Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 41
41
Dorin wasn't ready for this, but time had run out. There would be no more stalling, no more planning, and no more hesitating.
Wardo was in one of the northern watchtowers. From high up there he could look down on everyone, and force everyone down below to look up at him at the same time. He leaned over the railing and spread his arms wide, making his Chieftain's necklace shift against his scrawny, scar-riddled chest, and the Wolves, which had been deafening before, now erupted into cheers that could have been heard all the way to the Cora itself.
Enjoy it while it lasts, Dorin thought. For better or worse, your fun ends today.
"Wolves!" Wardo shouted, the symbol for 'Leier' glistening on his forehead.
Dorin shook his head in disgust. As if the giant gaudy necklace wasn't enough, he actually had to go and write 'Chieftain' all over his face? Really?
Drums, drums, drums... dozens of drums pounding together like a single heartbeat shared by a thousand, with the sound of stomping feet merging together with their voices, their screams of joy and shouts of mad ecstasy.
"Wolves, please! Let me speak!" Wardo yelled. He put on a show of signalling for quiet, but his giant, toothy grin betrayed how much he was loving it.
Just behind him, almost completely hidden by the sharp angle, was Shekka. She stood in complete silence, unmoving. Those pure white eyes of hers didn't even blink. She had drawn the symbols for 'Banno' across her left shoulder and 'Hezzi' across her right. Nothing for Ander, though.
The drums slowed down, and the wild cheers quieted.
"As you all know, I do not have any children of my own," Wardo said, "but I am your Chieftain, and a Chieftain is like a Father to his people. When I look upon you, standing ready to fight in the name of the Cora, I feel so proud to have you as my sons and daughters. I feel so proud to be your Father."
Wolves clapped and cheered and nodded their heads in agreement, but Dorin's attention was focussed on Shekka. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn he saw a flicker of anger spread across her face just then, a brief flash of the fangs.
"As the Father of this tribe," Wardo continued, beaming down at his 'children', "I must do what any Father would do. I must encourage you to be the absolute best you can be! Very soon, we will march through the mountain, through the Cora, through our most sacred God. With his blessing, and with the strength of our teeth and our claws, we will overcome any foe who dares to stand in our way!"
Some of the older warriors (the ones who had more than a mere three days of training under their belts) were starting to mingle with the crowd, distributing spears, axes, and clubs. Giddy pups, some of them barely old enough to hunt on their own, were taking up weapons, taking mock swings at each other, arguing over who would claim the most Fox heads. It was -
"Wonderful!" Wardo exclaimed, smiling so broadly his gums were on full display, two strips of red flesh bordering his saliva-slicked teeth, every bit as foul and frightening as the metallic biters lining the pit at the Cora statue's feet. "Truly wonderful! Such exuberance! Such excitement!" He leaned over the railing, edging out farther and farther until he seemed to be on the verge of tumbling right over. "Tell me, my children! If you find a Fox, what will you do with it?"
Most of the pups shied away from being addressed directly by the Chieftain, but one of them was braver than the others, and brandished his club high, yelling: "We're gonna kill 'em dead!"
This was met with thunderous cheers and a good deal of backslapping by his elders, nearly knocking the lad right off his feet.
Wardo, however, didn't seem satisfied. "Is that all, young one?" he inquired, his eyebrows raised. "Surely you can do better than that? If one of those redfurs comes running at you, screeching like an owl, swinging an axe over his head, what will you do?"
The pup hesitated, looking to his friends for help, and Dorin suddenly recognised him as Bertho's ensa, Tylin. By the Cora, that kid couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen summers! Did his father not know he was out here?
Dorin had no sooner finished that thought than Bertho himself came swaggering through the crowd to thump his son on the back. "Go on, boy!" he yelled, smiling from ear to ear. "The Chieftain wants to know what you'll do!"
Everyone was just fine with this, to send this kid to war? This kid who wasn't even old enough to be interested in girls yet? Everyone was happy with this!?
The old Dorin wouldn't have thought twice about it. The old Dorin would have cheered and clapped along with everyone else...
Animals...
Old Dorin? What do you mean by 'Old'? You were that animal barely a week ago...
Ivvi...
Does it make any difference to be the only sane one in a world of madness? If you're the only sane one, does that not make you the maddest of them all?
Animals of Madness...
I have to stop this... I have to...
Caught in the guard tower's shadow, with his friends and family cheering him on, Tylin raised the club - a hard, lumpy piece of ironwood - and swung it through the air, baring his fangs. "I'll smash his head!" he shouted triumphantly. Wolves jumped into the air, punching the sky, and Bertho gave his pup a good proud thump on the shoulder.
"Good!" Wardo screamed above the tumult. "What'll happen then? If your first blow doesn't finish it, what will you do?"
"I -" The noise died down, giving young Tylin absolute silence to answer the Chieftain's latest question. He licked his lips nervously and looked around, suddenly aware for the first time that everyone's eyes were on him. His fingers kept opening and closing, constantly trying to get a better grip on a weapon far too big for his adolescent hands. "I'll... hit him again?"
"Yes!!" Wardo bellowed, exultant. "You'll take that club and you'll smash it over his head! You'll split his scalp and crack his skull! You will hit him, again and again, as many times as it takes, and you will force the crack wider with every strike! You'll keep going and going until you can see all the way into his brain and his blood runs across the snow and melts it into a red slush and then you'll hit him again! You'll hit him until his face has been ground into the earth and your club is smeared with blood and fur and shards of bone! And then... then you'll move on to the next! And the next! And the next!" His voice was rising higher, his arms stretched out to the cloudy heavens. Dorin prayed that this monster would just flip over the railing and land in just the perfect way to snap his neck, but such extraordinary luck was too much to ask for. "You'll keep fighting until their forces lie scattered and broken at your feet! You'll keep fighting until you break through their ranks and you reach the village they failed to defend! You'll run through their paths, burning everything along the way! You'll keep fighting until you find some pups your own age, and you'll split their skulls as well! You'll keep fighting until you've had your fill! We all will! WE ALL WILL!!"
The drums flared up like a sudden crash of thunder. There was no rhythm, no beat. This was not music, it was simply a battering of noise, faster and faster, each drummer trying to outdo the others, their crazed pounding only outmatched by the voices of a thousand Wolves. Just like the chaos of the drums could not be called music, the noise erupting from the throats of his fellow Wolves could not be called cheering. There was no 'cheer' in this din, no joy, no happiness. This was screaming - a primal, feral screaming, something that had been locked up inside for generations finally coming out to sniff the air and taste of the flesh of this world.
Dorin touched the leaf wrappings around his arm, wanting to pray, but knowing it wouldn't do any good. The Cora was the only god they had, and the Cora was the sum of all the screams inside the heart of every Wolf. Praying to the Cora to stop this madness would be like praying to a fire to stop burning. The fire didn't want to stop. It wanted to keep burning, to grow larger, to consume everything it touched. If you want to kill a fire, asking it nicely won't do anything. To kill a fire, you have to do it yourself, with your own two hands. You have to smother it before it can get out of hand.
Dorin knew this. He understood it. He believed it. And yet, as Wardo and Shekka climbed down the ladder to join in with the undulating crowd, reaching for them with innumerable hands, he couldn't help but say a short prayer anyway. He did not know if there was some kind of entity somewhere besides the Cora who could hear him, or if it would care even if it did, but he prayed anyway.
These moments - the screaming of the Wolves, the drums, the glistening symbols of clay and blood, the gnashing of jaws and the paroxysms of bloodlust... none of them stood alone. All of them were doubled, a shadow of the exact same events that had happened before, two ends of time coming together to form an unbreakable knot.
Dorin looked to the double gates, more massive than they've ever been, their skulls balefully clacking against the wood, and he prayed...
He prayed that Ander would show up, just like last time, and stop this madness. He prayed that this burden would be taken from his shoulders and passed on to the Wolf who had carried it before. But the gates stayed shut and the skulls kept swinging in the breeze, their jaws opening and closing as if in laughter.
Dorin took a deep breath.
This is it. This may be the hour of my death, and although I still do not know what I intend to do, or how I can possibly make any difference, I will try my hardest. It is better this way, to die because I tried, instead of giving up.
Dorin slowly pushed his way to the front of the crowd, politely squeezing past hordes of jumping, shoving bodies. He reached them just as Wardo and Shekka stepped off the ladder. Shekka immediately retreated into the shadow underneath the tower, where there weren't any Wolves for her to bump into and trip over, but Wardo did the opposite. He walked into the crowd head-on, his arms spread wide as if to suck up all the adoration and worship through his very skin.
And that's when he saw his 'right hand Wolf', standing on the edge of the screaming hordes.
"Dorin, there you are!"
Dorin massaged his aching arm, moving his hand up and down, feeling the sickly warm metal shifting beneath the leaves.
"That wrist still giving you trouble?"
Dorin shook his head.
"Splendid! Are you ready to lead your warriors? Are you ready to be at the forefront of this day that shall be retold from generation to generation? Are you ready to become immortal, Dorin!? Are you ready to take all the life you want and live forever?"
Dorin shook his head. "No, Sai."
Wardo's smile fell. "No? What do you mean, 'no'? You had your three days! You'd better be ready, by the Cora, or I'll do this without you!"
"No, Sai. You won't."
The world became simpler in the moments following those words. There were still hundreds of Wolves all around them, and although Dorin was aware of them, they appeared as no more than shades at the edges of his vision. Their movements were slow, bland, colourless, and unimportant. On the surface, he knew that the noise was still there, but it simply washed over him, unheard. It was as if he and Wardo were all alone inside their own, private little bubble, where nothing else could intrude.
A frown slowly deformed the Chieftain's face, closing his eyes down to slits. "You need to be very, very careful, Dorin," he said, speaking softly. With all the noise, Dorin shouldn't have been able to discern any of it, but he could hear every syllable as clear as if they were standing out in the middle of a field of snow, all alone. "You stand at the edge of a precipice, and I do not say that to be flowery. You are literally on the verge of being the first to taste death by the Pit, or rather, the Pit is on the verge of tasting you." The corners of his mouth started to rise up and peel back. It was only a little, but his teeth were already showing. "It doesn't have to end that way, Dorin. There is still time for you. You can step up, be the warrior I know you are, and lead your people to victory. The spot is wide open. Right there..." Wardo's eyes flickered towards the gates, rising up into the endless sky. Dark clouds slowly sailed by on the wind, gray as bone ash. "All you need to do is open the gates and unleash the flood. My people, your people, can do the rest from there. It will be so easy, Dorin. So good. You can get your revenge on those betrayers. You can finish the hack job you started on Danado, make him bleed even more for his sins. But why stop there? Maybe, if you cut hard enough, you really can get at your father from beyond the veil of death itself. Make him howl for all he's done. But that's just for starters. What about that cocky bitch, Nilia? I'll let you tie her down and teach her a good lesson, make her understand her place in this world. That's what she gets for 'besting' you through such dishonourable trickery. What's fair is fair, wouldn't you say?"
Dorin didn't say anything. For a moment, Wardo's smile seemed to falter, but then it split wide open at the seams, like a gaping axe wound lined with fangs. "There is more, Dorin! Mellah, Sorrin, Renna, all of them! You can punish them as much as you want! And once their trial is over, I'll even let you push the second one into the pit. First one, of course, will go to me. I am the Chieftain, after all. That honour belongs to me."
Dorin still didn't say anything. In a way, he was as fascinated as he was repulsed. To think that, a mere week ago, Wardo's words would have been enough to sway him. What kind of a monster had he been? What kind of a monster was he looking at right now?
Wardo's face really was split by that monstrous smile of his. Below the line of his smile he seemed so happy, so cheerful, so carefree, like a Wolf about to sit down to a special dinner he'd been waiting for all day long, but above the zigzag line of his teeth, his eyes blazed with dark fire - furious, animalistic, demonic.
"What is wrong with you?" he asked. "I've felt it, Dorin. I've felt it for such a long time, even before you crawled back through those gates with your tail between your legs. Ever since the day you saved me, you've been acting strange. No, wait... that's not it..." He took a step closer, all eyes, staring him up and down, thinking he knew everything, but knowing nothing. "It was ever since you killed that treasonous bitch, Lana. That's it, isn't it? Something happened to you that day... Did you secretly like her? Can't say I blame you. She had nice legs, that one. Or maybe it's something else... Maybe you've lost your nerve? Maybe you're just a scared little kid who finally realises he can never fill the footprints his father left behind. Maybe you just -"
"This has nothing to do with my father," Dorin said. He made no effort to speak loudly, but he knew Wardo could hear every word. "This doesn't even have anything to do with you or me, or any lone Wolf. This has to do with everyone. Everyone."
Wardo shook his head, still wearing that hideous smile. "Don't do this, Dorin," he said. "Not now, not when we're on the verge of greatness. If you really want to have a nervous breakdown so badly, you can do it after we feast on the flesh of our enemies."
"Enemies? What enemies!? We've only seen a single Fox and all she ever did was curl up and cry! You don't care about friends or enemies, you just want blood!"
"I want blood because I'm a Wolf, just like you!" Wardo shouted. "We share the same home and history! The same family! The same blood! The same desires!"
"No, Chieftain. We may be Wolves, but we are not the same. You and I, we are very, very..." This is it. There will be no going back after this. "... different."
Wardo's smile melted away, giving birth to a look even more loathsome than his eternal, toothy grin. It was a look of pure disappointment. "I had such high hopes for you, Dorin," he said with a sigh. "And now, after everything I've done for you, after all the hardships you've faced, you're just going to throw it all away? And for what? Please, tell me, because I really want to know. What are you doing this for? What do you seek to gain? What could possibly be worth all the pain and suffering you're insisting on putting yourself through?"
What am I doing this for...? It was a question Dorin wasn't expecting. He looked down at his hands, covered in streaks of blood that only he could see, and the layers of leaves and animal grease wrapped around his arm, hiding even more. Was he doing this for himself? The Wolf he had tried to kill because he couldn't stand living inside this flesh a single day longer?
He looked at the Wolves all around him, pumping their fists at the sky, jumping for joy, all trapped inside the turbid flow of time, so much slower than it had any right to be, so slow he could even see the way their fur rippled upon landing.
These were the ones Lana had called animals, both in life and as a ghostly voice inside his own head, and animals they were.
Was he doing it for them?
He thought about the Wolves on the other side of the mountain, the ones who had shown him mercy when no other Wolves would, the Wolves who had forgiven him when he couldn't even forgive himself. Nilia, who had had every opportunity to pick off his men, one by one, but had chosen not to. Danado, who had pointed a dagger at the face of the one who had murdered his sister, but instead of thrusting it forward, had chosen to drop it instead.
Those Wolves... was he doing it for them?
Were they really so different from everyone else before this knot in time? Before Ander's trial had taken everything they knew and turned it upside down? Were they really? If he, Dorin, the one least deserving of mercy out of all the Wolves, could open his eyes and see what their world was turning into, what kind of disaster their own bloodlust was leading them to, then couldn't anyone? All these Wolves here, right now, they were not different. They were not different at all.
But they could be.
Dorin massaged his aching wrist, feeling the leaves crackle beneath his palm, and the long, warm caress of his last resort biting into his flesh. He looked Wardo in the eye, resolute in his answer. "I'm doing this, not for what we are, but for what we could be."
Wardo's grin was back, splitting his left cheek right through the middle, making his face seem dangerously uneven, unhinged, unbalanced. "You do realise you're going to die, don't you? Even if you win, you can't go against the will of the people. That is what it means to be a real Chieftain, boy. Making everyone else want what you want."
"And what do you want, Wardo? What do you really want?"
Wardo's eyes went comically wide. "What do I want? Are you seriously asking me that? I never once tried to keep it a secret from anyone, but fine, if you don't know by now, I'll be more than happy to tell you..." He closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath through his nostrils, taking in all the scents of joy, of wonder, of excitement, drinking up the atmosphere, making it a part of his very being. "What I want is..." His eyes flew open and his mouth cracked wide, revealing a gaping, smiling maw lined with rows of sharp teeth. "Fun, Dorin!" he shouted. "What I want is fun, plain and simple! And if I want fun, then I will make everyone want fun! And fun is exactly what we shall have! Right now!"
He walked into the crowd, his hands in the air, his monstrous smile bared for all to see. "Wolves!" he shrieked, and the queer slowing of time suddenly snapped back into its normal flow. The drums, which had sounded like a dozen dull heartbeats before, now sped up, going back into their chaotic frenzy, but Dorin knew that wasn't really true. The drums had been going all along, the Wolves had been jumping and cheering all along, the skulls had been clacking against the gates all along, the spearheads had been jabbing at the sky all along, reflecting the clouds as pools of silver and grey. He was the one changing. There is always a calm before a storm, and this was the calm in his own heart finally ending.
The storm was here.
"My people! My children! Listen to me!" Wardo bellowed, spinning in a slow circle. "Listen to your Chieftain! Listen to your Father! Dorin, the most esteemed leader of our warriors, the Wolf who will lead us into battle, wishes to speak!"
So this is how he plans to kill me, Dorin thought, watching as the crowd settled before his eyes. They stopped jumping, they stopped screaming, they stopped pumping their fists and stomping their feet. Like a field of tall grass after the gale had come and gone, there was no movement to be seen at all.
"Come on, Dorin," Wardo gestured him closer, towards the centre. "Too late to back away now. You knew the path would lead to this."
Dorin stepped forward, feeling very strange. There was nervousness, a small amount of nausea, and the start of a headache. All of those unpleasant things, yes, but no real fear. Compared to the gut-twisting terror he had felt when he realised Wardo was going to use him to assassinate a pair of defenceless Wolves locked in a cage, this was nothing. This was almost serenity.
Yes... this felt right. Even if he did die today, he could die with honour. His fellow Wolves wouldn't see it that way, but that didn't matter to him anymore. Honour was something you felt in your own heart, whether it was reflected in the eyes of those around you or not.
He stepped forward and a small circle of space opened up around him. He could feel their stares, thousands of eyes crawling all over him like a swarm of spiders. Just like Wardo, he could feel their excitement, their overwhelming anticipation. So many of them were holding their breath, eagerly anticipating a declaration of war that will finally send them on their way, through the gates and through the Cora and through whatever dark web they had spun around their own hearts.
They were waiting.
Dorin opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. His eyes darted to the gates one last time, and he desperately wished, no, he prayed, for time to repeat itself. He prayed that those gates would swing open and Ander would be standing there, somehow still alive, wearing that sad smile. He prayed that this cup could be taken from his lips and passed to another, _any_other...
But the gates stayed shut, and the skulls continued their mocking song, dancing in the breeze.
There will be no miracles today, except for the ones we make ourselves.
Dorin curled his hand into a fist and felt the wrappings tighten around his arm, reminding him of what it really meant to fight, of what it really meant to kill.
He pulled his eyes away from the gates and looked at the gathered crowd, at all the faces, young and old, staring back at him, all of them smiling.
"My people..." he said, not entirely sure what would happen, but knowing this was the only path left open to him. All others have been shut. "We must not go to war."
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