Frost on the Grasslands | Shelha Series 1 | ✔

The Lowlands

Southern cool season was like a drawn-out reincarnation of a northern winter's last breath. Whipper sat in a tree where the cool air could brush his whiskers. Dozens of trunks away, he could make out the muted grumble of the Mountainair pack. Garnet was ranting, somehow managing to make his deep voice sound irritating and whiny. Whipper yawned. The rope on the Mountainair's shoulder pack must just have broken for the fourth time today.

Paws approached through the forest. Whipper scampered to the next tree and let its foliage swallow his pelt as two Mountainairs walked by. It would take them until tomorrow to find rope material and finish the replacement. That meant he would have to wait until next night to fiddle with it ... oh well. There was one more rock shard, carefully planted, nibbling its way out of the current rope. If he was lucky, he would get one more break before the sun went down.

When the rope broke again, Winter swore openly and gave up for the day. The next morning, her creatures scuttled about fixing more ropes that had mysteriously frayed during the night. Soon the pack was on the move again. Their near-empty shoulder packs bumped against their sides, making them sway. They had picked these up from somewhere in the forest, where Winter had stashed them the previous year. Whipper wondered why the Mountainair queen had insisted on bringing so many packs. It was rare to find creatures with any sort of bag outside of the Lowlands; things carried were rarely worth the hassle they posed. Yet each Mountainair was saddled with not one but two large pockets, connected by ropes that draped across their shoulders. So far, all were empty.

By midday the woods were thickening into the Darkwood as a single type of tree saturated the landscape. The new trees had red, stringy bark, and leaves that looked stitched together out of tiny green scales. Everything about them was fragrant. Soon, towering pillars held aloft a canopy so dense it replaced the sky.

The Darkwood marched on for a quarter moon. When at last it began to thin, the sun was warmer. Not because of spring—it was North Moon now and this forest was as cold as it could get—but because they had come so far south that the weather had changed. Whipper squirmed uncomfortably. He had not grown an undercoat since he had left the North Forest, but the fur that remained was still more than enough to stifle him.

The Lowlands nestled in a basin south of the South Flats. Trees waved from hills lush with grass, and lakes and rivers sparkled in the sun. Winter found a spring and immediately followed it to a stream. This was one of the hundreds of tributaries of the Blue River, the biggest moving waterway in the Lowlands. Winter followed it to larger and larger waterways until the river came into breathtaking view. Bottoming out a broad valley, it meandered through the hills like a snake with sparkling, evening-sky scales. Houses spotted the tops of the valley sides, all empty. Whipper smiled. He had run here last night, leaving a drawn Mountainair on the street of the village downstream. They must have spread the word through their messenger-birds.

Whipper stilled his paws as a flicker on the far valley side caught his attention. For the second time today he saw a pale-furred creature slide out of sight behind a wall. It was neither a Rivrit nor a Watermouse, the Lowlands' dominant species. It was far closer to Winter than he was.

Then Winter stopped. Or maybe she had stopped already and he had just failed to notice. Whipper dove into a bush and wormed his way to its centre. He peeked out. Winter was drawing on the grass. Abstract strokes made no picture, but they drew her pack's eyes like fresh prey. Winter picked up a branch she had been carrying and handed it to a packmate. He carried it to one end of where her strokes had been, dug a hole in the ground and buried the branch's end. Two others took two more branches and did the same. The last pair were digging a shallow trench along the hill. They stopped just shy of a streamlet and looked back at Winter. She let their companions finish burying the branches, then gave an affirmative wave. Summer connected the trench to the trickle with a deft kick.