by E.E. Blake
~
The warmth of the fire brushed against Regina’s bare cheek as she watched him prepare a pot of an uncooked stew made from rations found in the forest.
Their eyes met for a second as the heretical fox hung the pot from the bonfire’s spit.
With his helmet now removed, and no hood to cloak his youthful face, Regina wondered how old the charcoal-furred fox was.
Regina found it odd that aside from verbal threat the heretic hadn’t been abusive to her – like she assumed any other vandal heart would have been.
He leaned back on one arm with a twig between his lips. Beside him were the saddle bags containing their other clothes, the Nimbus sword, and the Crystal of Wind.
What did he mean when he said the Wind Crystal wasn’t safe in the Temple? Regina thought as she continued to watch him. “What were Uriost’s soldiers doing with the Crystal, anyhow?”
Regina went rigid. She had meant to think the question.
The heretical fox stared at her past the pot cooking over the bonfire. The twig at the corner of his muzzle slowly gyrated up and down between his teeth.
“I’m sorry.” Regina dropped her gaze.
“They were taking it back to Doblah.”
Regina looked at the heretical fox again, surprised he had answered.
“Lablanche wants it,” he said.
“I’m really confused about how we didn’t get stopped in Keeto,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The two archers were a daschund and a tabby – we’re a fox and a skunk.”
“Alliance IDs don’t distinguish species,” the heretic said.
“Why’s that?” Regina asked.
“Lablanche is what’s called a “human” – the only one of his kind – at least, on Vida. I guess where he comes from humans all look the same, so the “species” thing was just an oversight when he first established Vida’s police force.”
“So basically nobody, outside of the squad at the Stone Zephyr, would know what animals the archers were?” Regina asked.
“That’s right,” the heretic nodded.
“Regina heard the joints in her gauntlet creak as she flexed her paw. She wondered if this method of “travel” was something the heretical fox was used to, to avoid arrest.
“Alliance loyalists are too brainwashed to betray Doblah, and no one ever assumed soldiers would get killed,” the heretic went on. “The species thing is a loophole long-forgotten in Doblah.”
Regina remembered the carnage the heretic had unleashed earlier that day.
“But...” she started.
A branch snapped nearby.
The heretical fox’s paw went for the Alliance hunting knife at his waist.
“What is it?” Regina asked.
There was a loud rustle, and the skunk was then horrified to see a small army of rodents seep out of the foliage and surround the campsite with staffs and daggers pointed. The rats stood half the size of Regina and the heretic – give or take – and all wore ratty-looking clothes.
“We thought we smelled Alliance manure,” declared the leader – a grubby, orange-furred rat. “Lost your outpost, spit-shines?”
Regina flashed her frantic eyes to the heretical fox, who had risen to his footpaws with gauntlet on the knife hilt strapped at his side.
“We’re not a threat to you,” he said to them in a calm voice after spitting away his twig. “It will be a bloody night if you insist robbing us.”
“Any sucker of Lablanche’s heel is a threat on his own!” snarled the lead rat.
“I don’t want to kill any of you,” the heretical fox warned and tugged back the hilt to reveal the blade’s edge, which glinted in the firelight.
“Then our killing you will be at half effort!” the lead rat exclaimed over the jeers and snickers of his fellow bandits.
Just as two rats from the side jumped the heretic, he clobbered one between the ears the other in the jaw.
Regina twisted a footpaw as she fell away from the rock she sat on to avoid a rat that tried grabbing her from behind. She snatched the heretical fox’s walking staff from the dirt beside the rock and used it to ward off the rat before he grappled the gnarled and bulbous end and wrestled back.
The heretic leapt over the fire – knocking over the pot and spit – and punted the rat away before swinging an elbow into the forehead of the leader.
“Stop this!” he commanded before the final two rats were upon him and Regina. The skunk looked up at the outline of the heretic, silhouetted against the bonfire’s flames, and realized the Alliance hunting knife was still in the fox’s grasp – unstained.
The bandits immediately backed off when they saw their unconscious leader laying spread eagle in the dirt.
The rat the heretic had kicked off to the far side struggled to its paws and knees, dry heaving.
“Take the mutton and go,” the heretic ordered them. He pointed to the main path about a yard away from the campsite. “There’s a stream ahead your comrade can use to rinse his muzzle with if he vomits on the way.”
The rats stared at him, frightened, until the command registered. They gathered their comrades as well as the sack of cubed mutton the heretic had used for the stew – and fled.
With the heretic distracted, Regina climbed to her feet with the walking staff in-hand. As soon as the bandits left, she swung the staff hard into the heretical fox’s back, causing him to stumble forward.
Regina sent the heretic to paw and knee with another swift strike, and then made an escape to the tree where the tied horses screeched and bucked, still riled up from the failed ambush.
A loud chop cut the air by Regina’s ear, and she stopped dead when she came face-to-face with the end of a knife’s leather handle sticking out of the tree just off her left shoulder.
“Get back here,” the heretic rumbled.
Slowly, Regina turned in her tracks to meet the fox’s dark gaze. He lowered his throwing arm.
“P – please, don’t kill me...” Regina whimpered as tears started to well in her eyes.
The heretical fox stared at her.
His piercing grey eyes stabbed her deeply.
“Don’t tempt me to,” he said, and dropped his gaze to the spilled pool of partly-boiled water, mushrooms, and cubed mutton. He slid the heel of his field boot across the damp dirt.
Regina trudged back to the fire. She stood there awkwardly watching the heretic as he prepared a fresh meal with whatever didn’t spill out of the pot when he knocked it over.
Dinner was sparse that night, but it to Regina’s tummy, it was a grand feast.
She didn’t sleep that night; even long after the bonfire died out and the heretical fox seemingly went to bed. Regina lay in the dirt, curled up under the heretic’s cloak as she gazed across the small campsite.
The heretical fox lay against his camping pack with legs crossed and paws on his stomach. The shadows cast across his face made it impossible to tell if he was asleep or not.
But Regina felt his eyes on her.
They stared at each other in silence for a long while.
Finally, the skunk broke the stillness in the air. “Can I ask you something?”
The heretical fox didn’t respond or move from his position.
Regina pushed up and sat leaning on one arm. “The rats earlier ... why didn’t you kill them, like you killed the Alliance soldiers?”
The heretic still didn’t answer.
Regina fell silent for a while, but the thought kept looping in her mind. And then suddenly she remembered something – a term the skunk hadn’t heard since she was a little girl.
“...Are you a – a Retainer?” she asked.
“The Retainers have been disbanded for more than a decade. No one’s stupid enough to start up a rebellion like that again,” the heretical fox said. “Not as long as Doblah’s eye is on all of Vida.”
“Isn’t that the point of a rebellion, though?” Regina asked. “...To fight back aga
inst oppressive regimes?”
“Maybe. A long time ago, anyway. People are too afraid, or brainwashed, or both now. Like I said, no one in their right mind would be brave enough these days to start a war against Prime Minister Lablanche.”
“What about you, though?” Regina asked.
“Don’t concern yourself with me, peasant skunk,” the heretic rumbled.
Regina fell silent again.
After a while, the fox stared at her and said, “Not many people know of the Retainers – at least, no one is willing to talk about them publically, anyway. I’m surprised a girl your age has even heard of them.”
“I – uh ... my parents were Retainers,” she explained. “...They died when rogues razed Altas ... years and years ago.”
“Your parents were Retainers, and yet your boyfriend works for Doblah,” said the heretical fox behind a scoff.
Regina looked at him, bemused.
“You talk of rebellions and thwarting oppressive regimes, yet you don’t really know what the Retainers stood for,” the heretical fox stated. “Do you, skunk.”
“It was a long time ago,” Regina said. “I don’t remember much about my parents except for that. Being a Retainer was important to them.”
“How old were you when your parents were slain?” the heretic asked.
Regina flinched at the question. She thought about the last time she saw her father, before both he and her mother were murdered by vandals in Altas’s battle-torn streets.
“I ... I was about six. I turned seven three months later,” she murmured.
“Your parents would spit on you, knowing how you’ve betrayed them now,” the heretical fox told her.
“You don’t know anything about my parents!” Regina yelled at him before she realized she did.
The heretical fox drummed his paw digits against the Alliance chest plate he wore. He then pushed up on his arms and Regina thought he was going to do something to her – but the fox only retrieved a wooden pipe and a pouch of ground tobacco from his camping pack.
The heretical fox then leaned forward with legs crossed and prepared his pipe. Regina watched the flicker of the small matchstick light against his muzzle as he dipped the flame into the pipe and puffed.
“I assume you get your strength from your father,” the heretic mused. “I’m a dangerous fox – I’ve killed many – no other hostage would have dared to strike me, even with my back turned, like you did earlier.” He leaned back against the camping pack and stared at Regina with the smoking pipe at the corner of his lips.
“There never used to be a government before Lablanche came, twenty years ago,” the heretic started to explain. “Not many remember these days – and those who do are very old now – but a very long time ago, Vida was divided up into five separate tribes: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Spirit.
“According to the Aznain faith, these five tribes were all given the responsibility of looking after a Crystal that harnessed one of five elements keeping the planet in balance.”
Regina nodded. “Yes, I vaguely remember this story from my parents. There are worship books at my hospital for anyone who requests them.”
The heretic chomped away on the end of his pipe and said, “The very role your parents played as Retainers was to keep these native Vidian beliefs alive among the people. You don’t remember well because school and Alliance propaganda has told you otherwise. Please, let me finish.”
Regina nodded again and went silent.
“According to history – as you should know from school – Zoot Lablanche appeared on Vida from the holy land, ‘Terra’,” the heretic went on.
Regina nodded in reply.
“Because of his vast knowledge, the considered ‘primitive’ Vidians thought Lablanche a messiah, sent by Mother Azna,” the heretic continued. “He offered to help Vida become a more advanced civilization – the civilization that you see today.
“However, there were some Vidians who thought Lablanche a threat – a poison in the waters, so to speak. Those who feared that the more simpler-minded Vidians would forget Mother Azna’s teachings in their blind loyalty to Lablanche united in secret to fight back against Doblah.
“This small group became an unofficial militia made up of farmers, herdsmen, shop keepers ... men, women – whole families – who fought against Lablanche’s seemingly unnecessary material offerings.”
The heretic went quiet for a little while as he refilled his pipe, lit it again, and took a couple of strong puffs off the end.
“The Retainers were few, but they were strong,” the heretic said. “...However, they were not strong enough to thwart Lablanche’s power over Vidian minds. Many Retainers gave up and sought solace under Doblah’s gaze. Others were rounded up and slaughtered by bandits.”
Regina shivered with revulsion.
“...And yet others retreated into the depths of each Crystal Region,” the heretic said, “where they formed small, peaceful, communes and became devout and silent worshippers of the Crystals. Temple Keepers.”
The bodies of the robed animals from the Temple in the Stone Zephyr flashed in Regina’s mind. She closed her eyes and shuddered deeper than before.
“What makes you think I’ve disrespected my parents?” the skunk asked.
The heretical fox took a long puff off his pipe and said, “Your parents – along with countless others – sacrificed their lives to protect Vida from the threat of Doblah. People like you believe Lablanche has always ruled over these lands; that’s what you’re taught in school.”
“You’re saying my parents were anarchists?” Regina demanded.
The heretical fox let out a sharp chuckle.
“You can’t tell me that even after all these years, there isn’t a tug in the back of your mind that wonders if Doblah and the Alliance are corrupt,” he said. “You’re the daughter of Retainers, after all – even if you don’t remember much of that time in your life, you were still consciously exposed to your parents’ opinions – otherwise, you wouldn’t have warned me against attacking Alliance troops – twice – nor would you have attacked one of them to save me, for whatever reason.”
Regina once again flinched – but because she knew it was true.
“You saved my life – that’s why I helped you,” she countered.
“Why did you follow me, anyway?” the fox asked. “I’m nothing to you. I’m a vandal heart according to the law in these lands.”
“I … I don’t know,” she murmured. Her eyes fell upon the saddlebag next to the heretic. The bag outlined creases of the stolen Wind Crystal, inside.
...Evil brews deep in the mountains … Only one of a pure heart may bring us all together … to seal peace forevermore on Vida…
Those words, whispered in her ears by the disembodied voice ... they echoed in Regina’s memory. She didn’t know what to make of the voice, or if she should even say anything about it to the heretical fox.
“Basic instinct.”
“Huh?” Regina looked at him.
“Basic instinct,” the heretic repeated. “That’s why you followed me, I suppose. Basic instinct made you trail me after the skirmish in the forest, and then ultimately led you to the truth – to the carnage the Alliance is willing to wield against innocents to attain whatever they need for papa Lablanche.”
He dragged General Uriost’s saddlebag into his lap and withdrew the Wind Crystal from within. The light of the full moon glinted in the deep cleft along the Crystal’s surface.
“What’s that crack in it?” Regina asked.
The heretic rummaged through his pack and withdrew the chunk of grey-coloured glass he had found in Aruto’s possession. He leveled the small shard with the equally small cleft in the Wind Crystal, and put them together.
It was a perfect fit.
“I don’t understand,” the fox murmured.
“Do you think that one general – General Uriost – or one of her soldiers dropped the Crystal when they stole it, and the piece brok
e off?” Regina asked.
“Why would Aruto have the shard, then?” the heretic wondered. “I wonder if this Crystal shard has to do with the wind magic he used…”
He put the Crystal back inside the saddlebag, and slipped the shard back into his camping pack. When the heretic then noticed Regina shifting his cloak back around her armour-clad shoulders to keep warm, he rekindled the bonfire.
“Can I ask you something else?” Regina leaned forward.
“What is it?”
“You mentioned earlier how the reason the Alliance doesn’t keep track of its soldiers’ species is because nobody thought they would go rogue or get killed, but...”
Regina paused. When she found her courage, she looked the heretic right in the eyes.
“You threw a knife at one of the soldiers, and then got hit in the shoulder with an arrow,” she said. “The both of you should have been heavily wounded – if not dead – but you were both all right ... but when you attacked with that stolen sword...” She trailed off, and then added, “And then there was that – I guess it was a magic spell or something that you cast.”
The heretic’s face grew very dark.
“It looked like a beam of light,” Regina clarified. “Back at the Stone Zephyr, you cast it against the archer you threw the knife at. Right after you told me to—”
“You really are blind to the world around you,” the heretic cut her off. “I told you – this war I wage with Doblah is no business of yours.”
“I ask because I’m a nurse in Altas.”
“Stay out of it. When we reach Garia, you can go on your way – live life with your pig boyfriend normally, like before.”
Regina wrinkled her brow.
“So what if Dwain works for the government?” she demanded. “It doesn’t mean anything to him other than money.”
“You think so?” the heretical fox challenged Regina with a wry smile. “It doesn’t take much to be manipulated.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see soon enough once we get to Garia. How much is your Dwain willing to divulge about his work life?”
“What’s your war with Doblah?” Regina suddenly shot at him. “It’s more than about that stupid sword you stole – that I know. Why is the Alliance so afraid of you, and why do they want the Crystal of Wind?”
“I’ll cut your tongue out if you don’t shut your muzzle,” barked the heretic.
Regina stared at him in silence.
“Get some sleep,” he ordered. “We have a long way to go in the morning, and I’m not going to babysit you if you fall off your horse and break something because you’re overtired from being up all night wondering why the world around you works the way it does.”
With that, the heretical fox stamped out the bonfire.
The campsite was pitched in blackness.