The Sianian Wolf

by Y. K. Willemse

  “Stay awake,” Rafen hissed at him.

  “Eh,” Sherwin said.

  When Rafen sucked once more, he got only blood. He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The tingling taste of poison lingered. A gray shadow approached them through the red and brown hawthorn bushes as Rafen scrambled up.

  “Ahain,” he said, as the wolf emerged, “keram saun.”

  Watch him.

  Rafen dashed into the oaks, shoving aside branches and evergreen leaves, frantically hunting for the locsha herb Erasmus had once mentioned to him. Something about extracting the juice… If only he were Etana, he’d know exactly what to do. Between some tree roots, the little shadowed plant crouched. Rafen uprooted it and rushed to the river again, scattering some wild mice. The rain had changed to the lightest sleet, only perceptible by its icy touch. Bats chirped above. Rafen realized he had misplaced his water pouch and had nothing to carry the water in. He stood by the river, paralyzed. He was going to lose this battle, simply because he had no idea what to do.

  His eyes fell on an upturned wooden bowl. Rafen seized it, inexplicably recalling seeing Roger on this bank. He rinsed his mouth in the river, filled the bowl, and came back agonizingly slowly, to avoid spilling the water.

  Pushing through leaves into the clearing, he glanced at Sherwin. His eyes were closed, and his chest ominously still. Rafen swiftly lowered the bowl to the ground and flew over to him, putting his head against his chest. His muscles relaxed. Sherwin was breathing, though very shallowly. Still clutching his herb, Rafen grabbed the bowl and shoved the plant into the water, wringing its leaves. A flush of red turned the water pale pink. Rafen gently applied a few drops to Sherwin’s wound, rubbing them around the tooth marks.

  This was all Erasmus had told him. He didn’t even know if it would work. He might be making Sherwin worse. His mind worked feverishly, despite the cold mist filling his brain. If Sherwin drank lots of water, it might flush the poison out of him. Applying some more pink drops, Rafen rose and ran to the river once more. The rain had stopped, and vapors wreathed the river and surrounding trees. Humidity rose like incense from the earth. Rafen refilled the bowl.

  With haste, he returned to Sherwin. Sherwin was breathing deeper. His eyes were half open. He looked drunk.

  Rafen tilted his head back and, slopping water all over his chest, poured some down his throat. Sherwin swallowed and licked his lips. He took a shuddering breath.

  “Hey,” he croaked, “why did… why did yer leave… this mornin’?”

  Ignoring him, Rafen poured more water into his mouth. Sherwin swallowed, his larynx working frenziedly.

  “Say,” he said, “why—”

  “Be quiet. You’re drinking now.”

  Obediently, Sherwin drained the bowl in two more draughts. A blissful smile crept over his face. Rafen froze. Did this signal madness or death?

  “Well,” Sherwin said, “that was good, because I ’aven’t ’ad much to drink today.”

  He opened his eyes wider and gazed around, raising his eyebrows. “Got anythin’ to eat?”

  At the word “eat”, Rafen’s limbs started trembling again. He remembered his stomach.

  “No,” he said.

  “Oh,” Sherwin said. “I’m ’ungry s’all. Is this sleet?”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I been run over by a bus.”

  “A what?”

  “A bus, man. A big four-wheeled missile.”

  “Oh. Do you feel anything else?”

  “Stingin’ on me shoulder. But I feel better, if that’s what yer mean. Before… yuck. I felt cold. An’ ’eavy… harder an’ harder to move. Now I just feel tired.”

  Rafen nodded. A low growl in his throat, Ahain rose from where he had been lying at Sherwin’s left. Rafen rose too.

  A rabbit crept beneath the hawthorn to Sherwin’s right. Rafen lunged forward, his unnaturally quick arm shooting out to grab the rabbit’s throat. Sherwin started. The rabbit screamed like a woman. Rafen jerked its head sideways, snapping the neck, and Sherwin looked impressed.

  Rafen sat down, crossing his legs. He drew from his belt a short knife Erasmus had given him. Within an hour, Rafen was cooking the skinned rabbit over the fire to the sound of his own grumbling stomach. Sherwin sniffed luxuriously.

  “I’m sorry for leaving you,” Rafen said, without looking up. “This morning.”

  Sherwin struggled to pull himself up straighter. His arms were weak, and he gave up, slumping back against the wet rock Rafen had found for him.

  “Is all right, China… er, mate,” he said, translating for Rafen.

  “No, it’s not. You might have died.”

  “Naw, it wasn’t tha’ bad.”

  “It was.”

  Sherwin was silent. He gazed into the air, obviously thinking deeply. “Then yer saved my life,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t have had to save it if I hadn’t left you.”

  “Look, I forgive yer. Don’ worry about it.”

  “Sherwin, isn’t it?” Rafen said, meeting his eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do you talk like that? You know – ‘China’ and ‘yeah’, and so on?”

  “Er,” Sherwin said, looking embarrassed. “Well, it’s sort of slang, yer see. A lot of it’s rhyming cockney, from off the field, uh, the street. Loads of people talk tha’ way in Southwark.” He waited a moment, then said hesitantly, “Wha’s yer name?”

  “Rafen.”

  “Rafen,” Sherwin said, exhaling slowly. He smiled.

  Rafen turned the rabbit over on the stick he’d skewered it with.

  “I’m sorry for pestering yer this morning,” Sherwin said, his forehead furrowed. “I know yer don’t like my company -”

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’m selfish.”

  He looked away.

  “Yer wanted to be left alone.”

  “You needed me.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

  “Yet,” Rafen said, “I need you.”

  Sherwin stared at Rafen. “Yer what?”

  “I - I don’t know how to explain,” Rafen said. He removed the rabbit from the fire, cutting the juicy thighs away. The sleet had stopped at last; Rafen felt he couldn’t stand much more of the cold. “I have lost everything. The Selsons, Erasmus, and then you almost—”

  “Naw,” Sherwin said, “I’m not going anywhere. Not with yer around. Yer know how to take care of someone. But I get it,” he said, eyeing a rabbit thigh that Rafen moved onto a broad leaf. “Yeh’re aimless without the people yer lose. I dunno much about this sort of thing. Maybe together, we can figure out what to do. ’Cause I’ve no idea what’s going on in this place, with those guys in blue all afloats, and those little brown pieces of poop. Thanks.”

  Rafen had cut Sherwin’s rabbit thigh into pieces and was feeding one to him on a stick. Sherwin bit the meat off the stick and swallowed it, sighing. Rafen prepared the stick again.

  “So who were – or are -” Sherwin said, seeing Rafen’s look, “the Selsons?”

  “My adopted family,” Rafen said. “Royalty of Siana. King and Queen, and the princes and princesses.”

  “Ah. So yer a prince then!”

  “Yes,” Rafen allowed.

  Sherwin consumed his next piece of rabbit, his face thoughtful. “What ’appened to them?” he asked.

  Somehow Rafen found himself answering this question. He explained Tarhia briefly, and how he had rescued Etana, and how King Robert had rescued him. In the end, he told Sherwin everything from his voyage on the Phoenix Wing until the present – excepting his meeting with Zion. He even explained about Erasmus. Sherwin listened with wide eyes, slowly chewing rabbit thigh.

  “Sounds like one hell of a life,” he said at last.

  Rafen stared at his own rabbit thigh on a bluff oak leaf before his knees. Taking the meat with two hands, he wolfed it down while Sherwin watched.

  “Y
er sure know how to eat,” he said.

  Rafen hadn’t eaten for two days, but Sherwin didn’t know that. When Ahain stirred restlessly beside Sherwin, Rafen tossed some meat to the wolf. Ahain pounced on it as if it were alive.

  “It’s his favorite method of hunting,” Rafen explained. Being the undersized loner of the pack, Ahain often went hungry because he had no one to hunt with.

  Sherwin laughed. Then he became serious. “Well,” he said, gazing at Rafen with his one healthy eye, “wha’ are yer goin’ to do now tha’ Erasmus is gone?”

  There was a long silence, during which Rafen tried to summon some sensible thought into his head. The hopelessness of the past day kept returning to him. He thrust it aside. Tonight, Sherwin had proved that there were lives at stake if Rafen didn’t act.

  “I’m going to keep training,” he said at last. “I have to keep doing what Erasmus would have wanted me to do… and I have to wait for Alexander to get Erasmus’ message and come.”

  Part of him was terrified at the thought of seeing the admiral again, after all his recent failures. Still, he had no choice. He trembled when he remembered exactly what Alexander had wanted him to do. However, he swiftly told himself that maybe Alexander wouldn’t expect him to attack the Lashki immediately. Perhaps Alexander would have a philosopher with him who could train Rafen in kesmal, for Rafen still didn’t feel ready. And if he was going to die, he would prefer not to do it at the Lashki’s hands.

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Sherwin said. “The Lashki has loads of men, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah. See, it’s all his support that makes it tricky. When it was just yer and him a while back, he had to run fer it, from what yer said.”

  “I got lucky.”

  “Naw. Yer had that Phoenix with yer.”

  Rafen stared at the ground, tracing in the dirt with his finger. He thought Zion had abandoned him. Then he looked up at Sherwin – alive, after all the danger – and saw he was wrong.

  He managed a smile.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tarhians

  in the Woods

  “I’m nervous about this,” Sherwin said.

  “Watch me,” Rafen mouthed.

  Staring at the two Tarhians by the river, he rose gradually to his feet, a large stone in his hand. While their horses drank from a hole in the ice, the soldiers were complaining in Tarhian about General Mainte. They both faced the same direction. Stealing around the bluff oak he had been hiding behind, Rafen drew back his arm, focusing on the taller Tarhian. He flung the rock toward the Tarhian’s head. Smack. The Tarhian collapsed on the moist bank, a mess of blood appearing in his hair. Rafen slipped back into cover, squatting behind some bracken ferns and blackroots near Sherwin. The shorter Tarhian whirled around with a yell, whipping his pistol from its holster. Staring with crazy eyes at the line of winter trees behind him, he shot thrice randomly. Rafen and Sherwin crouched, and the bullets whizzed wide of them. The two horses whinnied in fright and started to canter off down the riverbank. The Tarhian cursed, flinging out an arm to grab a halter. He was too late.

  “Who attacks!” he screamed in broken Vernacular. “Who attacks? You make King Talmon angry!”

  Talmon was still in Siana, helping establish the Lashki’s rule. Rafen could only hope the Tarhian king had King Robert’s luck while away.

  His teeth clenched, he loosened his sword in its sheath. Gripping the handle with his left hand, he noiselessly edged toward a gap in the ferns from which he could spring out and fight. The Tarhian swung his pistol around in the air with a shaking hand, making idle threats in Tongue. Rafen reached his gap. He glanced back at Sherwin, whose face was visible behind his tree.

  “Now,” Rafen breathed.

  Sherwin quickly rose the length of the tree and hurled a stone far to the Tarhian’s left. It splashed in the river.

  Shouting with triumph, the Tarhian fired on the spindly blackroots to Sherwin’s left. Rafen flew from his gap toward the soldier, trying to stay out of his peripheral vision. The Tarhian whipped around, pointing his pistol at Rafen’s head. The crack shattered the air. Sherwin screamed.

  Rafen had ducked below the line of the bullet, drawn his sword, and swung it up, shoving it beneath the Tarhian’s armpit. The Tarhian shrieked, dropping his pistol with the pain. Rafen planted his boot on the Tarhian’s abdomen and wrenched his sword free. Overbalanced, the Tarhian staggered sideways and fell into the river with a splash. Rafen seized the pistol from the ground and pointed it at the soldier, praying he wouldn’t have to use it. Though he violently wanted to kill these men for Erasmus’ sake, his heart burned every time he thought of taking a life. The wounded man was already struggling across the river to the opposite bank, screeching curses. Rafen hoped the man would be so ashamed of having been bettered by a child that he would fabricate a story for his superiors, rather than provide a description. He moved to the unconscious Tarhian, lying two steps away. After rinsing his sword in the river, he stripped the man of his weapons. He tossed the pistols into the river, preferring to fight like a Sianian.

  Glancing up at the cold iron sky, he remembered Sherwin’s short-sleeved shirt. He pulled the navy jacket from the unconscious

  Tarhian as well. In another week, the snow would be falling regularly. Clutching the jacket and swords, he hurried back up the bank to Sherwin. Behind him, Ahain magically appeared as he usually did after Rafen had had a fight. Slavering, he trotted over to the unconscious man.

  Reaching the tree, Rafen faced Sherwin, who leaned against the trunk, perfectly white.

  “I thought yer were in for it,” he said. Though Sherwin was still weak from his accident two days before, he had regained control of his limbs. He pulled on the jacket with gratitude and took the Tarhian sword from Rafen’s arms gingerly, as if afraid it might explode.

  “It’s always like that,” Rafen said. “Death is getting it wrong by a hairsbreadth.”

  He felt an odd twinge as he said it. Next time, he might not be so fortunate.

  “What are yer going to do about him?” Sherwin asked, indicating the river bank.

  “Leave him,” Rafen said. He nodded toward the Woods. “Let’s go and start.”

  Sherwin nodded, swallowing nervously. That morning, he had asked Rafen to teach him to fence.

  *

  “I gotta rest now, Raf,” Sherwin said.

  Giving him a funny look, Rafen nodded. He’d never had his name abbreviated before. Sherwin collapsed onto a large flat rock in the little clearing they were practicing in. He trembled from his exertions, and his face glistened with sweat. He looked up at Rafen.

  “I think that bite took it out of me,” he said.

  “Those things heal slowly,” Rafen said. “I won’t work you too hard.”

  He smiled. For someone who had almost died two nights before, Sherwin was doing exceptionally at fencing. There was no denying he was a natural; his defense was instinctive, and he was fast. He would be a brilliant addition to whatever support Alexander had raised. However, Rafen marveled at his new companion, who didn’t appear homesick and additionally wanted to help Rafen fight for a country that meant nothing to him.

  “Don’t you miss your world?” Rafen said, watching Sherwin closely.

  “Wha’?” Sherwin said. “No.”

  Rafen stared at him in disbelief.

  “Really?”

  “Really, Raf. I feel like I were born ’ere.”

  “I didn’t feel like that in your world.”

  “Yeah, well, tha’s different,” Sherwin said, without meeting his eyes. “Tha’s quite different. Although, I will tell yer one thing: nothin’ ’ere feels quite real yet, yer know. Livin’ in the Woods, the Tarhians, and tha’ brown thing tha’ bit me – even almos’ dyin’ tha’ night – none of tha’ felt real. It all feels like a vivid dream. It did feel real when tha’ Tarhian jus’ abou’ shot yer though. Then I thought to meself: ‘This isn’ a game’.”

  A thought occurred
to Rafen. His heart throbbed in his ears.

  “Do you ever want to go back to your world?” he said, his tone filled with misgiving.

  “Wha’? Are yer mad? No, Raf. It’d kill me. I don’ want to see me uncle again, and I always felt like an oddball there anyway. I belong ’ere. Don’ yer dare try takin’ me back.”

  “I won’t,” Rafen said, smiling faintly.

  Sherwin sat on the rock, legs spread, chest heaving from his exertions. While Rafen stared at him, an unseen weight pressed against his chest, making it hard to breathe. Erasmus had glared at him when he rested as if resting were a crime. He would hit Rafen with his sword.

  “YEEEOUCH!” Sherwin yelled when Rafen smacked his thigh with the flat of his blade. He leapt up, clutching his Tarhian sword. “What do yer think yer doing?”

  “Once more,” Rafen said. “Come on. Then you can rest.”

  Grumbling, Sherwin assumed the “guarde” position. Without warning, Rafen lunged at him. Sherwin parried in alarm, crossing corked swords with Rafen a fraction from his own chest. Rafen flicked his sword, knocking Sherwin’s blade sideways in his hand. Sherwin made to thrust, but Rafen was first, and Sherwin was forced to parry and step back and up onto the rock he had been sitting on. When Rafen jabbed at Sherwin’s exposed thighs and lower abdomen, Sherwin blocked the blows and swiped gingerly at Rafen’s head. Rafen ducked and pretended to leap forward onto Sherwin’s rock. Sherwin leapt back and toppled off it, crashing onto the ground. His blade clattered against some stones near him.

  Rafen rounded the rock to see Sherwin spread-eagled and dazed. He struggled into a sitting position, shaking his head to clear it. Rafen tried to convert his laughter into a fit of coughing. Sherwin rose, looking mutinous.

  “What’re yer laughing for? Blimey, what do I need a knock on the Uncle Ned like that for?”

  He rubbed his head, glaring at Rafen. Rafen stooped and handed Sherwin his sword. Sherwin stared at it, then back at Rafen.

  “Yer said that was it for the day? I’ve certainly ’ad enough.”

  Rafen nodded, frantically trying to keep his face straight. His mind kept replaying Sherwin’s vanishing behind the rock followed by his starfish position on the ground.