by Lexy Wolfe
Silent for quite some time, Shaman drummed his fingers, eyes unfocusing. “A shadow hangs over her. It haunts her. It stalks her. She bears wounds none can see.” He looked at his chieftain. “Wounds she does not want anyone to see. Not even her pack-brother. Wounds that bleed the dark color of heart blood, not the brighter red of more superficial hurts.”
“Mmm. I see.” Both looked up as the sound of a horn filled the night to announce the return of the first hunting party. As the double doors opened, Pack Leader rose to welcome and declare the winners of the final contest of the games. He could not help but straighten a little more in pride as Tracker entered first, followed by Tiwaz and then Doom. He echoed the surprise of the gathered when the gromek unslung the massive boar carcass from his back and dropped it before him and Shaman.
The wolflen elder stood, stepping forward to look at the boar, then looked at the three. “Tradition speaks, packs hunt for tribe, kills go to tribe.” He looked down at the boar. “Never a pack not all of tribe. Who made kill?”
Tiwaz stated, her voice carrying over the murmur of the crowd, “Tracker made the kill.”
“Cat-Sister and Doom-Not-Demon saved Tracker’s life,” the young wolflen interrupted before Shaman could say anything. “Prey belongs to them, not—”
“We were a team,” Doom interrupted. “We hunted together and we fought together.” He held up his wrist to display his prize. “We returned together.”
“To whom would kill go?” the elder asked.
Tracker straightened. “To the tribe.”
At the same time, Doom and Tiwaz both answered, “To Bralden.”
Shaman grunted at that. “Then kill shared equal. Half to tribe for one make kill. Half for Bralden.” Tracker looked to his teammates then nodded, all three bowing in acquiescence to his decree. “Solstice Games finished.” All voices raised to cheer the pronouncement as the celebration grew, the meal waxing to drinking, dancing and games.
Tracker turned from speaking to his sire, frowning. “Where Cat-Sister?”
Doom glanced towards the doors, glimpsing the woman slipping out into the night. “Ti is…not much for gatherings like this.” He tilted his head and admitted, “Neither am I. It will take getting used to.” The gromek offered his arm to the wolflen, the two exchanging a comradely grip. “Thank you for hunting with us.”
“Doom-Not-Demon hunt with Cat-Sister and Tracker in future. Learn speak wolflen tongue like Cat-Sister. I practice human tongue.”
“I will,” he agreed. “Good night.”
“Moons guide and protect,” Tracker bid before turning to join his family to give more details of the adventure’s unexpected outcome.
Back at the house, Doom found Tiwaz curled on the sleeping place he’d made on the floor and smiled sadly. Preparing for sleep, he lay behind her and put his arm around her waist. “Am I a coward?” she asked in an anguished whisper. “I ran away. There were so many people. So many. All around and no walls between me and them. They moved everywhere doing different things, all of them talking at once. I couldn’t watch them all. I couldn’t listen to them all to know what they were talking about, if any were a threat.” He hugged her against him, feeling her tremble. “I must be a coward. Even little children had no fear there, but I felt nothing but—.”
“Stop,” Doom interrupted in a gentle voice. “It is okay to be afraid of strange things. Give yourself time to become used to them.” He hugged her lightly. “Go to sleep. I will watch over you.”
“And I will watch over you,” she murmured. Many hours passed, neither sleeping, lost in troubled thoughts.
ATOP A BARREN hill overlooking a waterfall, Tiwaz stood gazing morosely out into the distance. She glanced over her shoulder, speaking wolflen. “When are you going to come out? You have been there for an hour.”
Tracker emerged from the thicket, straightening to his full height in a stretch before joining her. “Two hours. It usually does not take you so long to notice me.” He looked down at her, studying her profile. “Nor so long to call me out. I expected you to come to the huts at sunrise. I even went to Smith and he said you had left long before. Is my company not enough when Doom-Not-Demon hunts alone?”
She winced at the last word, looking away. “My absence was not your fault. I enjoy your company very much. I wanted to think, and I lost track of time, that’s all.” She closed her eyes, leaning against him when he stood behind her and slid his arms around her waist. “Forgive me.”
“Doom-Not-Demon is right,” he pointed out, his cheek resting against her hair. “You are a terrible liar.” He tightened his embrace enough to keep her from moving away. “You cannot lose track of time while watching the sun move in the sky, Cat-Sister. I noticed you have been troubled since you first came to my father to ask to be taught hunting. But I am not very familiar with human behavior, and you are not born human. I thought I was imagining troubles. But ever since the solstice, the shadows over your heart have grown darker.” He paused. “Enough that Doom-Not-Demon asked me to watch over you in his absence.”
“There is nothing wrong,” she insisted.
Unconvinced, he moved to stand in front of her, putting his finger beneath her chin to tilt her face up, moving to catch her eyes with his. “We are pack-kith. You can tell me anything.”
“Why hasn’t Pack Leader and Shaman named you to your own hunting pack yet?” She captured his hand, pressing his palm against her cheek. “You should run with a real pack. Doom and I are outsiders. I am not even a very good hunter compared to either of you.”
The young wolflen snorted, frowning. “There is more to a pack than hunting, and more to being named to a pack than Shaman and my sire formalizing it.” He moved their clasped hands over his heart. “I have the choice. I am happy running with you and your pack-brother. And,” he pointed out with gentle sternness, “you are avoiding telling me what bothers you.”
She smiled wanly, then sighed, looking down. “Yes. I am.” He tilted her head up with a gentle touch; she answered the question in his eyes. “I do not tell you because I do not want to be a burden.”
Tracker scowled at the nuances beneath her words, the fur along his spine rising. “You have never been nor ever could be a burden, Cat-Sister. What torments you? Even Shaman worries about you, and he usually concerns himself only with traditions and duty.” He let her pull away to walk to the flat rock overlooking the waterfall. “Tell me. Please.”
“I do not know the words to explain,” she said after many long minutes. She held her hands out, looking at her wrists. “So much has changed. There is so much I do not know. So much I do not understand. All I ever knew was slavery. All I ever knew was the arenas. The only person I ever had I could trust with my life was Doom.”
The wolflen growled deep in his chest. “You and Doom-Not-Demon…you were slaves? Someone thought to own you?” She nodded, unlacing the bracers to reveal the dreadful scars and discolored flesh. He touched them with great tenderness. “I have seen slave wounds in humans. I have seen many, many types of wounds. But I have seen nothing like these.”
“Our former master stole us from our homes in the Southern Wildlands when we were children. I lost my memory from injuries I had gotten.” The more she told him, the more upset he became, his long fangs bared, though his touch on her wrists remained gentle. “He mutilated Doom by taking his horns and wings, then mocked him by putting them on his dog. Then he…then he…” She clenched her fists, turning away. “He put magic in me that chained my natural abilities. I did not even know I was a shape-shifter until a dragon removed the magic poisoning me.”
“Is this man dead?” he demanded, the fur on his spine perpendicular to his backbone. “Did he suffer for the evils he had done?” She shook her head. “He yet lives?! Why?”
“Because we could not kill him. When I defied him and threw off his spell compelling me to kill in the arena, he beat me until I was on death’s edge. But I was still alive when Doom came for me. Barely. Even he thought I was
going to die and escaped just so I would be free when I did…except I didn’t die.” She started to turn away in shame, but he pulled her against him instead, holding her fiercely tight. “Our former master believes we are both dead. He will not come here and endanger your people.”
“I know he won’t because I know neither you nor Doom-Not-Demon would stay if it might endanger any of us. I worry more about you, Cat-Sister,” Tracker murmured. “To know your tormentor lives is a terrible burden to bear. But you are safe here. If your pack-brother is not here to protect you, I will stand in his place.” He looked hurt and worried when she pushed away from him, turning away. “Am I not enough?”
“I am not enough!” she almost wept. “I have more than I had ever dreamed of having. I never even knew what I did not have until Doom escaped with me. I have no master. I have no chains. No poisoned magic taints me. I have Doom. I have you. People accept me here. I have a home.” He drew back, eyes wide in shock when she turned to him abruptly, her face wet with atypical tears. “Why does it still feel like someone cut a hole in me?! Why?” She grabbed the sides of her head, falling to her knees and screaming in agony and frustration. “What is wrong with me?”
Tracker knelt, perplexed and afraid for her. Finally, she let him pull her hands away from her head and hold her. He stroked her hair soothingly as she clung to him. He stared out into the distance, not knowing what else to do.
DOOM LOOKED AT the house for several moments, his expression both troubled and relieved. “Everything looks normal,” he said in a low voice to himself. As he took the few prey he was able to find to the slaughter shed to put away, he shook his head sharply. “So why do I still have this nagging feeling something is horribly wrong?” Pausing at the door into the house, he squinted at the forge, thin tendrils of smoke rising from the chimney, not the heavy plumes when the bellows breathed into the forge. “Strange. I don’t hear any hammering.” He detoured to head to the forge before even bothering to put his gear away.
“Kerk?” Doom called, concern in his voice. “Are you all right? I didn’t hear your hammer on the—” He blinked. “Pack Leader?” He looked towards the street but saw no others. “Where is the rest of your hunting pack?”
The wolflen inclined his head in greeting. “Doom-Not-Demon. It is good to see you home safe.” He straightening away from the wall he had been leaning on. Kerk, half seated on a bench, stood as well so he could turn towards the gromek. “I came alone. My business today was a private, personal matter.”
“Tiwaz has been…” Kerk’s voice drifted off, shaking his head mournfully. “She has not been doing well while you’ve been gone.”
“Ti is sick?” the gromek asked in alarm, turning to head back to the house. He stopped when Pack Leader caught him by the arm to stop him. He met the wolflen’s eyes for a moment and turned back. “What’s wrong?”
“My son tells me an emptiness in her heart torments her,” he stated with gravity in his tones. “Smith and I both have seen the terrible sadness that can overwhelm a soul. It has affected wolflen, humans, every race.” He crossed his arms, his expression troubled. “This is something more. Tracker said he does not believe she has told you the extent of her torment. It shames her deeply.”
Doom walked over to the rack where several unfinished items of Tiwaz’s rested, touching one lightly. “The emptiness? She still feels it? I thought when the glyphs were removed, once we found a home…” He slammed his fist into the shelf support, rattling everything and putting several cracks in the wood. “I should have known something more was wrong than just trying to acclimate to freedom and a place strange to us. Damn it all, I’m an idiot.”
“No, you are not,” Kerk scolded the towering gromek. “Just because you’re the biggest person in Bralden don’t make you the oldest or most experienced. That you and Tiwaz did as well as you had on your own is a testament to your stubbornness, but as you said, freedom is hard.” He hit his chest with a fist. “I know. I had been there, remember? And I will be the first to admit, I didn’t have it nearly as hard as either of you.”
“But I should have known something was wrong. We’ve known each other longer than we hadn’t. I promised I would always be here for her when she needed me and I wasn’t.” In growing frustration, he punched the support again. He winced at his momentary lack of self-control when he cracked the support and collapsing the shelves in on themselves. Forcing himself to calm, he asked, “Where is she?”
“We do not know.” Pack Leader sighed. “For the past several days, she has not come to the village for lessons. Tracker seeks her out because he worries about her and pack-mates take care of each other. She told my son she had work to do today in the forge, so she would not be coming for hunting lessons. Shaman said because of her reasons for wanting to learn to hunt, to miss so much training was against her nature. He believes something is very wrong. I came to speak to her about our concerns.” He frowned. “But when I arrived, she was not here.”
“And that made me worried.” Kerk knelt, picking up the fallen items to avoid Doom’s fearsome visage. Knowing the gromek was not angry with him did not make his appearance any less unnerving. “She had left the house little before dawn just as I was waking up. Said she had to leave early to go with Tracker to check traps.” He and Pack Leader traded paternal, concerned expressions. “Seems she lied to both of us.”
“Ti lied?” Doom whispered in stunned disbelief. “She never lies. Not convincingly.”
“It was not convincing,” both Pack Leader and Kerk stated in unison.
Kerk explained, “She’s usually been going places to brood and Tracker had sought her out when she did not arrive on time.”
“I am here because neither I nor Shaman believed her,” the wolflen chieftain pointed out. “She is pack-kith to my son. He would know if something was wrong.”
The men looked up as Tracker ran into the doorjamb to stop his headlong run. “Cat-Sister,” he panted, straightening. He looked to Doom, his worry mirroring the gromek’s. “Left Bralden.” The others reacted with dismay and alarm.
“Do you know which direction she went?” Tracker nodded, still breathing heavily. Doom moved towards the door. “Show me. I have to close as much distance as I can before sunset.” The gromek scowled when Pack Leader got in front of the pair. “I need to find her!”
Pack Leader looked to his son. “I assume she left at dawn.” Tracker nodded to the implied question. “It is now late afternoon. Even if you leave now and catch up to her, you will need to rest before making the return journey. But she has learned well. You will need help to locate her.”
“So? Tracker was coming with me, right?” The younger wolflen nodded, standing up straight despite breathing heavily. Still, Pack Leader blocked them from leaving. “We’re wasting time standing here!” the gromek growled.
“You need supplies, Doom-Not-Demon,” the older wolflen pointed out patiently. “You only just returned from your journey. Tracker has nothing with him.” He looked to his son. “Tell me where you saw her trail.” When the younger wolflen had, the elder turned and howled long and loud. Answering howls echoed throughout the town.
Doom looked quizzically at Tracker when the younger wolflen visibly relaxed. “Doom-Not-Demon and Cat-Sister part of tribe. One of family. Tribe helps.”
“You looked beyond surface differences and found deeper similarities between all who live in Bralden,” Pack Leader stated, gaze turned towards the sky. “When we look at you, we see you not for what we imagined you were, but for what you truly are.” The chieftain looked at Doom. “Children who needed a family.”
Tracker put his hand over his heart. “Tribe is family.” Both wolflen looked up as the howls resumed. Perplexed humans emerged from homes and shops, looking around in bewilderment, recognizing the urgency in the tones, but ignorant of the specifics.
“Go to the edge of town where you will leave from,” Pack Leader instructed the two. “Snow Star’s pack will meet you there with gear and suppli
es to last several days if necessary.” He stepped out of their path. “Now go. Find your pack-sister.” The pair needed no further encouragement.
AS THE SUN began to touch the edge of the distant mountain range, exhaustion finally forced Doom and Tracker to stop and rest. Taking shelter beneath the limbs of a weeping evergreen, they shared some jerked meat, lost in their own thoughts. Tracker looked at Doom as the gromek whispered, “Ti, why are you doing this?”
“Maybe had to,” Tracker offered, his words slow and measured.
“Had to?” Doom demanded with a scowl. “Why would she have to leave? Who would make her?” His hand tightened so much around his worn quarterstaff his green knuckles turned pale white. “Who? So I can kill them for hurting her!”
“Not who. What.” Tracker frowned, trying to find the human words. He thumped his chest over his heart. “Heart pain. So great Tracker feel echo when touched her. Not right. Not normal. Cat-Sister upset. Not understanding why feel empty when now free of master.”
Doom’s rage drained away, staring at the wolflen. “She told you about our past?” Tracker nodded. The scowl returned. “You believe our former master did this to her?”
“Tracker…not know. Maybe done to Cat-Sister. Maybe because what done. None like Cat-Sister. Shaman not even knowing truth of shape-shifters. Only story of one from days of fifth chieftain. Sire twentieth chieftain. Cat-Sister very alone.”
Doom opened his mouth to argue about being as alone as Tiwaz, then realized a painful truth. “She can’t remember anything about her own race. Alimar mutilated my body so I would never be accepted by my own people, but I remember them. He stole so much more when he took her memory.” He uttered an anguished sound. “Why didn’t I realize—?”
“Not your fault. Not fault of anyone. Cat-Sister hides hurts,” Tracker interrupted. “She believes protecting Doom-Not-Demon. Believes she is failure not understanding why not happy. Tracker think her pain made worse trying to hide from us because she feels shame not stronger.” He continued sadly, “Tracker seen this shame before. Lost brother to such shame and deep sadness.”