“Oh, no, that I do concur,” Astral replied. “But, believe it or not, Life and Mana play a greater role in this world than any of us knows. Mana Energy is what aided your wounds to heal, allowed your Life Energy to replenish so quickly.”
“I’m as tough as leather, I am, yeah,” said Dwain. “The Goddess’s blessin’ – all ‘round.”
It was Astral’s turn to snort – a deep porcine rumble, at that. “And how do you think the Goddess divvies up her blessings?”
“She blesses those who’ve proven themselves worthy, yeah,” said Dwain.
“Hmm. And what divides a mammal who is worthy from a mammal who is not?”
“Servitude, o’course.”
“Hah. Radical devotion, you mean?”
“If’n that means the same thing, yeah.”
At that moment, a familiar huckleberry scent tickled Regina’s nostrils, perking her from a slowly drifting state. She sat upright, taking sweeping gazes around where sycamore trees rustled in the wind, guarding over shrubs and berry bushes. The path before them started to peter off in favour of an old fallen oak tree that spanned across what would seem like a great chasm to any tiny skunk.
We’re at the old culvert, she realized. “Mister Ages, are we nearly there?”
“Whooaaa now, Phalanx. Take care, old boy.” Astral reeled on one of the reins and started to guide their caravan across the culvert with slow and cautious clops. “Soon, my dear. This fallen tree has been a bridge to Keeto Town for an elder’s age, but I worry of the day when it shall splinter beneath my very robes…”
Regina swallowed hard and peered over the edge of the narrow armrest to listen out for if the bridge groaned and creaked beneath their wheels.
Astral grabbed at the hem of her poncho in fruitless attempts to pull Regina back into her seat. “Don’t go falling out of your seat now! Last thing any of us needs. Oh bother, stop that, you’ll go right over the edge!”
“We nearly there then, yet, yeah?” Dwain asked. Regina couldn’t tell whether it was the vibrancy of impatience in his voice that was making the cart vibrate, or the woody knots and crevices of ancient-old tree bark that their wheels rolled over.
Astral didn’t answer, now too focused on getting them safely across to the other side of the culvert. Regina looked behind her, past Dwain’s scrutinizing gaze, and watched as the road became swallowed up by the forest the farther their cart went along.
Dwain brushed past her to tug on Astral’s shoulder. “Oi, then!”
“Ack, stop that!” Astral swatted at him without looking back. “We’re very nearly there, but if you don’t mind, to keep me from toppling us over the edge, I suggest you get your spines away from my ears, lad!”
Dwain grumbled and drew away from him slightly. “So how far, then?”
But Astral ignored him until the horrid racket of wood creaking jittery across dead and weathered bark eventually faded against new sounds of crunching gravel. Astral let out a deep sigh of relief and let his shoulders relax. “Just a little ways, now. Not far. The father sun will sift among the clouds another thirty minutes before we reach Keeto Town. We will arrive at the city gates by noon, I promise you.”
“Aye then.” Dwain retreated from Astral’s ear and ruffled Regina’s headfur. She giggled and touched at his paws before he drew away to settle back against the potato sack. “Wake me when we get there, yeah?”
They came to a jut in the road, where sycamore branches spilled out like they were waving hullo to the trio of travellers. Astral did his best to push the branches away from scratching his face or stealing his hat right off his head. “Nngf. Oh, bother. Every blasted time.”
Phalanx uttered a little braying chuckle.
“Oh, that’s quite enough,” Astral said. “I feed you to keep your eyes on the road, not provide a commentary!”
Regina gazed longingly into the forest, dreaming of what Keeto Town must be like. The idea of great adventure ahead was both a frightening and exhilarating thought. She wondered who all would be waiting for them, rushing forward with arms open wide and songs of reunion.
She thought of her mother, waiting for their arrival at Keeto Town’s gates, with arms wide open. Warmth bloomed in Regina’s heart. The thought brought a smile to her lips.
“Oh, bother … Whoa, Phalanx. Slow down, boy.”
The cart came to a sudden crawl, jostling Regina in her seat with such force, she nearly flipped headlong beneath the wheels. “Mister Ages – ow! What’s happening?”
“Oi then, what’s going on up there?!” Dwain shouted from behind. “We can’t be there already, yeah!”
Regina looked up. He was right. Past Phalanx’s ear, something had suddenly appeared in the road, a good distance away. She squinted, trying to make out what exactly they rode towards – but her near-sightless eyes betrayed her once again for blurry smears and globs of shapeless shadows.
“Regina, whatever you do, don’t move, don’t say a word. Leave everything to me.” The words spilled from Astral’s lips in a firm whisper. Whatever it was in the road, the fear in his tone did not stray, and caused Regina’s flesh to rise. “Stay below the edge of the frame. Dwain, lay flat and pull the blankets over yourself.”
“Wot, but why?”
“Just do it,” Astral snapped at him.
Regina did as she was told without question. The stench of unwashed fur and dander petered into her nostrils like a choking musk, vanquishing the tranquility of fir needles, huckleberries, and fresh, windy air. As Phalanx hedged forward still along the stony path, the blurry obstacle slowly started to take form in her gaze.
“Stop,” a new voice sang on the wind at a distance. “Stop right there.”
Astral murmured Phalanx to halt. The mule shuddered, but slowly came to a stop a safe distance before what turned out to be a trio of mammals in the middle of the road. Regina squinted at them. There was a great burly black bear, a lean and wiry meerkat, and a short fat rodent – a muskrat, maybe. They all wore leathered tunics and britches that matched the colours of the forest.
“Hullo there!” The meerkat called out, grinning with paws folded behind his back. There didn’t seem to be a care in the world for him. He gestured at Astral and said, almost embarrassed, “Err—Reins out of your, err, hoofs, please. If you will.”
Astral did as he was asked, with Phalanx braying confused and afraid. “It’s all right, old boy. It’s all right.”
When the meerkat seemed satisfied, the grin returned and he continued speaking. “We would greatly love to have a word with you. An exchange of ideas, mayhaps. Jonas?”
“Onnit, Doane.” The black bear to the right of the meerkat shifted more into view to reveal a loaded bow and arrow gripped between his giant claws. He wiped under his nose with the back of his arm, and raised the weapon up, aiming his readied arrow directly at Astral.
“Don’t guffin’ move,” said Doane, the meerkat, to Astral. He winked. “Not even your little curly tail.”
Regina gasped. Those are vandal-hearts…!
“I’ve lived in these woods longer than any of you’ve even drawn breath,” Astral said with slow, calculated, words. “My niece and I are but humble hermits of the forest. We mean you no trouble, we offer nothing but vegetables and the clothes on our backs. We are a waste of time to you. Please, let us through.”
“Your niece?” This seemed to interest Doane a great deal. He grinned Regina’s way. “That your niece? Never have I seen a pig that looks so much like a skunk before! Though, pigs and skunks stink of droppings all the same, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter then – does it? Well, now … She a pretty little thing, she is…”
Regina shuddered. “Are – are you with the canines?”
“Regina, no, stay quiet!” Astral hissed.
Doane’s brow furrowed. “Canines? No canines ‘round these parts, love. Just us – and you lot – and all the lovely treasures there in your cart. Regina.”
“These are Alliance-sanctioned lands, need I re
mind you,” Astral stated, firm. “Slay and rob us, the Keeton Woods won’t hide your treachery for long.”
The air creaked under the tension of Jonas the black bear’s drawn and trembling bowstring. The muskrat to Doane’s left licked salty lips, rocking with impatience in his little leather boots. Doane’s grin widened while his cohorts remained rigid – ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Malice dripped from his tongue as he spoke.
“Ain’t no Alliance scum ‘round these parts to protect you, neither.”
12. The Essence of Life and Mana
Regina swallowed hard, looked up at Astral for any hope – any sort of response. But he was a statue of rigid terror.
Doane snapped his digits. “Taylor, go and see what treasures have come our way.”
“Gladly, yeah.” The muskrat drew a long and greasy tongue over chapped and blackened lips. “An old pig and a little skunk named Regina. Regina. That’s a pretty name. Pretty name for a pretty skunk. Easiest pickings we’ve ever head, eh, Doane?” He drew a wide dagger free from a scabbard hanging above his tailbone, and started towards the cart on slow steps. “Pig, she sprays me face, I’ll gut her wide open, get me?”
“Don’t do this,” Astral begged them. “Please. We’ve got nothing to—”
Thh’wck!
Astral cringed against a sudden force that threw him against the cart’s bench seat. A pained groan left his lips as he fruitlessly tried to grip around the black bear’s arrow, now buried deep into his chest. He sagged forward in his seat, tried to reach for Phalanx’s reins, but fell side-long out of the cart and collapsed motionless in the dirt.
“Mister Ages, no!” Regina dove across the bench to go after him, when suddenly someone grabbed her by the tail. She swung around with a sharp yelp, and fell hard onto her back, nearly knocking the wind from her lungs. Taylor the muskrat towered over her, grinning down with wild, feral, eyes.
“C’mere, pretty Regina.” Drool rolled down his lips in thin strands that pattered against the wooden bench. He drew Regina closer with another hard yank on her tail. Pain raked across her backside as he dragged her towards the edge of the bench seat. The serrations of his dagger glinted hungry in the sunlight. “Let’s see what treasures you lot have offered to us!”
“Let me go!” Regina kicked and thrashed at him. He found great amusement in this, and only started laughing even more. He wrangled Regina by the front of the poncho and dragged her completely off the bench seat, despite the rich scent of skunk fear on the wind. With a strong grip on the wood frame, he leaned out the side of the cart in a sweeping arc, with Regina squirming in mid-air and screaming for help at the top of her lungs.
“Lookie here, fellas! She’s a feisty one!” Taylor cried out. “How old, ya think? Wonder if the underground will take her?”
“They won’t take her so long as she reeks like that,” Doane said, clamping a paw over his muzzle. “It’s a gland, I think, that’s how it happens. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
Taylor pulled Regina in close and grinned deep into her terrified gaze. “Well then … we’ll just have to cut it out of you, won’t we?”
“Please, no!” Regina sobbed. “Please—”
“Oh, Goddess, just kill her already,” sighed Jonas as he thoroughly inspected a terrified Phalanx Andromedon head to toe. “Can’t stand screamers. So unsightly.”
“Lyla will love to hear those words outta your mouth. Those‘re words that get you killed on yer wedding night,” said Doane.
“Lyla knows how I feel about children. Disgusting little beasts.”
“And lose out on a bloodline? Risky talk, there, old boy.”
“I’m sure it’ll be a happy marriage.” Jonas tilted Phalanx’s chin, studying the visible veins in the mule’s neck that pressed out against his grey tufts. “I dunno ‘bout this one, boys. He’s a bit old. What’d’ya say? Work? Trade? Or eat?”
“Been a while since breakfast. I could go for some stew,” Doane said.
Phalanx let out a sharp bray of horror, and bit the air centimetres away from the black bear’s groping claw.
Taylor sniggered at this. He turned his attention back to the cart, reached for the blanket that kept the cart’s precious goods hidden.
Then in a flash, Dwain erupted forth from beneath the cover. He lunged at Taylor, and like a maddened mammal, sank his teeth deep into the muskrat’s neck as they both fell hard to the dirt. Regina flew out of Taylor’s grasp, hitting the ground with such force, the wind blew right out of her lungs like a great bellows.
She pushed up onto her paws. The world was spinning. It felt as though somebody had put an axe right through her head. The sound of feral scuffling sounded somewhere behind her. Heavy footfalls thudded towards her, but Regina had enough sense left in her aching head to muster enough strength to scramble beneath the wagon, where safety awaited.
But a sharp pain ripped her backwards through the dirt. Someone had her by the tail again. Screaming and crying for help, Regina dug her claws into the earth, but the sheer force was enough to break her digits off at the wick.
“Let go of me!!” She unleashed the wrath of her fear upon the assailant then, and scrambled further beneath the safety of the wagon, with Jonas howling and retching. She turned, saw him stumble away cursing and swearing, but beyond saw Dwain upon the fallen muskrat, though their bodies were mostly obscured by the edge of the wagon.
The stench of copper was thick on the air. Regina turned her head. Out the opposite end of the wagon, she saw Astral lay on his side, in the dirt with his back facing her. As much as Regina wanted to yell out to him, prayed for him to move, he didn’t budge, even a mite. Astral was motionless. Lifeless. The old porcine who had gone through all the trouble to save Regina and Dwain from the certain doom of canines, had now landed them in the middle of further carnage.
Caused by wheda.
Wheda, who kill other wheda.
How did such a thing make any sense to the mother goddess? How could She have let such an impossible thing come to pass? Astral lay there in the dirt as dark ruby Life Energy pooled under him, just like Regina’s father. her chest tightened, and she cried out for Astral. For her papa. For the awful end she and Dwain faced to an even worsened story. Blood trickled down a pebble-guided track from Astral’s body, towards Regina’s nose. The wind of the forest tugged at the loose ends of his ruined robes.
And for this madness, for this thing that made no sense to Regina, her saviour and mentor Astral Ages had lost his life. All for taking her and Dwain to Keeto Town, just like they’d asked him to.
“Augh, droppings, she got me in the eyes!” A thunderous thump! sounded overhead as Jonas knocked sidelong into the wagon. The sheer force of his weight slamming down against the frame sent Phalanx screaming. Screeching agony filled Regina’s ears then, and sunlight drew overhead as clouds of dirt and grit clouded into her mouth and up her nose.
“Doane! Get him! Get – No, get out of the way!”
Regina looked up just in time to witness the rear of the cart fade into the sheen of the blurred horizon. Somebody screamed in the distance, and the cart thumped up on one side for a brief moment, before completely vanishing into the nothingness of unforgiving skunk vision.
Dwain … Dwain!
Where’s Dwain..?
When Regina tried to cry out to him, her voice went short with choking coughs from all the grit caught in her throat. She struggled up onto her paws and knees and glanced back in the direction of scuffling, where Dwain and Taylor rolled around in the dirt. Dwain seemed to have the upper hand now; every time Taylor went to grapple him, he grabbed a fistful of quills. The knife blade glinted upright in the sun. Dwain clung around the hilt, pushing with all his might to force the weapon away from his face. He bit Taylor on the arm. With a loud howl of pain, the muskrat’s digits sprung wide open, granting access to his knife.
And that’s when Regina heard it.
Agu … na’fraata …
Ghin …
Mohchta … na …
Soft words on the trail of the wind. They were barely there, invisible like the air all around. The words were low, so quiet in fact they were inaudible to even Regina’s sensitive little ears. The thin trail of blood from before now trickled between her dusty paw digits. She looked up; following the trail went all the way back to Astral.
It was his voice.
Those were his words.
Regina gasped, pulled herself through the dirt towards him. “Ages … Mister Ages…”
“Hey now, where do you think you’re going, little stinking wretch?!” A shadow spilled over the earth before Regina’s eyes. She rolled onto her side, squinting into a the glinting eyes of a towering black bear.
Jonas came at her on swift heels that swallowed any chance Regina had at escape in storming shadow. She had just enough time to scramble up onto her paws and knees before pain like no other struck her in the ribs – a force like a whirling sack of concrete, a dervish in the wind – sent her tumbling to the other side of the road with all the wind in her now-deflated lungs, gushing past the little skunk’s silent-screaming lips like a hard pump off a fireplace bellows.
Regina strained to breathe, but there was nothing to take in. Each breath was cut short with a stabbing pain that left her gasping in short, sobbing, desperate beats for air.
Agu … na’fraata …
Ghin …Mohchta …na’fraata …
Astral came into view, his body swam in Regina’s poor vision, dancing around and around with a thousand blinking stars. She shook her head, and the muddled sight solidified a bit. He struggled to roll onto his back, muttering away a litany of unknown words. But all Regina could think of was how through all of this, Astral’s hat somehow dared not to detach from his head.
Thump ... Thump …
Jonas drew into sight, each footfall a deafening crack upon the earth. Regina struggled with all her might to shout at Astral, to warn him – but a sharp jab to the ribs sent her reeling, twisting in agony.
All time slowed. Jonas snarled Regina’s way before furious eyes dropped to the sight of Astral, hovering between the frays of life and death. Jonas produced his bow once more. The creak of a fresh arrow in the yew was loud, jarring, like claws on ceramic.
The Book of Wind: Page 9