Coyote Lady looked around the assembly at her siblings, the rest of the Wild Mother’s grandchildren. Their gathering was the top of a great mountain, so high up even the moss thought twice before trying to grow in the cracks of the pale rocks. A giant rectangular slab of stone sat in the middle of the boulders crowning the mountaintop, twice as wide and four times the length of a tall man lying down.

The primevals hovered in the surrounding air. Some gently bobbed up and down, while others stood as still as if seated on chairs. A quick count showed they were all in attendance. For the first time in centuries, the closest thing to a council of gods held court since the Wild Mother had entombed her children in their totems.

“Who has called this council?” Beaver Worker demanded. “Who has summoned us?” He had the body of a short, heavily muscled man, no neck, and broad as he was tall. A stout, black tail slapped the air behind him. Some primevals wore the heads of humans and others animals. Most, like Coyote Lady, were a mixture of both. Beaver Worker’s long teeth clicked in annoyance, the dark eyes of his beaver face peering around the stone slab at the others.

Coyote Lady snorted in fond annoyance. Her brother was quick to anger when anything took him away from his building. He had his head so buried in his work, he likely hadn’t even noticed what was happening to the great totems.

“Speak,” Mammoth Elder said in his booming voice. He was built like a giant among men, thick, coarse red-orange hair braided down his back. It covered his folded arms like a pelt and likely the rest of his body not hidden behind his leather vest and long skirt wrap. His furrowed expression settled on Coyote Lady. It was that of a man, with a long, prominent nose and two curling tusks coming out either side of his mouth. “And be plain, Coyote Lady. None of your games”

Coyote Lady hid her annoyance and spread her arms wide, donning a warm smile. “No games, no tricks. Though that should be obvious. Did you not all feel it? Did no one else see? What greater reason could there be for us to meet, brothers and sisters?”

“What does it mean, what does it mean?” Llama Weaver stuttered, nervously wringing her hands. “All my beautiful things will be ruined!”

“Be silent, silly thing!” Wolverine Crone snarled. An outsider would have thought she sounded angry, but even if she was, she used no other tone. She appeared as a hunched old woman, with long black hair highlighted by a stripe of brilliant white down the middle. The coarse lengths of hair obscured her face. She pointed a chipped, gnarled claw at Llama Weaver, who glared back and spat between the gap in her blockish front teeth.

“It means the Fourth Noctun is coming, like we’ve known for hundreds of years. Only now it has come faster than some of us expected.” Coyote Lady’s annoyance slipped through her sarcasm. Many of the Wild Mother’s grandchildren had set themselves up as gods over the humans, taking advantage of the godless mortals in the Noctun following the imprisonment of the Wild Mother’s children. Mortals needed something to worship. Even if they still thought the Wild Mother heard their prayers, they craved figureheads among the immortal. But now the reckoning of the primevals approached. They’d set themselves up as gods and with that came responsibilities they’d long postponed and ignored.

“Don’t pretend to be all wise and knowing, my sister,” Wolf Nomad said in a rasping voice. He never called her by name, always sister, just to gall her. “We all knew the signs. No one could say when they would come to pass.”

“Yet she is right,” Heron Sage dipped his beak in Coyote Lady’s direction. “The time for play is over. If Oras is to survive the dawning of the Fourth Noctun, it is time for each here to do their part.”

Several of Coyote Lady’s brothers and sisters nodded, though there were just as many frowns and scoffs.

“And what parts do we have to play?” Grandfather Ram asked, stroking his long white chin beard and shaking the curling horns growing above his ears. “The Wild Mother sealed her children away in the totems forever. She has abandoned us all. We cannot stop the Fourth Noctun from coming any more than we can halt the rising of the sun.”

“The sins of the Children are not ours,” Grandmother Bear added. She and Grandfather Ram always liked to speak in tandem, like it somehow made them wiser. They acted like their titles awarded them extra respect, though they were no more important than the rest, no matter what they thought. “Their lies brought about the wrath of the Wild Mother. Now we are expected to handle the mess left behind?”

“And do you think we, the Grandchildren, will not suffer the Snake’s wrath?” Coyote Lady asked. “If we do not ‘handle the mess’ then who will?”

At the mention of the Eighth Child, murmurs arose from the Primevals. The Snake. The banished goddess foretold to return to Oras and execute her vengeance. Sometime, sometime soon now, perhaps, she would come. And if the Wild Mother could not be found to stop her, the primevals were the ones left who could fight.

“The Snake people already walk the land once more,” Coyote Lady continued. “I do not know who leads them, but I have seen them with my own eyes. They were trying to raise the Frog Priest in the Wakar Mountains recently.”

Several of the primevals shouted in surprise—the ones Coyote Lady hadn’t shared that little tidbit of information with before their gathering. She particularly enjoyed the look of surprise followed by indignation on Wolf Nomad’s face. Aside from Raccoon Boy, the only others she’d trusted were Wolverine Crone, Old Man Turtle, Elk Shaman and Mammoth Elder. Let that teach brother Wolf to look down his nose at her.

She shuddered as Silent Panther’s glowing orange eyes blazed at her from beneath the deep hood he always wore to shroud his features. At first, Coyote Lady thought she’d made a mistake by not telling him, but the slightest tip of the hood told her he’d already known. As his name suggested, Silent Panther had a way of moving unseen, even among the primevals. Coyote Lady forced herself to nod in acknowledgment before looking away, a cold shiver running down her back and through her tail.

Wolf Nomad watched her. He’d no doubt seen the exchange between them. Proud though he was, he would believe her now. Silent Panther’s nod was all the testimony needed.

“Are you certain?” Deer Maiden asked. She was the only one more finicky than Llama Weaver, preferring to run and hide from the any problems the primevals faced.

“It is said the Snake people move unseen in the forests of the League of the Moose lands,” Elk Shaman said.

“And I have heard rumors among the Otter Nations,” Old Man Turtle added in his slow, measured tones.

“It is certain,” Silent Panther said, quiet and rasping. And that was enough for even the biggest nonbelievers.

“How are there so many?” Grandmother Bear asked. “By the sound of it, they are already spread across Oras.”

“And in Usum?” Heron Sage asked, his long neck twisting around the stone table to look at each of them as they hovered above.

It seemed no one knew, which wasn’t a surprise. A thousand years had passed since the primevals had the authority to step foot on the island now known as Vinderland. Coyote Lady marked the question in her mind, not only as a potential place to search for the Wild Mother, but because of the possibility of an alliance between the Snake people and the Vinderlings. Neither held any love for the other nations of Oras.

“What concerns me is their efforts to revive the Frog Priest,” Mammoth Elder said. “The Eighth Child will be bad enough without the help of her cursed offspring.”

“Can they do that?” Llama Weaver asked. “Do they have the power to bring the Spider and the Frog back to life?”

Raccoon Boy leaned over to Coyote Lady. “It’s a good thing the humans don’t know how clueless we are about some of this stuff.”

Coyote Lady hid a grim smile. Wasn’t that the truth? Not only had the Snake people attempted to resurrect a demi-god, but they’d done it right under Llama Weaver’s nose in the mountains of the Western Earth Badger Empire where she held sway. Coyote Lady doubted Llama even felt the disturbance, as engrossed as she was with her weaves and crafting precious things.

“I stopped them, at least for a time,” Coyote Lady said. Her siblings needed the reminder. The reminder that, though they’d all stopped searching for the Wild Mother, and turned a blind eye to the signs, that she had never forgotten.

“Then let us all bow and praise the greatness of Coyote Lady,” Grandfather Ram said. “Why call this council at all? Can you not stop the passing of time and prevent the Fourth Noctun with a wave of your hand?”

“Not yet,” Coyote Lady said, spreading her pointed teeth in a grin and letting the jibe slide past her.

“Enough of this,” Elk Shaman said. “Bark and rattle your horns at one another on your own time. I have no patience for this foolishness.”

“What should we do, Elk?” Deer Maiden asked. “What can we do?”

“Keep close watch on the totems,” Heron Sage said before Elk Shaman could reply. “But until we know more, we should not interfere with the affairs of mortals, Snake people or no. Not yet, at least.”

Coyote Lady had thought Heron Sage had seen reason. But just like that, the majority nodded in agreement. Even Mammoth Elder seemed happy to excuse them of any action, though Panther, Wolverine, Turtle and Elk looked to be in silent disagreement. Coyote Lady forced a smile. Just what she’d expected. They’d bluster and pontificate but in the end, leave the fate of Oras to the mortals while they sat idly by as the world ended around them.

“You would do best not to meddle, Coyote Lady,” Grandmother Bear said, folding her hairy arms over a large belly. “No good will come of it.”

Coyote Lady bowed. “Of course not.”