Ander - Part 5: Subchapter 61
61
- made her go outside! In the cold! What kind of a terrible father are you, huh!?" Banno swiped his claws across James's face, but the dead Fox only nodded once and lay still again, just an empty piece of meat with a flapping jaw. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" Banno swiped him again, but there was no fun, no rush, no excitement. He might as well be playing with a blanket.
Banno growled and went back to work. He had rolled up his pants and was trying to tie the severed strap of his pegfoot back together, but his big, clunky hands weren't made for fine operations like this and it kept coming undone. All the blood wasn't helping things either. That damn Fox cleaved his leg right open. Might've nicked the bone...
"Come on, you stupid piece of..." There were so many buckles and strips of leather on this thing he didn't even know where half of it was supposed to go, but finally, after what felt like ages, he managed to tie the two ends together without them slipping loose.
He carefully stood up and rapped it against the floor a few times. It was a bit tight on the right side now, but the foot itself seemed to be secure.
He stared down at the lifeless body of the Fox that had nursed him back to health, kept him out of the cold, and given him his new foot, but he did not feel any gratitude or appreciation, only a bitter hatred simmering deep down in the pit of his stomach, much like the coals glowing in the hearth.
He came so close... so close to tasting real death for a second time, and yet this pompous know-it-all had gotten in the -
Wait...
A terrible realization crept through his thoughts. It was like frost on a windowpane, first gathering around the edges in a thin film, then spreading to the centre, and that realization was that James was his second time.
But he had missed it. There was no rush of excitement. No orgasmic moment of release. No ecstatic climax of emotions, followed by blissful peace. And why?
"YOU DIED OUTSIDE!" Banno thundered, absolutely livid. It was that poker sticking out of his chest that had done the deed, not him! It was just one quick stab and then it was over! He rushed it! He wasn't thinking! He just wanted to get loose! "Dammit, James! Why'd you make me do that!? Are you really that petty!?" Maybe it was just the blood in his eye, but everything seemed red and cloudy, like he was looking at the world through a piece of coloured glass. He didn't think he'd ever been this angry, not even when Ander's bitch pulled him into that biter. This was... was...
Something warm trickled from his ear and ran down the side of his face. He wiped it away, expecting more blood, but the liquid on his fingers wasn't red. It was yellow.
There was pus leaking out of his ear.
"What?" Banno looked for what seemed like a very long time, rubbing it between his fingers. It had an unpleasant odour to it.
Banno growled and wiped it on his blood-soaked pants. Blood, pus, what was the difference? It was all a part of him, so it was all good. There was no point in even thinking about it, and there was no use in getting angry over a piece of _nothingness_like James. This Fox wasn't real in the same way Vallah was real. There's no way his flavour would have come even close to hers. But still, he was a Fox, not some stupid deer. He was aware of his own life, he was intelligent, he had life in his eyes. Surely Banno would have gotten something out of it.
But he didn't. James had ruined it all with his misplaced heroics. He had stolen the flavour.
Where did it go? Where did the flavour go!?
"Hey!" Banno shouted and kicked James in the ribs. There came a muffled crackling noise from inside, like a wicker basket being crushed flat, but what was the point if he couldn't see any change on the bastard's face? What was the point in even touching something that was dead, something that was the very antithesis of himself? It would be better to just leave this thing here to rot away and become the nothing it really was. Much better.
Banno kicked James's body again, infuriated by the very noise it made. With all the blood and pus in his ear it sounded all weird, more like broken glass than shattered bone. "Why couldn't I taste you!?" he screamed, slobber flying from his mouth. "Where was your flavour, you piece of trash!? How could you betray me like that, huh!? Where was the taste!? You were there and then you were gone! Where did you go!? Where did you go!?"
Banno wiped his mouth (even the blood on his hands had no real taste beneath the iron, no satisfying tingle of life consumed). "I hate you, James," he whispered. "I hate you so much."
The shadows darkened as the coals in the hearth started to die one by one. The cold would be here soon.
Banno turned his back on this whole, miserable,waste of an experience and focussed his attention where it was truly needed instead.
There was only one thing left to do now, and that was to follow the blood.
There was quite a bit of it in the doorway, where they had stood to watch their father's final moment. Tears, too. It was actually rather beautiful, the clear liquid mixing with the red. If only hers hadn't mixed with her brothers', it would have been perfect.
He gritted his teeth and walked down the hallway, following their trail into the kitchen; their blood, one perfect little flower and two filthy thorns, his pegfoot clunking against the floor boards. He could smell them. He could smell their blood, their sweat, and their tears. He would -
The kitchen tilted alarmingly and he suddenly tumbled to the floor, blinking in surprise. What the hell just happened? He didn't trip, he was sure of that. He tried to get up and fell again, feeling like a newborn deer. What the hell!?
Banno tried again, moving very slowly and deliberately. His left leg was working just fine, but his right... wasn't. He could still move it, but it felt strange to do so, kind of numb and stingy at the same time. Maybe it was all the blood pouring out of the gash in his thigh, a parting gift from James, the flavourless Fox.
"Damn... Damn... DAMN!" Banno punched his leg in an effort to get it working again, but that only seemed to make it worse. He tried to get up for a third time, but it was as if his leg wasn't even there. It simply couldn't hold his weight anymore.
He crawled his way to the breakfast table and pulled himself up one infuriatingly slow inch at a time. The red film across his vision was getting worse, but he finally managed to get on top of it, panting for breath, bleeding all over the tablecloth.
What was he going to do? Time was against him, but he couldn't chase after anyone like this. Poor Valery was out there somewhere, waiting for him, and he was stuck on this blasted table!
Banno closed his eyes and thought back to all those emergency cases that had so fascinated him as a child, all the hours he had spent in Mother's doctoring tent, quiet as a mouse, watching her treat wound after wound. For a gash like this, she'd probably clean it out with some aloe vera oil and then seal it with animal grease and cover it in herbs.
Banno looked around the kitchen. No aloe, no animal grease, no herbs. But surely there must be something around here he could use?
His eye fell on the salt and pepper shakers. The pepper was totally useless, but the salt... it smelled just like the powder James used to put on his stump back when it was still all gory and messy. Was it the same stuff?
"Dammit, I don't have time for this." Banno seized the shaker and twisted the lid off. He swung his leg up onto the table and poured half the contents into the gaping wound. It sucked the blood up eagerly, as if it was thirsty, and slowly turned into a lumpy red mush, almost like melting snow. He had no idea if this was working or not, but salt alone wouldn't be enough. He grabbed the tablecloth and ripped it into a long, white strip similar to the ones James used to wrap him up in.
"Stop bleeding," Banno muttered as he tied the strip around his thigh, looping it around and around as tight as he could. "You stay inside, where you belong!" He tied the ends and cinched them tight.
Now, to test it out.
He carefully got down from the table, first putting all his weight down on his good foot, then gradually shifting it to the other. It worked. Barely. The bleeding had stopped, but his knee still bent against his will whenever he put too much weight on it. James must have done something to the muscle when he...
Banno seized a chair and hurled it against the wall, smashing it to pieces. He had half a mind to go back there and rip his stupid dead head off.
More warmth dribbled down his cheek and he wiped it away with the back of his hand, leaving a dull, yellow smear all across his fur.
No. James was just an empty piece of meat now, not even fit to eat. There was a real life out there, waiting for him to come and rescue her from this fake world. She was counting on him. He couldn't afford to waste any more time here. He needed to find her. He needed to taste her death, and she needed to feel him do it. He needed to feel that rush that would let him know he was truly alive.
He needed to save her.
"Don't worry, Valery. I'm coming to get you. I'll make you warm again..."
He limped to the door, grabbed the handle (there was blood on it - tacky, but not completely dry yet), and pushed it open. A frigid gust of wind blasted him in the face and his hatred for James surged even deeper than before.
How... Just how could he send his only daughter outside on a night like this? It was all so fake, so lifeless, just cold and snow and ice and darkness. None of it was a part of him, none of it.
She truly was outside.
There were two sets of tracks leading from their backdoor into the frozen night, mingled with spots of blood.
He followed the trail, his big, uneven footprints completely obliterating theirs, constantly sniffing the aromas rising up from every shallow dip in the snow. He expected them to go straight into the woods, or maybe curve off towards the barn, but he was surprised when he came upon a big mess of footprints not too far from the house, after which they abruptly changed direction towards the west.
He stopped, bent down, and sniffed the snow. What were they thinking? Did they have an argument here? And why west? What was there?
Banno hurried on, not liking the way the cold was trying to worm its way into his wounds. That was exactly the way he imagined it, too. Trillions upon trillions of tiny little invisible worms floating through the air, munching on everything that was real with big, nasty mandibles. They bore into flesh and wood and stone and metal and water alike, stealing away their warmth. He raised his hand and was disgusted to see that the blood and pus in his fur was slowly crystalizing into ice. Ice! It was as if a piece of him was surrendering to the cold, to the nothing, and becoming nothing itself.
Banno curled his fingers into a fist and watched the flakes drift down to the snow in a fine red powder. If he was having trouble dealing with all this nothingness, how bad must it be for poor little Valery? She was real, like him, but she was also small and delicate, much too fragile to be outside.
He needed to take her inside, where she belonged.
He continued to follow the tracks, his nose close to the ground. The thorny scent of the brothers were strong with panic, but if he concentrated hard, he could find a whiff of Valery floating through their stink, a subtle fragrance of flowers and sunshine.
The going got tough when the tracks started to climb up a hill, but Banno didn't let that stop him, or even slow him down. Even when his pegfoot kept sinking into the snow, he just lifted it out and kept going, the thought of Valery's warm, slender neck fuelling his efforts.
All those pleasant thoughts shattered when he reached the top and saw what was waiting for him at the bottom.
"No... No, you damn brats! You damn maniacs! NO!!" He stumbled and slid down the rest of the way with miniature avalanches constantly trying to sweep him off his feet.
He finally reached the bottom and fell down to his knees, staring in silent, awestruck horror at the stream merrily babbling away before him.
And the tracks were leading right to it.
Banno crawled to the bank and looked over the edge. The water was crystal clear and not very deep. He could see the rocks on the bottom even in the dead of night, worn round and smooth by the hand of time. There were sheets of ice growing out of the soil and hanging over the rushing water like see-though mushrooms. Every few seconds a piece would break off and come floating past his nose, bobbing up and down in the gentle currents. Snowflakes were still raining down, making the river seem all thick and slurry with half-melted islands of slush clinging to the stones. It even sounded different than in springtime, more like an old, toothless Wolf gumming a piece of meat than the fast trickle it was supposed to be.
Banno stuck his finger into the water and jerked it back immediately. It was so cold it actually stung.
Those crazy little bastards. They actually...
"Pfffha!" Banno clapped a hand to his forehead and laughed. He just laughed and laughed, mostly out of exasperation, but there was some unexpected admiration mixed in there, too. He honestly didn't know whether this was stupid or genius.
"Those clever little idiots..." Banno sniffed the air, hoping that maybe they were still close enough to catch, but all he got was the scent of pine and his own blood.
There were no tracks on the other side, neither left nor right as far as he could see, so that only left one possibility. Those crazy little brats really did go into the river.
The question was, did they go upstream or down?
"Hmm..." Banno scratched his chin and gave the situation some serious thought. He knew they were out in the middle of nowhere, he knew they couldn't stay in the water for very long (not if they wanted to keep all their toes), and he knew they were scared out of their minds. Well, the brothers were. Valery could put up a good front, but he knew she was secretly waiting for him to come and release her from this empty, outside world.
Upstream? Or downstream?
Prey instinctively went in the direction of safety when hunted by a predator, always. Rabbits go for the hole in the ground, squirrels go for the hole in the tree.
Where was their hole? Probably the house, but would they really try to circle around like that? He supposed it was possible, but they'd have nowhere to go from there. They'd be stuck like rats. Prey doesn't run away simply to return to the predator's haunt.
They might if it gets too cold, though...
"Hmm..." The hill was blocking off his view from the house, but he could just barely see the chimney silhouetted against the night sky. Would he be able to see smoke rise from that thing if they decided to come back and warm themselves by the fire? Maybe, if he was close enough, but smoke is hard to see in the dark, even on a clear night, and with all the snow drifting down this was most certainly not clear.
A low growl issued from deep inside his throat. Should he go upstream, downstream, or stay in the house and wait?
They definitely went into the river, he knew that much, but they'd have to get out somewhere along the line. If he chose to follow the right direction, he could find their trail again and he'd be set. But, if he chose wrong, he might end up following the river for hours without any sign. Same problem with the house. He might end up waiting in there all night long while those brats spirited Valery further and further away from him.
Which way? Which damn way!?
They're just kids. They're clever kids, but kids just the same. Where would they go?
The Cora dominated the skyline to the northwest like a giant set of teeth. He didn't know exactly where this 'Grovenglen' was, but he knew Ander was taking his vixen there on the night they had their little altercation in the storm, and that happened right inside the Cora's shadow. Logic dictates that Grovenglen, therefore, must be somewhere near the Cora, if Ander had any hopes of making it back to the tribe before dawn.
If Luke, Tim, and Valery wanted to make it to Grovenglen and the nearest of their own kind, then upstream would be the way to go. They might have gone that way in the throes of their panic without even realizing why.
But maybe their idea of 'safety' wasn't in trying to find sanctuary far away, but simply by putting as much distance as possible, as fast as possible, between themselves and their hunter? If so, downstream would be the way to go. It's much faster walking along in the direction of a current than trying to fight against it, almost like the difference between walking down- and uphill. If they weren't thinking of the future, they might just be taking the route of least resistance.
Banno looked upstream, then downstream, the water bubbling and churning a disconcerting melody across the gash it had carved into the earth.
Upstream or downstream? Follow the river or go back to the house? What would happen if he couldn't find them? They'd just be handing themselves over to frostbite in the middle of the wilderness. He didn't care about the brats, but little Valery... the thought of her dying from frostbite sent shivers down his spine.
Upstream... downstream... or back to the house?
Upstream... downstream... or back to the house!?
Banno didn't notice the blood and pus dribbling from his ear anymore.
It wasn't important.
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