Of Wind and Waves - Chronicles of the First Age, Book One

by Nathan Quiring

  Ria

  The blind terror that quickly consumed her drove her on. It masked the mounting pain for what could have been hours or just minutes, but when it released its hold she collapsed into unconsciousness. When she awoke she was sure it had all been a horrible nightmare, until the acute pain in her skull brought it all back into terrible focus. The decapitated body of Pine, Fern in a pool of her own blood, the two pups in crumpled heaps; it was all far too real to be a dream.

  She tried to think of other things; what came next, how she would survive, but nothing could force those images from her mind. Then she remembered something else, something that had happened before. She had somehow understood the complex sounds the humans had made, or a few of them at least. It had shocked her at first but was quickly driven from her mind when the killing started. As she lay curled up on the ground it all rushed back, joining with other events of that morning to create a jumbled and confusing, yet imposing question. What was she?

  The uncertainty, unnerving though it was, allowed her mind to let the previous horror slide into her subconscious for the time being. All the pieces she had were still far from the whole picture and no matter how she rearranged them it was only ever enough to convince her there was something more.

  A small rock ledge jutted overhead, shading her from the afternoon sun as it lanced through the trees. The faint burble and chatter of nearby running water fixated her rambling consciousness on how terribly parched she was and she made for it without a second thought. The ache had set into her muscles and it was an effort to reach the source of the delicious sounds, but the pain felt good, like stretching after an unthinkably long nap.

  The water was cool and clean, just a thin trickle of a stream but plenty for one lost wolf. She took her time, enjoying the familiar sensation amidst so much confusion. Her slaked thirst, however, only served to emphasize her rapidly growing hunger.

  Hunting alone was drastically different from a pack hunt. A pack could go after just about anything but Ria would have to search for small animals; rabbits, foxes, squirrels, something she could take down herself. Animals of that size were always much more sneaky than the average rambling deer. They couldn’t run quite so fast, but she also didn’t have her pack to flank and cut off the prey, so in general, hunting alone was to be avoided. No avoiding it now though.

  The stream was likely the only source of water in the area so she padded silently upstream searching for a scent. It wound like a snake around slight inclines and tree roots for ages and she often caught glimpses of mice and other tiny creatures disappearing into invisible holes in the dark dirt before she finally caught a hint of something larger.

  Ria recognized the smell but couldn’t place it. Not fox, definitely not anything smaller, she continued forward a few feet then tried again. It was faint and mixed with so many other smells but finally she placed it and her heart sank. It was human scent. Surely in her mad escape she had adequately distanced herself from those two particular humans, but then again she could have slept for days without knowing the difference. She had to know for sure.

  Before she even caught sight of the grey-brown hair she knew it was him. The masked stench of madness was far too familiar and personal to be anyone else. The vivid scene of what he had done slid back into her head with a clarity that had less to do with the blood and death than it did the mad hatred he exuded. The paralyzing fear that had engulfed her on their last encounter was absent. In its place was a new sensation, one that felt strange and foreign yet so very natural. He must pay.

  Leif

  All his life he had been a wanderer, never staying more than a week or two in the same spot. Cal was searching for something, he said it was life he sought but Leif had come to disbelieve him. There was life everywhere and they always left it behind, often worse off than before they had come. They never stopped moving and Leif had come to accept that. He could probably never rid the longing for a home though, a place to rest and call his own, but he had learned to find a distant shadow of that within himself. It was where he went when life became too much; when his anger threatened to overcome him, when his father seemed to forget he was there, when he foolishly allowed his mind to dwell on his lost mother, he sunk into that secret part of himself and allowed all the pain and anger to flow through him and away.

  His simple talent for releasing control over things he had no control over in the first place was being thoroughly tested. He could have accepted the excuses his father gave for the village; it had been mostly his own fault, or even for going after the wolves, but what had happened afterwards was without reason. Cal hadn’t even tried to reconcile with Leif after that, they had barely spoken two words. He would find his center, his release. He had to, without it he would only become his father.

  That next afternoon they had stopped at a bare trickle of a stream to refill their canteens and Leif finally spoke.

  “Why did you do it?” It was so quietly spoken he wasn’t sure Cal had heard him, perhaps Leif hoped he hadn’t.

  “Needed to be done” Cal responded, his loud, abrupt growl perfectly contrasting Leif’s query.

  “I don’t believe you.” It was a struggle not to shout it. He would not become his father. Instead it came out as a hoarse whisper, steam forcing its way through the only vent.

  “Boy, I have pulled you out of more scrapes than you can even remember; I will not explain myself to my own son! I kill what tries to kill me, without hesitation or remorse. You better learn to do the same. That is the world we live in, what you don’t kill ends up killing you.”

  Leif was about to respond when he saw something that so sidetracked his thoughts that his emotionally charged retort simply fell from his mind.

  “Y-yes father.” He stuttered, barely conscious of the sound coming from his mouth.

  Just over the low hill behind them was a pair of bright green eyes; wolf eyes. The wolf they belonged to was the same one he had sent off before his father could butcher another animal. The moment his eyes caught hers he knew somehow it was a girl, and she vanished into the shadows of the surrounding bushes.

  The only possible explanation was that she was following them, and the only reason for that would be revenge, but that was ridiculous, she was a wolf. In all his many fights with wolves, most of which he now realized to be butchery, they had never acted outside of their natural instincts. They attacked only when humans got to close to their den or when they were starving and only in packs three or four strong. Even then they would scatter when it became apparent they had no chance, if his father let them, that is. This wolf was either mad or far more intelligent than it had a right to be.

  “Enough. Let’s go.”

  Cal’s gruff statement brought him back to the moment and he jerked to his feet, taking off after his already moving father.

  If she was hunting them he didn’t know what else he could do, they would probably have to kill her after all. It saddened him for a moment before he let it go, along with as much of the dormant anger he could reach, he would not become his father.

  Alec

  It was far more massive on the inside, and far more imposing and oppressive, and somehow even more constricting than the cage he had finally been released from. They led all the prisoners to a more open area of the bustling interior where they were lined up and told to wait. Alec looked up and down the line, close to fifty ragged and broken people shifted carefully and focused their eyes on the ground. They looked like people trying desperately not to be noticed. He had no chance of that ever happening.

  Alec felt a bit lighter after his long trip, whether that was just the relief of stretching to his full height or an indication of how much weight he had lost he didn’t really care. The important thing was finding a way out, or, better yet, a way up. If he could get in the good graces of whatever madman ran this place he might be able to kill him.

  He was still looking around, failing to find a chink in the fortress, when one of his fellow prisoners caught his eye.
She was just as ragged as the others, but she refused to act like it. She stood tall, her full five feet, if that, and gazed straight ahead. She was young, fifteen maybe, with long red-brown hair that framed a sharp, angular face that emphasized the full pink lips that neither pouted nor thinned in anger. She was beautiful.

  He was caught staring when the man began to speak.

  “Welcome to my kingdom!”

  The man was a giant, even compared to Alec. His thick black beard did nothing to muffle the rich deep voice that rolled out like honey, smooth and dark.

  “You are new here and as such know not the rules with which I govern. I am here to inform you, compris?”

  He stopped as if waiting for a response. When none was given except an upsurge in shuffling he continued as if he expected nothing less.

  “All start at the bottom as slaves. Those who show competence in any of a number of useful skills will work their way up. Some, however, will never be more than you are now. Here, in my kingdom, strength rules weakness and I see much weakness in you. This is good, the weak are needed just as much as the strong. They are needed to serve the strong. Without the week, what is strength? It is nothing, non? Now you will be assigned to your new homes. If you show yourself strong, you will be rewarded. If you try to escape, you will lose your place in my kingdom and will suffer that fate.

  For now you will address me as ‘My Lord’ and only when I ask you a question, though I doubt ever needing information from such as you. Taylor here will take care of you from now on.”

  With that the huge man departed, moving as smoothly as he spoke, almost, but not quite, dispelling the sense of immense strength and power that flowed from him. As he left, walking along the line toward the gates, he glanced along the captives and Alec had a feeling that the giant’s dark eyes lingered on him for a second longer than the others. He dispelled this feeling, knowing it was nonsense.

  In the giant’s place moved a tall, lanky man, made all the more gaunt in the wake of the giant. He had dark stubble from the top of his head to the bottom of his chin, reaching all the way up his cheekbones, adding an even darker shade to the ever present layer of grime that seemed to coat the entire fortress. The only exception was the giant.

  Taylor was silent most of the time, barking orders with a sharp precision that felt like a lightning strike from a clear sky. He organized them into groups; the more mature men, including Alec, went to the stone wall, the young girls and boys went to the massive metal and wood building situated in the center of the stone wall, and the rest of the girls, including the girl that had so fixated Alec, went somewhere else. He tried to catch a glimpse of where they went but was shoved onward before he had a chance. He would have to find her before he killed the monster.

  The work was mindless, strenuous, and quite possibly the best exercise he had ever had. He hated it. They were expanding the boundaries of the fortress by digging deeper into the immense rock hillside. His guards gave convincing reasons when he forced the question, that and bruises, but he had a feeling it was just busy work; something to either toughen up or break down completely. He was sure it was the training period to determine who was fit to become a slaver, a ‘soldier’ as he heard some of the dark clad men call themselves, and who was fit for the trash heap. His assumption was only reinforced as more and more of the men around him fell and were disposed of. This was his chance, it seemed.

  So he worked. He broke the most rock and took the least breaks, eating all they gave him; nothing rotten this time around, they wanted soldiers, not sick cripples. Ten days went by, each one an eternity and every time he retired to his tiny bed in a building full of strangers he longed for the mountains and the woods, for freedom. Eventually some of the others were graduated and he never saw them again, still he was left to bust rock. Finally, when he was the last one left, they drew him aside.

  Taylor led him silently to what he had come to know as the mansion, the largest of the buildings in the fortress. They entered the large door and what Alec was expecting to be a dimly lit, dank interior was in fact bright and clean. Somehow they had constructed the place to reflect sunlight from the metal panels on the ceiling in such a way that they illuminated the entire building. When he looked closer, he realized that almost the entire building was metal, not repurposed, but original work. It seemed this was left over from the previous age, though the style was drastically different from the buildings in the shell he had once visited.

  Where in the shell he had seen gradual curves and neat lines, all smooth and seamless; now he found harsh edges, rough and abrupt. Some of that he could attribute to wear but it was obviously designed for a much more spartan purpose than the spires of the dead city. As he looked closer at the mostly empty room he saw vertical jagged edges at even intervals along the otherwise empty walls, perhaps there had been rooms here that the giant had seen fit to remove. The ceiling was nearly double the height of any of the other buildings in the fortress and the walls were at least thirty strides across. Regardless, it was an impressive room, if only in its vast emptiness.

  He was still taking in the strange construction when they reached a doorway at the end of the cavernous hall. With his customary silence, Taylor opened the door and pointed inside. Alec obeyed.

  The metal mesh stair wound up to the top of the building where another door opened onto the roof. A path led straight across the slotted and angled metal that shone in the beating sun and at its end loomed the giant. He was facing away from Alec, gazing out across the neatly arranged wooden buildings that occupied the vast yet constrictive enclosure.

  Sensing he was intended to approach, Alec began crossing the narrow path toward the giant. The view from the high perch was impressive, it displayed the precision with which the man had laid out his dominion. Where before it felt mostly random while walking among the log buildings; packed sleeping hall to packed mess hall to rock wall and back, here he could see the planning around it all. He looked further and realized he was almost level with the walls, the limited glimpse of the outside brought back the overwhelming feeling of confinement and for the first time in days his thoughts fell on Grey.

  “I was there, you probably didn’t see, when we took you. I have been watching you, Alec.”

  In that moment he remembered the intensity with which the giant’s gaze had fixed him on that first day and an inkling of fear crept up his throat.

  Ria

  The moon had waned from full to half and still she ran. Inconsistent meals of the small animals she could find during the few respites had made her body lean. The humans ran like wolves, faster even, it was all she could do to keep up and still have enough energy to hunt. Over the long miles she thought that night over and over in her head, remembering and understanding more of the words every time. Snarl was mad and had to be put down, that was obvious, but Golden… he confused her. Humans never showed interest in her kind, their only interaction was that of hostility or fear, but he showed her something else.

  They had traversed a narrow pass low in the mountains and soon after the forest began its gradual transformation into rolling hills of tall grass and prickly bushes. She was careful to crest only after her quarry had begun descending the next hill, losing sight for only a short while before repeating the evasion again. There was nothing but hills.

  Some mornings she found Golden a good distance from his companion, always performing that strange dance and she began contemplating approaching him, just to see what he would do. She never did of course, it was complete foolishness. He smelled so good though, kind of like Red Fox used to.

  Prey had dwindled to the occasional mouse as the plains dominated the landscape and she began to really feel the hunger that had been creeping up on her since the mountains. Somehow the humans had felled a small deer with something they flung from strange sticks. The smell of blood and fat was intoxicating. She decided to check it out.

  She snuck in close under cover of darkness while their fire was still inhibiting their nigh
t vision and lay down behind a clump of bushes, waiting for them to fall asleep and leave their kill unguarded.

  Golden left the fire first, leaving Snarl drawing smoke from another strange stick. The smoke was strong and smelled like burning flowers; almost masking the crazed sent that poured from the old man. A little while later he tapped the stick against his other hand and smothered the dying fire before lying down opposite from Golden. The remains of the animal lay further from the fire on the side where Golden had lost himself in the tall grass. She waited.

  She waited until even the small coals that had evaded Snarl’s boot died out and left only the stars and half moon to light the night. It would have to be good enough. She crept as silently as only a starving wolf can through the tall grass, guided by the smell of a recent kill until, finally, she parted the grass and saw heaven laid out before her. She reached under the skin they had covered it with and pulled out a slab of red meat the size of her head. Her stomach chose exactly that moment to rumble and in the silence it sounded like thunder. Still crouched, she released the meat and looked around frantically, suppressing a whine.

  To her horror she found bright eyes staring at her, reflecting the starlight in two white points right next to her. Golden was far closer than she had thought. Her empty stomach clenched. Then he simply rolled over, ignoring her; he didn’t call out, he didn’t get up and run at her. He just went back to sleep.