November 10-14

Dearest Karolus –

Even as I write this, I have no idea if it will get to you, but there is a Hawk sitting near us, something strapped to his leg, that looks as if it will hold letters. We are all writing letters tonight. I expect Nadzia will try and instruct him on where to go, but given that he arrived here seemingly on his own, I think that maybe he will know already.

You may wonder what happened to the homing pigeons, or, with any luck, you may be wondering why all the homing pigeons came back together, carrying nothing after the last letter. As we entered the Hawks’ nesting grounds, the pigeons seemed to go crazy, desperately trying to get out of their cages. We were afraid they would injure themselves, and skilled though Nadzia may be at caring for animals, we did not know if they would calm.

It should not have been too big a surprise to us. Hawks have been known to hunt smaller birds, and no prey animal likes to be carried, helpless, into the nesting grounds of their predators. We felt the only option was to let them go before we got deep into the nesting grounds. It was a very difficult decision, as they were, we thought, our only way to contact our friends and family back home, but they were upsetting all of us, Aleksy and Aleksa included. Even if we had not made the decision as a group, I expect Nadzia would have released them on her watch that evening.

The nesting grounds were desolate. It was like walking through a dead forest, trees of stone towering over us, and hard rock beneath our feet. Even Wojciech understood, without being told, that we could not hunt the Hawks. We rationed our dried food and water carefully, but even so, our stores seem to dwindle faster than I think they should.

I guess I should be grateful that we got to a point where all of our stores could be packed on one mule, with us carrying a few things each. Emilja slipped on a loose rock only a day after we released the pigeons and hurt her ankle. We splinted it as best we could, with her advice, and she used some of the herbs she brought to relieve the pain, but we would have had to stay in place for at least two days if we had not been able to mount her on Aleksa. Even so, we traveled more slowly and cautiously than we had before.

I cannot say our journey has been dangerous at this point, and yet, I almost wish it had been. Danger might have been preferable to the slow monotony. It was not just the landscape, but the desolation seemed to take over our hearts. At least once a day, someone suggested turning around. We came very close once. We reached a place where the rocks seemed to form a natural alter around midday, a few days ago (or maybe it was yesterday, time seems to move differently here, and I cannot tell you for certain how long we have been traveling – it feels both like a month and less than a week).

The Hawks were circling overhead, crying out, diving around us, though never at us. The largest needle rock seemed, at that moment, further away than it had since before we released the pigeons. And here was an alter. And the grave good we are returning is a stone shaping of one of these Hawks in flight. We could leave it. Both Dymek and I knew, from our readings, that our journey was not meant to end here, and yet, we were both willing to let it. We could just leave the statue and go.

We pulled the statue out. We were ready to set it on the alter. And yet, none of us could. Everyone of us, Emilja included, tried to leave it on the alter. Wojciech got the closest. He set the carving on the alter, but could not take his hand from it. None of the rest of us even got to that point. I was the last to try, but the moment I held the stone Hawk in my hand, I knew this was not its home. I knew I could not leave it there.

And so we pressed on, our purpose renewed in our hearts. After that, we seemed to make steady progress toward our destination.

We reached the largest stone needle late this afternoon. There is a creek here, our first fresh water since we left the path. There are even a few scraggly bushes fighting their way through the rock, giving Aleksy and Aleksa an ability to forage, and supplement their hay.

We think there might be a cave entrance at the base of this formation. There is a section where rocks are piled in what appears to be a planned fashion. It looks similar to many other rock falls we have seen, but not quite right. Dymek has cast the runes, and they always point us toward those rocks. Every time I try a reading with the cards, The Moon is on the top of the deck.

We made our camp and began putting together a plan for removing the rocks tomorrow. (And now I truly am grateful for the presence of the two mules.) The moment the sun dipped below the horizon, the Hawk, landed. Despite traveling through these lands for however many days now, this is the first time we have ever seen on of the Hawks not in flight. It took us a moment to recognize the message tube on his leg. But when we did, we all stopped what we were doing and sat down to write our letters.

The last light of dusk is almost gone from the sky, so I must end this letter. I know not what we will face on the morrow, or what we will find in the cave. I would like to hope that it will be a simple removing of the rocks, placing the stone Hawk in the cave, and then recovering it. But The Moon tells me it will be different, that this may be the end of one journey, but the it is also start of another.

Know always that you are in my heart, that no matter where I travel, I carry your love with me. I think of no future but of one in which I return to you.

All of my love,

Sibilia