Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 6
6
Bileam looked her right in the eye and said, "You must be touched in the head."
The crowd didn't seem all too eager, either. Nilia understood that these were not a warrior people, but after spending her entire life surrounded by those who valued strength above all else, their reactions were not just pitiful, they were disgusting. All over the hall, she saw Foxes of all ages and genders clinging to each other like drowning pups.
"She can't be serious, can she?"
"I think she's deadly serious."
"I've only ever been in a single fight, and that was over a sugar apple! And I lost! Badly!"
A skinny Fox near the back had pulled his knees up to his chest and was rocking back and forth, clutching his head and muttering to himself. "Ander is one tall bastard, and that other one standing next to him is built like a log cabin. I'd bet even the woman could wring my neck with one flick of the wrist if she wanted. If we are to go up against hundreds, maybe even thousands of Wolves just like that, we're all dead. There's no way around it, we're simply dead. End of story. Dead dead dead..."
There was a Fox standing in the aisle, gesturing so wildly that his woven head decoration had gone all slanted. "What are we supposed to do? I don't want to leave my farm! My family has been cultivating that land for generations!"
"We might have to. Unless you want to grab a pitchfork and go stand on the porch while an angry horde of Wolves bears down on you?"
"Don't be so flippant!"
"I'm not being flippant! I'm serious!"
Another Fox, this one even twitchier than Ivio, pulled on his ears and said, "I'm not gonna stand around waiting for a bunch of Wolves to come and scoop out my entrails! I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting the hell out of here!"
"That's easy for you to say, you bachelor bastard! What about the rest of us!? I got three kids and a mother of eighty-nine years!"
"Not my problem! You can chuck 'em in a ditch for all I care!"
"What!?"
Amos was still banging away with that stupid little hammer, shouting for everyone to be quiet, but there were a hundred different arguments going on at the same time, and they all boiled down to the same thing: I must run. I must flee. And if I cannot escape, someone... please save me. Save me...
Because I am weak...
"For the love of the Cora, everyone SHUT UP!!" Nilia's voice did a much better job of grabbing everyone's attention than the feeble tapping of that dinky little hammer. "You cannot run away from this! Even if you had a week's head start - which I seriously doubt - there's no way you can evade them forever. They will hunt you down no matter how far you run. They will sniff you out no matter how well you hide. The only chance you have is to stand together and fight for this valley you call home! Even if you all perish, even if every last one of you dies a gruesome, bloody death, would it not be far better to die with weapons in your hands and strength in your hearts? Or would you rather die cowering in a hole, pathetic and weak?" She turned to face the Fox named Bileam, the one who still had a bit of black around the eyes and ears, the one who permanently looked as if he was smelling something foul. "Which death would you choose?"
Bileam stared back at her for a long time, absolutely seething, his shoulders slowly rising and falling. "I will not flee my home, but neither will I throw my life away to defend a stranger. Nilia, daughter of Jerardo, by my power as an Elder of Grovenglen, I hereby banish you and your people from our lands." He seized Amos's little hammer and raised it high above his head, as if intending to deliver a death blow. In a way, that was exactly what he was doing. "May your gods, whoever they are, have mercy on your souls..."
Many things happened in that moment, and Nilia saw all of them with a warrior's eye. She saw the way the dust motes sparkled in the air currents, roiling around the hammer's dull, polished half-shine. She saw the wrinkles move in Bileam's sleeve as he started his swing, rippling backwards across his arm in shadowy folds.
Something large and heavy flew past her ear at considerable speed, making a quick _whoosh_sound. She only had a fleeting glimpse as it sailed by, but it looked like a very short, very thick black arrow. It struck the hammer dead centre and sent it careening out of Bileam's hand, spinning end over end. It bounced off the wall and landed back on the table with a monstrous thud that echoed throughout the building, that stubby arrow still sticking out of it, tapping out a little melody as the hammer rocked back and forth, stripped of all its symbolic might.
Everyone turned all the way around in their seats to see where that arrow had come from, and standing in the big, double doors was a hooded Fox, his features completely hidden by the bright glare shining in from the snow outside, completely framing his pitch-black silhouette in a square of pure white. When Nilia blinked, she could still see his shape burned into the back of her eyelids. He had a mechanical bow in his hands, and another arrow ready to fly.
"Jackass!" Bileam shrieked, massaging his aching wrist. "You could have killed me just now!"
He came much closer to killing me, Nilia thought, but, surprisingly, she didn't really mind all that much. If 'Jackass' could shoot an arrow above the heads of dozens of Foxes and hit a target no bigger than a fist from such a distance, she was pretty sure her life was never in any danger.
"I'm the jackass?" the stranger said. "That's rich, coming from the Fox who was about to condemn two children to death."
Bileam slammed both fists against the table, making the crippled hammer jump. "Have you forgotten how many Fox children there are in this valley, you brat!? I'm thinking of them!"
"By throwing away the one good chance we might have of getting through this alive? Here we have a Wolfess who knows everything there is to know about the enemy, the way they fight, the way they move, the way they think, and she is willing to share all of that knowledge with us, and you just want to toss her back over the mountain like a piece of trash? She's not an enemy, she's a gift!"
"You forget your place, you little whelp!"
"My place is right here, calling you a moron!"
"Why I never!"
Where on earth did this Fox come from? The glare was so bad that the snow had started to take on a greenish tint in her eyes, but Nilia simply could not look away. There was something fundamentally different about this Jackass character, something that set him apart from all the other Foxes. Where they hunched together, he stood tall (well, tall for a Fox, at least), and where they cowered in fear, he felt anger. It made him stand out rather blatantly, almost deliberately, and Nilia couldn't help but feel a certain admiration for him, a thankfulness that there was at least one Fox in this dreary rabble who could actually use a weapon.
That was, until he stepped out of the glare and she got a real good look at him.
Haggard was an understatement. This Fox looked absolutely wrecked. His fur was a bright shade of red, but his face was smeared with dirt and sweat and his clothes were covered in patches of melting frost. Everything about him just seemed so worn down. Even the little tufts growing out of his cheeks were sagging down, as if too tired to stick out straight. Same thing with his ears and tail. Also, he wasn't nearly as tall as his silhouette had made him out to be.
Jackass bent backwards and cracked his spine, grimacing like an old grey-fur. "I did not_just spend my entire morning in Father's potato field, out in the freezing cold, clearing _ten rows of heavy rocks with my bare hands, just so a bunch of Wolves can come over the mountain and burn all my hard work to the ground!"
"Nobody gives a flying fig about your father's stupid potato field! And why do you suddenly care so much, anyway!? Everybody knows you hate the Wolves more than anybody!"
Jackass straightened up with a groan and held up a finger. "I only know one Wolf, and yes, it's exactly as you say. I despise the lug. Personally, I think he's a big dumb oaf, and I'm not afraid to say it to his face. You hear that, Ander?"
Nilia was shocked. Shocked at how angry those words made her feel. She's never been one to care about weightless insults, but if Jackass had been standing any closer she would have gladly fed him his own teeth.
Ander didn't seem to mind, though. He merely chuckled and said, "I hear you, Mateo."
"Good. But back to the matter at hand." He looked at the drab brown vixen, sitting nearby with the folds of her dress all bunched up in her clutching fists, staring at him with rapt attention. "As much as I dislike him, there are certain things I simply cannot hold against him. Certain things I - dare I say it? - have no choice but to be grateful for. There are many Foxes I love dearly, and he has touched a great many of their lives in the short time he's been here. He made them happy. So, if I were to hate him, then, by extension, that would mean I'd have to hate everything he's done as well. But I don't." He scratched his ear and looked at all the faces staring back at him, an awkward little smile on his face. "You all know me. I admit I can be a bit... difficult sometimes, but I believe fair is fair. I believe that if a debt is made, it should be repaid in good time. If Ander has touched so many of our people's lives, then shouldn't we do the same for him? Shouldn't we reach out and help his_people? _His friends? His family?" He slowly looked around the hall, at all the Wolves and Foxes staring back at him, and Nilia was struck by how... naked he seemed, how vulnerable. He was laying everything bare, and he didn't seem frightened by it at all. He shrugged and said, "I dunno. It's just what seems fair to me, that's all." Silence followed his little speech, and Nilia found herself absentmindedly rubbing her thumb along the curve of her necklace. This Fox was reaching out, trying to convince his people to trust a group of strangers, hated by their own kind, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't understand why. In an odd, backwards sort of way, this reminded her of the time Ander had asked them to release their captive Fox. Certainly the risk was no less severe. It filled her with the same kind of intangible feeling, that something was going on she couldn't quite grasp, something she so desperately wanted to feel and know for herself, but was forever beyond her reach.
The brown vixen suddenly jumped up, pushed her way towards the aisle and gave him a fierce hug, mashing her cheek right up against his.
"Ow, Mother! My back still hu- ow!"
Something amazing happened then, something Nilia had never seen before, something she never would have thought possible.
One of the Foxes stood up, removed his head decoration, and held it against his chest. "They got kids with 'em," he said. "I seen 'em when they come in. I still don't know what we should do, whether it'd be better to run or to fight, but I do know the difference between right and wrong, and throwin' a pair of kids out to be eaten by monsters is about as wrong as you can get."
A stocky little vixen stood up, this one the colour of dying embers. "I'm not one for grand speeches in public places, but I'd like to say my say. When I was a young girl, my parents taught me to be kind to those less fortunate. I have kept their wisdom close to my heart, living a life I know they would be proud of, and in doing so, I have passed their words down to my own daughter as well, teaching her that a charitable Soul is a happy Soul. But what kind of message would we send to our children if we turned away the ones who need our help the most? And besides..." She smiled, and Nilia was amazed to see the glint of unspilled tears in her eyes. "I don't think my little Linda would ever forgive me if she couldn't get a ride on Ander's shoulders anymore."
And speaking of Ander, the big brown Wolf had been exceptionally quiet this whole time. Nilia regarded him with a queer kind of suspicion, not sure what to make of that poorly hidden smile touching the corner of his mouth. And then it hit her, all at once.
He _knew_something like this was bound to happen. He knew, and that's why he kept quiet. Instead of trying to force their cooperation, he knew they would find a way to convince themselves. But why? Why would they want to do that?
More and more Foxes were standing up, perfect strangers coming to their aid, adding their voices to the cause.
"I can't fight for beans, but neither can I turn a blind eye to what's going on, especially not when it's happening right in front of me! Shame on you, Bileam! Shame on you!"
The Fox with the bloody nose pumped his fist in the air. "I refuse to let any harm befall the lovely ladies while I'm around!" His voice sounded all muffled and nasally because his nose was pinched shut, but beneath that rag Nilia could see he was actually smiling from ear to ear.
Another Fox put his arm around the first's shoulders (they looked so much alike they had to be brothers), and pumped his fist as well, so that they were almost a mirror image of each other. "For the lovely ladies!"
The fear was still there, Nilia could smell it, thick and sharp, but these Foxes were standing up despite that. If they had simply pushed the fear deep down inside themselves, she could have understood it. If they had fixated on something else, like the thrill of the coming battle and bloodshed, she could have understood it. But this... this was something completely different.
If the fear was still there, if they still felt it in their hearts and souls, what could be driving them to conquer it?
The Bileam Fox banged his fist against the table, shouting for order and quiet, but to no avail. The Foxes just kept standing up, shouting their displeasure, completely drowning him out, hundreds upon hundreds of them.
"You never called a meeting like this when Ander was in trouble! You just cast him out like a piece of garbage without consulting any of us!"
"Yeeeaaahh!"
"Now hold on just one hellbound minute!" Bileam said, really struggling to be heard above all the noise. "Ander chose to go back on his own! We had nothing to do with-"
"Awfully convenient, wasn't it? Bloody coward!"
"Who said that!? Show yourself!"
"For crying out loud, Bileam, sit down!" Amos grabbed him by the tail and yanked him back into his seat to thunderous cheers from the audience.
Bileam glared at every screaming face, his fangs bared. But, realizing he couldn't possibly fight back against such numbers, he dropped his gaze and looked down at his knees, grinding his teeth so hard Nilia could see the jaw muscles in his temples working back and forth.
She turned to Ander, completely flummoxed. "You knew this would happen, didn't you?"
He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. He just smiled.
The third Elder, the one who had been quiet up until now, cleared her throat. "I believe our people have spoken, wouldn't you agree, Bileam?
Bileam grunted something he probably intended to be unintelligible, but Nilia could make it out just fine. "You can go suck on a toadstool, Ruth."
"Very well then." She picked up the hammer (with the stubby arrow still sticking out of the top) and gave it a smart rap against the table. "Notion to expel the Wolves: denied."
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