Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

Ar’tor felt suddenly, terribly alone. He took his bone pipe from its bag, slid his fingers gently across its polished surface, and plucked the first low, cool note.

He was immediately lost in the song, something slow and lonely. He barely noticed when Yelloweye walked up to sit behind him.

The big feline began to growl along with him, the sound climbing to a howl. At last Ar’tor reached out to feel the warm scruff of Old Cat’s neck. Old Cat rolled against him, and together they sang to the moon. The sounds mingled with the wind itself, was carried across the valley. And those few who heard that wind wondered what form of demons haunted these hills.

The weeks passed. They spent their days fighting and running and hunting. Sometimes Ar’tor would abandon the knife and wrestle with the big cat.

Yelloweye’s reflexes were impossibly quick. In twisting and flashing from beneath the paws, Ar’tor found himself moving faster and faster. Working with a blunt stick instead of a knife, Ar’tor found that he could dart in and out, and that he could touch Yelloweye now and again.

And the cat would scowl, and leap, brushing the knife aside, and the two of them would wrestle. On the few occasions Ar’tor won, Yelloweye gave a huge cat grin, letting him know the victory was a gift. And sometimes Old Cat would pin the young man and sit there with his paws atop Ar’tor’s shoulders, pin him to the ground, and lick his face.

My cub, Yelloweye said once, impulsively. Then, as if embarrassed, turned and stalked away, tail twitching.

Ar’tor came up from behind him. There was no pity in his heart, none in his mind. As he sat down next to Yelloweye, he slipped his arm around the big cat’s shoulders, and the two of them sat there for a while. And when he leaned his head over against Yelloweye’s shoulder, the cat didn’t move away.

The moon came and went, and as it did, Ar’tor felt the changes in him. He ran the short sprint, feeling his lungs stronger, his heart more powerful by the day. He climbed, and he fought for hours, under Yelloweye’s watchful tutelage.

And they hunted. Skies above, how they hunted. They roamed the hills, and stalked as man and animal had hunted together in a more ancient place and time. Never had such hunts been seen in the hills, and the harvests were bountiful.

Then, one day, they were hunting a goat, using Yelloweye’s pincer maneuver. Ar’tor saw Yelloweye moving into position, and a sliver of shadow flew out, hitting the old cat just below the ear.

Ar’tor would have screamed, but for the warnings imprinted in his mind by Yelloweye over the past weeks. He knew that there was an enemy near, but didn’t know if he had been seen.

Without conscious thought, Ar'tor suddenly ceased thinking in words or sounds. His world became one of images, of feelings, of smells and shapes.

Had he been seen? And if so, by whom? He tried not to breathe, not even to think too loudly. Just became a part of the leaves and the trees for moment after long, achingly vulnerable moment.

Then finally there was movement, and sound.

From the opposite side of the glen, two men stood. Ar’tor recognized one of them as the man who had accompanied Tluman Carpter to their camp, Carraign.

Here? In the depths of Windrunner territory?

Ar’tor grinned mirthlessly. He could see what they could not—the arrow in Yelloweye’s neck still moved slightly. His friend was alive.

Ar’tor had no bow and arrow, only the knife. Never had he learned to throw it, and to attempt such an insane thing now would accomplish nothing. It would merely disarm him at the same time it alerted his enemies. No. This called for something very different. Gingerly, he peeled his shirt back and smeared a generous handful of mud over his chest. He carefully tucked his knife out of sight at the back of his belt.

The two men stood over Yelloweye’s motionless body, and one laughed, and made a motion with his sword.

Ar’tor rose from his cover and sang out, “Oh-hoo! Great and wise are they! Oh-hoo! Powerful and keen of eye, swift of foot, are the slayers of Old Cat!”

He spun as he stood, dancing as if drunken.

Carraign’s bow whipped up instantly, fixing it on him, and what a sight he must have been! A half-naked mud-daubed boy dancing through the reeds, singing as if mad.

“What in the . . . ?” The arrow point remained steady. The other man with him finally put his hand on Carraign’s arm. “Don’t bother. It’s clear that the boy is crazed.”

Ar’tor danced closer. “Aye! And they are sweet, and strong, their forms pleasing to boy or beast. The beasts must fall, and the boys yearn to submit. ...”

Carraign’s brown tongue touched his lips, and Ar’tor grinned without mirth. He had indeed read the pervert correctly.

Ar’tor skinned back his shirt, exposing more of his smooth, sun-bronzed skin, corded with new muscle, and he moved, spinning, revolving heel to toe, singing more loudly. He was within three steps now, and from the comer of his eye he saw that Yelloweye was watching him, but he heard no mindspeak.

He spun to a halt in front of Carraign. “Oh great hunters, let me give you—death!”

Much too quickly for the swordsman to respond, Ar’tor’s hidden knife flashed out to stab deeply into his stomach. The man screamed and reared back, screaming like a castrato. Ar’tor had already turned his attention to the bowman, who was struggling with shock, stumbling backward trying to get a pace of distance between himself and the whirling dervish who had suddenly unleashed death upon them.

But it was too late. Ar’tor’s blade licked out once, twice, and Carraign was down, fingers fruitlessly attempting to stem the tide of blood from a gashed neck.

Ar’tor turned back to the other man and finished him with a thrust up under the ribcage.

Only then did the grief sting his eyes. Ar’tor crouched close to his friend. Yelloweye licked at Ar'tor’s hand.

You have done well. It seems that we have no more time together.

“It was enough.” He examined the wound. The arrow had driven down, piercing the lung. Yelloweye’s flanks spasmed, and he coughed blood.

Stripling, Yelloweye said, there is one last thing you must do, in order for our work to have meaning.

“What is it? I will do anything.”

Ar’tor listened closely. Although he refused at first, Yelloweye finally convinced him. Good, the big cat said. You . . . you were not such a bad cub after all. I think ... my other cubs would have approved.

“And my uncle would have approved of you.”

Do not fail us, Ar’tor.

Yelloweye exhaled one final time.

Ar’tor sat hunched there for a long time before he moved again.

Before Ar’tor left that place, he built a mound of brittle twigs and branches over Yelloweye, with the corpses of Carraign and the swordsman at his ass. It blazed to the heavens, and Ar’tor watched it flare, mindless of the tears starting from his eyes. He wiped them with the back of his hand. Now was no time for sentiment. It was a time for deeds.