85. Epilogue: North.

For a couple of days Akkla just hoped that her heart, which failed her at the most critical moment, would fail completely. But apparently it was not ready to stop beating yet. On the night of the second day after retreat from Salamadastron, at the first hints of sunrise, Akkla decided to take matters in her own paws. Akkla knew that killing oneself was a messy business, often botched by luck or shaking paw, and she wanted to make sure that nobeast would be able to save her. She also did not want to see Leffel's face in her last moments. In fact Akkla did not want to see her at all. Leaving the camp was no problem, sentries did not question her. By the time Akkla found a sufficiently remote hollow between the dunes, and fixed a short sword in the sand, the blade pointing upwards, the sky in the east brightened. As if nature and destiny conspired to mock her, sunrise was majestic today, the sky and rare thin clouds painted in glorious golden and orange colors.

Akkla knelt before the blade and looked at it one last time. Edge and point were finely honed. She closed her eyes and fell forward.

At that moment, some creature slammed into her. The blow was not very strong, but sufficient to knock her body aside, so that the blade only nicked the hide over her ribs.

"Seasons!" Akkla rolled on the sand, sat, and saw Flicker, also sitting on the sand, his paws clasped to his head, hurt by the flying tackle he just did.

"I should have kept your bindings whole and left you to wait for seagulls! Is it not enough that you filled my head with my worst memories and broke my spirit at the worst possible moment? Can I at least die in peace?" The wound on her side burned, by reflex Akkla clasped her paw over it and immediately cursed inwardly. Once again, her body was disagreeing with her intent to die.

Flicker looked at her slowly, still groggy. "No. You can't."

"Do you think I won't kill you just because I spared you too many times before?!"

"Go ahead. Believe me or not, that is what you'd have to do if you don't want me stopping you again."

Akkla growled at him for a few seconds, then shook her head slowly. "I wish I could hate as strongly as you."

"You've taken everything from me, even the rules by which I wanted to live, you made me try to kill another living creature, twice, right. But I did not save you because I hate you. I trailed your army and followed you today because I had nothing better to do. When I saw your intent I thought that you deserve dying slowly, in pain and despair, yes."

"Then why didn't you let me?! I have nothing to live for!"

Flicker scratched the scar at the stump of his ear. "Yeah, I know how that feels. I didn't let you, because just when you were about to impale yourself, I had a thought. What my parents and friends in Fortunate Freepaws would have said if they saw me enjoying suffering of another beast? A beast who can even feel guilt and remorse, right? So, if you want to die that much, at least prove yourself to be a heartless villain who deserves your fate. Kill me, or beat me until I cannot move."

Akkla lunged at him. Flicker did not try to escape. Knocking him down was the easiest thing in the world. Not only Akkla was naturally larger, he seemed to barely weight anything, all thin, almost emaciated – by what desperate burst of energy he even managed to tackle her before? She could probably snap his reedy neck in an instant. But her paws failed to lock on his throat. They were shaking too much.

"Curse you!" she wailed as her whole body shuddered. "I can't! Don't you see that I can't! I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted to hurt any honest creature, I only did what I had to do, for the peace of Northlands! Curse you to Hellgates, you stubborn stupid squirrel!"

Akkla tried to stand and walk away, to at least not suffer the indignity of letting her enemy see her tears, but stumbled on a small stone after a few steps, and fell. She did not rise, sobs wracking her body.

After some time, Flicker moved closer. He did not touch Akkla, but sat close enough that she could feel his warmth. "The funny thing is, a few days ago I also tried to do what I had to do, and almost became an assassin, yes. Your wound is still bleeding. Let me bandage it."

By this point, Akkla was numb enough to just let him.

"You should hurry back to your clan," Flicker said, after the improvised bandage was complete. "They are going to march away or send beasts to find you soon enough."

"I've brought enough misfortune to my clan already. I fear I'd only poison my niece's life and rule," Akkla shook her head slightly. She was lying on her back, looking at the morning sky. "And you. Shouldn't you have stopped trailing us, before your luck runs out and some warrior shoots you? Do you have anywhere you can return to?"

"Just an old burrow full of sad memories. I thought of going south and east, to Mossflower, and see for myself if those lands are happier. Do you want to go with me? Hard to think how you can possibly bring any more misfortune to me, ain't that right?" Seeing Akkla's incredulous expression, Flicker shrugged. "Don't worry, I still hate you, yes. Believe me or not, I just don't want all of my effort today to be wasted because of you deciding to kill yourself again after being alone for an hour."

"I could understand you better when you wanted to kill me," Akkla said after half a minute of silence. "I've done such great injustice to you, and I've failed your family and all of Fortunate Freepaws. I can't even offer my own life as my apology anymore."

"And you've murdered one of us with your own paws. And you've raised the son of my father's best friend to be a killer," Flicker paused, as if waiting for Akkla to object.

"And I've led him to his death."

Flicker nodded. "And that too, yes. But will the past change if you gut yourself, or starve to death alone? No. Will that make anybeast happier right now? Not me, even if I thought otherwise. You want to apologize, to show me your contrition? Travel with me, and we'd see if you can do something good yet. Thanks to my outcast mark," he touched the stump of his right ear again, "nearly every creature I meet distrusts me, you can help with that. Will you?"

Akkla did not think long. "I will."

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"You stopped searchin' for yer aunt quickly, that's for sure" observed Torbit on the next evening, when he and Leffel sat in the Warchief's tent.

Leffel stopped picking half-heartedly at the roasted fish before her and looked at him. No sign of anger or irritation appeared on her face. "We're still south of River Moss, Salamandastron land. Judging by her tracks, she's feeling well enough to beat most warriors in a march. Northlands are peaceful now, and Mossflower has been for many seasons, wherever she heads, she has little to fear. She's a free beast, and my elder, so she can stay or go as she pleases."

Torbit did not answer, and Leffel lowered her head, looking at the fish again. "Would you believe my words more if I say that yes, we were not the sort of beasts to live peacefully in the same burrow, and I feared having to butt heads with her?"

"I may be not the sharpest of beasts, but I wonder why ye ate little since buryin' Willag, and hardly anythin' at all, since Akkla disappeared."

Leffel sliced off a bigger piece of fish, pierced it with her knife, and looked at it with no sign of enthusiasm. "I'm sure you can explain that if you mistrust me enough."

"Mistrust, you say?" Torbit sighed loudly. "All right, let's talk straight and honest, and may seas and seasons be witnesses that I'm talkin' from my heart, with no deceit. Why I'm here, alone of all otters invited into the company of the new Warchief, or would that be Warchiefess, or I don't know, of the Axehounds? I, Torbit from the faraway island, who never accomplished anythin' heroic, and trembled before your father, the otter with no great deeds to my name and but a pawful of followers. Do you just want an outsider as yer champion and confidant, for one reason or another?"

Leffel looked at him again. The knife shook slightly in her paw. "Have you considered that my heart too may be not made of ice, and that I may want somebeast to console me, after losing my closest family?"

This time it was Torbit who looked away, but only for a moment. "I did. But forgive me poor manners, ye ain't seem to be an otter who just needs a shoulder to cry on."

"You're right. And what do you think, how many otters in our clan, at least otters young enough to not see me as Father's precious little girl, have enough wits about them to notice that? So, you want a straight and honest talk? All right, let's talk straight. You trembled before Willag? You're the only otter in my memory to even try doing something against Father's wishes. You're kind enough to take risks for the sake of beasts you barely know, and bold enough to leap into a fight against the odds if you think you're doing the right thing. You hate the idea of us, otters, ruling over fellow woodlanders like kings. Oh, and you're pretty strong and handsome, you big oaf. Aren't those reasons enough to like you and want to see you next to me? If you have a fault, it is your insufferable suspicion that I may have some evil scheme in my mind. Do I have to blame Aunt Akkla for it, or just the fact that I've learned to keep my cool a little too well?" That was quite an understatement, as Leffel's voice still remained calm and conversational. "But be as it may, I swear by all of the ancestors who watch me from the Dark Forest and by honor of my clan, that I've never lied to you, and I'm not lying to you right now. Is that enough?"

Torbit's nose and ears were burning hot with blush by the time Leffel finished speaking, but he forced himself to keep meeting her gaze. "More than enough. Can you forgive me for it, and for startin' all this talk, givin' you more grief, just when you already have aplenty of it?"

Leffel tilted her head. She looked at the knife, with a slice of fish still speared on it, as if just remembering that it was in her paw, then again at Torbit. "I think I can."

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Bones of most Badger Rulers of Salamandastron rested in the Secret Chamber, to which no creatures other than the current Ruler were usually allowed. But for times like this, when a Ruler perished with no successor ready to take up her mantle, there was a spacious crypt in upper tunnels, far above the ground level. Except when Salamandastron's population grew exceptionally great, these tunnels mostly remained unused, and so the crypt was a very quiet and remote place. However, it also was kept clean and in good order, even though names on nearly all of the eleven stone sarcophagi, housing remnants of the Rulers of old, told virtually nothing to most hares. Including Lieutenant Ranseur, who was in charge of Lady Violet Wildstripe's funeral.

Truth to be told, she had relatively little to do, because again, the place was clean, and needed only more lanterns, candles and torches placed for the ceremony. And she found that there was one empty sarcophagus waiting, the massive thing carved out of the rock of the Mountain itself. A dozen of the strongest Long Patrol hares was needed just to lift its stone lid, the only part of it that was not one with the wall and floor. Salamandastron's best stonecarver worked day and night to etch Lady Violet's name upon it before the funeral. Ranseur wondered if the next Badger Lord or Lady will have to expand the whole crypt, carving new space from stone, if there were to be more sarcophagi like existing ones – twelve at all, now all filled.

It was not as if Lady Violet's death did not fill Lieutenant Ranseur with rage and grief, far from that. On the first night she cried for a long time, after finally finding time to be alone in her room. But life went on. There was work to do, there were duties to fulfill, even for a crippled warrior like her. And long mourning was never a custom of the Long Patrol's hares. So Ranseur found it was only proper that Brigadier Greyfield called a meeting of all officers right after the funeral, and her face expressed nothing but stoic perseverance and attention by the time that meeting began. Nobeast challenged Greyfield's right to command, and nobeast expected it to be challenged, so the meeting was almost routine.

"At the great price," Greyfield concluded his opening speech, "the war with woodlanders of the North is averted, gentlebeasts. But our usual war against vermin corsairs and raiders from the southern lands goes on. For now, we have no Badger Lord or Lady, until another badger is guided to Salamandastron by fate and spirits of his predecessors. But with or without a Badger Lord, the Long Patrol continues."