Ander - Part 2: Subchapter 4
4
Hezzi lay on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms folded tightly against his body, the little wooden figure of himself carved by Ander so many years ago clutched tightly in his fist. With all the flaps closed, his tent was nice and dark, just the way he wanted it. If he looked into the dark hard enough, everything else went away. The pain, the sadness, the betrayal, the loss.
The guilt.
But it never stayed away for very long. The pain was always there to bring it back, both in body and in heart.
He carefully reached up and touched the side of his muzzle. The faintest touch would send flares of pain racing up and down his jaw. Not surprising, considering how hard Father had struck him.
But no, he didn't want to think about that. All he wanted to do was look into the gloom and forget about everything. He didn't want to think about what he saw that night, he didn't want to think about how he ran back through the rain, his lungs screaming for air, he didn't want to think about the look on his father's face when he told him that Ander had...
*
"... killed Banno!"
"Huh, what?" Father grumbled, sitting up in his bedroll, groggily wiping sleep from his eyes. Mother was still fast asleep by his side. "Hezzi, what are you doing in my tent so late at night!? Explain yourself!"
"Father, he... I couldn't do anything! It was already too late!"
"You better start making sense, pup!" Father said, getting up. "Or so help me I will -" He froze, perhaps noticing the horror-struck look on his son's face, the way he was gasping for breath, his sodden fur plastered to his body, dripping water onto the ground. "What happened, Hezzi? What in the Cora's name happened?"
Mother started to stir in her own bedroll. She turned over and opened her milky eyes, fixing him with her blank stare, as if she knew exactly what had happened, and suddenly Hezzi didn't want to be anywhere near here. He didn't want to tell his parents that they had lost a son, didn't want to be responsible for the pain that it would cause. It was already real to him. He saw it happen. But if he told them, that would make it real for them too, and he would have to face it all by himself. He no longer had any brothers to back him up.
"Tell me, Hezzi!" Father roared, and he knew he couldn't put it off any longer.
He told them everything, and when he was done, the look of confusion on his father's face was so out of place, so out of character for the Chieftain of the Wolves, Hezzi simply couldn't bear it. He looked away, and silently braced himself for whatever may come next.
"Banno... he's dead?"
Hezzi nodded, fighting back his tears. On top of everything else that had happened this night, he wouldn't show weakness in front of his father, no matter how painful.
Mother covered her mouth with her hands, but her ragged gasps came through unhindered, heavy with sorrow. "Banno? My Banno is gone?" Her whole body was shaking. "My Banno!?" Rocking back and forth she started to shriek, a deathly, piercing sound that filled the whole tent. Hezzi had heard his mother scream many times before, but never like this. "Banno! My Banno!" Every cry was like a dagger through his heart, ripping and tearing. He wanted nothing more than to cover his ears and run, run as fast as he could, away from his crying mother, away from his dumbstruck father, away from the clan, away form this very night.
But he couldn't.
He wouldn't.
Because...
"Hezzi?"
"Yes, Father?"
Kadai crossed the room and struck his youngest son with all the force he could muster, reawakening the blow he received earlier from Banno,
(from your dead brother)
making it feel like the right side of his face was on fire.
... his parents would need him...
"You knew what Ander was planning, yet you did nothing!" Kadai struck Hezzi again, knocking him to the ground.
"Father! I didn't -"
"You should have come to us!" Kadai struck his son again and again, vicious, overhanded hammerblows to his head and face. Hezzi tried to cover up, but that left his stomach exposed. Father stomped down on it, hard, driving all the breath from his body in a painful rush.
...they would need him to be strong...
"Stop it, Kadai!" Mother shouted. "Leave him be!"
Father paid her no heed. All Hezzi could do was try and ward off the blows as best he could, covering his face with his arms as he coughed and wheezed on the ground, his father shouting down at him even as he was being beaten to within an inch of his life.
"You should have stopped him!"
A blow slipped through Hezzi's guard and landed against his temple, the impact driving his head against the ground in a red flash.
"You should have saved your brother! But you just stood there!"
Father kicked him in the ribs repeatedly, until he could taste blood on his tongue, bitter and metallic, clinging to his throat, making him cough.
"Kadai! Please, stop this!" Mother screamed.
"You just stood there and watched Banno die!"
"I'm sorry!" Hezzi said, curling his tail between his legs. "I'm sorry, Father! I'm sorry!"
"Sorry won't bring Banno back!" Father drew back his right hand and curled it into a fist, ready to deliver the final blow. Hezzi could see it floating in the dark, shaking with rage. Is this what Banno felt like? Is this the same feeling he had when he saw the arrow in Ander's hand?
"And neither will killing your one remaining son!" Mother said and grabbed Father by the wrist. He spun around, raising his other hand, and for one horrible moment Hezzi thought he meant to strike Mother down instead, something he had never done before.
But Father didn't.
He stood there, looking down at her, his shoulders heaving with every heavy breath. Finally, he wrenched free of her grasp and walked to the other end of the tent without a word, his back turned to them both.
"Leave us, Hezzi," Mother said. Even though she was blind, this was the first time Hezzi felt that she was purposefully not looking at him.
"Mother, you have to believe me. There was nothing I -"
"Now!" she screamed, his blurred vision transforming her silhouette into that of a skeletal monster in the dark.
Hezzi tried to get up, but the pain in his ribs knocked him back down. He could hear his father growling deeper inside the tent, and he knew that if he didn't get out of there right now, he really would get killed. Even so, he refused to crawl. That's the one thing he would never do. He would get up and walk, or he would lie here and die.
Ignoring the stabbing pain, Hezzi carefully got back to his feet and limped out of his Father's tent, clutching at his ribs as the rain washed over him yet again, the same rain that fell upon Banno's face not an hour ago.
The same rain that would fall in Hezzi's heart forever, covering it in ice for the rest of his life.
*
So Hezzi lay in the dark, not saying anything, not thinking anything, just twirling the little wooden figure around and around, feeling its familiar contours against his fingers, its rough texture, the cuts Ander had made so patiently.
A swath of light fell across his back and ran up the side of his tent, stinging his eyes. Hezzi hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes against the glare, hoping that whoever was checking up on him would just close the flap and leave him alone.
No such luck.
"Hezzi." It was his mother.
"Yes?" he said, not turning around.
"Get up. Your father is about to address the tribe."
Of course. Father had shut himself in his tent with only his closest advisors and highest ranked warriors all of yesterday, planning on how to storm the Foxes, no doubt. Frankly, Hezzi didn't give a damn anymore. It felt like everything Ander had taught him was nothing but empty lies. How could someone who claimed to believe in peace go and kill his own brother in cold blood?
"Did you hear me!? I said get up!"
"I heard you!" Hezzi shouted over his shoulder, taking his mother - and himself - completely by surprise. He had never spoken to her that way. Ever.
She stood in the entrance for a moment longer, then let the flap fall shut without a word.
Surprisingly, Hezzi found himself not caring about that either. Actually, what really surprised him was the fact that he was still surprised. He felt like he would never care about anything ever again. Why should he? What's the point in caring about anything if it could be taken from you at any moment, without warning?
Hezzi slowly got up, the bruises all over his body screaming bloody murder with each movement. He didn't really care about that, either. Bruises would heal, unlike his other wounds.
He looked down at the carving in his hands. Even though it didn't have much detail in the face, you could tell it was smiling, even in the gloom. And why wouldn't it be? He was always smiling back then, without a care in the world. All _this_Hezzi had to worry about was another fight breaking out between his brothers. Well, that would never happen again. Ander made sure of that.
The rage in his heart, dull and slumbering up until now, suddenly awoke like a burning, white hot flame in his mind as he stared at the loathsome carving.
This Hezzi was perfectly fine. This Hezzi had nothing to worry about. This Hezzi would forever live in a time where he had two older brothers to look out for him. This Hezzi would always be happy.
He took Ander's carving and, growling furiously, he snapped it in half, the sharp splinters of wood reflecting exactly how he felt on the inside: jagged and broken.
This Hezzi was dead now.
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