Arcove flicked his tail. “The choice is yours. The effects upon your herd will be the same. If you do not surrender, someone else will.” He leaned forward until his whiskers tickled Charder’s ear. “If you refuse me, you will die here and now.” Charder could feel the cat’s hot breath on his neck. He could smell his own fear. He was aware of the other three cats, standing a respectful distance away, but watching closely. “Lirsy came to a swift end. You will not be so fortunate. We have all night. Need I go further?”
He certainly need not. Charder tucked his tail against his belly and crouched down to get away from Arcove’s mouth. He felt sick. “Alright,” he heard himself whisper. “As long as you stop killing the ferryshaft, you can have your surrender.”
“You are in no position to make conditions,” rejoined the cat. He took a step back. “We’ll call this war over for the moment and discuss your terms of surrender in the morning.”
Charder raised his head, eyes burning. “Your methods,” he hissed, “are not those of a warrior, but of a vulture!”
Arcove watched him without emotion. “If the methods of vultures win battles, then I will study them. I could hardly expect you to praise me. Nevertheless, you will submit. If you betray me, I promise that you will regret it every bit as much as you hate me.”
“I keep my promises,” snarled Charder.
Arcove sniffed. “A debatable contention. You’d best keep those you make to me, at least.”
The words stung like saltwater in a bleeding wound. Charder’s gaze dropped. He’s won. In every way.
Charder remained on the cliff for some time after Arcove had gone. He could have returned to the ferryshaft herd, but the thought of trying to look them in the eyes repulsed him. He was trying to work out how he would give them the news when he heard the first sounds of commotion from the north—snarls and hisses of cats, and their voices shouting orders.
Not so far away, Turis Rock jutted against the yellow moon. It was the highest part of the cliff, and it hung, not over the beach, but over the sea itself. Charder watched as two animals shot out of the wood into the open ground at the base of the rock. At first, he could not tell who or even what they were. Not until three more creasia came out of the woods and forced them apart did Charder realize that one was a ferryshaft.
Charder’s breath caught. Then he was running. I have to help him! I can’t…can’t… He stopped. His wounds were already beginning to pain him, and Turis Rock was farther away than it looked under the brilliant hunter’s moon. But I could reach it. Coden will hold them that long. Better to die fighting beside my king than to…
He could almost hear Arcove’s voice. You’d save no one and kill yourself.
So… I will leave a friend to die alone?
Charder paced, but he could already see the terrible shape of his choice. You’ve sold your honor. It’s done. You’re afraid of Arcove, and he knows it. He’s kept you alive for this.
Nevertheless, Charder kept walking. He did not run, but he continued towards Turis, sometimes stumbling, never taking his eyes off the fight. The four creasia were holding Coden at bay, but he was making them pay for it. Charder thought he saw a creasia body on the edge of the trees. Two of those on their feet were limping badly.
As Charder watched, Coden whipped around an attacker and chomped off most of his tail. The creasia roared in pain and fury. Charder squinted. Halvery? He was Arcove’s third in command and probably the one in charge of this clutter. He’ll be seeing red after that. Loss of a tail was a particularly insulting injury, thought to signify cowardice and retreat, and Halvery was an arrogant creature.
Is Coden trying to make them kill him?
Charder was just close enough now to hear some of the shouted insults. “What’s the matter, Halvery?” Coden snarled. “Are the rocks too sharp for your tender paws? Are your claws trapped inside your feet?” The ferryshaft slashed at a cat with his teeth, while deftly sending a small stone in Halvery’s direction with a back hoof. “Or are you infested with ticks? Are they sucking all the courage out of you, Halvery?”
They’re not supposed to kill him, thought Charder. They’re supposed to wait for Arcove. Charder felt a moment of sick vertigo as his surrender replayed in his head. Arcove knew this was about to happen. He was warning me not to interfere.
Halvery roared. Soon he was slashing as savagely as his subordinates, but they made little progress. Coden was too quick, and they were getting in each other’s way. Gradually, they all slowed and then paused to pant and glare.
Coden was lean and ragged. It was obvious that he’d been running from the creasia for days. But he was not badly injured. Not yet. His pale gray fur, so unusual in a ferryshaft, looked almost luminous in the moonlight. He still carried his bushy tail high, and his chin had that defiant tilt that Charder remembered.
You were always an excellent fighter, thought Charder, but you’re a trickster at heart. Run away, Coden. Please. Look up and see me and run.
Lirsy is dead, Charder remembered. Will I have to tell you that? Charder could not decide, for an instant, whether he wanted Coden to see him.
It did not matter, as Coden’s attention was wholly focused on the cats. Halvery was saying something, but Charder was too far away to hear their quieter voices. Coden sneered a reply.
Charder’s thoughts stumbled on. Would Arcove really have killed Lirsy if I hadn’t tried to run with her? Would she have survived a surrender if I had just waited? What if Coden survives this fight? His mate is dead, most of his friends, and now the last of his foals. He was already half-mad with grief and now…
Halvery and Coden looked like they were escalating to another engagement. Charder could tell from Halvery’s posture that Coden was baiting him, and it was working. Do you want to die, Coden? And then, in a moment of brutal honesty, Charder asked himself, Do I want you to die?
Charder caught a ripple of movement on the edge of the trees beyond the combatants. He blinked. The moonlight caught the glint of eyes, and he could see a roiling of twitching, pacing movement in the shadows. The rest of the creasia had arrived. Too late to run.
But not too late for me to redeem myself. Coden shouldn’t have to die alone. Charder started walking again, more slowly this time. He felt as though he were struggling through deep mud. He could not quite catch his breath.
Arcove emerged from the trees. He looked like a piece of the midnight sky against the red rock. He said something to Halvery, who hung his head and stepped back. Coden stood his ground, bristling. They spoke to each other. Charder heard the bass rumble of Arcove’s implacable growl and the crackle of Coden’s contempt, but he could not catch the words. He didn’t really need to.
Arcove is going to fight him one-on-one, thought Charder, with a degree of admiration. He’d never heard of a creasia hunt ending this way. Single combat was a courtesy cats reserved for each other, not for ferryshaft. And with all the other creasia watching… This is how they choose kings. It was probably the greatest compliment Arcove could pay to a rival, but it only felt like torture to Charder.
Why am I still standing here? I should be there. I should be beside Coden. I should.
Arcove and Coden leapt at each other. The fight was not long, but it was impressive. Charder had known that Coden was quick and that he could be clever when tackling larger enemies. But, exhausted as he must be, Charder would never have expected Coden to hold his own in a fight against Arcove. There was a moment when they came together in the air, and Coden landed such a solid blow to Arcove’s chest that Charder thought it might stun the cat long enough for Coden to open a vital vein.
Arcove did stagger when he hit the ground, and Coden did kick him in the face hard enough to bloody his nose. But then that enormous mouth opened, Arcove’s white teeth flashed, and the cat was up again. This fight could have only one outcome.
A time came when Coden did not leap away quickly enough. Arcove’s claws caught him under the belly and flipped him. Crimson stains began to soak thr
ough his pale fur. A moment later, Coden slipped in his own blood. Arcove’s teeth locked in the elbow of his left foreleg, ripped the tendon, and crippled the leg. Coden fought on. He limped, but he never whimpered.
Charder was close enough now that he could easily have called to Coden. He both wanted and feared that Coden would see him. You are my king. Tell me what to do. Please, please.
My king, but also, my friend, thought Charder. My king, but also…
He remembered the day Coden had been born to one of his brightest councilors. He remembered watching Coden grow up, always a step ahead of the other foals, always with grander ideas. Coden had made friends with telshees and curbs and ely-ary. He’d wanted to explore the island to its heights and depths. He’d wanted to wander the seas and learn the secrets of the humans. He’d wanted… So much more than ruling the ferryshaft.
But I talked him into it, thought Charder, because I thought he could win this war—so young and so full of ideas. And he almost did win. Almost. But instead, the war just broke his heart, and now Arcove is going to break the rest of him.
Charder realized that he must have made a noise, because Halvery turned suddenly and looked directly at him. Charder froze and waited. He felt terror and immense relief. This is the right place for me to die.
But then Halvery turned away and looked back towards the fight. Charder felt as though someone had kicked him in the belly. They’ve got orders not to kill me. Arcove is that certain of my cooperation.
For just a moment, fury overcame Charder’s terror and inertia, and he picked up his pace. He did not, however, walk closer to the crowd of creasia. Instead, he angled along the edge of the cliff, into the long shadow cast by Turis Rock. He could not see as much of the fight from this angle, but he was physically closer to the combatants. He could hear them better, and he had an insane idea of calling to Coden, begging him to run. He might still get away. If he really wanted to. I could help him reach Syriot…save him instead of Lirsy.
The pair was coming closer as, step by step, Arcove pushed Coden up Turis Rock. Charder could hear them panting and their grunts and growls as they struck at each other. Coden’s fur had looked more red than gray last Charder had gotten a good look at it, but he caught only glimpses of their legs now.
There was a pause. Charder was surprised to hear Arcove’s voice, pitched so low that Charder doubted the watching cats could hear. “Coden,” Arcove panted. “I’ll end this cleanly if you’ll stand still a moment. There are those watching who do not wish to see you die in pieces, and this is the only gift I can give.”
“You’d like that,” spat Coden. “My tail to wave under the noses of the other ferryshaft? A trophy for your den?”
“You know that’s not true. It doesn’t have to end this way.”
Charder drew in his breath to shout, but hesitated. Arcove’s words surprised him, but more than that, the timbre of Arcove’s voice had completely changed. Even Coden sounded different—less defiant, more tired and more bitter.
“I will never surrender the ferryshaft,” said Coden. “They will fight again, and they will do it quicker if they do not see me roll over for you.” He was talking so quietly that Charder had to strain to hear. He wished he could see their faces.
“I don’t want this,” said Arcove.
Charder could hear the smile in Coden’s voice when he answered. “Arcove…for just this moment…it’s not about what you want.” Then, to Charder’s horror, Coden turned and jumped. He sailed from the pinnacle of Turis Rock in a smooth arc, still graceful, and then dropped into the coral sea far below.
Charder’s heart dropped with him. He stared at the water, then back up at Turis. Arcove had come to the edge and was looking down. Charder had no idea whether Arcove noticed him in the shadow of the rock on the cliff below. Charder didn’t think so. Arcove was staring down at the white-capped waves and the reflection of the yellow moon farther out to sea. His face had an expression that Charder had not expected and could not interpret. Arcove shut his eyes, and the expression vanished. He seemed to compose himself and then turned back to the waiting creasia. As he descended the pinnacle of rock, Charder heard him say, “The war is over. We have won.”
Something inside Charder broke. He threw back his head and howled his grief and self-reproach to the cold stars. No one came to join him or to stop him. No one paid any attention to him at all.
This is how the creasia remembered the final fight between Coden Ela-ferry and Arcove Ela-creasia. They said that Arcove and Coden were quicker than thought and lighter than shadows, that they circled and struck and ducked and leapt too fast for the eye to follow. They said that Arcove was as black as midnight with a blow like lightning, and that Coden was as gray as the sea and agile as water. They said that their fighting was like a dance of ash and moonbeams. No one who watched the fight ever forgot it, and they told the story to their cubs and grand-cubs. That is how the creasia remembered it.
That is not how Charder remembered the fight. Charder remembered it as the night he watched a hero die…and did nothing.
Chapter 2. Twelve Years Later
So-fet’s mate was not quite dead when she arrived, though the vultures were already picking at his entrails. She laid her head beside him as his eyes glazed.
Voices and faces whirled around her.
“Poor thing—”
“Her first mate—”
“—the last raid of the season—”
“The spring grass is already showing! They hardly ever come so late.”
“—and they only killed three.”
“Poor luck for her…to lose him now, so close to the end of the raiding season.”
“Unlucky.”
“Yes, unlucky.”
“So-fet, come away. There’s a storm blowing in.”
So-fet stood and slipped in her mate’s blood. Something stirred inside her, as though in sympathy with her pain. She vomited and gagged. Blood and water coursed down her thighs.
Her friends sniffed in alarm. “She’s foaling! Get her into a cave!”
They pushed her, nipped at her flanks, and pulled at her shoulders. Somehow they got her up a path into a cave at the foot of the cliffs. Just as the first fury of the storm broke over Lidian, So-fet heaved her firstborn onto the rock floor, his birth-blood mingling with the blood of his dead father. He was tiny, born too soon.
He lay shivering there amid the strobe lightning, and tried to suck milk from a dry udder. His mother did not stop him. She did not seem to see him. In desperation, he licked up the blood in her fur.
Finally, towards morning, So-fet stirred. She looked at her foal and noticed that he was not only tiny, but dark—much darker than the light brown coats of most foals. She looked at the driving rain and at her infant son—forced from her body too early and orphaned in a single stroke—and she named him Storm.
* * * *
Her milk came two days later. Everyone said he would die.
He didn’t, but he was too weak to stand when she nursed him for the first time. The storm had blown itself out by then, and the numbness of So-fet’s grief had passed. She did not think about the sodden, half-eaten body on the edge of the plain. She gave all her thoughts and all her love to the wobbly, undersized foal who had no father.
Half-orphan, full orphan—it was nearly the same thing in the ferryshaft herd. Little Storm would have to fight to survive. He would need to be strong, and, for this, he must have good milk. His mother ate for his sake. She had lost her status as a mated female, but she fought the higher ranking females for the good grass.
Storm did not starve, though he did not thrive. By the end of spring, he was still the smallest foal in the herd. When the scarcity of water drove the ferryshaft on their annual migration across the plain to Chelby Lake, he could not keep up with the rest, and So-fet had to spend a night on the plain alone with him.
This frightened her. Sometimes the creasia ranged far afield, and there were other hunters who would scruple eve
n less to take a runty foal and his mother caught away from the herd by night. Dawn, however, found them still alive, huddled together in the dewy grass. By the next evening, they had rejoined the herd near Chelby Lake.
The abundance of the season made life easier for them. The ferryshaft settled into a comfortable routine—feeding on the plain in the morning and drinking by the lake in the evening.
So-fet hoped that Storm would forget that fearful spring. She wanted his first memories to be happy ones. As he grew and became more self-aware, he did seem happy, though his isolation puzzled him. He did not understand why the other foals snickered when he approached, why they melted away when he wandered towards their games.
So-fet pretended not to understand when he questioned her. The reason was simple: he was still too small. Even the females out-measured him. So-fet played with Storm alone, fretting to herself.
During their first summer, most foals joined small social groups. They played, practicing skills they would need in the coming winter. Hierarchies arose first within these groups, often based on the status of parents. A foal with two parents might get help from them finding food during the winter, but a half-orphan without a clique would never see his second spring. Storm met nothing but rejection when attempting to join even orphan cliques. The prominent did not want him because he was insignificant, and the insignificant did not want him because he was not strong.
Yet So-fet remained hopeful. She said little, loved much, and waited.
Chapter 3. The Grass Plains
One day in early fall, Storm was resting beneath a scrub tree, admiring the new colors in the leaves, when he caught sight of an animal on the distant plain. It looked brownish and large, and it was moving in a straight line at a steady pace. He could tell that it was not a ferryshaft, but that was all. Storm was instantly curious. He was about to go ask his mother to identify the new animal, when it vanished.
Storm forgot completely about what the animal had been in his wonder at where it had gone. On an impulse, he got up and started running. The sun was sinking down the western sky by the time Storm reached the spot where he thought he had seen the animal disappear. He snuffled about in the tall grass, but found nothing to explain what he’d seen.
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