Chapter 8
Night, death cradling, to dawn and hope
Precedence yields. In the proud ruin
Of the Dane’s capital the cat-tank stirs,
The seekers wake to a soft snowfall
The cairn cloaking of the cat-mother brave
And the lich-beast’s corpse. Lalli night-scout
Wends back to camp with the way forward
Mapped and studied as Mikkel field-cook
Breakfast is serving to the brave comrades
Around the fire. The reivers sneer
At the sour porridge, Sigrun war-maid
Protests loudly, yet the tuck swallows
For future need. But food spurning,
Lalli, noita, the lost dog-beast
Cleans, unmembers, reclaiming its bones,
Sacring the relics in sun and snow,
Appalling Emil, porridge bearer
To his long-swinked friend. But Lalli wise,
Skilled spirit-guide, the skull removes
From the death-leaving, from the dog's body,
Cleans and shrives it, and shrines the skull
On the topmost twig of a tall pinetree
Freeing and honouring a friend regained
To a new life-grace, release, rebirth.
Tuuri meanwhile, technical skald
By wireless link warns the base-folk
Of future plans: to forage deep
In book-hoard syes made safe by snow
And cold sunlight. The cat-tank packed
And its team stowed, Tuuri driver
Forces Lalli, family unminded
Cousin forgot in the gang's reiving
Their forays and fights in the foe-ridden chaos
Of the Danish roose, to ride with her
In the driver's cab; but drained Lalli
Sleeps on the dash through the slithering ride
Along snow-clogged ways snared with stonefall
The long failure of the lost kingdom
In the Silent World. Sodden vehicles,
Snaking artics and snagged trailers
In broken gaps bridging chasms
In shattered roads and shent highways
Till the heavy snow halts the cat-tank
Safeless, wardless. Sigrun sneering
Doubts that night-scout noita Lalli,
Unwitting the chance of winter's cold,
For peril of snow prepared a gate
To find their sye; defending kin,
Sib-loyal Tuuri takes Sigrun's gage
Hotakainen holds their corner
Lalli trusting to have tried escapes
From the snow-clogging a snib lifted
And a door opened; disappointing
Lalli night-scout lacks a game plan
Lalli shameful shends his cousin
Sigrun's judgement justifying
Aghast Tuuri goaded to speech
Angry with Lalli she oversteps
Accuses him with careless words
Of groundless deeds. Grandma naming
With incautious lips calls to Lalli
From distant times a day of shame
Of comrades lost through careless work
Slain uselessly by sloppy notes
That Lalli new-trained night-scout callow
Hardly more than a mere boy-child
Frommed, uprooted, wrote overhasty.
Goaded by shame, by guilt mastered
Lalli youngling forlost himself
But sib Onni sought his hiding
Calling him out as a coward fool
For one mistake; wounding him deep
For a single slip, sorrow recalling
Of their grandma's doom. Grided in heart
Strength exhausted, straight from the tank
Looking for safety Lalli night-scout
Runs the wheel ways routes exploring
Till a building found, bare, wide gated,
Wall-less within, well-fettled road
For the fleeing folk, but flesh cocoons
Hang from the ceil, heralds of death,
Of dern troll-foes the detritus vile
Of hidden rash-cursed. Hammering blows
From a scout's blade destroy a few
Proving them dead - but doubting mage
Lalli noita lacks certainty
That every pod to peace has slept
In Tounela, and testing safe
Each lingering threat too long would take
In human form; to hunt the foe
His luonto calls, his lynx ghost-might
A claw-shod wind, cleansing cat-main
Wreaks disaster, uprips, outstabs,
Shatters, unskins, unshapes, destroys
Every cocoon. His cat form shed,
Unmanned, weakened, main exhausted,
Noita Lalli, in nose and eyes
Bleeding, glue-eyed, glances around
The shent troll holt; sure of his win
Lalli way-scout wends to the gate
Of the square beyond scouting the way
In snow-field wide. Worried for Lalli
But following his blaze to the fearful hall
The cat-tank stops, the sturdy Dane
A party makes of immune people
To seek the scout. Sigrun war-maid
Beholding the lair, the hall plastered
With dead trollpods, doubts that Lalli
Could yet survive in the vasted hall,
In the troll-haunt filth; but tracing the blood
Trusting Emil tracks discovers
Where Lalli scout left the building
Safe and unharmed. Sudden, unwaited,
Lalli himself looms in the door
Barely aware walks to the cat-tank
Slumps on the nose, the news bringing
Of a new campsite for the cat-tank crew
Safely to rest. Unseen in the mess
From lynx sight hid by its little size
A sneaking troll under snow creeps,
Cautiously follows. The cat new-friend
Senses the troll, signals the threat
Of a free enemy but frommed Reynir,
Unfettled wight, for fear mistakes
Her stretching neck, her straight gazes.
The wide campsite, walled with palaces,
A kingly ward, to the winds open,
Dight with snowdrifts, doubtful appears
To bold Sigrun. She bids Mikkel
If the damage around to the Danes is owed
But Mikkel asserts the mess ancient
From the first days of fear's dominion.
So the cat-tank rests in a royal campsite.
