Nahimana opened her eyes amid a wood shrouded in darkness. The sky lay smothered behind a milky fog that hung thick and blinding. A dim circle of light peered through the shroud— the moon, possibly. The light illuminated her surrounds with just the faintest suggestions of form and definition: pines crowded thickly, stretching numberlessly off into the haze in all directions.
The air was cool. Beneath her feet she felt the gentle touch of grass shoots and the crush of gravel beneath her heel. Yet from all the listening haze and wood, no sound made itself known.
Then somewhere before her stirred a presence, utterly gargantuan in both form and being. Even through the mist she could feel the gravity, the immensity of the mere suggestion of the thing. Sensations and feelings flooded her mind, radiating from that which towered in the fog. Meaning overtook word as definition settled neatly into place in her mind. Her eyes widened as understanding gripped her.
In the same moment, sound stole forth from the silence. The whisper of a cool breeze. The creaking of an ancient pine. The murmur of once-stilled waters. Imperceptibly they drew together, mingling into the symphony of a vast and wakening world.
The wind rose, the fog stirred, and the sky cleared. A pallid moon ringed with ancient symbols shone brilliantly as something moved below it. Stretching upwards and soaring to heights unimagined rose a robust form, silhouetted against the glittering sky. Vast antlers swept the heavens and ascended ever higher, like the crest of a jagged mountain range whose myriad peaks cradled gently the cosmos above. The body was immense, blackening the stars behind it like a cloak of velvet being drawn across the sky. Ice-blue eyes looked down knowingly upon Nahimana from the impossible height. Yet from the display was there not a hint of malice, of ire, of predation. Wordless intent settled within her. Expectation. Necessity. Anticipation.
The eminence bent forward and the eyes enveloped her in their depths. The chorus around her reached a rushing crescendo. Nahimana opened her mouth to speak the name she had known all her life, and a hand grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her around.
She awoke lying on the ground, wrapped in a thick blanket. A man was huddled over her. The nearby fire threw a harsh, orange glow upon him, and the deep lines about his face were cast of blackness. He breathed a sigh as Nahimana blinked the sleep from her eyes and sat up.
"Sorry to wake you. Supper is ready," Hotah said, nodding to the fire nearby.
He paused as he found Nahimana's gaze suddenly locked on the spring behind them. She said nothing. A ripple moved on the water, as of something unseen moving along its surface. A stiff breeze followed the ripple and dragged a pungent smell of sulfur upon them. The water murmured as it broke on the shore, soft and almost phonic. Hotah strained his ears in vain to try and catch the voices he knew were meant solely for Nahimana. A swell rose from the depths, and the display concluded with a final lap against the sinter.
"What are they saying?" he asked.
She didn't reply at first, taking a moment to push down the memory of her dream. She pulled her blanket tighter.
"It's hard to explain," she whispered. "Something has them on edge."
"Is it us?" Hotah straightened up. "If our presence is a disturbance, we will leave at once—"
"It's not us, no." She shook her head. "These ones are… older, nothing like the others I've met. Their communion is different; they don't speak to me in the normal manner, not with words or scripts like others have. Intent. Visions. Music. Such things do not always translate well into speech, you understand."
"But what do those things mean to you?"
She paused. The memory of the towering form in the mist rose persistently in her mind. "Anticipation. They're waiting for something."
Nahimana cast a glance at the camp behind them. The five men sat huddled around the fire, their faces lighting up with alternating patches of light and dark. They spoke amongst themselves, the events of the day still a visible weight upon their countenances. One of them gestured and spoke vigorously something in English, a tongue Nahimana was not yet adept in.
Harry sat at the far side the fire, opposite the two of them, starting at the flames before him. He looked up as one of the others prompted him something in the tone of a question. He muttered a response, sitting up straight. His gaze rose and he looked through the blaze at the two Sioux that sat at the edge of the firelight, meeting Nahimana's eyes.
Nahimana had heard the stories of the brutal conflict that had erupted in the east just a decade prior, bloody and brutal. The weatheredness that marked those eyes and creased that face spoke more of it than any words could. Even the isolation of these vast wilds could not deter that bloodied hand that had carved its mark upon Harry, she realized. No man can wage war and emerged unscathed. Neither would any of the seven of them. Between their defection and the ongoing expansion, that red hand was still now closing its grip around their little camp. They were all at war now.