The Wolf Tribe of the Free People is being destroyed.
Their last survivors are fleeing for their lives.
But amid the chaos a girl sees her hopes rising.
And, sometimes an end is just a new beginning in disguise.

But SHE waits for her children.

The Tribe of the Montains.

In darkness SHE waited.
There was no time.
Only life.
Only eternal domination and struggle.

Not so far away a dying people was fleeing.
The so called Free People.
The not so free people thought a girl on the big wagon.
The wagon reserved only for unmarried girls.
Unmarried, that is, in the times of her father.
Now, even marriage was abolished, they were closer to be men`s slaves. All of them.
Perhaps this explained why the slaves were in the same wagon, she thought.
Although this helped her plans.

The open grasslands used to be the land of the free people. The roaming tribes inhabited them for as long as memory went.
But now things were changing.
Of course Anora didn ´t find her people so “free” after all. At least not the women.
But nonetheless she understood quite well the reasons for their downfall. She even could listen them, as she had heard them many times from Erynia:
1. A nation made of roaming tribes, each frequently making war against the other.
2. Not very good at making iron weapons, even when they found iron.
3. Considered trade beneath them.
4. Being very good at shooting arrows from a horse, a skill that defeated many would be conquerors in the past, they never learned other ways of fighting.
5. Most important: they hated and despised magic.

Perhaps a sixth reason for their downfall was that even now, when the number of men was, about half that of that of women, these were not allowed to ride. The women were placed in five big locked carriages carried admittedly fast by big dranacks (a bull like creature).

Erynia told Anora, tough, that in most of the cities the situation of the women was not much better, they were often locked in Gyneseum and forbidden to walk alone in the streets. At least, this had been the situation in Erynia`s hometown.

It had started slowly, of course, the “civilized” city states at both sides of the prairies had started to get tired of the constant pillaging of caravans and attacks to hamlets.
The most powerful cities got into a territorial agreement, divided the land to be conquered and established forts to protect their interests. Similar efforts had failed in the past, but this time the cities acted together, sending huge armies from both sides of the sea of grass and mages that placed wards to warm against attacks.
Groups of tribes got together to fight this new treat but, as their present condition proved, fighting forewarned, armored and organized troops plus mages and war machines in the open field was suicidal.
Now, what remained of the wolf tribe of the free people had been forced to retreat in the direction of the southern forest.

Erynia herself had been one of the women captured from a hamlet and was called a slave by the tribe.
The tribe only made women slaves. Men they killed.
Not that she had a worse life than most of the women.
Except for the sex. Unless otherwise claimed, slaves had to make sex with ant man that wanted. A rule that was never enforced, but the new ruler, the leader of the few surviving warriors was resurrecting the “old ways” (that never were).
And now the man that everyone always called Urk (his real name forgotten due to his similarity with an Orc) had ordered the slaves placed in the same wagon as the young women.
It was not necessary to be a genius to imagine what would happen if they could leave the knights that were following them behind.
And this was why she and Anora planed to escape to the woods.
As co-conspirators they had Basset, a lean girl no older than thirteen rain seasons with amazingly flexible joints and also, weird as it may sound, a boy. Eric had been a nice addition to their group, a lean youth of fifteen years conscripted by Basset after months of careful probing (and only the fertility goddess know what else).
Anora, being clan chiefs daughter, had some freedom in the past, while her father was alive. Actually, her father had been a sort of reformist, giving Erynia as Anora ´s personal slave and asking her to quietly teach his daughter to write. Something that, if known by the rest of the tribe would represent death to their family not only because teaching women anything that was not traditional women`s duty was tabu, but because reading was considered by the tribe with suspicion.
What her father didn`t know was that Erynia also knew some magic. Not fireball magic, but ways to prevent pregnancy, how to heal, and a few curses.
More than a few curses.
This had kept most men out of her bed. They didn ´t even know why they avoided the beautiful redhead slave, but something, perhaps some ancient instinct from the time when mankind had to fear magical predators, kept them away.
But the warriors were cornered and the approaching death made them horny.
Besides, the best had died or fled with their families. The better ones had left as soon as Anora`s dad died in combat.
Now, the remaining warriors were being trapped between the knights and the deadly forest to the south.
And Anora could bet her brownish skin that they would not go quietly into the darkness of the forest.
But she would.

The grasslands looked endless one day ago, but now they already could see the large green, dark, unnatural outline in the horizon with big weird bluish mountains just beyond.
They spent the whole day riding, with no stops.
They knew that they were alive only because the heavily armored knights had to rest their horses.
And the darkness was approaching ahead.
I don ´t know if the reader of this tale ever looked at a real forest.
A dark tropical forest.
From a distance they saw the big trees, as both forest and the mountains beyond came closer. There were huge trees with their silvery foliage amid the many smaller ones, but all were giants enclosing the earth and, hungry for light, leaving only darkness bellow.
When you get closer to the woods you see the thorns.
The small trees and shrubs that grow at the fringes all full of thorns and, sometimes, poison.
The inconvenient “tropical nettle” (piná£o, cansançá£o, urtiga -> large leaves with soft thin white needles protruding from them, DON`T TOUCH). The palm trees with thorns covering all of their bark, the high grass that will flail your bare skin …
But when you see it is because you are already close. Too close, if it is a dark forest not only tropical but also magical. You can already feel the dark spirit of the woods, curupira, whispering in your mind telling you to get out or to get in already, onto the darkness until you are lost and it can eat your heart.
While the women made camp (the men were on “guard duty” = doing nothing) Anora was already looking for the natural paths, were a tree had fallen or a large animal made a trail. Sometimes under a larger tree that is a bit ahead of the tree line, sometimes under a dead piece of wood. There is always a path to the inside.
And Erynia was quietly talking with the darkness, with curupira, asking for permission to enter, promising not to do damage. Begging forgiveness for her human otherness, becoming one with the woods.
People think in magic as something that demands large gestures, study and incantations.
Nope, magic is shadows, it is knowledge of your mind. It is study, but of yourself and that something extra that you perceive around.
Magic dispenses large demonstrations, it is persistent in the shadows, in the mist.
And for those that know magic, the shadows are there permeating even the brightest day.

That evening Anora and Bastet cooked. Nobody objected, since the two were good cooks and had been doing this for the past days. Anora said that cooking, even if for two hundred people, was better than to sit brooding about her father.
And nobody saw the herbs that Erynia gave to Anora. Nobody saw fast Bastet separating some of the thick soup in a clay jar while the rest was distributed in the earthen ware used by the tribe.
This evening, a girl named Sarah was eating in the same dish as Grunt and Harold, his right hand man.
Sarah, like most of the remaining girls didn ´t realize what was happening, she was still thinking in terms of family, children and social status.
The wise ones had already left, except Anora that, being chieftain`s daughter, was considered a prize and watched closely and, of course, slaves like Erynia and even a “semi slave” fatherless child like Bastet.
Unfortunately they couldn`t use an herb that acted too fast. People would start to drop while others were still waiting to eat.
So, they were locked back into the wagon and had to wait there while the shadows lengthened and night fell.
Only when it was already pitch darkness and they couldn ´t see any torchlight trough the planks of the wagon they realized that it had worked.
But Anora started to get worried.
Some of the warriors would wake soon.
They would notice what happened.
What was delaying Eric?
Had he quit?
Was the key too difficult to get?
Why the time was so slow?
Despair, despair, … will I be raped?
And both Erynia and Bastet were almost forcing their “fearless leader” to sit when they heard the three knocks on the door.
Followed by the noise of the lock being turned.
Of course, the lock, stolen from the cities as everything else, was noisy. But neither the men, nor the women awoke.
And, quietly, the three girls left the wagon.
There was light outside, but only from a full moon.
As rehearsed, Bastet went to the place where she had hidden the backpacks. How she had been able to get valuable provisions and hid them amid the tribe Anora preferred not to know.
Anora, Enyria and Eric went right to the verge of the woods.
The wait for Basted was excruciating but short.
Anora guided them to an opening in the foliage, right bellow a big tree while Erynia kept contact with the spirit of the woods. Asking for entrance and forgiveness.
And they went into complete darkness
Yet, they held hands while Erynia guided them through a narrow path in the darkness until the thorns and branches became too much and she had to stop.
Now Anora`s turn, she found the light within, the remembrance of a sunny day with her father and, without uttering a word, brought a little part of it to the outside, to the palm of her hand.
Eric was impressed with the abilities of these women.
He had dreams of living a quiet life, somewhere in those mountains, surrounded by these incredible, beautiful girls and, who knows? Perhaps (he could only hope) some children, his sons.
They had told him what they were capable of doing but he had never realized how outmatched he was.
Of course he knew how to hunt, but Bastet was already disappearing in the darkness ahead needing only a little light to help her find the best trail. Anora certainly was already planning ways to avoid pursuit while Enyria was talking to the spirits, preventing only the Hunter God knows what from tearing them apart and taking their souls.
And he was relegated to pack mule, carrying the heaviest equipment and following close behind.
Yep, he would probably get his wish, but it was quite clear that, despite living with three females, he would not be “The Men” of the house.
And yet, much better than dying following Grunt in a mad charge against armored knights.

And deep in the mountains SHE felt their approach.