In Wilder Lands

by Jim Galford

  “Are you seriously not cold from the water?”

  Feanne smiled and kept walking.

  “No. I can tell that my feet are wet and chilled, but I have spent my life running through the woods, whether it is wet, dry, or snowing. After a few winters in snow up to your hips, your feet stop caring about the cold, so long as you get back to warmth as soon as possible.”

  “You’ve lived out here your whole life?”

  Feanne nodded, answering, “Born in the woods and I would prefer to die there as well, free of anyone’s attempts to tie me down. You helped make sure that comes to pass.”

  “That’s…cheery.”

  She gave him a quizzical glance and noted, “You have a very strange understanding of our people, Estin. Do you believe that the wolves wake up each morning, praying to whatever deity they serve that they will not come to harm for years? Would you expect the hare stops hunting for food just because there could be a mountain lion someday that kills it?”

  “No…”

  “Why should we be any different? Believe in whatever you want and work to make things better in your life, but never forget that you will die. We can only hope for a good death on the terms we set. Wanting or striving for anything more will lead to disappointment, which is truly sad when it is your last thought in life.

  “I had an opportunity to die in a way that might save my people, no matter how awful my own end was. To me, that is a good death and worthy of the pain of meeting it. What would you consider a good death, Estin?”

  He blinked a few times, trying to wrap his mind around thinking in those terms.

  “Or rather,” she corrected herself, “what would you need to do or experience for your life to be complete? Perhaps that is easier to consider.”

  “It is.”

  Estin pondered as they walked. They went some distance while he went over things in his mind, until he finally came to an answer.

  “When you were hiding in the warehouse…you believed you were dying?”

  “Yes. I knew I would die from my injuries without help. I had failed to meet my anticipated death for my people, so a lonely death was appropriate. No one else needed to see me suffer.”

  “I don’t need to accomplish anything or even do anything day to day to feel like my life is full,” he explained, thinking about the years running around the city, scrounging for food. “Surviving is enough for me in life.”

  “And to die well?”

  “To not die alone,” he said sadly, thinking of his mother. “I’ve had family that died brutally and I hid. I don’t want to be abandoned while I die and I certainly don’t want to feel like I did the same to anyone else ever again. I guess I want to help people before I die.”

  “These are decisions we all make.” Feanne hugged him somewhat tighter for a moment. “If you hid, I doubt it was with the intention of abandoning them. How old were you at the time?”

  “Around a year…maybe a little older, give or take.”

  “Why did you not die as well?”

  Estin felt the familiar weight of guilt settle into his shoulders. It was a sensation he tried to avoid, but somehow he felt he could not refuse Feanne’s questions, especially while imposing on her to help carry him through the woods.

  “My father asked me to hide, even as he was killed.”

  “Then how do you believe that you failed him? His wish for dying was not to allow his child to die beside him. You fulfilled that wish and lived. That would seem a good death for a parent.”

  The pain of memories haunting him, despite efforts to push them down, Estin snapped angrily, “He died, so we won’t know if he appreciated it or not.”

  “And this is why we should not fear death for ourselves,” Feanne told him, shifting his weight. “No matter what you may believe about gods, dragons, or whatever silly thing the city people believe in as a deity, one day you will die, too, and no force can stop that. Whatever place your father has gone to is where you will be…then you can ask him. Until then, why do you let it keep you from doing more with your life? Worrying about whether you did the right thing years ago is like throwing away all those years, which is the very thing your father was sparing you from.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Suit yourself, Estin. I will continue to believe that you will find your good life and death and I will feel no guilt in hoping for that.”

  “Do your people always spend so much time talking about death?”

  “Not all of us,” she admitted. “Much of my time is spent in contemplation of the natural order of things and how it relates to our pack. Death is a large part of that, especially these days.”

  Estin let the conversation lapse, which Feanne thankfully allowed him to do. They limped along quietly for some time, his pace becoming more uneasy as they went, with his head beginning to pound badly. Eventually, he could go no further, collapsing to his knees and retching, despite Feanne’s efforts to keep him upright.

  “I can’t keep going,” said Estin, once he could speak again. His stomach was certainly empty, but he felt as though he would vomit again at any moment, given the slow spin of his peripheral vision. “The fever’s back. I can’t get up.”

  “I could carry you for a short time,” Feanne replied, kneeling beside him. “Either that or I can call to my people and see if they are close enough to hear. I have waited on that, for fear the people sent by the city might hear me as well.”

  Estin tried to sit up and instead fell over onto his side. He realized he was starting to tremble with chill. Even as he struggled to stand, he heard the distant barking of dogs.

  “I cannot run and cover our trail at the same time,” Feanne said quickly, apparently having heard the dogs too. “They will find us, whether we stay or run now.”

  “Then leave me here.”

  Ignoring him, Feanne stood up and raised her face to the sky—or what was visible of it through the canopy of trees—and let out a throaty wail that vaguely reminded him of a wolf’s howl, even though it was very different. She maintained the call for far longer than Estin would have guessed she could, until finally she lowered her head, the sound of her cry still echoing faintly through the mountains.

  “If the pack does not come in time, I have only allowed the dogs to find us faster.”

  She sat down beside him and checked his forehead again. Shaking her head sadly, she noted, “If the pack does not find us, the dogs will not shorten your life considerably. The fever is very strong again.”

  Estin barely could find the strength to lift his head from the ground. As Feanne seemed to be settling in for a wait, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the treetops and the filtered sunlight that flickered through the needles of the pines. The trees swayed wildly in the wind, or appeared to in his fever-induced haze.

  “My father once told me that we were tree people,” he said absently, only vaguely aware of what he was saying. “I barely remembered what the woods looked like. Does that make this a good death?”

  “Death by mauling is one I do not recommend. If the dogs come, just keep watching the trees.”

  Estin felt Feanne’s claws settle in on his neck, even as the barking of dogs became much louder. Her touch was gentle, but the sharp edges of the claws lay directly on the veins that ran down his neck. Were he more coherent, Estin knew this would have concerned him, but right then the trees swaying was far more interesting as he tried to stay awake.

  Large hunting dogs broke around the nearby rocks, racing towards Estin and Feanne, snarling and yipping for their masters as they closed. As they did, Feanne’s claws dug into Estin’s neck painfully and even his delirium was not enough to put down the fear that grew with each bounding leap of the hounds.

  “Watch the trees, Estin,” Feanne reminded him, shifting her body between him and the dogs. She bent over him, shielding his body as she started to push her claws into his neck. “Tell your father that I am sorry.”

  A sharp crack ne
arly deafened Estin and was enough to snap him out of staring at the trees. Even Feanne reacted, pulling her hand away from his throat.

  Throughout the area, tree trunks exploded into splinters as huge balls of ice slammed into them, showering the dogs with wood, then scattering them as the damaged trees fell with ground-shaking crashes. The fallen trees boxed Estin and Feanne in, but by the sound of whimpering and howls, the dogs were already on the run.

  “The only one I know who would make that howl was Feanne,” called out a gravelly voice somewhere beyond the downed trees. “And every time I’ve heard you make that awful noise, things have been about to tear you apart, girl. Just once I would like you to bring back good news.”

  Estin watched as a dog-like face peeked over the nearest of the fallen trees, its animal-like eyes gleaming with intelligence. The male wildling’s white and brown patterned fur was a match for some of the wolf pelts he had seen worn by nobility around the city. What stood out to Estin though, was that the wolf’s fur was lightly frosted—though melting quickly. Water dripped off his hands as he moved.

  “Ghohar, it is good to see you, as always,” Feanne offered, lowering her head as a supplicant bow of thanks.

  “You’d be thankful to see a raging horde of talking mushrooms if it saved you,” he noted dryly, kneeling beside Estin. “Your thanks are appreciated, anyway.”

  The wildling’s face came near to Estin’s, as he inspected Estin’s injuries. He touched Estin’s forehead and prodded at his fur to survey the various cuts and gashes. He stopped when he reached the spot where Feanne’s claws had been resting on his throat.

  “So little faith in the pack, Feanne?” asked the wolf, but did not wait for an answer. “I brought along Ulra for backup, just in case. Sohan is out leading the hunters in circles.

  “Ulra can carry him to Asrahn. She’s expecting you to be the one half-dead, as usual. This might just be a pleasant surprise in a stupid sort of way.”

  Estin blinked slowly, trying to take in the newcomer’s words, but they were slow to get through the fog he felt he was sinking into.

  “What’s an Ulra?” he asked the wolf lazily.

  “That,” replied Ghohar, pointing back by the trees, “is an Ulra.”

  Turning his head as best he could while being poked at by Ghohar, Estin saw a massive brown-furred being tromp over the fallen trees. Her feet were easily three times the size of Estin’s own and she was nearly half again his height. She towered over the group, her ursine features wrinkling with anger.

  “This one is hurt badly,” the bear-wildling said with a voice that made Estin’s prey-instincts kick in and make him want to flee. “Do we need to kill something to protect him, or just take him back?”

  “Take him back. Sohan is dealing with those who are pursuing,” Ghohar explained, getting up off the ground and dusting his knees off.

  As Ghohar started to move out of Ulra’s way, Feanne grabbed his wrist.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking near tears. “Thank you both. You know how I hate the humans’ hunting dogs.”

  Ghohar nodded and chuckled, patting Feanne’s hand.

  “That I do, girl. I just hate how damned dumb they are. Two healthy wolves would tear that entire pack of dogs apart. Awful shame what breeding has done to them. Poor Ulra didn’t even get to fight them before they were scared off.”

  Estin just stared at the group around him in dazed surprise at seeing so many wildlings in one place. Since he was a child, the only time he had seen more than one wildling anywhere was at the slave auctions and those were not really the same creatures at all. They had no personality, no emotions, no sense of self. For all he could tell, those on the slave block were dead inside, having given up on freedom entirely.

  These were different. He had thought Feanne might be the only one like that despite her talk about a pack, but now, seeing Ghohar and the massive Ulra, he had begun to believe that his childhood memories might not be entirely fiction. Perhaps there were more wildlings like him.

  His thoughts fell away in a panic as Ulra scooped him up as though he were a child, cradling him in her massive arms and began walking off into the woods. He struggled briefly, not wanting to be anywhere near a bear’s jaws, even if it was a wildling, but she hardly seemed to notice his efforts and soon he was too exhausted to continue.

  The trip through the woods was rapid, with Ulra tromping swiftly over the rough terrain, seemingly unaware of brambles and heavy brush that would have slowed down or stopped most others. She charged through it all, while keeping Estin held just above the tallest of the bushes.

  The pounding pace of the bear should have kept Estin wide awake, but as his fear of her faded, he began growing tired again. Pain radiated through his arms and his head pounded, but his mind was shutting down quickly. As almost an afterthought, he looked down at his arms and saw that the many rips in his fur from dog-bites were bleeding badly again.

  His last thought as he fell asleep was about whether Ulra would be upset at all the blood he had left all over her fur.

  *

  Estin felt like he was dragging himself back from a dark place as he came to, his mind struggling to overcome the weight of sleep that seemed to press itself on his eyelids. When he finally did get his eyes to open, the first thing he saw was a felinoid face staring down at him.

  The female was clearly elderly, with grey fur around her mouth and chin and somewhat whitened eyes. Long strands of leather with feathers, beads, and even several claws hung from a sort of necklace not terribly unlike the one he had found back at the duke’s keep. Rings fastened onto her pointed ears held long strands of leather with feathers at the ends that bobbed with her movement. Her arms were resting on the side of the mat he lay on and most of the fur on her hands was whitened, as well.

  The more Estin studied her face, the more he realized that she was not a breed of cat he had seen before. Though clearly of some kind of cat lineage, her face was longer than he would have expected, with a reddish line of fur up the bridge of her nose that spread out along her forehead.

  “Wake up, child,” she hissed at him, tapping a claw between his eyes. “The fever is past. It is time to wake and get out of my tent.”

  “Where am I?” Estin asked, his voice cracking, due to his throat being painfully dry.

  The female ignored him and raised a bowl of water to his mouth.

  “You need water first. Drink and then talk. If you talk while you drink, you’ll drown and I’ll not change the order for you.”

  The water was very refreshing, cooling his burning throat and helping to further wake him up. When she finally took the bowl away from his mouth, he pushed himself up a little on the mat, sitting up slightly against a pile of rolled furs that had been just above his head.

  “Is this the camp Feanne told me about?” he asked, trying to get a glimpse of anything outside the tent. The flap was closed and everything inside was hazy with smoke from a tiny fire in the middle of the room, which was at the center of a circle made of fine white stones.

  “The question you ask first is, ‘What are you called, oh great elder that saved me?’ Next, I recommend, ‘Would you like to know who I am?’ After that, it would be polite to ask me questions about the rest.”

  Estin was not sure what to make of the old female, who just stared evenly at him.

  “Very well, who are you?”

  “Psh!” she answered, shaking her head sadly. “You do not ask even that nicely. What manners do they teach you in the city? You may be hopeless, child.”

  “I’m not a child,” he countered, sitting upright, though his head started pounding.

  “You are what, five? Maybe six?”

  “Six. More than an adult among our people.”

  The old female chuckled.

  “I had a life-mate by your age, but that does not mean you are wise, child.” She jabbed his cheek with her first-finger’s tip. “What do you know of our people?”

  Estin shrugged and replie
d, “Only what I see at the slave markets, what my parents taught me as a child, and what little Feanne has told me about this pack on the way here.”

  “Asrahn,” stated the elder, crossing her arms over her chest. “You asked for my name. Now that you answered my question, I answer yours.”

  “You cared for me?”

  Asrahn laughed hoarsely.

  “No, Feanne cared for you, which is why you lived long enough for me to finish the task, by tending to your wounds, which is very different from caring. They brought you in last evening, barely breathing. If you were not already warned, it is widely considered unsafe to travel with the Keeper.”

  Estin looked down over himself, surveying the damage. His shirt was long gone, no real surprise given how badly torn and stained it had been. His arms and legs still hurt, but the ragged bites had faded into thin pink lines that appeared to have mostly scarred over.

  “The fur may not return,” Asrahn noted, her eyes following his. “Deep wounds near death are the hardest to completely heal, even with magic. They become a part of you as surely as the memory of getting them.”

  “You healed me?” he asked, checking his hands. The scrapes and other damage to his fingers from the climbs were all gone and he flicked his tail behind him, finding no pain there from carrying Feanne. “This is more magic? Do all of our people use magic? Feanne mentioned her mother was also a healer.”

  The female laughed openly at him.

  “No, there are only a few of us who do use magic. Very few, in fact. Feanne’s mother is rather skilled at it, I hear. Ghohar commands the elements to strike at our enemies. These are the only decently-skilled users of magic in a pack of almost fifty adults.”

  “And Feanne,” he added.

  Asrahn’s eyes narrowed slightly and she asked sharply, “You have seen the Keeper use magic?”

  “Only a little,” he admitted, noting the title again. Asrahn seemed genuinely annoyed at him, so he added, “She leapt farther than I can using magic. She used some kind of magic to move my injuries to her, then back to me. I think she also called in some kind of monster to kill soldiers who were attacking us. Oh, and she broke the lock on the cage she was in.”