Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 56
56
A set of claws sunk deep into his good arm and he came to a sudden and violent stop, swinging to and fro, his legs dangling just beyond the reach of the black shadows of the Pit.
"You jerk bastard! You promised me, Dorin! You promised!" Aisa screamed into his dumbfounded face, and all Dorin could do was blink back in total confusion.
"Aisa? What -" And that's when he realised how much of a reckless fool Aisa could really be, for he was completely right when he first estimated the distance between them, and he was right when he concluded that her hand was beyond his reach. What he hadn't counted on, however, was that Aisa would throw herself into the Pit to catch him. The only reason the both of them weren't down at the bottom of this literal hellhole, slowly being chewed up alongside Wardo's corpse, was because Ivio, Denko, Yanek, Vekka, and Seffer had all grabbed hold of anything and everything they could reach. He could see them all past her shoulder, balanced precariously right over the edge. It was a complete mashup of arms and hands back there, grabbing onto Aisa's legs, her elbow, her clothes. There was even a hand with a firm grip on her hair, although it was impossible to tell whose. Their faces were all contorted with the effort of holding everything up, and it was easy to see why. Not only had their load suddenly doubled in weight, they had also lost most of their leverage. Several of them had been unable to keep their feet and were now dangling over the edge, halfway between safety and damnation.
Ivio in particular seemed to be having a rough time. "Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap!!" he stammered, his eyes practically vibrating in their sockets.
A large chunk of earth and snow suddenly broke free of the edge and the whole party lurched forward. Five simultaneous yelps of panic filled the air, but they weren't loud enough to drown out the metallic clang of more biters slamming shut in the darkness below.
"Let me go, Aisa!" Dorin shouted.
"No!"
"You'll fall if you don't!"
"You'll fall if I do!"
"I know that!"
"I know that, too!"
"Damn you, woman!"
"Damn you, jerk!"
"Will you two please resolve this little lover's quarrel before we all die!?" Seffer pleaded, his face completely scrunched up against Vekka's shoulder.
Dorin couldn't believe this was actually happening. "Just let go, or you'll kill everyone!" he screamed into Aisa's face.
"Just climb up, or you'll kill everyone!" she retorted.
"I can't!"
"You can!"
"I'm telling you, I can't! My arm's messed up! Just let me go!"
"I can't!"
"Why not!?"
"It's because of that stupid promise, Dorin! Our reverse suicide pact, remember!?" Tears leaked from her eyes, travelled down her muzzle, and dripped onto Dorin's forehead. They were blisteringly warm in the frigid air. "That stupid promise is the only thing that's kept me going! I thought about killing myself so many times ever since Renna left - no, since I threw her away! You were the only reason I put the knife down, because I knew that, if I went through with it, you would kill yourself, too! I didn't want to do that! I didn't want to drag you down with me! But if you're gone, if I let go, if I throw you away, too, then there'll be nothing left for me! I'll have no reason to stay alive anymore!"
"Aisa?"
"So you better climb, you floppy-eared son of a bitch! You climb like you've never climbed before or I will kick your everloving ass!!"
"Aisa, you -"
"CLIIIIIMB!!"
You're more like your daughter than you know.
Dorin grabbed hold of her arm. The pain shot right through to the bone, but if she wouldn't let go, then he couldn't let go, either.
It was all in the promise they had made to each other.
Their eyes met, and for just a second, he saw a smile play around the corners of her mouth. Even with all the bumps and scratches, it made her look beautiful.
A huge slab of earth, the biggest one so far, cracked loose and started to slide into the abyss, taking everyone along with it. There wasn't even enough time to scream, only to realize that it had all been for naught after all, that instead of accepting his fate when he had the chance, he had doomed all of his friends to die the slowest, most agonizing death imaginable.
A thick pair of meaty arms appeared out of nowhere. One grabbed Aisa by the head and the other clamped down around Dorin's injured wrist. He screamed, but his own voice sounded tinny and weak compared to the monstrous roar coming from somewhere above his head.
"RAAARGH!!"
Next thing he knew, he and Aisa were flying through the air in a tight curve. The dark, shadowy wall of dirt that took up his vision a moment ago suddenly gave way to blinding white snow. He had a moment to marvel at how unbelievably bright it all was before he crashed headlong into a dishevelled heap of bodies.
"Ow!"
"Fwaah! Get the hell off me!"
"Sai? Sai Sai Sai Sai Sai!!"
An elbow knocked him in the jaw ("Sorry, Sai!"). A tail briefly flapped over his eyes. Kicking legs and flailing limbs everywhere. Multiple pats on his back and sounds that might have been panicky laughter or uncontrollable sobs.
Aisa was there too, lying right beside him, stiff as a board. She blinked a few times, and a sound that was more like a single syllable than an actual word came out of her mouth. "Wha?"
After much grunting, Dorin managed to extricate himself from the heap of Wolves, and what he saw made him want to repeat Aisa's sentiment.
'Wha', indeed.
It was Thoka, lying flat on his back and staring straight up at the sky, his considerable belly rising and falling with every breath. "If I... get killed... because... of this..." he wheezed, "I... blame... you..." He raised his hand and pointed in Dorin's general direction, then let it flop back into the snow.
"Thoka..." Dorin didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
A slow clap suddenly rang out, emanating from a single pair of hands. It was a sound Dorin normally associated with hard work well done, or the appreciation of a fine achievement, but no one else was joining in, and he knew why even before he lifted his head.
It was Banno, standing in the middle of the village centre, encapsulated by a circle of empty space far wider than any his mother could have achieved by herself. And speaking of Shekka, she was still embracing him like a giant baby, just in case anyone decided to take a pot-shot at her precious little cub. She needn't have bothered, though. All the arrows were safely quivered, and the bows were pointed nowhere but the ground.
Banno grinned his permanent half-grin, and his hands slowly came together, making a sound that should have been happy, but somehow wasn't. He carried the Chieftain's necklace in the crook of his elbow, and every clap made the bones rattle.
It was even worse than the skulls banging against the broken gate.
"Wow, such camaraderie, it brings a tear to my eye," he said, reaching up to wipe said tear away.
Dorin almost screamed.
The lid covering his 'good' eye had no fur on it. It was just a wrinkled piece of leathery skin with a charred burn mark in the middle, making it look like his eye was still open, still staring, still watching. And the tear he was wiping away? Dorin could see it contrasted against his pitch black fur. It wasn't clear at all. It was milky white, as if laced with puss.
How... just how?
How is that thing still alive!?
Banno's eye flipped open, and the real eye beneath the fake one was even worse, dark black in the middle and bloodshot all around. It looked like someone had tried to burn it out. Did the Foxes really do that to him?
"If you've had your fun, Dorin, I suggest you come up here and lead the way."
Dorin didn't like being spoken to directly by this creature. It somehow felt like there was a spear pointed right between his eyes. "E- Excuse me?"
"That's your job now, isn't it?" Still that smile. Still that awful smile of cleaved flesh and bloody teeth. "They tell me Garten is dead. So, unless I'm mistaken, that makes you the current leader of the warriors."
Dorin didn't like any of this. It felt like there were bugs crawling around inside his fur. "I... no longer hold that position. Wardo demoted me."
Banno dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "Wardo is dead. He's not real anymore. He never was. And neither are you. But that's not important right now. What's important is that you come up here and do your job, like you're supposed to. Like the rules say."
There was something dangerously wrong here, and it was just getting wronger and wronger by the second. Banno had called Wardo 'not real' just before he kicked him into the Pit, and now he was saying the same of him? And what did he mean by 'rules'? What rules? Did he mean the Laws?
"What are you talking about?" Dorin asked. He didn't know whether to call him 'Sai' or 'Chieftain' or just plain 'Banno'. To tell the truth, he didn't want to address this thing directly any more than he wanted to be addressed. It felt like... it felt like he was inviting something in, as ridiculous as that sounded.
"I'm talking about leading the charge against the monsters who nearly took my life. I'm talking about standing at the forefront when we demand they return my little brother. I'm talking about being first in line to taste some Fox blood. That's what I'm talking about."
Dorin nearly greyed out for a second. The whole world flickered before his eyes. Everything felt unstable, like the earth might crumble beneath his feet yet again.
"Are you... talking about going to war? Against the Foxes?"
Banno smiled. "Of course. What else would I be talking about?"
Nothing changed... nothing changed... nothing changed...
Animal...
No. Wardo was an animal. Banno is... something else.
"When?" Dorin could barely get the question out. The air felt thick and painful in his lungs.
Banno chuckled. It was an ugly sound, dry and crackly like autumn leaves. "Right now, silly. Right now."
No... this can't be. Not after everything... It simply cannot be this way...
Dorin made to get up, but Aisa grabbed him by the hand, nearly pulling him back down again. She looked at him with her swollen eyes and mouthed a simple warning: Don't.
"I have to do this," he whispered and gently pried her fingers loose, one by one. It somehow felt like he was betraying her.
Dorin walked a short distance and looked to the sky. It was so grey, but still so bright, filled with flakes of snow yet unborn. Was it even noon yet? This day already felt like it would never end, and they weren't even halfway through it yet.
"Banno," he said, trying his very best to keep his knees from shaking, and not just because of the shock he had suffered mere moments ago. Speaking to Banno wasn't like speaking to a Wolf, but rather something that only appeared to be a Wolf. That by itself would have been bad enough, but there was more to it than that. It felt like this thing, whatever it was, was only a small part of something bigger, something unseen. It was like speaking to someone on the other side of a wall, and all you could go by was a tiny peep hole, but no matter how you turned your head or how hard you squinted, you could never see the whole picture, only bits and pieces. There could be anyone on the other side. Anyone at all.
Or any thing.
"Yes, Dorin?"
Even when he spoke politely, there was an uncanny sense of... of wrongness about him. That was the only way Dorin could think of it. Everything about this Wolf was just wrong. Wardo was evil and insane, but at least he was understandable to a degree. He could be spoken to. He could be reasoned with. But this thing?
How could you speak to something if you didn't even know what the hell it was?
"I..."
Pull yourself together, dammit!
Dorin took a deep, shuddering breath. "I will not go to war, and neither will my people."
Banno's face did not change. He kept staring with that single eye, and Dorin found himself measuring the distance between them, just in case. Even though it looked dead on its feet (or foot, in this case) he was positive he'd be no match for a creature like this in one-on-one combat.
What if he charges me down? What do I do? I don't have a knife anymore!
He comes at you, you run. He can't be very fast with that stump digging into the snow.
Aisa is right behind me, and so are the others. I can't move from this spot.
There was a single line of blood flowing from the cut in Banno's face, slowly dripping from his chin. The snow at his feet was already starting to look like a red cloud.
This isn't Wardo you're dealing with here. If Banno wants you dead, he won't make any schemes and he won't try to manipulate others into doing the deed. He'll just walk right up to you in front of everyone and murder you, probably wearing that same, sick smile.
Banno tilted his head and a gout of blood seeped from between his teeth in a solid line. It must have dammed up inside his mouth during the gap in conversation, but what did that mean? Did he have other injuries as well? Injuries on the inside? If so, how was he still standing? Hell, even if he had been in perfect health, Dorin didn't think he could have walked all the way here, in the snow no less, without collapsing from exhaustion. And yet this Wolf acted like he felt no fatigue, no pain, no nothing. He was just... there, smiling a smile he could never put away, no matter how thick he grew the scars.
"You're saying you and your little friends want to stay behind, Dorin?" he asked, apparently unaware of the blood dripping from his mouth and nose.
"Yes, that is what I am saying." Dorin bent his knees, ever so slightly, dropping down into a fighting crouch. He balled his hands into shaking fists and waited.
Banno shrugged. "All right then."
Dorin was so shocked by Banno's indifference that he almost forgot about the pain boring through his body with every shallow breath. "What did you say?"
"I said you can stay. Or you can leave. Or you can do whatever you want. I don't really care." His tongue snaked out, lightning quick, and lapped the blood off his lips. "There's a cut in the mountain, not far from where Ander and his bitch tried to drown me. If you change your mind, you can just follow our tracks."
Dorin didn't even know how to respond to that. It was the 'our' that threw him off. Did he actually expect anyone to just follow after him? After what he did? It was like they saw the world in completely different ways, like -
Like Ander?
No, not like Ander. But... maybe not unlike Ander, either.
"Banno, I don't think you understand what's going on right now," he said, speaking slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable. "Take a good look around, and you will see."
Banno cocked an eyebrow, but he did as Dorin asked, turning his head from side to side, looking around the village, taking it all in.
The aftermath of his actions.
Wolves had retreated so far away that those in the back were being pushed up against the walls. Mothers had ushered their children into tents and were telling them to stay inside. Grown Wolves, many of them warriors who had trained for years, were standing around in puddles of their own steaming vomit, staring at the giant black Wolf in the village centre. You could look in a hundred different directions and see a hundred different faces, but the one thing they all had in common was fear. They were afraid of this monster pretending to be a Wolf, and they had every right to be.
It was like they had been given a glimpse into their own future.
Banno shrugged again. "What?"
He didn't see. He didn't realise. Either that, or he was living in a completely different world.
"These people are terrified of you, Banno!" Dorin screamed. There came a stab of pain between his ribs at every word, but he kept on yelling nonetheless. "You just murdered their Chieftain in cold blood, right before their eyes! You stand there, breathing and talking, when you should be dead! What makes you think any of these people will do as you say after what you've done!? After you -"
After you did what I could not?
Banno's smile suddenly erupted, tearing the cut in his cheek even wider. It was as if he had heard Dorin's thought, and found it hilariously funny.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Their fears, their doubts, none of them are real. They're only placeholders. The only thing that matters is what I feel, what I want! And what I want is to go to the valley and have my fill. If I need an army of Wolves to accomplish that, then they will feel what I want them to feel. Because, if I want something, the world will make it so. That is the way it has always been, because it is what I am." A small frown creased his brow and a blister burst open in his forehead like a third eye, weeping blood across his face.
All the strength ran out of Dorin's aching legs and he sat down heavily in the snow. Aisa was there a moment later, pawing at his clothes. "Dorin, are you all right?"
"No, Aisa," he replied, feeling numb right down to the core. "I'm not all right."
Dorin still didn't understand, but he was getting a sense of what was really going on. He was getting a glimpse of the creature on the other side of the wall, and it was far more terrifying than he could have predicted.
Banno wasn't like Wardo at all. Wardo moulded his wishes and desires (or at least the appearance of them), to coincide with the wishes and desires of his people. That was how he could get them to do what he wanted, because what they wanted was also what he wanted in the end. But Banno...
He wanted everyone else to change their wishes and desires based on what he wanted. More than that, he simply expected that they would, like they had no other choice. It was the same way you would expect a river to always flow downhill. The thought that the world didn't work that way never even crossed his mind.
Banno spread his arms wide. There were burn marks inside his palms, too, and with the fresh wound dribbling on his forehead, he looked exactly like the Cora statue, its five eyes opened wide to look into the souls of all who stood before him.
"I have waited a long time," he said. "I have spent months, years, trapped inside myself, just waiting for the perfect time to come out. I have seen the valley of the Foxes, I have seen the mountain from the other side, its teeth reversed, and I will not wait any longer." He cast his eye across the crowd, lingering on every face, a giant even among brutes. "I know you. I know what you hunger for. I know what you thirst for. Wardo was willing to give you a chance to reach out and grab it, and that was why you followed him. But now he is dead, and a new Chieftain has arisen to give you the same opportunity. Tell me, has anything truly changed?"
Nothing has changed.
"If you still get what you want, does anything else matter? I don't care if you want to follow me or not. I don't care if you want to call me Chieftain or not. All I care about is getting what I want, and as long as none of you get in my way, you can do whatever it is you want. If you want to stay behind and take care of your kids, that's fine. If you want to forget this whole thing and go for a swim in the lake, that's fine, too. If you want to take a running leap into that hole in the ground, that's great. You can make soup out of each other's corpses for all I care, as long as you don't get in my way. But for those of you who feel differently, for those of you who share my hunger and thirst, for those of you with weapons in your hands and fire in your hearts, for those of you who bear the names of your families in warpaint and ash, if we leave now, we can make it to the other side by nightfall."
Powerless, defeated, Dorin watched as everything he had fought so hard for slowly crumbled to dust. There was no real surprise, though. Deep down, he supposed he always knew it would lead to this. They were his people, after all, and not too long ago, he was one of theirs. He could see it in their eyes. Already their shock was starting to give way to admiration. For every tremble of fear there was an equal shiver of excitement. For every terrified Wolf wiping the vomit from his mouth there was a counterpart licking his lips in anticipation. They were beginning to realize that, even without Wardo, they were getting exactly what they wanted.
They were getting their war.
"Let's go." And with that, Banno simply turned around and started walking back towards the busted gate. He didn't even stop to see if anyone would follow him.
And why should he? Dorin thought. Water always flows downhill.
It was so sudden that even Shekka got left behind, blinking at the abruptness of it all. "Banno, wait!" She stumbled after him, her arms outstretched, feeling around like a spindly cricket in the dark until she finally grabbed a fistful of his mangy, scorched fur.
"Hello, Mother." Banno said. "Would you like to join us? I'm sure Hezzi misses you very much."
"That stupid boy can wait! You're hurt!"
"I am perfectly fine."
"I can't let you go out there, out in the woods and the mountain, in the cold and the snow! Not after you've finally come back to me! Banno..."
"I said, I'm fine, Mother."
Dorin could hear the venom dripping from those words just like the blood dripping from his face. There was a part of him that almost wanted to yell at her to back away before it was too late.
"I can fix you," Shekka prattled, running her skinny fingers through her son's fur, feeling around for any wounds she might have missed the first time. "I can make you all better! I can fix everything! I can make it like it was before! Please, Banno, just let me help you! Let me make this right! Let me -"
Banno grabbed her by the hand, practically swallowing her fingers with his own, grinding them together like twigs. She gasped and dropped down to her knees, her mouth open in a silent scream of pain and her blank eyes staring up at her ensa, back from the dead, but not really back at all.
Banno leaned in close. His voice was more growl than words. "I. Am. Fine. Mother."
"No..." She shook her head. "You are not. You are very badly hurt, Banno. Please..." She kissed his fingers, so softly, so tenderly, tears streaming down her face. "This is frostbite, Banno. You could lose your fingers! You could lose your hands! You could lose your life! Please, please don't leave me again... not again..."
"Aw, Mother..." Banno patted her on the head like_she_ was the child. "After all this time, do you still not understand?"
"W- Wh-"
Banno leaned closer, and although he did not speak loudly, his voice carried through the silence of the day, so that everyone could hear his words.
"I cannot die."
Shekka stared at him with her blind eyes, barely even blinking, one hand still trapped inside Banno's monstrous fist. She was at a complete loss for words, and so was everyone else, much to Banno's amusement, apparently.
He chuckled and slipped the Chieftain's necklace over her head. "I would be honoured if you carried this for me, Mother. It's a bit too flashy for my taste."
"Banno?" Her voice was all choked up. She touched the fangs and claws of the necklace resting against her scant chest with trembling fingers. "Your... Your father said the exact same thing..." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, but just as it looked like she was about to regain some kind of control, she threw herself into her son's arms, weeping hysterically, hugging him so tightly her arms almost seemed to disappear between the black tufts of his fur.
It was the cruellest thing Dorin had ever seen. In some ways, it was even worse than the final minute of Wardo's life, simply because of the fact that Shekka had no idea it was happening to her.
She didn't know she was pouring her love into a creature incapable of feeling - or returning - any of it.
"Come on, Mother," Banno said, patting her on the back. "Let's go get V- Hezzi back. I know he must be scared. He'll be so happy to see you again. And if any of those Foxes try to stop us, we'll rip their throats out, one by one. Does that sound good?"
Shekka stepped back, nodded, and wiped her streaming eyes.
"All right then." He stepped through the shattered gate and Shekka followed close behind, seeming to glide through the trench her son had carved through the snow. He did not look back to see if anyone else would follow in his mad footsteps. He simply assumed that they would, because that's what he wanted.
And he was right.
The trickle was slow at first, mostly made up of the more unstable warriors, the kind who would keep kicking a sparring partner even when they were down, the kind who were always salivating at every trial, praying for punishments to outweigh the crimes, the kind who were always the first to throw stones. They followed after Shekka in single file, not making a sound. Their eyes were glassy, as if they had just been roused from a deep sleep and weren't entirely awake yet. Even the way they walked suggested a state closer to dreaming.
The trickle grew wider as more and more Wolves fell in line, sleepwalking through the snow four and five abreast, going down a path they could never return from, a path that only had a single destination.
"Nooo..." Aisa whispered, "No, no, nooooo..."
To the south, a baby was crying, and a mother was clinging to her mate's arm, begging him not to go, not to throw his life away, not to leave his family behind, but the Wolf could not hear, because he was not truly awake. He joined with his fellow warriors, a single drop of water in a roiling river, leaving her to weep in the snow.
Dorin saw all of this playing out before his eyes. So slow. That was what really got to him. It was slow, but unstoppable. It was just... it was so slow...
Children, some of them no more than ten winters of age, were falling in behind their seniors, carrying axes and clubs far too big for their hands. All of them were wearing the exact same expression, like they had just woken from a deep slumber.
No one spoke, but that did not mean all was quiet. There was a sound. It was a soft sound, but it was also a hard sound. It was the sound of a thousand feet slowly marching through the snow, a steady hush, like a mother soothing a baby to sleep.
"Renna..." Aisa had covered her broken face, but she could not keep the tears from spilling between her fingers. Powerful sobs wracked her body, each one accompanied by the name of the biggest regret of her life, the name of the daughter she had thrown away. "Renna... I'm so sorry... I tried..."
White snow from the grey sky, falling their whole lives just to reach this thirsty earth and be turned to scarlet.
It wasn't right.
Dorin gritted his teeth and stood up, one hand pressed firmly against his side to keep the pain at bay.
"D- Dorin? What are you...?"
"I'm going," he said and started to make his way toward the gate, lurching through a thickening layer of snow that was already starting to reach his shins.
"Going? What? Whyyy!? Are you giving up? Are you just going to fight and kill and get killed with the rest of them!?"
"No, Aisa. I'm not going to fight, and I'm not going to kill. I wish I could promise the same about not getting killed, but..."
"Why are you doing this!?" Aisa shrieked, punching the snow in a puff of white powder. "What are you trying to do!?"
Dorin stopped. There were more Wolves filing past him, all of them with their eyes fixed firmly on the broken gate and the throng of sleepwalkers slowly pushing their way through. They did not stop to talk to him or even look at him. It was like they didn't even know he was there.
"I have failed so hard, Aisa," he said. "Just about everything I've ever tried has been a complete and total failure. I couldn't save my mother from my father, or from herself. I couldn't beat Garten, no matter how hard I trained. I only gained this farcical title through his death, like a vulture feeding on a carcass. I couldn't see Wardo for what he really was. I looked up to him when I should have been disgusted by him. I was so eager to serve him, but I couldn't carry out the orders he entrusted to me. Even when I finally succeeded, I failed. When I killed Lana, it was as if I had cut a line right through the middle of my own heart. On one side, it was my greatest accomplishment, a shining example of what it meant to be a respected leader, to have others look up to you and adore you. But on the other side, it was a terrible sin that forcefully opened my eyes to the truth, that even the highest peaks might be no more than a jagged cliff to throw yourself off of. Even my betrayal was a total failure. In the end, I couldn't even kill myself properly... although I have you to thank for that." The snowflakes were still coming down. He could feel them landing on his shoulders. "I think you saved me so I could get a chance to make up for the things I've done, to erase some of my failures. But if I stay here, if I curl up and cry into my hands, then the second chance you've given me will mean absolutely nothing."
"But what can you do!?" Aisa wailed. "What can any of us do!?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing," Dorin said truthfully. "But that's also why I have to go. Because I don't know. I just..." He was so tired. It hurt to breathe. The back of his head was throbbing deep into his skull. "I have to go. I have to..."
The lines of Wolves started to tilt, like they were suddenly going uphill...
I think I'm falling again...
Something pressed up against him, something soft and warm. It held him steady, kept him upright, pushed back against the tilting world.
"Aisa? What are you doing?"
"Just lean on me, okay? We can make it."
"You can't come with me."
"And you can't go without me, so deal with it!" She turned her head away and wiped her face against her sleeve.
"It's too dangerous, Aisa. We don't know what's over there."
"My daughter is over there! That means I have to go! Just like you! At least I have a better reason than 'I dunno'. Damn idiot... can barely stand but wants to march till nightfall..."
Aisa...
Even with all the lumps and scratches on her face she was actually rather beautiful, in an angry sort of way. He could tell by the determination in her eyes that she was sick of crying. She was sick of feeling so miserable.
"Yeah... that is a good reason," Dorin conceded, matching his step with hers. "I hope you find her, Aisa."
"And I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for, too."
Dorin smiled. That would be no easy task, since he did not know what it might be. For a time, he had thought it was death. After that, redemption. Now he didn't know anymore. Everything he reached for seemed to crumble at his touch.
"Sai, you're not leaving without us, are you?"
Aisa helped him turn around, and what he saw gave him that strange feeling again, like he was living in two different moments at the same time.
It was Denko, riding on Thoka's back, blood dripping from his knee all the way down to his toes. But, despite everything, he was still smiling.
"Nobody better expect me to do any fighting when we get there," Thoka said grumpily. "Not after lugging this heavy bastard through the snow all day."
Ivio was standing next to them, chewing on his knuckles. His left ear was twitching up a storm, but his eyes were focussed. "I'll have nightmares if I stay here tonight," he said. "But maybe, if I go somewhere else, if I do something different, maybe it'll change again. It's worth a try, right? Right, Sai?"
Seffer, Yanek, and Vekka were there too, looking shifty and uncomfortable. Seffer scratched his head and, without looking up from the snow, he said: "We're sorry, Sai. We should have helped sooner. If we hadn't been such cowards, if we'd stepped up when you needed us, maybe things would be different now. That's why we're coming, too. It's just like you said. We don't know if there's anything we can do, but we do know that we certainly can't do anything by hiding back here, feeling sorry for ourselves. We just... we have to. You know?"
Two moments existing together at the same time, a doubling of everyone and everything. This had all happened before, but it was different now. They were different.
Nilia. Dan. Hezzi. Renna. Sorrin. Mellah. You guys were stronger than anyone ever knew.
"All right, men. We -"
Aisa elbowed him in the ribs.
"And lady," Dorin amended. "We've got a mission to do. We don't know exactly what it is, how we're going to do it, or even why we want to do it. We're all beat to hell, some of us can barely stand, one of us can't stand at all, we all seem to have mental instabilities of varying intensities, we're probably gonna die, and those of us who don't will still be hated by our own people for the rest of our lives, if we even make it back home. And now this is the part where I'm supposed to follow up with some kind of motivational quip about how we're all true warriors, or how victory goes to those who keep their eyes on the horizon, or some other pretty piece of flowery garbage. But the truth is, there is nothing 'pretty' about what we'll see tonight. The things you've seen and felt before, imagine that repeated over and over again, at least a thousand times. There will be blood, and death, and I don't think we can stop it. All we can do is try, and probably fail again. But try we will, because giving up is the only thing in this world you can succeed at without trying."
Aisa laughed. The sound felt good in his ear, almost musical against the constant hush of the snow. "That was the floweriest piece of garbage I've ever heard you say."
"Then let's get a move on before I say anything else to embarrass myself."
They walked together in a tight little group, and although no one paid them much heed, Dorin couldn't help but notice the distance separating them from everyone else. It was subtle, nowhere near as vast as the empty space afforded to Shekka and Banno, but it was still there. It was the same kind of space that had separated the 'traitors' from their own people the week before their escape.
Dorin looked up to the mountain and wondered if anything had changed for them on the other side. He wondered if that distance was still there, generated by Foxes rather than Wolves. He wondered if there were still cold stares and whispered curses. He wondered what kinds of lives his people were about to destroy.
It was as he stepped through the gate that he noticed a massive shadow extending over his path like a secondary wall. His eyes followed the darkness to the source, and there was Banno, leaning against the posts with his arms crossed, surveying the broadening sea of Wolves marching along the path he had laid out for them. From this side, he seemed almost normal. The piece of leather was covering his missing eye and the corner of his mouth ended where it was supposed to. From the right side, he was simply a perfectly normal (albeit exceptionally large) black Wolf.
Until he turned his face. Everything changed then.
The bloodshot eye, leaking sickly yellow tears. The shredded mouth yawning wide in a perpetual grin, blood and saliva dripping from dagger fangs. That was his real face. That was what Banno looked like without any masks.
If I want something, the world will make it so. That is the way it has always been, because it is what I am_._
Banno smiled. "I'm so glad you decided to join in the fun, Dorin. I knew you would."
Dorin looked away and, with the help of Aisa, he kept on walking. But he could still feel that red eye crawling on his back. Even when they crossed over into the woods, he could still feel it.
He would always feel it.
Hey, guys. I am very sorry, but I must put Ander on hiatus for the foreseeable future.
As you all probably know, after three years of hard work, we are finally coming up on the end of my story, and I absolutely cannot afford to mess it up.
But it's hard, people. There are so many characters, each of them capable of changing the flow of the story with their decisions. I've recently found myself writing a kind of "Schrödinger's Storyline", where multiple branches exist at the same time, and I have to keep track of all of them, comparing every decision and outcome and deciding on which will be the best, then keeping track of all those resulting outcomes and their branches and it just keeps going, and all this before I even put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).
I can't simply rely on my instincts anymore, not at this late juncture. That's why I can't upload any more subchapters until I'm done. I need to be able to go back and fix my mistakes (and yes, I know there will be plenty). I will need to write and re-write until it's perfect. You guys deserve no less than my absolute best, and I know this might sound a bit strange, but I've come to believe that the story itself deserves my best, too.
That means that this will be the final break. Once Ander starts uploading again, I will not stop until the very last subchapter.
I am very sorry, but I know you'll understand.
If you enjoy my story, please help keep my face un-mauled by irritable ostriches by dropping me a donation.
Thank you! ^_^
Paypal:[email protected]
Donation Progress $144 / $300 (Unlock Sunday update)
How and Why: The Story behind "Ander" (Journal): https://www.sofurry.com/view/517234
Special thanks go out to the following furs for helping me keep this project afloat with their generous donations. I couldn't do it without your support.
- Mystery fur
- PyrePup
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- Faan
- Sunny-Fox
- Mystery fur #2
- Sky Star
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Thank you! You guys are the best! ^_^