Ander - Part 4: Subchapter 8
8
- flew past in a grey blur, almost knocking Kadai clean over, and then vanished into the crowd like a mouse into tall grass.
"Hezzi, wait!" Kadai screamed after him, but it was no use. Hezzi skirted past awestruck Wolves left and right without even touching any of them, moving like a breeze through the forest, and Kadai had no choice but to chase after him.
He ran past the gawking Wolves with much less grace than his drisa, bumping into them at every turn, nearly tripping over his own feet. His lungs ached and his throat burned, but he finally broke through into the clear and a wave of heat washed over his body, so intense it stopped him dead in his tracks. He held up his arm to shield his face and squinted against the glare. Hezzi was standing dangerously close, a frantic silhouette against a dancing, orange wall.
Ander's old tent was ablaze, a towering inferno of orange flame that rivalled the bonfire of his execution. The heat was so intense, he could feel it all the way from here. Wolves came streaming in from all directions, many of them clearly ripped from the mournful trance of their hero's funeral, their eyes misty and unfocussed, staring in disbelief at the tower of fire before them as though they were dreaming.
"Nooo!" Hezzi screamed and bolted, somehow moving just as freakishly fast as before his run-in with Garten's spear.
"Hezzi, get away from there!" Kadai bellowed, the smoke stinging his nose and throat.
"But it's Ander's tent!"
"Exactly! It's just a bunch of pelts and sticks! Get back here before you hurt yourself!"
"But -"
"Now!"
He looked back, slowly shook his head, and before Kadai could do anything to stop him - before he could even realize what was about to happen - Hezzi covered his mouth and nose and dashed headlong into the growing flames.
"Hezzi!" Kadai rushed forward, but one of the supports snapped and the tent caved in on itself with an otherworldly FWOOMP sound, sending a burning cloud of embers and ash into the air. Kadai tried to call his son's name again, but all he got for his effort was a mouthful of hot smoke. He coughed uncontrollably, trying in vain to keep his teary eyes open, desperately looking for any sign of his stupid son.
Someone pulled on his arm. "Chieftain, you have to get back!"
"My son is in there!" Kadai wrenched his arm loose without even checking to see who had grabbed him. "Hezzi! HEZZI!"
The terrible omen kept flashing through his mind as he looked for a way to get inside; a wooden carving with a deathly crack running through the middle, jagged like teeth. He imagined the resin melting and the two halves simply sliding away from each other, connected by stretchy ropes of gore, dripping wet, and then bursting into flame, blackening around the edges before crumbling into a meaningless pile of coals.
A burning sheet of canvass suddenly flipped up and there was Hezzi, stumbling away from the fire and onto a footpath, coughing and heaving, clutching something to his chest. He fell down to his knees, got back up, stumbled again. The scar across his stomach, which had been healing so nicely, was open and dripping.
"Hezzi you stupid, stupid boy!" Kadai said, rushing over to help. "What on earth were you thinking!?"
"He -" Hezzi started, but was overcome by a coughing fit as Kadai pulled him to his feet and hooked an arm across his shoulders. The boy was covered in black streaks of soot, and he reeked of singed fur. Kadai has never been so happy and so infuriated all at the same time.
He tried again, speaking very slowly and carefully, his voice like that of a Wolf fifty years his senior. "He said... I could have it..."
"Have what?"
Hezzi held out his hand and showed him what he had risked his life for - the small, wooden carving of his brother, smeared with ash and blood, but otherwise unharmed. "He asked me to keep it safe... that I should look at it when things get bad and remember that he's just on the other side of the mountain... He... he did it just before he left... It's the last thing..."
The last thing...?
Kadai stopped, and even though he and Hezzi were surrounded by gawking Wolves, pointing and shouting, it felt like they might as well be the last two living creatures in the world. They turned around and watched Ander's tent burn to the ground, Kadai holding his son, and his son holding the carving of his brother, both of them thinking the same.
They were watching the last memories of Ander being consumed by flame, rising up as smoke into the Cora's realm, just like the sacrifices which were promised to him time and time again.
But it wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough. It would eat and eat and eat until there was nothing left.
He held Hezzi close, and he could feel the boy shaking despite the roaring heat.
"Wardo did this, didn't he?" he said, clutching the carving to his chest like a sacred talisman.
The coward probably had one of his newfound followers do it for him, he thought, but did not say. Wardo was so damn trig, he created a distraction and a rock-hard alibi all at the same time. Anyone could have snuck away unseen, started the fire burning, and then made it back before he or she was even missed. Hell, an alibi? Wardo didn't even need one. There were hundreds of Wolves who despised his son and who wouldn't hesitate to eradicate every last trace of him from the village without needing any prompts from some tracker. But Kadai knew it was him. He knew it as surely as he knew the Cora would still be there come next morning.
Flaming bits of pelt and scorched canvass floated about their heads, carried by the wind and the heat of the fire. They touched down randomly, only to be stamped out by Wolven feet or buried under scooped handfuls of sand, and even this natural thing spoke to Kadai of his different son, always so different. His tent had the most space around it out of all the tents of the village, not because he wanted to be left alone, but because his neighbours didn't want to get too close to him, even as they slept. Looking at the gaps left open between the blackening husk of Ander's tent and all the others, it was the same as looking at the gap inside the mountain, that massive wall which could do nothing but separate, isolate, keep everyone apart. There wasn't even any danger of the fire spreading, and Kadai was ashamed to find himself thinking that maybe it would be better if it did. Let the fire spread and burn the whole village down. Let the ones who shunned his dosa his entire life feel what real pain is like.
But that was impossible. The space between the tents was too wide. Much too wide...
"Come on, Hezzi. I don't want to stay here any longer."
Hezzi didn't reply, but he allowed himself to be led away from the blackened, smoking remains of Ander's old life without any resistance. Together, they made their way through the footpaths, past Wolves that only gave them the briefest of glances, then quickly looked away, as if they were diseased.
He looked up and saw Shekka standing outside her witchdoctor tent, her gaze directed at the dying fire, but who knew if that was really what she was looking at? It was more likely she was just smelling all the smoke in the air. He didn't have the strength to talk to her right now. She's felt like a stranger to him for years, and after the things she did at Ander's trial, he couldn't even bear to look at her anymore. And yet...
Kadai stopped. She looked angry. No, furious. Is it because someone had set Ander's tent on fire? Did she have some semblance of maternal love left inside that untouchable heart of hers?
Kadai wondered if he should call out to her, or if he even could, but he wondered too long and she disappeared into her tent. What was going on with her? There was a time he could have followed her inside with no qualms at all, but now the thought of talking to her in that dark, fetid place of sickness and death, with her eyes glowing white in the gloom made his skin crawl. But he'd have to talk to her sooner or later. He'd have to...
Hezzi tugged on his arm.
"What is it, Hezzi?"
"I don't think you should go in there," he said, making Kadai jump on the inside. It was as if the pup had read his mind.
"Why do you say that?"
Hezzi looked at the doctor tent, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It's because she's mad at everyone. Not just you and Ander. Everyone."
"She's always mad at everyone."
Hezzi shook his head. "Not like this, Father. Not like this."
Kadia almost asked Hezzi to elaborate further, but then bit his tongue. He knew what the boy meant perfectly well.
They walked on in absolute silence, their footfalls -
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