by Lexy Wolfe
Once within the borders of the tents and mud huts, two young wolflen guardsmen intercepted her, holding spears pointed at her. The older of the two, which was still barely a young adult, demanded in broken common, “What want?”
Her voice was clipped. “I want to speak to Pack Leader.”
The two traded uncertain looks before the younger of the two ran off towards the cluster of tents and mud-and-twig huts. The older one stated officiously, “Human wait,” with his chest puffed out, obviously considering himself a fearful sight.
In a bad mood, she cast a disparaging look at him. “Fine.” Her cold, brusque reply made his confidence falter in confused uncertainty. Several minutes later, a greatly chastened guardsman returned with the much larger wolflen. The two backed away at a gesture as he looked the woman over.
“Thank you for respecting their youthful exuberance for their duty to guard our dens. It is a new thing to have a human come to our homes sober and not intending to cause problems.” He glanced back at the pair. “I hope they did not give you any insult.”
“They protect their own. I cannot fault them for that.” She met his hard eyes without flinching. “I can forgive them ignorance, but you know very well I am not human, Pack Leader. I can tell by the way you look at me.”
“Yes,” he said, thoughtful. “This is true, but you are close enough, and they are young. Come. Walk with me.” She fell in step beside him as he guided her away from both the human buildings and the wolflen huts until they were, without question, alone. “Your visit is unexpected. What do you want, Warrior?”
She tugged her cloak closer around her shoulders when the wind gusted. “First, don’t call me ‘Warrior.’ That is a name from a past I wish I could forget.”
“As you wish,” he agreed. “Though it was not meant as insult; it is very similar to what we call a pack name, something that identifies your place among the pack.” He looked away from the sky to meet her green eyes. “What is your given name, then?” He tilted his head in puzzlement when she looked down in shame. “I did not expect this to be a question that caused so much pain.”
“I answer to Tiwaz. It is a different word for ‘warrior’ that my friend called me when we first met. I…have never been able to remember the name I had been given.” She looked up, though she did not meet his eyes. “Tiwaz is good enough.”
“Very well. What is it you wish of me, Tiwaz?” he asked, his piercing gaze studying her more intensely, though she did not meet his eyes again.
“I wish to learn to hunt.”
“Is not your friend already teaching you? We have observed him in the forest, which is not easy to do and remain unnoticed. He is quite skilled. More than most of those not of the pack are.” He touched her chin with a fingertip, turning her face up to his. “Does he not teach you already?”
“Doom promised he would teach me. And he has!” she qualified quickly. “A little. But since the hunting is so poor, he is gone for days at a time. He said that it is too dangerous to teach me while so far from home.” Her simmering anger bubbled up. “He says I am not good enough to go with him.”
“We cannot help you. In our eyes, you and he are a pack, and we do not interfere in disputes within another pack.”
She crossed her arms, scowling at him. “I am not asking you to talk to him. I want to learn to hunt from you. Aren’t your kind the best hunters in these parts?”
The wolflen scowled, ruff rising a little at the hint of skepticism in her voice. “Of course we are.”
“If my friend Doom does not have time to teach me, I want to learn from the best. So when he needs help, I can be there for him.” Before he could say a word, she added, “I am willing to pay to be taught.”
“Pay?” Pack Leader laughed outright. “What could you possibly have that I would want?” His eyes widened when she brought out the ornamental knife, holding it in the flats of her palms. He chuckled, then laughed outright as he accepted the offering.
AN EXHAUSTED, BATTERED Doom emerged from the forest after more than a week away hunting. He paused at the edge of the clearing, savoring the sight of Kerk’s house—his and Tiwaz’s home—nestled among the trees. “I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life,” he said wistfully to himself. Hauling three doe and several smaller animals on a travois, he made quick work of hanging them in the slaughter shed. He looked towards the house with a hint of concern Tiwaz would not forgive him for the length of the trip. Securing the door, he headed inside.
Kerk peeked out of the kitchen as Doom entered. “Ah, good to see you, lad! We were getting worried you ran into some trouble.” He returned to the kitchen, calling, “Supper will be ready in an hour or so. Just regular stew, nothing fancy. Stretches out the meat we have left.”
“I had to go several days further out than I wanted to find a herd of deer robust enough to hunt,” he called from his bedroom door. He came back out wearing a simple set of clean clothes. He looked around the house with a frown. “I didn’t see a fire in the smithy. Where’s Tiwaz?” he asked as he entered the kitchen.
The smith kept his eyes fixed on the stew pot. “She is hunting.”
The spines on his back rose in alarm. “What?! Alone? Tiwaz should know better than to go alone. She isn’t—”
“She is not alone,” Kerk interrupted, still not meeting the gromek’s visage, made more terrible in his distress. “The wolflen have allowed her to run with them. They have been teaching her.”
Doom blinked, crestfallen. “The wolflen? She went to…? But I promised her I would—”
Kerk picked up a rag to wipe his hands clean, turning to look at the gromek. “Yes, you did promise to teach her. But when you told her she wasn’t good enough to go with you and left…” The man shook his head, waving for Doom to follow. “I want to show you something.”
In the smithy, Kerk picked up the scrap box and dumped its contents out on the table, all the shattered blades spilling out. “While I am grateful she has the discipline to direct her upsets away from doing harm to bodies or things, her emotions have not been without consequence.” Doom stared, picking up pieces to examine as the blacksmith spoke. “While you were gone, she got…angry. She focused her anger on her forging.”
Doom blinked as he snapped the thick piece of metal in his hands like a dried twig. “I thought she was better than this. I know she has been mastering everything you taught her as fast as you taught it, but…”
“You must understand something about crafting versus magic, lad. Everyone talks about those who can wield magic. One of the tasks of any master of magic is to find those born with the native gifts for it. They will whisk them off to learn how to use it, because untamed gifts are often the cause for great catastrophes.
“Now and again, someone escapes the drag net, so to speak. They were not strong enough to be noticed, or living away from most civilization, or something. However it happens, they often go on to learn a craft that is not dependent on using it.” He put a hand on an anvil. “Like smithing.
“Most of us who are masters of our crafts have a hint of magic energy in us. That isn’t unusual, being the world is filled with magic and we’re a part of it. We have more than most, but not enough to be dragged away to become trained in it. That energy gets imbued in our work, more so when we focus during the making.”
Doom frowned. “Ti told me how Alimar would occasionally collaborate with a goldsmith to have a ring made that allowed the wearer to use a spell. You mean like that?”
Kerk shook his head. “That is different. What I do is more subtle than embedding spells in objects. When I work metal, what I make tends to be more durable. Necessary up here in the North. But I can’t make a sword that would fling lightning, because I am neither that strong nor trained at all in the arts.”
He picked up a piece of a blade, holding it gingerly. “Your friend Tiwaz? She has a considerable amount of native magic. Perhaps even more than some trained in the magical arts. Took me a while to realize it because i
t doesn’t present itself in any overt manner. And I realized the possibility after she told me some of what your former master did to her.”
“You accuse her of being true mageborn?” The gromek scowled, crossing his arms. “Impossible! She is nothing like those misbegotten wielders who live to hurt everyone around them.”
Kerk held up a hand. “You’re damning a lot of people for the faults of individuals, lad. Being mageborn has nothing to do with temperament, disposition, or ethics. It simply means having a high degree of magic in you or the ability to control it.”
He tossed the piece back in the box. It broke into two pieces as it bounced. “When I work metal, I focus on what traits I want whatever I’m making to have. Durability, most of the time. It is a little more complicated with weapons. A sword needs to be rigid, yet flexible or it’d break. Durable, yet yielding.
“I have only been teaching her the basic techniques of forging, but her work has been of mastery quality due to her knowledge of weapons and her focus on her desired intent for the weapon. I had yet to teach her about magic influence. Especially after what she went through, I thought it wiser to refrain even mentioning magic.”
“These weapons are broken because she has magic?” Doom’s expression grew troubled. “I still don’t understand. Wouldn’t she want them to be what she has always understood about blades? Why are they so brittle?”
“There is the rub. It isn’t just what she wants out of whatever she is forging that she put in. She puts her heart into her work. And she has been…angry. Angry you left her behind. Angry you think she is incapable of learning to hunt with you. Angry she isn’t good enough at whatever she feels she needs to be good at. Angry at things I can’t even begin to guess at.”
He looked at the pieces of metal in the box, frowning as he searched for the words he needed to say. “To keep from hurting anyone, she focused her energy and emotions on forging. And, the angrier she got, the worse the flaws in her work. The more flaws that appeared, the angrier she got with herself for not being good enough, for failing to forge properly. The angrier she got…
“Well. You can see the trend.” He sighed heavily. “These kinds of flaws would take a special sort of idiocy or something is very wrong, because she’d never have let these get past her. I tried to keep an eye on her like you asked. But she doesn’t listen to me. Not like she does to you. I’m too old to deal with her temper. She’s dangerous and I fear the day her self-control slips.”
“Tiwaz would never hurt you, Kerk,” Doom assured, his worry the man would turn them out apparent.
Kerk waved a dismissive hand after replacing the box on the shelf. “I’m not about to throw either of you out, no matter my concerns. And I’d not doubt you, lad, except I don’t think she even knows who I am when she’s in the depths of those black moods. It is like she is another person entirely. I knew you might get upset about her hunting with the wolflen, but honestly, I was relieved she found another outlet. It seems to have helped both her mood and her forging, even if she is here less often.”
He tossed the rest of the pieces into the box and tried to be reassuring. “She stays with the youngsters and comes home every night with little more than a scratch or two. They take good care of her.” The gromek simply nodded, walking back to the house with Kerk in silence to await Tiwaz’s return.
As expected, Tiwaz walked in the door just as Kerk was setting the table. She paused to stare at her friend in silence. Doom said nothing, nor looked at her, for the entire tension-filled meal. He remained seated at the table when Kerk went to bed and Tiwaz began cleaning the kitchen. The hurt in his low-pitched voice made the woman flinch. “I thought you wanted me to teach you to hunt.”
She closed her eyes, going still. “I do,” she replied after several minutes of silence. “You know that.”
“Then why didn’t you wait for me?” he demanded sharply. “Why did you go to outsiders?”
Back stiff, she stated tonelessly, “I want to be ready and capable of helping you if you needed me. The longer I wait, the greater chance there is I will be helpless to be of use to you, and I do not want to fail you!” She turned to face him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I am no hunter and I never will be one as good as you or anyone else. What am I supposed to do? What do you want me to be? Tell me! All I am is a gladiator, Doom. The sands and the fight are all I have ever known. The only time I ever felt alive and free is on the sands.
“Outside the arena, what am I? I am nothing. Yes, Kerk teaches me, but his art does not sing to me. The wolflen teach me, but I am not a hunter like you. What am I outside the arena?” she demanded. “You know everything! Tell me!”
“Ti,” Doom soothed as he got up when she stalked out of the kitchen. “Ti, calm down.”
In the living room, she spun on her heel. “I will not calm down!” she hissed. He felt a pang of hurt when she shook his hand from her arm, shunning his touch. “There is nothing in this world for me. Even though others ‘know’ that I am a shape-shifter, I dare not become a panther where anyone could see, so they can pretend I’m anything but. Shape-shifters are feared and despised by nearly everyone. The dragons told us that.
“The skills that I have mastered, the ones I can call my own, are only useful to amuse others. In an arena. But there are no arenas here!” She held her arms out. “Look at me, Doom! I was forged to be like a sword. Hard, cold, and deadly. But I was forged with flaws. Just like the knives I made.” She spun on her heel heading to their shared room. “No one wants something like me near them. Not even you!”
Her words rang in his ears as the door slammed. He closed his eyes, fists clenched. After a few minutes, he followed her, finding her sitting in the darkest corner of the room, face hidden in arms wrapped around her knees, rocking. He knelt beside her, reaching out to touch her but hesitating. “Ti, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I certainly did not want to hurt you. It’s just…I can’t bear to see you hurt anymore and taking you with would have risked that. You suffered so much before we escaped, and I thought…I hoped once we were free, you would never have to hurt again.”
He finally rested his hand on her shoulder, relaxing when she did not shake his touch away again. “But you are wrong. There is at least one person who wants you.” She looked up, her cheeks wet. “I do, Ti. You’re my best friend.” She closed her eyes, anguished, letting him draw her into an embrace. She hesitated putting her arms around him. Feeling that moment of uncertainty hurt more than any physical injury he’d ever endured, and he had no idea what to do about it.
THE DAY OF the winter solstice arrived, and with it the start of the wolflen’s Solstice Games. As the sun began to rise, activity filled the town of Bralden, more than it had since the cold season had settled upon it. The humans and the few other more human-like races that lived within the town gathered on the sacred grounds. Some were eager to test themselves against their wolflen neighbors. Others, like the wolflen leaders, wanted to see what Tiwaz herself was capable of. The tales of the incident in the market had already garnered wild exaggerations.
For the younger folk, it was a relief from the boredom of winter. Children both wolflen and human played together while their parents were distracted with the numerous contests. Most of the adult wolflen eyed the humans gathering for the contests dubiously, the humans doing much the same in return.
With only Kerk and Doom by her side, Tiwaz maintained a thoroughly aloof expression devoid of all thought or emotion while standing apart from the various clusters of Bralden’s denizens. Doom, with a scarf wrapped around his lower face to help keep his visage hidden beneath the shadows of his cloak’s cowl, considered the various competitors. “These contests don’t seem like much of a challenge. Nor do most wolflen or humans.”
“This is not my art. I will not do as well as you are anticipating. Or anyone else is expecting me to.” She flicked a glance up at him. “This is your world, not mine.”
“I was not invited to participate,” he told
her pointedly. He noticed a peculiar smile on her face. He and several humans looked at her in surprise when she barked much like the wolflen. Without hesitation, Pack Leader separated himself from the group he stood with and trotted over to them.
Kerk chuckled at Doom’s reaction. “She’s been learning wolflen. Been a quick study, it seems.”
“Of course she would be,” he said in a soft voice, drawing the first true smile from his friend in weeks. After a brief, growling discussion with the woman, Pack Leader returned to the group he had been standing with. He returned with an elderly wolflen wearing a considerable amount of decoration.
The gathered townsfolk began to fall silent to watch this unusual meeting, humans and wolflen alike. “Ask your question of Shaman, Tiwaz,” Pack Leader stated evenly in common. “He is the keeper of traditions for the tribe.” A murmur of surprise ran through the human population; no one had ever bothered to try to learn the growling language of their neighbors.
Despite being stooped with age, Shaman still carried himself with pride, a venerated elder of his people. The white of age on his hands and muzzle marred his dark grey fur. His eyes, though not as clear as they had once been, belied the ferocity of his youth. “What is it you wish, Warrior?”
She put a hand on Doom’s arm, replying in wolflen, “This is my pack-brother. I am grateful to be permitted to run with the tribe for these tests of prowess, and deeply honored. But I beg that he be allowed to participate as well. He is more the hunter than I in our pack.”
Shaman walked around the gromek, looking him over. Stepping near abruptly, he stared up into the cowl before stepping back with a grunt, turning back to return to the group he had been standing with. Pack Leader nodded to Tiwaz before following.
