unelma unfolded and then refolded her arms, straightening her back.

  Tahti and Kuu’s faces held no amusement. They were as serious as Unelma, and they watched Guo for a reaction.

  Guo cleared her throat. “It is not often that a new story from the ancient world is told to me. Thank you.”

  Kuu and Tahti turned to Unelma with eyebrows raised. Unelma smiled and the two women pulled back in shock.

  Kuu pointed at her, “What is that?”

  Tahti rubbed her eyes and opened them wide, “Don’t know. Never seen that before.”

  Kuu whispered loudly, “Maybe she’s lost it?”

  Tahti whispered just as loudly and nodded. “Looks like her head might split open.”

  Unelma laughed, and the women fell backwards in mock amazement.

  “What the shit was that?!”

  Tahti scrambled to her knees and put her forehead on the ground. “Forgive us, oh great one! Do not shatter us with that awful, unknowable bellowing!”

  Unelma laughed harder, and Guo laughed with her. Unelma said, “I suppose severity has gripped me stronger the farther south we go.”

  Guo wiped a tear from her eye. “Being far from home is difficult.”

  Unelma’s serious expression returned. She nodded and folded her arms. “Too true, that. We never made it to Kynttilanvalo. We followed the signs but only found the Wolf, and now we remain here. There were only warriors when we arrived here. Ogma, of course, and a hundred more.”

  “The Hundred Screaming Spears,” Tahti sat up straight and spoke the words in a deep voice.

  Guo’s eyebrows knit. “Where are these warriors? I have seen none since coming here.”

  Unelma nodded. “All but Ogma and a handful left before you all arrived. The Hundred Screaming Spears left nearly a season ago.”

  “Who are these warriors?”

  Kuu coughed. “Some kind of mercenary cult. There are only ever 100 of them. Men and women. All of their tongues are cut out when they join the order.”

  Guo scowled. “Why?”

  Tahit said, “You’d have to ask them, but I’ll warn you, they’re not known to be forthcoming.”

  “Why do some believe that the People of the Wolf will return some day to this land and annihilate Bauruk, Lapsa, and Yuli?” Kuu shrugged. “Why do others believe that these new Bauruken gods are truly humans born of dragons? People got to believe something.”

  Tahti said, “Ogma told me the Hundred Screaming Spears believe in some kind of apocalyptic god of Death. The only truth in life is Death and so Death is all that matters. They don’t speak because it gets in the way of truth. It’s said they have some kind of Death magic. They can raise the dead and they often eat the dead or wear their skins to transform themselves.”

  Guo sighed. “The Dead God is here then.”

  The three women turned to her with questioning expressions.

  Guo waved it away. “Just an old story.”

  “Tell us.”

  “I shall,” Guo smiled. “But first tell me where these warriors went and why Ogma stayed behind.”

  The women exchanged glances and Kuu said, “Well, Ogma didn’t stay behind. She left the day after the Wolf killed the Deathwalker.”

  “What?”

  Kuu glanced at the other women and then went on. “Well, yeah. She and a handful of others went south days ago. Guessing to catch up with the Hundred and all the rest. Must be thousands of the Wolf’s warriors in the southern lands.”

  “Why?”

  Unelma snorted. “Auntie, do you think the Wolf hands her battle plans to all of us who gather around her fire?”

  Guo fingered her boneflute and crossed her arms. “She left then.”

  “Where she goes, the thunder follows.” Tahti leaned back, yawning. The stars bloomed overhead where clouds did not blot their shine. One moon was visible but moonglow haloed the fingers of clouds stretching from horizon to horizon.

  The women drank and talked. They talked of the Black Dragon army’s control of the eastern Bauruken Empire while the Green Dragon held the capital and the vast stretches of the west. They spoke of the news from the south, of the dead emperor, killed by his son. The civil war unfurling across the Dragonlands, and the two Dragons. One black, one green.

  By the eighth day, Guo sought out Luna but was turned away from her yurt, so she waited in Reuban’s for Luna to return.

  For days, she did not come.

  She spent her time with the people in the camp. Sharing stories and songs she had not sang in hundreds of years. They laughed together, a new group of friends every night. She watched the plays and concerts that happened daily or nightly. Guo was developing a reputation around the camp as a drinker, singer, dancer, and storyteller unrivaled. This turned into a nightly ritual where Guo listened to stories and judged which one was best. The camp came to life around Guo and Guo shared in their joy. Always smiling, ready for a joke that she told in her broken attempts at the Bauruken language.

  During this time, a platform was erected beside Reuban’s. A wide wooden structure with steps as wide as the platform leading up from all sides. Guo walked up the thirteen steps that led to the platform. From there, she could see more of the settlement, but not much more. She walked back down.

  On the thirtieth day, Guo woke to Luna crouched over her stinking of wine. “Ready for the rest of my story?”

  Guo sat up. “I am.”

  Luna’s mutilated lips twisted into a smile. “Good.” She stood, “Come on.”

  Luna walked back towards the camp, smiling.

  Seeing the two of them together sent a shockwave through the camp and a crowd followed them until Luna stopped. Her voice boomed, “You’re all so curious! Must I tell my life to each of you?”

  Silence met her question. Luna smiled, then laughed. “Yall are shitless. Come on!”

  She led them to the bridge, not the platform, and sat on the sidewall. “If I’m to speak to all of you for all this time, I’ll need wine.”

  Some rushed to Reuban’s to meet her request, but Luna turned her gaze on Guo.

  “We left off with my mother and I being healed by the shaman who lived in the Yurts round MotherTree. My HoPa dead, my LoPa and brothers gone. Maybe dead too. We were alone, but no longer exiled, strange as it might seem. We were given the attention of the healers. They tried to heal us, anyway. Not much could be done for my mother, who wandered deaf and dumb and blind through the village. Not much needed to be done to me. Just a child terrified, unused to so many unfamiliar faces and hands. Winter was upon us. We were still outcasts of a sort and my mother was now feared in wholly new ways. Respected though. Respected in ways difficult to articulate. Stories began spreading of her and her fight with the dragon. How such stories could be told by those who weren’t there was too difficult for me to think about then. But there was a deep admiration for my mother that hinged on the monstrous and it was mixed with disgust and that long held hate for her. It wasn’t helped by my mother’s mutilated appearance or her wandering blind dance.

  “The Dragongrave was a dead place. Nothing grew there, and nothing would ever grow there again. By the Twilit Days, only its onyx bones remained. Perfectly shaped and completely undamaged. I was dumped into the Meadow with the rest of the children, though I was the youngest there by a few years.”

  The wine arrived. Luna took a long draw from it. She sighed heavily. “Bless you, Reuban.” She turned to Guo then and said, “Are you ready?”