In Wilder Lands

by Jim Galford

  Dazed and disoriented, Estin continued trying to get up as the keep got closer. He simply could not get his feet under him and kept falling, sometimes forward, but just as frequently onto either side. Despite the haphazard movement and disorientation, he swung his tail in the air, using its weight to shift his direction and facing. He soon realized that his right arm and leg could feel the edge of the slide and he was drifting quickly off that side. The magical wall was not level.

  Several feet before the keep’s wall, Estin flew off the edge of the magic wall, feeling himself go airborne just before he crashed into the keep’s wall. He flailed, rolling as he fell to get himself facing the stones. Even once he did so, his claws dragged across the stone for several feet before he slowed and then stopped, his fingers and toes nearly numb with the strain.

  A glance down revealed two guards, smoking trollsbane cigars not far below him. Their conversation or the din from the streets had somehow covered his noise. In his own mind, he had sounded like a stampede, but their lack of reaction let him know that he had been relatively successful in remaining quiet.

  Once Estin was sure he would not fall again, he turned and checked on Varra. The girl was in a full panic, staring at the wall in utter terror. After several seconds, she looked at him, but her fear was just as plain.

  “Come on!” he mouthed, waving her over with one arm as he hung from the other and one foot. “I’ll catch you.”

  Varra shook her head vigorously and took a single step away.

  Estin glared and pointed at the tower, then at the wall. Varra seemed to take the hint and stopped backing away.

  Tightening her hands on the metal spikes she still held, Varra closed her eyes for a moment, then hopped onto the slide with both feet. Somehow, she managed to just barely keep her balance, though she was struggling to stay upright, right up until she rammed into the keep’s wall even harder than Estin had, just above him. Unlike him though, she had the presence of mind to drive the spikes into the wall as she hit, keeping her from falling at all.

  “Are you alright?” he whispered up to her, but she just nodded, dangling from the wall. She was gasping for air and likely could not answer him.

  After more than a minute of silence, Varra let go with one hand and reached over to touch the magical slide. It vanished instantly, leaving only open air. There was nothing left to show how they had gotten to the keep, other than the small crossbow bolts, which likely would never be seen except by someone climbing the wall.

  Pulling out a length of rope, Varra tied off to one of the spikes on one end, and the other to herself, allowing her to hang much like she had the night they had met. She dangled this way as she stretched her arms and rubbed at her jaw where she had hit the wall particularly hard.

  “I think I am ready now,” she told him finally, her voice barely audible. “I had the breath driven from my chest, but now can go. Meet me at the first window. We can rest there. It should be quiet this time of night.”

  With that, Varra pulled the untied spike free and rocked herself sideways until she was able to stab it into the next seam between stone blocks above her. She looped the rope around this spike and kicked the one below her free, pulling it up by the rope. Varra repeated this process over and over, making slow progress up the wall.

  Estin only had so much patience when it came to climbing—which was to say very nearly zero patience—and so began picking his own way upwards. His claws hooked onto tiny crevices and cracks, allowing him to make rapid progress, passing Varra after a few seconds. He continued up, but kept his ears perked and listening for the girl, to be sure she was alright…not that he could have done much if she did fall.

  It only took him a minute or two to reach the window, as it was less than twenty feet up from where they had started. He peeked over the edge into the room beyond, but in the darkness, could see very little without letting his eyes adjust. Instead, he sniffed the air and could not pick up any nearby humanoid scents, other than his own and Varra’s.

  Assured that the room was empty and had been for at least a little while, he pulled himself over the windowsill and onto the floor.

  The room was completely unlit and filled with elven-style furniture—lots of embroidered cloth and carved woods—and the far door was closed. Another sniff confirmed that an elf had been here that day, but just not recently. Judging by the scents, this room was normally occupied by a man, though there were a lot of different female scents, not even all elven.

  Estin just rolled his eyes, never quite understanding the ways of the other races.

  He knelt by the window, listening to the sounds of the keep and waiting for Varra. As he waited, there were nearby footfalls from the hallway, where he could make out at least three people passing the room he was in. Soft conversations drifted through the door, but Estin was unconcerned unless they were coming to his hiding place, which it seemed this group was not.

  Estin turned his ears somewhat, listening to the steady ‘clink’ noises of Varra getting close. Her pace would put her at the window in a minute or two. He cocked his head, tilting an ear in the direction of the door to listen for anyone approaching, but now the hallway was silent.

  Looking around instead of using his ears, Estin saw that he had landed in front of a full-length mirror, probably worth more from the silver behind the glass than his life would fetch on the open slave market. He stood slowly, touching the frame and judging whether he had any way of sneaking it out of the keep.

  Estin shoved at the side of the mirror and found it incredibly heavy, dashing his hopes of stealing it. His second thought was to possibly smash the glass and take the silver, but that would be too loud. With a sigh, he stepped back and admired the ornate wooden patterning around the edges of the glass, as he waited for Varra. He soon found himself looking himself over—something he rarely allowed himself to do. His appearance was something he was deeply insecure about.

  Estin was well aware that he was still very young—even for his people—at six years old. That made him an adult by two years or so, but still young enough to make at lot of mistakes. Those mistakes showed in his appearance, as did the tattered once-white shirt and dingy brown pants he wore. He knew that he looked far older than he should, but living as an orphan in a city that considered his kind to be little better than pack animals did not help him any.

  Though Estin stood straight like a human, he bore little resemblance to one. His long arms and legs were covered in fine grey fur, as was his back and most of his head. His face was visibly lined with stress and cold nights outside, even noticeable through the black muzzle and fur by his eyes, as well as the thicker white fur of the rest of his face. Even his white and black ears drooped more than he remembered his father’s, even at three times the age. His orange eyes were far more pale than he thought his father’s had been, too. That could have been untrue, as almost five years of memories could be quite inaccurate, but he had to believe that his life was taking a toll on him, even if that lifestyle was what he needed to be able to survive.

  Estin held up his hands and examined the black fur that covered them. Patches were bare, exposing rough black skin, where he had scraped himself climbing. Unlike the humans, he could not wear gloves or boots, given the long claws he bore on both hands and feet. Despite all the other visible differences between his kind and the other races, he considered the claws to be the defining trait that made him truly different.

  At that thought, he swept his tail around into view. It was longer than he was tall, measuring just over seven feet from hip to tip and almost as wide as his fist. Black and white stripes alternated every few inches down its length. This, he knew, was what the other races saw more than the rest of him. His parents had been prideful of the tails their breed bore, but Estin saw it as just another liability, drawing attention to him that he could not hide. No cloak would cover a tail as large as his and he had never found any other way to hide it and blend in.

  “You admire yourself while I climb?�
�� chided Varra, now hanging on the window-ledge. “You are a handsome boy, now get over it and help me up.”

  Estin snagged one of her hands and pulled her up over the ledge, then grinned as she clapped softly for him.

  “We have made first hurdle,” she told him, seemingly quite happy with them both. “Now is easy part, I wish to think.”

  “You mean the next twenty floors?”

  Varra rapped him on the bridge of his nose, snapping his attention back to her face and making him nearly sneeze.

  “Is not right to be so negative. If your ears drooped more, I would have to pick them up off the floor. We have made good start, yes?”

  Estin winced and tried to move towards the door, but Varra hopped in front of him.

  “We are okay, yes? I am sorry. No more will I hit you on the nose. Is this good?”

  Nodding and refraining from telling her how much he distinctly hated humans resorting to smacking him on the nose, Estin moved back to the door, popping it open an inch or two so he could peek out. Seeing nothing, he began to move out, but Varra tugged at his shirt, yanking him back. She practically slammed him into the wall, pressing herself against him to hold him there.

  Estin began to object, but Varra was vigorously pointing down the hall in the opposite direction that Estin had been looking. He followed her gesture and saw a robed figure—the build suggested a human—moving their direction. This man walked in the dark hallway with no torch, his heavy cloak sliding softly along the stone floor, making little noise.

  As the man passed, Estin sniffed, trying to identify the man’s race or where he had come from—the act was mostly instinctual, giving Estin far more information than simply staring at someone—but all he smelled was dirt and a faint scent of mildew. The regular odors of the humanoid races were badly muted and he could only hazard a guess that the person was indeed human, though his build could have been elven as well, he realized.

  “What was that?” he asked once the man had disappeared.

  “That,” Varra said, her voice shaky, “was a necromancer of the Turessi tribesmen from the far north. I had heard they were to visit this area, but I did not believe. For this I was foolish.”

  “A necromancer?”

  Varra nodded vigorously, then spat on the ground. She peeked around the door one more time, verifying that the man was out of earshot.

  “Most tribesmen believe in the spirits, the elements, totem animals, or even their ancestors. These particular tribes believe that the dead hold no value, revering the death of their kin. They try to keep their dead serving the tribe until their bodies have crumbled to ash from age. To my clan, that is the worst heresy we can imagine to perform on your ancestor. Worship whatever dark god you wish, but leave your ancestors’ bodies alone.”

  Estin felt a cool chill right down to his tail at the idea of an entire tribe of death worshipers and decided to keep his distance from them. He made a mental note of the man’s aroma, hoping to never encounter it again.

  “We avoid Turessians…I like this plan. Shall we move on?”

  With a curt nod, Varra inched out the door and checked both directions repeatedly, squinting in the dark hallway. Somehow silencing the jewelry she wore, the girl moved off to Estin’s right, heading quickly away from where the Turessian had gone.

  Estin watched until Varra had disappeared around a corner, then went back to the bedroom window. Taking deep breaths to calm himself before the long climb, put one foot up on the sill in preparation for his lengthy climb, when he heard the door open behind him.

  Light and voices filled the room abruptly, forcing Estin to rush out the window, barely having the presence of mind to be careful of his grip on the sheer surface. He swept outwards, catching the stone edge of the frame with his claws and swung himself back against the wall on the outside. As fast as he was able, he pulled his tail out as well, hoping that no one had seen it darting into the darkening sky beyond.

  “Nolen, this room is freezing!” exclaimed a female voice. Dwarven, by the scent.

  “We just close the window shades and start a fire,” stated a man’s voice, the tone indicating a distinct desire for the female, Estin thought. “Much cozier.”

  Estin thumped his head against the stone wall as the window was closed behind him, wondering for at least the thousandth time in his life why humans and elves claimed that wildlings like Estin were “breeding like rabbits” and needed to be thinned. This had been the common justification for enslaving his people even more so than the debtors of other races. From what he saw and heard, quite the opposite was true, with his people becoming more scarse, even as the “accepted” races bred with anything at their disposal.

  Estin wondered if the other races realized how crude their breeding habits seemed to everyone else. Somehow he doubted it.

  He hugged the wall, keeping his body and tail flat against the wall as he looked up to gauge just how far the climb would be. Though he had tried to study the wall when he had been on the neighboring building, staring straight up twenty or more floors was far more intimidating.

  Clenching his jaw and fighting back an image of throttling Nyess for putting him up to this just to pay off debts, Estin began moving upwards. He knew he could move faster if he wanted to, but with each floor of the building, he had less desire to risk losing his grip. Not only that, he was quickly becoming nervous about whether his arms would support that long of a climb. He was very good at climbing buildings, but this was many times taller than any building in the town. His mother had claimed she often climbed the mountains for fun, but living in a city, Estin had only really needed to scale one or two stories at a time. That, he could do quickly, but endurance was not needed for such a task.

  Estin continued slowly but steadily upwards, trying to ignore the increasing numbness in his fingertips and toes from supporting his weight. Nine more floors up, he stopped and clung to the wall again, trying to calm his muscles for a moment. He looked up, unhappy to see he was only nearing halfway up.

  Just as he convinced himself to begin climbing again, a sharp gust of wind off the mountains swept his precarious grip with his feet away, nearly shoving him right off the wall. Estin clung for dear life by his fingertips, getting a quick view of the ground far below as his body flapped out from the wall, then slammed back into it. Aching and now terrified, he flattened his face against the stone, trying to block out the panic before it made him make a mistake that would certainly kill him. He pressed himself as solidly to the wall as he could manage, closing his eyes as he struggled against a full panic.

  “Just a little farther,” he whispered to himself, but he barely could hear himself over the cold winds. “No more climbing ever again after this.”

  His heart slowed soon and Estin swallowed hard, trying to steel himself for the rest of the climb. Gradually, one trembling hand at a time, he began climbing again, getting more steady with each handhold that did not drop him to the cobblestones below. That last section of the climb seemed to take hours, until at last he checked above him, only to find the windowsill he had been trying to reach only a few feet away.

  Scrambling up the last section of the wall, Estin gave himself one final push upwards and caught the sill with one hand, pulling himself up slowly so as to peek into the room beyond. This room’s wooden shades were closed, but there was no light coming around it, giving him hope that he could at least get inside without alerting anyone.

  With his free hand, Estin tugged at the shades outwards, grumbling as he found them barred. As he had learned to do in many previous thefts for Nyess, he slid one of his claws through the gap between the shades, lifting the bar that held them closed, pulling them quickly open. He crawled up onto the sill and over into the room, collapsing onto the stone floor as quietly as he could manage.

  The moment Estin’s weight was off his arms and legs, muscles began knotting painfully and his fingertips and toes throbbed. Even in the dark he could tell that they were bleeding badly, but there was litt
le he could do about it, other than lay where he was until the pain became manageable.

  Estin slowly stretched the trembling muscles until he could focus on his surroundings without feeling like he was going to scream. He must have lain there for an hour before he felt whole enough to sit up, knowing he was likely leaving bloody paw-prints on the stone floor, but not especially caring.

  This entire floor of the keep was visible from his location. There were no dividing walls on the floor, just one large open room with a staircase along the far wall, leading both up and down. Within the massive room, waist-tall shelves and cabinets stood every few feet, covered and filled with objects that he could not identify in the dark. A few were obvious, such as armor or weapons, but much of the detail was lost even to his eyes, given the darkness.

  Estin began padding through the room, poking at the various trinkets. This was clearly a gallery of pride to the duke, though most of the items were a mystery to Estin and he could not fathom any reason the duke would find value in many of the collected goods. Some were clearly valuable—a golden idol from some foreign land would certainly be worth more money than Estin had dreamed of in his lifetime—while others were not. He roamed around, exploring and getting an idea what all was in the room.

  Estin passed dozens of shelves filled with gemstones, some of which he shoved into his belt pouch, barely thinking as he did so. Their worth far outweighed any consideration of discretion. Anything Nyess did not know about was fair game, as far as he was concerned.

  He walked past long rows of ornate weapons and armor that likely were significant to someone with military background—which was certainly not Estin, who barely knew how to swing a sword without hurting himself. He poked at several pieces of art that he knew he could not possibly carry out, paining him to think that no one besides himself and the duke might ever see them. The way humans excluded others sometimes bothered him, especially when it came to art and beauty.