Wolf Who Rules

Wolf surprised True Flame into a smile, but the prince caught himself and gave him a hard look.

"Do we need to call an aumani?" True Flame's look warned him not to make light of it.

Wolf spread his hands to show that he didn't know. "Jewel Tears came to me and stated that the Stone Clan could not solve this problem before-"

"It was not her place to make that decision!" Earth Son snapped. "I will say when the Stone Clan can or can not do something."

Wolf glanced at Jewel Tears but she had her court mask on, letting none of her emotions show. There was no way to judge if this was an honest miscommunication within the Stone Clan, or a contrived situation. If it was the later, then politically it had been a mistake to act.

Wolf would have to salvage the situation by forcing True Flame to disregard political protocol for the sake of military imperative. "If the information she gave us was accurate, then what is important is that the oni are prevented from using the Ghostlands -"

"Are you saying that I'm lying?" Earth Son seemed eager for Wolf to slander him.

Wolf considered Earth Son for a minute. Was he that blind to the dangers that they were facing? "I'm saying that there are tens of thousands of oni and an oni dragon on the other side of the Ghostlands, and it would be good to keep them there."

Earth Son waved that concern aside. "Your untrained domi and her Hand survived the first dragon."

"Do not mistake that creature for a true oni dragon." True Flame had studied Impatience at Tinker's workshop. The prince pointed out that not only was the 'dragon' much smaller than the creatures he fought; it also had one more digit per foot.

Tinker theorized that since the spell painted onto Impatience's scales had been washed or rubbed away, the dragon might be free from the oni's control. Regardless, they still didn't know how to cage or effectively fight the beast. All options weighed, it was decided to leave the creature in Oilcan's care as an ally instead of treating it as a foe. According to the tengu, however, and confirmed by some mysterious means by the NSA agents, there was a second, larger dragon by the name of Malice still on Onihida. Plans to update the Stone Clan on the dragons, however, had been waylaid by Earth Son's attack on Tinker's operation.

Wolf pushed the conversation back to the military implications. "Jewel Tears stated that if the Ghostlands expand to the river, there will be a shift in forces that will allow the oni to push their army through."

Jewel Tears' mask slipped and she gave him a look of pure hatred.

Earth Son scoffed. "They'll be pinned between the river and the Ghostlands. With five domana, seventy sekasha, the dreadnaught and the royal troops, we can easily deal with the oni as they emerge…"

True Flame lost his patience. "If the oni send a dragon across first, we will be too engaged with it to block the oni. We will do whatever it takes to close the Ghostlands before anything more can come through."

Earth Son recognized that he was threading on an edge with the prince and retreated with, "I am not saying we ignore the Ghostlands. I am saying that this is a Stone Clan specialty…"

"Are you being hampered by the Wind Clan domi?" True Flame snapped. "She will not be using magic, since, as you pointed out, she is untrained."

Earth Son smoothed his face to court mask to consider his options. Finally he said, "No, we will not be hampered."

True Flame nodded and turned to Wolf. "Have you found the maps?"

"Yes. There are four possible sites not counting the fiutana that was located here and the one at the ice house."

"What maps?" Earth Son growled.

"My domi believes that the oni are camping on fiutana. I had my people pull up the original survey maps for this area, showing the fiutana."

"Have you scryed out any fiutana?" True Flame asked Earth Son.

"No."

They waited for Earth Son to elaborate, but he didn't.

Behind them were shouts and the crack of splintering wood.

Wolf turned to see a massive oni dragon surge up out of the Ghostlands. It shouldered aside the scaffolding, shattering it to pieces. Tinker and Little Horse were falling from their high perch. Little Horse had been near the ladder and was falling with the tumble of heavy timbers. Tinker, though, had been far out at end of the boom, over the liquid blue.

"No!" Wolf shouted as a call on the Wind Clan Spell Stones thrummed across his senses.

Tinker hit the ground, sending up a spray of blue, and then sank down into the ground. Ripples spread out from where she disappeared. And then all sense of her vanished. The Ghostland went smooth and her call to the stones broke off abruptly.

"Wolf!" Stormsong struggled with Little Horse, who had fallen to the "shore" of the Ghostlands and was now trying to fling himself into the blue. "Stop him! He'll only die! She's gone already."

Wolf gasped, feeling her words stab through him. No, Tinker couldn't be gone.