Dusk Over Arcath

Chapter 2

The walk back to the Town Square felt the longest of Aster's life.

Every clop of the horse's hooves against the cobblestone street was an echoing testament to the unnerving stillness of the night. Aster's eyes flashed around the looming shadows of the stone buildings and towers that filled the sides of the wide street. Something about their drooping concealment of the buildings made him feel that the shadows had clawed their way from the depths of the Wood of Astfall by day and had somehow become unchained to feed upon it at night.

He looked down at his ax as they walked in silence. Its blood-stained edge attested to the death of the wolves, but his stomach churned with nervousness. He could not shake the feeling that something else had become very much alive. Glancing behind him, the unnamed stranger followed in long, smooth steps so purposeful that they hardly distilled the air. Not far behind walked Castleia, hood raised to shroud her face, ax in hand.

The dazzling white shape of the stranger's stallion paced beside him, head swaying gently as its wide, dark eyes took in the foreign shapes of the city.

Aster followed its gaze. Many of the street buildings were wrought with great stone bricks, but the moonlight glancing from their dull grey faces morphed them into towering monstrosities of rock. Sharp contours followed the faces of the mansions, towers, and storefronts in sharp overhangs that smelt an aged face on the otherwise nondescript structures.

Finally the road broadened into a wide square. The buildings ended in sheer corners, framing the vast square that was barely wide enough to allow the pure white of the moon to cascade through their towers. A hundred yards away the street continued back through the high walls of the city, but between the Aster and the road stood a dominating structure.

A ring of columns held a lofty dome above the small square. Tall bronze brazers held crackling basins of oil lamps above the assembly that gathered beneath. A looming stone and bronze canopy blocked out the night above them, framing the flames. The building itself was little to mention - the columns were some four feet thick of roughly hewed rock standing some fifty feet tall, upon which the swooping, smooth surface of the stone dome rested.

It was the crowd of people under the building that commanded attention. Through the open edge of columns, Aster saw a great number of the city had gathered. At least two hundred people stood in the light of the brazers to stare upon a smaller assembly that was unfolding in the center of the structure.

As they got closer, this smaller assembly came into view. Three stout oak trunks lay in the center of the structure to form an angular horseshoe. At his distance Aster could not make out the age the trunk ends revealed, but each boasted no less than three feet in diameter. Around the outer edge of this arrangement eight or nine men sat, their calloused hands resting on the mighty trunks as they might a table. Inside the horseshoe a man Aster recognized as Vahnir, the rider who had come through the gate earlier, spoke to the assembly.

"- somewhere between the Thorn Elm and the Faded Figure. We would have waited for him, but the wolves were on a Prowl. He fell behind."

"He is the fifth one in as many months to 'fall behind,' Captain," one of the men seated around the oak trunks declared. "What is your response to these unprecedented losses?"

The hunter paused. "The losses are regrettable, Mir Garn, but not unprecedented. The spring is upon us and with it comes the hunger of the wolves. While my men and I are the most prepared for venturing into Astfall of any of the Watch, our skill is often overshadowed by the ire of the wood, as you well know."

At this Aster could make out the seated figure's hand creeping to touch a pale, twisted part of skin on his face.

"And what would you have us do, Captain?" another of the seated men challenged. "There are not a hundred men trained as rangers. These losses are not sustainable, nor welcome to this counsel."