Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 30
30
"Walk in step with me. I don't want to cut you," Ander said and slowly started to walk backwards, pulling Nilia along. He kept his head down low, using her as a living shield.
She was very cooperative, instantly adjusting to the rhythm of his stride without any resistance. What else was there for a poor she-wolf hostage to do?
He kept going until the heat at his back became almost unbearable. Embers slowly danced in the corners of his vision, carried by the breeze like fireflies. Up close against the bonfire like this, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone sneaking up on him from behind.
But then again, most Wolves weren't of the sneaky persuasion. They were already inching closer, tightening the circle around them, many with weapons in hand.
"Stay back!" All the shouting was making Ander's throat burn. He could taste blood, as if his mouth was just a mesh of cuts on the inside, but he had no choice. "Do it or I swear I'll slice her open right now!"
The Wolves halted their advance, but didn't retreat. They held their ground, staring at him like a piece of meat. Like prey. They could sense the end was drawing near, one way or another.
Especially Wardo. Ander could see him standing on the side-lines, his eyes narrowed, his expression thoughtful.
Ander squeezed his body tightly against Nilia's back, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. Not an easy task, considering he was always the biggest Wolf next to Banno. Still, if he stayed right up against her like this, even the cockiest Wolf wouldn't dare fire any arrows.
Hopefully.
He put his lips to her ear and whispered, "Why are you doing this for me?"
She swallowed, and the hairs on her throat brushed against the bloody blade in a small wave, leaving a crimson line across her neckfur. She reached up, curled her fingers around his arm, and stared into his eyes without a word. Every time she blinked, her pupils would contract just a tiny bit, and then grow to their previous size; dark green rings bathed in flame like burning wreaths.
It was quite beautiful to watch.
"Oy! Nilia!" Wardo shouted. "What the hell are you doing? Just flip him!"
"I can't!" she shouted back.
"Sure you can! I've seen you do it to Wolves twice your size! Just flip him like you were trained to!"
"I'm telling you, I can't! He's holding the knife too close!"
And with that, Ander felt her fingers push lightly against his arm, gently urging him to press the blade harder against her neck. He let her hands guide him until he could actually feel her pulse beating through the blade and into his own hand.
"I'm sorry for dragging you into this, Nilia. I know that's the last thing you want to hear from me right now, but I have to say it. I'm really sorry."
"I do not blame you for this," she said, perfectly calm, as if she were sharing a moonlit stroll instead of being held hostage.
"I'm sorry I killed Garten," Ander ploughed on. He had to get this off his chest while he still had the chance, while he was still alive. While he was still himself. That Banno voice was screaming at him not to do it, but to hell with him. "I had no choice. He was trying to kill me! I just..." He sighed. "He was a fellow warrior, your comrade, and I - I'm so sorry..."
"Who? Garten? If appearances weren't so important, I'd laugh out loud," Nilia turned her head a little, and her ear brushed against Ander's nose. "He was a foul, sexist bastard who always thought he was better than everybody else, especially me. I only wish I could have been the one to kill him."
"But..." This didn't make any sense. "You tried to protect him from me. He was injured, and you -"
Understanding dawned upon him, and suddenly everything made sense. The way she had stepped in between himself and Garten, the way she confiscated his weapon twice under the guise of the law, the way she never attacked him, not even once, even though she had plenty of opportunities.
I will not enjoy what is about to happen to you...
I do not want to hurt you...
Please, Ander, don't make me kill you...
From the very beginning, Nilia wasn't trying to execute him. She wasn't even trying to uphold law and order. From the very beginning...
She was trying to help him.
"Nilia, you...?"
"Don't look so surprised."
Ander hardened his expression with considerable effort. "Why are you doing this for me?" he whispered again. "Why are you risking your life for me?"
She stayed quiet for so long that Ander was beginning to think she didn't want to answer, but then she whispered back: "I'm not sure. When I saw you step through that gate, I didn't feel one way or the other. It was simply a fact that you had returned, for whatever reason, and that you would now die for that reason. But then the trial came, and you started to talk..."
Terrified of accidentally cutting her, Ander tried to ease up on the knife, but she only pushed harder against his arm, forcing him to press it through her fur and right up against her skin.
"It must be a very special place for you to leave it all behind," she said. "When a Wolf finds something it likes, it will bite down and never let go, even if it means tearing that thing apart. But you did exactly the opposite. You came back here, even though you knew you'd most likely be killed. You did it to protect whatever it is that lies beyond that mountain, but you also did it for us. I guess that's why I'm being so stupid right now."
The other Wolves had huddled together in clusters, probably to talk of strategy, but Ander was finding it difficult to concentrate on what was going on around him while Nilia was speaking of such things. It was like hearing the exact opposite of that black voice inside his head, the one that sounded just like Banno.
It made him feel like he could become himself again, if he could make it through this night.
But... her words, no matter how warm, could not change the past.
"I've killed two Wolves, Nilia. First Banno, my own brother, and then Garten, who -"
"You had to." She said this with a certain finality, as if there was no more that needed to be said, as if it closed the subject for good.
"Have you ever killed anyone, Nilia? You're a strong fighter, but you've never had to hurt those close to you. If you had, you'd know you can't just make it go away with a convenient little excuse like 'I had to'. It stays with you forever."
"So?"
For just a second Ander had the mad urge to slap her. "You don't understand. I -"
"No, _you_don't understand," Nilia hissed, her fangs bared. Ander had no way of knowing whether she was just acting angry for the sake of deception, or if she really was getting mad at him. It was always so difficult to tell with her, even when she was being straightforward. "Banno was trying to kill you. These idiots may be too caught up in their fanatic hero-worship to see the truth, but I'm not. I knew your brother, and the looks he'd give me always made me feel like jumping in a lake, as if he was licking me with his eyeballs."
Ander knew what she was talking about. It was the exact same way he had looked at Kiana, as if he already had her in his mouth...
"And now you've killed Garten. No big loss. In fact, I think this tribe is better off without him. Stop thinking about all your cloudy Ander feelings and look at the facts as they stand. Two Wolves attacked you. Two Wolves tried to kill you. You fought back. What else was there to do? Roll over and die? In this world it's kill or be killed, and if a Wolf comes to kill you, then somebody's gonna end up dead no matter what happens. Banno and Garten were two sick bastards who underestimated their enemy and ended up paying the price for it. That's all there is to it."
If she was trying to make him feel better, she was doing a lousy job of it. "You have a blunt way of looking at things, Nilia."
"That's because I see the world as it is, Ander, and the world is a blunt place. Take Garten over there for example."
Ander looked, even though he didn't really want to. The cut in his forehead didn't look so bad from here (there wasn't even that much blood), but his eyes were open and rolled back in their sockets, showing the whites, staring straight up at the night sky, unseeing. It looked wrong, and not just the eyes. Even when a Wolf is asleep, there are certain ways the arms and legs should lie in relation to each other, certain angles, a certain stiffness to the muscles, holding everything in place. But there was none of that in Garten now. His body was so limp, his arms and legs so... liquid. It made Ander uncomfortable just looking at it.
He'd be stiff soon, though. As hard as a board. Because he's dead. He's dead and Ander was the one that killed him. No argument could be made against that.
Nilia squeezed his arm. "Garten is dead, and because he is dead, you are alive. That's not something you should be ashamed of. You should be proud."
_You did well! Aren't you proud?_Banno's voice again, mocking him from beyond his wet, dark hell. But this time he would not bow down. He would not lie, not to himself or to anyone else.
"No, Nilia," he whispered in her ear. "I am not proud. I have never been less proud in my entire life."
"Because you think you are a monster?" she whispered back.
Ander didn't want to answer that. He watched the Wolves instead. They whispered to each other, and occasionally threw wary glances his way. The groups sometimes broke up, reformed, merged together. Some were arguing, others were simply listening. It wouldn't take them long to come up with a plan.
"Look to your left," Nilia said, and Ander did.
He saw Irro being carried away by a small group of his friends, half-conscious, his head lolling back and forth. There were four huge gashes running across his muzzle, gashes Ander couldn't even remember putting there. His right arm was a crimson mess, with long chunks of meat hanging from his elbow in dripping tatters. He could actually see the bone in several places, even from here.
"How does that make you feel?"
"How do you _think_it makes me feel!?" Ander hissed into her ear. He was shaking, and that only made the pain worse, but he couldn't stop himself. "I'm the one who did that. Irro might lose his arm because of me, and all he was trying to do was help his friend."
"But you could have killed him," she said, speaking softly. "I saw the whole thing. You had all the time in the world to reach down and tear his throat out. I bet you even thought about it, didn't you?" Ander was too ashamed to admit that she was right, but she knew the answer regardless. "Of course you did. You're a Wolf. Killing is in our blood. So tell me, if you're such a terrible monster, why did you let him live?"
"Because I don't want to kill. Why is it so difficult for you people to understand that?"
"Then explain it to me. Why do you not want to kill? This is an execution, so there's no law stopping you. These Wolves will do everything in their power to cut you down and stick your head on a pike. Mine too, if they figure out what I'm doing. You owe them nothing, so why do you do these things? Just look at yourself, you can barely stand."
"Why?" Ander closed his eyes and thought about the journey his life had taken to bring him here, standing with his back to the fire, facing his own people, fighting for his very life. And that was the answer, wasn't it?
"Life, Nilia. Pure and simple. It was the reason I chose to save Kiana. It was the reason I chose to end the life of my brother. It was the reason I chose to come back. It is the reason I fight. Because life, all life, is a precious gift. That is why I do these things, and that is also why I feel so terrible for doing them. Do you understand now?"
Ander opened his eyes, expecting to see Nilia looking up at him with a frown on her face, either angry or confused, just like all the other Wolves he had ever tried to speak to, but she surprised him. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "I have never heard of a monster capable of feeling such things. A monster can't feel guilt, or compassion, or sympathy, or kindness. A monster cannot feel love. That is because you are not a monster, Ander. You never were. And you better stop calling yourself one, or else I really will flip you. Do _you_understand?" She squeezed his forearm, just a little bit harder, and slowly ran her thumb back and forth in the tiniest, almost unnoticeable increments.
"I..." Ander didn't know what to say.
"Good. And don't look so flabbergasted. You're supposed to be taking me hostage, remember?"
Ander hardened his expression, but not before whispering, "Thank you, Nilia. Thank you for reminding me of who I am."
"You mean you actually forgot?" Her face was a mask of concern for herself, but just for a second, Ander thought he saw the ghost of a smile flicker about the corner of her mouth.
"Just for a little while."
"Banno was wrong about you, Ander. You are, without a doubt, as different as they come."
This was only the second time anyone has ever called him 'different', and didn't mean it as an insult. It reminded him of Kiana's words on the night they first met.
I know you're not like him, Ander. You're not like anyone. You're... different.
It hasn't even been a full day since he last saw her, but he missed her so much. It was like that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach if you haven't eaten anything in days, except this feeling was inside his heart. He left her crying and miserable on the front porch, and that wasn't the last image he wanted of her in his mind. He wanted to go back there so badly, he wanted to see her face again. He wanted to see her smile at his return. He wanted to grab her and hold her tight and tell her he would always keep his promises. That's why...
Ander looked up at the moon, and for the first time this night, it didn't feel like it was frozen in time. It felt like he could almost - not quite - but _almost_see it moving to the West horizon.
He would not give up hope.
He would keep his promise.
He was different, yes.
And that's not a bad thing.
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