by Joseph Lallo
“Enough. Get down,” she said, hobbling up to him and bopping the top of his head.
“What?”
“Down. Nose on the ground. You should have found the trail by now, but you have not. This you should have learned as a child, so get down where your nose would be as a child.” She slapped the top of his head again. “Down.”
“You don't need to do that,” he growled.
“I am hungry, and soon the sun will rise and the food will be ready for us. So you need to be a better hunter very fast. Now get down, Teyn.”
He ducked out of the way of a final slap to the head and crouched low, putting his hands to the icy earth and lowering his head. Eyes shut, he sampled the air again. The scent of the rabbits was stronger, easier to follow. Keeping his nose close to the soil, he crept forward. With each step, the trail grew stronger. The crawl turned to a crouching walk. A life of slinking through the shadows, fearful of being heard, had taught him to keep his steps silent without sacrificing speed.
After five minutes of weaving through trees and following the scent, he approached a clearing with a low, dense cluster of thorn bushes. The sun was a bit higher in the sky now, casting enough rosy glow for his keen eyes to pick out the dimples of footprints leading to and from the bushes. Evidently the rabbits he'd chased from the warren had made this their new home. He turned back to see if Sorrel had been able to keep up with him, but if she was behind him, she was far behind, nowhere in sight. Looking back to the bushes, though, earned him a glimpse of a tattered heap of layered cloth, crutch sticking awkwardly to the side and a red-furred muzzle grinning from underneath a hood.
His mind not quite willing to allow the possibility that Sorrel could have beaten him to the prize despite being nearly crippled, he glanced behind him once more. When he turned to her again, she pulled back the hood enough for him to see her eyes. She pointed to them, then to the bushes, and finally raised her crutch like a club. He nodded once and tensed his legs. She nodded again, then swiped the crutch at the bushes, rattling free a crust of ice and causing and explosion of startled rabbits to burst from the other side.
There were five of them, and having the benefit of preparation hadn't done much to tip the odds in his favor beyond the first pounce. The leap had netted him the unlucky creature first to leave the cover. The others scattered. He scrambled back to his feet, locked his eyes on one of them, and rushed after it. Chasing a rabbit turned out to be nearly as difficult as chasing Sorrel had been. The little thing moved in leaps that never seemed to head quite in the direction he was expecting. Nonetheless, he kept after it, digging his feet into the earth and cutting aside to stay on its trail whenever it changed direction. Eventually, his breath heaving and his chest burning from the cold air once again, he managed to dive upon it. For the second day in a row, there would be a meal for himself and his tutor.
He was just catching his breath when Sorrel caught up with him.
“How many?” She asked.
He held up his hard-earned catch.
“Two? Bah!” she grumbled, coming closer and snatching the larger of them to inspect. “This is why I do not like rabbits. Very much running, not very much eating. But still,” she said, slapping him on the back, “one lesson, two rabbits. Maybe not so many hungry days ahead after all. Come, we eat now. And you can start one of your fires if you want. I know a good place.”
#
The place Sorrel spoke of turned out to be a narrow notch cut out of the mountainside. What had likely once been a much larger stream was now a trickle of icy water tracing a crooked path along a hollowed out alley of smooth stone. A large alcove in the stone wall was wide enough to comfortably fit the two malthropes, with room enough for a fire between them. Best of all, for the first time since he'd entered the mountains, he wasn't being blasted by the merciless wind.
As they had the night before, each ate eagerly and quietly, but for once the hunger was not desperate, and thus the food could be savored a bit more. As “Teyn” chewed at his meal, he looked over his new teacher. A malthrope's eyes were sharp day or night, but in darkness they told little of subtle things like color. Now that the sun had truly risen, the light was enough for him to take in the sight in full. She looked to be older than him, but still young, perhaps a handful of years further into her adulthood than he. He was a bit taller, the tips of her pointed ears coming to eye-level for him. Her clothes were at least four layers of the billowy robes and trousers that the farmers wore, supplemented by a collection of scarfs and shawls, and topped with a thick, gray, hooded cloak which had not been present the day before. Her fur was different from his, a dark mahogany instead of his own fiery orange, but the same cream at her throat and black at the tips of her ears. Her eyes were gray with hints of yellow and amber, and her hair was a long and tangled mass that gathered into a pool in her hood. Three small gold hoop earrings adorned one ear, and a pair of mismatched rings were on her right hand. Her eyes flicked in his direction a few times as he studied her.
“Why do you look at me so much, Teyn?” she asked.
“I've never seen another malthrope before.”
“Well, do not look so much.”
“I apologize. Tell me, how did you end up ahead of me when I was tracking down the rabbits?”
She smirked. “In the beginning, you figure out how to follow the trail. Later, you figure out where it leads. It is faster.”
“When will you teach me that?”
“I will not. It is not something someone teaches. It is something you learn by doing.”
“I see.” He ate a bit more and looked around at the simple but effective shelter. “Is this where you went yesterday? Is this your home?”
She scoffed. “No, Teyn. I did not take you to the place where I sleep. My home is a nicer place than this, but for you, this place is good. Better than sleeping in the windy trees.”
“Yes. Thank you for finding it.”
He looked thoughtfully in her direction. She weathered his gaze for a few moments before setting her food aside and glaring at him. “You are looking at me too much again, Teyn.”
“I'm sorry, but I have so many questions.”
“If they are about the hunting, we will talk later, before dusk.”
“No, they are about us. Malthropes.”
She sighed. “Well, ask, if it will stop your staring.”
“Well . . . what are we?”
“We are malthropes.”
“Yes, but what is a malthrope? Humans say we are half fox, half man.”
“Men. Men know nothing about such things. We are not half man. We are not half fox. We are malthropes. Look . . . here.” She plucked a water-smoothed stone from beside the stream. “This rock, it is round, yes? And it is more yellow than the other stones, yes? A lemon is round, and it is yellow. Is this stone half lemon because of that? No. And we are not half man either. A yellow stone is a yellow stone. A malthrope is a malthrope. Men say these things so that he can say that anything good in us comes from men. 'It walks like a man. It thinks like a man.' As if it is only men who can do these things. There are parts of us that are like men, and there are parts that are like an animal, but we are what we are, not half of anything.”
“Where do we come from?”
“I come from Vulcrest. I have said this.”
“No, our race. What is our history?”
“Where do men come from? Where do elves come from? Dwarves? Dragons? Fairies? Where do these things come from? I do not know. But probably the answer is the same for them as it is for us.”
“You speak Crich, I speak Tresson, but these are the same languages that the humans speak. Is there a malthrope language?”
“If there is, I do not know it. I do not think so. I think languages are things for places, not for types of creatures.”
“Why did we—”
“This was not the deal,” she interrupted. “The deal was for me to teach you to survive, not to teach you these other things. Eat your food and sta
y quiet. Save strength, yes?”
He nodded slowly and returned to his meal, eating it in nibbles in an attempt to make a somewhat inadequate meal last a bit longer. As he did, he noticed that Sorrel was now staring at him, though not as overtly as he'd been staring at her. Her head was pointed vaguely at the fire just as his was, but in his peripheral vision he could see her eyes dart in his direction every few moments, lingering a bit longer each time. He drew in a breath to ask why she was looking at him, but he decided to keep his silence. It may only have been a short time that he'd known her, but he'd already learned that she had no interest in idle conversation. Instead, he let his thoughts churn in his head.
It was strange. There was no question why Sorrel didn't like him to stare. All of his life he'd felt uncomfortable when others looked his way. It must have been something all malthropes shared . . . except she was certainly staring at him now, whether she knew that he'd noticed or not, and he didn't mind. It didn't stir the same anxiety. He didn't feel the urge to slink into the nearest shadow or tuck himself into a forgotten corner until they left him be. But why? Perhaps it was because she was a malthrope? Perhaps malthropes didn't have the same effect on each other? But then why did she tell him not to stare?
As his mind wandered in tight little circles, he failed to notice his eyes were betraying him, drifting toward her until they each were sharing the same askance view of one another. They remained that way for a time, each lost in thought, each observing the other, until their wandering eyes met. The burning flutter of an entirely new sort of anxiety shot through him and he hastily turned his gaze back to the shifting flames. Rather than doing the same, Sorrel shook her head. Though out of the corner of his eye he couldn't be sure, he thought he saw a grin briefly curl her lips.
Chapter 15
In the days that followed, the lessons flowed. Teyn was no stranger to following directions and learning new skills, but this time it was different. When he had been learning to work the land, treat injuries, and repair equipment, he'd been slow to learn. Each new task had been a challenge, a struggle.
Not so now. Hunting, tracking—all of the skills of the forest felt natural, familiar. It wasn't as though Sorrel was teaching him, it was as though she was helping him to remember something that he'd known all along. Even more importantly, this time he was not working to please someone, though every hard-earned word of praise from Sorrel was savored. This time he was reaping his own rewards. A good day's hunt meant a full stomach for both himself and his teacher, and a poor day's hunt meant a hungry night for each of them. One would be hard-pressed to find a more effective motivation.
Regardless of how quickly he learned, or how driven he was to succeed, there was a reason the mountainside had been abandoned by human hunters. The sparse trees and rocky soil were a terrible hunting ground. In his first two weeks under her tutelage, he seldom caught anything larger or more nourishing than the rabbits of the first few days, but even when there was no meat to be found, there were important lessons to learn. A nose trained to follow the trail of a frightened bit of prey was equally useful in sniffing out mushrooms, berries, nuts, and seeds. Finding them was only part of the challenge. The more important lesson was knowing which to eat and which to avoid.
“What about this one?” Teyn asked, crouching down beside a cluster of speckled mushrooms at the base of a pine.
“Ah, no. No, no! Do not touch. Those are bad. They will make you very sick,” she said, touching his shoulder to back him away.
“How do you know?”
“Different ways. Look. You see here? There are ants all around. On the tree, on the rocks. Everywhere. But not on the mushroom. If they do not want it, you do not want it. Also, something is probably good to eat of you find bits of it in . . . what is the word? In Crich we say gohveen. What animals leave behind.”
“Droppings?”
She smirked. “Yes, like that, but my word is stronger, and more fun to use. It is—oh!” Her ears perked up. She began making wafting motions with her hands, waving air toward her nose. “Do you smell that? Smell, smell!”
He drew in a breath, sifting through the tapestry of scents for the thread that she might be indicating. “Is it . . . a sort of sharp smell? And sweet?”
“Yes. Now show me where,” she said, ushering him with a tap on the back.
In the days since reluctantly accepting the task of teaching Teyn, Sorrel had warmed to the role. Perhaps it was his eagerness to be taught, or perhaps it was the inherent satisfaction in seeing lessons bear fruit, but her initial almost resentful attitude toward instruction was now practically enthusiasm. She seldom missed an opportunity to turn an errant breeze or a distant rustle into a test of what he’d learned thus far.
After a few floundering moments of trying to follow the faint scent, Teyn picked a direction. Though he'd not yet mastered such nuances, it was clear that the source of the aroma was a fair distance away. As he walked, sniffing periodically, he looked to his tutor. She was limping along, her crutch touching down only every second or third step.
“You really ought to avoid putting so much weight on your leg,” he said.
“My leg is feeling better than it was. I do not need the crutch so much.”
“It is feeling better because you've been keeping your weight off of it. If you—”
“Ah-ah-ah!” she shushed. “I am teaching, you are learning. Remember this.”
“The deal was for me to help you with your leg. If you don't let me do it—”
“Fine, fine,” she grumbled, making a show of pounding the crutch to the earth for a few steps.
He nodded and put his nose to the wind once more. They marched up the slope of the mountain, past some thinning trees, and then down again across a rocky stretch before reaching a thicket of thorn bushes.
“There, yes. You see? You see where your nose leads you?” Sorrel said. “Even when you cannot catch food, it leads you to things that you can eat.” She thumped up to the bushes. “These berries are good to eat. I would not like to eat them always, but while my leg is hurting, they have kept me from starving. Crouch down. I will show you how you should pick them.”
Teyn did as he was told, but before she could give any instruction, he was already hard at work, his hand darting among the thorny branches and gathering berries with practiced ease. The plant wasn't rakka, but the berries grew in much the same way. It made the task a familiar one, so much so that going through the motions that had filled so many hours of his youth began to bring back unwanted memories, which he paused to shake away. Even so, within moments he had filled his palm with perfectly ripe berries. He stood and held them out to her. She eyed the mound of fruit, the corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk, then raised an eyebrow.
“This you can do?” she said doubtfully. “You cannot hunt, or track, or do any of the things that you need to be doing, but this you can do?”
“It was one of the things they taught me.”
She huffed. “Leave it to men to teach all of the wrong things. Bah! No matter. When you eat these, you eat slow. One at a time. You will be sad if you do not,” she said, taking a berry from his hand and popping it in her mouth.
He sampled one. It was powerfully tart, almost painfully so, with the slightest hint of sweetness behind it. The flavor filled his mouth, bringing a tear to his eye and twisting his face with the intensity. The sight of his reaction prompted a boisterous laugh from Sorrel.
“You see? Imagine if you eat two. Now, berries, roots, nuts, things like these? You eat them one day. Maybe two. More than that without some meat and you will be feeling not well.”
“Why?”
Sorrel glared at him. “Why always are you asking why? I am not teaching you why. I am teaching you what, and also how. Why does not keep your belly full. Now, give me these,” she said, steadying his hand with hers and brushing the berries into one of her many pockets. “Fetch some more for yourself, and we eat.”
He did as requested, stripping anoth
er bush of what he supposed were its ripe berries and returning to find her sitting in the awkward position her bad leg required of her. Her back was against a tree, a mossy rock beneath her knee to prop up the ailing limb. She was enduring the punishing intensity of the berries, eyes squinted and head tilted.
“The berries,” she said with a shudder, “are a punishment for not hunting better, I think.”
“I'll have to do better tomorrow, then.”
“Yes, you will.”
He took a seat beside her and reluctantly subjected himself to the same trial-by-dinner. After three or four of the fruits, his tongue finally surrendered, refusing to report any more of the sour assault and making the rest of the meal a good deal more tolerable as a result. The days with Sorrel had managed to hammer her dislike of being watched while she ate firmly into his head, and thus he kept his eyes on his meal. Lately, though, she'd been flagrantly defying her own rule, staring directly at Teyn during meals. Her constant gaze prompted the same vague, tingling heat he always seemed to feel when he was seen, but from her it was different somehow. He'd come to expect it at times like these. It was almost comforting to know that there was finally someone from whom he didn't have to hide.