by Jim Galford
“You have nearly as many as I do,” she said softly. “I would not expect a prey-breed to be still alive with such wounds.”
“We’ve been through a lot, Feanne. Some good, some bad. We both earned our scars. I wouldn’t give a single one of them up.”
Lowering her hand from Estin’s face, she touched the necklace he wore with its stark black feather. Then, reaching up to his collar, she pulled out the second necklace with her own fur and claws attached to it. Absently, she lifted one of the claws and laid it along her own finger, obviously making the connection. “Who were we?” she mumbled, sounding half asleep. “Before the undead? Many of the scars are years old…but I do not remember. I want to…”
“Before? You were your village’s protector, whether they wanted your help or not. You threw yourself in the way of anything that tried to hurt them. Most of your scars came from that.”
Feanne let go of the necklace and touched her ribs just below her left breast, where Estin knew she had an ugly scar there and a matching one on her back. “The wound over my heart. What is that from? It should have killed me.”
Estin smiled and pushed the necklaces back into his shirt. “That is from a sword,” he said, remembering tending to her after that fight. “You had to prove yourself to someone in the village. He put a sword through your chest.”
“I lost the fight?”
“No, you won. He never challenged you again.”
Feanne nodded, though Estin could see she did not understand. A brief fit of coughing shook her again, subsiding a few moments later. “I can barely stay awake,” Feanne managed to croak out, rubbing at her face.
“Then sleep.”
She looked up at him, appearing uncertain about replying. Finally, she said, “I do not have many memories, Estin. In the few I have, there have always been people with me when I slept, watching to be sure we were all safe. It is something I took for granted. Here, I do not feel safe. Promise that I will not be alone.”
After offering her more water, Estin told her, “I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise I won’t leave you.”
Weakly, Feanne patted his hand and thanked him. Closing her eyes, her breathing slowed within a minute and soon she relaxed into an exhausted sleep.
“I won’t ever leave you,” Estin added, once he was certain she was truly asleep. “I swear it.”
*
Morning broke over the temple, stinging Estin’s tired eyes and casting the place in long shadows that covered much of the area facing the altar and throne, while putting the throne itself in bright light. Given that Estin had settled in with Feanne right before the altar, the light was painfully bright, but a good reminder that they could not stay long.
Looking around, Estin saw the priests remained at the entrances, right where they had been at the start of the night. He dearly wished he had their stamina, as none had even sat down, let alone slept. Having lain awake beside Feanne the whole night, Estin felt as though his limbs were leaden and his eyes itched horribly. The stench of the sewers burned his nose, making him wish that he had a far less refined sense of smell.
“Feanne?” Estin asked softly. She had hardly moved at all the whole night, aside from the few times he had woken her to give her more water. Each time she had gotten too still, it had startled Estin, making him wonder if the poison had returned. “Wake up. We need to get moving.”
Groaning, Feanne rolled onto her side and put an arm across Estin’s chest. Almost immediately, her eyes snapped open and she looked at him with surprise and confusion. She sat up quickly, yanking her hand away as she looked about to figure out where she was.
“Poison,” she murmured. “I remember. We do need to leave. What is our plan?”
Estin hopped to his feet and headed toward the edge of the temple, walking up beside one of the priestesses. The woman looked over at him with curiosity but no malice as she sniffed the air, something Estin had never seen a human do before. Given how badly he stunk of sewage, he could not blame her.
The city was still waking up for the day, from what Estin could see. People were beginning to appear in the streets, while small squads of armored soldiers marched to and fro. Nowhere could Estin see a single undead, giving him some confidence in the things Rishad had said.
Then, at the limit of his vision, Estin spotted Liris, leaning against a building staring back at him. The Turessian woman raised a hand in salute but remained where she was.
“The plan is to find a way out of here without being run down by someone who’s trying to kill us,” Estin announced, getting an amused glance from the priestess. “I’m guessing she’s found the sewer route we took to get here by now.”
The priestess kept her eyes on the street, but said quietly, “She has. Returning that way would be unwise. I should mention…you two are filthy from the sewers. You leave that filth everywhere you walk in the temple. I would be remiss if I did not ask you both to bathe before continuing to traipse around here. The bathing chambers are down a flight of steps near the far wall. You will find whatever you need down there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m telling you that someone’s going to murder us as soon as we leave and you tell me to take a bath?” Estin asked, looking at the woman, but she smiled and did not meet his eyes.
“Whatever you need,” the woman repeated. “You should leave me to my watching. Evil does not rest, and if I am not mistaken, that woman down there is the very evil that the so-called prophet Rishad warned us about. She cannot see the door from outside the temple, and if she tries to come for you, we can hold her for some time. You really should bathe.”
Estin began to understand and thanked the priestess, hurried back to Feanne, and offered her a hand up, which she took. She still seemed a little unsteady on her feet, but she managed to maintain her balance with some effort.
Leading the way, Estin headed to the back of the temple, where the open area ended at a wall similar to the front, but without the wide archways that led into the city streets. Instead, a staircase led down at the center of the wall, while a second wound its way up onto the wall, ending near one of the human archers, who stared down at Estin.
Estin hurried down the stairs, pausing occasionally to ensure Feanne did not fall too far behind. The stairs seemed to present a degree of difficulty for Feanne, forcing her to put a hand on the wall to steady herself as she descended. Her paws rocked dangerously with each step, as though her muscles refused to fully support her. When Estin tried to help her, she gave him a glare that warned him that she needed to do this on her own.
The staircase continued well under the wall, without any turns. Flickering torches every twenty feet gave off only a minimum of light—enough to ruin Estin’s night vision but not enough to clearly light the steps. Eventually Estin saw the last step in the dim light and stopped Feanne, motioning that he would continue on and take a look.
Easing his paws down as quietly as he could on the rough stone stairs, Estin inched toward the chambers below, from which warm air billowed out toward him. As he neared the bottom, he lowered himself almost flat on the stairs to look into the room without going any closer.
The next room was not what Estin had expected, though he was not honestly sure what he did expect anymore. The large round room was mostly filled by a steaming pool of water in its center, and he could see open rooms to either side that appeared to be dressing chambers for the priests. Another hall continued opposite the stairs.
Estin waved Feanne on and continued down the last few steps into the warm steam-filled room. From what he could see down the hall that left the room with the pool, the passage continued on for some distance without any turns.
“That might take us out well past the temple, where they won’t be looking for us,” Estin noted, circling the pool on his way to the hall. “If we hurry they’ll still think we’re inside the temple walls.”
A splash behind him made Estin stop and look back. Sitting on the side of the pool, Feanne had on
e of her feet in the water experimentally, circling her paw in the water. After a moment, she put both legs in, smiling happily as she rubbed a week’s worth of dust and dirt from her paws, as well as dried sewage.
“Undead army looking for us,” Estin reminded her.
“When was the last time either of us had a warm bath?” she asked, smiling up at him. “I have not in the whole of my memories. My feet were filthy and I would enjoy one minute of this before we have to run for our lives again. If we are to die, let me do it feeling whole again.”
Estin could not help laughing at her. For all her willingness to get dirty and fight through battles that would have reduced an ogre to tears, Feanne had always hated having her feet get too mud-caked. It was a quirk of hers that had somehow survived death, and one that had always amused him. Watching her struggle to scrub the mud and sewer filth off of her toes only deepened his memories of other times.
“If you are going to continue to watch me bathe, you may as well clean yourself too. We do not have time for modesty and may never get another chance at this,” she told him a second before she pulled off her clothing and slid into the pool, which came up past her waist.
Estin could not help but stare, having forgotten how beautiful his mate was after so long trying to let her have her space. He had already stripped down and was in the water before he realized he was going to take her up on her offer, though he knew it could not be anything more than a bath until she had her memories back…assuming that ever happened.
A minute later, Feanne hopped out of the pool without having given him so much as a glance and set about searching for towels or anything else she could dry her fur with. That left Estin to finish cleaning away the road dirt and sewage that coated him, much of which was stubbornly refusing to come out of his fur.
“You are about my height, correct?” Feanne called out from one of the side rooms, where Estin could see her standing naked in front of what appeared to be shelving or cabinets, her white-tipped tail wagging.
“Yes, pretty close.”
Coming back into the room, Feanne threw him a brown robe that Estin caught before it could land in the water. She quickly put on a matching robe, pulling up its hood as far as she could in an attempt to hide her ears and long muzzle. “Not a perfect disguise, but it may buy us some time if we are only seen at a distance,” she noted, looking back and frowning at the large lump in the robe where her tail could not be easily hidden. “You will have more difficulty hiding than I do.”
Wading to the edge of the pool, Estin started to climb out when Feanne stepped in front of him. She reached down and pulled him onto the edge of the pool, her eyes never leaving his shoulder. It took Estin a moment to figure out what she was looking at, but then he realized she was looking at the dozens of deep scars that crisscrossed his arm, where dogs had mauled him years earlier. Through healing those wounds with magic not intended for such a purpose, Feanne had a matching set of scars on her own arm. Estin opened his mouth to answer the question he figured was coming, but could not think of an excuse she might believe.
“We need to hurry,” she said, shuddering and turning away abruptly, going over to the far hallway and waiting with her back to him.
Confused and frustrated, Estin threw on his own robe, not particularly caring about how wet his fur was under the heavy cloth. Feanne had been right: hiding his tail was an impossibility without a large cloak or something else beyond the robe. As an afterthought, he grabbed his belt and swords from the floor and wrapped them in his old clothing, then tucked them under his arm.
This time Estin followed Feanne as they continued down the passage, which led a hundred feet or so before they came to a new set of stairs, going back up. They slowed there, creeping up the steps toward a heavy door at the top. Unlike the last set of steps, Feanne seemed steadier on these.
Estin motioned for Feanne to let him go first, but she initially glared at him and shook her head. He gestured again and she rolled her eyes and stepped back, letting him approach the door. Cautiously, he went past her, trying to figure out if she intended to trip him for trying to take charge. Thankfully, she merely glowered.
Taking the last few steps, Estin reached for the handle, only to have the door open from outside. There, eight robed human priestesses and priests stood around the door, all but one facing out toward the street. The elderly man who faced Estin waved him forward.
“What’s going on?” Estin asked, hesitant to leave the shelter of the staircase.
The priest laughed good-naturedly and motioned him forward again, this time saying, “Come. We will get you to the edge of the city.”
“Why would you help us?”
The priest pointed at Estin’s face and then tugged his own hood, reminding Estin to pull up his own. “You ask why the servants of the wild god would help wildlings escape being murdered within our walls?” the man asked once Estin had his head mostly hidden. “Jnodin has stood against Turessi for generations. Simply because one worthwhile person comes out of those lands to stand in our holy place as a spokesperson of a silent god does not mean that we have entirely opened our doors to Turessi. Politicians allow them access to pass through, but those sworn to hold the walls still oppose them how we can. It was never up to the governing body to stop Turessi…that was our duty.
“Rishad means well, but his allies are less trustworthy. We would rather not have them break the peace and have acted to ensure that they do not. It was decided that we would simply deprive Rishad of the opportunity to let us down.”
Estin reached back for Feanne and pulled her beside him as he moved through the door. Immediately the gathered humans shifted to block any view of Estin and Feanne, though no one on the street seemed to care what a group of priests might be doing.
“They will destroy you all for helping us, you know that, don’t you?” Estin asked, still unsure about accepting their help. He could feel Feanne’s discomfort with the situation through his touch.
The priest who had spoken nodded and smiled. “We were told to guard the border with Turessi centuries ago by the last of Turess’s own clan, and we still do as ordered, even if it means death. So long as Rishad works in our best interests, the city will allow him to rule. The moment he allows that other creature to speak for him, we intend to seal the gates and fight, no matter the promises our leaders have made.” The man looked to his companions and then back to Estin. “We must move,” he warned. “The invader will realize that you have left the temple soon. I wish you to be at the gates before then. We are prepared to fight her, but would prefer you were gone before the fighting begins.”
The group moved without waiting for Estin, walking in a tight formation that blocked any easy view of the two wildlings. Once they had cleared the doorway set into the stone walls of the temple, three priests fell in behind them, one grabbing Estin’s tail and holding it against his robes to help hide it.
“The guards will challenge us at the gates,” the lead priest warned Estin, nodding toward an enormous iron portcullis set into the stone wall a half mile down the street from them. Around its base, Estin could see dozens of armored humans. “Keep your heads…and tails…down and we can handle this. Once you are outside the walls, flee as far as you can. There will be no assurance that the archers will wish to see you go. Some are loyal to us, others may not be.”
The approach to the gates went quickly, with no resistance in the streets. In fact no one seemed to even take notice of the priests, ignoring them as they went about their business. Even the soldiers at the gate hardly looked up as the priests neared. If anything, their behavior reminded Estin of how some of the prey-breed wildlings kept their eyes low when around predators.
“No one heads north without orders,” a soldier announced, bringing the group of priests to a halt only twenty feet from the closed gate. “Turn around.”
One of the priestesses at the lead of the group, standing in front of Feanne replied, “We have our own orders, captain. We intend to s
pend time challenging ourselves against the wilderness and have been given dispensation by the high priestess to do so. Kerrelin requires us to face the wilds frequently.”
The soldier seemed unconvinced and began moving around the group, eyeing them suspiciously. Estin tried to keep his hood low without looking too obvious, while moving his bundled swords where they would be mostly hidden between himself and Feanne. His mouth went dry as he realized his black-and-white tail would be nearly impossible for the priests to hide, no matter what they did. Another step or two and Estin had no doubt the soldier would catch a glimpse of it.
The priests seemed equally aware of the soldier’s position, adjusting their stance slightly with each step, attempting to minimize his view of Estin and Feanne at the middle of the group. Even so, Estin heard the soldier take a quick breath to shout for help as he stepped away from the group.
Reacting far more quickly than Estin had expected, the elderly priest that led them raised his hand as though he were choking someone and the soldier’s shout came out as little more than a gasp. The priest then put his hand up in a gesture that normally would indicate someone should stop, and Estin watched as the soldier’s muscles froze, though he continued to blink and breathe.
“Know your place, captain,” the priest said in a grandfatherly way, patting the soldier on the shoulder. “Stay there until you’ve learned your lesson. The beasts of the wilds are not yours to execute simply because someone with a few tattoos claims dominion over them. We will discuss your return to worship services at the temple when we come back.”
The other soldiers had not yet noticed their companion’s predicament and the priests were not about to wait for them to realize what had happened. They began walking again, this time more quickly, with the two behind Feanne and Estin practically pushing them along.