Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 37
37
Hezzi's eyes flew open, and the first thing that raced through his mind was not relief at the fact that he was still alive, but horror at the change in light. Even in this gloomy place of sickness and death he could see that the world was much too bright. How long has he been lying on this table?
He tried to sit up and a searing line of pain slashed across his midsection, making him cry out.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, kid," a voice said from somewhere in the shadows.
Hezzi turned his head and blinked a few times, willing his head to clear. He felt like he needed to move, and move fast. At first he could only make out Mother's Cora effigy, the big one, standing against the far side of the tent with its arms splayed out, but then he noticed the Wolf sitting at its feet, a Wolf with only one ear, staring down at his splinted fingers. It was Hyker, and he wasn't alone. Lying next to him on a pile of skins was Irro, shaking as if buried in snow, clutching an arm so red it looked like he had dunked the whole thing inside a deer carcass, and sitting next to him was Kodo, his chest slashed every which way, his head slumped forward, either sleeping or passed out.
Hezzi didn't feel any better himself. There was a gnawing sensation deep in the pit of stomach, telling him something was very,very wrong. "What happened?" he asked frantically. "Is it morning!? What happened to Ander!? Tell me!"
Hyker glanced at the thin line of sunshine peeking in just beyond the tent's flap like a sharp golden needle. "Yeah, it's morning."
Hezzi felt completely disoriented. He painfully propped himself up on his elbows and saw a long green line of Wolf's Ear leaves plastered to his stomach with a mixture of hardened animal grease and his own blood. It smelled awful. It smelled like failure.
He swung his legs over with a grunt and hopped off the table, something he probably should have done much slower, but he couldn't get rid of this overwhelming sense of urgency.
"You don't want to go out there, kid. Trust me."
"Why not?" Hezzi panted, both arms folded over his stomach. He felt like an old Wolf barely able to stand.
"I had a look just before you woke up, and it's not a pretty sight. There's... Let's just say lot of bad stuff happened while you were out. Lie back down and wait for your mother."
"I'm bad at waiting," Hezzi said and shuffled his way over to the flap, but before he could reach out and grab it, a whispery, shuddering voice rose up behind him.
"Your brother is a devil..."
Hezzi looked back at Irro, staring straight ahead with a blank look on his face, still clutching his mangled arm to his chest. As he shivered, it broke up his breathing into dozens of tiny sips for air, and his words came out broken. "You - Your bro- brother is- is- a dev- a devil!"
Did Ander do that? Looking at Hyker and Irro and Kodo's wounds, Hezzi suddenly felt terrified. What in the Cora's name had happened out there? He couldn't stay here any longer, he had to get out. He had to see.
"Don't go out there, kid," Hyker tried one last time, but his warning fell on deaf ears.
Hezzi threw the flap open and stepped outside, shielding his eyes from the blinding sunshine. He slowly lowered his arm and squinted against the golden glare until it reverted back to the dirty brown hue of everyday life within these walls, and what he saw made a scream hitch in his throat.
It was Ander, lying face-down in pitch black pool of blood by the fire, with a massive red gash in his face, his eyes rolled back in his skull, completely white, and there were flies crawling all over them, but he couldn't blink because he was -
Hezzi slammed his eyes shut and whispered furiously to himself: "No, that's not Ander, that's not Ander, that's not Ander... You're just a little woozy, that's all. You'll open your eyes and there'll be nobody lying there, nobody at all, because Ander's not dead, you hear me? Ander's not dead, so you open your eyes and see that there's nobody there. Okay. Open... now..."
Hezzi opened his eyes, and what his clear mind told him was both a relief and a shock. There was still a body lying on the ground, but it wasn't Ander.
It was Garten.
His fur was singed, completely burned off in some places, and he was most definitely dead. Did Ander...?
Your brother is a devil...
No, Garten was the real devil. Him and...
Banno.
But he didn't want to think about that just yet. He would have to, someday, probably sooner than later, but not yet. He couldn't handle that right now on top of everything else.
The important thing now was to find Ander. If he wasn't lying out here, then the only other logical place for him to be was inside the doctoring tent, but he definitely wasn't in there, so where!?
Hezzi wanted to yell out in frustration, but he didn't trust this smelly patch job very much, so he walked on in silence. There was a huge group of Wolves clustered around the main gate. Surely someone would be able to tell him what had happened, if he could just...
Wait.
Hezzi stopped. His eyes already knew something was wrong, but it took his brain a few moments to catch up. There was a dead Wolf lying right in the centre of the village, and yet nobody was paying him any heed. The crowd wasn't the normal hive of activity either. They were all standing motionless, their backs turned, watching the -
By the Cora, the gate was open!
The implications of this were huge. Did Ander make it? If he did, what was he doing outside? Shouldn't he be forgiven? Was he still okay? What happens now?
Hezzi shuffled forward, but stopped short of the dying fire, a crumbling heap of blackened wood and dirty grey ashes, spotted with glowing chunks of coal like watchful eyes and the occasional lick of flame, stubbornly fighting for survival. Garten's corpse was even more gruesome up close, and there were splashes of blood everywhere, soaked deep into the earth and crawling with flies eager for a free meal. They took off and landed again in small, buzzing clouds.
One of those puddles is mine, he thought, fighting not to gag on the stench of blood and death.
A shadow suddenly passed by his gaze, startling Hezzi out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw Hayna walking by, her shoulders slumped, her face dejected.
"Hayna! What happened here?"
She stopped, briefly glanced in his direction, then continued her silent trek across the village centre.
"Hayna!" Hezzi tried again, thinking maybe she didn't hear him. "Hayna! What happened here?"
She didn't even look back.
"Hayna?"
Other Wolves were now breaking away from the crowd in dribs and drabs. Some went straight back to their tents while others just... wandered around, looking in random directions like they didn't know what to do or where to go, and then they'd just stop and look at nothing in particular.
Others looked angry enough to chew rocks. He gave these a wide berth.
"Tevver, what happened here? Where's Ander?"
Tevver flashed his fangs and growled, but made no real effort to approach him or answer any of his questions. He just... drifted. One of many.
"Cali? Vanis?" Hezzi called out to them, drifting by like clouds, but none paid him any heed. It was as if they couldn't hear him, like they were all a bunch of corpses, just like Garten, except these corpses could walk.
Are you sure they're the corpses, Hezzi? Maybe the real corpse is you_..._
"No..."
Hezzi grabbed Cali's shoulder. "Cali! Please tell me what happened!" he demanded, not caring if he was being rude. He just wanted to know.
Without turning around, Cali said: "Ander killed Garten."
"I can see that, but where is he?"
"I wish I could say he was in hell, but he still lives."
Oh, thank the Cora! Hezzi could feel the weight slide off his tired body almost immediately, but then Cali turned around and fixed him with a sunken, haunted gaze, a gaze which spoke only of damnation and revenge.
"The betrayer was saved by betrayal after betrayal, and yours was the first." He pointed one yellowed claw at Hezzi's face in accusation. "You may be the Chieftain's son, but I wouldn't rely on that protection for very long if I were you. It's only a matter of time, just like the life of your demon brother. Everything comes to an end, and Ander will breathe his last before the day is out. Shekka has made the will of the Cora clear, and as the Cora wills, so it will be, and what the Cora wills is for Ander to suffer, and then to die alone."
Cali slowly turned around and continued to drift along, as if nothing had happened, leaving Hezzi to stare in stunned silence.
Was he speaking the truth just now? Did Mother really say those things? He looked around, suddenly feeling like a pup caught trespassing, and spotted her by the feet of the Cora statue, lightly caressing its stony claws, her lips moving in quick whispers. Hezzi didn't know whether she was trying to comfort or be comforted, and neither did he feel like finding out. Could she see him all the way over here? It was always so difficult to know where she was looking with those damn white eyes of hers.
He couldn't stay here. He had to get moving. He had to do something. He hated standing still like this!
He started towards the gate, but as the crowd cleared something else came into view to give him pause. Father and Nilia, standing by the wall. They seemed to be arguing, but it was difficult to tell from over here. The other Wolves may be ignoring him right now, but that wouldn't be the case with Father. He might be able to get some desperately needed information out of him, but he would also be sent right back to Mother's doctoring tent as sure as the Cora was tall, and Hezzi couldn't have that. At least not without talking to Ander first, and he was beginning to think it might turn out to be the last conversation they ever shared. If he had survived, but he wasn't out here or with the rest of the wounded, then must mean he was outside the walls, and there was only one reason Hezzi could think of for that.
Ander had been banished.
He sniffed the air, hoping to get a whif of his brother's familiar scent, but there was so much blood everywhere it completely overpowered everything else. Most of it belonged to Ander, though, so if he followed the trail to where it was the freshest...
Hezzi sniffed some more, looking down at all the blood splatter on the ground. He didn't need to be a tracker to see that the drips made a haphazard trail straight for the gate, and after that there was only one possible direction he could have gone in.
East. Beyond the Cora. To the place the Foxes called home.
Hezzi slowly turned on the spot, following the scent of his brother's blood on the breeze until he was looking right at the mountain, looming up over the walls of their village like a giant bending over to inspect a particularly interesting bug before crushing it underfoot, but this mental image isn't what froze him in his tracks.
It was the low cloud of mist slowly slithering down its cliffs and slopes, winding between the crags and rocky outcroppings like ghostly serpents. It didn't seem right. Looking at that thick layer of mist made his head hurt because he knew he was seeing something that ought not be there. Mist was for cloudy days, when the sun was hidden from sight, not peeking over the mountaintop like a golden eye. Its rays struck the slowly descending tendrils, giving them a silver glow unlike anything he has ever seen in this world, and even though he knew he should be seeing this as beautiful, perhaps even breath-taking, this sight only filled him with rising dread.
Was Ander supposed to go through that? Was he really going to go in there all alone?
He moved towards the wall at a lame shuffle, but a lame shuffle much faster than any other Wolf would have been able to manage, following the scent of Ander's blood. It quickly grew thicker, more pungent, until he could actually taste that bitter iron scent in his mouth. It led him to a spot along the north wall, behind some tents.
Hezzi sniffed at the posts, edging his way along the wall, his hands rising and falling against the hills and valleys until he found the spot where the scent of blood was so thick it almost felt like his own nose was bleeding. Ander must be just on the other side of this wall.
He opened his mouth to call out to him, but shut it again with a snap, overcome with a sudden wave of shame. Did he even have any right to speak to his brother when he was the one responsible for all his hardships? If he had just stayed by the river instead of running away like a coward, then none of this would have happened. He had tried to make amends by standing with him, by fighting at his side, and all he managed to do was charge straight in like a fool and get cut down like a fool. He was useless. Worse than useless. It would have been better for him if he had just stayed out of the way.
I'm your big brother, Hezzi, and no matter what happens, whatever you choose to do, you'll always be my crazy little brother, and I'll always love you...
Really Hezzi? You're running away again by beating yourself up over running away like you did last time? Really!? Ander never ran away! He never ran away from anything, and he never gave up, not even once! And neither should you!
Hezzi scraped his claws against the wood and ground his teeth, determined to go through with this, even if his instincts were telling him to pick up his feet and run as fast as he could. He owed Ander this much.
But...
This was the first time he's ever been so terrified of saying goodbye.
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