Joel Shepherd - Petrodor

Running footsteps came up the path and the gate rattled open. A man yelled at the dog, running at it. It backed off, then turned and lunged, only to receive a savage whack from the man's scabbard. It yelped and scrambled to retreat. Another soldier grabbed Alythia by her arm and pulled her out of the gate.

“M'Lady, are you hurt?” Other soldiers were running up, and a few servants. Alythia struggled for breath, her limbs trembling. Her knees felt as though they were about to give way. “M'Lady?” From within the enclosure, there came yells, whacks and yelps as the other soldier meted out some harsh punishment.

“I'm…I'm all right,” she managed, breathlessly. “The chain stopped him short.”

“I'm very sorry, M'Lady,” said the young soldier, gallantly. He seemed most pleased at his successful rescue. “Someone should have warned you about the wolf. It was an oversight. Someone shall be punished for it, I assure you.”

“Wolf?” Alythia blinked at him.

“Yes, M'Lady, it's a wolf. A she-wolf.” The second soldier was emerging now, his sword and scabbard in hand, closing the gate behind him. “It was a gift from a merchant just eight months ago. A beautiful little cub it was then, with big paws and big ears, and soft grey fur. Master Tristi and Mistress Elra were very fond of it and it followed them everywhere.” The soldier's lips twisted with an ironic smile. “But pretty wolf cubs, you know, they soon grow into big wolves.”

“You can't keep a wolf for a pet!” Even Alythia knew that. “They can't be tamed, no matter how friendly they are when they're little! And they grow up so fast!”

“Doubtless M'Lady has much highland knowledge of such things that we lowlanders have not learned,” said the soldier. “I think the animal should be killed, myself, for its own sake as much as others’. But the children still recall the little cub, and cannot bring themselves to…”

“Wait…highland knowledge?” Alythia looked back toward the gate. “It's a Lenay wolf?”

“Yes, M'Lady.” The soldier's look was quizzical. “There are few wolves left in Torovan, they kill the farmers’ livestock. The dukes of many regions offer great rewards for wolf pelts. The merchant who brought this cub had just returned from Lenayin. What happened to its mother, I do not know.”

Alythia ventured cautiously back toward the gate. The second soldier stood aside, with a questioning look to his companion. Alythia ignored them, and peered over the gate. The wolf now huddled in a far corner, mostly invisible in the dark. A Lenay wolf. She'd heard them howling, once or twice, when she'd visited Baen-Tar town nearer the forest at the bottom of Baen-Tar hill. Now it was here, chained in a Petrodor mansion, where no Lenayin wolf had any business being.

Strangely, she found herself recalling a silly argument her wild brat sister Sashandra had had with their brother Damon upon one of her rare visits to Baen-Tar many years ago. “They don't attack people, Damon!” Sashandra had insisted, as loudly as always. “That's a Verenthane myth! They might eat you once you're already dead, but they're scared of people, mostly. They'll only attack if they're scared and cornered, or if they're protecting their cubs!” Sashandra might have been a crazy, selfish tomboy, but she certainly knew animals.

Scared. She'd walked into its enclosure, a stranger in the dark. Those snarling teeth, those laid-back ears…they'd certainly scared her well enough, but it'd been the wolf who'd been terrified first. Perhaps it had cause to be terrified. Perhaps it had learned to be. Now it huddled in the dark, beaten, bruised and chained.

“Perhaps,” said the small, dark voice in the back of her head, “in a few more years, that will be you.”

The narrow path climbed steeply up a flight of crumbling stairs, then took a sharp turn past a garden wall. Sasha moved quietly in Rhillian's wake, hoping she could be half as quiet as the graceful serrin. Errollyn followed and Aisha brought up the rear, their blades drawn. The alley narrowed, then opened and suddenly there was a marvellous view of the harbour, and light enough to see the path clearly. The three serrin and Sasha pressed close to an uphill wall, and the protective shadow. Directly below were people's yards, small vegetable gardens. From here, agile people could climb onto roofs, run along walltops, and into courtyards. For people who knew Petrodor's alleys, and had the vision to move through them at night, the city lay exposed.

The alley turned uphill again; a steep, ragged stairway between walls so close Sasha had to keep her arms tight to her sides. A cat sprinted before them in panic, and leapt a wall. Rhillian jogged easily, leaving the steps where they curled around a large tree growing from the rock, finding foot holds on its big, exposed roots. Then she paused, and pointed at the step ahead with her blade, for Sasha's benefit. When she hurdled the step in question, Sasha vaguely saw a trip-string in the gloom, doubtless rigged through a gap in the neighbouring wall, where it would ring a bell and warn of wraiths passing in the night. Petrodor's alleys were full of such devices, more use against night-blind humans than serrin. Sasha pointed to the step for Errollyn, hurdled it and jogged onward up the steep, winding stairs.

They crossed several narrow roads that wove their way across the slope, past brick and stone buildings with shutters tightly closed. The din of voices and music seemed to grow louder as they climbed. Further along one road, Sasha saw a great mass of people gathered outside a bar, with fires, music and dancing. At another crossroad, a stray dog barked madly and charged them, but Aisha hit it with a stone from her pocket and it sprinted yelping in the other direction. Its companion, however, chased them up the alley, growling and barking, and another of Aisha's well-thrown stones only seemed to infuriate it.

Aisha prepared her blade, but Errollyn pushed back past her, fake-stepped left, then hook-kicked with his right, crunching the dog so hard to the head it fairly spun about and rebounded off the wall. It lay still, then tried to rise, then fell again.

“Errollyn!” Aisha said with annoyance, moving back to kneel by the scraggly, bony animal. She felt its neck, then made a face, drew her blade and cut its throat. “Why not just use your sword? It's kinder.”

“My tel'shan'til needs practice,” Errollyn explained easily. It was a form of unarmed combat, mastered in Saalshen, like the svaalverd. Aisha wiped her blade on the dog's mangy coat and waved them onward, irritated. The path was briefly wide enough for two and Sasha fell back to Errollyn's side.

“And here I thought you loved animals,” she remarked. She had no great love of the stray mutts of Petrodor, but Errollyn's methods seemed needlessly callous. Sometimes, he just seemed…unpredictable. Dangerous, even.

His green eyes flashed in the dark as he looked at her. He was not a small man, nor a weak one, yet his presence seemed to fill more of her awareness than mere size could explain. “The strays around here are diseased,” he said. “The aggressive ones are either so hungry they're insensible, or possibly rabid. In the wild, nature culls the weak and sick. Here, they are kept alive.”

“You could have used your sword,” Sasha echoed Aisha's scolding.

“When a mouse attacks a bear in the woods,” Errollyn continued, “and the bear swallows the mouse whole, do you feel sorry for the mouse?”

“If one happens to have a soft spot for suicidal mice, I suppose one might.”

“There's a great difference,” Errollyn replied with a smile, “between those who say they merely love nature, and those who proclaim to learn from it.” Sasha gave him a long, wary look…but then the path was narrowing again and she had to move ahead to keep in single file.