Uki and the Outcasts

by Kieran Larwood

  ‘Maybe not Pook,’ says the bard. ‘He’s extra special. But I’m sure you will like them. We live in a world full of stories, you know. It would be boring only to hear about the same characters over and over, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Is it a real-life story?’ Rue asks. ‘Will there be actual characters who pop up at the end of our journey to surprise me, like Sythica? And you?’

  ‘Well,’ the bard tugs at his beard again. ‘I admit there seems to be a pattern of that happening. But I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘Very well, then,’ says Rue. ‘I would like to know everything about the Endwatch. Everything.’ He emphasises the last word with a glare at the bard.

  ‘Excellent,’ says the bard. ‘It’s probably a good idea for you to know about him. It can be the second story for your memory warren.’

  ‘Wait … him? Who’s him?’

  ‘Uki,’ says the bard. ‘Uki Patchwork. The Magpie Demon. Uki of the Two Furs.’

  ‘Uki? Magpie Demon? Who’s he? Why’s he called that? Is he the hero? How can someone have two furs?’

  But the bard has rolled over and pulled his cloak across his face. All Rue’s questions fall on deaf ears and there is nothing else for the little rabbit to do except wait for morning and the start of a new story.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Outcast

  Rue sleeps badly that night. Wind whistles around the inn – a sound he has never heard before, being used to burrow life – and he keeps jolting awake as it howls and hoots, as it shakes the thatch roof and rattles the shutters.

  When he does sleep, his dreams are full of sinister foxes with wide, yellow eyes, chasing him through mountain passes, always staring, staring. It is almost a relief to see the dawn light peeping in through the window crack, and to nudge the bard awake with a foot.

  They each snatch a roll of fresh-baked bread from the kitchen and step out of the inn into a bright, clear morning. The air is sharp and cold and Rue’s breath steams, joining with wisps from his hot, buttered roll as he crams it into his mouth, filling his fur with sticky crumbs.

  The townsfolk of Pebblewic are just beginning to rise, but one has been up for a while, waiting for them. Rue spots the hooded figure of Nikku stomping over, those quick brown eyes darting to and fro.

  ‘Morning,’ says the bard when she draws close. Rue remembers what he learnt about Kether last night and touches three fingers to his forehead. To his delight, it draws a broad smile from Nikku.

  ‘Ninefold blessings to you, little one,’ she says.

  ‘Did you find us a wagon?’ asks the bard. Rue half hopes she hasn’t. His bottom is still bruised from the bumpy cart ride through the pass.

  ‘Better than that,’ says Nikku. ‘Come.’

  She leads them back up the beaten-mud path that winds between the squat Pebblewic houses, back to the gravel road from Enderby. One of the houses by the roadside seems to be some kind of trading station. Rabbits are already leading rats out from the stables and saddling them, or hitching them to carts and wagons. Cargo is being loaded ready to head back to Gotland, or further on into Hulstland itself.

  The carts look extremely uncomfortable with thick wooden wheels that will feel every pothole and jolt.

  ‘Not those, little one,’ says Nikku, spotting Rue wincing. ‘Around the corner here.’

  They head around the side of the little trading station and there, all hitched up and waiting to go, is the strangest wagon Rue has ever seen.

  It has spindly, spoked wheels fixed to curved bits of metal, and a skinny wooden frame with hide stretched over it. It doesn’t look strong enough to hold its cargo of baled-up Enderby tartan, let alone passengers.

  It has long shafts, between which two creatures have been harnessed. When Rue sees them, he blinks in surprise. He points and looks up at the bard with a mixture of fascination and horror.

  ‘Jerboas,’ the bard explains. ‘They live on the plains to the north. A bit like giant rats, but much, much faster.’

  Rue stares at them again. They have long ears like a rabbit, black eyes and twitchy rat noses, oversized, springy back legs with enormous splayed-toed feet, and graceful, sweeping tails, tufted at the end with sprays of fur. It’s like several different types of animal have been clumsily spliced into a very strange-looking mix. Suddenly, the good-old rats and their clumsy wagons don’t look too bad.

  ‘These will get you to Melt in no time,’ says Nikku. ‘Jaxom here is one of us, too.’

  She points towards a rabbit who has just emerged from the far side of the wagon. Dressed in leather armour, he has a mane of long, sandy fur, pulled into a topknot on his head. As he turns to greet them, Rue notices the criss-cross lines of scars all over his nose and face, and his fierce grey eyes, like chips of mountain rock. He also spots two long daggers in his belt, and a sword strapped to his back. He looks more like a warrior than a trader.

  The bard clasps wrists with him, then nods towards the wagon. ‘Fast is she?’

  ‘The fastest,’ says Jaxom, his voice gruff but friendly. ‘We’ll be in Melt by evening tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you expecting trouble?’ The bard looks pointedly at the weapons all over Jaxom’s belt.

  ‘There’s sometimes Arukh raiders about,’ says Jaxom. He shrugs as if it’s just a minor problem. ‘I can outrun them, no trouble.’

  Rue gulps. He has heard stories of the fierce Arukh rabbits, with their long, spiked manes and painted faces. None of them were very nice. Most of them involved someone being skinned alive.

  ‘Jaxom here is half Arukh himself,’ says Nikku with a grin. ‘There’s nobody better for getting you there with your fur still in one piece.’

  ‘You have our thanks,’ the bard says to her, swinging his pack up on the wagon. ‘I’ll let you know what we discover.’

  ‘Safe travels,’ says Nikku. She lifts Rue up on to the wagon and helps the bard clamber up next to him, and then she is gone. Rue just has time to snuggle himself up between two packages of tartan before Jaxom leaps on to the driver’s board and cracks his whip.

  ‘Off we go!’ he shouts, and the jerboas are away.

  It is the fastest Rue has ever moved in his life.

  The jerboas bound and leap with their long hind legs, sending the cart zipping along the track out of Pebblewic like an arrow from a bow.

  The sprung wheels of the wagon bounce and squeal but absorb most of the bumps and dips. What with the bales of material for extra cushioning, the ride is almost comfortable.

  Rue looks up at the bard, the wind whipping his tattooed ears back and whooshing through his fur. He beams at Rue and the pair laugh together, whooping as Jaxom cracks the whip and shouts out, ‘Hai! Hai!’

  Before the sun is properly up, the little town of Pebblewic is completely out of sight.

  *

  The hop-hop rhythm of the jerboas soon becomes natural, soothing even. They whizz along a track of dried mud and gravel, on their left the barren foothills leading up to the snow-capped peaks of the Arukh Mountains, on their right a wide expanse of empty grasslands. Nothing but the odd little tree – hawthorns and blackthorns, Rue thinks – tortured by the wind into bent, twisting shapes.

  It doesn’t take long for the little rabbit to get bored.

  ‘So,’ he says, after tugging at the bard’s cloak for a bit, ‘are you going to tell me about him then?’

  ‘Him?’ says the bard, a twinkle in his eye. ‘Him who?’

  ‘You know. Uki Thingy. The one you said about last night.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ says the bard. ‘I didn’t think you really wanted to hear about that. I was sure you only wanted more tales about Podkin.’

  ‘I do,’ says Rue. ‘I really do. But first I want to hear about Uki. And the Endwatch, and why you have to guard against them. Come on, you said you’d tell. We’re on this wagon for two days. I’ll die of boredom if you don’t.’

  The bard pretends to consider this for a moment, knowing it will at least be nice and peaceful. In the end he
grunts and arranges himself on the tartan bales a bit more snugly.

  ‘Very well,’ he says. ‘I have to warn you, though, it doesn’t start off like Podkin’s story.’

  ‘You mean with Gorm and chasing and fighting and things?’

  ‘No, none of that. It’s a very sad start, I’m afraid. And Uki doesn’t seem like much of a hero to begin with.’

  ‘Neither did Podkin,’ Rue reminds him.

  ‘That’s true,’ the bard nods.

  ‘But there will be action, won’t there? And daring deeds and fights and things?’

  ‘Oh yes, lots of those,’ says the bard. ‘Once the story gets going. You have to let it build up first, though. A good story comes to the boil slowly, just like a good vegetable stew.’

  ‘I know,’ says Rue. ‘I can be patient. I can be as patient as anything.’

  The bard gives him a long look which says he knows otherwise, and then shakes his head and smiles to himself. ‘Very well, then. Show me your best patient listening and I’ll begin …’

  *

  The story starts, as not many nice ones do, in a graveyard.

  Not a nice little well-tended Enderby graveyard, with wildflowers and butterflies and benches to sit on. No, this one is north, far north. Up just beyond the crumbled remains of the Cinder Wall, in the frosty tundra and spiky bare trees of the Ice Wastes.

  The tribe that lived there had walled off a bit of dead woodland, built a little shrine to Zeryth, their god of storms and snow, and scraped out some shallow holes for their dead.

  Grave mounds of broken stone are dotted here and there, marked with carved wooden poles, hung with beads and charms laced on to braided string. The wind that howls through that wasteland blows them, filling the bare woodland with a constant rattling. A sound like the bones of the restless dead, lying in their cold, shallow scrapes in the earth.

  On the night our story starts, a poor, starving mother rabbit has braved the darkness of the woods and the clattering of the unquiet dead. She has crept into the sacred space of the graveyard, knowing she would never be allowed in if the tribe knew, knowing they would chase her out with sticks and hurled stones, with screams of ‘outcast!’ and ‘witch!’

  But tonight, she has to be there, even though it will mean using up the end of her strength. Even though the bitter northern cold is already eating into her fingers, toes and ears. Even though she knows it is her final night on this painful, miserable earth.

  For in her arms, bound in a piece of tattered blanket, is the body of her only child. Nothing more than bones, wrapped in skin – the poor thing wheezed out his last breath that very morning.

  ‘Uki,’ she whispers to the body, cradling it like she did when he was born eight years ago. ‘Uki.’

  She had been so happy then, in that moment. Happier than at any time in her life. That little bundle of fur had completed her in a way she had never thought possible, and she knew, the first moment she saw him, that she would do anything for him, anything, for the rest of her days.

  Anything, including creeping into a frozen, haunted graveyard to bury him in a hidden corner under a dead oak tree.

  Laying Uki’s body gently on the ground, she began to paw and scrape at the iron-hard earth. With her fingers first, then with a lump of rock.

  ‘No good,’ she whispered. ‘No good.’ She was too weak to even make a dent on the frozen soil.

  Instead, she began to gather rocks, some from the tumbledown stone wall of the graveyard, some borrowed from the burial mounds around her, hoping the spirits of their owners wouldn’t be angered.

  Slowly, painfully, she started to cover the body of her son.

  As she worked, she thought back over his short life, remembering how hard it had been. What suffering they had both been through. Her tears fell amongst the stones.

  She wasn’t from the Ice Wastes, originally. She had been born in Gotland, in a little warren called Flintle. Her parents had been potters and, when she was about the same age as her son, they had decided to travel to Hulstland where, her father had heard, there was good work for rabbits with his talents.

  ‘Meera,’ he had said. ‘It will be a new life for us. Things are better in the Empire. They have cities and roads and guards with suits of shining armour. Rabbits will buy our pots and we will have our own shop with a burrow behind it. It will be perfect. You’ll see.’

  Except they had never got that far. No sooner had they made it through the mountains, the group they were travelling with was attacked by a party of Arukh raiders.

  There were spears and flint axes and screaming. Somehow she was separated from her parents, dashing into the shelter of some nearby trees. To this day she doesn’t know if they survived. She has hoped many times that they did.

  For several days she had wandered through the lifeless trees of the Icebark Forest, surviving on scraps of bark and the odd berry. She was found, half dead, by another raiding party, this time from a tribe of Ice Waste rabbits crossing the boundary of the Cinder Wall to steal food and seeds.

  They took her back with them and tied her up, quite possibly getting ready to eat her. It was only because one of them spoke Lanic and found out she was a potter that she was spared.

  In return for her skills, making the best pots and bowls the tribe had ever seen, she was adopted. She lived among them and learnt their ways, even taking one of their warriors as a husband.

  For a few years, things were good, and she was happy.

  And then Uki was born.

  She noticed it as soon as he was passed to her for his first feed. Such an unusual baby: it was like a line had been drawn down the middle of him. One side had fur as black as the moon’s shadow and an eye of icy blue. The other side was snow white, like his father, but with a deep-brown eye. Burnt umber, like a clay pot fresh out of the kiln.

  She blinked up at her husband in wonder – about to marvel at how special their new baby was – and that was when she first saw it. That look of horror, mixed with disgust.

  To her, this half and half child was a blessing. She remembered one being born in her home warren, how the priestess of her tribe had called it sacred. The joining of two kittens in the womb, making something new.

  But to the Ice Waste rabbits, with their pure white fur, he was a monster. Something different, something wrong. A thing to be afraid of.

  They are brutal, the Ice tribes. Their food and warmth and shelter are precious. Too precious for any who are weak or unhealthy. Those that don’t fit are simply taken out on to the tundra and left in the cold. Left for Zeryth to claim their souls, the foxes to eat their bones.

  That was what they wanted to do to Uki: to leave him in a snowdrift to freeze. She refused, and begged and pleaded with her husband who, despite sharing the tribe’s beliefs, loved her truly. Uki was allowed to stay, even though it made life difficult for his parents. Meera, especially.

  It took quite some time but she learnt to bear all the evil stares and insults. She took them for her child, who – despite his two halves – grew into a strong and healthy toddler.

  They might have still been there now if her husband hadn’t died.

  He went out on a raiding party, four years ago now, and never returned. The warriors had tried to steal food from one of the Blood Plains tribes and been caught. Those rabbits were fierce, almost as fierce as the Arukhs, and only one fighter had returned alive.

  Without the protection of her husband, it only took a few days before they were thrown out of their hut. If it hadn’t been for her pottery, they would have been cast out of the village completely. As it was, they were allowed to move into a broken-down, draughty old roundhouse on the outskirts of the tribe. She carried on making pots, which were bought for scraps of food. The tribe put up with her just as long as her demon son was kept hidden away. Out of sight and out of mind.

  Uki continued to grow, even though food was scarce. She kept him cloaked and hooded, and only left the house when she knew no other rabbits were about. They haunte
d the nearby woods at dusk and dawn, foraging for extra food, digging for clay. Like a pair of ghosts with only each other for company.

  She’d often thought of leaving. They could head back over the Wall, somehow survive the cold, dodge the plains rabbits and the Arukhs. Maybe even make it back through the mountains to her old warren.

  But the risks were too great, she’d always told herself. And they were surviving. Not comfortably, true, but they were alive.

  ‘Stupid,’ she whispered to herself as she laid the rocks over her son. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’

  But back then she had no way of knowing what was to happen.

  *

  As Uki grew older, he began to notice that he was different. Meera never mentioned it or said anything when he wondered aloud why one of his paws was black, the other white. But he could see his fur was patterned differently to her dusty brown colouring and that his eyes, when he glimpsed his reflection in a pool or puddle, were not the same.

  The image of his halves stayed with him, and he grew to think of himself in that way: two parts of one thing.

  Happy Uki / sad Uki.

  Kind Uki / selfish Uki.

  Brave Uki / scared Uki.

  He even divided the voice in his head – that little voice we all have chattering to us in the background – into two: the normal part for everyday thoughts and another, darker side for all his worries and fears. It would chirp up whenever a decision had to be made, or when something was about to change, making him doubt himself or panic. Most of the time he tried to ignore it or prove it wrong. Most of the time.

  And then there was the bullying.

  The village adults all kept well away from their lonely roundhouse with its leaky roof and draughty walls. Children, though, are more curious, especially if there’s something they’re told to stay clear of.

  Every now and then a group of them dared each other to go and find ‘the demon’. They would stand outside the hut, at a safe distance, waiting for a glimpse. When they saw Uki peep at them through the doorway, or caught him out fetching water from the nearby stream, they would run away shrieking in mock terror.