Susanna’s Sister

Elinore had been waiting for the first rays of light. Which, thankfully, had started to break through. There wouldn't be much time before The Head would summon her back along with the portion of his warriors that surrounded her.

They should have been with him, considering the strange Golem in the middle of the village. But she was special and sharp enough to be needed, despite Susanna being involved. A dozen men and six women, waiting for the sun to catch up. It felt silly.

She pulled out a disc the size of a fist and turned a dial, it clicked as the gears turned.

"Okay, we only spend a quarter of an hour as the gear turns. Dig. Let's get the sniffers moving." She said.

Two black and white bear hounds sniffed the path, large snouted beasts digging their dense, sharp paws into the sand. Three women followed, two holding leashes, one holding a staff, their heavy boots crunching behind, the sound poking at her ears from the tide as her tracking skills isolated a path through the chaos.

Elinore ambled, her eyes low, dropping to squat at irregular points to poke at cavities in the soil and rock. Soon she was off the path, and before she knew it, climbing a tiny but steep hill of rock high enough to look down on everyone.

Others worked the scene, digging up bones from young Gilliam Bo'Zini's 'game' and further along, other dogs sped off.

That was fine.

More interesting had been the elongated hill she stood on, the rise starting in the middle of the village and pulling into the distance like a long sand snake. Hours ago, it had been flat smooth land. Sand enough that maps of the village might need to change. Most unique, footprints the size of a ship. And she'd missed it, the black of night obscuring it, from her awe.

A masterless Golem hurting and killing others. Unnatural for any Golem most especially a masterless Golem.

And people had heard it say the Bo'Zini boy's name.

What would father do? It was bad enough they were thinking about placing Susanna with a child. The idea made Elinore shiver. Thankfully things were different for her.

Elinore walked the raised earth, staying parallel with the sniffers and stopped when they suddenly drew to a halt.

The sun drew high, hours having passed, putting her behind in her goals. But even so they all had to catch their breath. It was exhausting to rush while still being thorough.

Then they got to where the body had been collected. Auntie Melinda, a woman who'd married away from the village, had kids of her own. Elinore had not seen her since their wedding, but that hadn't counted. Because that was merely gift giving and well-wishing. People offered the dead more reverence than the living. What actually counted was the day of her first victory, when an axe had still been heavy in her hands.

A long-haired beauty patting her on the head, words washing them in boring pleasantries and politeness. And then, out of the blue, she started whispering in her ear, words that had inspired, made her think, laugh, focus and now…

She was gone. Her pretty eyes, her sweet boldness that was never a challenge to fight, but a challenge to be more creative in one's kindness. There were many ways to be kind, and she could find the right way for anyone.

Now there was only blood, surrounded by paw prints in greater numbers than she could have imagined just the night before. The once greyish and tan soil, blackened.

And visible upon the hill, two pools of salt water, its embankments littered with blood and bone. She walked down the hill into the pool and towards flattened pelts in the soil.

Dozens of crushed wolves.

She reached down and saw a wolf pelt cleaner than the others, no blood no rips, it didn't even have the decency to be misshapen.

A growl caught her attention, her gaze snapped to a crack in a boulder wide and deep enough to create a tunnel where a wolf awaited. Upon eye contact it shivered and pounced. Elinore's axe bit into its neck in a flash of steel, the wolf in the sand lifted and pounced, her sand Golem rose out of her shadow and fell on the second wolf as a mud slide.

There were bursts of sand as the beast growled, barked, yelped, and whined until it fell silent.

She stared at the wolf she'd killed, pulling its still warm lips back and ran her fingers over its gums to see if there was anything unique. There wasn't, a part of her had expected it to turn out to be magic.

But, no, there was nothing special.

But could there be anything more unique than so many wolves trampling the land that the ground flipped?

A warrior ran to her huffing and puffing by the time she got there. Half a dozen warriors came up from a distance.

"Lyn. You did not have to come. I would have joined-"

Elinore didn't get much further. Her reality flipped when she slipped on the blood and splashed, flailing into salt water. Water slithered down her spine to the small of her back, smothering any warmth and comfort she could have hoped for.

Wet already, she creaked her way to her feet like an old hinge. At least her gear timer was okay.

"I do not have de patience fir this." Elinore growled.

"I tink dyou look amazing."

Elinore stared at her with dead eyes. Unblinking.

One of the other warriors, laughing, picked up Elinore's Axe and handed it to her.

"It is good to know dyou are still so good vith dyour axe."

"Sharp eyes, sharp moves." Elinore said.

"I will have to get changed before meeting dyour father."

"Dyou can mention saving my lives from volves."

"Dyou veren't even here."

"He vasn't either." Lyn said with a wink.

"The reason vhy I vas given this task specifically because I vould never lie."

"And not at all about bedding my father." Lyn said with a laugh.

Elinore turned sharply to Lyn.

"Oy, watch yourself, you're still under my command. I mother you enough as it is without me bending you over my knee."

They laughed, but their laugh grew strained as they eyed the entire field. It looked like overly tilled and churned farmland.

"Linnette, tell me. How many wolves dyou think vere there?"

More warriors caught up.

"Dozens upon dozens of volves." Linette sighed.

"No, hundreds, vorking toget'her. More than that shouldn't be possible. If one had told me that those vere all the volves in the nation I vould have said, sure, it was possible. But vorking together? I have farming blood and have seen how even plants cannot vork together, even from the same pod let along the same tree. So, to see so many tracks, moving together. Evil, Lyn, true evil is afoot."