THE WIND FEELS LOSS

We do not build shelter from wood alone. The trees of the Herdlands are small and lonely, and their boles are like the spinal bones of cattle if they were browned and brittled and twisted up in a stack. Not good for woodwork. We must flay the stallion and the mare and stretch their dried skins over the frame of the yurt.

Even in this small way, our survival is built on sacrifice.

A Crownlander will tell you a man owes no debt to Mother and Father, for the choice of being was not his own. We cannot accept that lesson here. Here we see the Mother return home bloodied after surrendering the day’s hunt to wolves and the Father lose a runaway colt after tracking it across the barren steppe as the skies pass.

Now stand and feel the wind. Feel where it blows. It is a Djinnward wind. It will blow all the way down to the Djinnlands, and carry with it the unburied souls of the steppe, where they will be born again, but not as man-kin. The wind is