In Wilder Lands

by Jim Galford

  “Yes, it’s her way,” he answered without looking up. “The tales of what she put me through at our mating ceremony would be the thing of legend. She really just enjoys doing this to people. Sometimes I believe I’m still pack-leader just because others fear that she would take over.”

  “Lies!” Asrahn snapped. “It’s all to make you silly males better people. How is it my fault that you need this much work?”

  “You see?” Lihuan noted, sounding broken. “We spend our youth chasing them, only to learn that this is why we grow old…to get away from them.”

  “I…where am I going with this note?” Estin asked, starting to feel awkward even being there any longer. He had the feeling that if he stayed, his tasks would only get worse.

  Asrahn grinned, revealing sharp teeth.

  “Go to Feanne first.”

  “Oh hells, female,” groaned Lihuan. “Just drown the poor child. Training with her will kill any breed not built for violence…and likely some that are.”

  Asrahn just ignored Lihuan and shoved Estin towards the tent’s flap, saying, “Head north out of camp. You can find her a short distance away.”

  “Estin, if you work with Asrahn on this, I will make it worth your while,” called Lihuan. “We need healers badly, so I’ll put up with her games, if you will.”

  “But I don’t know where Feanne has her tent. Can you be more specific?”

  “Not really,” Asrahn admitted. “She does not have a tent, so her resting place changes often. This is part of your task.”

  With that, she pulled the tent shut and left Estin alone in the dark outside.

  “She is insane,” he whispered to himself, then turned and walked away, heading at first towards his tent in the southeast corner of the camp.

  Halfway across the camp, Estin stopped and glanced down at the note she had given him. It was unsealed, untied, and just folded several times. He could easily check the contents if he desired.

  He looked around at the sleeping camp, the badly-sewn canvas or hide tents swaying in the steady breeze that nearly always swept through the area. There were few awake and none that he was willing to talk this over with.

  Sohan, he might talk to, but if he woke up the ferret, he would be stuck talking to him all night and well into the day. Ulra was awake…and he could hear splashing water and angry shouts from somewhere in the northeast part of camp. He honestly did not know many of the others well enough to seek advice.

  Estin turned to head north, seeing no other options at this time, other than to leave the pack and not come back. Somehow that did not seem to be a real option, so he picked his way through the haphazardly placed tents, until he came to an open area in the middle of the village.

  Situated on a bier of dry wood, Ghohar’s body lay for display. From what he had heard of the funerary rights of the wildlings of the area, they would leave him until the next evening, giving everyone the opportunity to say their goodbyes. At that time, his body would be burned, thus foiling any would-be furriers or others who would despoil the body. In the meantime, a single guard was set to protect the corpse from carrion animals and birds.

  The guard who was present was not someone that Estin knew. He was a wolf—like Ghohar—and likely much younger than Estin, but was standing at a rigid attention that implied extensive combat training that Estin lacked. The wolf’s posture and self-confident appearance put Estin off-ease and slowed his approach. At a cursory glance, Estin could have mistaken the youth for Ghohar.

  “Please continue along,” the wolf advised him as he approached. “Night is not the time to deal with the dead.”

  Estin stopped a short distance away and studied the body. His friend already looked to have withered in death, despite Asrahn’s attempts to heal the body. Now, he looked stiff and cold, which had seemed to be delayed by the initial mending. Though earlier he had looked to be still and sleeping, now it was apparent that he had passed beyond life.

  Wordlessly, he continued past the guard, though he could feel the other’s eyes on him until he was well away from the bier.

  It took about ten minutes to pass the last tent, given how erratically spaced they were. This was partially due to the varying size of the wildlings here, but also their breeds played a large part in it. When he had first arrived, Feanne had explained that the southern section—where Estin stayed—was mostly filled with animal-types that were at least primarily herbivores, though a great many were omnivores. Those who ate flesh as their main sustenance were here on the north end, helping to cut down on instinctual fights that Lihuan had no desire to deal with directly.

  From what Estin had heard, early in the pack’s existence, one of Lihuan’s brothers had killed a young elk wildling during an argument that had mostly escalated from a misunderstanding. The pack had all but written it off as the way that a predator-breed would act towards prey. Lihuan had ordered his own brother executed. Since then, there had been no more major breed-related fights that anyone could remember, but precautions such as the camp arrangement had been quickly put in place.

  Beyond the last tent, the woods loomed dark and whispering with the sounds of animals that Estin could not always identify. He stopped there, staring into the dark trees and wondering why the dark was scary for a night-breed wildling, especially one who had run through the dark streets of Altis for years without any regard for safety.

  “Undead.”

  The word leapt to his mind instantly, explaining away his fear. He knew what the bogeyman of his nightmares was, now. It was not a vague oppressor like the duke. Neither was it the omnipresent sense of being less than any of the other sentient races. It was fear of death…death that got up from its grave and clawed for your eyes. He had seen that embodied twice now and he knew that it was what would haunt him for some time. All other fears seemed irrelevant by comparison.

  He took a deep breath and strode into the night, sweeping his attention back and forth across the trees to watch for anything that might strike out at him. Soon after losing sight of the tents, Estin froze and realized with dismay that he had left his weapon back at the camp. He had nothing to fight with.

  Cursing himself for his foolishness, he moved more quickly, trying to find any indication of Feanne’s passing. There was no scent that he could not find in any other part of the woods. He could see no tracks, aside from the occasional deer or rabbit prints in the wet soil. For all he could tell, no one had come this way in weeks. The recent freezing rains should have made any tracks very clear to him.

  “Are you an idiot?” whispered a soft voice nearby, making Estin spin.

  Hunkered down near the base of a tree trunk, white eyes stared at him, though the speaker’s body was concealed by the overgrowth. The only thing beyond eyes that he could see was the white mist of breath in the cold air.

  “Feanne?”

  “Thankfully. There are darker things out in these woods at night, Estin. You do not belong out here. Anything north of camp is my realm. Go back to your tent.”

  He almost obeyed, but then stopped, fishing the parchment from his belt.

  “Asrahn insisted,” he explained, holding it out to her. He had no idea if her vision was good enough to read in the dark, but he assumed it was, as he could. “She wanted me to bring this to you.”

  “It could have waited until morning.”

  Feanne stood and walked smoothly towards him, snatching the note from his fingers. Without word, she unfolded the parchment and raised it close to her nose, then refolded it almost too quickly to have read it.

  “There is a misunderstanding,” she said firmly, holding the paper back out towards him. “You need to go back to camp and tell Asrahn ‘no.’”

  “I can’t do that, Feanne. Your father said he would banish me if I refused.”

  “You are not refusing…I am. Banishment is safer for you, anyway.”

  “Feanne, I need this. I have nowhere else to go. I want to do what I can to help the pack.”

  She stared at
him longer than he felt comfortable with, then tucked the parchment into her leather vest. Silently, she spun and began walking north.

  “Either come along or go back to your tent. I will not argue further,” she told him as she faded from his vision in the dark. For a moment, he could see only the white tip of her tail swaying into the darkness, then it was gone, too. “If you follow me, I will not accept any guilt over your death.”

  “I’m loving the options,” Estin grumbled, eyeing the sky. It was heavily overcast, giving him little chance of tracking her if she got very far. Already he was losing her scent somehow, though he normally could follow an identifiable scent for hours after the person had left.

  “Should I grab my sword?” he called out after her.

  “Do you really think that will protect you out here?” came the soft reply somewhere far ahead.

  Estin ran to catch up, but found himself struggling to find where Feanne had gone. Mist was hanging low on the ground, covering any tracks. She left no appreciable scent and had seemingly not touched the trees or bushes, thus leaving no marks there. He froze, hoping not to get too much farther off-path.

  “Feanne?”

  The night was silent. Not even the random chatter of animals and bugs could be heard.

  On a whim, Estin glanced back towards the camp, where the central torches had been visible for nearly a mile during his patrols with Ghohar if one knew where to look. He saw nothing back that way, only more trees and impenetrable darkness.

  “What do you hope to gain from Asrahn’s teaching?” whispered Feanne, as though in his ear, but when he spun, she was nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m just hoping to keep from being kicked out of the pack.”

  “Would that truly be so bad?”

  “Feanne, this is the only family I have left. I want to stay.”

  “You can cook. Tend to the young. I hear there is a dwarf who needs bathing. Perhaps you do not serve us best as a healer. The prey breeds are always of the belief that being a healer is the safe way to serve among the predators, but life is too deadly for us to trust prey when we are under attack.”

  Estin spun in place, trying to figure out where the fox was hiding, but her voice moved each time she spoke. On a whim, he looked up, but unsurprisingly, she was not in the trees overhead.

  “I will not be just another set of hands in the camp,” he told her, trying to calm himself. The night felt as though it were closing in on him. “I want to truly help.”

  “I help and yet I am no healer. Who do you think keeps the patrols from having to fight off humans nearly every night? Who do you believe provides more protection for this pack…you or I?”

  “This isn’t about taking a job from someone else. I want to be useful.”

  Sharp laughter seemed to slap him down.

  “Do you understand what happened to the first healer Asrahn trained, Estin?”

  He froze as he heard footfalls somewhere nearby.

  “No…”

  Gleaming waist-level eyes opened all around him, boxing him in. The scent of wolves washed over him all at once and a low growl from many throats began.

  “I found another way,” Feanne answered, stepping back into his sight. The other eyes blinked occasionally but did not move. “I found a proper way to protect my people, rather than the way my mother set before me. Healing them will never keep up with the harm that the city-folk can heap upon us. You wish to tend to cuts and bruises, while the forest burns around you. This will never work.”

  Estin listened, but kept turning, trying to get an eye on the other figures in the woods. There were at least eight wolves by his count, but for some reason they ignored Feanne and she them. Predatory breed or not, wolves normally chased foxes from what Estin could remember.

  “When the soldiers march into the camp,” she continued, stepping lightly as she circled him, her paws coming down silently, “and they will, what will you do? The best of Asrahn’s teaching will let you restore one of our warriors who has fallen at a given moment. A hundred soldiers will come, maybe a thousand. It will not be a single warrior, but all of them. They will fall all at once, while you stand there wondering who to heal first. What will you do then, Estin?”

  “I’ll heal Asrahn.”

  Feanne stopped walking and regarded him with curiosity.

  “Why? I thought you would say that you would heal me or even Ulra.”

  Estin felt, rather than saw, one of the wolves move and he turned to face it, which put his back to Feanne.

  “I would heal her, because she can help me heal others. It only makes sense, if I were a healer, which I’m not.”

  “If you are no healer, then you will need to be able to fight. Even if you do become a healer, the wilds demand that you be able to defend yourself.”

  Estin expected an attack from her as she growled the last words, but when he turned she was gone again. Instead, the wolves advanced.

  “Can you fight off the army when it comes?” called Feanne from somewhere out in the trees. “These wolves will show more concern for you than many of the duke’s men. My mother’s teaching will not help you if you are dead before you can heal anyone. Prove to me that you can survive long enough to make a difference. I will not spare you, today or any other day.”

  Fangs and claws erupted from all directions and the wolves began darting across his path, first one, then another, quickly closing their ranks around him. One beast brushed against his tail in passing, making him spin, only to have another nip his shoulder as it went past him.

  “Defend yourself!” commanded Feanne, her voice coming from another direction now. “I cannot call them off anymore.”

  Estin rolled as another wolf leapt past him, avoiding a nip from the animal, but wound up barreling into yet another wolf. This one reacted swiftly, trying to get its teeth into him, but Estin kicked as hard as he could, bowling the beast over onto its back. As he did, he heard the others rushing towards him, their paws pounding the dirt like a stampede.

  “You have weapons, Estin, so use them!”

  Frantic as he was knocked to his back by another of the wolves, Estin punched the animal in the jaw as hard as he could, but it just pulled back an inch or two, then lunged at him again, going for his throat.

  Estin could feel the other wolves around him, but he could not look away from the one atop him as he fought to keep both his hands on its neck to hold it back. He was surrounded by the snarling beasts and could only think of how close he had come to a similar death when saving Feanne.

  He remembered then that he had something this time that he did not have back in the keep. Trees.

  Rolling hard to one side to shake the wolf, Estin leapt by shoving off of the animal towards the nearest tree. He hit it hard, but scrambled up and out of the reach of the wolves, who circled below, unable to reach him.

  “That was not exactly what I had in mind,” Feanne told him begrudgingly, stepping back into view. “A tree is not your weapon.”

  “Might not be, but it got me out of there alive.”

  Feanne made several motions with her hands and whispered something, then the wolves began to scatter, behaving all the while as though they could not even see her. She walked up to the tree and lay one hand on it.

  “It may not be your weapon, but it is mine.”

  With a lurch, the entire tree swept from one side and then the other, as though trying to dislodge Estin. He clung tightly until the tree slammed into one of its neighbors, sending him tumbling onto the ground.

  “Are you insane?” he shouted at Feanne, facing off against her. “Not even getting into how you did that, why did you?”

  She smiled sweetly at him, then took a step back as a thick tree branch crashed between them, sending pine needles and loose soil in all directions. When the air cleared, Estin could no longer find Feanne.

  “Asrahn requires dedication, skill, and someone who can fight for the camp, even if she thinks she needs another healer to lighten her load,”
she answered from yet another hiding place in the woods. “You are not the one, Estin. Run back to camp. I will keep this up until you run or die. We will find something else for you to do.”

  A slick black glob of oily tar slammed into Estin’s chest, knocking him onto his back. He started to just get back up when he felt nausea wrack him and his head began to spin. In a hurry, he ripped off his shirt and tossed it away, along with most of the tarry goo. The small amount that remained on his fur still seemed to ooze some kind of noxious fumes, but he was able to push past the feelings of vertigo and sickness.

  “You see what others can do,” purred Feanne this time, her voice coming from a new direction with each word. “Ghohar, Ulra, myself…we have the strength to fight for our people. Would you give up the ability to fight and instead leave a battle to help the fallen? Would you stay at all, or would you follow instinct and run?”

  The nearby bushes lashed out, thin cordlike branches entangling his legs and arms, dragging him to his knees. They tightened, making him gasp in pain as his hands and feet went numb.

  From the darkness, Feanne emerged again, this time calmly walking straight towards him. Wherever she stepped, the living bushes flinched away, clearing her path.

  “We need warriors, Estin. You disappoint me.”

  Feanne lifted her hands from her sides, extending her fingers so that her claws were visible. As she did, her entire hands, claws and all, grew to obscene proportions. Her monstrous claws were larger than Ulra’s and from their appearance, Estin guessed she could tear an armored soldier apart.

  “That how we got through the soldiers in Altis?” he asked her. “You changed and killed them yourself?”

  “At last you start to understand.”

  She stepped over him, raising one large claw.

  “Surrender and I will send you back to the camp. You have this one chance. My way does not allow for weakness and since my mother put you in my care, my way is all that matters.”

  Estin studied her face in the dim moonlight and knew that she was not going to hesitate. There was no compassion, no question of what she was going to do. He lowered his eyes and looked around at the branches that still held him, which were wiggling and shifting to keep from being near her feet.