Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

“We passed no messenger,” said Canis.

  Bill didn’t really want to give up a secret, but he felt he owed Canis, so he said, “There are four of our number who can speak into others’ minds. It’s not very common, most people are hung for it, if they are ever discovered, but some are able to run away first. I am one and we have another in the city.”

  “Put me down,” said Enid. When Canis set her on the ground again – he still kept a hand on her arm – she said, “I love him. I want to go with him. I would have run away long ago, but father wouldn’t let me out of his sight. He actually set a guard on me even at night, outside my window too.”

  “You cannot go with him. You have a more important obligation,” said Canis. “We spoke of that last night.”

  “No,” said Riley, his soft voice almost a wail. “You can’t mean to make her go. She doesn’t love him. She doesn’t even know him.”

  “This is not a marriage of love,” said Canis, “it is a marriage of diplomacy. It is a treaty between two great houses and it is sealed with blood, not blood shed, but blood joined. This marriage must happen.”

  “I don’t care what happens to my father,” said Enid. “He is a prig and I want nothing more to do with him.”

  “That may be so, and indeed you may be able to live with the fact that this whole district may become embroiled in a war if you leave. You will be far away. You will not see what might happen, but what will you tell your children when they ask after their grandfather or where you come from? Children ask questions and they are not always easy questions to answer. Will you wave the question away? Will you lie? If they ever come back here – and children tend to do that too, what will they see? What will they think when they learn that, at this moment, you decided to run away together and let it all happen? Will they think it was very romantic? Or will they think that surely their brave and intelligent parents could have thought of some other solution that would have prevented so much destruction? You are brave, you know, and intelligent. The fact that you are willing to start a life so very different from what you both know, shows that.”

  “But there is no other solution, there is no other way. Father would never allow…” Her protest was interrupted by Canis’s raised hand.

  He had an idea. “Bill, how good of a commander do you think Riley is or could be?”

  Bill looked back at Riley standing indignantly and anxiously behind him. “Oh, I don’t know. I know he ran away from the palace garrison before he came to us. I believe he was due to be impaled. He has a solid head on his shoulders, but he’s a bit shy, and I don’t think he’s had any experience at commanding anyone.”

  Canis turned to Riley. “Riley, could you stand in Enid’s shadow? Could you allow her to marry another man if you could still be close to her? Could you help her honor her obligation to her father and protect her from any harm even if it meant dying for her, all for the privilege of being close, but never touching?”

  Riley looked at Enid and both Canis and Bill could feel the love that radiated from his soul. They could see it pouring from his eyes. “I could, it would be very hard to see her with another man, but if the only choices I have is ‘close’ or ‘nothing’, then I choose ‘close’.”

  “Bill, if you have no objection, I will take Riley with us. He will be captain of this guard. Enid’s father need never find out.” He turned to Enid. “From what I understand, Enid, your men were to have no officer other than yourself, unless one is to be provided by your future husband, but I think this is better. Your commands should come from yourself, but you lack experience. It is my recommendation that you deny any need for foreign officers and I also recommend that you, Riley, change your name. Riley, the outlaw under sentence of impalement, should die here today so that Captain…”

  “Michael,” supplied Bill and Riley nodded his approval. “After the man you spoke to before…at the hunt.”

  Canis nodded. The old man who had watched his hunt of the buffalo – he remembered. “…so that Captain Michael can be born.”

  The newly named captain came forward and knelt at Enid’s feet. “I will serve you with my body and my soul and obey all of your commands whatever they may be.”

  Canis guided Enid’s trembling hand to rest on Michael’s head. She hesitated saying anything, but everyone seemed to be waiting for her to speak. “I accept your pledge gladly and happily,” she said tremulously. She wasn’t too sure she wanted this new arrangement if it meant him kneeling at her feet.

  Now that their relationship was much more formal, the new captain took his responsibilities seriously and chose to act accordingly. He stood straight and tall, trying to look important in his tattered and mismatched clothes, shaggy, unwashed hair, and scruffy beard. He turned to Bill and said, “I will take my leave now, Bill. Thank you for taking me under your wing. I will never forget you.” They shook hands then Michael took custody of his new charge and escorted her back to the wagons. Enid hung on his arm as if she needed help standing, or as if she might be whispering something in his ear. Perhaps it was a little of both.

  Canis looked back at Bill. “Well, I guess that pretty much concludes our business here.”

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?” replied Bill. He extended his hand to shake and Canis returned it closely, his off hand clasping Bill’s wrist. Bill looked toward the river, then at the late afternoon sun. “I suppose you were planning to camp on the other side of the river.”

  “I was; it will be late for that now.”

  “We held you up so we’ll help you across the river, then perhaps you and I can have a sit-down and share a meal. I’ll supply the buffalo if you will supply the tea, and you have my word that none of my men will touch what I know you are carrying.”

  “I will accept your offer of help and of meat. Hunting has been poor this side of the city.”

  “Yeah and I bet you got a lot of opportunity to hunt with that lot,” said Bill.

  Canis smiled a tight smile and turned back to the caravan. Bill smiled as well and turned back to his men. By the time Canis had his wagons straightened out and the men lined up, Bill’s men had joined them. True to his word, none of them went near the gift wagon or the women unless it was to keep wheels turning in the mud.

  With the extra hands to help, they crossed the river quickly. Bill’s men plunged right in to keep the wagons on the crossing in the water’s current.

  Bill had his men gathering wood for their fires as soon as the wagons they had guided across the river were on solid ground. Camp was set up in record time and Canis was glad for the fresh meat that was simmering in his stew. As soon as camp was settled and the animals wiped down, he called everyone to gather again. Almost all of Bill’s men had already returned across the river and their own fires could be seen on the other side.

  While everyone was gathering, he pulled the new captain aside and presented him with a new uniform – there were several extras among their stores of supplies – then he guided him to the center of camp dressed in his new splendor.

  “Allow me to introduce you to your new captain. Captain Michael has already proven himself a capable and honorable man, one that Lady Enid trusts with her life, so I am making him your captain and I expect you to keep him there.”

  “He needs a mark,” said Cepheid, “something to set him apart from the others, something other than his name and title.”

  Canis remembered nodding his agreement, but the next thing he remembered was removing his hand from Michael’s shoulder. Left on the young man’s face and neck were three small marks. Under the outer corner of his left eye was a teardrop shaped mark about the size of a large man’s thumbprint. Close examination showed that it was a tiny wolf that looked like it had just leapt from the corner of his eye to run down his cheekbone. Another mark, also teardrop shaped, though smaller and bright red was just below the left corner of his mouth. The third was on the side of his neck directly over the throbbing vein there. It was in the shape of a white sword; the curve at its tip
was pronounced, making it look eager to taste the blood that throbbed so close under its edge.

  “May your eyes be as sharp as a wolf’s eyes, may the blood of your enemies flow freely, and may you die swiftly by the sword,” he said, though the words were merely an echo of someone else’s, overheard from far away.

  Michael could not see the marks, but he had felt them being set into his skin and he reached up and touched each one as Canis spoke of it, then he knelt before Canis. “You are indeed touched by the Mother. I will honor these marks and carry them with pride. All who come against my Lady will go down before my sword.”

  Canis was still trying to grasp what had happened when Michael rose and went to the men who seemed unnaturally quiet.

  As Michael was setting up the duty roster for the night, Canis, Bill, and Cepheid went to their fire. Canis was glad that the command had fallen to someone else.

  At the relative quiet of their fire, Canis accepted his bowl of stew and cup of tea from Cepheid and asked, “I missed some of that. What happened?”

  Bill accepted his meal as well and asked, “How could you miss some of that? You did it, though I can’t see how.”

  Cepheid took her stew and sat down beside Canis. She explained softly so that no one else in the camp could overhear. She also watched their guest closely, she had seen Canis shake his hand and she knew how seldom he surrendered his hand to anyone else’s control. She said, “I suggested that you mark him somehow, so he could be seen to be different from the rest of them. I was thinking of some kind of badge or belt on his uniform, but you just reached up to touch his face with your thumb. You touched each of those spots and left behind those marks. Do you remember the words? I’m fairly certain the words weren’t yours either.”

  Canis reached up and touched the stone between his brows. Was this something new or just something special? He shook his head. He would probably never sort it all out.

  Bill interrupted his thoughts. “You have memory gaps?”

  “Sometimes. It is my belief that the Mother is guiding my actions. Sometimes the guidance is a little stronger than other times. How is the tea?” Canis was reluctant to give any details of his weakness even to a man he felt was a friend.

  Omaha

  The next two days were uneventful for Canis. Michael blossomed under the responsibility of command, and took the unruly boys and had them running sentry duty much like before, but they returned promptly and reported fully. Michael was an intuitive leader and seemed to be able to spot trouble before it had a chance to germinate, and he did so with a smooth and even hand that earned everyone’s respect. Then again, with Michael calling the shots, Canis had more time to scout around on his own, and he kept coming out of unexpected directions and appearing behind whoever was most distracted. It served to teach them the meaning of being alert.

  They spotted a major jumble of stones half way through the second day, the first Canis had seen since leaving the city of Chicago. Michael told them that such places were once long ago cities, but Canis couldn’t fathom it. Along with this unmarked border came an increase in the number of trees, though there was no river near that might support them.

  Canis and Cepheid went to explore the ruins and found little of interest. The only reason they were labeled ruins was because of the unnatural blocky shapes and portions of obvious walls, all buried under trees, bushes, and grass. If this was where people had once lived, there was no sign left, and they weren’t inclined to dismount and dig.

  Michael met them when they returned. “You should be wary of ruins; they tend to harbor the more unsavory members of our society. There have also been cases of the ground around them opening up and dropping the unwary explorer to their deaths.”

  “I have seen things like that ever since we came out of the foothills, though none of them were this big,” said Cepheid. “Why are there so many of them? Even this road seems unusually wide for the use it gets.”

  “It is said,” said Michael, “that the land was once covered by vast cities that dwarf the settlements we now have, and I have seen some evidence that this might have been true, but I can’t picture it. Surely, the mere size of such a society would crumble from its own weight. The farms would never be able to support them. And the roads, perhaps the ancient peoples used very large wagons drawn by great fire horses and what we have today has grown small, like our cities.”

  Canis remembered the story he had heard back at the Salt Lake Clan. There had never been any mention of cities or roads, but there had been a mention of coming out of a dark, clutching building and heading away from ‘stars that rested on the ground’, and he remembered the memory of one small girl very long ago. She had looked out over a vast sea of lights and fires, but it was in the darkness of the closer landscape where she had been concentrating her attention.

  They didn’t come across any other ruins visible from the road until they made camp that night. It was at the base of another pile of blocks, but it was a well-used campsite, so there was little fear that the ground would fall out from under them.

  “Why aren’t there any ruins on the other side of the mountains, or did they only have their cities on this side?” asked Cepheid after she had handed out their stew.

  “I have no idea,” replied Canis. “The story said that there was something at the other end of the lake. They sheltered there, remember, and they took stone from there to build the homes they have now. Perhaps there is more under the snow. Perhaps the lake has grown and consumed it.”

  They reached the ferry house a couple hours before sundown. The ferryman and his crew pulled them across the river one wagon at a time and grumbled about the hour every inch of the way. By the time they were all across and the man was paid, it was well after sundown, but they had reached the edge of the city at last.

  Canis stopped them at what looked like a good inn and bought them all a hot meal and a messenger. Michael had the food taken out to the guards who he insisted remain on duty while the ladies went inside by the fire to enjoy some mulled wine with their meal. The messenger was sent to Lord Omaha to announce their arrival and to bring back his wishes. The horses were watered in their harnesses. Neither Michael nor Canis expected to be staying here for the night; they would find out for sure when the messenger returned.

  When he finished his supper, Canis went outside to watch over the wagons; he wasn’t comfortable being responsible for something he couldn’t see.

  Two hours after their arrival at the inn, the messenger returned bringing an entire company of guards in the blue and green livery of the house of Omaha.

  When the men arrived, the captain glanced over the wagons and their escort then dismounted to go into the inn; Canis followed him uncontested.

  “A messenger arrived two days ago. He said a guard named Canis would be in charge of this caravan. Where is he?” said the captain with an imperious tone in his voice.

  “He is here,” said Canis in his softest voice from directly behind the man. Canis’s softest voice was reminiscent of a snarl only much smoother, not unlike a hiss. It was very unsettling when used face to face, but when heard coming from your unguarded back, it was cause for alarm.

  The man whirled and drew his sword in the same move, or at least, he tried to draw his sword. Canis’s powerful hands had the man’s arms imprisoned before he had scarcely completed his turn.

  “You come in numbers enough to cause alarm. What are your intentions here?” asked Canis, his pale eyes looking close into the eyes of his quarry.

  “I come to escort you and Lady Enid to Lord Omaha. Our numbers are to ensure safe passage through the city to the palace.”

  “Really?” Canis’s voice dropped into an even deadlier hiss. “Have you no control over your own citizens? Very well, you and your men – all of your men – will lead the way. We will follow. I will hand this caravan over to Lord Omaha myself.” He turned loose of the captain and stepped back.

  The man offered a stiff bow after only a moment’s hesita
tion. “As you wish. Follow me.” He left the building, his cloak billowing with his stride.

  Canis tossed a coin purse to Michael and said, “Pay the bill and load the women into the wagons.” Then he followed the man outside. As he suspected, there were several men down from their horses and wanting to approach the wagons. Michael’s men were blocking their way, but it was obvious they weren’t sure if they should.

  “Get back to your horses,” ordered the captain. He looked again at the wagons and the carriages. He was startled to see wolves standing boldly on top of them; startled enough to take a step to the side. He’d never seen such a thing before. There had been no mention of wolves in Lincoln’s message.

  As the women were climbing into their wagons, Michael touched Canis’s elbow. “Why did you do that?”

  “I don’t trust him. He puts my hackles up. There are certain looks some men have. One is the look that says ‘I think I can take that’, something you and Bill have perfected. Then there is the look that says ‘I already own that; it is my right’. That man will try to take whatever he wants regardless of who it might belong to, and he believes he has the right. You watch him closely and never trust him – never.” He saw Cepheid onto Thumper then mounted Midnight. “Take the front, Michael. I will watch from the back.”

  Men from the new company passed lanterns out to the drivers and some of the guards along the side of the caravan. “Light them. Part of our way is unlit,” said the captain.

  As soon as everyone was ready, they headed out. First went Lord Omaha’s captain and his men, then came Michael and the caravan, followed and flanked by Canis and the Wulfen that moved like shadows within shadows.

  An hour later, they were passing through an unlit forest, and shortly after that, they came out onto a rocky spit of land that extended over a half a mile out into a vast, frozen lake. A large castle dominated the far end of the spit, its towers overlooking the pristine landscape and the crystalline waters.