The Place
Howling Fen is a vast conifer forest standing in a sea of black water, a wood that has drowned and decided to stay standing, and the standing is the howl. It stretches seven kilometers from the black river to the white hills, and the seven kilometers is a measure you can trust, because the fen does not move, even if the water under it does. The oaks are hollow and carved, their trunks the dark brown of old wood gone wet, and the trunks are the houses, and the houses are the dens, and the dens are the day. The branches are low and dripping, and the drip is the day, and the day is the howl, and the howl is the world. The water is black, a black that is not the color of depth but the color of the fen itself, and the black is the day, and the day is the howl. The sky above, when the clouds allow it, is a flat grey, the color of the fen when it is not howling, and the grey is the only color the fen does not make. It smells of wet bark and standing water, a smell that is the fen and is also the warning, and the one sound is the howl, a low sound that comes out of the trees and not from any one tree, and the howl is the day, and the day is the howl. There is no landmark the way a forest has a landmark, but there is one: the Howl Oak, a hollow oak in the middle of the fen, the oldest oak and the first howl, and the oak is the door, and the door is the howl. What makes Howling Fen itself is the voice: the forest has a voice, and the voice is the howl, and the howl is the day, and the day is the fen.
How They Live
The Wolf Men keep this place in the voice, building their dens in the hollow oaks, chambers carved into the living wood, lined with fur and moss, and a den is cut one oak at a time, because an oak is the season and an oak is the calendar. Their entrances are above the water, so the fen is the moat, and the moat is the first defense, and the first defense is the day. Light comes from the fire, small and blue and kept low, because the fire is a location and the forest reads locations, and a fire that is not kept low is a fire that is a map. Food is the forest itself: the deer, the fish, the fungus, and the cold that keeps the meat honest, and the honest is the meal, and the meal is the kept. Water is the fen, and the fen is the water, and the pack drinks and swims and hunts in the same black pool, and the pool is the law. Heat comes from the fire, which is to say the fire does everything, and the fire is the reason the fen is black. The defense is the water and the dark: a visitor who steps into the fen is already in the pack's mouth, and the mouth is the alarm, and the alarm is the sentence. The day is measured by the howl, because the howl is the only clock the fen has, and the clock is the calendar, and the calendar is the howl. Every wolf that is born must howl once in the Howl Oak before the fen will call it one of its own, and the howling is the naming, and the naming is the only thing the voice ever gives back.
People
Home of the Wolf Men, whose packs are counted by oak. Nine oaks are honest at last count, and the count is kept in the water, which is to say the count is as fixed as the fen, which is to say it does not lie. The howl-keepers lead, and rank is decided by the howling, because a keeper who can howl in the Howl Oak is the keeper the fen trusts. Nothing that cannot carry a sound is welcome, and the sound is not needed, because the fen has a howl, and the howl has a voice, and the voice has a ledger. A surface traveler who once crossed the fen, the last one to find the water forgiving, called it the only forest where the air makes you pay before you take a breath, which is the truest thing he said and the thing the voice paid the least attention to.
In Stories
The place where the forest has a voice, and the voice is the howl, and the howl is the last sound. The Forgotten passed through the fen once, and the howl spoke to Uaellaen in a voice he did not recognize, and he has not spoken in the fen since. The voice is still in the trees, and it is still his, and the pack has never asked him to take it back.