The Shepherd

A Story for Lynarra

Blood drops left a trail in the snow. A trail quickly erased by the blowing flakes.

He dragged himself through the knee deep drifts. Cold fingers tugged at his uniform, getting into his wounds, until he couldn't feel them anymore. Blinded by fatigue and tears he trudged on, only stopping to pull the sling of his rhyfle up his shoulder and look around. It was no use. He couldn't see anything, just howling whiteness. Adjusting his sling again, he lurched forward, lost, not knowing where he was going. 

He cursed the General Staff and his Master-Yawdryl for putting him here instead of on a train for Lynarra Leave. With cythwyn and the long nights and storms, major operations halted. Airships were grounded. Tractors got stuck in the mud. Breech blocks froze. Forward observers couldn't see to adjust artillery fire. So armies pulled back, dug deeper, warmer bunkers and waited out the season. The supply trains could barely keep everyone fed, so custom dictated that half the troops were sent home for a long leave to be with their families at Lynarra. 

Who got to go home was determined by long custom. Length of time at the Front, wounds, meritorious citations all added points towards your Leave ticket. Some rhyflers watched the Leave points closer than the Mhudd-ball League leader board. 

He stumbled again and wiped snow off his snout.

A dark rock loomed up in front of him. Exhausted, he slumped against it to get some shelter from the wind. He did an inventory. Pockets empty, ammo pouches empty. He had half a magazine in his rhyfle.

He sighed in resignation. He was well, and truly, froomed.

He tried to get up, but his legs weren't listening. 

"Okay, I guess this is what we're doing now."

He settled back against the stone with his rhyfle across his lap.

The mission had been huvi-shit from the start. Some Staff-oik wanted a patrol to confirm the location of the enemy's cythwyn lines. Dugouts and trenches that they'd already identified. He should have been on a truck heading home for Lynarra Leave, but he'd caught the Master-Yawdryl's shit list and been detailed to lead the patrol.

Stealthily they had located the enemy dugouts, and seen the glow of warm fires, and listened to lonely rhyflers singing Lynarra Songs about home and love and longing. 

On the way back they had bumped an enemy patrol, probably doing the same huvi-shit they were. Nod and Porvyl went down in the briefly fierce exchange of fire. He, Huw and Derfyl were all wounded. Then a pack of Sarf-Cyn, smelling their blood and anxious to eat as much as they could before laying eggs and dieing, came at them out of the darkness. Sinuous, terrifying forms with razor teeth tearing Derfyl to pieces before they expended the rest of their ammunition. As they moved on, an early cythwyn blizzard roared up around them and Huw disappeared behind a curtain of snow. 

He was alone. 

As the snow drifted around him he began to sing. He sang the Song of his Ancestors, remembering his mother and grandmother teaching it to him. Singing it with the rest of the clan at the Shrine on Feast Days. Singing it around the table with Uncles and Aunties and Siblings and Cousins before the Lynarra Feast. He supposed that when his mother got the telegram listing him as "Missing in Action. Presumed Dead." she would go to the Shrine and light a candle and the grandmothers would add his name to the Song.

As he sang he noticed another voice joining in. "Huw? 'zat you?"

But no. Strange voice. Singing other names. 

A white figure came out of the swirling snow. "Why are you weeping, brother?"

He suddenly realized that he had been crying. The tears frozen on his cheeks. "I want my mommy" he said weakly, giving into the pain.

"Don't we all? Lynarra almost upon us and our hearts yearn for our mother's warm termite rolls and roasted huvi, stuffed with beetles." The white figure leaned closer, their snouts almost touching. He noticed that the newcomer's head and snout were wrapped in white cloth and a fur lined hood was pulled up over his ears. "And our mother's yearn for us as well. Lighting candles against the darkness as they petition the Ancestors to watch over their kits."

The white figure stood up. "Ease your heart brother.  Leave your burdens behind."

He clutched his rhyfle with it's half-empty magazine closer. "But I can't." He said weakly, the ghosts of Drill Yawdryls whispering to him out of the snow. A rhyfler was only as good as his rhyfle. A rhyfler without his rhyfle was nothing. 

"You must" the white figure said gently. "Or die. And then your mother will weep. And enough mothers have wept today." He pointed at the stone. "The Ancestors will accept your rhyfle as a worthy offering."

He turned and saw that the stone that he had been sheltering behind was an ancient, weather worn, Ancestors Shrine. Unsteadily, he got up and took off his pack and helmet, setting them beside the stone. Finally he carefully leaned his rhyfle against the worn carvings. 

The Stranger wrapped a thick blanket around him and helped him up on a cadier that had been patiently waiting behind him. A flask of something warming was put in his hand. "Drink deeply. Your need is greater than mine." Gently rocked by the motion of the cadier, he fell into a fevered sleep and dreamed of his mother. 

His mother was singing to him in his nest. Then he woke and the Stranger was singing as he walked in front. His wounds had been freshly dressed. The weather had cleared and the snow was dripping off the branches of trees. He noticed the rhyfle, wrapped in white cloth slung across the Stranger's back, and where the sling pulled at his white camouflage cloak, the collar of his tunic.

"Am I a prisoner?" he asked. 

The Stranger stopped and turned around. "We are all prisoners here. Prisoners of forces vast and terrible, beyond the comprehension of poor rhyflers such as us."

The Stranger kept walking. "That leg of yours is bad. You'll be on the Leave Train for certain. And probably get transferred to a cushy Rear Echelon job after that."

"Who are you?" He asked weakly. 

"A brother. We are all brothers out here." 

"Why?" was all he could ask.

The Stranger cooked his head to one side, thinking. 

"Many reasons. Taking you prisoner wouldn't really reveal any interesting intelligence that I haven't already gathered. It pleases me to push against the dark whirlwind that sweeps over Alwyd. By getting you home I feel like I'm lighting a Lynarra candle against the darkness. And if you went missing, your mother would cry. And for the sake of her tears I will set aside Oaths and Duty. Enough mothers have cried and if I can comfort one, then perhaps it is enough to set in the scales against my crimes."

He stopped at the end of his speech and helped him down. He cut a branch from a tree and fashioned a crutch for him.

"There" He pointed. "Your outpost line is just over that rise."

"Thank you, brother."

"Kiss your mother for me, and be a candle in the darkness."

He limped over the hill and waved to get the sentries attention,  shouting the password. When they waved him forward he turned to say "thanks" but the Stranger was gone.