Though she and her brood were unquestionably the agents of this sweeping and long-overdue change, Sorrel was the slowest to adjust. She’d spent her life on the move. Every skill she had was built upon the expectation that she could rely upon no one but herself. And now she was with her kind. Now she was surrounded by hearts and minds so like hers, and yet so different. Some nights she found herself seated in the mouth of her own burrow, eyes set on the open forest to the north, asking herself if this was truly what she wanted. Something called upon her to continue, to retreat to the wretched life that she had become comfortable with. Always her mind shifted back to her young ones. She’d thought she’d seen joy on their faces before. When they got a proper meal. When they heard a stirring adventure of their beloved Swift. But when she watched them now, she realized that what they’d felt then was a shadow of what they felt now. Running and jumping with others their age. Playing. Not some “game” that was a veiled lesson on the cruelty of the world, but a genuine game. They hid, they climbed, they tagged. And if they failed? No finger across the throat to warn them of the consequences. Simply another game and another chance to win.
In time, as her young grew stronger, and she grew older, she found her gaze lingering instead toward the south. The Reds and Fennecs had combined their villages into a place they called Den. It sat at the southern fringe of the forest, overlooking the desert where the Fennecs did their best work, and flanked by the thicker woods where the Reds thrived. Beyond the sandy dunes lay another thin forest. And beyond that, South Crescent. Sorrel and the twins were the only ones who had truly been there. Indeed, Sorrel and the twins were the only ones who had ever had to deal with a world that elves, humans, and the like called their own. Season after season, she watched for the signs. Wisps of smoke on the horizon. The sails of boats bobbing on the waves. The world of man and elf drawing nearer, now that Boviss no longer darkened the skies. The challenge of the dragon was behind them now, but other challenges lay ahead.
Years later, when the people of South Crescent were growing ever bolder, it seemed inevitable that there would come a clash every bit as bloody as the one with Boviss. On that day, a new solution presented itself. Like Boviss, it was safety that came at a terrible price. But that is a story for another time.
From The Author
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Discover other titles by Joseph R. Lallo:
The Book of Deacon Series:
Book 1: The Book of Deacon
Book 2: The Great Convergence
Book 3: The Battle of Verril
Book 4: The D’Karon Apprentice
Book 5: The Crescents
Other stories in the same setting:
Jade
The Rise of the Red Shadow
The Redemption of Desmeres
The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy
The Big Sigma Series:
Book 1: Bypass Gemini
Book 2: Unstable Prototypes
Book 3: Artificial Evolution
Book 4: Temporal Contingency
Book 5: Indra Station
The Free-Wrench Series:
Book 1: Free-Wrench
Book 2: Skykeep
Book 3: Ichor Well
Book 4: The Calderan Problem
Book 5: Cipher Hill
Collections:
The Book of Deacon Anthology
The Big Sigma Collection: Volume 1
The Free-Wrench Collection: Volume 1
Other Stories:
Between
Fallen Empire: Rogue Derelict
Structophis
The Other Eight
The Story of Sorrel Page 18