Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 10
10
The guard was still missing, so that worked in Kadai's favour. He awkwardly put his shoulder to the gate with Ander still in his arms, his feet constantly slipping and sliding in the mud. It was difficult, but he managed to push it open far enough for them to squeeze through.
Ander hasn't cried once on the way over here, and his movements were few and far between, maybe more imagined than felt. Kadai wondered whether he should get rid of this sodden cloth thing wrapped around his body. He went to the trouble of masking the scent, but if anybody saw them with it, they'd know immediately that something strange was going on, for no Wolf could weave something like this, which was neither animal pelt nor coarse sheet of nettle yarn. It would be the smart thing to do, if secrecy was the only thing he valued. But right now this was the only thing keeping his pup from freezing to death, so it had to stay, at least until they reached the -
"Father!? Father, where are you!?"
Damn, that sounded like Banno. Why couldn't the blasted child have slept through the night? What else could possibly go wrong?
"Father!?"
Kadai spotted him through the gaps in the tents, almost invisible in the night, wandering aimlessly in the village centre in the shadow of the Cora's statue, shouting for his father.
"I'm here!" Kadai called. He didn't want to deal with Banno right now, but he had to quiet the kid down before he woke the whole village.
"Father!" Banno hurried over, weaving between the tents, ignoring the wider footpaths entirely in his rush. "It's Mother! I think she -"
"Be quiet, Banno!" Kadai hissed, not stopping for anything. He couldn't afford to stop. It might be too late already.
"But Father!" Banno said, struggling to keep up. The mud was much thicker for him. "Something's wrong with Mother!"
"I told you never to go into our tent unless called," Kadai said, telling him off almost automatically.
"But there was screaming! And then there wasn't! I didn't know what to do!"
That makes two of us, Kadai thought with a sigh. "What did you see in there?"
"Mother. I think she's sleeping, but I couldn't wake her up! I tried, but nothing worked! And there was blood everywhere!"
"Keep your voice down, Banno." On one hand, Kadai was dismayed that his son had to come across his mother like that, dead or dying in a pool of her own blood. But at the same time he was relieved that it wasn't some other Wolf, and that the shock had kept him from noticing the -
"There's a baby in there as well -"
Damn.
"- and I think it's dead."
Damn, damn, DAMN!
"Listen to me, Banno, and listen well. Your mother is..." What the hell was he supposed to say? With the rain and the wind and a half-dead baby in his arms he could barely think, let alone come up with complicated lies, which was something he was never really good at to begin with. Well, he had to say something, and he had to say it before they reached Shekka's tent. "Your mother is hurt, no sense in keeping that from you now, but I'll take care of it. You just go back to your tent and go to sleep. If you can't do that, then just sit there quietly until morning. And don't tell anyone -"
"But Father!"
"Don't tell anyone what you've seen!"
Banno stopped dead in his tracks, and that alone was enough to make Kadai feel like the worst father in the world. "Please, Banno. I know you're worried, but I need you to do this for me, okay?"
Kadai turned around, expecting to see his son choking back tears, maybe wiping at his eyes. He would normally admonish such behaviour with a good, strong shout of "Boys don't cry!" but not this time. Seeing your own mother lying dead, covered with blood, killed by the birth of what was to be your little sister... If that wasn't reason enough to shed a tear, then what was?
But Banno wasn't crying. He didn't even look sad. He was regarding his father carefully, almost suspiciously, his eyes narrowed. His fur was wet and dripping, but he wasn't shivering. It was as if he didn't even feel the cold.
Don't be stupid, Kadia thought. He's just in shock, that's all.
"What are you holding, Father?" he asked, eyeing the bundle in Kadai's arms.
"This? This is..." Kadai has felt unease towards his son many times before. It came with the little things, like how he sucked on that severed lizard's tail and the way he watched the hunters cut up fresh game for the fires, but this was the first time Kadai actually felt like there might be something wrong with his child. Very, very wrong.
Lightning flashed in the sky directly to Banno's back, turning him into a pitch black silhouette devoid of any details or features, just a solid slab of empty nothing. And suddenly, in that instant, just before the thunder reached their ears, Kadai realized...
By the Cora, I'm afraid of my own four-year-old son...
"This is nothing!" Kadai said, perhaps more harshly than he had intended. He hugged Ander closer to his chest, inexplicably feeling like he had to protect him from more than just the cold. "Go back to your tent! Right now!"
Banno looked at the bundle in Kadai's arms for just a moment longer, then said, "Yes, Father."
With that, he turned around and slowly started to walk back to his tent, as if it were a beautiful, sunshine day and he didn't have a care in the world.
Kadai didn't have time to think on such things right now. He turned back and hurried along towards his own tent, as fast as he dared in the slippery muck.
But even with all his attention focussed on the task at hand, he couldn't keep one last thought from entering his mind.
Banno's shouts were panicked, weren't they? He was in a state, he was worried, he was beside himself. He must have been. He was shouting for his father because he was scared. He just saw his mother and sister, dead. He wasn't...
He didn't sound... excited...?
Did he?
Did he?
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