Sephtis

47. Amitz.

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There is movement in the dimness. I look up, and see a wolf. My eyes are blurred, and at first I do not recognize him. Then he whines and wags his tail, and I know.

"Amitz!" I say. "I had forgotten you, in all this madness."

He is hesitant, in coming to me, because there is blood in this place, and on me. I kneel and put my arms about his neck. His fur is soft, warm, and alive, and smells of the earth.

"Tell me, wolf, my brother, when we are at the end of all hope...what is next?"

I draw back from him slightly, and see his eyes. Luminous and deep they are, steady as the moon in a stormy sky, lights in my darkness, like other eyes I loved.

A long time I sit with him in the dirt. He licks my face, and nuzzles me, whining as he licks at my blood and sniffs my wounds. I hear him pant, feel his warmth, his strength, and slowly peace finds me. It is wolf peace; a belief in renewal, in the morning after the night, and in the rain after the fire. It is a certainty that nothing is ever truly finished, nothing lost, nothing gone, not for as long as life ebbs and flows, and the seasons twirl their beginnings and endings across the ever-changing earth.

I take off the earthen colored headband that a stranger had gave me, and place it on the bloodied dust in front of Kavah's den.

And the I go away with the wolf, my kinsman.

---

I lie in the field outside our den, and watch the distant river shimmering between the trees and long grasses. Beside me stretches Amitz, his belly round from the fish we had just ate, his eyes half closed as he dozes. I roll over and tug his ear gently. He grumbles, deep in his chest, pulling his ear from my hand and opens his eyes a slit. He grins, but also growls softly, daring me to touch him again. Suddenly he raises his head upright, his ears pricked towards the river.

A lone man comes, walking with a staff, a lyre across his back. It is Balta. I jump up, and start running through the grass to meet him, Amitz now wide awake and is bounding beside me. He snaps at my hand as we run, playfully, and once he dashes in front of me, and we tangle together, falling in a heap in the grass, yelling and yelping. I stand up and tell him to wait. Then I brush myself off, straightening my frayed and torn dress, and walk on to meet the bard.

Balta is resting on a stone beside the water. He has taken off the lyre, and the heavy bag he had across his shoulder. He holds out something for me.

"Greetings, wolf-woman," he says as I take the gift. It is a tunic, as grey and soft as the fur of the wolves.

"Greetings, Balta. My thanks for the gift, I needed another one."

"So I see," his eyes sparkle, and his smile is good to look upon, for we are friends now. "And I see you also survived the cold winter winds."

"Not easily though, many bitter days and nights I was grateful for the boots and furs you had given to me. And I was thankful for the flints. It was good to have a fire at times, and to be able to eat roasted meats."

"I looked for you, when the snows were deep," Balta says. "But the den over there was empty?"

"We wandered around the winter hunting grounds, following the elk and deer. There were not many hares, nor smaller prey."

I sit on the sun warmed stone beside the bard, and am keenly aware of his shrewd eyes watching me. I subconsciously touch the great silver scars marring the skin of my shoulders.