In Wilder Lands

by Jim Galford

  As a wildling wolf cub leapt onto Feanne’s back, she collapsed with a playful yelp, rolling on the ground in play. Two rabbits jumped at her next, but she caught them with her hands, making the cubs giggle hysterically.

  “Feanne!” Sohan yelled before Estin could grab his arm.

  The laughter dying down in the grove, the various young wildlings hopped to their feet and stared at Estin. In seconds they swarmed him, poking at his hands and tugging his tail as they inspected him.

  Helplessly, he let them check him out, even as Feanne rolled onto her stomach and watched with amusement. She wagged her tail and smirked as Estin struggled to free his limbs of the children.

  “What breed are you?” demanded at least three of the six children at once, one pulling his tail again for emphasis. Their voices all seemed to blur together, making it hard for him to pick out which was saying what. “I haven’t seen your kind before. Did Feanne bring you here? My mom owes Feanne her life…do you, too? You smell like humans! Your clothes are funny!”

  “Please let the newcomer stretch out before we maul him anymore,” Feanne interjected at last, drawing pouting looks from the children. “Run along. Most of your parents don’t want you out in the grove anyway.”

  With a chorus of whines, the cubs scurried off into the woods, leaving Estin, Sohan, and Feanne alone in the wooded grove.

  “So to what do I owe this visit?” Feanne asked, sitting up and pulling her knees up to her chest. “I thought you would be longer to recover.”

  Estin started to ask after his belongings, when he noticed Feanne’s arms and legs. Long scars ran the length of her left arm—matching his own. Another set of smaller bare patches from bites marred her legs and right forearm, again matching Estin’s scars.

  “Are those…?” he asked, pointing at his own arm.

  “I told you I was a bad healer,” Feanne reminded him, giving Sohan a small shove when he bounced too close to her. “The wounds scarred us both equally. This is the price I pay for my magic. I am thankful to see that Asrahn was better at mending you than I was.”

  Estin came over and sat next to her, studying her face as he did so.

  “Your eye looks much better.”

  Feanne smiled and nodded, looking at him with two bright eyes that gave no indication of the broken eye socket from just a day earlier.

  “Yes, I’m healed completely. I may be bad at healing others, but if left to my own means in the woods, I can usually fend for myself.”

  She self-consciously brushed some of her fur over the scars on her arm and asked him, “You came out here for a reason? I doubt Asrahn sent you my way just to see if I had mended.”

  “I did,” he admitted, nearly losing his train of thoughts as Sohan bounded past, chasing a butterfly. “I believe you took my bags when I was taken to Asrahn.”

  “That is true.” Feanne stuck a thumb out towards a nearby tree. “Your things are in the crook of that tree. Should you wish to buy your way back into Altis, the items you brought out with you should go quite far. If you intend to stay with us, you will not need them, though I left the goblet in your tent, as I figured that at least had some use.”

  Estin considered that, eyeing the tree that she had indicated. He made no move towards it.

  “Can I stay here?” he asked, his eyes still on the tree. The idea of going back to the city was appalling, but Estin did not know any other life. “Is there a place for me with the pack?”

  “If we can keep an ogre entertained, you are the least of our worries.” Feanne rocked up onto her feet and offered a hand to Estin. “You will need to ask my father for permission. I cannot give it to you. Be mindful of his bargains, though.”

  Estin took her hand and hoisted himself to his feet, somewhat startled at the strength Feanne carried in her light frame. He had to remind himself that she had practically carried him most of the way from Altis to the camp.

  “What can I do to help around here?” he asked her, glancing around the field. “I’m guessing your camp doesn’t let people just wander in and expect to be fed.”

  Feanne smiled broadly at that.

  “You are learning already. My father’s rule is that everyone needs to contribute. You will be taught to survive out here and provide like the others. If you cannot help the pack, you will be asked to move on.

  “The jobs are often suited to the person. Thus, most of our tree-climbers gather food, while my own kind tend to bring back meat and defend the camp. Others spend their time cooking, making and mending clothing, or other chores. I do not know what role my father will find for you, but more hands are always needed.”

  Estin glanced back at the tree again, wondering if he should just take the wealth and leave, but another look at Feanne’s coy smirk told him that he was going nowhere, at least not yet. He wanted to know so much more about this place and the people who were like him.

  “Feanne, what is a Keeper?”

  The smile was gone immediately and Feanne slammed Estin against the nearest tree, with Sohan squealing and darting out of the way.

  “Do you wish to mock me, or is that a serious question?” she demanded, her claws firmly against his collar. “Few members of the pack are willing to call me that to my face.”

  Estin attempted to push her hand away, thinking that he would have the strength now that he was recovered, but he could not budge her fingers. He looked past her at Sohan, who was making a sharp gesture across his throat, that either meant Estin was going to die, or that he should not be asking the question he had.

  “I heard the title used. I thought it was some kind of honor,” he admitted, ignoring Sohan as the ferret threw his hands in the air. “What does it mean?”

  Feanne released him, letting him fall to the grass.

  “It means I failed the pack and they mock me for what I have done,” she said, glaring down at him, her tail swishing aggressively. “That is all that you need to know. Go to Asrahn…she will teach you to work for the pack. I have more important things to do.”

  Feanne turned and padded away, but Estin sat up and called out to her.

  “Would you have killed me back in the woods when the hunters were coming?”

  Standing with her back to him, Feanne said nothing for a time. When she did speak, she said only, “You should go to Asrahn for guidance.”

  Back straight, Feanne strode from the grove in a hurry, leaving Estin on his knees and Sohan scrambling around, trying to help.

  “Are you stupid?!?” demanded Sohan. “She hates that title. Never, never, never call her that!”

  “I figured that out.” Estin flopped down on his back, staring up at the sky. “Can you please tell me why she hates me so much?”

  Sohan froze, then leaned over Estin slowly, his brow crinkled up.

  “Hate you?”

  “Yes. She’s nearly strangled me every time I’ve seen her.”

  “Estin, this is more stuff that you gotta learn,” Sohan chided, suddenly sounding mature and well-balanced. “Feanne has some anger issues. You seem to have a nack for poking at them. If she hated you, you’d probably end up like her last mate…did she tell you what happened to him?”

  Estin sat up and shook his head.

  “She actually told me she was unmated.”

  “True, true,” agreed Sohan, glancing back up the trail to be sure Feanne was gone. “Not for lack of her father trying. Her father found her a potential mate a few years ago, back about the time the city of Altis was starting to hunt our kind.

  “Hunters came to the camp that winter. Feanne was told to run away with her mate to escape the carnage. You know what she did?”

  Estin shook his head again.

  “She escorted the young and old to safety,” Sohan went on. “Everyone who should have died got away that day. That is why the pack trusts her. What they don’t like to mention is that she abandoned her mate, letting him die to the hunters so that she could save others. Most of us would have made the other choice. I think she
’ll choose the pack every time over her own life and family, which is great for us…sad for her and anyone who depends on her.”

  “Why do they trust her with the cubs then?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Sohan asked in reply. “She’ll get herself killed to protect every one of them, but probably would ignore her own father getting skinned by hunters. The only complaint from the others is that she spends so much time out here with the ogre.”

  Rocking onto his feet, Estin stood up and surveyed the grove again. The tree where his belongings were stashed called out to him, but he clenched his jaw and walked away from it.

  “I’m staying,” he told Sohan firmly. “You need all the able-bodied adults you can get to protect these people. You have my weapons to protect the pack…once I find some.”

  Sohan bounced along beside him as they made their way out of the clearing, somehow missing the ogre leaning against the trees, watching them go.

  Chapter Four

  “The Pack”

  How long I waited under my blankets, crying and shivering, varied each time I had the dream, but I would eventually crawl out from under the blanket and glance around my dimly-lit bedroom. The fear I would feel was always so strong that I could barely think. Despite this, I would see that the man had torn my bedding apart and kicked over the small pile of clothing in the corner. Maybe he had thought I was hiding there? Even the little tin water bowl I kept by my bed was crushed.

  I would scamper to the entrance to the main room. There was no sign of mother or father. The smell of dried blood was painfully clear to me—even in the dream—but there were no bodies or family waiting for me…only a bloodstain where I had seen father fall.

  In my childish panic, I would dart into their room hoping to see father and mother waiting for me, only to find it as tossed as my own. Everything they had owned was gone or destroyed.

  I would then grab what little I could find. There were a few handfuls of bruised fruits in a basket that had fallen in one corner. These would always go into a sack I find near the fireplace. Next, I would find several knives father had used for cutting bread…these too would go into the sack. I grabbed anything I could imagine a use for, though a child’s thoughts of what is useful are sometimes comical at best and some of the items I left behind still bother me.

  I would always struggle to think clearly at this part of the dream. Mother had mentioned that they were saving coin to move us somewhere safer…somewhere more friendly. I then sat in the ruined hovel, trying to grasp at what she had said. Abruptly, I would remember her standing by the loose stone in the fireplace.

  Tearing at the stone with my small fingers, I finally managed to pull it free, finding a tiny bag behind it with a dozen copper coins and a single silver one inside. This would not go far outside our village, but it would have to do. I tucked them into a little belt pouch.

  Father had taught me from a young age that we were targets. We would always be seen as victims or outsiders—if not yet, then soon. He had stressed ways of disappearing and escaping when being hunted. These were the lessons that pushed themselves past panic, fear, and utterly hopeless sorrow that any child would have felt.

  With what little I had, I raced into the painful sunlight, not stopping to survey the village. I had been taught to run and run hard if something like this happened. He had always repeated, “make for the trees. Safety is in the trees.” This was the time to act on those warnings.

  I ran harder than I thought I could bear, nearly collapsing as I reached the first of the dense trees. I had no idea if I was being followed, but that was not what I was focused on. Only the pounding of my feet and the painful banging of my heart were able to cut through that nearly feral desire to reach the woods. Beyond those woods, maybe the city would be safe.

  Now, I was determined to learn to love the woods. The trees were integral to my breed, yet I feared the unknowns out there, having fled the woods for the city as fast as I could all those years ago.

  Ghohar had been adamant in teaching me to hunt and patrol the area, but it was not something I was ready for. Even after spending a full month having him drag me around the wilds, I felt as out-of-place as I ever had among the humans.

  Estin woke to freezing rain that pelted his face as he lay among the trees. He cursed and curled up, trying to stay warm without success.

  “Now this is a hunting trip!” exclaimed Ghohar, striding through the sleet as though it were a clear day. “A good brisk morning, eh, Estin?”

  Glaring up at the older wildling wolf, Estin shivered violently in his leather jacket and thin furs. They had been out looking for food for almost two days and he had been unprepared for the sharp turn the mountain weather had taken. When they had left, it had been warm and sunny, but rain and now snow loomed.

  “How do you stay warm out here?” Estin asked through chattering teeth.

  Ghohar knelt beside him and raised a hand, which frosted over, then encased itself in solid ice. He made a slight motion and the ice fell away.

  “Some of us just like the cold,” he said with a hoarse laugh. “The pack may not be fond of elemental magic, but it has its uses. I’m not sure if Asrahn wanted me to teach you that or how to hunt this time. She just said to take you out to the woods.”

  “Maybe she wanted to freeze me to death.”

  “If she wanted you dead, do you think Lihuan would have let you stay these last few weeks? He usually agrees with whatever Asrahn wants.”

  “Seems like everyone in the pack does that, either for her, or for Feanne.”

  Ghohar laughed and helped Estin stand, though the chill kept Estin shaking violently.

  “Asrahn’s been around the area longer than anyone but Lihuan,” Ghohar noted, pointing off towards the south as a direction to set out traveling. “She knows more than anyone else. Hard to argue with someone that knows your job better than you do.”

  They walked through the woods, feet crunching on the thin layer of ice that was starting to accumulate. After they had traveled a time, Estin stopped and decided he had to know more on a topic he doubted he could ask anyone but Ghohar, who likely could not be offended by any ignorant thing he might say.

  “I have to ask, what is Asrahn?”

  “Old, important, and willing to take off someone’s head if it furthers her causes,” Ghohar answered with a wry laugh.

  “No,” Estin continued, shaking his head, “I mean what breed is she. I don’t recognize the features. I recognize some cat in her, but I can’t make out what kind.”

  Ghohar stopped walking and looked back at Estin, genuinely confused.

  “I’m guessing your parents didn’t get around to the whole talk about making little baby wildlings before you were out on your own,” answered the wolf, grinning. “She’s a half-breed. Mix of two breeds, with some features of each. Some mixes get jumbled up like that…others look like one breed or the other. Probably a quarter of the folks in camp are at least partly of mixed breeds, even if it never shows.”

  That was actually news to Estin. He had never given thought to his kind—wildlings in general—mixing with other breeds. As a child, he had always seen same-breed pairs. Since growing up, this camp was his only example of his own people.

  “Do you have a family of your own?” Estin asked, realizing he had never thought to ask.

  “Have you been practicing your magic?” Ghohar asked, abruptly changing topics. He held out his hand to collect the falling snow. “Asrahn seemed quite adamant that you learn some magic from either her or me…I think she’s making that a rule for every new person in camp. There aren’t many of our kind with any training and I don’t think she wants it to die out. Last eight people they sent out with me couldn’t learn a damn bit of it. A few others seem to think it’s best for entertaining a potential mate and not much else.”

  “Seriously? We’re freezing to death in the middle of the woods and you’re worried about whether I’ve managed to create light without tinder?”

&nbs
p; Ghohar slapped him on the shoulder.

  “A little magical fire might keep you from bitching about the weather. Think about that the next time you’re shivering and whining about magic.”

  Grumbling at being forced to practice what he viewed as a useless skill yet again, Estin stopped walking and held up his left hand. He partially closed his eyes, trying to block out the bitter winds and focus instead on letting magic flow into his hand.

  “Just ease into it,” Ghohar reminded him, watching Estin intently. “A little bit goes a long ways…concentrate.”

  Estin’s hand began to glow faintly, but he barely could manage to maintain the simple magic spell. The moment the magic faded, he felt sick to his stomach and weak. Ghohar had warned him that every spell would be taxing on his strength, but practice would gradually allow him to maintain more and larger magical effects. Assuming he could perform any, he mused.

  “Ah well, another day, perhaps?” Ghohar said jovially, then froze, his ears shooting straight up. “Do you smell that?”

  Estin sniffed the air, picking up a variety of scents, ranging from plants that were dying in the cold weather to the more specific aromas of their leather clothing and even the oils Estin had used to treat the blades of his swords to keep them from rusting.

  “I smell meat,” explained Ghohar, hopping up a nearby rock to get a better view of their surroundings.

  “Meat as in a slab of steak on a plate or meat as in a deer?”

  Ghohar laughed and kept looking across the woods.

  “We’re all meat,” he explained, his cool blue eyes sweeping the woods. “When I say I smell meat, it means something I’ll eat, whether that be a deer or something bipedal. As long as it doesn’t talk to me when I’m seasoning it, I’m a happy wolf.”

  Estin sneered at the idea and told Ghohar, “You can truly be disgusting at times. You know that, right?”