Ferune Departs Mistwood II

The People Of The Wind, X.

This is worth recording:

while it is still dark, a trumpet sounds;

 

Ferune's sons fly forth, carrying his body on a litter;

 

his uhoths flutter, puzzled by his quietness;

 

his wife, Wharr, leads, flanked by her daughters, their husbands and grown children bearing torches;

 

they join their chothmates;

 

Mistwood Choth rises above the fog between western stars and eastern lightening;

they fly north and as high as is physically possible;

on the horizon, the Weathermother snowpeaks are lit by the rising but still hidden sun;

the Holms follow on gravbelts;

the Ythrians resemble a spearhead led by torchflames;

silence is broken only by throbbing wings;

above wild crags, boulders and streams, the sons hover before their mother, encircled by kin and the wheeling choth;

the sun rises above the mountains;

the new Wyvan blows the horn, calls "Ferune" three times and speaks the words of the two-thousand-year-old New Faith;

body and torches fall;

Wharr leads the dance;

Daniel Holm tells Arinnian, "'And that Terran thought we'd surrender.'" (p. 560) (My emphasis.)