Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

  “Tell her not to fear me.”

  Using the only word he knew that she would understand, he said, “Rrusharr is a wolf. Do not fear her. She will watch over all of you. Stay here.”

  The woman sat down again as she looked around for the creature her savior was speaking of. The remains of her clothes were in shreds and she was still shaking so Canis shed his cloak and handed it to her. It was too small, but it was far better than what she had.

  He went back to the camp in search of her husband. He slipped into the tent he had taken the woman from; he hoped to be able to reach the center-most tent from here. The children’s absence had just been discovered and one of the men was yelling for the others to look for them.

  One man burst into the tent where Canis hid. In his haste, he didn’t notice the extra shadow in the dark. Canis snatched him by the neck and propelled him into the floor where he lay senseless. When the man didn’t reemerge, another man, the loudmouth, came in to see what was holding him up.

  Canis was about to treat him the same way as the first man, but his throwing aside the tent flap revealed his cohort sprawled on the floor and put him on the alert, and he was a step out of reach. Though Canis only gave him a second, it was enough for the man to draw his knife. Moving faster than most men taken by surprise, the man succeeded in burying his knife in unseen flesh, but it didn’t save his life.

  Wounded, Canis couldn’t afford to be lenient. He pulled the knife from his thigh and used it to slice the throat of the man who planted it there, and then he made short work of the other man as well, then he slipped out of the tent again and moved to the back of the last tent.

  This tent had an occupant, but he wasn’t moving. The smell of blood and fear was strong, but it didn’t tell if he still lived. Canis didn’t have the time to look any closer, not until he took care of the last two men in the camp.

  He sidled around toward the front of the tent in time to see one of the remaining men go into the tent he had just vacated in search of his comrades. He was too far away to silence his alarm and waiting was draining his energy.

  In the back of his mind he felt Rrusharr guide the children to their mother; she was lending them her body heat. Canis was wishing for some of that heat as a chill shook him.

  The man came out of the tent screaming about the dead men and the missing woman. Canis met him less than three steps from the tent with a leap and a cut that lifted his head clean away from his shoulders. The last man saw him and took off running. Canis tried to follow, but his wounded leg was leaden and he couldn’t match the pace.

  Rrusharr knew this; she also knew that three of the four men who threatened them all were dead and her charges were safe, so she ran around the camp and met the last of the bandits from the side. His throat was torn out before either of them hit the ground.

  Canis went back into the last tent. The man bound to the ridgepole didn’t move; he looked dead, or very close to it. As he cut his bonds, he asked, “Mister, can you move?”

  At the different touch and very different voice, the man stirred. “Who are you?”

  “I have come to find you. If you can get into the wagon, I will go get your family and you can head for home.”

  The man struggled to rise, muttering, “My family? Home?”

  Canis used the ridgepole to pull himself to his feet, and then he pulled at the man to get him moving as well.

  Half way across the camp, the man was moving on his own so Canis went to locate the others and bring them in too. He carried the little girl who gripped his neck with all the strength in her small arms. Her tiny voice came from a point close to his neck. “You smell different,” she said.

  Canis was having trouble now that the adrenaline was washing out of his bloodstream, but he had to chuckle when both he and Rrusharr voiced almost the same thing at almost the same time in response to the little girl’s words. “Only because I need a bath.”

  “You need a bath.”

  Bleary eyed, Canis made it less than half way across the camp toward the wagon when his leg failed him. He dropped to his knees and one hand hard in an attempt to protect the little girl from harm.

  Her cries to her mother went through him with little understanding. Even Rrusharr’s concern was only a buzz. He felt someone bind something around his leg before blackness took him completely.

  The Frailty of Trust

  The woman and her husband lifted him into the wagon and took him back to the farm with them. After they got him into the house, the farmer went out to tend his oxen. They were anxious to be back in their comfortable stalls where there was food and water. He pulled the harness off and left it where it dropped; his battered body refused to let him do more.

  The woman made Canis as comfortable as she could, then she turned to her children. She didn’t know what to do for any of them, but when she saw the children curled up on the cold hearth with the big black wolf, she let them be. She couldn’t think of anything better than home and security and right now, that great big black wolf was security for them, for all of them.

  After building a fire in the fireplace, she turned back to the young man who had brought them out of that hell and horror. It took some doing, but she managed to pull his sword belt free and get his pants off him so she could get a clear look at his wound. It was in the back of his leg and he had lost a lot of blood from it. She bound it up with a clean rag and covered him warmly.

  When her husband came in, she started to do much the same for him, but he gently gripped her by the shoulders and looked her directly in the eyes. “Kellee, you know you can do better. I’ve seen it. Do it now. Heal yourself first, and then help the children. That should be the easiest. Then you deal with the boy and me. I’ll heat up some soup for us.”

  “But Davis, I don’t know how…”

  “You know well enough, and we can’t send for anyone. It’s too far and none of us are in any shape to try,” said Davis.

  She nodded; she was terrified that this terrible burden was resting on her shoulders. Sure, she had fixed one of the oxen when it had been snake-bit and couldn’t walk, but her own family; how could she do that? She went to the shrine for a moment to ask for strength then she did as her husband said. She healed the deep bruising ache in her body then went to the sleeping children. She rested her hands on their curly heads and tried her best to erase the damage and its pain in their small bodies.

  Kellee’s efforts were rewarded when they shifted in their sleep and loosened from their coil. She then accepted the bowl of soup from her husband and drank it thankfully, then she helped him out of his grimy, blood stained clothes. With gentle fingers, she brushed away many of the bruises and bound his broken ribs, then she helped him into the big bed beside the sleeping boy so he too could sleep.

  With her family sleeping, she rested a hand on Canis’s forehead only to find, to her dismay, that he had developed a fever. She rolled him onto his side again and unwound the bandage she had placed there not so long ago. The wound had swollen since she had wrapped it and the bandage was now far too tight. When the bindings were off, the wound seeped a sickly fluid laced with blood. The blade might have been poisoned or perhaps just dirty. “Oh, Mother, how do I do this? This is not bruises or aches.”

  Canis rolled over onto his back and searched for the voice.

  She reached up and brushed the heavy copper strands from his eyes and in the process, brushed across the stone she had noticed before. When she touched it, he opened his eyes a slit. She caught up his reaching hand and held it to her cheek. “I don’t know what to do,” she said more to herself than to the boy in front of her.

  “Trust…trust yourself,” whispered Canis and he closed his eyes again.

  She could see no choice. This boy had risked his life to save them for no reason. If he were to die because of it…well, it would be just wrong, very wrong. Not for the first time she regretted that her parents hadn’t been able to send her to the healer’s school. “The midwife would be so much
better at this kind of thing,” she said to herself.

  “The question you need to ask yourself, Kellee, is, did Sara become good because she went to the healer’s school or because she kept trying?” said the comforting voice of her husband.

  With a sigh, she laid her hand on Canis’s leg and concentrated. He moaned and pulled away, but her husband’s strong hand held him still. She worked until she was exhausted, then she wrapped a thick cloth around the leg and covered him again.

  She turned and put a few more logs on the fire, then found a nest in her husband’s favorite chair to curl up in. When she woke again, she saw her son sitting alone on the hearth next to the massive wolf, devouring a bowl of cold soup. She didn’t have far to look to find her daughter, though. She had crawled into bed next to the boy who had saved them. The top of her curly blond head was all that was visible on his shoulder, though he hadn’t moved.

  Kellee helped her husband out of bed, over the boy; he was too stiff and sore to climb out himself, then she set the last of the soup in front of him while she started breakfast. When it was almost ready, she lifted her daughter out of bed and set her at the table to eat.

  After breakfast, she shooed the children outside with their father to help him with the chores, then she turned to their guest. While he moaned and struggled weakly, she worked to pull more of the infection from the wound, and then she turned to the chaos that was her house and began to put it back in order.

  The battle went like that. Every morning she found her daughter curled up with him. On the third night she woke when he let out a soft grunt. Her daughter had crawled into bed with him again and apparently, she had bumped his leg.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered to her.

  “I have bad dreams,” said the tiny girl. It came near to breaking her mother’s heart to hear those words knowing there was nothing she could do about it.

  Canis let the girl pull the blanket over them and his fingers combed through her pale curls. “No more bad dreams,” he whispered. “No more bad dreams.” He drifted back to sleep again.

  The next morning, his fever gone, he succeeded in sitting up and eating a meal. He recovered quickly and was soon limping around after the farmer, helping him do some of the things his son wasn’t strong enough to do. He also went and dug up his belongings so the clothes he had on could be washed and mended; there were none in the house that would fit him. They even hitched up the wagon again and made several trips back to the bandits’ camp to retrieve belongings left behind.

  A week later, Canis announced, “It is time for me to move on. Winter is as good as here. Soon it will lock up the mountains completely and I will not be able to penetrate them.”

  “You should wait,” said Davis. He pointed out the window at the first few flakes of snow.

  “I have waited too long. I wanted to be in the mountains before winter,” said Canis as he rose from the table.

  “Can’t you at least wait until the storm stops?” asked Kellee.

  Canis looked out the window while dismay gripped his heart. “No, I cannot.”

  “We thought you might say something of the sort,” said Davis. He nodded to his wife and she retrieved a bundle and handed it to him.

  When he unfolded it, he discovered a heavy coat and some tall boots lined with wool.

  “They’re old things of mine,” said Davis. “I’m afraid they’ll be big for you, but you need more than what you have this time of year. I don’t know if you’re going to make it all the way into the mountains, it’s a long way, but we wish you good luck, and be careful.”

  Canis was sad to be leaving this family, but he had to go. He couldn’t stay here; he was hunted, and those who hunted him would come down on this kind family very hard if he was found here. “Thank you for these gifts and for your generosity. I will remember it.”

  “No, it is we who must thank you,” said Kellee. “If it weren’t for you, it’s quite likely we would be dead and the children sold into slavery, if they would be so lucky.” She folded Canis into a warm hug. “And thank you for giving me strength.”

  Canis was surprised at those words. “I did nothing.”

  “You told me to trust myself. Because of that, I was able to help you heal.”

  “I do not remember saying anything,” said Canis. “But you are a skilled healer.”

  Kellee blushed at the compliment, but had to protest. “I have taken no lessons; I am not so skilled.”

  Canis looked at her puzzled. “You do not need to take lessons to learn something that is in your soul.” Then he turned to assemble his belongings. He was confused. Where did those words come from? What did I know about what was in her soul? Who am I to speak of trust, me, who can afford to trust no one?

  Davis came up then, with another gift. “Here, wrap your things in this. It’s oiled and it will keep everything dry. It’s big enough for you to wrap yourself up in at night so you can sleep dry even when it snows.”

  “My thanks, truly,” said Canis. “I never would have thought of such a thing.”

  “You don’t strike me as a city boy,” commented Davis.

  “I have led a sheltered life,” said Canis and left it at that. These people did not need to understand his life.

  Just before he was to walk out the door, the little girl, Lisa, tugged on his coat. “What do I do when I have bad dreams again?”

  Canis knelt down in front of her. “You tell the bad dream to go away or you will tell me.” He ruffled her feather soft curls then touched the stone on his forehead. “I will know.”

  Lisa’s face lit up. “Okay,” she said and threw her arms around his neck. “I will never forget you,” she said into his neck.

  Canis set her in her mother’s arms and left the Freeport house for the snowfall outside. It felt like an abrupt departure, but there was no helping it. If he stayed there any longer, he might be convinced to stay for the rest of the winter. He wiped the wetness from his face and trudged off down the road. Long before he elected to stay at another farm, he was thankful for the gifts the Freeports had given him.

  Canis ran into another big river six days after leaving the Freeport family and it was another entire day before he found a town where he could buy passage across. His stash of money was growing thin.

  Four days after the crossing, he stopped at another farm. All of the last five days had been in a wet, wind-driven snowstorm that was just short of rain. He had bypassed three other places, but they had looked little better than deserted and he hadn’t wanted to impose himself upon them.

  The farm where he finally did stop was also poor, and the man who owned it was reluctant to take in a boy this late in the year, not to mention his overgrown dog that looked far more threatening than it seemed. Canis was about to move on when the man, who never named himself, offered him a night or two if he would clean out the barn. In the end, Canis remained for another two days while he repaired the barn’s roof. He’d had a difficult time finding a dry place to sleep at night and he knew that the rest of the animals inside were having the same problem.

  By the time he left, his things were dry again. It was a full six days before he saw another sign of human life. He had reached another wide river and he was forced to buy another crossing. So far, no one had questioned that he traveled alone at such a young age and no one had done more than glance twice at Rrusharr, to assess her weight and the fare to charge accordingly.

  Into Winter's Teeth

  The road west vanished completely before the end of the second day after leaving the last crossing town, but that didn’t stop Canis. The foothills were in sight on the far horizon.

  Six days later, he came across a north-south high road. Its elevation allowed it to be scrubbed free of snow. If he were where he thought he was, this road could lead directly to where his mother had lived – where he had first crossed paths with Master Patro. He was not prepared to cross paths with him again in the near future, but with snow sticking on the ground even durin
g the warmest part of the day, he wasn’t too concerned. Master Patro would be far south this time of year.

  At the point where he crossed the high road, there was another high road heading directly west. Without a matching route coming from the east, and having never been repaired, it was impossible for wheeled traffic to use, so no fresh trails went that way, but Canis took it anyway as a welcome alternative to trekking through more of the tall snow-packed grass. Four days later, it vanished completely, but Canis relished the opportunity to have three dry camps along its path.

  Twelve days of traveling through untracked grassland and two blizzards later, Canis found his way to another reminder of Master Patro. Misery City was blanketed under a foot of snow and nothing was moving on the river except the water and the occasional chunk of ice.

  After being completely unsuccessful at buying passage across the river at any price, Canis took the plunge and swam across. He was carried far downriver before he was able to pull himself out on the opposite bank, and if it weren’t for Rrusharr, he would have drowned in the river or frozen to death on the other side.

  He took two days to warm up and dry out again, and then Canis headed northwest up the big river and into the long-looked-for foothills, but ten days later, his enthusiasm was running out. Traveling across the plains had its problems – mostly finding a way across the massive rivers that crossed his chosen path – but now that he was in the foothills, he was running into canyons, and they and the weather were presenting a different problem.

  The snow was rapidly becoming too deep, but Canis kept plowing on. He left the big river to follow a smaller one leading farther into the mountains, but it disappeared under the snow after seven days so he forged on with only a distant peak to lead him.