Disclaimer: All non-original characters are property of SEGA or their respective creators.
13. On The Wild Frontiers
"Trogg's balls," grumbled Princess Styx of Hibernia, peering down the mossy slope at the camp she and her companions had made on the western edge of the Jade Forest.
Taking the fourth watch had been a mistake, she decided.
The uninterrupted night's sleep had certainly been nice, as had being able to watch the sun rise over Mount Scathach in peace. She just wasn't sure how she'd persuaded herself the others could be trusted to wake up on time. Even Zoë hadn't stirred yet, it seemed.
"One of the family already," muttered the badger as she strode down the slope.
Leaving her bow beside the long-extinguished campfire, Styx padded over to her companions' tents and set about pulling up guy-ropes. The muffled cries of alarm as the canvas shelters collapsed on their occupants brought a contented smile to her face.
Maybe taking the fourth watch hadn't been a mistake.
жЖж
"Whisp? Come on. The sun's already up."
The fourteen-year-old moaned in quiet protest as she was gently shaken awake. She opened one eye to find a lithe black she-wolf standing by her futon. Lithe, that is, except for the pronounced bulge in her tunic.
"Already?" muttered Whisp, rubbing her closed eye.
The black wolf named Edda nodded solemnly.
"Here. I got you this," she said, dropping a piece of yesterday's bread in her fellow slave's lap.
"Is it always going to be like this?" asked the golden wolf, testing the bread with her teeth.
She took a tentative bite. It was chewy, but not half as stale as she'd feared. She tore off a chunk.
Edda smiled weakly. "It's just because we're the youngest."
The golden wolf nodded as she munched. She glanced around the gloomy room, full of she-wolves asleep on threadbare futons, all with cubs in their bellies. Only a couple looked bigger than Edda. It didn't seem fair.
"Thank you for the bread," mumbled Whisp as she stood up, hugging her own not-insubstantial belly.
Moving on tiptoes, the teenagers carefully picked a path through the snoring she-wolves. Out in the longhouse's communal area, they continued on tiptoes, so as not to wake any of the hyenas sleeping with weapons by their sides.
As they crept, Whisp cast a forlorn glance at the door to her master Gordian's bedchamber at the back of the longhouse. She hadn't really known what to expect from this place, but she certainly hadn't expected twenty heavily-armed Gishite mercenaries.
How was she supposed to kill her master with them in the way?
"It's cold," remarked Edda, stepping out into the shrill dawn air.
She threw an arm around Whisp and started towards the shed where the chickenfeed was kept. As they walked, Whisp cast a second forlorn glance over her shoulder, this time towards the southern horizon. Of course, there was no silhouette of a jackal on the crest of a hill, nor any rubies glinting in the morning sun.
Inside the shed, Whisp's shorter stature condemned her to being one who held the baskets while Edda poured out the feed.
"There," said the black wolf, returning the corn sack to its shelf, "Let's go."
Resting their shallow baskets on their protruding bellies, the wolves ambled back out into the chilly air, bound for the poultry pen behind the longhouse.
"Edda?" gasped Whisp as the black wolf stumbled suddenly, "What's the matter?"
Edda smiled as she straightened up. "My cub kicked."
Whisp's blue eyes widened. "Did it hurt?"
"No, of course not. It only—"
Whatever else she had to say was drowned out by a sonorous blast of noise from across the plain. The startled she-wolves dropped their baskets, pressing their ears flat as a second blast rent the air, then a third.
"Wh-what was that?" squeaked Whisp, frantically glancing about.
The golden wolf saw Edda slowly raise an arm and point northwards. She turned her head accordingly, and her heart sank. A company of mounted warriors was cantering across the plain. One of the vanguard carried a curved oxhorn trumpet.
The fourteen-year-old found herself groping for a ruby shard beneath her tunic. She balled the offending hand into a fist and tucked it under her chin, just as her lower lip began to quiver. A room full of sleeping hyenas suddenly felt like the least of her problems.
жЖж
"Enough, Khan!" snapped Percilla, glaring at the brown monkey with the oxhorn trumpet riding alongside her, "Once was quite enough."
Khan sheepishly lowered the instrument.
"Just what kind of farm is this again?" he said, casting his eyes across the plain's grassy expanse.
But for the longhouse and its outbuildings, encircled by a drystone wall, it was entirely barren.
"Could you be forgetting the desert over those hills?" replied Percilla, pointing to the southern horizon with her glaive.
The monkey grimaced. The bandicoot snorted and glanced over her shoulder. Lacking a road to keep them in formation, her warband had scattered into a disorderly muddle, cantering along at their pace in twos and threes. What's more, they'd pulled way ahead of the ox-drawn supply wagons.
Percilla smirked at the sight of Amaranth driving her wagon in full armor. Everyone else was wearing the bare minimum, herself included.
"Are you sure once was enough?" said Khan.
The bandicoot turned back to the longhouse. To the monkey's credit, other than a couple of wolves shuffling around the yard, the longhouse wasn't exhibiting many signs of life.
"Fine," she sighed, "Do your worst."
The monkey puffed out his chest in preparation as he raised the oxhorn trumpet to his mouth. Percilla and the surround warriors braced themselves, only to hear a comparatively quiet simian howl.
"I, uh, guess once was enough," said Khan, gazing at his instrument on the yellow-green grass. An arrow shaft protruded from its polished ivory body.
"Indeed," muttered Percilla, eyeing the cobalt bat who'd appeared in the longhouse's yard. He held a longbow.
She spurred her horse into a gallop. Khan followed suit. As they approached, the bat nocked another arrow to his longbow. Percilla raised a hand in greeting. The gesture wasn't reciprocated.
"What're you doing here?" demanded Gordian as the riders whoaed their horses.
Percilla hesitated to answer, distracted by a battleaxe-toting hyena lurking in the longhouse's doorway.
"I bring tidings from Queen Rouge," said the bandicoot stiffly.
"How very nice of her," said the bat, "Now answer the damned question."
Khan bared his teeth. Percilla shot him a glare as she dismounted.
"I would sooner discuss the queen's personal orders in a less…open forum," she said, eyeing the two wolves scooping corn into baskets, "If that's at all possible."
Gordian grunted, quivering his arrow.
"This way," he said gruffly, "But the chimp stays outside."
жЖж
Mount Scathach loomed over the verdant borderland between Cambria and Hibernia like a rocky fist punching its way free through a carpet of trees and other vegetation. Styx gazed wistfully at the mountain's craggy summit. That was where she wanted to be. Not yet, though, and for once, she wasn't feeling inclined to grumble about the delay.
"Why aren't you going with them?" said Styx, looking at Sonic.
The badger and hedgehog were standing at the foot of a steep flight of stone steps cut into the wooded hillside. They were minding the horses while their vulpine companions visited a shrine to Cosmo.
"I look like a fox to you?" replied Sonic, peering up at Fiona. The vixen was halfway up the steps, just behind Miles and Zoë.
Styx cocked a brow. "You spend enough time around them."
"Do you see Miles or Fiona praying much?" countered Sonic, "They've got about as much time for their gods as I do."
The duo cocked their heads up as they heard Zoë yelp. She'd slipped on a mossy step.
"Careful," said Fiona, catching the slave.
"Th-thank you," said Zoë, gratefully accepting Miles's hand, "How much further is it?"
"Right to the top. Just past those trees," replied the prince, pointing to the topmost step flanked by silver birches.
With a nod from the vixen, the vulpine trio pressed on through the overhanging bracken. The steps grew progressively narrower as they climbed. In due course, they reached the small clearing that'd been hacked out of a birch grove once upon a time.
"There she is," remarked Fiona.
Zoë covered her mouth as she beheld the shrine to Cosmo, goddess of the harvest, across the clearing. Miles glanced sidelong at the vixen, a little confused at her apparent awe. To his eye, the shrine wasn't much to look at. It was little more than a shack sheltering a small, crudely hewn idol of the floral-haired deity. The layer of moss on the roof was so dense, he was surprised it hadn't collapsed.
"Can we?" asked the oblivious Zoë, squeezing his hand.
"You're the one who asked to come up here, remember?" replied Miles. Zoë smiled shyly.
Fiona hung back while the lovers crossed the clearing. Zoë bowed her head as they approached the idol, like she would in King Furlong's presence. Miles kept his head up. He was vaguely tempted to nudge the vixen to do the same, but then, he didn't really know much about her religious beliefs.
They tended to have other priorities during their nocturnal rendezvouses, and Styx had set much too quick a pace for them to talk on the ride here. As heir to the Cambrian throne, he'd been taught to make the appropriate offerings to the appropriate deities at the appropriate times of year. In the run-up to harvesttime, in Cosmos's case.
The goddess's most ardent worshippers tended to be farmers, which made Zoë's apparent devotion all the more confusing. As a former street fox who used to lurk outside Cilgarren's castle kitchens for scraps, she'd never spent a day in the fields.
"Can I touch her?" asked Zoë meekly.
"You can do what you like," said Miles, a little more impatiently than intended.
The slave didn't seem to notice. The prince found himself being dragged right up to the idol's plinth. Reaching out a hand, Zoë slowly ran her fingers down Cosmo's round face, pausing as they came to the seed-shaped brooch that held up the goddess's cloak of leaves.
"Zoë?" asked Miles tentatively after a silent few seconds, "Are you alright?"
"I'm not sure," replied the vixen, voice barely above a whisper, "I think the goddess may have blessed me."
"What makes you say that?"
"It…it's been three moons, my prince."
Miles frowned, his bewilderment twofold. They'd been intimate for longer than that, and why the sudden honorific?
"What're you talking about?" he asked, unable to find a more delicate turn of phrase.
She withdrew her hand from the idol, then turned to him.
"I wanted to come up here to thank Cosmo," she said.
"For what?"
"For giving me your cub to carry."
Zoë took his hand and pressed it to the front of her maroon dress.
"I haven't bled in three moons."
Miles blinked. "And is that—"
"So Marjoram said," the vixen whispered.
The prince's eyes widened. Whether she knew it or not, she'd just named the vixen who'd helped deliver him as a cub.
"You…we can't go to Mount Scathach," he said.
"What? Why not?"
"You have to meet my grandmother," he said, "Out of the way, Captain!"
Fiona wheeled round to see Miles hurtling across the clearing with Zoë clinging to his back. She stood well-clear.
"Where're you two rushing off to?" Sonic called out as the lovers came barreling down the stone steps.
"Lethra!" wheezed Miles.
"No, you're not!" snapped Styx.
"You go where you want," panted Miles, helping Zoë onto his dun mare, "You'll know where we'll be."
The fox clambered into his saddle. He smiled gratefully as Sonic handed him the horse's reins.
"Give my best to Morain!"
"No need, we'll bring her to you," said Styx, too late for the foxes to hear.
They'd already galloped off down the woodland trail, three bushy tails streaking in the wind.