by Jim Galford
“A cage?” Asrahn demanded, squinting at him. “This rather surprises me. I doubted that child would let herself get caged. This pack has been trying to tie her down in a figurative sense her whole life, but this may be the first time someone was successful.
“The monster, as you put it,” she continued. “Did you get a look at it?”
“No.”
Asrahn seemed to relax.
“Consider yourself lucky, child. There are reasons the Keeper shares little about herself.”
“You keep calling her ‘the Keeper.’ What is that title?”
Ashran cocked her head slightly, but kept quiet for a time.
“You will need to eat,” she said at length. “Your body will weaken quickly, given how close you were to death.”
“Was I really that far gone?”
She nodded grimly. “Your heart was faltering and the blood was barely flowing from your wounds. I doubt you would have made it another hour and that would have made things far more difficult for me.”
“Being dead is a big deal for me too,” he noted dryly, tracing the fresh scars on his arms. Some were simple bare patches of white skin, whereas some had created thin lines that looked almost like tattoos that the humans living in Altis had seemed so fond of. These often came in double or triple lines for several inches on his arms, where the dogs’ claws or fangs had raked him badly.
“I could have fixed dead,” the old female answered, rapping his fingers to get his attention. “You ignoring my orders to eat is harder to remedy.”
Estin traced a double-line down his left arm again, the smooth scar leading down almost to his elbow. At least most of the scars would be hidden by a shirt, he noted.
“Will the scars fade?” he asked Asrahn, taking an offered bowl of soup from her. “I had not thought healing magic would leave so many.”
“It was hardly healing magic,” Asrahn said with a mild sneer. “Feanne is many things, but a healer is not one of them. She did what she could, which kept you both alive. A skilled healer would have been able to prevent the scarring as well, but that was beyond her ability. As for these scars, scars stay if they need to for reminding us of our mistakes. Some do fade, but many stick around. I think yours will remain a while yet.”
Asrahn lifted the shoulder of her simple doeskin tunic and revealed a deeply-burned scar that looked to be decades old, emblazoned just above her elbow. The scar had been modified, as though new lines were added later to change its appearance.
“An old slaver’s mark,” she explained, covering it again. “When I took a mate, we had matching scars made from the old slaver’s marks we both bore. The new mark was not that of either slaver, but rather something we both bore together. We took the brutality of our old masters and made it something that we owned.
“We all bear our scars, but some make for a better story. Were I younger with your scars, I would not fear showing them, child. Mine could have gotten me hung by anyone who recognized them in those lands. Yours will draw odd stares and certain unpleasant questions, but just remember that we are all marked in our own ways.”
Estin’s ears perked, waiting for more to her story, but Asrahn just stopped talking and stirred at the pot of stew in the middle of the room. He waited, hoping she would explain further, but she seemed unwilling to even acknowledge his presence.
He sipped at the bowl she had given him, passing time slowly as his stomach grumbled to speed him up in his eating. Much to his dismay, Asrahn stayed lost in her own thoughts, ignoring him.
“Can I go outside and see this pack that Feanne has made so much fuss over?”
Asrahn waved him away, as though she was unconcerned, but he did catch her watching him from the corner of her eyes as he got up.
Estin got up slowly, finding that he was rather dizzy yet. As his head cleared, he found that much of his clothing had been removed or destroyed in their escape from town. His shirt he knew was long gone, a victim of Asrahn’s tending to his wounds, but his pants had been sliced open on either side. This let them breathe nicely, but he found that the open sides made them feel not far different from the loincloths many of the other wildlings wore.
Suddenly, he realized his belt and pouches were missing and looked frantically around them room, not seeing them anywhere.
“You have lost something?” asked Asrahn, raising an eyebrow.
“My pouches and a goblet.”
“I believe they were taken by the Keeper,” she noted with a snort. “You will need to barter with her for their return. I know that I cannot convince her to do anything she does not wish.”
Estin hurried outside, stumbling as he emerged into blazing sunlight. He stood there a moment, letting his eyes adjust, but when they did, he barely believed what they showed him.
Wildlings were everywhere. Ulra and another bear were off to one side of the forest clearing, dragging dead wood the size of small trees in from the tree line, likely for firewood. Several wolves—including Ghohar—were scattered near the wood line, patrolling the camp’s edges for intruders. He spotted several other breeds running around, but they were there and gone so quickly, that he had a hard time identifying them.
“You, you, you!” exclaimed an excitable ferret, racing up on him. The young male darted in circles around Estin, prodding him with a clawed finger as though checking on his previous wounds. Like many of the others around the camp, the ferret was dressed in little more than a loincloth. “Asrahn got you all fixed up, that’s great! Where are you going now? Hrm? Say something!”
“I…I was looking for Feanne.”
The ferret nodded rapidly, doing another loop around Estin. “No time to wait around. Yep, yep, yep. Want me to show you were she is? Or do you wanna explore? Me, I’d explore. So much to see when people don’t tell you want to look for. Right, right?”
Estin very nearly grabbed the ferret to stop him from moving.
“Who are you?” he demanded, trying not to sound mean, but the ferret was definitely driving him crazy. “We haven’t met.”
“Right, right, right!” the ferret said, slapping his forehead. “What was I thinking? Nothing, I bet. Sheesh. Sorry! I’m Sohan. I was the one who got rid of your hunters. They were really nasty people and wanted you dead in a big way. How did you get them so annoyed? I mean, I must have run around them for half an hour before they were as mad at me as they had been at you. That takes talent. Usually hunters want to stab me right away, but not these ones! They just kept yelling and trying to get the dogs to find you. Very annoying really, when you’re trying to get someone’s attention and they just won’t…”
“Please stop talking,” Estin cut in, trying to get his mind around the ferret’s rapid speech. “Were you able to get rid of them or not?”
“Yep! Got rid of all but one!”
“One?”
Sohan bounced up and down, then grabbed Estin’s hand, dragging him towards a large grouping of tents.
“Angry dwarf just wouldn’t give up. Really stubborn guy.” Sohan’s feet dug tiny trenches as he tried to run with Estin, who was having none of that. “Ditched the rest of the hunters…some off a cliff…but the rest ran for town, complaining about crazy rodents…not that I’m a rodent, mind you. This guy just wouldn’t stop chasing me though. I thought he was gonna get tired, but every time I sat down to laugh at the hunters, there he was again!”
Sohan led Estin up to a wooden cage, made from heavy tree bows that had been driven into the ground, then strapped together at the tops. Inside sat Osrinn, the dwarf that Estin had met in Nyess’ lair, glaring out at them venomously.
“Well, hello there, monkey,” growled the dwarf, sitting still in the cage with his arms crossed over his barrel chest. “This wasn’t exactly the side of the cage I meant to be on, but it will do for now.”
“Why did Nyess send you after me?” demanded Estin, kneeling beside the cage.
“You?” Finth said, his eyes widening in surprise. “Really? You think we gave two tro
ll shits about you? The duke set a hundred gold price on the fox’s head—dead, not alive—after she made that showing in his chambers. I’m sure I could sell her pelt for more than yours, too. Better looking tail, you know.
“You aren’t worth more than five gold, though I could likely pawn what you stole for more than your head and hide is worth.”
Estin stood back up and looked down at Sohan, who was bouncing beside him.
“Feed him to something awful,” Estin told the ferret as he began to walk away. “I don’t want to see that dwarf or his master again.”
“Nope, nope, can’t do that,” chittered Sohan, zipping around Estin. “Feanne said we keep him for information. She said he was from the city and we needed to know more about what the hunters were after. Can’t kill him until she says so.”
“Do you do whatever Feanne tells you to do?”
Sohan skidded to a halt and cocked his head, contemplating the question.
“No,” he finally answered, darting back to Estin’s side. “Sometimes her father gives commands that she disagrees with. The pack-leader wins when that happens. Otherwise, yeah, I do what she says. Why? Don’t you do what she says? Seems kind of silly to me. Dangerous, too. I don’t like dangerous.”
Estin watched the younger wildling run around as though he were physically incapable of standing still for more than a few seconds at a time. Estin stopped walking and just stood patiently as Sohan hopped around and generally kept in motion, usually while talking to himself.
“…and when Lihuan tells me to do something, that’s just like law or something. When Feanne says to do it, it’s more like ‘do it or else,’ which is still important, but doesn’t quite mean the same thing. You know what I mean?”
Estin just stood there until the ferret trailed off and wiggled his ears in confusion.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Sohan noted. “Is that a city thing, or you just don’t like to talk?”
“Both.” Estin resumed walking now that Sohan was paying attention again. “The city people don’t talk to our kind, so I didn’t get much chance to talk to anyone. Right now, I don’t have a lot to say, as I’m trying to figure out what my place is here and where my stuff has gone.”
“Your stuff? That I can help with!”
The ferret nearly bounced up and down, seemingly excited at the idea of finding things.
“Asrahn said Feanne took my bags. I really need those back and I would like to find some replacement weapons.”
Sohan’s nose twitched as he thought hard about the request.
“The bags we can get back anytime she agrees,” he answered. “If Feanne took them, there’s a reason and she won’t let them go anytime soon. The weapons are more tricky.”
He hopped over to a nearby canopy and motioned to stacks of rusted swords and other weapons that had been tossed into piles.
“We collect them from the hunters, until we get around to melting them down,” Sohan explained, poking at a halberd with his fingertip. “Sometimes we make armor from them, but mostly we use them for tools or arrowtips. If you like some, just take them. Only a couple people use them.”
Estin stepped into the shade of the canopy, amazed at the array of weaponry that had just been tossed into piles. He had seen fewer weapons in the duke’s keep than the wildlings had stockpiled.
“None of them are quite what I was looking for,” he said after inspecting the most recent-looking pile of steel, where there was the least rust. “Mine weren’t any better than these, but I like to have a matching pair of swords or knives.”
The ferret just stared blankly at him.
“Better for balance.”
Sohan blinked slowly.
“So…you fight with them?” Sohan asked, his face unreadable.
“Not well,” he replied, laughing. “It’s what I was taught to fight with. What kind of weapons do you use?”
Sohan raised his hands, holding up his short claws.
“Really? Swords?” he asked Estin, sounding nearly offended by the idea. “Feanne can’t be happy about that.”
“Why would she care?”
Sohan’s eyes nearly popped out as he screwed up his face.
“You really need to talk to her more before you hang out with this pack,” Sohan told him, scooting back out into the sunlight. “Lihuan will want to meet you too, but maybe you want your bags first? Where to…um…you?”
“Estin.”
“Right, right, right. Estin. What breed are you? I know what I am, but I don’t know what you are.”
Estin stopped and stared at the ferret, who was sniffing and cocking his head, inspecting Estin. Sohan’s eyes studied Estin’s long striped tail.
“I really don’t know what they call my kind,” he admitted, coming out into the sunlight beside Sohan. The sun was high overhead and its heat baked into Estin’s brow immediately and his bare feet felt the warmth of the day through the dry ground. “I am what I am. Beyond that, I don’t try to guess too much. In the city, we’re all just animals.”
Sohan nodded quickly, then spun in a circle.
“Feanne first, then? No more sad talk about cities?”
“Lead the way.”
Sohan bounced again, this time sniffing the air before leading the way off towards another section of the camp. He led Estin past several dozen makeshift tents and canopies, each with a unique scent that made Estin wonder just how so many wildlings had ended up in this “pack.” He did his best to check out each group of wildlings they passed, doing his best to not appear rude, but Sohan’s pace made any effort to look around rather difficult.
They passed groups of many breeds that Estin had never seen, or had not seen closely. Coyotes, foxes, wolves, and the occasional bear wandered by, making Estin wonder whether anyone in the camp besides him was not a predatory breed. It made him more than a little nervous when he thought about it.
They neared the edge of the camp and Sohan skidded to a halt as massive booted feet stepped in his way. With a hiss, Sohan dropped into a crouch and snarled at the giant humanoid that now stood in their way. Estin could not really take the action seriously, coming from Sohan.
Nearly eight feet tall, the man had grey skin that seemed to soak up the sunlight as he stared at Estin and Sohan with a dull gaze. Large tusks protruded from his lower jaw and long curved horns—like those of a ram—gave him a monstrous appearance that made Estin take a step back in surprise. He had only seen an ogre once up close and he had heard more than his fair share of rumors about how dangerous they might be. He had dismissed them all, but now questioned that choice with one close enough to grab him.
Sohan was undeterred and raced circles around the giant man, trying to trip him up and get underfoot. The grey-skinned man seemed hardly impressed and just reached down and picked up Sohan by the scruff of his neck.
“Still trying to knock me down?” asked the ogre, his voice rumbling, but gentle. “You never tire of the game?”
“Never!” exclaimed Sohan, squirming and giggling. “Mom said giants fall the hardest. I wanna prove it!”
The ogre sighed and set Sohan back on the ground, patting him on the head with remarkable care.
“You bring another to see the Keeper,” the ogre noted, his black eyes falling on Estin. “What do they call you, young ringtail?”
“Estin,” he answered, shifting his weight so he could run if needed. Talking to an ogre had not been on his list of plans for the day. “I just came to see Feanne.”
“So many do.” The ogre sat down slowly, barely making a sound, despite his size. Somehow every action the giant took seemed to reflect caution and grace that Estin would have never expected from a being that looked as he did. “You are just older than most who willingly visit her. Please go into the grove and see her. It is not my place to keep anyone out, especially one so important.”
“I thought this was a pack of wildlings…not ogres,” Estin mumbled, trying to find words as he faced the ogre, who he had no doubt could b
reak him in half easily. “I…I don’t understand.”
“Many things are out of place in our world,” the ogre explained, leaning up against a tree that creaked slightly at his weight. “You are from the city and yet you do not belong there. I am from these very woods, but I do not belong in this company. Your friend here does not belong underfoot, but still he usually is.
“As you imply, I do not belong here. Perhaps someday I will, wildling. Then again, mayhaps someday you will belong whereas I do not. There is much to consider in this.”
Estin felt as though he had been robbed of any possible words to answer the ogre with and just stood before the large humanoid, feeling foolish.
“Don’t you worry about him,” jabbered Sohan, popping in front of Estin. “He’s been here longer than the camp. These days, he helps keep the young and old safe.”
“This is true,” the ogre said in his rumbling bass voice.
“What do I call you?” Estin asked the ogre, trying to be polite but feeling intrusive instead.
“I do not give out my name,” replied the giant, smiling at Estin—though the smile felt intimidating with the man’s tusks. “Names and words have power over each of us. For now, I am what I am and not a name.”
Sohan stuck out his tongue at the ogre.
“He’s always like that,” explained the ferret, grabbing Estin’s hand and dragging him along. “C’mon! We’re almost to Feanne. Then you can get your bags back and I can see what’s in them. Right? Right?”
Estin rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut, knowing that the excitable Sohan would likely ignore whatever he said anyway, so it was likely better to take the ogre’s advice and say nothing extra.
“Over there!” Sohan said, hopping over to the entrance to a grove of trees. “There, there, there!”
Estin followed Sohan’s pointing, seeing that the grove of dense old trees was filled with more people. Unlike the last few groups he had seen throughout the wildling camp, who had been mostly older, the grove was filled with a mass of young cubs, all racing around in an effort to tackle Feanne, who was laughing at the middle of the clearing.