by Jim Galford
“Always wondered what they were called. I’ll admit, they do give a stomachache at times, but they are filling. I wouldn’t say poisonous as much as distasteful.”
“No, I would say poisonous. The elves of Corraith use their excretions to create a toxin for assassinations. They are incredibly poisonous once they die.”
Estin put another spoonful of soup in his mouth.
“You have lost your mind,” Lorne told him, putting aside her bowl. “Not just eating meat, but eating poisonous meat. Is that part of adapting?”
“Yes, I guess it is,” he answered, studying the soup. It had been what he, Feanne, and the kits had survived on for some time. “I’m sorry. I forgot that most people like us don’t eat much meat. It’s gotten to be habit. I’ve been eating it as a big part of my meals since I was a child. You never knew what you’d find living on the streets, so ruling out a type of food wasn’t a good idea.”
That seemed to sink in a bit more with Lorne and her expression softened.
“My first master’s daughter,” she began, pushing the bowl far away from her, “tried to get me to eat chicken. She and I were both children, so she thought I was just being a brat. When I threw up all over her room, she decided not to ask me to eat meat anymore.”
“I’ll try to remember not to give you any from now on.”
“A little is fine. Most of the other non-predatory wildlings I’ve met will eat at least some. I just have less of a taste for it than most and need to be careful not to have it surprise me. I’m sorry for my overreaction. So long as you don’t go chewing on live creatures, I can probably ignore it and find something less poisonous to eat.”
Estin reflexively checked his muzzle for blood left over from biting Arturis, but he had cleaned that away the night before. He made a mental note not to let Lorne see him hunt ginths and other rodents out on the desert and certainly not to come back with them still hanging out of his mouth. He had a feeling that would shock and disgust her.
They sat there quietly for a long time, with Estin taking occasional mouthfuls of soup, as Lorne picked at some of the leftover vegetables that had not gone into the stew.
When Lorne did finally speak up, it startled Estin.
“I understand now.”
Furrowing his brow and muzzle in confusion, Estin asked, “What do you understand?”
Lorne looked him straight in the eyes and answered, “I understand why you needed someone like her. You’re not like our breed anymore.”
Though Estin could not entirely disagree, he lowered his head at the implications.
It was true, he was not the same person his parents had raised briefly. He was not even the person he saw himself as from the years he had struggled to stay hidden and alive in Altis. What he had become was something different—something new. That was not to say something good.
He thought through the last two years and pictured his former self beside the things he had lived through, trying to envision how events would have turned out differently. Briefly, he even envisioned Lorne in Feanne’s place, though that amused him enough that he had to banish the thought or risk laughing out loud.
Whatever he was, he recognized it as exactly what he needed to be and in light of his family, it was exactly what he wanted to be. Estin knew he would never choose another life.
Slipping a knife from his pouch, Estin set to sharpening his claws.
“Lorne,” he said, scraping the sharp blade along the length of one claw, “do you think you could survive on your own?”
“No. I’d be dead within a week with creatures like Arturis out there.”
Another flick of the blade.
“For a second, picture in your head a land overrun by them. A hundred thousand dead marching on every city, led by necromancers like Arturis.”
“I don’t want to. We had it bad enough here…”
“I couldn’t run,” he explained, satisfied with the look of the claw and moving to the next. “I wanted to at first. I know how you feel…I was like that when the war began.
“Once you have a mate, the question of running goes away. She and I should have run, but where could we go that we knew was safe? We chose to fight. That may not be your way, but it was our decision.”
“I never said that what you’ve become is a problem,” Lorne countered, watching his knife carefully. “I just…understand. It’s not what I would have done, but you’re not me. In your place, I would be in a pile beside my friends in Arturis’ vault.”
“Can you trust me enough to follow me without question?”
Lorne nodded and reached across the dying coals to take the knife from Estin. With unsteady fingers, she applied it to her own first claw, barely marring the thick black surface.
“You want to learn to fight?” asked Estin, watching her clumsy attempts to duplicate his own efforts.
“No,” she replied, finally getting a good slice at the claw, leaving it slightly sharper. She frowned and looked sad at what she had done to her claw, but continued the process anyway. “I want others to question whether I’m learning, though. I don’t understand violence, but I do understand tricking people. I’ll try to look the part, at least a little.”
Chapter Eight
“Commitments”
Mother’s choices will always remain a mystery to me. I don’t even mean the ones everyone asks about, like the decision to take Estin as a life-mate, or the willingness to give up everything for her children. These are personal choices that she made for herself and I have no place now looking too deeply into them, beyond knowing she was trying to find happiness first for herself, then later for all of us, even at the cost of her own.
What baffles me are the momentary choices, where we look back and ask ourselves what she could have been thinking right then. At times, she appeared downright erratic or insane. At least, that was what I, as a child, could see. What I see now is quite different.
A predator must act on instinct to maintain control over a situation. This I understand. A moment’s hesitation or show of dismay can lead to death before you have time to rethink the decision. As a pack-leader, that requirement is even more stringent.
When Feanne found herself in a new situation, she abandoned rational thought in favor of instinct entirely. I realize now this is not something most wildlings will or can do, even among predators. This was not always for the best, but I cannot imagine the direction of our lives if she hadn’t been like that.
It was that habitual randomness with its hint of underlying cleverness that I thought had died in her after we went to live among the refugees. She had become quiet and focused only on the kits during the first two months after we moved in.
I was getting closer to my fourth birthday, but felt as though she was no longer challenging me to be a strong leader. I resented it, when I should have looked deeper at the reason why she had changed her behavior.
Feanne was not changing…she was acting on instinct to survive a world she knew nothing about. We were now among civilized people at all times, which was far outside her background and she could only do the best she could in light of it.
Early on when we arrived in the tunnels, I asked my mother why she would risk herself so often in life. I had thought I would receive a lesson on how to be a better leader, but the answer surprised me.
Mother told me that every person, no matter their background, will have a moment in their life that defines who they are. In that one second, day, whatever, they will become what they were meant to be, rather than what they wanted to be.
After much prodding, she told me that her moment was when she watched her sister die. From that day on, Feanne had no further fear of death or regret for mistakes. She had learned that life was momentary and she needed to live in that instant and never look back or forward, if it could be avoided.
Without my asking, she also told me that my father—Estin, of course—had told her his own moment of change. For him, it had been finding Feanne locked in a cage ju
st minutes after he had seen her speak up for our people, which was something he had never seen before in Altis. The chance discovery of her like that made him never look back.
I had believed at the time that my moment was to be entirely a part of proving myself to my mother. I thought that I would have some epiphany wherein I had done something so difficult and managed to make it through that she would recognize me for how great a leader I would be.
Seeking this out, I did some things that I would encourage others to avoid. If you’re reading this, you’re who I’m talking about.
Tackling and threatening someone who belittles you is not acceptable among city folks, which I can imagine was crippling for a long time to my mother. She was a noble creature, who had led one of the largest packs Altis had ever seen, but was now reduced to having to depend on those she considered weak.
I was…somewhat less than noble.
I, unlike mother, didn’t care about fitting in among the elves. They let my behavior pass as the foolishness of youth, which was probably a mistake on their part. I believe I may have gotten into more fights during those months than at any other time in my life previous.
Trying to find what I thought would be that defining moment of my life, I fought with fists and feet against the teenaged elves and other refugees, reminding them every chance I got that I was not even four, but a better fighter than they were. After all, I had to prove myself as an adult somehow, since my first hunt probably would not happen in a dank old tomb.
Now, I look back at that and laugh at how awful Phaesys and my mother must have thought me to be. They weren’t wrong, either.
No matter what you think, I’m much more mature now. Trust me.
Oria slumped against the wall, one hand clutching at her side, where the young dwarven bully had hit her with the butt of a spear before she had beaten him nearly unconscious. With her other hand, she flexed her fingers repeatedly, trying to keep the knuckles from swelling.
She had made a mistake, punching the boy with her off-hand as hard as she did. The ring her grandmother had left for her had never quite fit right and it had twisted, popping her finger painfully. That error had hurt her hand badly and Oria could feel the skin swelling a little under the fur.
Huddled in the dimly-lit hallway, Oria breathed heavily, trying to slow her pulse and make sure that her ribs were not broken.
“That was really stupid, sis,” said Atall, coming around a corner of the old tunnels. He knelt in front of her, trying to get a look at her injuries, but Oria slapped at his hands. “What were you thinking?”
“He called mother an outlander witch-whore,” she snapped, then flinched a little as her side throbbed.
“Finth used to call his own mother—who he actually liked a lot from what I understand—a whore,” Atall reminded her, finally prying her hand aside. He scowled at the torn fur and slow bleeding along her ribs where the clothing was ripped, but let Oria put her hand back over it. “Even if he did mean it in anger, was that the right answer?”
Oria shoved her brother back a little ways. “Since when are you the reasonable one?”
Atall grinned and sat down across from her. Though Oria would not admit it, especially to Atall, she was thankful for the company when she felt helpless. If that dwarf came back after her, it was nice to think she had an extra person between him and herself.
“The other wizards say I need to control my anger and direct it,” he explained. “I think it’s a bunch of bear crap, but they’re pretty firm in that. I do have to say, lighting an elf on fire is really calming. You should try it sometime, with or without magic.”
Oria laughed at that, knowing how much her brother enjoyed learning magic now that he no longer felt he had to hide his studies. The act made her side throb all the more and she clenched her stomach to stop breathing for the moment, until the pain faded a little.
“Mom wants us back,” Atall told her eventually, though his eyes never left her side. “Maybe she can look at that and see if you broke anything.”
“No!” snapped Oria, forcing herself to stand. The movement made her head spin and she clutched her hand to her body. The knuckles were swollen enough that she could not use it to support her against the wall. “She doesn’t need to know I’m weak.”
“You aren’t and she wouldn’t think that anyway,” her brother reasoned, but Oria did not believe him at all.
“I need to be as strong as she is,” Oria explained, walking up the tunnel, keeping her good hand on the packed dirt and stone for balance. “Females need to lead.”
“Grandfather was in charge of the old pack,” Atall noted, walking slowly beside her.
“Keep believing that. Everyone knows Asrahn was the boss.”
Her brother smiled and said nothing.
They continued on for a while, taking the longer route back toward where the families stayed within the complex. Oria had no desire to run into any of the dwarves, lest some of them try to seek revenge for what she had done to the boy earlier, so the route Atall took was perfect.
At first, Oria thought Atall was intentionally taking a detour to help them avoid people, but soon, she began to wonder how far out of the way he was traveling. Looking at the tunnels around them, she recognized that they were skirting the areas reserved for Phaesys’ father Desphon and other lesser nobility.
“Why are we way out here?” Oria asked, trying to get her bearings. She generally tried to avoid this area. Something about Desphon creeped her out and she really did not want to explain to Feanne why she had gotten into a fight with him.
“I just thought it would be quieter,” said Atall, perhaps a little too quickly.
Oria let that drop, deciding that she had been too occupied with her own activities lately to know what Atall had been up to. For the most part, she really did not care, as she assumed all of his time to have been occupied with learning magic from the elves.
They passed near Desphon’s chambers and movement ahead made Oria look up, half-expecting an ambush. All she smelled were wildlings though, including herself and Atall, as well as Desphon and his servants.
Ahead, one of the young wildlings Oria rarely saw outside Desphon’s chambers leaned against the wall. The female was clad mostly in silks, as well as the absurd sandals that Desphon and his ilk tended to wear. At first, Oria thought maybe she was out on some kind of errand—released from her stressful duties of lying around doing nothing—but the female just stood there as they passed, her twinkling eyes above her veil on Atall the whole time.
“Atall…” Oria said softly once they had passed the girl.
“Shut your mouth, Oria,” he snapped, ears flattening back. “I know. Don’t even say it.”
“Are you and her…?”
Atall shook his head and looked back down the hall to where the female had been. She was gone, having slipped into one of the nearby rooms.
“No, and we can’t be,” Atall answered.
Without warning, Atall snarled and punched the wall hard enough that Oria would have expected his hand to have broken. He kept walking anyway, rubbing his hand.
“Who is she?” asked Oria, realizing that it was the first genuinely-friendly conversation she had had with her brother in more than a month. “I know she’s with Desphon….”
“Owned by him is more the way it is. Her name is Arlin. He bought her off the slave market after her family ran out of money. He’s owned her for a little more than a year, since she was just three. She’s not much older than we are. Maybe three months older.”
Oria checked the hall behind them again. “And what do you intend to do about it?”
Stopping abruptly, Atall gave Oria a confused stare. “What do you mean? We aren’t even supposed to talk, unless Desphon tells her that she can. Walking by like we did is about all we can get away with, without one or both of us risking a whipping if we’re caught.”
“That’s not what I meant. How are you going to get her out of that life, Atall? Mom didn’t rai
se us to tolerate slavery.”
“I’m trying to find a way to buy her freedom,” admitted Atall, looking sheepish. “What she does then is up to her. It’ll take a long time though. Desphon didn’t buy her cheap and he doesn’t have to accept my offer, even if I do manage to collect enough.”
Oria thought for a little while on that, then asked, “So…if you don’t talk much, what have you two done that warrants all the concern for her?”
Smiling, Atall kept his mouth shut until Oria punched him in the arm.
“A gentleman never tells, or so Phaesys keeps assuring me,” grumbled Atall, rubbing at his arm. “Officially, nothing.”
“Since when are you a gentleman?”
“Ever since I decided not to tell you.”
“C’mon, Atall, we were practically raised on stories of people doing things they shouldn’t. We know more about what Yoska did with his wives than anyone has any right…”
“I use the gentleman excuse and you leap to Yoska as your counterpoint? Maybe next, you can use Finth as your reason for moral decisions. You’re not convincing me, Oria.”
Oria rubbed her brother’s head playfully as they continued out into the more heavily-occupied parts of the tunnels, letting the conversation trail off as they neared others. As much as she wanted to tease Atall, she was happy for him and was not about to risk him getting caught.
The central room of the underground complex they were coming into was an old temple, dedicated to gods long-forgotten. The statues had been removed, but the place still had ornate columns holding up a beam-supported roof. At the head of the room, an altar of sorts stood, often used as a podium for announcements to the refugees there.
It was at the altar that Oria spotted her mother, playing with the three kits. The female had claimed the top of the table and was wrestling with her brothers, trying to keep them off of it, while Feanne playfully teased and interfered with the kits’ attempts to fight seriously, earning half-hearted hisses and nips from the female.
The lack of names for the kits was finally starting to really bother Oria. At first, she had understood her mother’s desire to wait for Estin’s return before giving them their names, but it had been several months now. The three were already almost waist-high and could talk—when they wanted to—but had no words for themselves, other than “me,” “him,” “her,” and of course, “mine.” It was very odd to Oria.