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Chapter 44. You're So Cold, But You Feel Alive..
by Aras
The elders of the village had explained things very kindly to Aras' parents, once upon a time; they had explained it politely, albeit severely, to Narkus when he'd come of age. By the time Aras' turn rolled around, they'd barely had the civility to be terse.
These were the rules here in Borassa, the towering shadows had said. Follow them.
If wolverines were going to be permitted to live near the village, the ring of stony faces had proclaimed, they would be subject to certain limitations. The Circle was not, after all, the wilderness it had been during the days of Gulo the Savage.
They had hurled a litany of regulations and fiery commands at the young wolverine, all of which boiled down to one basic premise: Hunt birds. Or fish. No beasts that could walk, no beasts that could talk. No exceptions, no excuses, no tolerance, no kidding.
At the time, the entire lecture had seemed superfluous. Narkus was the provider, not him. Of course, that was before Narkus had decided to cut Aras out of his share.
-~=~=-=~=-~
A slightly older, exponentially wiser Aras sits beneath a tree, pondering these rules and regulations. What he is about to do is highly illegal, and probably very immoral. He was about to eat flesh. Not the flesh of bird or fish, but that of a sentient beast. If he is caught, the repercussions will be swift and violent.
Aras doesn't care. He has recently gained a particular disdain for their meaningless restrictions. Laws could not stop him from doing anything, all they could do was punish him after the fact. They are nothing but pretentious commands, their authority derived only through the fear of reprimand. And Aras is in a place with nothing left to fear.
No. No fear, out here in the wilderness. He is hidden away from everything, here in the shadows of the pine boughs. The snowdrift covers him up to the neck, perfectly hiding him from sight.
The hares will be returning soon, he's sure of it. They wouldn't dare try to weather through a night of bitter cold like this. Yes. They'll be back soon. His life depends on it.
It feels like an eternity since Narkus cast him out. Aras can still recall the horrible predatory twinkle in his older brother's eye as he issued that ominous statement. "I'm tired of sharing my kills with a lazy sack of entrails like you. From now on, little brother, hunt for yourself."
Aras had never been able to get the hang of slings or archery, and the streams had long ago frozen over, trapping all of the fish in an icy cocoon. "But what if I can't catch anything?"
"Then you'll die," Narkus had said simply, to a chorus of snickering from Tysen and Liartes.
He had tried to do things the council's way. The next day, after he'd finished his duties with Yuell, Aras had immediately set off with one of Narkus' old practice bows and a quiver of arrows. Hiking out to a clearing in the woods, the wolverine marked a weathered oak tree as his target. The first shot missed, kicking up a spray of white powder; the second was lost to a tangle of scraggly bushes.
Aras fired again and again, shooting that stupid flimsy bow until his fingers burned. Every arrow missed the mark, either hissing wide into the scrub or plunging downwards into the snow. When he'd gone to retrieve them, he could only locate five. Further hunting in the scrubs turned up three more, but one had cracked all along the shaft. That made seven.
Seven bloody shots to forestall starvation.
Aras snorts bitterly beneath the tree, burying himself deeper into his cloak. He doesn't need the bow, not tonight. Ten claws will achieve what seven arrows could not. Ten frigid, shivering claws will bring him life.
But if the claws fail, he will die. No doubt in his mind. The snow and ice have sapped him of almost everything. He has just enough energy left for one surprise attack, and the outcome of that attack will determine whether he lives or dies.
And here they come, a pair of greyish blurs materializing out of the twilight.
Aras struggles to keep himself from moving. Hares run far too quickly; spooking them would be the literal "grave" mistake. The wolverine can feel the warmth of anticipation spreading through his veins as the hares draw nearer, each fateful step syncing up with the excited beat of his heart.
Closer... closer... closer... Wait. The feral hares sniff the air, puzzled. They sense something amiss. Timidly, confusedly, they continue forward on tip-paw. Aras' claws tense, anticipating their chance to tear into succulent flesh. Five more fateful steps. Four more. Three.
Two steps. One.
Like the tolling of a fateful bell, the lead hare takes the final step. Aras inhales, tenses, finds his footing...
Snow sprays everywhere as the wolverine explodes from the snowbank. The smaller hare's face was splattered first with slush, then with blood as his companion caught a claw to the neck.
The stricken hare gurgles and collapses, clutching a paw to its throat. The little one hesitates briefly, before instinct spurs it into action. Too late. Caught mid-stride, the runt sprawls into the snow, his skull crushed.
Hours of cold and days of starvation spawn a rumble deep within the wolverine's core. It erupts in a cavernous roar of omnipotent triumph.
He pants, savoring the victory. There will be food tonight, probably for several nights. There will be life, spawned from these deaths.
The tall hare is still alive, struggling to force breath through its torn windpipe. Aras lumbers over to the fallen creature, and grasps it about the jugular. The hare struggles feebly, spilling blood onto Aras' paws.
Only now it is not the hare, gurgling to death in his grasp, but Sybil. Despite the gash carved across her throat, the marten screams.
Aras' eyes snapped open.
The harsh white and red of his dream were gone, replaced by a cacophony of black and jagged silver.
The jungle. Night.
He was dying.
The wolverine's breath came in ragged, choking spurts. There was no rhythm to them, no sense. No sense in any of this. And it was all, strangely, okay. The deep reserves of emotion had bled out, leaving him only a numb sense of melancholy foreshadowing. He was at the Threshhold.
He'd named it that the first time he'd experienced it, in the snowbank underneath the pine tree, in that instant when first he'd realized the simplicity of it all.
All of the "what ifs" had been silenced, all of the possibilities and futures stripped away, leaving only one graven dichotomy. That was the Threshhold. The place where the body possesses only enough energy for one final, last-stand shot in the dark. If that shot misses, it's okay, because there's no room left inside for despair, only a grimly liberating acceptance of the inevitable consequences. If that shot hits...
Aras grunted, easing himself upright. He needed to eat, or die trying. And he knew exactly where to find a freshly-buried body. He staggered off, into the trees. Towards Sybil's grave.
His throat burned, from where Castille had tried to strangle him. Sybil's had burned, too. It had felt as though it would sear his paws. He could still feel the warm, pulsing jugular, the marten's haunted eyes full of pain and condemnation as he'd... done the only thing he could do. Killed her.
No. He hadn't killed her. He had merely ended her life.
It wasn't his fault. He'd told himself that, over and over again. Castille had murdered her. Almost murdered him.
The sable was going to die. It would be a contradiction in terms to say that nobeast had the stomach to screw with a wolverine, but it was entirely accurate to say that nobeast would do it twice. That vendetta energized him, kept him going. The sable would taste delicious.
He now stood over the mound, his last words to Sybil still ringing in his ears. "I'm sorry." He had said it. More importantly, he had meant it.
Sybil deserved better than that. Nobeast deserved the long helpless death Castille had sentenced her to, bleeding out their life in breathless agony. She deserved better than to have her body torn apart for a meal.
But that was the curse of the wolverine, wasn't it? To go slaughtering and slashing his way through the world in order to statiate the horrible demons within. Memories didn't fully substantiate it; it was something he knew, just as he knew the fury of the blizzard and the sting of the frost. It was in his blood.
Yes, Sybil had deserved better. So did he.
Life wasn't fair. He began to dig.
The earth was cold, and Aras' claws began to shiver. The wolverine gritted his teeth and continued scraping the muck away. The roar in his stomach intensified with every pawful. Sweat beaded on the wolverine's forehead, running into his eyes. Still he dug, unable to stop himself. He needed that meat. He wasn't ready to die. Not tonight.
Finally, an eternity later, he unearthed a patch of matted fur. With hope burning in his eyes, Aras continued on with renewed vigor. The blood would be chilled in the veins by now, the meat would be cooled. But this was no time to be particular. Saliva dripped from Aras' fangs.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," said a hauntingly familiar voice. Silisk.
Aras froze, as a thousand pathetic excuses whirled about in his mind. His heart throbbed, feeling as though it would explode within his ribcage. He didn't dare turn around.
This snake's scales rustled against each other as she wove sinuously through the grass towards him.
Aras gulped, trying to force air in through his nose. A tremble arose in his core, causing the wolverine's entire body to vibrate. He felt as though he might shake himself to pieces. He couldn't turn, couldn't bring himself to face the serpent's condemnation.
The rustling stopped, and Silisk peered down into the grave.
"Good. You haven't consumed any of the marten's flesh. It would have gone very badly for you, if you had."
"I..." Aras attempted, the lie withering before it could escape his lips. What could he possibly say? She knew. She knew everything. That he was a carnivore, and that he had desecrated Sybil's grave to forestall his own starvation; that if push truly came to shove, he would kill and eat any of them just to keep his own utterly selfish self alive.
For a brief moment, he considered killing the snake. He could snatch her up, and snap her in two, and no one would ever be the wiser. Except, if Silisk had already figured it out on her own, she had probably passed the word along.
"It would be a horrible shame if her poison was transferred on to you, Aras."
The words hovered around Aras' mind for a brief while before piercing the fog of his shame. "Wait, what?"
Silisk looped around, her slitted pupils shining in the moonlight. "The craven Sarkleyet infected her with a foul venom ere we embarked on this venture. The poison's effects would doubtlessly be transferred to you."
The implications of the snake's words rushed him like an avalanche. Aras grasped his head, trying to make sense of things.
"Sarkleyet poisoned her?"
The serpent nodded. "It was his way of ensuring Sybil's fealty."
Aras felt hollow, deflated. Having this meal here – right under his nose – and then being unable to eat it... It crushed him. Noting his morose expression, Silisk added, "I am disgusted by it, too."
"No, it's... more than that," Aras sighed. The honesty, so long overdue, felt strange and foreign upon his lips. "I need to eat, Silisk. I haven't had a proper meal in as long as I can remember."
"Then you may well be in luck, Ikaras. As I recall, earlier this eve the detestable weasel slew one of my former minions with his crossbow. Unless the cowardly wretches have attempted to retrieve the corpse, it should still lay where it fell. I shall lead you there, so you may eat."
Aras was aghast. This felt like some colossal practical joke. "You're actually... okay with that?"
"Indeed," Silisk smiled. "It is an apt punishment for such a wanton display of treachery."
"But, you're okay with me... eating meat?" The words tumbled from his lips with the gravity of boulders. Saying it out loud seemed, in a way, to erase those last clinging shreds of denial.
The serpent started at him curiously. "Why shouldn't I be? I myself have consumed the flesh of other creatures."
"Doesn't that... worry you, though?"
Silisk's tongue fluttered in puzzlement. "It isn't as though you've attempted to eat me. And I believe that if you truly intended to do such a thing, you would have, long ago. Now, if you truly wish to consume your repast before the others wake, I suggest we make haste."
Wolverine and snake picked their way through the foliage, with the former's head spinning dizzily. This was not how things were logically supposed to end up. He'd been expecting revulsion, avoidance, and unbridled hostility. Silisk, however, seemed to be completely unfazed.
After what seemed an eternity of numbly tramping through the blackened undergrowth, Silisk spotted the lizard's corpse.
It lay where it had fallen earlier, Thalliv's bolt sticking from its chest like the mast of a wrecked ship. The reptile's body was crusted with blood.
Aras' heart began to pound again. "Silisk..." he tried, faltering. "Would you mind... er..."
The adder nodded sagely. "I shall afford you some privacy."
Aras watched until the snake's tail-tip disppeared into the shadows before approaching the corpse.
Pebbled skin shredded apart like rent lace, exposing the tender flesh beneath.
=~=~=~=
It was hardly the burst of ecstacy that he had felt that this, his first true meal, would be. Poetic moments, he reflected, rarely were. But, it was filling - Oh! So filling - and compared to the leafy abominations he'd been surviving on, it was a royal buffet.
As the lizard's blood mingled and merged with his own, Aras could feel a delightful vigor surging through his veins. The wolverine clenched his dripping claws, feeling the long-dormant warmth and strength slowly beginning to bloom again.
A satisfied smile tugged at Aras' scarlet-soaked lips. For the first time in this perpetually tragic saga, he felt that he had finally reached an oasis of normality.
The wolverine glanced at the savaged carcass. He had eaten. His secret had finally been revealed. The guilt and shame would haunt him no more. And now, there was going to be one hell of a reckoning. The fetters of Sarkleyet's machinations would hold him no longer.
He had been stupid, he realized, to ever be threatened by the marten. Felldoh's Heirs had imprisoned him already. They already knew about him. Red Dusk knew about him. The hares knew about him. Presumably, the rest of the Brandy hunters knew the truth as well.
So, what would he do? He would go back, and he would tell Sarkleyet to find the Brandy by his stupid, delusional self.
No. Wait, scratch that. Sarkleyet had the Red Dusk backing him up. Open hostility was a suicidally foolhardy notion. If the marten was truly to pay for his actions, it would have to be through more subtle means.
Or... through a greater might. Major Calderon would surely leap at the chance to cripple his main adversary. Of course! If he told the hare about the Brandy, about everything that Sarkleyet had done, then the whole thing would be in the paws of the Long Patrol.
Unless of course, the Patrol failed. In which case, Sarkleyet would be venomously hunting for the defiant traitor who'd brought the hares to his doorstep.
What Aras truly needed was a way to convince both sides of his loyalty, while simultaneously freeing himself to side with whichever faction was currently winning.
Reality broke in for a moment. Did Aras honestly believe he could deceive the heads of two major factions? Astonishingly, non-sensibly, he did. The method, a masterpiece of elegant simplicity, would take him less than a day.
He turned, called for Silisk. They needed to get back to Evnakt, as quickly as possible. Of course, Antonio would hem and haw, and dither about, but the ermine could get bent. Aras would leave him behind, if it came to that. The time for contracts and principles was done. They needed action.
Waiting would only cause doubt, and there was no room for doubt. This plan would work. It had to. If it didn't, they were all dead.
Perhaps he was being foolish. Perhaps the fresh infusion of blood was leading him down a path of suicidal hubris. He didn't care. He was going.
Aras was done being a minion.