Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

  By the time Capricorn recovered, Canis had managed to prove himself a skilled hunter rather than just a good luck charm and both their stores were chocked full of a wide assortment of meat, and both of their wood slots were stuffed to the brim.

  Spring was well underway and the snow underfoot was starting to grow annoyingly soft. With the two major chores accomplished, both Nike and Lyra started to take Canis out to teach him how to collect the wild herbs and other plants that filled their diet. They wore the snowshoes of their men for this and carried large baskets slung on their backs to fill with the leaves and vines that found their way up through the snow. They also watched for several varieties of mushrooms showing up on rotted deadfall warmed by the sun.

  Orion’s health went in waves. There were times when he was healthy and spry as a youngster, and then there were times when he couldn’t get out of his nest. These waves seemed accented by the warming of the weather, though they were bad enough during the cold of winter. Canis was thankful for Nike’s presence during Orion’s bad spells because she was able to keep him from wallowing in his despair too deeply.

  During his better days, he taught Canis how to make a bow out of simple wood as well as composite, and how to select the best wood for the arrows. He also taught him how to bend the wood for their snowshoes and how to cure the gut used for the webbing. He was a wealth of information and Canis tried to drink it all in, along with the flood of other information forthcoming from the rest of the clan.

  Even during midsummer, much of the ground was covered with snow, but there were some places where the summer sun melted the snow to the ground. The stockade and its surrounding clearing was one such place, and the spring that provided them with water during the summer flowed clear, though it was warm enough to steam most of the time.

  When the snow was melted as much as it would, several of the men took Canis on an expedition into the rockier part of the mountains they lived in. As a new male member of the clan, he was taken to where they collected the rocks they made into their arrowheads. They make other tools out of the sharp stone too. The white stone was brittle and slightly porous, which made it perfect for poisoned arrows, but it was fragile and new rock was collected each year. Aries and Capricorn made sure he understood how to select the best stones and Orion showed him how to shape them. After many trials and failures, Canis build up his own store of potential arrowheads and tools.

  Though the sun was warm and the snow in their valley was mostly gone, the temperature was still very near freezing even during the heat of the day, but the chill didn’t stop the clan from welcoming their newest member into the ranks of manhood. By Orion’s count, Canis was twelve years old now, and he was a bit young for such a ritual, but he had proved himself a skilled hunter and a hard worker, willing to shoulder the responsibility of caring for his father and the house of his mother as well as the house of Capricorn so soon after coming here.

  One day, Draco, the oldest man in the clan, came and scratched on Canis’s door. When Nike opened it, he pushed into the room and attempted to corral Canis, but even though it had been a while, and he had let down some of his guard, Canis wasn’t going to be corralled easily ever again.

  Ultimately, it took five grown men to contain and subdue Canis while their companions cornered and subdued Rrusharr. All of three men were required to carry him bodily out of the door, bound hand and foot, with Rrusharr a similar bundle close behind.

  Canis was confused and enraged, and his captors bore the marks of his and Rrusharr’s fight. They were lucky – and they knew it – that he had taken to leaving his belt, and its knife, hanging by the door. That didn’t stop him from drawing blood. All of them bore plenty bite and scratch marks.

  There must have been every adult male in the stockade gathered outside Canis’s door when they brought him out.

  “It took five of you?” said Algol, who lived with Ursa under Cassiopeia’s roof. The innuendo raised several chuckles around the crowd.

  “I see you all did a good job of letting him draw blood,” said Scorpius, winning another round of humor.

  Draco growled and tossed a bloody strand of hair out of his eye. “His knife was hanging by the door.” There was no round of laughter after that. Draco’s grim expression was enough for them to understand how things might have been different if that small detail had been otherwise.

  As they made their way, Canis struggled to free himself while those not immediately concerned with containing him, ranged ahead. It was near dark before they put him down, and a simple camp and fire was waiting for them. When they began to cut away Canis’s clothes, he renewed his struggles. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t let himself take this peacefully. This all bore too close a resemblance to his initiation to being a slave.

  Because of his struggles, it took quite a bit of care and effort to cut his clothes away without drawing blood, but they managed it. When each portion of his clothing came free, they threw it on the fire.

  When all of his clothing had been reduced to ash, they forced him, still struggling, into the creek that ran next to their camp. The water was cold enough to turn his pale skin blue within seconds and his muscles, heated by his struggles, cramped painfully.

  Subdued by cold and exhaustion, Canis had no choice but to submit to the men’s attention as they brought out bars of soap and began to wash him from head to foot – even his hair – and in the process, his bonds came away. Even Rrusharr was not exempt from this part of the proceedings. By the time they were satisfied, Canis was shaking uncontrollably and he couldn’t have fought them if he had tried.

  They brought him and Rrusharr out of the water to stand by the fire and then they toweled him off with soft furs as Rrusharr made a point to shower them all as she shook loose water from her pelt. Too cold to do anything, Canis glowered at them where they gathered across the fire from him.

  Speaking for the first time since this started, Draco spoke somberly. “The waters from the deep that grants our clan life washes the boy away, leaving only the man behind. Is there anyone here who still sees a boy?”

  No one replied. Canis wondered what would have happened if they had – perhaps another dip in the creek. By now, Canis knew that these men meant him no real harm so he stood shivering and waited to see what would happen next.

  Draco’s rumbling voice broke the silence. “Then we must clothe and feed a man of the clan.”

  With those words, each man of the clan brought forth an article of clothing and they each placed their article on him with dignity and reverence. Canis wondered if this was what it must be like to be an infant. A brief picture of Gem dressed in all her finery came to his mind and he wondered if someone helped her dress, but he pushed that memory away; it didn’t fit with this.

  When he was dressed in warm boots, fur-lined pants and shirt with a heavy coat and hood over it all, they each gave him and Rrusharr something to eat or drink. When he had consumed all of their gifts, the ceremonial air vanished and they all sat down around the fire pulling Canis with them.

  The rest of the night was filled with storytelling and much drinking. It wasn’t surprising that, after several passes of the jug, jabs about how difficult it had been to take Canis in the first place, came out again. No one questioned that he did it. Apparently, he had been right to struggle, it was expected, but they hadn’t figured on the desperation behind the struggles.

  It took some prodding and cajoling, but eventually they were able to entice an abridged story explaining the reason behind his desperate struggles. He also promised them that his knife would never be over by the door again, but then, apparently, keeping his knife close was another lesson he was supposed to learn, since they all laughed uproariously when he said it.

  With the coming of the dawn, the men wended their wobbly way back to the camp, escorting Canis back to his house before filtering off to their own homes. Though he had consumed enough of their fermented drink to be unsteady on his feet, he was not so drunk that he didn’t n
otice the changes in the house left in a riot of destruction the day before. Paramount was the huge mound of fur now taking the place of the leather chairs that had been broken during the fight.

  The women of the clan had apparently been waiting for him and stood when he entered. They too each had a gift for him. Five of them stood by the giant pelt. It finally occurred to him what they were presenting him with. He had almost forgotten that the hide from that huge bear had been brought back along with the moose.

  Numbly he went over to it. It did a very good job of filling one entire corner of the floor in a pile that would make a plush and ample couch. It would be very comfortable to curl up on near the hearth. When he examined a portion of the underside, he saw many arrow holes, all carefully mended with tiny stitches. He wondered how many such holes there were in the whole hide. None of those wounds had killed the beast.

  A soft touch on his shoulder drew his attention away from the bear hide. Lyra was standing in front of him. She draped around his neck a necklace made of the bear’s claws and teeth. Each claw was set in an intricately carved wooden set that looked like a toe of the bear. The claws were separated from the teeth by red colored beads. All of it was on a thong that was braided from finely stripped leather. It was quite a work of art.

  Libra claimed his attention next. She set in his hands a wide belt woven from fine strips of tanned and dyed leather. The end result was very colorful, very flexible, and sturdy as well.

  Cassiopeia gave him a tooled white-flint knife and a sheath to go with it and she helped him put it on the belt Libra had given him.

  Andromeda gave him a leather pouch containing an assortment of smaller blades. There was a gutting blade with a hook on one end, a stout blade for cutting tendons and boning a kill and there was a wide two-handed blade for scraping the hide. There was also a small awl and several coils of greased tendon for mending on the trail if necessary.

  Canis was overwhelmed with the gifts the women had given him. No one had ever really given him a gift before. When he looked up from his last gift to try and express his thanks, he saw the door closing behind Andromeda; the other women had already left.

  When Nike came up to him and took his coat, he said, “They all left before I could tell them my thanks.”

  She looked up at him. “You do not thank the clan for becoming a man.” She led him to the table and set his breakfast before him.

  “Where is father, I have not seen him since we returned.”

  “Your father went to sleep. He grows very tired easily these days. He is very proud of you, though. A boy doesn’t usually become a man for another two or three years.”

  Rescue Mission

  Winter came again after the brief warm season that barely qualified as a summer. Canis’s hair now reached half way down his back and Nike had taken a liking to braiding it every morning before he went up on the roof to practice with his sword.

  The winter was heralded by snowstorm after snowstorm. It was what defined their existence and there was nothing they could do but wait for the season to catch up with itself again. It was a time for tending to their gear and making new and keeping the snow shoveled off the roofs.

  As soon as the winter storms had made it a certainty that winter was in full swing, it became hunting season once again. Canis was growing to like this life, but the debt he owed still nagged at his sense of honor, and he wished he would grow up quicker. At twelve, he had earned the right to be considered a man here, but Patro would not be the only man to see only a ten-year-old boy if he were to return now.

  One day, after practicing with his sword on the roof while the sun cleared the horizon, a scratch came at the door. Leo and Eridanus were there, waiting for him to go on a hunting trip. As he tied his belt around his waist, Nike held his coat for him then he was out the door. They hadn’t quite made it to the west gate when a boy caught up to them. “Capricorn says for you to come,” said the boy out of breath.

  The three of them followed the boy around to the south gate, where a group of three Wulfen stood hackles up as if ready to attack each other.

  “What is going on?” asked Canis as he came up on Capricorn overlooking the conflict.

  “I don’t know. I can’t get anything out of them. I thought perhaps you might…”

  Canis groaned inside. “That only happened once.”

  “I know, but it’s worth a try. My companion refuses to explain, Lyra’s too. It has something to do with the pack leader and Draco’s not here.”

  Though the Wulfen population of the clan was nearly double the human population, Canis knew most of the Wulfen by sight; he also knew who they belonged to, so he could tell at a glance which of the three seemed to be at odds. He stepped forward and faced the strange Wulfi squarely. “Explain yourself. You intrude here.”

  The Wulfi looked up at him; in fact all three of the Wulfen looked at him, and the two that belonged to Capricorn and Lyra backed away to stand by their family. The third, a big gray Wulfi with heavy shoulders, stared at him cocking his head back and forth as if surveying him first with one eye, then with the other. When Canis stared back just as boldly waiting for an answer, he got it.

  “You will do,” he said.

  Canis was relieved to hear the voice, but he was puzzled at the words. “Why me?”

  “You can hear,” replied the massive gray Wulfi. “You will follow me.”

  “Will I?” said Canis surprised. “Why would I do such a thing?”

  “Because the companion of my mate will die if you do not.”

  “You are from a different clan then?” said Canis. He could hear the stir behind him caused by his words. A visitor from another clan was almost unheard of.

  The Wulfi started to pace and grumble with impatience, but he answered with a slightly different tone, “Yes, will you come?”

  “Yes,” said Canis. He turned to Lyra. “I will need a pelt large enough to wrap around a person and some extra food. His companion is in trouble, and apparently they were closer to us than to home. We will go find him and bring him here. There’s plenty of room at my place. Please inform Nike.”

  His demands were hastily met and they were off at a trot out of the southern gate. They brought their three sleds because it was still a hunting trip and there was no sense in passing up a shot if it presented itself just because they didn’t have a way to move the kill afterward. Since this was a rescue mission, they would hasten to that end, but quick game wouldn’t hold them up and meat was vital.

  Since the Wulfen numbered many more than people to join with, it was common for several of them to choose to accompany hunters. They took the provision and protection of the clan very seriously, regardless of having joined or not. It benefited everyone if the hunts were profitable. Since a strange Wulfi was accompanying this hunt, nine of their own Wulfen accompanied Canis’s hunting party, partly out of curiosity and partly out of a show of clan strength.

  Traveling at a trot most of the time, it took them two full days to reach the gray Wulfi’s destination, only to find no sign of a camp. The man lying on the ground looked no bigger than Canis, and curled close beside him to lend him warmth was the second Wulfi, the mate of the great gray Wulfi striding on Canis’s right side mirroring the smaller Rrusharr’s position on his left.

  With only a brief thought to who would be so foolish as to travel alone in the company of only two Wulfen, Canis brushed the hood back to find, not a man, or even a boy, but instead a young woman. Recovering from the surprise, he continued the examination and found the broken leg at the same time the woman told him of it through clenched teeth.

  The three of them lifted her carefully into the sled and wrapped her warmly in the extra furs.

  “Larrarr said her mate had gone for help,” said the woman. “I didn’t expect him to succeed.”

  “You need to be much warmer than you are before we can do anything for your leg. We will make camp here tonight,” said Canis. He might be only twelve, but he issued orders eas
ily and the men he hunted with found no objection to them. With a vaguely formal gesture, Canis introduced the three of them. “My name is Canis and this is Leo and Eridanus.”

  The woman looked at each of them as their name was spoken, but gave no further acknowledgment to the gesture, then she looked at the speaker. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m starved.”

  Canis looked at the woman with some surprise. “We do, but would you not rather eat something hot?”

  “Yes, that would be good too,” she said.

  Canis frowned; her imperial manner was grating. Perhaps it is just the pain. He handed her a water skin and moved off to collect wood for a fire with the others.

  She accepted the water skin with a look of surprise, but Canis gave her no opportunity to say anything else.

  Until meat was brought down during a hunt, hunters ate boiled grains. While it cooked, he handed the woman a cup of hot tea.

  “Tea, didn’t you bring any food? I haven’t eaten for days,” said the woman who had yet to give them her name.

  “Your water skin is empty. You have had no water for a while either,” said Canis. “We will set that leg before you eat.”

  “But I’m hungry now,” pouted the woman.

  “You will waste it if you eat now, drink your tea,” said Canis calmly.

  “Good luck taming this one, boy-man,” said the gray Wulfi from where he lay on the edge of the firelight. Only the glitter of the fire in his eyes could be distinguished in the darkness.

  Canis looked at him, but made no comment. He took up a stick and began to carve it smooth. When he had accumulated three such sticks, he nodded to his friends who stood to help. Looking directly at the woman’s companion, he said, “Setting a broken leg is painful. You must not interfere.”

  The Wulfi, a fine boned creature with strong brown accents in her silver fur, looked him in the eyes then sauntered over to lie down by her mate. Her wide belly spoke of new pups one day soon.