Let There Be Light

[Gauta Firstflame]

Fourteen dozen beasts passed under Chandler's Razor. Their bellies were not full, nor were they properly shielded from the winds that often ripped through the north, but not once did they falter in their march.

"Have you received any news, Ruso?" asked Gauta, feeling the gales buffet her hood.

From the edge of her eyes the fisher could see a squirrel, red headband matching his fur. The scout rushed back and bowed. "We're almost to Chandler's Light. Town's abandoned, valuables stripped, corpses frozen."

"Frozen?" asked Gauta.

"They have been dead for a while, Firstflame," continued Ruso, rubbing her paws together. "No birds have pecked their eyes out, nor have they rotted or been buried. There are grave markers outside the other entrance of the town, but I think most of them have been hidden by the snow."

"The cold embraced them," spat Gauta. "Too tightly."

After her encounter with the Choir the fisher had given up all hope with the profession of rattling. A part of her wanted to return to her family, to raise Bonn right and see him be satisfied with himself, but the flames called her elsewhere whenever she talked with them.

It was on her first season of her journey when she met beasts who were interested in what she had to say. Refugees moving away from the coast were first, then disgruntled farmers showed up to greet her with portions of produce. Miners whose workplaces proved dry or flooded followed, and she even received surprise visits from disillusioned Rattlers hoping that she would provide some other answer to explain the gaps in their doctrines.

And so she did. She spoke of the cold embrace of death and how it takes all in the end. She spoke of the warmth and light of life that fire could provide. She spoke of how death should not be venerated and how life should be celebrated.

Her words seemed to have an effect on the villages and towns she preached to. Tens to hundreds of beasts came to hear her, the Rattler who was now the Firstflame, though only a pair beasts would actually follow her. The Choir of Elders called her ever-growing band the Scorched when they decided to denounce her, but that decision only attracted adventurous youths to seek her out and swell her ranks.

Ruso nodded and fell back to her friends. Of the five of them who set out with her to find the adventure she craved, one of them was dead, and another had decided to return home in order to inform his parents that their pup was going home in an urn. Gauta was not unfamiliar with dead pups. Rellan and her watched three of them slip away until they were left with Bonn.

Bonn. Where could he be now? Could he have stayed in Gryf's Roost, helping his father around with the Rattling? Or the boy could have actually tried to find her. No. He did not have the fortitude for that. Sneaking off to meet some fishermaid would perhaps be more likely.

Pushing thoughts of her son aside, Gauta made her way forward as she always did.

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As Ruso had stated, Chandler's Light was indeed deserted. There were no beasts with lanterns wandering around the streets at night, no revelry nor sobbing. Instead, there was just this all-consuming silence.

"Where's everyone?" somebeast from the crowd behind Gauta asked.

"Could all of them have died?"

"Did the cold take them too?"

"Look!" said a lean hare, rushing forward to inspect something he could see in the distance. Kastor's mother named him after their king, and he confessed to Gauta Ruso always teased him about it.

"It's a corpse, Kas." said Ruso. "I saw it when I was scouting. You'll see entire piles of them if you've got the stomach to weave through a few homes. Not a pretty sight."

The hare fumbled at what was left of an otter with a gloved paw. He gasped as he realised that some parts of her were marred by little scars - bite marks. "This one's frozen solid as well. Blizzard passed by, I think. Or it's been left out in the cold for too long." He turned towards Gauta. "What do we do now, Firstflame?"

"Remember what we did to Staid Hearth?" asked Gauta. "We have to do it again."

"But there weren't this many bodies back there." Ruso said, making her way to his friend to take a good look at the otter.

"Then they can join the celebrations of their lives in person."

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In a few hours Gauta's followers had gathered up all the bodies they were able to find. Most of them were piled together around wood and candles burnt out long ago. Noblebeasts stripped of their coats, soldiers without weapons, couples bereft of each other. Some of them were missing some bits and pieces, as if they too had been bitten into. The Firstflame walked past the remains of a pair of wrinkled hares and wondered what they had done to deserve each a fate.

"How many of them were there?" asked Welk. Like Gauta the skunk started his life training to be a Bone Rattler, but the death of his father shook him. He still carried his bones with him as he travelled with her, but as far as Gauta knew he never used them ever since they met.

"Around sixty." The fisher turned around her. All around her red-cloaked beasts were dragging the corpses into the centre of the town, while others were tearing down whatever wood and tar they could gather and stuffing most of that around the bodies. "Actually, no. Seventy something would be my best guess."

"Seventy dead and perhaps more." Welk rubbed one of his ears. "What in the world happened here?"

Gauta shook her head. "I do not know. One can only shudder at their destinies. Cold and hungry and without the slightest chance of help from the Beacon." The Firstflame snarled. "But nothing pains me more than the fact that their suffering doesn't end when they breathe their last. Beyond the Veil lies more ice. More snow. More pain."

A silence followed as Gauta breathed in. The cold was biting into her muzzle, but her tasks were not complete. A rest in front of a blazing fire could wait until they were.

"I wish we were here quickly enough, Firstflame."

"So do I, Welk."

The two stood in the snow, wondering what was to happen next, before Gauta stood up. Spying Ruso, Kas and their other friend move a particularly cumbersome body - a white-furred wolf, thin, scarred and battered by the cold - she stepped forward to give them a lift. A closer look indicated that his jaws were stained with blood, and little bits of flesh stuck to his teeth.

"What are wolves doing so far down South?" asked Kas.

"Beats me," replied Ruso. "Maybe it was too cold up there."

"Or maybe Kastor told them to move," added Stia, an older stoatmaid who had travelled around before. "He might need the protection they provide."

Gauta shrugged. "Whatever it is, I don't know what could have forced a wolf to remain here alone. I've heard they travel in packs composed of friends and family."

"How do you know this, Firstflame?" asked Kas.

Seeing the trio's curious expressions, Gauta chuckled. "Oh, the Flame spoke to me like it always does."

"Really?"

"No, silly!" Ruso cuffed his friend across the head. "Can't you tell? She's joking!"

The fisher cocked her head to the left as they stopped in front of the main square of Chandler's Light, placing the wolf's remains gently on the wood. "Though ice and hail have seen you taken beyond the River," she muttered, patting him gently on the snout, "may you find the warmth you need in the world to come."

The Firstflame turned back to her charges. Kas was watching her attentively, while Ruso was clearly stuck in a daydream, which was quickly snapped away by a frowning Stia. "Um," Gauta walked back to the trio, leaning on a frost-covered slate wall. "Would the three of you like to hear about the wolves?"

"I'm interested," said Stia, still panting after the exertion.

"Six seasons ago one of their packs came to visit Gryf's Roost, and two of them actually went to see us ahead of the rest."

"Were they friendly?" asked Ruso.

Kas giggled. "The Firstflame's still here, Ruso. If they weren't she'd have lost a limb or four!"

"They were here for Bone Rattlers to perform their father's funeral. Poor beast went to sleep on their journey here and didn't wake up. We were the closest ones to the city."

"Were they polite?" asked Stia.

"Somewhat. I helped our guests prepare a meal from what they brought with them while Rellan and Bonn set up the pyre. After around a dozen stories about old Kalud they got the torches. It was beautiful, seeing the old one cross the River protected by the flames. And the wolves never cried - not even once, though at the end they howled loudly - like this!" With that, she lifted her head into the heavens and screamed.

"It sounds a bit inaccurate, Firstflame," said Stia.

Gauta nodded. "They probably have deeper voices. Anyway, Ryka and Skuvi left satisfied, and promised to visit us again alongside the rest of the pack." Gauta shook her head. "I never saw them again."

Ruso perked her head up. "Have you got any idea about where they are now?"

"Not at all," said Gauta, whiskers twitching. "I'm going to start the fire very soon, so can you three please notify everybeast?"

"Will do!" exclaimed Ruso, leaping to his footpaws and rushing forward into an alley. Kas followed him while Stia slowly went in another direction.

Standing back up, Gauta took a good look at the pile of wood and bodies in front of her. Most of the beasts didn't even have clothes on them. Could they have shed them for food or shelter or escape? No. They had been taken, and it was obvious by whom.

Word of mouth had spread quickly, and in a few minutes everybeast Gauta had brought with her were lined up in front of the makeshift pyre. Carts were filled with what loose pieces of wood they could have pried from the houses, as well as far too many candles than a town was expected to have.

Gauta took a deep breath before she knelt in front of a few small twigs she had gathered, taking out a little piece of flint from a pocket. "Hear me, Followers of the Flame, for we have to send those who have lived away."

"We remember," chanted the crowd. "We understand. We sympathise."

As their voices receded, the fisher quickly rubbed the flint with a piece of steel she wore upon her neck on top of the tinder, and a spark quickly manifested, followed by a vermillion flame.

Gauta smiled. "The light of life may have departed from the beasts of Chandler's Light, but there is hope for them yet. Though kith and kin have abandoned them, we do not forget." Lifting up a stick from the kindling the Firstflame walked towards the pile of withered, misshapen bodies and let the fire touch them.

Cycling back to avoid the smell, Gauta stood wide-eyed as the remains of all the beasts who had lived in Chandler's Light started to burn. "We may not know their names, but we know how they lived! Do we not encounter our own joy and pain? Do we not create and fulfil hopes and dreams? They may not be with us, but we are with them."

Beast after beast came forward to ignite pieces of wood, hurling them around the remnants of houses. Behind the fisher she could feel the Ducal Longhouse catch on fire, and around her structure after structure followed.

"The rain falls, the waters rise, and beasts depart from the living. From us." The Firstflame turned and looked at the burning city, speaking just as much to herself as much as everybeast else. Behind Gauta white and brown and black gave way to red and yellow and orange. "But there is one thing that you all should know - frigid death may not be vanquished, but it can be held at bay, defeated by warm fires and warmer hearts."