Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  "It's easy, if you know what you're doing," Tarrin told her dismissively. "They all seem to make the same mistake."

  "If it's alright with you, I'd like to take a couple of its teeth," Var said. "They make great trophies, and I can use them to demonstrate this one's size when I tell my tribe of this."

  "It's yours," he grunted. "I don't want to eat it. Do whatever you want with it." He glanced at Denai, who had her head about halfway into the kajat's open mouth. "I wouldn't do that," he warned her.

  "Why?"

  "It's not dead yet, and if it really tried, it could probably close its mouth. You'll lose your head if you keep going."

  Denai flinched back from it quickly, then laughed. "I should have realized that. How long?"

  "Give it a few moments, then it'll be safe," he replied. "By the time you're dry and dressed, it'll be dead."

  He stood by the dying giant as Var and Denai dressed, and he decided that it had been long enough. He stepped back and let them inspect the great beast, Var taking its four largest teeth and Denai taking the massive claw on one of its feet, a claw nearly as long as her forearm. "I think I could make something of these," Var said curiously, looking at the teeth. "A medallion or figure, a reminder of our time together."

  "Whatever," Tarrin grunted. "Sarraya can Conjure you anything you need."

  "I really need to learn how to do that," Denai laughed, holding the claw up to her sword, comparing them. "It must be very handy to make anything you want appear."

  Tarrin ignored her. "We have to move. This thing is going to attract scavengers, and they may like their meat fresh."

  "What about Sarraya?" Var asked.

  "She can find me no matter where I am. She'll be fine."

  They moved to a shallow valley about a longspan from the carcass, a valley abutted by the wall, a defensible position to await Sarraya's return. Var and Denai sat by the wall as Tarrin stood on the hilltop, watching out for any more surprises. They didn't wait for very long, for the Faerie appeared before him and landed lightly on his shoulder about an hour after they moved. "I saw the body. It looks like you had fun without me."

  "That wasn't fun."

  "It looks like you did it. Where were they?"

  "Waist deep in a pond, splashing water at each other."

  Sarraya laughed, then she hovered so she could look at him. "I'm impressed," she said seriously. "You protected them, Tarrin. That's pretty remarkable, coming from you."

  "That wasn't protecting them," he said gruffly. "That thing was coming after me."

  "Because you put yourself out where it would see you first, most likely," she said dismissively. "Rationalize it any way you want, Tarrin, but you can't hide the truth. You're protecting the Selani. I've seen you do it for days now, without making much of an issue of it."

  Tarrin stared at her, but she just smiled at him. "You're losing your bite, you grumpy curmudgeon," she teased. "But as I recall, a long time ago, that's what you were trying to do. I think Triana would be proud of you."

  Tarrin looked away from her, suddenly embarassed. And he had no idea why.

  "Let's feed the masses, and then settle in. There are a lot of critters out there, and we'll be zigzagging quite a bit to avoid them. So we'd better leave at sunset. The most dangerous ones aren't nocturnal."

  "Good plan," he said.

  Tarrin hadn't thought of it, but he had to admit that it worked out perfectly.

  Moving at night had been the perfect solution. With Tarrin scouting ahead and Sarraya leading the two Selani along the surprisingly dark canyon floor, they managed to traverse it without any major incidents. All the dangerous predators were sleeping, for they were cold-blooded, and couldn't operate after dark. The air was surprisingly warm, for the humidity there locked in the warmth radiating from the stone walls of the canyon, and the winds prevented the heat from radiating out. That kept the floor of the canyon very nice, like a summer night in Aldreth, and Tarrin found the journey across the floor to be almost pleasant.

  The place was alot different at night. The towering walls blocked much of the sky, and that kept most of the light generated by the moons and Skybands out of the canyon itself. Tarrin's night-sighted eyes had no trouble seeing in the darkness, and the disappearance of the reptiles made the landscape seem almost like the grassy plains in the West. So much like them that it was easy to forget where he was, at least until he looked ahead of him and saw the longspan-high canyon wall approaching.

  The reflection didn't really start until they got to the other side, and huddled by the wall to rest while Tarrin kept watch. Sarraya was right. Tarrin found that he liked Denai, and he could tolerate Var, and that had caused him to act in a protective manner. He was protecting them. Even though he still couldn't bring himself to be civil to Var, he would still act to protect him, and that confused the Were-cat. That was not his normal reaction. Usually he wouldn't care. But now it did matter to him that Var remained healthy, and he had no inkling as to why. Var meant nothing to him, but something inside him just wouldn't accept the idea of leaving the Selani in danger. Something human.

  He had acted the same way before, with Sheba. He didn't care for Sheba, but he had prevented her from killing herself, even had healed her of her injuries. Out of impulse. Those impulses, long submerged under his ferality, were starting to reassert themselves, and that gave him a little hope for the future. They were human impulses, they were the remnants of his human morality trying to restore itself in his mind. He had swung about all the way he could towards the Cat, and now it seemed he was swinging back towards something of a center between his dual natures.

  He was changing. He could admit that to himself. But what was causing it? The haunting of the eyeless face, had it literally frightened him into change? Had his proximity to Var and Denai, two strangers, begun to eat away at his suspicious nature? Or had the strength of his human side, so long dominated by the powerful instincts of the Cat, finally found a way to fight back against them?

  Any of them could be the answer, but it left him in a bit of a quandry. He didn't like the idea of being moral. Killing people who got in his way was an expedient and efficient means of dealing with problems. The human in him didn't exactly approve of such behavior. Morality would cloud his world, and he didn't need any additional worries or confusion. It wasn't that he liked being monstrous, but in this dangerous game he was playing, getting hung up by an attack of moral consciousness could be a very bad thing. He was dealing with people who were utterly ruthless, willing to start wars and kill thousands to get what they wanted. He had to be capable of the same thing, or they would have an advantage over him. He welcomed the idea of not being so feral, but the idea that he would become a weak-hearted sop didn't rate highly with him. Mercy was for the weak, compassion was for the weak. They didn't fit in with his instinctual concept of the way things were.

  More to the point, they didn't fit in with the Cat's concept of things. Triana and Jesmind both had told him, and he had told Jula, that it was the balance between human and Cat that mattered. Tarrin hadn't had that balance. His ferality had caused his Cat instincts to dominate his thinking. And as they had so long ago when he tried to abandon his human side, they had proved to be much more resilient and powerful than he realized. The human in him was proving that it was just as strong as the Cat, but in different ways.

  He looked back at Var and Denai, who were both sleeping. He clearly identified both of his thoughts of them. The Human saw them as companions, even friends, and it sought to protect and nurture them. The Cat in him saw them as strangers, enemies--almost. Denai had even managed to worm her way into the Cat's good graces. It didn't particularly trust her, but it couldn't help liking her. It didn't want anything to do with them. They weren't his kind, they were weak, and they were a liability. It wanted to leave them behind.

  It struck him as slightly odd. The Cat was a racist.

  Not precisely a racist, he realized. It was a powerful creature, highly dignified, and wi
th a strong sense of control. The weak submitted, the strong ruled. That was its law. Denai was no challenge to it, so it almost accepted her, as a submittant. But Var was another matter. The Cat saw Var as dangerous, a potential rival, and much as he had reacted to the Were-cat males he had met in Shoran's Fork, he reacted much the same way with Var. He realized that if the Cat clearly believed it was dominant, it would come to accept Var. It was why it had accepted Sarraya, Camara Tal, and Phandebrass. They all had submitted to him in one way or another, though in Camara Tal's case, it took quite a while.

  Sometimes he overestimated that part of him. Sometimes it seemed more than primal, but time and time again he realized that the Cat in him was not smarter than it seemed. It was affected by his human intellect, but it still operated in basic, simple ways, and understanding those operations was the key to heading it off when it wanted to do something that the rest of him didn't want to do. It was and always would be an animal, no matter how long he lived or how smart he became. It would never change. Only its ability to affect his behavior would change.

  And it was just that simple.

  He was changing. He didn't know exactly what was causing it, and part of him resisted the idea, but like everything else that happened in his life, he merely accepted it. For him, it simply was. And that too was just that simple.

  "Oh, my," Var breathed.

  It was dawn, and the walls hid the sun from them to produce a steely gray light down at the bottom of the canyon. Var and Denai had just woke up, but Tarrin had stayed up all night to watch over the group, to use his keen senses to ensure no predators on the canyon floor found them. The two Selani were looking up the wall of the canyon, a longspan of sheer vertical rock standing between them and the top. The steep ridge of sorts that helped them get down wasn't there, because they were not exactly on the far side of it. Sarraya was out looking for it, and she would guide them to it when she came back.

  "It looks much bigger like this," Denai agreed. "But we got down, we can get back up."

  "It will take longer," Var said.

  "We have all day," Denai shrugged. "Are you afraid of a little climb, Var?"

  "Of course not," he replied immediately. "But you're dismissing how hard it's going to be."

  "I know it won't be easy. They'll probably have to throw blankets over us wherever we collapse when we get to the top. But I'm looking forward to the challenge."

  Sarraya came buzzing back, and she looked excited. "I found gold, Tarrin!" she said exuberantly. "A vein as thick as a man, and almost fifty spans long!"

  "We're not here for gold, Sarraya," he grunted in reply. "Did you find the ridge?"

  "Well, of course," she said with a pout. "But that's not as interesting as the gold."

  "Gold is holy to the Selani," Tarrin told her. "If you want it, you'll have to discuss it with them."

  "You don't have to put it that way," she said petulantly. "Come on, the ridge is about half a longspan this way."

  After they reached the ridge, they again tied themselves together in preparation for the climb up. This time it would be a bit harder, because the ridge didn't start until about a hundred spans up the canyon's wall. They'd have to scale the bare rock up to the ridge, where it would help them get up the wall a little more safely. That scaling didn't look like it was going to be too hard, because the stone was ragged and full of hand and foot holds.

  "I hope you two know how to climb," Tarrin told the Selani, as Sarraya settled in on top of his head, digging her legs into his hair as an anchor. He put his claws into the stone of the wall, and then immediately started up.

  "We're leaving now?" Denai said quickly. "Aren't we going to get ready first?"

  "If you're not ready by now, then you'll never be ready," Var told her as he started up after Tarrin.

  The climb up was much more difficult than the climb down had been. It took them nearly an hour to reach the ridge, because Var and Denai kept getting stuck trying to find suitable holds for their hands and feet. Tarrin resisted the urge to just dislodge them from the wall and do all the climbing to the ridge, but he realized that they'd have an even harder time trying to transit from the rope to the wall than if they just climbed up themselves. So he was forced to stop and wait for them much more than he wanted. Once they got to the ridge, however things picked up. Just like on the other wall, this ridge was steep, narrow, and the rock above it was littered with pits and protrusions that served perfectly as holds. They ascended into the buffetting winds, which caused them to slow down again. The wind that day was particularly fierce, and it provided the day's only episode of excitement for them.

  The wind was gusty and powerful, hitting at them with shocking suddenness, and once it caught Denai just as she was moving to another handhold, pulling herself up. Denai was the smallest and lightest of the three, and the wind had just enough force to pull her away from the wall. Tarrin looked down and behind him when he heard her gasp, saw her teetering with her toes on the edge of the very narrow ridge, windmilling with one arm to keep from slipping off as the other hand scrabbled on the wall to find something onto which to grab. Then the wind hit her again, and it pulled her feet off the ridge. She gave out a short cry as she fell off the ridge, tumbled down the vast gulf towards the ground, then stopped when the rope tying them together snapped taut. Var grunted and lost his breath when the rope suddenly yanked at his waist, but somehow he managed to hold on.

  "Sorry about that!" Denai called up to them, and that nearly made Tarrin laugh. Not get me up! and not what just happened, not even a scream or frightened reaction, but sorry about that. Denai was almost so fearless she was crazy. Var gritted his teeth and clung to the rock as Denai climbed up the rope, then pulled herself back onto the ridge. "Alright, that was fun. Shall we go?"

  "Are you two alright?" Tarrin asked.

  "Just give me a minute," Var wheezed. Tarrin saw that he had broken out into an immediate sweat. That wasn't good. He stepped down to where Var was clinging to the rock and pushed his paw up and under the Selani's loose shirt, and felt blood around the rope. The rope had hurt him more than he was letting on. Reaching within, through the Cat and into the All, Tarrin effected healing on Var, accelerated his natural healing and imparted upon him the strength to recover from the episode.

  "Sarraya, go check Denai. That maniac's probably got some broken ribs, but she wouldn't admit to it if she did."

  "Sure thing," Sarraya replied, pulling herself out of his hair and flitting over to look over the Selani female.

  "Feel better now?" Tarrin asked gruffly.

  "Much, thank you," he replied easily. "I didn't realize that the rope drew blood."

  "It did more than that. It broke one of your ribs," he answered in a neutral voice. The thought that he was right on top of Var in a dangerous position hadn't really occurred to him until just that moment, and he found himself climbing back up and out of the Selani's reach before he knew what he was doing. "Push the rope down so it's more on your waist," he said, covering up his actions. "How is it, Sarraya?"

  "Just some scrapes and bruises," Sarraya called to him. "She doesn't have anything permanent. Give me a minute, and we can move on."

  After waiting until Sarraya was again perched on his head, they started climbing again.

  It took them all day to get up the wall. The wind tore at them for more than half of the climb, until they ascended past the barrier between the cool, moist air in the bottom of the canyon and the hot, dry air above it. He felt it distinctly against his skin as the parched air blew over him, as the wind died away--or more to the point, he climbed out of the area of windy instability. Once he got out of the wind, he found the climb to go much faster, and found himself slowing down or stopping when he felt the rope around his waist go taut, telling him that he was outpacing the Selani. They didn't stop for more than a moment to rest, because none of them wanted to be caught on the wall when the sun went down. That would be a fatal mistake, and they all knew it. Getting to the top before sund
own was as much a survival issue as it was an end to the demanding climb.

  Tarrin put his paw on the edge of the canyon wall about an hour before sunset, and then pulled himself up onto horizontal ground. Once he was safely on solid ground, he turned around and grabbed the rope in both paws, then pulled both the Selani off the ridge and hauled them up to the top. Var gave him only a wild look when he was pulled off the wall, but Denai gave out a delighted laugh. He pulled them up and over the edge of the canyon one by one, Var collapsing to his hands and knees and panting heavily as soon as he was clear. Denai may have sounded energetic with her laughter, but as soon as she was on solid ground, she flopped heavily onto her back and panted just as heavily as Var. Both of them were drenched with sweat, and both of them had dried blood on their delicate four-fingered hands.

  Tarrin didn't feel like untying the rope. He sliced it off of him with a claw, then looked down at the pair calmly. The climb up was more strenuous than the climb down had been, and that coupled with the lack of sleep between going down and coming up had taken their toll on him. Now he was tired, but he wasn't about to show that particular weakness to those two. Sarraya picked herself out of his hair and moved to hover in front of him, her expression one of slight concern.

  "Sarraya, keep watch on them while I go find a place to camp. We have to get a fire going before sunset, and I don't think camping right here is a good idea."

  "You look tired, Tarrin," Sarraya protested. "You watch them, and I'll go find someplace suitable. After all, I didn't do any climbing."

  He didn't feel much like arguing with her. "Go ahead, but make it fast. The first place you find will do. We don't have much time."

  "Aye-aye, captain!" she said, throwing up a hand in salute like the sailors on the ships had done.