Greywolf
The mountain stood alone among the hills like a giant standing within a group of Dwarven males.
On a clear, warm morning, Greywolf and Asena walked beside Prince Balashi and a dozen nobles of their people, along with the head priest-shaman of the sky-god, Targitaus, and his three acolytes. Behind them, the hundred riders accompanying the group fanned out in all directions, scouting for threats. The tall grass hissed as it grudgingly let them pass, thinning out as they crested the last hill with the sheltered plain in front of the mountain before them. The lower front of the mountain was sheer as if a massive blade had sliced through the rock face, with an archway carved into the stone. Two metal doors, orange with rust, stood wide open.
The prince, tall for his people yet a head shorter than Greywolf, wearing a blood red tunic and trousers with embroidery on the hem and cuffs, stopped and swept his hand outward. “Behold, the sacred mountain of our ancestors where the sky-god once dwelt.”
As the prince began walking down the side of the gentle slope, Asena murmured, “I remember this place.”
“Are you sure?” Greywolf murmured back. “It’s been a long time.”
Asena glanced at him. “Places change. Mountains don’t.” Greywolf said nothing but only rolled his eyes as the mountain before them seemed to grow in size.
Sitting beside the archway on either side was a stone trough extending a dozen or so horse-lengths, the one on the left overgrown with weeds, but the one on the right bare stone resembling Etruscan concrete. Greywolf raised his head and sniffed the air. “I’m smelling water.”
“You’ve a keen nose, Wolf Brother,” Prince Balashi said, baring his teeth in a smile underneath the long, drooping mustache common to the Scythian warriors. Unlike the other nobles who went bareheaded, the prince wore a leather cap with a gold medallion in the shape of a five pointed star on its front. “Water flows continually from the sacred well on the right, which the priest-shaman’s acolytes will work to keep clean while the rest of us purify ourselves. Come.”
The group followed the prince to the stone trough where the old priest-shaman and his acolytes took the lead. The four of them wore coarse, bone white tunics, with black beads attached to thin, white leather straps which clacked as they stopped before the trough and bowed as one. The three acolytes standing beside the old priest-shaman held in their hands a horse skull with its holes fused tight by more bone, while the old man held a horsetail whip, which he dipped into the water as the acolytes set the skulls they carried on the wide edge of the trough. The priest-shaman pulled it out and sprayed himself with water, then sprayed the other three, who then bowed.
He turned to look at Asena. “Wolf Mother, it is forbidden to drink the water from the sacred well, as mortals cannot abide the intensity of its holiness, but spraying ourselves will purify our hearts so we may enter this holy place while my acolytes clean the well and fill the skulls to take back so I might purify our warriors when we return. Will you permit me to preform this ritual?”
“It’ll feel good,” Greywolf said quickly.
“Yes it will,” Asena added, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Spray away, priest.”
The old man dipped the horsetail into the water as Prince Balashi stepped forward, the priest-shaman spraying the prince several times, then dipping the whip back into the trough as the next noble approached. After he finished spraying Greywolf, he tucked the whip into the white leather belt around his waist and said, “Wolf Mother, Wolf Brother, when we enter, I beg you not to be alarmed at anything you see or hear. There are metal spider statues with glowing eyes that occasionally move or even follow us, and lights inside the sacred mountain which at times will begin to glow. All these manifestations are not to be feared. They merely demonstrate that the sky-god is still with us, and that his people haven’t been forgotten.”
“There isn’t much I find alarming anymore,” Asena replied, waving her hand towards the open doors. “Lead on and we’ll follow.”
One of the nobles carried a bulging leather sack, and taking it off his shoulder, opened it and handed one to the old priest-shaman before distributing the other torches to the lower ranking nobles. The old man lit it with a fire-stone, which he put away before using the burning torch to light the others. As they did so, Prince Balashi beckoned Asena and Greywolf to join him in front of the rusty doors, easily twice Asena’s height. “It’s written that when the first of our ancestors came here, these doors were so well balanced a child could open them.” He pushed on the door. It remained where it was. “Much has changed since then.”
“More than you’ll ever realize,” Asena replied with a shrug, “but the world moves on.”
“As do we. Come,” and Prince Balashi led the way through the doors and into the darkness beyond, the other nobles with torches following close behind.
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Except for the area of torchlight, the darkness inside was absolute, yet Greywolf got the impression of a vast space, judging by the echoes their footfalls made. The air smelled of metal and stone with an oily tang, with an occasional whiff of an acrid smell, like something burning. They walked past a round, metal column wider around than any tree Greywolf had ever seen, with faded symbols a cubit tall, of a type Greywolf had never seen, and as the prince strode confidently forward, Greywolf’s ears picked up a clicking sound coming closer.
Around the column a metallic spider large as a mastiff came into the torchlight and stopped, its three eyes in the front glowing red as hot coals. Greywolf sucked in his breath. “What in Hades’ name is that?”
Asena glanced at it and chuckled. “A machine that repairs things and keeps this place clean.” She then spoke to it in a strange tongue flowing off her lips like quicksilver, a language unlike anything Greywolf had ever heard, and the metal spider turned around and skittered off into the darkness. “I told it we didn’t have any tasks for it to do, so it’s going back to its normal routines.” Asena shook her head. “Hard to believe any of this is still operational after all these years.”
“Asena,” Greywolf said in a worried voice, “we might have a problem.”
All the Scythians, including the prince, were staring at Asena with expressions of total shock. Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“The stories are true,” the old priest-shaman said in an awe-struck voice. “You were here when the sacred mountain was built, you know the language of the gods and can command the sky-god’s servants. You—”
“I wasn’t born when this mountain was hollowed out and made a fortress,” Asena growled, “but I served here under Targitaus, the one I’ve heard you name as sky-god.” Terror seized many of their faces, and she said in exasperation, “Wotan’s nethers, I was cast out by the other gods, cursed to walk the lands and never return to the Heavens. I may be tough as old tree roots, but I still eat and drink and piss the same way you do.”
“Not to mention fart,” Greywolf added.
He dodged the cuff she aimed at his head with long practice, the fear in their faces easing as the prince and others laughed. Yet, in the old priest-shaman’s face, Greywolf saw an expression of intense desire take hold and remain as he said, “According to the sacred texts, when the war against the Daemo was over and the sky-god returned to the Heavens, he gave our first ancestors the ability to speak with the gods and gain their blessing for the one who would be named king, at times receiving mighty gifts still held within.”
“If you want me to bless your king it would be worse than useless.”
The old man was waving his hands in negation. “No, Wolf Mother, that wasn’t what I meant at all.” Indecision swept the old man’s deeply wrinkled features for a moment, but then he hardened his face into a stern mask. “What I’m about to tell you has been kept secret among the lore masters, and if word of this is spread it will likely mean my life. But the signs are too great to ignore.” He took a deep breath. “Prince Balashi, a thousand years ago our clan held the kingship, and one of your ancestors had just received the blessing of the sky-god, along with several marvelous gifts. But the clan of the now, high king,was jealous, and they killed not only the rightful king and his nobles, stealing all the gifts, but they also killed the priest-shaman who was with him and two of the acolytes as well. The third one escaped and told the other lore masters of our clan what had happened.”
Asena raised her bushy eyebrows. “Your people just accepted it?”
“The new high priest-shaman of the Scythian people proclaimed that the old king, his nobles, and the priest-shaman, had been taken to the heavens by the sky-god, and that the clan of the new high king would take their place. The new high king then spoke of the great nobility of the old king, praising him and the clan’s nobles for the great sacrifice, and then told the people it would no longer be needed for the sky-god to bless future kings, for the clan now in charge had been made holy by the old king’s sacrifice.”
Both Asena and Greywolf gave a derisive snort before Asena said, “Let me take a guess. The old king and his holy man were the only ones who knew how to get the sky-god’s blessing.”
“Only the old king’s head priest shaman. Once the king had received the blessing of the sky-god and had returned to his people, two others of the old king’s priest-shaman were going to travel to the sacred mountain with their master, who would set each of them in the Chair of Knowledge that would teach them the language of the gods and many other pieces of useful things to know.” He sighed. “When the old head priest-shaman died, he took all the knowledge in his head with him.”
Greywolf gave him an incredulous look. “And your clan didn’t do anything about it?”
“What else could they do? The wise men of the clan kept the secret hidden from the remaining warriors, for fear the clan would be destroyed, and lied when the new high king’s warriors came looking for the acolyte, saying they hadn’t seen him. The new high king commanded our clan to guard the northern lands, likely in the hope that such a harsh land would cause us to wither away and die.”
“But we didn’t,” Prince Balashi said. “We grew hard and strong while the clans to the west, the clans most loyal to the high king, grew soft.”
“They use poisons on their arrows,” one of the nobles not holding a torch sneered, “because if they didn’t, the Gothic tribes would destroy them.”
“The high king has no desire to raid anymore,” another said. “He seeks only to trade with the Etruscans and grow fat like the merchants do.”
“All this is true,” an older noble not holding a torch said, “yet what can we do about it? We are but one clan, and if you think I’m leading my warband on a suicide quest to regain something lost a long time ago, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“It’s not suicide if the rest of the eastern clans support us,” the old priest-shaman said, looking at Asena. “If the Wolf Mother can intercede for us and the sky-god finds favor with the prince, we can—”
“You’re assuming I can intercede,” Asena growled, interrupting him. “Granted, the… statues, are still functioning, but I can’t assume the mechanism I’d need to contact your sky-god does. Besides which,” she added before the noble could speak, “you’re asking me to spark a civil war among the Scythian people, and without a really good reason to do so, I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
One of the lesser nobles holding a torch said, “Prince Balashi, I know it’s not my place to speak, but I may know of a reason the Wolf Mother might want to help us.”
