Regina really pondered the question. They could brave the streets, try to wrangle the attention of whomever would listen – while risking a chance of getting trampled or pushed around and lost from each other. She shook her head and concentrated, feeling the muscles of her brow all knit together.
Then Elder Rombard’s porcine face wavered into her mind’s eye.
“What about the Elder’s house?” she asked. “Maybe they can help us.”
“The Elder’s house?” Dwain scratched at the spines on the top of his head. “Does Keeto Town have an Elder?”
“I don’t know.”
“They must, if Altus did,” Dwain said. “One way to find out. I’ll be back, yeah.”
And with that, he stepped out into the crowd to harass whoever he could pin prick. Regina watched as a pawful of passing wheda completely ignored Dwain as he vied for their attention. A couple others shook their heads, possibly confused or unable to hear him over the sound of the busy street.
And then a maiden with her betrothed stopped as soon as she saw him waving his arms around like a lunatic. Regina drew a few paces forward, strained her ears to listen.
“Oi! Allo! Oi! Hi! Which street’s the elder’s house on?”
The maiden and her betrothed exchanged looks. She crouched down to Dwain’s level to converse, but her voice was swallowed up by a loud ruckus down the road – confetti and what sounded like sparkler fireworks went off, followed by a loud cheering. The maiden’s betrothed tugged her arm, dragging her to a stand, as she still spoke to Dwain – and then they both were gone, headed towards whatever all the excitement was about.
Dwain scampered back to Regina. Excitement glinted in his eyes. A wild little giggle was on his lips. In all their time together, this was the first that her friend looked genuinely gleeful – happy – a bounding look of awe and wonder, as if the Harvest Festival was surely upon them.
“C’mon, Reggie!” He grabbed Regina by the paws and pulled her into the street with such lustre that she was afraid her footpads would touch air and her poncho would bloom out and carry her wind-bound, like a kite.
“Where – Dwain! Where are we going?!”
“I know where the Elder lives, yeah!”
And down the street they went, cutting through the hips and legs of anyone and everyone around without even thinking to excuse themselves. And despite all her protests and complaints, Regina’s voice went ignored as Dwain kept a firm chin skyward, scanning and studying for landmarks – in lieu of being unable to read the street signs – yanking her in all different directions before her poor little legs could think to keep up.
They made a sharp turn into a narrow, shadowy, street alley. Only a handful of mammals loitered here, smoking squatting against the alleyway walls. As Dwain dragged Regina forward, she met the eyes of a sullen feline drawing towards them, puffing away on a rolled cigarette with paws jammed into his trouser pockets. He knocked past them without even excusing himself.
A chill of fear rippled through Regina. “Are – are you sure the Elder lives down here? Maybe we should go back…”
“Don’t be silly, Reggie, I know what the lady back there tol’ me, yeah. Turn at the steepled chapel and make a hard left when ye can’t go straight no more, and we did jus’ that, yeah.”
A double door entrance jutted out into the left-pawed side of the street, deep within the murky alleyway. Regina braved a glance about her and found that the door they’d come across was the only entryway in sight within this alley.
Back in Altus Village, Elder Rombard lived on a court-shaped street near the centre of town, surrounded by other homes of friends and relatives. His home wasn’t large, nor fancy, in fact you couldn’t much tell it apart from any other house in Altus. The teachings of Mother Azna declared that no mammal was greater than another mammal, that all mammals were made equal, and no mammal should fail to provide equity to others in need. Elder Rombard lived by these teachings like they were his sworn duty.
This place, however, was dark, and rotting, tucked away like a shameful blight from the rest of Keeto Town. This was a place where foul-smelling wheda hung about. What sort of Elder could live in such a horrid place, unless he or she of course took Mother Azna’s laws of humility to such extremes?
“Come on,” Dwain urged. With a firm tug on her wrist, he led Regina up the steps of the double doors and through the threshold.
Regina kept close to Dwain, clinging tight around his arm as they entered into a dimly-lit hall, where grownup wheda who stank more of ale and wine than they did of their natural musks met their gazes at every pace. “Dwain … Dwain, I don’t think this is the Elder’s house…”
“Wot? ‘Course it is. I know where I’m goin’ yeah.” However, something in Dwain’s voice betrayed him.
A broad archway appeared at the end of the hall. Silver daylight seeped across the bottom edge of the threshold, out towards the kits. Regina squinted until the muscles around her eyes started to ache, as she tried to make out the garbled details of what may or may not be waiting for them, ahead. “Where are we going?”
“Beyond the door? I see a real long table, like. Lots o’ stools. Dunno, mebbe this is his meetin’ room, yeah. There’s more folk ahead, I can smell ‘em fierce.”
Regina sniffed the air and sifted through a mix of reeking odours similar to that of which the mammals out in the alleyway gave off. Flexing nostrils gave way to the choking scent of duskroot; foods like salt-covered nuts, pickled eggs; as well as that of rich oak, thick with dust. There were five or six other mammals in her nose. The clean scent of feline – three of them. The unmistakable wretchedness of a raccoon – just one – the sweet smell of skunk, and a stinky, sickly, pig.
“You smell the pig?” Dwain asked. “That’s got ter be him, yeah.”
Regina swallowed hard and hoped that was the Elder they could smell. She squeezed her clasp around Dwain’s claw.
He squeezed back on her paw, and together, they passed through the archway. Regina’s vision solidified on a long serving bar that curved against the back wall in a sort of semi-circular shape. From behind it, a tall and slender tabby cat stepped into view. Regina couldn’t help but notice that she had orange headfur like a frizzy dandelion. The tabby folded twig-like arms across her apron-clad chest as she regarded the kits. A confused, speculative, expression formed upon her face.
“Why – allo there, loves. Lost, are ye?”
Somebody coughed. Regina looked past Dwain and saw that they were being stared at by two other felines sitting at the bar down a ways, hunched over their glasses. The burlier of the two wore a thick coat and a toque. Regina wondered if he was a fishermammal. He sneered at her, took a deep sip from his drink. He smelled dangerous.
Her eyes skipped across the passage of silver daylight, left by the rain, that seeped in through a narrow window high up on the wall at the far end of the room. A cluster of about five round tables held the further wary stares of a raccoon, whose back initially faced the children – and the sickly old pig who sat in the back-most corner. He spluttered over a fresh coughing fit, spilling the contents of his raised drink all down his arm and the tabletop.
They had entered a tavern, Regina realized. A tavern not unlike the Scythe and Stone. This place was remarkably smaller – which seemed odd, considering Keeto Town was a much larger place than Altus Village ever was. She shivered, tugged on the elbow of Dwain’s tunic, but he ignored her, semi frozen to the spot. The smell of fear permeated off his pores like summer sweat.
“We’s uh – we’s lookin’ fer the Elder, yeah.”
“But, you’re already here, love,” said the tabby behind the bar, confused.
Regina tugged harder on Dwain’s elbow. This time he snapped out of it and looked down at her. “Wot, Reggie?”
“I want to go back to Astral and Phalanx.”
“Oi, you stinkin’ lot! These sods belong to any of you?” asked the tabby to the room. A low rumble filled the air from each of the patrons –
all uttering low-voiced No’s. A door by the window, semi-hidden by the shoulder of the other felines, creaked open as another mammal stomped through. The tabby yelled to him: “Tommy, there! You know these kits?”
“Nuh, Muriel. Never seen ‘em before in me loif,” he said without even looking at them. He settled down at the curve of the bar and tossed his cap aside. “Gimme a whisky, then. Oi, Francis, how ye been, ol’ bugger?”
The burly feline snorted into his glass with disdain. “Buggerin’ yer sister, that’s how, mate.”
Muriel wrinkled her nose with disgust at them. She glanced to Dwain and Regina and then called over her shoulder into a window into the kitchen behind her shoulder. “Oi, Danny-boy! Fetch us some milk – two glasses, yeah?”
“We serving minors now, yeah?” rumbled the raccoon from where he sat. “When this place become an orphanage?”
Muriel glared at him. “Quiet down, Hansel. Drink your mead and mind your business. Shan’t turn away a pair o’ lost little lambs, shall we? What sort of mother would I be, then?”
“As long as I’m payin’, I’ll say what I please.”
“Then consider yourself cut off.” That silenced him. Muriel patted the surface of the bar. “Come on, pips, hop up an’ have a seat. Be with you in just’a tick.”
She turned away to pour the new patron’s drink, and vanished out of sight to go serve him.
Regina gave Dwain a disapproving look. But he, seemingly feeling less afraid than before, gestured her to follow his lead. They climbed up onto the bar stools, just as two skunk paws carrying tall glasses of goats milk appeared by the window into the kitchen, clacking them down onto the sill with care. The paws withdrew, followed by a hoarse fit of coughing. A bell jangled from within.
This cued Muriel the barkeep to return to Dwain and Regina. She served them their glasses of milk with a bright smile. “Drink up, then, loves. It’s morning fresh. Now – ye say ye were lookin’ for the Alder, and here ye found us. What in the world can the Tavern of the Fallen Alder do for o’coupla lost little kits, then, yeah?”
17. The Retainers
The milk was warm and refreshing to Regina – who didn’t realize just how thirsty she actually was until that very moment. They’d been through so much that day as it was, that the notions of thirst or hunger simply didn’t seem to exist within the boundaries of traumatic reality. She could feel her eyes grow heavy with ease, but snapped awake when words Astral uttered once before suddenly came to mind:
…From here on in, you both are in great danger…
…Take great care in who you speak to…
Dwain guzzled down the last of his glass and slapped it down onto the bar top with an audible gasp of satisfaction. He wiped milky residue from his muzzle with the back of his sleeve, and nestled into his seat, sitting upright and confident, now. Muriel seemed amused by this, leaning into the both of them with her cheek nestled against a fist, elbow balanced upon the bar top.
But Regina could feel all the eyes on them. She dared a peek and found that the two felines and their friend, at the end of the bar, were watching them. They seemed filled with suspicion, as they quietly drank their concoctions and ate from an available bowl of shelled nuts. The burly cat, in particular, seemed darkly interested the children. Regina looked behind her and found that the raccoon and the pig had gone back to their own business, sulking in the silent depths of the drunken mind.
“Canines attacked our village,” Dwain said. “Reggie and I’s is lookin’ fer our family, yeah.”
Shock befell Muriel then. “Bless me stars, you poor things…! Where ye from, then, yeah? Hewittstown? Places all over the map be goin’ up in flame these past few months…” She grasped for his paw and opened her mouth to speak when someone interrupted her.
“Ain’t no damned canines in Galheist, boy.” It was the burly feline, Francis. “Sure it ain’t one o’ yer dumb lot, set a firework in a back lot shed, yeah? Coverin’ up wit lies, ye are. Blamin’ the Zuut, as crazy as he is fer takin’ ‘em all in – he’d never send his dogs to kill the wheda he swore to protect.”
“It’s not a lie!” Regina snapped at him.
The sharp of her tongue surprised Dwain. It surprised even Regina, herself, but she remained steadfast in the declaration, and let herself glare at Francis until his own wretched glare scared off the little bit of her nerve that she clung to.
“It’s not a lie,” she said again, quietly this time, and brought the tall glass of goats milk to her lips with both paws.
“I’m sorry to hear your plight then, loves, but Francis is right, there,” Muriel confided to the two children. “There ain’t ever been no canines in Galheist.”
“That old Astral Ages tol’ us the same thing,” Dwain said with a scowl.
Muriel blinked at him. “Who then, love?”
“Astral Ages. He save’ me n’ Reggie when we came up the Blood Hills, yeah. They set our homes ablaze! Came into the streets from the moors, totin’ torches an’ fiery arrows – we know who we saw then, yeah! He tol’ us no way in scurvy hell did canines swim alla cross the ocean jus’ to attack Altus Village. So we’s come this way to find our families, and under the guidin’ justice of Alexia the Sage, we’ll—”
A sheen of ice filled the room at that very moment. The air became still, silent. None of the patrons, nor Muriel spoke a word. They’d all seemingly froze in mid-sip, mid-chew, mid-sentence.
No one even dared to utter breath.
All eyes were on the children, the orphans of Altus.
Dwain faltered, visibly nervous, now. “—reclaim … what was taken from us, yeah.”
The burly feline worked his lips around, pursed and loosened them, like he wasn’t sure what to say. The raccoon at the far table had pushed back in his chair, eying Regina in particular, glancing to Dwain, then back at her. His paw vanished past the chair’s backrest, grabbed for something at his hip. The old porcine at the table in the very back corner, however, barely paid attention, still focused on trying to sip his drink without spilling it all over himself. Even the kitchen cook narrowed his eyes out the slat in the wall.
Dwain continued.“—But we saw ‘em. Reggie and me, we - we saw ‘em canines, with our own…” The sense of unease was so thick that Dwain found himself stumbling over words. He glanced about as syllable after syllable slowly became less possible to form on his tongue. Finally, he too became quiet, though through confusion. He swallowed hard.
Regina noticed it, too.
A room full of grownups – and all of them was afraid.
“…Alexia the Sage, ye say?” Muriel retracted her paw from Dwain’s claw. She stepped back, rigid and frozen, eyes wide with semi-cognizant fright.
“Yeah.” Dwain glanced about again at the other patrons, confused by their reactions.
Regina’s stomach screamed danger at her, clanged her nerves about like pots and pans, until she started to shake. But she couldn’t move. Her own fear of what may happen glued her seat right to the barstool.
“So the rumours about Altus Village were true, then.” It was Francis who’d piped up. “That little commune of cultists, frontin’ like a happy li’l farming hamlet. Where Retainers plotted against all the good of the Goddess’ Son?”
“Wot?” Dwain blinked. He was too shocked by the statement – never mind the use of such adult words like “cultists” and “hamlet” and “Goddess’ Son” – to realize Regina’s relentless tugging at the elbow of his tunic.
“Dwain!” she whined at him. “Dwaaiiiin! I want to go back to Astral and Phalanx. I want to go back, now!”
Dwain shook his head at Francis’ accusation. “Wot? No – wot? We’s jus’ lookin’ fer our family, yeah, and—”
Francis pushed out of his barstool. His footpads touched the stone tile with a solid clack. His feline tail swished darkly to one side. “You gotta family then, the both of ye? Got a parents – and siblings, yeah?”
Dwain swallowed hard. “Me Ma and me Da, yeah. Me brothers, Tomme
n and Eddie. Me sister, too, August.”
Francis sneered Regina’s way. “And you, girl? What about you, then?”
Regina looked Francis in the eye. Slowly, she shook her head no.
“I’m speaking to you girl, you answer nicely when a grownup asks you a question. You got family, or don’t ye?”
“Leave her alone,” Dwain said, slowly.
The tavern rumbled like falling rocks under the snide chuckles of the other patrons. Francis, however, grinned and licked his chops hungrily, as hard-set feline eyes still feasted so heartily on Regina and Dwain. His tail swished darkly once more.
“He’s a brave one, that,” giggled the raccoon stupidly from across the room.
“Shut up, Hansel,” said Francis. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe away stray drops of whisky from the corner of his muzzle. He gripped the edge of the serving bar so tight, his claws seeped out from the soft, plump, tips of his paws and dug deep into the wood. “A brave one, indeed. Not like his kin. Not like his scum-sucking coward kin.”
“Fran—Francis, what ye doin there, mate?” Muriel the barkeep asked carefully.
“Mind yer stock, love. I’m clearing’ out the last of a rat’s nest,” he said with a sickly growl in his throat.
Francis started to wobble towards Dwain and Regina on slow steps, all the while using the edge of the bar as a guiding balance beam. He was so much taller than Regina had anticipated. He came towards them on slow heels, a fiery glare burning behind his flexing feline eyes. His two other companions rose as well. The raccoon gripped his chair’s backrest and pushed up to stand, but fell back into his seat, too drunk to move. He shook his head and waited to try again, ready to spring into action, if need be. It was then that Regina realized in his grip, a golden dagger glinted in the rays of silver sunlight through the tavern’s narrow window.
She yanked hard on Dwain’s arm. “I want to go,” she cried out at him, failing to overcome hyperventilation as frightened tears started to fall. “Now!”
“Get the girl before she sprays us all,” Francis growled to his companion, who stumbled past on hasty drunken heels.
The Book of Wind: Page 13