Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 36
36
Ander thought he would surely black out again, but he didn't. Maybe he was in too much pain to black out, if that even made sense. Lying on the ground, he knew the wound in his chest was bleeding again. The blood was warm, but the morning air was freezing him from the inside. He had to cover it up, but his arms weren't working.
He could hear the birds in the trees, the early risers, chittering excitedly, maybe to let each other know that they had made it through the night. Somewhere in the distance a sharp series of rapid knocks echoed through the woods, undoubtedly made by a woodpecker.
"I'll bet anybody two rabbit haunches he doesn't get back up," a voice floated down to where Ander lay, maybe from one of the watchtowers. He waited a little while, slowly breathing in and out, but nobody would take the Wolf up on his offer. No surprises there.
"Ander!" That voice belonged to Father.
"Chieftain, wait!" Nilia.
What was going on back there? Ander hated this. Down on the ground with his cheek against the bloody sand all he could see was a sideways view of the wall he just passed, no more than a thick wooden line sticking out of a sideways world.
"Let me through! I demand you to let me through! That is my son! That is my son!!"
"Chieftain, please calm down. You'll only make things worse, and not just for yourself!"
Ander could feel himself slipping away, as if the sideways world wasn't just a by-product of his slanted view, but because the world really did turn on its side, and he was now sliding along towards... whatever lay at the other end.
You have to get up.
That voice didn't belong to Banno. It was his old voice, his real voice, the one that always spoke up inside of him when times got tough. He didn't know where the Banno voice went to - maybe it was still hiding inside somewhere - but that was a mystery for another day.
You have to get up, Ander. You have to get up.
I don't know if I can.
Maybe you can't, but maybe you can. You won't know for sure until you try.
I can't move my arms.
That doesn't matter. You have to try. You have to get back up.
With every breath Ander took, he could feel more blood ooze out of his wounds.
You have to try. At least try_._
He had to try.
First, Ander righted his head so that he could look straight ahead. It hurt his chin, pressing it against the ground like that, but at least it got rid of that bizarre sliding sensation. But... what now?
This was almost like the time Sarah had to get up out of bed without using her stomach. She was just a tiny little vixen, a tiny little vixen nearly torn in half giving birth to him, Ander, and she did it just fine. That means he can do it, too. All he had to do was get up. Easy.
Ander pressed his working hand against the hole in his side, slowing the blood flow, then pushed his forehead against the ground as hard as he could, raising as much of his chest as possible. Twigs and pebbles cut into the gash put there by Garten (one last sting from beyond the grave), making it bleed all over again. Next, he brought his knees up under his belly. It's a good thing his pants were still more or less intact, otherwise he would have scraped them raw against the hard dirt. This put pressure against his shoulders though, and Ander had to bite down on his lower lip to keep from screaming. He didn't want to give the Wolves back there the satisfaction, and neither did he want to worry his father even more than he already was.
Holding his breath, with his heartbeat pounding away in his ears, Ander raised his head off the ground and forced himself back up, first one foot, then the other. It felt like he was trying to push the whole world down beneath him instead of pushing himself back up, but somehow he got it done. His knees shook a little, and there were tiny white dots flickering around the edge of his vision, but he was standing. That's the important thing.
"Damn, I should've taken that bet," somebody muttered.
Ander looked back over his shoulder and saw what looked like the whole tribe squeezed together by the gate, with even more packed into the watchtowers and even some lining the walkways. All of them were looking at him with identical frowns of disdain.
Except for Father and Nilia. Ander realized that this might be the very last time he ever saw the faces of Wolves that didn't hate him outright. It all just seemed so... final. And not in a good way. He couldn't just leave things like this. He had to say something.
"Nilia... I..." What was he supposed to tell her? He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to thank her for saving his life. He wanted to tell her he would always be grateful to her for helping him make it till sunrise. He wanted to apologize for putting her in such a difficult situation. But he couldn't say any of that. She did an excellent job of hiding her true intentions, but many Wolves were suspicious of her regardless, just because she didn't hate him like they did. If he said anything directly to her now, it would blow away any deniability she might have.
"Just get out of here, Ander," she said. "And never, ever come back. You hear?" From any other Wolf those words would have stung, but Ander understood what she was really telling him. He nodded once, then turned his attention to Father.
"Father, if Hezzi - no, when Hezzi wakes up, please tell him that -" Ander could feel more blood rise up in his throat, clingy and bitter. He swallowed it back, and alarming splotches of shadow crept around his vision again, much closer to the centre than before. There was so much he wanted to say, but he couldn't get his mouth to cooperate with what was going on in his head. He'd just have to settle. "Tell him that I'm sorry. For everything. And that I love him very, very much."
Father nodded, his lip trembling. "I'll tell him."
"And..." Ander hesitated, but only for a moment. "Please tell Mother, too."
A single tear ran down Father's cheek, but he made no move to wipe it away. Just like with wounds, he chose to wear it without shame, like a proud Wolf.
"Thank you, Father. For everything... I..." And then, because there was nothing left to say... "Goodbye."
Before the sadness could overwhelm him, Ander turned his back on the place he grew up in for twenty-three years. He remembered a time, back in another world, back in another life, when he and his brothers were all still young enough to play together, running and dodging between the legs of irritated grownups, a golden window of only a few years, back when he was still too naïve to understand why he felt like he didn't belong.
Ander started to walk to the East, keeping his head down so the sun wouldn't sting his eyes. The glare was already bad enough to make them water.
But was it really the glare doing that?
Without even realising it, Ander balled his hands into fists, once again relying on his old trick, but instead of calming him down, all he managed to do was make his muscles scream, and this caused a sharp intake of breath that only hurt him even more.
Ander stopped until the pain subsided into an agonizing throb. Of course it was the glare. He wasn't crying. Not for this terrible place. He couldn't be happier to leave. These were tears of joy.
You just keep telling yourself that.
Enough with the inner feelings. He had enough real feelings to deal with right now, the most pressing of which was the slit in his chest, sucking freezing air into his lung with the most awful slurping sounds every time he tried to inhale, and then blowing bubbles in his blood with every exhale, like it was the mouth of some freakish monster baby.
Ander pressed his hand harder against his wound and kept walking, keeping the wall to his right. The posts caught the morning sun beautifully, and they floated by in lines of brown and black, slightly curved. He felt like he was
Dying.
not in such great shape. He had to -
You're dying.
- keep moving, before his strength left him completely. He had to walk, he had to keep walking, he had to...
Ander didn't know when it happened, but he suddenly realised he was leaning against the wall. Maybe he just slumped against it out of exhaustion, or maybe he fell. It didn't really matter. He had to keep going.
Ander moved forward a little bit, and his shoulder neatly fell into the gap between the two rounded posts, like the tooth of a gear. He kept going, feeling it rise up against the next post and then suddenly fall into the next gap with a jarring lurch. It was a bit uncomfortable, but it saved him some energy, so he kept doing it. He started to count the posts rubbing past his shoulder... One... Two... Five... Twenty...
That couldn't be right. It felt like time itself just jerked forward all at once, but it also felt like not a single second had dragged by yet. Did he lose count somewhere along the line? His body felt like it must have circled the entire village by now, so how could it only be twenty? No wait, that was wrong, too. How could it be twenty already? No... His mind told him it was only a short amount of time, but his body insisted it was an age. He knew he was very confused, but he didn't know how to stop being confused. It had to... but no, wait... why was he doing this? He didn't want to go around the village... he wanted to get back to the mountain, didn't he? Yes, back to Grovenglen... That was East, but if he kept following the wall, it would eventually turn South. Was he going South already?
Ander stopped and leaned his head against the curiously warm wood. He could feel a knot where an axe had lopped off a branch before it was raised.
He knew he wanted to get back to Kiana, but he couldn't remember how to get there. There was so much pain... and he was so tired... he wanted to rest... just for a little while...
But he couldn't. He didn't understand why he couldn't, but he knew it in his heart. If he stopped to rest now, he'd never see Kiana again.
Then why are you resting?
Ander looked around. The trees seemed higher, the ground closer. This was because he was sitting down with his back propped up against the wall. He must have slid down without even realizing it. Maybe he had even blacked out for a while. Lots of things were happening without him even realizing it.
A squirrel looked down at him from the high branches, its tiny black eyes glinting like river pebbles, and then disappeared with a swish of its bushy tail. Ander kept his eyes on the same spot, hoping it would come back, but all he saw were tendrils of mist snaking through the cool morning air, winding through the leaves, shimmering like ghosts in the slanted beams of light. They felt... familiar... like he had seen them before...
That was ridiculous. It was just some mist. It all looks the same. And yet...
Ander couldn't shake that feeling. This was the same mist, the same mist that had held witness to the last hunt he had shared with his brothers... with Banno...
And...
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