Her Mantle Upon Your Shoulders: Part 14

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*This story is from Old Age Canon. Some of the lore may have changed. Author: WinterAnswer

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Previous: Her Mantle Upon Your Shoulders: Part 13 | Continued: Her Mantle Upon Your Shoulders: Part 15

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Sequel to "His Shadow Upon Your Fate."

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The only thing to do was sleep.  Sleep...and forget, even for a brief moment.  Even when slits of sunlight shined through the shutters in the windows, Rupland would close his eyes to the world.  Dreams would come occasionally, but he was so exhausted now he hardly had them.  When he would awake, he would turn and reach across the bed.  He was always startled to find it empty.  Then he would remember and fall sick and full of sorrow at the same time when he did.  He had believed himself too weak to cry anymore, but when night drew near and Brunka clung to him to shed her tears into his fur, his sorrow resurfaced.

When sleep wouldn't come, father and daughter would lay abed throughout the day.  At times, they would hold one another and at others, they would separate and curl in on themselves, tails tucked between their legs.

Only five days had passed, but to both, it had felt like ages.  The keep's staff still refused to show Rupland his mate's remains, but at this point, he thought it best to stop asking.  By now, her fur would be shedding, flesh slacking, and her scent turning rancid.  He would not want to see her like that, cold and still, especially for the last time.  He would be bringing her bones back to Rellon.  She would be buried in northern soil, not here in southern sands.  Rupland was certain that is what she would've wanted.

Two days ago, Vok and a few others had come to give their regards.  The Grand General even had the courtesy to show sadness on his own face as if Akuna had been something more than a recent acquaintance.  When Rupland had said he wanted to leave as soon as possible, he found even their departure would be delayed.

"Sandstorms are ravaging the dunes," Vok had reasoned.  "It would be death to go out there now.  You both must stay before the trails are safe again."

"How long?" Rupland had asked with dismay.

"If the gods are merciful, a handful of weeks.  If they are trying, months."

Rupland fell silent at the news.  All he wanted to do was to start the journey home.  From there, he would try to plan out and secure his and his daughter's future.  He was glad to have many friends at Rellon, but...he still felt lost without Akuna.

"You and your cub may stay here as long as you must," Vok had told him.  "Food and sustenance are a word away and do not fret about the requests your mate had put in.  They will surely accompany you on your way home."

No matter how many wagons full of food, water, weapons, and armor are given, nothing will fill the emptiness etched into our hearts, Rupland thought with grief.  Those at Rellon will be glad to have their much needed supplies, but who will weep for the mother, mate, and captain they had lost?  Who will pay tribute to her, say their thanks, or show their gratitude?  Rupland didn't know.  All that was left for him to do was to see that their daughter was made strong and skillful, fit and ready for the days to come after this.

Along with Vok, three others had come.  The shaggy-furred male, the Master Strategist, who had brought the news of Akuna's demise, had given his condolences, stating the clan was weaker without such a grand soldier.  Another male, thicker with muscle, came forward and bowed his head to give his pity and ask if Rupland desired a picture to be drawn in his mate's honor, so he might remember her as she was.  He had thought to say no, but quickly reconsidered.

"Do it for my daughter.  I don't want her to forget her mother's face."  Brunka had held on to him, staring at the visitors as if they were intruders.

Then a female approached, very tall and slightly thin, but still endowed with hard muscles.  Her muzzle was sharp, as were her eyes.  Her blue fur seemed abnormally light.  Vicris, Rupland remembered.

"Akuna had been a great friend to me for these past days," the pit fighter had told him with hooded eyes.  "She had been a greater friend than some I had known for years.  To know she is gone...because of what happened...I know it must pain you more than I can fathom.  Stand strong for her, grow to become what she knew you could be."

She leaned in close, placing her nose near Rupland's ear.  "When your sorrows are heavy, come find me.  I know at times like these, needs are great."

Rupland could only bow his head gratefully and thank them for their sympathy before they took their leave.  Yet, he had not found their words uplifting or Vicris's offer comforting.  It only made the fact that Akuna was gone all the more agonizing.  And now as he laid there atop the sheets, his daughter sleeping soundly next to him, thinking how the only things he had left of Akuna was his memories and her rotting remains.

Then came another thought.  No, he realized.  There are other remains too.  He lifted from the bed slowly, careful not to wake Brunka, and crept to the corner of the room where Akuna's armor was piled up at.  Rupland knelt and looked at all the pieces, sunlight shining dulling on the iron.  Helmet, leggings, gauntlets, shoulder plates, and tail-armor were all there, cold and quiet.  Her sword and dagger were there too, axe propped up against the wall.

Rupland picked up and examined the helmet.  His fingers ran over the deep scratches, gashes, and dents in the iron, wondering which were from claws, blades, or a blunt strike.  He imagined her encased in all those metal pieces, ready for battle, ready to maim their enemies.  She hadn't even wore it once here, Rupland realized, even though she had wanted to for their first feast.  You would have been safer if you had come here first to prepare, he thought, instead of running off without one plate to protect your hide.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he tried to push them back, but they were already wetting his cheeks.  Placing the helmet back with the rest of the armor, he then turned to the chest found at the foot of their bed.  Opening it, he found their clothes inside carefully folded.  His hands dug through the cool fabrics, wadding through his clean kilts and Brunka's little skirts.  Finally, he found one of Akuna's veils, one tattered with years of being worn.  He studied it like the helmet, noticing the rough texture, the lovely deep red of it.  Putting the veil to his nose, he inhaled deeply.  His eyes closed, his mind awash with thoughts of her.  Her scent, he thought thankfully.  It still has her scent.

With the veil wrapped around his neck, he took to his bed again, Brunka moaning slightly.  He closed his eyes, his head against the mattress, nose tickled with the smell of Akuna.

The veil evoked a dream.  A strange and unpleasant one.  They were upon the northlands, their faraway home.  Grass was beneath their feet, tickling their pads as a cold wind swept over them, manes whipping around their heads.  The sun was setting, casting strange colors across the sky.

In Rupland's hands, Akuna was smaller than Brunka, smaller than a babe.  Smiling down at her, he watched as she wiggled out of his grasp and scurried across the grassy plain like a cub at play.  Then...she was gone, disappeared.

"Akuna?" Rupland rose up with alarm, looking to and fro for her.  "Akuna?"

He ran about, searching, finding nothing.  He went to his knees, hands weaving through the thick grass and found nothing again.

"Akuna!" he said with panic in his throat.

A tiny help' spoke up.  It was faint, but he could hear it.

"Akuna?" he said again.

"Rupland!  Help!"  Louder this time and he followed it.

He was crawling across the ground, searching desperately as the clouds darkened above his head.  Thunder rolled down from the heavens.

"Rupland, help me!"  Then he found her, stuck in a hole deep in the earth.  He reached in, but could not get her out.  Her little hands touched his fingers, but he could not go any deeper.  "Please, Rupland!"  She was weeping, whimpering, her voice full of terror.

"I'm trying," he said, trying to keep his own fear under control.  He began to dig, taking handfuls of dirt away.

That is when the rain came down.  Not drop by drop, but as a shower falling from the clouds.  The water was flowing, filling the hole.  Akuna was screaming and weeping at the same time.

Rupland dug faster, the dirt turning to mud in his hands, matting in his fur.  She can't swim, he knew.  She will die!  He dug and dug and dug, but couldn't get at her as the rain fell more and more, filling the hole.

Akuna was gargling, choking while the rain kept coming down.  Rupland listened helplessly to her drowning cries, his hands reaching but coming out with nothing.  Then he realized.  Rain.  Water from the sky.  I haven't seen it in years.  Not here in the Sailzane.  The dream became mist in his mind then, his eye snapping open.

The sound of rain was still in his ears when he lifted from the mattress, remembering everything.  He looked to his daughter curled on the sheets, perhaps dreaming her own nightmares.  It was still day, but the room seemed too dark, too cramped for Rupland.  I need to go, he thought as he found his crutch and limped for the door.  I need to go somewhere, the gardens, anywhere but here.  Just for a moment.  As he opened the door, he paid his cub one more look.

"Brunka?" he asked, her tiny back turned to him.  "Brunka?"  The child was silent, but breathing. He closed the door behind him and began down the hall.

###### =====================================================================

Brunka was dreaming of her mother.  In her mind, the city's buildings loomed over her like black towers.  Too tall to climb, too tall to see their tops hidden in the dark skies.  She was running through the streets, dead and rotting things filling the gutters.  The air was full of snarling curses and she knew whom they came from.  Her mother's tongue was as sharp as her blades, Brunka surely knew as she paced down street after street, looking for her like her father had told her to.

I want to help, she thought even though she had no weapon, no armor and was but a child.  But I need to help she thought again.  I have to!  She was afraid, the fear turning her arms into weak twigs, but she pressed onward as if she didn't know what fear was.

Then she found her in the town square.  Her mother was in full armor, her axe in hand, ready to cleave the foes circling her.  But she wasn't quick enough to hit them.  They would always dance away from her strikes, laughing and growling.  When she saw how many there were, all of Brunka's courage left her.  Now she stood paralyzed, watching as the southerners lurked around her mother.

One of the southerners' fur shined brightly like the sun.  Another's was as dark as mud, falling off of him in filthy clumps.  Then there was one who had fur like fire, his hide coated with flames of red, blond, and white.  That was the southern champion who had won at the Blood Pool, Brunka realized, and grew even more afraid.

They were jumping at Akuna, howling and biting at her.  Their teeth chewed at her armor and tore it away to reveal the soft, gray fur underneath.  When all of her armor was gone, they began to tear at flesh, blood washing down her mother's hair, pooling at her feet.  Her gray eyes turned to her daughter and she could see anger mixing with her fear.

"Brunka, help me!" she pleaded, throwing her axe towards her.  It clattered at Brunka's feet, but when she reached to pick it up, it was too heavy to lift.

"I can't..." her daughter told her, weeping.  "I can't, mother!"

"No, you can, you fool!" her mother yelled as the southerners came at her all at once.  Their teeth and claws dug in and ripped into her as Brunka watched.  She listened to her mother's curses turn to roars of pain before she finally awoke.

When she did, she quietly sobbed, curling in on herself.  Her mother had been strong.  Harsh, but strong and that made Brunka feel safe from the dangers of the world.  But she had not been strong enough to survive the attack.  And I'm just a little cub, she thought with tears in her eyes.  How am I to survive?  Her father had been strong too, but not as strong as her mother.  Now, he had a limp and a crutch, not a strong step and a sword.  But unlike mother, he had survived an attack by the southerners and that made her feel just a little safer.

Before long, Brunka found sleep again and no dreams came this time.  Only sleep and silence.  But it was soon interrupted.  She felt her father leave the bed and move about the room.  The tap of his crutch came, moving away and towards the door.  She heard it open.  She gave no sign that she was awake.

"Brunka?" her father called, but she remained as still as a leafless tree.  Her back was to him, her father unaware of her opened eyes.  "Brunka?" he asked again before he left, the door closing quietly.

She was alone now in their shady, cool chambers, watching dust float through the slits of sunlight cast from the stuttered windows.  She moved around the mattress to where her mother had slept only a few days before and laid there.  Pressing her nose to the sheets, she could smell her still.  A musk that made her feel warm and secure, full of violent might.  Her little hands caressed the sheets, her muzzle rubbing against them, but they were nothing compared to the thick forest of fur and fluff on her mother's chest and belly.  For a long time, Brunka just laid still, pretending her mother was on the bed with her, breathing as soundly as she was.

There was a knocking at the door, a noise that started the little cub.  Her eyes turned wide, fearful of whom lurked beyond.  There was a voice, somewhat familiar, but she did not know who was speaking her father's name.  Whoever it was, they didn't leave when there was no answer.  Instead, they pressed inwards and showed themselves in.

With her fur bristling, Brunka stood up on the bed, not sure if she would attack or scurry away when she saw the intruder.  The door opened wide to reveal...Zulca.  The child's fear settled, but her eyes were still wide and staring.

"Ah," the High Officer said as he looked around the room as if Rupland were hiding behind the door.  "Where might your father had gone, little one?" he asked, his hand still on the door's latch.

"I don't know," Brunka's ears dipped as her knees went to the bed.

"Why did he leave?" the older sergal then asked, walking into the room.

"I don't know," she said again, lowering her muzzle.

"Ah, a man cannot be faulted for wanting some time to himself, especially after such...tragedy."  Zulca looked to her, but she did not meet his gaze.  She only stared down at the sheets, claws playing with the wrinkles.  "Might you like to come with me?" he then asked.  She looked at him then.  He was smiling, his blue eyes giving a long stare.

She shook her head sheepishly.

"Oh, now, a child shouldn't be cramped up in here like this," he waved his hand around.  "How many days have you and your father confined yourselves to this room?  Days, I know, and it will do you no good.  Come and I will find you a treat to eat."

Brunka didn't say anything.  Her eyes wandered from the High Officer to the wooden plank floor under him, unsure of what to say.

"I shouldn't..." she tried to say.

"Ah, your father, yes," Zulca cut in.  "You need not worry.  I will return you before he comes back."

Again, Brunka was silent, fidgeting nervously.

"Come, child.  The air is much nicer outside."

How long until he just pulls me from the bed, she asked herself, feeling there were no choice.  Dutifully, she lifted from the bed and joined him at the door.

"Stay close, child," Zulca said as they both exited out into the hallway, the door shutting behind them.  "I know you must be cautious, especially after what happened.  If you are frightened, you may hold my hand with yours."  His hand opened to her.  Brunka looked at his pads and saw they were dry and callous, like her mother's.  Her own hand lifted up and placed itself in his palm.  The High Officer's fingers enclosed, more of his smile showing as he lead her through the keep.

###### =====================================================================

The gardens will not settle my heart, Rupland thought as he limped from hall to hall.  And neither will the common hall with Roko squad.  Mino would surely make a jest that would make Rupland likely to snap the bastard's muzzle sideways.  He felt it would be better to remain alone.

Wandering without direction, Rupland found little delight within any room he came upon.  He would linger in open studies near cold hearths, but soon he would be traveling again, limping with his crutch.  Down and up he went carefully, avoiding his comrades' stares.  Three females had watched him go by and laughed at his back, but it mattered little to him.  His mind was foggy, as if he were not truly awake.  He tried not to think upon the thoughts that had haunted him these past few days.  Instead, he tried to focus on the here and now:  the dull pain in his muscles, the sunlight that warmed his fur when he passed a window, the dry odors that decorated every hall.
Rupland was ready to turn back for his chambers when he came to an open door that lead out onto a balcony.  Outside and below was a view of the river.  He noticing how the smell of water mixed with the other oders in the air.  His eye took in the scene:  The monstrous red and yellow canyon walls to both sides, the black Narulus looming above, the blue river snaking through the canyon.  He heard and watched the dock workers of the harbor below.  Watching them on their daily trials, Rupland wished he had some work to do.  Or the body to get that work done.  He felt so useless waiting here with the sandstorms raging while his comrades at Rellon were staying hard and ever busy.  He envied them but his envy was nothing when compared to his sorrow.

He wanted to yell out, with wrath, with sadness, with self-pity, and all the other emotions raging within him.  He was ready to give a howl before he noticed someone small at his hip.  Brunka, he thought when he turned but was met with a different face.  Fur the color of rain clouds, a narrow muzzle and dark slate eyes while his daughter possessed a lighter color.  It was one of her friends, the smallest girl.

"Hello," said the cub as she came up next to him.

Rupland looked around, but did not see the other cubs.  "Hello," he said back flatly.

"How is Brunka?"  She looked down to the ground, clicking her claws together nervously.

"She is...as well as she can be..."  Rupland looked away and down to the canyon river, his eyes tracing it's path through rock and mud.

"Does she still cry?" the little girl then asked.

The question was odd, but as a father, Rupland knew cubs were likely to ask odd questions.  He answered as best as he could.

"From time to time.  I can hear her at night beside me, weeping...and sometimes she reaches for me to hold onto."  Gods, why am I telling you this, he thought as he scratched at his neck awkwardly.

"I cried a lot too when I lost my mother," the cub confessed.  When Rupland turned to look at her, she was watching him, a slight melancholy in her gaze.  "I cried until I had no more tears."

His mouth opened then closed, unsure of what to say.  Then it opened again.  "How did she die?"

"She died in a tavern.  She got drunk and fought with some people.  They killed her."  Her words were unwavering, without sadness or disgust, but there was shame.

"Oh..., I'm sorry," was all he could say.  A northerner killed by northerners.  No gallant death, no fierce enemy, not even on a battlefield.  To die drunk and in a tavern was not a proud death.  "Who watches over you now?" he asked.

"My father," said the girl.  She turned to the ledge, stood on her toes, and looked down at the river over the crenel like Rupland was.  "He doesn't like to though.  He would rather talk with his soldier friends and fight with them.  Do you like Brunka?"  She was looking at him again, her tone serious.

The question struck Rupland strange, but he had to remember he was talking to a cub.  "Of course I do.  She is my daughter.  She is my cub.  I love her."

"Good," the child said lowly, seemingly relieved.  "She will love you too then.  I hope she will feel better soon.  Perhaps I can help her feel better since she is motherless too now."  The cub turned away from him and made to leave the balcony, but not before paying one more glance at him.  "Tell Brunka I said hello."

"I shall," Rupland said.  The cub ran off out of sight then, paying him a farewell and him to her.  When she was gone, for a long while he stood there looking over the river, down at the docks and it's workers.  He listened to the wind make sounds against the stones as it blow through the keep.  The noise of the city above could also reach him, but it was just light echoes in his ears.

Soon, he began to weep.  His hands came up to hold his face, tears wetting his pads.  He was so afflicted that spittle ran out of his mouth and onto the stone ledge.  He prayed no one would find him. Thankfully no one did as his tears came and went, his sadness spiking and then retreating.  When he calmed, he thought it best to head back to their chambers.  As he exited off the balcony, he thought perhaps Akuna would be back from her daily duties.  Then he remembered.

Back to the cool, dark insides of the Narulus he went.  When passing a guard posted at a door, Rupland saw the guard turn towards him.

"My apologies for your loss," he said suddenly, sparking Rupland's confusion.

"Do I know you?" he asked, turning towards the young male.  He found himself jealous as he sized him up, noticing the hard muscles underneath his fur and his strong standing posture.

"No, I suppose you don't," said the guard with both hands on his spear.  "I had been the one to chastise that Captain Vosgoloma by Blax's request."

"Oh," Rupland thought, bowing his head.  "My thanks goes to you."

The guard nodded unsmilingly.  "Keep strong for the cub," he told him.  "She must be fragile after so many incidents.  I know it would weigh heavy on me if I were her."

"Yes," Rupland nodded.  "Yes, it would be for me as well."  Nothing more was said between the two as they parted ways, but the guard's words still rung loudly in Rupland's head.  Keep strong for the cub, he kept hearing.  Keep strong for the cub.  He then found himself waiting before the door of his chambers, his hand hovering before the latch.  The words came again.  Keep strong for the cub.  His head lifted up, muzzle leveling, back straightening, the muscles in his legs tensing.  He stood at his full height, no longer leaning on his crutch.  Finally, he removed the sadness from his eyes and made his face stern.  I will do it all for you, my cub.  His hand wrapped around the latch.

He opened the door and walked in, but instead of finding Brunka curled up on the bed, he saw only wrinkled sheets.  His head whirled about, searching, but did not find his daughter.

"Brunka?" he asked the silence inside the room and received no answer.  The fear seized him immediately.

###### ======================================================================

High Officer Zulca was kind enough to give Brunka two cup treats while he ate only one.  One was a lemon cake and the other was coca-bread sprinkled with chocolate shavings.  They were mouthwatering delights in Brunka's hands, but she didn't have the appetite to enjoy them.  And yet she nibbled and licked at both, hoping not to offend Zulca for his kindness.

"How do they taste, child?" Zulca looked down at her, grinning.  They were strolling through the keep's halls, Brunka unaware of where they were going.

"They are good," Brunka answered, finishing the lemon bread treat with one last swallow.  "Thank you again."

"It is my honor," Zulca told her, giggling, but Brunka didn't know at what.  "Which do you like the most?"

"The lemon one," she said without much joy as she chewed into the coca-bread one now.  I'm hungry, she realized as she finished it and wished there was more.  She desired some meat in her stomach now, but was too afraid to ask the High Officer for another trip to the kitchens.  So they kept walking through the hallways, Zulca leading Brunka down each by the hand.  His grip was firm, but not painful, his pads rough.  Just like her mother's, Brunka remembered, but when the thought of her mother came, she could feel the tears well in her eyes.  She swallowed hard and quickly thought of something else before they could be seen.  Nevertheless, the High Officer noticed.

"You are shaking, child," he said, squeezing her hand.  "Are you afraid?"

She tried to calm herself, but couldn't stop shaking.  She swallowed hard again, pushing her sorrow down into her stomach.  "No."

"Ah, no, you wouldn't be.  No, you are a strong Shigu warrior, aren't you?  Fearless and proud."  Brunka looked up to his face and saw his ever present smile as his blue eyes watched her.  "Come, I want to show you something that will heighten your spirits."

Through the shuttered windows, Brunka could hear shouting outside.  There were many voices too, a crowd even, she could guess.  Up ahead, the walls and ceiling of the keep ended and they walked out into the sunlight and open air.  The heat came down on them freely, warming their fur.  They were on a battlement, Brunka realized.  To her right, more of the keep's wards and towers loomed high above and to her left was the open courtyard below.  There was much action to be seen.

Everywhere, soldiers were training.  With bows and spears, swords and daggers.  Even with their hands and feet.  Brunka remembered the first feast they had attended here and watching the troops dance in formation with torches in their hands.  She remembered staring with wonder at their precision, at the sureness of their steps and the shapes they had made together as one, thriving mass.  Even with the chaos below, there was still order.  Everyone had a squad, everyone had their place.  There were those that watched and learned, those that fought and tried.  There were so many of them, so much hollering and noise.  Brunka just stood and watched the huge throng of training Shigus.

"I know you must be afraid, child," Zulca said next to her, leaning with his elbows on the edge of the battlement.  "Your mother was a stout woman.  She was brazen, but she was brave too.  Now that she is gone, the clan will not be the same.  But you, child, you are still with us.

"You're so young and yet I see that warrior's glimmer in your eyes.  I see it in all my troops.  They are mothers and daughters, women like you.  They have been through much and more like you, had loved ones taken from them by the southern beasts.  But they took their sorrow, which I know must pain you greatly, and turned it into a bloodthirsty fury.  No longer do they weep, no longer do they cower in fear.  Now, they make the southern beasts weep and cower and bleed."

The High Officer reached and grabbed Brunka's hand again, squeezing it tightly in his large palm.  "Your mother...would not want you to weep for her.  She would rather you strike out at the ones that maimed her and avenge her.  You still have that chance and you are welcome to include yourself among mine own squad.  Would you like that?  Hmmm, child?"

With fear, Brunka looked away and stared at the thriving mass of Shigu squads.  For a moment, she watched them twist and twirl, spar and stun.  She considered the offer, her fingers wiggling in Zulca's grasp.  She tried to find the anger he spoke of, the fury in her heart.  But it was not there.  There was nothing.  Nothing, but the tender sadness that afflicted her so for days.

"I...don't know," she finally said to the High Officer.  "I...I'm...ummm."  Tears were welling in her eyes again, afraid of how Zulca would react if she declined.

Zulca squeezed her hand once more and Brunka looked up at him.  "You need not decide now, child.  Think on it and know there is no wrong answer.  Know my offer is always within reach and I shall always welcome you within my ranks if you decide to join us."  His words were gentle, not rough like his palms.  That made Brunka less scared.  She nodded.  The High Officer only grinned, lead her off the battlement, and back from where they came.  "Let's return to your room.  Gods know your father must be worried now if he has returned.  I shall take the blame if he is cross."

From there, Zulca lead Brunka through the halls and up the stairs, strolling at a relaxed pace.  But up ahead, when they turned the corner, they came face-to-face, for Brunka face-to-crotch, with the pit fighter, Vicris.  She seemed just as surprised as Zulca with the chance encounter.  She was plainly clad, wearing a lone, purple skirt whose fabric was soiled with the day's dirt.

"Ah, High Captain Vicris, how might you be doing?" the High Officer asked, smiling the ever wider.

"Quite fine," Vicris answered in a less happy tone, frowning at Zulca before her eyes went to Brunka.  Only then did her eyes take on a different, sadder expression.  It only stayed for a brief moment before he eyes snapped back to Zulca, her face now showing anger.  "What might you be doing with Akuna's cub?"

"We were only walking the keep together.  She and her father have been cramped up in their chambers for so long, I thought it would be a delight for the child to stretch her legs and unwind her tail for a chance."

"Truly?"  The pit fighter gave him a dubious look.  "Nothing else?  Nothing that would be unbecoming of someone like you?"

Brunka looked up to Zulca's face as his brow wrinkled.  "What might you be accusing me of, High Captain?"  He spat out the rank as if it were rotten.

"Nothing, but there are a handful of those that would call it perverted.  Some in your very squad.  You should be keeping your fingers to yourself and...your sword in it's scabbard."

"Brunka should not be hearing this," Zulca suddenly said, his grip becoming tighter around the cub's little hand.  "What I do with my own squad is my business alone and besides, my methods are clean and impec-"

Vicris took a step closer towards them.  "You should leave little Brunka alone, Zulca.  Don't come near her again.  She is just a child..."  Her tone was harsh, her volume low.

"And where do you presume to command me, Vicris?  Hmmm?  Especially of someone above your rank?"  The High Officer's own voice was growing louder, his face stirring with rage.

"You should be very grateful for what we tolerate from you.  You and your...initiations.  But a child?  Show some modesty and leave now."

"I shall," he said moving around Vicris with Brunka in tow, "but this is not a matter that will go away-"

Vicris's arm grabbed after his neck and Zulca released Brunka's hand.  The cub herself retreated a distance from the argument.  The High Officer made a choking sound and then yelped as he was thrust against the wall.  Vicris's fingers were digging deep into his throat, but not her claws which were certainly out.

"If I see you near the child again," she said through a snarl, "I'll bring my concerns to the Grand General and I'll be the one to cut your stones off and squeeze them into muss before your very face."  High Officer Zulca stumbled away when he was released, holding his throat and coughing as he strung curses together.

Vicris watched him leave and once he was out of sight, she turned back to Brunka to find her shaking uncontrollable in a corner in the wall.  She was trying desperately to hold back her tears, whimpering.

The tall female before her knelt, frowning with a quiet sorrow in her eyes.  "I'm sorry for that, child.  Brunka, yes?  Am I saying that right?"

Brunka nodded, but it was nothing more than another shaking movement.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?  No scratches or cuts?"

Brunka shock her head, holding herself.  Vicris noticed her resistance, the tenseness in her body.

"You're trying not to cry."  She seemed bewildered.  Her hand found one of the cub's own while the other came up to stroke Brunka's silken mane.  "Why are you trying not to cry?"

She thought on what her mother used to say to her.  "B-b-because warriors...d-don't cry."

"No, little one," the pit fighter told her.  "Warriors do cry.  All warriors do.  Even I do."

That seemed strange to the cub, but it didn't sound like a lie.  Her reluctant began to ease back.

"You need not hold back your tears, Brunka.  They are meant to come out."

Brunka's resolve crumbled.  She leapt forward to have her arms wrap tightly around Vicris's neck.  She buried her face deep in there, the tears flowing like a river while her sobs rocked through her small frame.  Her sadness was unbiddened, even in the presence of this fighter whom she had seen kill without flinching.  She had never seen her mother kill anyone except bugs and little lizards for them to eat and share.  But this one was not angered with her tears.  She did not strike or yell at her.  Her hands only held her.  For a long moment, Brunka stayed there, held within this pit fighter's arms, pretending her mother was alive and whole again.

After awhile, her tears subsided.  Vicris walked with Brunka now, holding her hand more gently than Zulca had.  They spoke quietly with each other as they made their way to Brunka's chambers.

"Why were you angry with the High Officer?" Brunka asked, still confused about what had happened just a moment ago.

Vicris grumbled to herself, looking to be in deep recollection.  "The High Officer was...being a fool.  A grand fool at that.  He loves his squad, he loves his troops.  Perhaps too greatly.  And he's always looking to boost his numbers.  But his methods as an officer are unorthodox.  It's best that you keep your distance from him.  If he speaks to you again, tell me.  Understand?"

"Yes, but...he offered me to join his squad.  And I...wanted to."  The child looked up to the pit fighter cautiously, clenching her big hand tighter.

The High Captain looked down at Brunka thoughtfully before turning her eyes back down the hall they were strolling through.  Again, she grumbled.  "Not in Zulca's.  You would regret joining his squad."  For a moment, Vicris grew silent, her lips pursing before she spoke again.  "Better that you join mine."

That took Brunka by surprise.  "You would let me?"

"Well...without your mother, it would be ungracious of me to allow a cub as young as you to go without a fine trainer.  And I know your father must still be healing, both his body and mind from all these...incidents."  The pit fighter took in a lungful of air.  "Yes, my squad is the best option for you.  Your mother was a great friend and a fearsome soldier.  I would be honored to have her child among my ranks.  That is if your father permits such."

"I will ask," Brunka said, hoping with all her heart.

###### ======================================================================

Rupland's heart was full of panic.  He clambered down the stairs haphazardly, half-limping and half-running from hallway to hallway.  He howled and his voice echoed off the stone walls.  Bewildered and annoyed faces poked through opened doors, but none could aid him.  His head whirled about, unsure of which way to go.  He spun around and went back the way he came, hoping with great desperation.

"Brunka!" he screamed.  "Brunka!  Brunka!  Brunka!  Please, Brunka!  Where are you?"  He felt nauseous with fear, his limbs filling with a nervous tremble.

He happened upon a guard patrolling the halls and the female instantly noticed his haste.  Rushing towards her, Rupland could hardly find the words to convey his alarm.  "Please, please, help me," he stammered, pulling at the guard's red tunic, claws digging into the fabric.  "I need your help.  Please.  I need to find her.  My daughter, please, she is gone.  I can't find her.  Please!"

The guard pulled back, slapping away his grabbing hands.  "Enough, you welp!" she yelled back.  "Take a hold of yourself.  Raving, damned fool!"  She was visibly agitated, patting down the winkles in her tunic.  She looked at him as if he were a mad vagrant that somehow got past the gates.  Rupland couldn't blame her if she thought such.  He felt so pathetic standing there with his crutch at his side, his breathing erratic, and tears welling in his eyes.  I was a soldier like you, he thought, but now I'm a broken widower searching for my only daughter.

"Please, help me find my daughter," he told her again.  His tone was begging.  "Please, she's around here somewhere.  I don't know where, but please help me find her."

The guard's expression turned from apathy to hard concern, but it was a slow transition.  "What does she look like?  What is her name?"  Her hand tightened around her spear, eyes filling with a sense of duty.

"She is gray-furred, small, a girl, short, gray-eyes," Rupland rattled off, his heart continuing to thump powerfully in his chest.  "Her name is Brunka.  She's my only child.  I left her in my room, but when I came back, she-"

It was as if the gods, the same ones that had neglected to protect him and his family from northerner and southerner alike, decided now to bless him with a small mercy.  From out of the corner of his eye, a pair of northerners came into view from down the hall, one being of miniature size.  His head immediately turned, his eyes locking with the cub's as the words caught in his throat.  He saw her and the child saw him.  The guard was forgotten, along with the pain in his legs and his crutch.  Rushing, he collapsed before his child, hands snatching her up and into his arms.  He held her close and strongly, squeezing the air out of her as the tears came leaking through.

"Don't do that," he sobbed, clinging to her as if he would lose her again at any moment.  "Don't, don't, don't!  Don't go anywhere.  Please, don't!"  His eyes were squeezed shut and he could feel her weeping too, feel her shake against him, her arms wrapped around his neck.

"I'm sorry," she cried.  "I'm sorry I went.  I'm sorry."  She buried her nose where his neck and shoulder met, wiping her tears into his fur.  Her claws were digging painfully into his back, but Rupland could hardly feel it.

"The child shouldn't be faulted," a voice said.  When Rupland looked through his hazy eye, he could see Vicris looming over them.  She neither smiled nor frown, but her eyes were sad.  Rupland took it for pity.  "Zulca came and took the child for a treat.  You would think the fool would have waited to have your leave, but he was never known for his common sense."

"Yes," was all that Rupland could find to say.  "Yes."

"Would it be best to find your room?" asked the pit fighter.

"Yes," Rupland repeated.  "Yes."

Father and daughter were silent as they found their way back to their chambers with Vicris taking up the rear.  Brunka held his hand tightly with one hand while the other wrapped around his wrist.  Such strong hands for a cub, he noticed.  I hope to make them stronger, he thought as he opened the door to their chambers.

"You have all my thanks, Vicris," Rupland told the pit fighter with all the grace he could muster.  "Please forgive my...distress, I didn't know."  I should be apologizing to the female guard for clawing at her tunic, feeling a mixture of shame and regret at the memory.

"The gods can omit a moment of distress for someone who has been through so much," Vicris told him, her expression staying neutral.  "I also had a need to speak with you.  About your daughter."

"Oh?" Rupland said, his eyes staring with concern.  "What might it be?"

"Zulca asked for your daughter to join his squad.  While your cub did have an interest, I thought it would be better if the child would join my own squad.  The child is willing and she is still growing."  She paused, taking a sidelong look at Brunka.  The child watched from the bed inside their room.  "And with what happened with your mate, it would be a great shame to delay her training."

Rupland was struck silent, unsure of what to say.  His mouth opened and then closed, muzzle pointing downwards.  "I'm not certain...I could...but she..."

The cub took up his slack.  "I want to go," she told her father, sitting up.  "To train with her."  There was a determination in the cub's eyes, Rupland noticed.  That same strong leer that her mother gave.  Once Akuna had her teeth in something, she wouldn't let go.  How can I refuse her, her father thought.

"Aye," he said.  "Akuna disliked neglecting her training.  Perhaps it will be good for her to hone her skills again.  Gods know I need the same.  But...I need to discuss this with her.  It might be too soon..."

"Please, father," Brunka spoke up.  "Please."

"We will discuss it," he snapped at her and saw her ears dip.  Forgive me, child.  I'm not so certain about this.

"You have until the morning comes," Vicris said.  "I'll be sending someone to knock at your door and retrieve Brunka if the answer is yes.  If not, there need be no shame attached."  She turned to Brunka on the bed, her eyes taking on a serious glare.  "You be sure to be out of your sheets by then if your father permits it.  I will not be waiting for you."

The cub's ears dipped slightly, but she nodded nevertheless as if Akuna herself had given the command.

"And once you no longer need your bandages," Vicris smiled when she turned back to Rupland, her eyes wandering over his body, "I could give you a few private lessons myself."

That gave Rupland a rise, but when it did, shame filled him instantly.  Am I that disloyal of a mate to be thinking of mounting this fighter with Akuna's death not so long ago?  He quieted his shame and the lust in his heart as best as he could.  "Might be I-I take those lessons," he said awkwardly.

"Come to me when you do," Vicris smirked.   Remember.  In the morning.  Aye or no."

"I'll have your answer then," Rupland reassured the pit fighter.

Once Vicris was gone and the door was closed, a silent moment passed between father and daughter.  Would Akuna want it like this, Rupland asked himself but didn't truly know the answer.  How fond of Vicris was my mate?  Would she rejoice or despair at the prospect of the pit fighter training her daughter?  Gods, I wish I were home, surrounded with the company of my friends.  With Budio and Niyi and all others.  Perhaps Kusno and Drig are at Rellon at this very moment, returned from their long trek to the north.

He dreaded the moment he would have to tell them all of what had befallen Akuna.  Budio would be greatly sadden for his sake, giving his sympathies and his well wishes.  Niyi would do the same, her jesting tone thankfully gone for the moment.  He didn't truly know how Kusno would react.  Perhaps his rage would spark, cursing the murderous southern tramps and all their kin that took her life.  Another possibility would be that he would brood silently while his face grew somber and cross, his rage and sorrow bottled up.  In the end, the old captain would most likely augment Akuna's troops with his own, taking it upon himself to train them.

But right now, there was a wall of sand and wind between them and that future, far across the Sailzane.

Placing himself beside Brunka, Rupland examined the child's face.  The edges of her eyes were rimmed with red.  She has been crying, he knew.  He retrieved her doll from under the bed and give it to her.  Brunka began to play but shortly after, she grew serious, her expression becoming heavy with thought.  When she caught her father starring, Rupland blinked.

"Vicris will not be as gentle as your mother," he told her.

"Mother was never gentle with me," Brunka retorted.

The words took him aback, but Rupland could not deny their truth.  "Her troops will not welcome you with smiles.  They will not be easy on you."  Am I preparing you for the journey?  Or simply trying to sway you away from the path?  Rupland did not know which he wanted.

"Mother never wanted my own friends to be easy on me.  She wanted them to be mean and hurtful."

Aye, another truth, he thought.  Akuna made sure there was little comfort for Brunka as a captain's cub.

"You will not be able to turn back if you go forward," he warned her lastly.

"I know," she said.  "I don't want to."

"You are...certain you want this?  To train with Vicris and her troops?"  He had to be sure, make certain her choice was genuine.

The child nodded, eyes showing determination.  Rupland could not refuse her.  Vicris would turn her sorrow into strength, fear into focus.

"You should have a grand dinner then," Rupland told her with a full smile.  I will be strong for you.  "Meat and fruit.  Meat for your muscles and hide.  Fruit for your head.  Would you like a cup of milk too?"

Brunka smiled too and nodded again.  Blax would surely fulfill their request.

###### ======================================================================

"Your last chance is here, child," Vicris said to the cub, looming taller than her mother had.  "You may go back to your chambers and no one will ever know that you turned back.  There will be no shame in it and I will give no mention of your decision."

The pit fighter's voice was echoing hauntingly in Brunka's ears, making her tail twitch fearfully.  Nevertheless, she kept her face still as stone.  Or that's what she hoped.  Her eyes told a different story.  The two females awaited inside the keep before a door, morning sunlight streaming from underneath it.  The stairs were to Brunka's left, one flight going up and the other further down.  She could hear the rumble of voices and activity from beyond the door.  The yard.  Where the old trained the young with blunted weapons, but where they also shot actual arrows into false foes.

"My troops are a fine group, but they will not be kind or gentle.  Even towards a little cub like you," Vicris continued, hands on her hips.  "They will snap at you, yell and hit and scratch, hoping to see you shed a tear, but you need not show them a drop.  Hold fast and they will believe you to be made of harder meat than they thought you were before.  But know this too, little Brunka."  She raised a claw and pointed at her.  "You are my friend's brood, but you are not special.  You are a cub, young and untrained.  So do not look to me to protect your hide and coo you when your tail gets twisted.  I will yell and hit and scratch, and it is my right as captain to do so."

Her father had warned her of this last night, but she had made no assumptions.  Her mother had been harsh and brutal, using her full strength and speed when they sparred against each other.  She did not expect any less from this warrior.

Brunka now felt a familiar sense of fear, the same she felt when her mother donned her armor and began their daily drills.  Aside from the fear, there was also a comfort.  She felt safe with this strong female watching over her.  She was more afraid of her new squadmates, those young like her, but older, stronger, and taller than she.  I will be strong like a stone, she told herself.  Rocks don't cry.  They remain hard.

Yet her empty stomach still clenched with pain.  It was too early to break her fast.

"In battle, there are worse things than what you are about to go through.  Here today, this is nothing, a gentle caress upon your fur, but I'm sure your mother has already told you such.  Now..."  The fighter captain leaned down closer to Brunka, but still hovered great deal above the cub, "do you still want to go out there in the yard and meet my troops?"

I am a stone, Brunka told herself again.  A rock.  A giant boulder.  They will not crack me, they will not break me.  I am strong.  The words made her brave and ready.

"Yes," she nodded, putting on a stern face for the older female to see.

Vicris's lips curled and Brunka thought she had a sinister smile, but she kept such thoughts to herself.

"Follow," she said before she pushed open the door and hurried out into the rising sun and heat.  As her new captain had commanded, Brunka followed.  She struggled at first, her little legs having trouble keeping up with the pit fighter's long strides.  After awhile, she could match the pace of the older female as they made their way through clutters of her fellow Shigu cadets.

When she met Vicris's Wind-dancers, Brunka found her fears had ground.  She was the youngest and smallest of them all.  Most were of a grown age, but still younger than her mother had been.  None were as tall as Vicris, but they still towered over their new squadmate, looking down at her as if she were little more than a bug in the dirt.  No, Brunka then thought.  I am a rock.  Maybe even a pebble, but I am still a rock!

A rock was not bothered by the mean words, names, or even taunts thrown her way, but the rock she was still felt pain.  She learned that when Vicris paired her with a girl thick with muscle and a whip of a tail. Her name was Cily.  There was a slight honor being matched with her own sex.  The High Captain did not think low of Brunka.  If she did, she would have been paired with a male.  Despite this, her opponent was much harder.  Slow, but stronger still.  Her kicks and punches slammed against the smaller girl, sapping her breath and strength, but she was always willing to rise again and again, no matter how hard Cily would laugh and tease her.

Their hits are like hammers and they are chipping at the rock that I am, Brunka thought, gaining her breath again.  She tasted blood in her mouth and remembered.  This was a familiar feeling, one she knew back before her first name day.  Pain, blood, and breathlessness.  It was the sensation of a mother's teachings.  She is hard so I might be strong and survive the cruelties of life, she told herself.  Mother.  Mother.  My mother.  Pretend she is no one but your mother.  She did and it gave her courage, made things easier...but it gave her no wins.

She was paired again like the rest of the troops an hour later and again an hour after that.  Her second opponent was another female, Jokek.  She seemed to wear a surprised expression like anyone would wear a smile.  She had innocent eyes, but hidden in them was a honed combatant.  She twisted and twirled from Brunka's attacks like Cily had, avoiding her entirely instead of blocking the blow.  Brunka would growl her childish growl, bark even, but Jokek would just watch her with fascinated eyes and silent lips.  She had won no rounds with Cily either, but at least she could touch her.

Then came her third opponent, a male called Hin.  He was just as light-footed as his comrades and avoided Brunka easily.  He teased and cackled at the cub like an idiot, only inflating Brunka's growing rage.  She would swipe at him again and again, but would only receive another taunt and a kick at her side.  She tripped, fell, and repeated the dance.

Vicris always kept a watchful eye on all her troops, even a green soldier like her.  At times, she would push in and have Brunka attack her.  Those rounds were even shorter than the ones with Cily, Jokek, and Hin.  She was not gentle either, trouncing the cub easily.  Nevertheless, Brunka would imagined the pit fighter as her mother alive again.  Strong, solid, and filled with life.  Make me strong, mother.  I want to be strong like you.

"As I feared," Vicris told her after a bout.  "You are heavy with your mother's style.  That will not do.  Not in my squad.  You will have to relearn everything.  You will have to learn our style.  The Wind-dancer style.  With your small frame it will benefit you best.  Jump away from the jabs instead of taking them full on."

The verdict was saddening blow to the cub.  But, she thought, this is my mother's style.  The fighting style she taught me when I was just a babe.  The style a mother taught her cub was like a heirloom, something passed from generation to generation.  Brunka knew little of her grandsires and those before them, but...her style was her mother's.  A memory.  A gift.  Something to remember her by.  Even so...

"Yes, mo-  Yes, Captain.  I will learn."  She bowed her head like a good soldier and found her strength.  I am a rock, but I need you to make me stronger, Captain.

###### ======================================================================

While the cub took care to regain her strength, so must the father.  He had no teacher, no overlord, no captain to watch him.  As much as he hated it, he was alone , but he needed to be strong for his daughter.  She was being strong herself, accepting the pit fighter's offer.  She was taking up her duty and now Rupland knew he must do the same.

The crutches were ignored, propped up in one corner of the room.  Rupland knew he was much too weak to spar.  It was solely on his shoulders to get himself back into fighting form.  He laid on the cold wooden floor of his chambers, curling and uncurling himself again and again and again.  After that, he went on all fours, lowering so that his muzzle tapped the floor before he rose with just the use of his arms.  He fought with the air, jabbing often and kicking rarely.  Once his legs were better, his style would gain back it's form.  For now, he would need to suffer.

His heart beat a steady beat within his chest.  His lungs took in air rapidly, tongue lolling from his maw.  His legs felt like limp noodles and likely to collapsed while his arms felt to be tied down with chucks of log.  Yet, he pressed onward, the pain working through his muscles and right down to his bones.

The thought of Akuna was a sad sickness in his head, but as the exercises progressed, it became wroth.  His mind then turned to the southerners that had attacked him and his cub on that soiled street.  Wasn't enough they had to injure us, he thought with his veins pulsing with rage, they had to take away Akuna too.  Mother and mate.  When their faces floated before him, smiling with dry, black lips, he pressed on even harder without stopping.

My claws will invoke their remorse, he said to the shadows as his claws seared the air.   These are just words, my voice upon the wind, but he hoped they would become actions soon like his lanky flesh would become hard muscle.

At the sound of the door opening, he gave a bark at it, claws out with his stance showing.  It only resulted in startling Blax.  The steward jumped away from him, fur puffing out while his hands came up in defense.  He had only come to find out what meal Rupland would like to break his fast on.

His old fighting spirit was growing back, Rupland thought, as he put down his guard and apologized to Blax.

"Do you feel that you are in danger, Master Rupland?" the servant inquired.

"No, no," Rupland answered, shaking his head.  "I'm training."  He took a moment to gain his breath.  Blax seemed to be staring at him, watching how his chest swelled and contracted.

"Even in your...state?  Forgive me, but aren't you still healing?  Wasn't too long ago I was picking you off the floor with your legs of little use to you."

The memory stunk Rupland.  He gave a sour sigh, hands on his hips.  "Yes, I remember, but war doesn't wait," he said, partially astonished such words crossed his lips.  Akuna would have said that or some naive troop hunger for a fight.  "What happened with my mate is evidence enough of that.  The battles between north and south still linger.  I bring shame on my mate's memory by remaining weak."  He laid his back on the floor and began curling and uncurling himself again, his stomach muscles screaming with soreness already.

"The Grand General would commend you for your devotion to the clan, but...ah," Blax stammered, averting his eyes, "I don't desire to see you hurt and me picking you up off the floor again."

"I cannot stop," he told the steward, groaning as he continued with his exercise.  "I'm too weak for the yard and one look at me, a master-at-arms would laugh so hard that his teeth would chatter and fall out of his gums."  Rupland had to admit to himself that was a grand image of humor to imagine.

Even Blax seemed to gain a giggle from it.  "Forgive me for laughing, Master Rupland.  But I can find a guard to aid you and I will have him promise not to have a laugh at you."

"You have my appreciation, but no.  I must do this alone until I have regained the strength I once had.  Those young soldiers will gawk at me yet."  He smiled and then strained as he curled back up.

"You say that like you're some gray-fur losing all his hair."  The steward lingered by the door, arms crossed over his milky chest.  "By my eyes, you're still young."

"Again, my appreciation, but my youth is waning.  I was once much leaner than I am now, stronger, faster.  I was no Rain Silves, but I was a soldier.  But once the war halted, I slacked.  I still worked for copper and food, but I forgot my killing skills.  I need them back.  I need to find the blond-hairs that killed Akuna.  Her vengeance must be my own doing."

Blax's face took on a new expression then, his eyes filling with a sadness.  "A man should not fog his mind with thoughts of death when you still have so much before you.  And I must ask, is Brunka out playing with her friends again?"

"She's with Vicris, being refined like I am, but in a more proper way."

That only darkened the steward's mood even more.  "So little time has passed...did she do it by her own request?"

"That she did," Rupland affirmed.  "I'm still uncertain if that was best for her.  She had wanted to but..."  He gave a slight growl.

"Perhaps she feels just as enraged as you are?"

The question made Rupland freeze on the floor, arms crossed over his chest.  His heart was thumping in his ribcage, his breathing haggard.  "Perhaps so.  And perhaps Vicris knows what's best to quill that rage."

"A father should know what's best," Blax responded lowly.

"And how should I know best when I'm like this?" Rupland snapped, bolting his back straight up off the floor.  "I'm weak and a fool to think that war would not come again!  It would be my own fault if I kept Brunka weak and a fool too!  What better way to prepare her than to have a better soldier than I train her for the killing fields?  Akuna had the right of it all along, and it took her dying for me to see that!  So I should know best?  No!  Akuna knew best and I was too dim to notice."

He found he had startled the steward once again, his fur standing on end.  He was no longer leaning on the door's frame.  He was now creeping back through the exit.

"Forgive me, Master Rupland, I had not meant to offend.  I...I had best leave now."  He was turning away when Rupland called after him.

"No, please," Rupland said, reaching as if to grab after him, but the steward was much too far away.  Thankfully, Blax stopped and turned back.  "I'm...sorry.  I'm sorry.  I should not have yelled...or said such things.  But, I'm so scared for her.  I'm so weak and Akuna was so strong."  He crossed his legs and put his back up against the bed, staring into his lap.  Why am I telling you this, Rupland thought to himself.  Why am I telling a steward my woes and my pains?  But he knew it would be better to say the words than to keep them inside to ravage him through the night.

"Without her, I feel more useless than before," he confessed.  "I'm surrounded by fog and all alone.  She was my light and my guide.  Our light and guide.  What am I without her?  What am I to Brunka?  An old soldier that has forgotten his vigor?"

"You're her father," Blax said, crouching near him.  "Her only father.  You're her light and guide despite your misgivings.  But if you were to see war before you, wouldn't it be your duty to lead her away from it?"

"Aye, I suppose so," Rupland relented.  "But...what if war is unavoidable?  We're Shigu.  If war is upon the path, isn't it our duty to charge through it?"

"You are both soldier and father, two duties of large importance.  If war were to return, you will have to find the balance between the two.  Now," Blax said as he rose back up, "Mine own duty as steward is calling.  A plate of meat and fruit to break your fast?  A cup of ale too?"

"Ah, yes.  That will do fine," Rupland said, grinning while his eyes went to the floor.  "Th-thank you, Blax.  You're words were valuable."

"And my thanks to you for your words, Master Rupland," Blax smiled and bowed, his black locks dangling from his head.  "Perhaps someday I will rise to advisor."

"And a grand advisor you will make," Rupland smiled wider.

"Such flattery!  That deserves another bow."

###### ======================================================================

The days turned to a fortnight and each was harder than the last.  The drills became more strenuous, the hours longer, and it felt as if the sun itself was burning hotter.  Every morning, Brunka was gifted with greater pains and tougher opponents to earn her meals.  Some days, if she did not perform well enough, Vicris would withhold her breakfast or lunch.

When that happened, Brunka wanted to cry, but she could not let them see her weep.  Even if she felt that her bones were likely to break or her flesh likely to rip, she would only grimace and press forward.  But it's hard, she would scream within herself, it's so hard.  Her jaw would clench hard when she could feel the tears welling in her eyes.  Even when a tear did escape, she would wipe it away into her furry cheeks.  If anyone asked, she would say sand got in her eye.

Vicris's Wind-dancer's were a cruel lot.  When sparring, they had little pity for her and never held back their strength.  They made harsh japes at her small frame, her weak attacks, and how she was absent at the barracks when the day ended.  When Vicris concluded their duties, everyone but her would make for food and bedding inside the keep.  Brunka instead found comfort with her father inside their chambers every night.  Vicris cared little where she went when the dusk came, but the older children saw her less than a squadmate and more of an interloper for it, someone that refused to eat their meals or sleep in the same room as them.  Brunka herself found her father's company more calming than her so-called comrades, spending the nights wrapped in his warmth.  For that, the Wind-dancer's cruelty grew.

Even with her pride as sore as her muscles and joints, the cub endured.  Her mother had been merciless when they trained, crafting her own japes to prick at her daughter's hide.  My mother was harder than these few, all put together even, thought Brunka after losing another sparring bout.  She felt herself adapting, spiting her own prickly japes in response.

"So light," a girl called Viil said as she picked Brunka up and throw her in the air to land none to gently on the bare ground.  "I could grab you by your tail and whirl you around my head."

"Do that and I'll shove my hand up your cunt and pull out your organs and shove them down your asshole," Brunka told her squadmate.  It was an awkward attempt, but some of the other cubs and a few of adults thought that humorous.  Even their captain Vicris chuckled at the cub's threat.

"Take heed, Viil," the pit fighter said, "I knew her mother and she would make good on her word.  Brunka is no different."  Viil stopped smiling and took on an expression of anger.  She grew more careful.

But at times a jape would strike too deep, like a tooth biting through flesh.  A boy by the name of Kep made such japes.  Like usual, the boy and Brunka were sparring, circling before attack, spinning away when a kick was thrown.  The jape was made after Brunka had been stunned by a strike to the head.

"You are one poor fighter, Brunka," he giggled, stalking around the girl like a predator.  "You should have been thrown from a cliff when you were a babe.  Your mother was a fool not to."

Brunka's fur bristled and she lunged at him and earned a knee deep in her gut.  She collapsed, but was strong enough to rise again.

"Stay down," Kep told her.  "Pay your mother the honor and lay back down.  She knew it was too late to kill a welp like you and save herself from the shame.  She found it better to kill herself."

Anger and sadness swelled up within her all at once, crushing her resolve.  She was ready to pounce at the boy again, her claws unsheathing from her fingertips to tear at the boy's face.  But before she could, a shadow passed over her and when she looked, Vicris was upon the boy.

She smashed the boy's head with her fist and he swiftly went to the dirt.  The other troops, in shock, gasped as one.  Before Kep realized what had occurred, Vicris donated a kick to his guts.  Everyone looked on while the boy withered on the ground, his face scrunched in pain while the pit fighter circled him.  Her expression was one of searing rage.

"You hairless whoreson," she hissed through a snarl.  "I should skin your back with talk like that!  No!  Skin your back and smash your stones too!  How dare a wretch like you jape about a fallen comrade!  One above your rank, a captain like me.  Especially to her own daughter!"

Kep attempted to rise off the ground, but his legs were kicked out from under him.  Again, he landed in the dirt.  Vicris pinned the boy's face down with her foot, one toe-claw pressed on his cheek and another above his eye.  Kep dared not to move, staring at his captain with stark fright.  Brunka watched off from the side, her heart thumbing inside her chest.

"I allow a jape or a slight, but what you spat was an insult to all of Clan Shigu, to great warriors like Brunka's mother," Vicris continued, her toe-claws denting Kep's face.  "Next time, I might mistake your words for a slight against me or my fellows.  When that occurs, I'll have your tongue as a little snack."

Vicris did not gently release the boy.  She scrapped her toe-claws across the boy's face and he yelped.  His hand came up and he held it there against his cheek, growling and whimpering while his young comrades looked on.

"Get up, boy," barked Vicris.  "Get up, you welp.  Get up!"  She kicked at his back and he slowly regained his feet.  When he removed his hand, Brunka could see the bleeding cuts on his brow and cheek.  She felt glee then guilt over the injury of her squadmate, but nevertheless the glee remained and Kep kept his tongue silent the next time he and Brunka sparred together.

Even so, the japes still came from other sources.  Each was aimed at her person alone, to not incur their captain's wrath, each one more well-crated than the last.  Brunka made her own japes to counter, but few left a mark on anyone's pride.  Still, her style was becoming more honed, her strikes quicker, and her dodging more fluid.

Her losses were mounting though, slashes at her pride.  Her determination was as bruised as her flesh, but every day was another opportunity to overthrow another squadmate and deal her own slash to their pride.

The prospect of that happening today seemed most unlikely.  Genk and Jol had already gained a win from beating her bloody and another, Hela, was aiming to do the same.  Genk had been silent in his bouts with Brunka and Jol's teases had been sparse, but Hela's words came numerous and thorny.  Brunka found little time to give back a witty retort as the older girl came at her unrelentingly.  Brunka was light on her feet and hoped her opponent would tire herself out, but that strategy bared little fruit.  Hela's twelfth kick was just as swift and powerful as her first.  She lashed out with a punch and caught Brunka on the shoulder, but the pain was a hazy mist for the cub.

"No tears?"  Hela smiled.  "Take my tail, I'm surprised!"

The little cub jumped back, ducking under another punch at her head.  To counter, she kicked full into Hela's groin.  She was glad to her the older female verbally grunt in response, but it only made her angrier and sharper.

"If only you have been born male," Brunka quipped, "then I would be finished with your lousy carcass."
"The same for you," Hela said, bearing her teeth.  "Otherwise I would stomp your stones into mush.  I'll have to settle with ripping off your lower tongue!"  The watching troops laughed at that.

Hela reached and caught her at the wrist, but Brunka quickly twisted out of her grasp, slashing at the girl's face.  She didn't have the reach to touch her.

"Come and dance, baby Brunka," Hela giggled, grabbing Brunka's right wrist and then the other again.  The older girl swiped her legs and pushed her to the ground.  Brunka landed on her back, her arms pinned to the dirt as Hela loomed over her, grinning widely.  Her tongue hung from her maw, her signature sign that she was relishing the fight and her soon-to-be victory.

Squirming on the ground, Brunka found herself unable to resist the older female's strength.  Hela straddled her stomach so her legs could not kick at her.  Her face came close to Brunka's, and she could see the gleam of spittle on her black lips.  Soon she would open her mouth, teeth ready to bite down on her muzzle and sear her flesh until she conceded the bout.  The girl had done it many times before and Vicris saw nothing wrong with such a tactic.

"You were defeated the moment you were pinned.  Aye, the biting was salt in the wound, but hopefully next time you won't allow yourself to be straddled like Silves had done to so many virgin boys," their captain had said to any that dared complain.

And now, it was Brunka's turn to be marked by Hela's teeth.  No matter how much she struggled, she could not unpin herself from under the older girl.  She thrashed and growled, moving her head every which way in hopes to avoid the bite.  When Hela closed in, grinning, Brunka fully expected to feel her flesh pierced, but no pain came.  What came next were words whispered softly into her ear.

"I'll make you look like your dead mother when they pulled her from the sewers," the older girl said, her muzzle close to Brunka's ear.  "You'll live, but you'll also look like your father by the end of the day."

Rage came to cloud her mind and without another thought, Brunka snapped at the side of Hela's face and bit down hard.  Her gums pinched at hide, teeth pierced flesh, and blood flooded her mouth as a scream flooded her ear.  As Hela retracted back from the bite, the gash was made worse.  She pressed a hand hard on the wound.  With her left arm free, Brunka reached up and lashed out with a punch, hitting the hand that cradled Hela's wound.  Brunka's right was then free too, enabling her to give the older girl atop her a hefty shove.  It wasn't enough to get her off, but it was enough to allow one of Brunka's legs to wiggle up from between Hela's legs.

Immediately, Brunka kicked out with her one foot, toe-claws slashing at her comrade's soft belly.  Hela screamed, lifting up off Brunka and falling back all at once, but not before another kick had slammed under her jaw, closing it with a sickening clack.  She landed on her backside, stunned.  Brunka didn't give her the opportunity to regain her feet.

She slammed into her comrade, knocking her full on her back into the dirt.  Like Hela had done with her, Brunka straddled her opponent, pinning her opponent's arms at the biceps with her legs.  I'll smash you into sand and piss on you, Brunka said inwardly.  Her fist rose and then fell, smashing into Hela's face with a hard thump.  When her other fist fell too, it aimed for the girl's eye and landed there.  Then it fell upon the gash Brunka's teeth had made.  It opened wider, blood splashing on her knuckles.

Brunka's savage fists kept raining down whilst her comrades watched on.  Upon the nose, upon the brow, the temple, the mouth, the eye and the cheek again.  She expected someone to stop her, but no one came.  So she continued as Hela struggled under her.

"Stop!  Stop!  Stop!" she screamed, gargling her words.  "Please!  Stop!  I don-"  Another hit cut her short and only then did Vicris see it proper to end the bout.

Two troops pulled Brunka off the defeated girl.  The smaller girl struggled, kicking and growling with both her hands soaked in blood.  Despite the beating, Hela could stand.  Blood dripped from each cut and gash and down into the fur of her neck.  When the troops released her, Brunka attempted to tackle her comrade again, but they quickly caught her before she could.

The High Captain came between the two females.  Brunka whipped the red from the side of her mouth with the back of her wrist, but she could still taste the blood on her lips.  Three other child soldiers held Hela back as she shrieked for retribution.  One half of her face was the usual white, but the other was a red ruin of bloody fur, her eye swelled shut.  I had done that, Brunka realized.  I created that bloody mess.  She felt both pride and guilt as she stared at her work.

"Look at what she did to me!" Hela screamed out above the cheers and hisses of the Wind-dancers.  "Look!  Look!"  She was yelling at Vicris as if she were blind.  "Look at what the whore's welp did to my face!  You should let me do the same to her!  Allow me to cut up her face all the same, High Captain!"

Vicris looked incredulously at her underling.  She took one step forward and Hela immediately regained her composure.  Those restraining her were no longer needed and they moved aside.

"I allowed you to have your fun with your little bites, leaving your little marks on everyone," the High Captain said, wiggling her fingers over the troops that surrounded them, "but when someone leaves their marks on you, and these are little marks you have, you demand retribution?"

Hela's eyes wavered nervously, bowing her muzzle.  When she looked back up to her superior, she gave a confident, "yes."

Vicris's response was a hard slap across Hela's bitten cheek.  The young girl knelt to the dirt, moaning with renewed pain.

"You harvest what you plant, my little warrior," Vicris said.  "Bite and be prepared to be bitten.  A stroke for a stroke.  Now get up, whore's welp.  You're with Cokal next.  And someone get Brunka a damned rag."

Swiftly someone gave Brunka a red cloth.  Dry as it was, Brunka did her best to wipe the moist redness from her fur, lips, neck, and chin.  She could still taste it.  She found a cut on her gums, but it was a pain easily forgotten.  From across the yard, she could see Hela giving her heated looks and Brunka answered back with bared teeth.  She found Vicris giving her looks too, her face stretched wide with a proud smile.  Brunka was happy to see that and showed her own.

After she had cleaned herself, the High Captain paired her with a skinny boy called Ako.  He proved just as honed as the rest of the Wind-dancers, but he gave neither taunt nor jape.  The next boy was also silent and even the girl after him.

The fight with Hela had a greater effect on her comrades than Brunka had imagined.  She was glad for that.  Even so, she dreaded the moment their drills would be put at an end today.  If she looked as bad as she felt, her father would have a fit.

###### ======================================================================

The moment his daughter came in through the door, Rupland shot up from the bed, his dinner plate forgotten.  Limping towards her, his hands lightly touched her face.  The look she gave him was one of shame and embarrassment.  Another cruel day for the child, he thought as his eyes saw the scratches and swelling on his gentle daughter.

If Akuna was here, she would look proudly upon the cub, but would scold her for gaining so many cuts.  "Wound before you are wounded," she would say with the vigor of a master-at-arms.  "Cut before you are cut.  Crush before you are crushed."  The cub had listened and tried her best.  Rupland had watched, seeking desperately for any of his own wisdom to give the child.  But he had remained silent even for the pieces of Akuna's wisdom that made no sense.  His own wisdom came when Brunka sought out comfort.  He was here for that now, but Rupland still felt shorthanded without Akuna.  Comfort would soothe the child's pain, he knew, but it would not make her stronger, harder for tomorrow's challenges.

That was always your role, Akuna, Rupland thought as he looked into his daughter's eyes.  You were the hammer, striking down to mold the steel.  I was the water pail, ready to douse the glowing heat.  But now, what use was the water when there is no hammer to form the blade?

Brunka stood still and sullen as her father looked over her wounds.  Has it ever been this bad, Rupland asked himself.  Perhaps.  Even when Brunka was trained by her mother, he had grumbled under his breath when he saw what the day's drills had done to her.  Each cut and bruise seemed grievous, and he had been there for Brunka to wipe away the tears when Akuna gave no sympathy.  There had been more worrying wounds too.  Rupland could recall six times Brunka had strained an arm or leg training with her mother.  Each time, he had warned Akuna to be more careful with the cub, but she had paid no heed to his warnings.

"She's not made of glass and twigs," Akuna had laughingly informed him.  "She's flesh and bone, but with time she'll be steel and stone.  She's my brood, Rupland, and yours too.  Have faith in me and in your seed."

  But today, the scratches looked to be deeper, the swelling more severe.  And the scent.  The scent of blood was upon her, thick and overwhelming.  Here and there he could seen faint stains of red in her fur.

"What happened?" Rupland asked, holding his daughter's arms gently.  He knew for a certainly of what happened.  A bout and a rough one by the sight of it.  But he hoped the details would calm him.

"Nothing," Brunka answered bluntly, reluctant.  Retreating from his grasp, she moved around him and toward the bed.  She fell to the sheets and curled up on her side of the mattress.  Rupland stared dubiously at his daughter, her gray mane black and the white fur gray in the flickering candlelight.

"There's food," Rupland told her, standing up.  "You should eat."  Her platter of meat and fruit paste was still on the nightstand, cold and uneaten.

Brunka merely shook her head,  neither looking at her father nor her meal.  "No."

A sour defeat she has been dealt, Rupland guessed as he approached the bed.  Looking down at his own platter, he could not find the hunger to devour the rest.  He placed himself on his side of the bed, watching his daughter, wishing she would turn over and face him.  Then a thought came to him.  He reached for Joos on the nightstand, the doll's button eyes sparkling dimly by the light of the candle.

"Joos has missed you," he told Brunka.  "I've been here to keep him from being lonely."  He smiled, scooting closer to her.  "But he's been asking for you, wondering how you been."  He placed Joos' bottom atop Brunka shoulder.  Unlike what he expected, the cub waved him away, moving closer to the bed's edge and away from him.  "Oh, don't do that.  You'll wound Joos' feelings."

The doll touched Brunka's shoulder again and the instance that occurred, Brunka swung her legs off the bed and stood.  She snatched the doll from her father, her claws slashing at his palm.  Rupland flinched back and saw the rage painted across Brunka's face.

"Stop that!" she screamed.  "Stop it!  It's a doll!  It's not a person!  It has no feelings!"  She shook Joos by the neck, his limp doll limbs dangling helplessly.  "It doesn't know sadness or pain!  It doesn't know anything!  It's just a stupid doll!"  In one quick motion, Brunka's claws were tearing into the doll, fabric ripping open.  Before Rupland could protest, sawdust was flying in the air and onto the floor.  Joos was ripped into halves, his dusty entails spilling out to irritate Rupland's nose.  Brunka threw the doll's remains at opposite ends of the room before she fell back to the sheets.

Rupland remained still as a stone, staring astonished at the back of his daughter's head, unsure of what to do.  His heart told him to reach out and bring her close to hold, but one look at his hand made him reconsider.  His palm was bleeding from two scratches across his callous pad.  He looked from it to Brunka.  The pain was a meager sensation, but was stunned to think that his daughter had done such a thing.

He scooted back to his side of the bed.  He blew out the candle and darkness invaded.  Laying his head down to the feather mattress, he listened.  All he could hear was his own breath and that of his daughter's.  There was no weeping, something he had come to expect from his cub.  Rupland felt the darkness grow heavier with melancholy as he his thoughts fell back to memory.  He clinched his cut palm, felt his pain flare, and hoped sleep would swallow his sadness.

I've lost you, he mouthed to the night, and now I've lost her.

###### ======================================================================

She dreamed of her mother again.  The door to the house was open and she came in quietly.  Loose flood boards creaked noisily underfoot like she remembered, announcing her approach.  There were voices outside, shouting and screaming.  She was annoyed by that, knew who was causing all the raucous but couldn't remember their names.  Looking out the window, the view was obscured by the tall, growing harvest.  Green, brown, and red plants reached up towards the sky.  Work, she thought bitterly, all of it just meant more work.

She turned and found her mother in the kitchen.  She was at the table, cleaver in hand, back to her child.  Blood dripped from the table and onto the floor, making it slippery as the cub approached.  The smell of blood and raw flesh was everything, filling her nostrils.  Her mouth watered, her belly growling, but then she came to realize her mother looked slightly different.

Her mother had been a stout and heavy female, her fur thick, long, and wavy, gray and white like her own.  But now, her mother's fur seemed to have gained a darker hue, something nearer to black, but closer to blue.  Her back was not round and pudgy.  Instead, it was large and rippling with hard muscle.  She was very tall too.  Her sharp ears nearly touched the ceiling of the room.

"Mother?" she asked, stepping closer, blood wetting her feet.  She could still hear the shouting outside.  It seemed heavier with distress.  With each step she took, she saw less and less of her mother in the person before her.  Soon she appeared to be an entirely different female.

"Mother?" Only then did her mother turn to show her face.  General Rain Silves stood before her.  Her belly was coated in blood, her arms too, up to the elbows.

"Eat your damned meat," Rain growled down at her, golden eyes aflame.  "It's cold now."  It was her mother's voice, low and gruff.

When she looked behind her, she saw the butchered meat upon the table.  When she stepped closer, she saw the fur mixed in with the gore.  Another step, she saw the colors.  A dry green, gray, and white.  Then she saw the heads, one small, the other larger.  With one more step, she knew who they were.  The fear erupted within her.  Rupland, my mate.  Brunka, my daughter.  Her tears began to form around her eyes as she watched the General's gaze grow with displeasure.  She did not have the will to move, but she had enough courage to scream.

"What did you do?" she yelled out, fur bristling, body shaking.  "Why did you do this?"

"Eat your damned meat!" her mother's voice demanded.  A heat shot forth from her gapping maw and hit the cub full in her face.  It burns, she cried inwardly.  It's burning me!  Her hands went up to her face and they began to burn as well.  Unseen flames tormented her, searing the fur to burn the flesh underneath.  The floor was alive with fire, boiling the blood away, burning, burning, burning.  Fire engulfed the house with her and her mother inside.

"Akuna, what happened?  What happened to your face?" her mother called out, her voice heavy with concern.

"I don't know!  Help me!" she cried out as her cheeks melted.  "Help me, mother!"

The dream fled from her mind.  The flames retreated.  The creature that was both her mother and Rain disappeared.  When her eyes fluttered open, her childhood home was gone, but the wooden floor remained.  Once she focused, she realized the room was moving.  She looked around blinkingly, noticing something at the other side of the room.  When she tried to touch her face, she found her hands bound at the wrist.  Her legs too, hemp rope coiled around her ankles.  The moment she began to lift up, feet banged against the floor and hands pushed her back down forcefully.  She kicked and groaned, trying to claw and bite at anything near, but her hands and legs were wrapped tight.  Then came a thick rope around her muzzle to bind her mouth closed.

Even then, she struggled against her captors...until they put something dry and dusty against her nose.  She sniffed it in without knowing and before long, darkness came to take her.

The dreams came again.  Quick and unremitting, shards of her mind that were full of fear and anger and loathing.  Rain came to her home, but she was sick, vomiting profusely before she collapsed.  Akuna and her family screamed her name like wanting children and the corpse thrashed.  The chest erupted, spewing blood throughout the house.  And out from the cavity came a tall shape dripping with black bile.  Rupland and Brunka cried in fright and asked what it was, but Akuna knew.  It's Vok, she said to them as the tall, dripping blackness draw a sword and swung it low at them.

Then came another dream.  Brunka came bounding through the sand with the long, colorful wings of a nevrean, laughing and smiling.  Look, mother, look!  Akuna did and wept.  Rupland was perplexed and voiced his approval for the girl's new appendages.  Brunka said she had traded her doll to a nevrean merchant for them.  Mother, will you help me fly?  But she could only cry, knowing sergals were too heavy to fly.

After that came many images, faces floating before her.  Vok and his unwavering gaze, but Akuna was aware of his relentless determination to become Clan Shigu's new Supreme Commander.  Vicris was there too, always smiling, always jesting, and that made Akuna feel safe.  She saw Era and Highlen too, their brows wrinkled with disapproval, their teeth shown in hostility, knowing that death lurked behind their eyes.  Even Kusno appeared, his expression ever stoic while there was always the threat of his anger flaring up.

Sunlight was spreading heat across her face, motivating her to awake.  She moaned with nausea in her stomach, a painful throb in her head.  I have been drooling, realizing her cheek was wet.  Lifting up, she looked about and took in her surroundings.

The wooden floor was still there, but it was moving under her.  More planks of timber formed a roof over her head.  Through an opening in the back, she could see thin whips of clouds floating through the blue Sailzane sky.  A wagon, Akuna realized as the floor rocked her up and down, making her head pound with greater pain.  And then realized she was not alone.

In the wagon's back were five others, all wrapped in roughspun cloaks of brown.  The back of two heads could be seen at the driver's compartment.  Two horned beasts pulled the wagon along at a subdued pace.

Akuna began to rise up before she saw the color of their fur, the shape of their muzzles and the slimness of their frames.  Southerners, she thought with a startle, her eyes jumping from one to the other.  All males, she guessed, but she knew she could be wrong.  Compared to northerners, southerners were a smaller, scrawnier breed, and they all looked male to her eyes.

"Ah, she's awake," a voice said at the open back of the wagon.  Akuna turned and saw one southerner smilingly staring at her.  Male she guessed again.  Two eyes watched her, but they were not the same.  The left was the typical grey color with an slit of black while the right was as blue as sky with white swirls etched into it.  A glass substitute, Akuna knew for a certainty, wondering how the southerner had lost his real orb.  The question would have to wait as a flurry of other inquisitions came to mind.

How did this happen?  That was the first question.  Akuna thought back as far as she could remember, memories of the Narulus' training yard flashing in her mind.  Then...something happened, she recalled.  Zulca, running up to her and Vicris to say...they had located the tramps that had attacked her mate and child.  Then she was running through Wevren's streets with an escort around her.  Next were the sewers and she instantly recalled the thick stank of the place.  Down and through they had went, fumbling in the dark, lead by one of Vok's men with a lantern.  Then...then...then...

Gods, no, she mouthed.  It all came down on her.  The powder they had thrown in her face.  The chocking and burning that had afflicted her.  There had been a jab too, crashing against her face.  Then came the sewer water filling her mouth.  The memory made her swallow and feel her face, but her fur was fully dry.

After that, came a blankness and then the dreams.  Rain and Vok and Rupland and Brunka.  Rupland and Brunka...  She looked about the wagon, finding neither mate nor child near.  Had they been captured too?  She had no way of telling or even knowing where she was.

"No one to see but us children of the south, northerner," smirked the glass-eyed southerner.

Akuna's first reaction was to lift up her hands, her claws unsheathing from her fingertips in hopes of tearing out the southerner's throat, but her wrists were still tied tightly together.  She strained against the ropes, even trying the ones on her ankles, but neither would give.

"Those will keep you most tame, I believe," the glass-eyed southerner pointed out with a claw.

"And keep your maw closed.  There are no ears but ours for rekusus around," said another southerner, this one with one ear cleaved short.  Every one of their words were heavily accented, thorns in Akuna's ears.

"Eat shit, you blond-hair whoresons," she growled at the lot of them, still struggling with her restraints.

"Oh, it speaks."  Yet another southerner spoke up, this one with his back in a corner at the head of the wagon.  "Thought all northerners were too stupid to speak.  They just grunt and holler like jungle creatures."  The female flapped her arms above her head and made noises like some silly beast Akuna had never seen before.

Akuna sprayed a volley of spittle at the southerner.  The female's eyes grew wrathful as she wiped at her face, her comrades watching in silence.  Akuna prayed the reaction would be physical.

Instead, the southern female only gave a threat.  "Might be that we need that other rope to keep your sloppy mouth shut."

Akuna hissed at the female and began to gnaw at the rope that bound her wrists.  The southerners immediately took alarm to that, but Akuna knowingly continued to chew at the hemp.  Rush me, you dirty-furred fools!  Rush me!  But the southerners thought better than that.  From their belts, they took up leathern crops into their hands.  The first blow landed squarely across Akuna's back and she yelped as the pain rippled through her.  Then came one against her shoulder and another at her neck.  Suddenly, she was sprawled out on her front, wincing with each blow she received.  Before long, when she was still, her captors relented and settled back in their corners of the wagon.

For awhile, Akuna laid there, feeling the wagon rumble it's way through sand and soil.  The pain dulled little by little, but her new bruises stung as they swelled.  Slowly, she moved into a sitting position.  The southerners watched her dutifully, touching the handles of their leathern crops.  Her teeth had done little damage to her ropes, she saw, but she resolved to nibble at them tonight.

Hours passed by and the wagon rumbled onward while Akuna's mind fretted with questions.  What had happened?  Who was to blame?  Are Rupland and Brunka safe at Wevren?  What were the alliances of those lads who had accompanied me down into the sewers?  How had I been transported?  Would I be right to accuse Vok of this?  Did he trade me off to the Reonos for some price?  Or had it been Era or Highlen?  Or even Vicris?

The possibilities stung her nerves, but Akuna remained silent, ever surrounded by her enemies.  The southerners spoke to each other in a foreign tongue she did not understand.  They talked sparsely with each passing moment, and laughed even more sparsely.  Mostly likely at me, Akuna thought sourly.  She neglected to ask them anything.  She knew they would keep all the answers to themselves and beat her with each question asked.

The wagon came to a creaking stop when it was high noon.  The two drivers came round and began to pass jerky and clay cups to their comrades.  Akuna was ignored, like she expected.  Despite her attempts to appear proud and stern before her foes, her stomach grumbled emptily and her mouth was terribly dry.  Watching the southerners at their meals, Akuna would have salivated if she were able to.  She could only lick her lips hungrily and stare.

Suddenly, the glass-eyed southerner noticed her gaze and signaled at one of the wagon drivers.  "A strip and a cup for the northerner."  The driver obeyed.  With an awkward grip, Akuna took a piece of jerky and a cup of water into her hands.  Settling the cup between her legs, she gnawed at the meat and swallowed it selfishly.  It was a small piece and the water was cloudy with a taste of iron, but it was a meal Akuna savored.

It wasn't long before the wagon was moving again, the southerners seated in the back, their eyes glued on their northern captive.  As the wheels rolled along the dirt path and bumped over every pebble they encountered, Akuna's head filled with worry.  Rupland.  Brunka.  Where are you two, she asked inwardly, but would never permit herself to ask the fiends that watched her.  One mention of her family could put them in danger of capture.

A possibility sprouted inside her head.  Could this all be another test?  I proved uncooperative in the Grand General's chambers and this is perhaps Vok's only means to prove my iron loyalty to Clan Shigu.  A slim possibility, she decided, but Amalio had a few southern bandits in his pocket, ready to do his bidding with a jingle of his purse.  These could be those very bandits, transporting First Captain Akuna to a location to prove her vigor.  If not, then perhaps they were just going to kill her, with a chance of rape, but why do that all the way out here?  They had me in the sewers.  They could have fucked and killed me there and then, but didn't.  She felt no bruising, no soreness around her crouch or other holes and figured she had escaped unmolested.  Had Vok's personal escort betrayed the northern cause and traded me off to these blond-haired inbreds like a fish in the market?  Another possibility and one that did not settle well in Akuna's stomach.

Night came slowly, transforming the blue skies to red then to purple then to the usual blackness.  With it, came the cold, but the southerners did not let her go wanting for warmth.  They gave her a thick woolen blanket and the wagon's hard floor to sleep on.  While she stayed inside, they slumbered somewhere outside around the wagon, barring any escape attempts.  Even so, Akuna nicked at the bonds around her legs with her claws.  My hands are useless if I cannot move.  Quietly, she remained awake, tearing at the hemp.  One southerner remained awake as well, checking their cargo every now and then.  And every time he came to look, she went motionless and closed her eyes.  When she thought he was gone, she continued to whittle at her ropes...until a leathern crop smacked her across the thigh.

Akuna yelped at the sudden pain, growling defiantly at the southerner as he turned to wake his fellows.  They spoke briefly in their heathen language before they faced her.

"Show us your ropes," one demanded as he took out his own crop.

Akuna remained still, bearing her teeth at the command.  The crops rained down on her hide and they forced to her show.  They saw what she had done, saw the torn fibers, and growled their displeasure.  One rod cracked against her skull, sending her back into that familiar darkness.  Later, she awake near dawn with a lump she swore was the size of a nevrean's egg.  Her legs were wrapped with new rope.

The days came with heat and nights arrived with chill.  Jerky and cloudy water came with noon, but would not return until the next day.  They were looking to starve her, she knew.  To sap the strength from her muscles, the rigidness from her bones.  In the weeks to come, they would no longer need to worry about resistance.  The thought was like acid in her throat, but Akuna would remain as defiant as long as she could fathom up the strength to.

Despite her resolve, the crops were as spiteful as the first time they had struck her.  One day on their journey, one of the males had made a jest at her expense.  She didn't know what he had said, but he looked straight at her, laughed, and his female comrade had joined in.  Unfortunately for the male, he had been too close to her and earned twin cuts across his arm.  Later, when Akuna had sighted him nurturing his wounds well away from her, she knew the beating had been worth it.

Rarely would a wagon or a caravan would be seen on the road before them, but one or the other would pass them by, going one way or the other.  The vehicles that Akuna spotted were pathetically built and the groups were raggedly manned.  They both limped and wobbled by at a distance and she snarled with disgust to only see bastard breeds among their company.

Once, a pack of northerners had passed by, their cloaks bulky from the armor underneath, swords at their sides.  Akuna had screamed and yelled and thrashed inside the wagon the instant she saw the color of their furs.  Azure and green.  Like a dark sky and a field of grass.  The colors were sweet to her eyes.

"Help!  Help, you bastards!  They have me!  I'm northern, you whore-lickers!  Help me!  I'm a first captain!"  She felt shame with each barbed plea, believing only cowards cried for help.  And yet here she was, howling in the desert wind, her southern captors beating her into submission while the rest gave leers to ward off their northern counterparts.  For a moment, it had seemed her brethren were going to take up arms against the blond-hairs...until they turned tail and went on their way without a second glance at their backs.  That had pained Akuna worse than her new bruises or the new rope around her muzzle.

That night, with her mouth silenced, one had taken the chance to rape her.  Akuna felt the wagon jolt as he clambered up.  His cloak was open and on his lower brown fur, she could his arousal.  It was much larger than Rupland's she noticed, but failed to see the other rod clenched in his hand.  The crop fell across her stomach, knocking the air out of her before it came down across her neck.

Please, no, please, she pleaded without saying a word, but the southerner would not hear her beg.  The whoreson maneuvered her on her stomach, yanking up her tail.  Her mind was awash with pain, her lungs grasping for any air.  The mounting would come next, she knew, but she would not weep or moan.  That is what the southerner would want, but perhaps once he had spent himself inside her, she would have the chance to bite out his throat.

The male had no chance to press against her lower lips before the wagon rocked again.  She heard him tumble out.  Turning towards the open back of the wagon, she saw one figure trouncing the would-be raper as she recovered the air she had lost.  Everyone was awake, watching as their comrade was kicked, scratched, and beaten in the sand.  Unknown curses were spat, growls searing the desert air and before long, the brown lad had given up and received his brutal beating without resistance.  For Akuna, it was not enough.

Blind with rage, she stumbled over the tailgate, falling.  She landed on her shoulder and then struggled to rise up.

BASTARD!  WHORESON!  FATHERFUCKER!  DIRT-FUR!  TRAMP!  SLOUGH!  CRETIN!  The words kept coming on and on, but she could not mutter one with her muzzle tied closed like this.  Her hands came up in an attempt to rip the ropes off, but only succeeded in clawing at her own muzzle.  She tired to get up, but was swiftly knocked back down.  A foot pinned her by the neck and when she looked up, she met the mismatched gaze of the glass-eyed southerner.  It was you, she thought with surprise.  You had beaten the bastard down like you had done with me.  You stopped him from...

The glassed-eyed southerner spoke and motioned for Akuna to be put back into the wagon.  This time, she did not resist.  Once settled back into her wooden cage, she leered evilly at the naked lad and saw all his leaking wounds.  Blood peppered the ground and she smiled at that.  The well-endowed male grimaced and limped away under the watchful eye of Glass-Eye.

Akuna did not sleep, staying awake through the day, watching the brown-furred male wherever he want.  He will be one of the first to die, she promised to herself on the second day of sleeplessness.  On the third day, exhaustion took her quietly like an assassin in the dark.

###### ======================================================================

The southerners had given her the courtesy of removing the rope around her muzzle.  They only did so under the threat that they would rip out her tongue if she dared yell out to another passerby.  Akuna agreed, but could not take the agreement to heart.

Time passed as slow as a legless welp dragging itself across the desert.  Staring out through the back of the wagon, Akuna watched the horizon move away from her.  Each rekusu is another further from home, she mused.  The trail they were on was a pale strip snaking it's way through a sea of golden brown sand to touch the blue sky over the Sailzane.

"Where are we?" Akuna asked, her voice booming inside the wagon.

The southerners eyed one another in their corners around her.  One picked at his fur for insects and another was honing her dagger with a small whetstone.

Glass-eye spoke first.  "This is the one of the many Ozzooca Paths.  The Life Veins.  Before you northerners sullied our land with your presence, we used them for safe trade and holy pilgrimage without fearing death.  I know such words are strange to your eyes.  Safe.  Holy."  The southerner's face stretched into a smile.  He is trying to rouse my rage, Akuna knew for a certainty.  She sat there with her eyes narrowed, her claws peeking through, but remained still and seated.

Glass-eye breathed a sigh that Akuna reckoned was full of disappointment, but his smile remained.  "Your people severed many, but a good handful remain untouched by your bloody hands."

"And what about those northerners I saw?" Akuna asked.  "Are our feet as bloody as our hands?"

"Little of your northerner kind know our roads and those few are aware of the unsaid laws when traveling them."  The southerner's head turned and watched one of the Life Vein roads move under their wagon.  "No traveler should fear death upon these roads.  Not from the cruel heat or from the hand of another traveler.  All shall shed their hates upon this soil.  No matter your creed, your race, or alliance, all will find safe trekking on these roads."

"Even those tied and bound?" Akuna asked, lifting up to show her ropes.  "I suppose there is no unsaid law about rape either," she quipped, looking at her brown-furred attacker.  The male turned away from her, anger clear across his face.  You'll be chocking on that big cock of yours once I have a knife to cut it off with.

"The unsaid laws say nothing of transporting prisoners," another southerner answered.  "You should count yourself lucky.  If your rank were any lower, we would have left you to die in that sewer."

"And you should mind your tongue when speaking to the enemy!" Glass-eye growled at his comrade.  The other southerner dipped his eyes and became silent.  "The unsaid laws say nothing about a captain taking the tongue of his noisy ward."

A chill went through Akuna's fur despite the overwhelming heat.  "So you know my rank?"

"Aye, we do," said Glass-eye.  "You are the Storm Cloud.  Big, loud, lumbering, and fat."  Another slight to enflame her, but Akuna would not take the bait.  "But your other name is First Captain Akuna."

Fear and confused intertwined.  She hoped no one would notice her fur bristling, but all the southerners did.  They giggled when they saw her reaction, the rise of her gray fur.

"That is your name, yes?" grinned Glass-eye, the white swirls of his false orb watching her.  "You have a mate too.  And a daughter as well?"  Akuna's face was growing dark, felt the muscles wrinkling on her muzzle.  "We know them too."

In her mind's eye, Akuna imagined herself leaping forward and sinking your teeth into Glass-eye's remaining eye.  She wanted to feel her claws wet and warm with his blood and the life spill from his body.  She was so close to him, it would be quick and simple.  With a turn of his head, she would be in his blindspot and that's when she could strike.  But her disbelief made her freeze in place like a puddle in winter.  Spies, she thought.  Vok's keep is full of spies and we were none the wiser.

Questions assaulted her mind that pleaded to be answered, but instead, she stated simply, "Don't speak of them."  She showed her teeth, hoping punctuate her warning.  "Don't you dare speak of my mate and daughter.  I'll cut your tongue out and wipe m-"

Glass Eye's foot shot up and smashed against the side of her head.  Before she could retaliate, a crop was under her chin and pressed against her throat.  One of the other southerners was behind her, holding her back with his legs wrapped around her chest.  When Akuna opened her eyes back up, chocking, Glass Eye's muzzle was mere spaces from hers.

"I dare, Storm Cloud.  I dare to speak of your whore and your brood.  I dare because I can.  I have the blade to cut out your tongue and the men to hold you down.  I have the crops to beat you silent, I have it all while you have nothing!  Understand?  I have it all while you have nothing but ropes around your hands and feet.  I allow you the privilege to speak but I can take it away with another rope.  For that matter, where we're going, it won't matter if you arrive with one less ear, a few severed fingers, or even your lower tongue cut off.  As long as you're alive, my superiors don't care how many pieces I take from your filthy northern hide."

For a long moment with the crop eating into her throat, Glass-eye lingered there, staring widely at Akuna.  Right before she began to gag, the southern captain retreated back to his corner and signaled for the crop to leave her neck.  Coughing, Akuna settled back in her spot in the wagon, the anger simmering in her belly.

"And where are we going?" she asked, hoping it would not earn her another kick in the head.

"No place your northern eyes have seen.  No place your northern mind should know of," was all Glass-eye said as the wagon rumbled over a particularly large pebble.

###### ======================================================================

The road was abandoned on the last leg of their journey.  The beasts of burden that pulled their wagon now clamored over hills of dry soil and dunes of sand alike.  At worst, the going went at a crawl, at best it was slow.  Too slow for Akuna's liking, especially with her fate so uncertain and grim.  Her captors watched her lazily, but nevertheless watched her like predators.

The gaze of Glass-eye was most unsettling to her.  When asked how he came by such an injury, he said, "The mark of one of your high captains.  Swung at me and hit nothing but my eye.  And for it, I gave a mark on his face too, nearly cleaved his upper jaw from the lower."

That's a damned lie, Akuna thought, and he knows I know it is.  He must have pocked himself with his claw and the eye rotted in his socket, she ventured but kept the thought to herself.  The fight in her was nothing more than a broiling in her skull.  Escape was nothing more than a dream, one she dreamt up every night.  The southerners were oh so cautious with her, checking her tough ropes every dawn and every dusk.  When she had to make water, they would lead her with a rope around her neck, a leash for their northern beast.

Hunger was siphoning the power from her body.  Food and water was given less and less, Akuna's stomach growing more hollow.  But she resisted the urge to complain as it would be what the southerners desired.  They teased her with their big cuts of jerky and their full cups.  Akuna stared at them with deep content but her belly grumbled with deep want.

Rocks and boulders became more frequent and the driver steered the wagon away from them as best as she could.  The wind grew more violent, spraying and stinging them whenever the angle of the gusts came into the cabin.  While the blond-hairs pulled their hoods up, Akuna could only curse and spit the sand from her mouth.

"When is this accursed journey to be through?" Akuna hollered as she wiped the grains from her lips.

"Soon, Storm-Cloud," Glass-eye said and that's all he would tell.

On the day of their arrival, the rocks grew huge and looming, their shadows dark across the bright sand.  Shapes moved atop and between their hard silhouettes.  At first, Akuna thought it were some beasts of the sands, but then the driver called up a song and the rest of the southerners took it up.

Their combined voices were an eerie sound in her ears.  They howled the notes, voices echoing upon the rocky giants closing in around them.  The lyrics they sang were in another tongue, their meaning lost to Akuna.  Even so, it sounded to her like a sad song, one full of mourning and regret.  A song fit for this pitiful race, she thought.  Then came another voice to sing along with the others, but this one came from outside their wagon.

The voice sang with a rough, throaty tone, a harsher sound reverberating off the rocks like the rest.  Akuna's eyes looked for it's source, her head turning to and fro, but it remained unfound.  Before long, the voice softened and was lost in the distance.  Just when Akuna believed it was just them again, six more voices manifested to replace the one lost.

Outside on the rocks and upon the ground, southerners came into sight.  In all their hands were rifles, their long metal barrels gleaming in the high desert sunlight.  They watched the wagon go by with watchful eyes, some with faces obscured by hoods or shawls.  When some caught sight of the cargo, they smiled softly at Akuna as if she were a fresh kill ready for the butchering.  A chill run up her spine, finding it harder and harder to keep her composure stoic and fearless.

Peering through the hole at the wagon's front, pass the drivers' heads, she glimpsed a wide hole in a tall shelf of black rock.  More southerners guarded it's flanks, watching as the wagon drew closer.  Shade greeted their cooked hides as they pressed inward without being stopped.

Their bumpy path slanted down into the earth, rock walls at their sides and overhead.  It was dark, but lines of bulbs strung along the walls illuminated their path.  More southerners watched them go by, silent.  Only then did Akuna notice the singing had ceased.  The only sound that remained was the creaking of the wagon's wheels and her quickened breath.  A mine, she guessed, but was too afraid to say a word.  I'm afraid, she confessed to herself.  I'm afraid of these hued halls and these blond-haired bastards, but I won't let them know.  I won't.

The ground soon became level in a larger chamber.  Waiting in the partial darkness were more wagons and other vehicles.  Some were the usual, wooden carriage or bicycle, but others were motorized and strange to Akuna's eyes.

That was where they left the wagon.  Akuna had to be helped down like some weak crone.  The ropes around her ankles were severed.  She stretched her back and legs, glad to finally walk.  But then came her leash again, tight around her throat.

Armored southerners approached and spoke with Glass-eye in their foreign tongue.  They looked her up and down, sizing her up before smiling at their comrade.  An older blond-hair slapped him on the arm in what could be called congratulations.  Other words were said and the one speaking with Glass-eye forgot his smile and gave his friend a confused expression.  A quick conversation began, Akuna watching with two guards holding her by the arms, knowing they were surely discussing her fate.  Before long, the older southerner relented and waved them on.

The halls were holes hued into the rock walls that snaked through the earth.  More bulb light provided light.  The ground was bare save a few carpets.  New faces joined them.  Two were at Akuna's back while two more lead her through the halls of this subterranean place.  Glass-eye tugged at her leash.  When she fell behind, a dull point poked her in the back.  Looking, she saw a southerner holding a pistol at her spine, his finger on the trigger.  Grumbling, she picked up her pace.

They went down stairways carved from rock and more southern soldiers watched the group pass on by.  When they found a northerner among them, their eyes grew wide and incredulous.  Akuna hissed at them, but was prodded in the back with a pistol barrel for it.

Five floors, she counted before they followed down another hallway, closed doors found on both sides.  This is my cell, Akuna thought as they opened one door.  Inside, the room was bare expect  two chairs and a table.  The floor was stained with large, dark spots and the place stank of rot.  No, Akuna reconsidered, this is where I'm tortured.

Anger and fear rose up inside her all at once and Akuna took the chance for one more fight.  She pulled back against the leash and shoved sideways, away from the door.  Words of unknown meaning were yelled out, their tone was full of anger.  She expected a shot to ring out, a bullet to shatter her spine, but it never came.  That only made her wilder.  Her hands found one southerner's neck and slammed his head against the wall.  Someone held onto her arm, but she threw them off.  Glass-eye was punching her in the face and she kicked him away.  Then metal slammed into her jaw, a knee in her gut, a jab at her throat, and the struggle was over.  Her legs buckled and she fell to the cool floor.

They dragged her inside as she tried to draw in air.  The room's odor filled her nose and mouth, reminding her of the foul air of the sewers below Wevren's streets.  Death seemed to be at arm's length for Akuna as she was thrown into a chair and tied down, even her legs.  Blinkingly, she regained her senses albeit her coughing.  She swallowed and tasted blood.

A door closed and darkness took sway.  Thrashing about, she tried her ropes but the only thing she accomplished was banging the chair's legs and creating a lot of noise.

"You won't escape," a voice told her, but it was not Glass-eye.  "My knots are as strong as fortresses."

Despite this, Akuna still tried again.  That produced laughter, from two sources.  One was near the door, another was close to her left.

"SHUT IT!" she screamed, her voice absorbed by the thick walls around her.

The laughter did not stopped.  It grew louder and more hectic.  Akuna was startled by the door abruptly opening, inviting in both light and people.  There was a rattle of chains and a clattering too before the door closed and the dark settled in again.  But only for a moment.

Fire flickered and grew before Akuna realized it was not fire at all.  An electric lantern she decided, staring at where it rested on the table to her left.

Behind the table, stood a figure, fur golden in the yellow light of the lantern.  Eyes stared at her, bright specks embedded in a mask of darkness.  Around the room, there were other specks staring too, four pairs in total.  One chance and I could kill you all, Akuna thought in confidence.  Give me the chance and I'll prove it.  But she knew they would never give her such a precious thing.

Glass-eye came from the corner of her eye and stride towards the table.  He examined the items there, touching each one lightly.  There was a chain, one end dangling off the table's edge.  There was a box brimming with pliers, knives, scissors, hammers, files, and other tools for what was to be a bloody craft.  There was another box as well, one with a crank and wires wrapped around it.  That provoked much curiosity and fear inside the northern warrior.

"Now begins the questions," Glass-eye said without looking at her.  "The answers should be easy to find and if not, I'm here to help.  If you don't need my help, just say the words and I will stop.  Do you understand?"

"Eat shit, inbreed," Akuna said, spitting at him.  Unfortunately, it landed on the table.

Glass-eye looked from the pool of spittle to her, displeasure plain across his face.  He retrieved the pliers first, opening and closing them playfully.

"Appears I have to loosen your lips," he told her.  He walked around her, taking the pliers with him.  Akuna struggled against the ropes again, hissing and growling.

"Hold still," Glass-eye demanded, "I might do worse if you keep fidgeting like this."  He pried one of her fingers away from her fist, her index finger.  Her claw was gripped and yanked, persuading Akuna to stay still.

"There we are," he said with a pleasing tone.  "Now, again.  Do you understand?"

Akuna hesitated to answer, swallowing with her heart pumping wildly in her chest.  That was when the pliers ripped her claw out.  Despite her thrashing, she didn't scream.  She was glad about that, not giving these southerners a show.

The pliers gripped again, gripping the claw of her other pointer finger.  Glass-eyed pulled and twisted.

"Perhaps another question," he growled.  "Are you First Captain Akuna?  Part of Grand General Vok's council?"

"To hell with you and your race..."

A second claw was removed.  Her fingers became sticky with her blood, the pain a harsh stinging in her fingertips.

"The question was simple enough, was it not?" Glass-eye said as he came back around and in front of her.  He placed the pliers back in their box and planted his hands down atop the table.  "You already knew the answer.  Is this not First Captain Akuna, a piece of Vok Haskins council?" he asked the silent faces watching them.

"Aye," said one of them.  "That is the one.  The fat, lumbering Storm Cloud."  The other faces laughed at that.  "Our quiet eyes seen her with Vok and with his own company.  Talking with them, laughing with them.  Aye, she's part of it."

"Do you not see?" Glass-eye turned back to her, smiling.  "Even they know.  Perhaps the question needn't be simpler, but heavier?  Yes, most likely."

His fingers wrapped around the chain hanging off the table and picked it up.  Each link as big as his palm and as thick as his thumb.  It looked heavy in those southern hands but the Glass-eye did not seemed burdened by it's weight.  He came near, dragging one end of the chain across the floor.

"I know you northerners have those thick, thick hides of yours," Glass-eye smiled at three-arms lengths away from Akuna.  He began to spin the chain around at a vicious speed.  "So with this, it should only sting, I am sure.   Why were they going to kill you in the sewers?  Your northern friends.  Why were they to kill you?"

Again, Akuna neglected to answer.

With a grunt, the chain came at her.  The thick bands slammed into her left arm.  The pain was an explosion, so fierce that at first Akuna could not scream.  Her mouth stayed agape before the scream came scorching through her throat.  Then she took control and turned it into a feral yell, a great growl to send her foes trembling.  But instead, to her dismay, it had only invited their laughter.

Her shoulder was pulsing, pain turning dull.  Then the chain spun again, whirling before it crashed against her other arm.  That time, she was ready, prepared not to scream, but she did nevertheless.  The pain was too much, too much noise to keep silent.  Soon, she was too weak to struggle, the ordeal sapping her strength.  Now she slumped in her chair, panting and groaning while her eyes throbbed inside their sockets.

"I don't understand this," Glass-eye feigned confusion as he whirled the chain yet again.  "They found you in that sewer, surrounded by your comrades.  They had knives out if I'm told rightly.  Am I?"

"Yes, that you are," said one of the dark faces.

"Then I am not wrong in saying it was strange to see your comrades ready to cut you up.  And from what I heard, they were ready to fuck you raw, am I right?"

"Aye, that's true too.  Right up her bunghole."

Glass-eye then dropped his playful banter, his eyes narrowing at the large female tied up before him.  "Why were you to be killed?  Why you, one of Vok's own?"

I don't know, Akuna could say, but not for these southern ears.  The same question has burdened me.  "You lie," she breathed instead and heard the chain rattled like it were alive.

This time, the chain slammed full into her belly, the tail slapping her left arm.  That knocked the air right out of her, making the agony seven fold.  When her lungs refilled, she coughed uncontrollably, no doubt looking like a pathetic welp for all her enemies to enjoy.

"The only one lying is you!" screamed Glass-eye, swinging his chains back and forth, back and forth.  "My men saw you!  Saw your friends as they stood over you, ready to make a meal of you!  Would you say you deserved it?  Deserved their knives and their raping cocks?  Hmmm?"

Perhaps I did deserve it, Akuna thought as she caught her breath, but by only Vok's reckoning.  I had stepped out of my bounds, went too far or not far enough.  Vok required all my loyalty, even more than Rain had needed, and I have fallen short in his sight.  And this is my gift.

"Why were they to kill you?  Did you know too much or too little?"

Too much, Akuna knew.  It was too much to bear.  Too much to take part in.  If I had just remained in Rellon, remained a captain, I would be none the wiser.  Vok's plan would have set forth, a handful of villages maimed, and I would have taken up my axe against the southerners like the rest of my brethren, unknowingly falling into the dance my superiors so desired.

"What will it be?" Glass-eye was yelling.  "I have many more tools to go through with you.  The chain is just the beginning.  Tell me.  Now!  Everything.  Why were you to die?  How close were you with Vok?  What do you know of his plans?  Who else does he plot with and what are their roles?  Simple questions to answer and if they were answered, this chain and all my tools would disappear.  Just with your words and your words alone!"

The stone room fell silent and even the chains were quiet.  Glass-eye walked forward, ready to hear her confession.

Akuna leaned forward, her pains distant but burning.  Her mouth opened, the southerners waiting with baited breath.  "Shove your words up your ass and vomit them."  She enjoyed seeing the disappointment grow on their faces, but then came Glass-Eye's anger.  The chains were tossed aside, crashing loudly to the earthen floor.  He said a few words to his men and they came forward.  One moved the table to Akuna's side while the other unraveled the wires around the strange box with the crank.

"I see you are a hardy breed," said Glass-eye, watching.

"A better breed than you," Akuna retorted.

"We'll see," he said as the one with the box approached.  In each hand were a wire, both connected to the crank box.  On each end of the wires were what looked like little hairs.  When the southerner came closer, Akuna snapped at him.  A call of assistance was given and Akuna was held back as the southerner did his duty.  When she was released, she found he had twisted the little wire hairs into the fur on her chest.  She looked at her captors strangely, thinking they were too dense to think that this would provoke any fear.  But Glass-eye was still enraged, his friend watching with wide eyes.

"What do you know of tamed lightning?" Glass-eye asked.

"Nothing," Akuna said truthfully for the first time.  "It's like magic.  Like lightning taken from the sky.  They say it's kept in glass jars, captured during storms to power contractions the agundars and nevreans use."

"True enough that they power machines.  But there's more.  A lightning strike burns, does it not?  Even a northerner like you should know this.  But even tamed lightning can burn.  Crack open a bulb and you should learn that.  It can be painful.  Very painful."

Akuna was unconvinced, growling as she listened to this fool babble on.

"The other races have a name for it.  Can't remember it now.  It matters little though.    But a broken bulb is just a small spark in the night.  Other tools, like this box," he patted the item held in the lap of another southerner, "has the power of a thundercloud.  And like a tree in a storm, it can burn you to a crisp."

"You don't want to kill me."  You could have killed me in the sewers.  Or in your little wagon.  My corpse would have been great fodder for your soldiers to look upon and gloat.  But you hadn't.  You need to know what I know.

"No," Glass-eye agreed, "but you can lose a few fingers, a few toes, maybe even an arm or a leg.  I could shave your hide off and make me a nice purse.  Your ears can go too, your eyes.  As long as you live, my superiors haven't a care what happens to your flesh.  Even this."  He turned to the one with the box and gave a command.

The southerner turned the crank on the box and it gave a hum.  With the first rotation, Akuna could felt it.  A slight stinging sensation spreading across her torso, the wires snapping and popping.  Then, as the boy turned the handle quicker, the pain grew.  Soon, her chest muscles were tensing along with those on her belly.  It felt as if thousands and thousands of ferocious fleas were biting her, eating away her skin with their fiery jaws.  It spread up her neck and down to her legs.  Glass-eye commanded his man to cease and the pain did as well.

Any strength Akuna had left was robbed of her.  She slouched in her chair, head hanging off lazily to the side as she tried to regain her senses.  When she looked down at the wires tangled in her fur, she found a few of her hairs had been singed.  Her entire chest felt to be burning.  Her eyes began to water, her head pounding as if something alive were trying to escape from her skull.

A slap to her jaw gained her attention.  "You can keep your all your fingers, toes, hide, and fur if you were to answer my questions.  If not, my friend's arm is quite strong."

"I shit on your ancestors' graves," Akuna breathed out.

The command was given and another jolt coursed through Akuna's flesh, burning and tormenting her.  She felt herself scream, but could only focus on the searing agony flowing though her.  Her teeth grinded together, her fist clenching so tightly her remaining claws dug deep into her palm.

"What do you think is happening to your mate and cub?  They could still be alive.  Perhaps we can save them.  Your words might be their only chance of escaping Vok's claws."

You lie again and if they are not dead yet, Vok will not suffer them to live long.  But when the words came to her, it weighed on her shoulders greatly.  Gods above, please.  Please, let them be safe, she prayed silently.

Her lingering thoughts were thrown aside as her face was given another slap.  "Are you deaf?" Glass-eye growled at her.

"I'll have your tongue for speaking of my brood," Akuna threatened with a growl, her teeth shown in clear view.  "And I'll eat it as I watch you bleed to death."

The crank revolved again, humming along as it tormented the northern warrior with it's power.  Little razors ran through Akuna's hide, wringing her muscles ever so painfully.  Her throat was overtly raw now.  It felt as if her lungs were likely to burst.  Thankfully they remained true, but she wondered how long it would take before her fur caught flame.  Perhaps burning to death would be more pleasant than this, she thought, but when the thoughts of dieing crossed her mind, she retreated from the idea.  No, this is no way for me to die.  I won't die here, underground among my enemies.  I'll die with a blade in my hand, one coated with blond-hair blood.

"Even with your mate and cub in danger, you defy us?  Perhaps what they say is true," said Glass-eye when he commanded the pain to stop.  "You northerners are born in the cold, where your hearts become hard with ice and all your kindness shrivels up.  I mean to shatter your cold heart."  The southerner's rage grew, his one gray eye watching her with anticipation.  His false eye watched her too, milky crescents swirling in a sea of blue.  "We'll do this differently now.  I'll shove the wires right up your cunt and turn the handle myself..."

The thought sent of a trembling through Akuna and her stomach filled with nausea.  Summoning up the rest of her vigor, she struggled as best as she could against the ropes as they were removing the wires on her chest.  She tried to bite him, but an arm went under her neck to restrain her.  All of them were laughing as Glass-eye went lower, between her legs to open her slit.  She could feel the wire hairs touch her inner flesh...

The door flew open, banging so hard against the wall that it threatened to break from it's hinges.  Light and shadow and lanterns flooded inside the room, barking commands at all the southerners within.  The arm left Akuna's throat, allowing her to breath.  Glass-eye's men scrambled in panic from the room while Glass-eye himself began to argue with one of the shadows.  Without warning, the shadow gave him a clean slap across the face and then another before it turned into punching.  Glass-eye through up his arms in defense, but seemed too deep in shock to fight back.

All through this, Akuna could only watch with her bound limbs and her lingering consciousness.  The pain was taking it's toll.  She blinked and darkness advanced around the corners of her eyes.  She couldn't get her eye-lids to say open, her head too heavy to keep up.  Dazed, she looked toward the door, ignoring all the noise around her.  The light outside seemed bright, too bright, but she looked nevertheless.  Then came a figure, a short shape, another southerner she guessed before her eyes closed and her mind lingered no longer.

###### ======================================================================

The mountains were icy spires jabbing at the dark gray sky overhead, but they ventured without fear.  The winds were so cold, paining Akuna's chest and face with each step she took, but her feet felt fine.  Thankfully Rupland and Brunka were there with her.  So was Kusno, leading them down their frozen path through the frosty ridges.

"Akuna?" her captain asked after her from up ahead.  From this distance, he looked as small as a child.  "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," she answered, her armor clanking with a strange sound.

"Can you hear me?
"Yes, I bloody well can," she answered more forcefully.

"What did they do to you?" Rupland asked, looking back at her with Brunka cradled like a babe in his arms.  The cub was wrapped up in a cloth of red, sleeping soundly.  Her breathes were puffy clouds in the cold.

"What in the hells are you talking abo-," she almost finished before she realized what he was talking about.  My armor, she thought with astonishment.  My armor is ice.  Indeed, instead of metal or ceramics, her pieces were made of opaque ice.  They looked to be crafted by the hands of master carver, each part made to appear like true armor.  But then the shapes began to grow and deform.  Soon her shoulders became heavy, her back bending from the weight of her shoulder pads.  Her breastplate became just as burdensome, so heavy it felt likely to crush her ribcage.

It made walking slower and with each passing moment, the ice armor grew and gained weight.  Her helmet was too large for her head.  It was pressing down painfully onto her skull, but when she tried to remove it, it stuck to her mane.  The same could be said about all the other pieces, each as heavy as a boulder.  Further and further the others went ahead while she was left behind.

"Help, Rupland.  Kusno, please."  They looked back but kept walking forward.

"What is wrong?" Kusno asked.

Can't you see?  Can't you see?  Are you all blind?  But they did not stop.  Their pacing didn't slow.  Her legs buckled.  She tumbled and fell onto her back, nose pointed towards the sky.  She cried then, like a lost child as her family and captain went forward without her.  She could hardly move, her back frozen to the trail.  Even her tears froze.

"Help!  Help me!"  But no one came.  No one called after her.  They had abandoned her.

Then to her surprise, a claw pocked at her shoulder.

"Who is that?  Who?" she asked but couldn't see anyone
.
She felt it again, asked the same question and was then thrown back into the true world.  Her eyes flickered open, blinked at a bright burning light at her side and groaned like a hungry cub.  Her head hurt along with her torso.  Her limbs felt like they had been hammered into muss.  She found a face hovering over her, someone familiar.

"Who?" she asked the curious face.  She examined his wrinkled brow, the slate gray eyes, thin black lips, the blue of his fur.

"Akuna?" the face asked.

Then it came to her.  "Kusno," she said.

"Aye," the face said, frowning down at her.  "Good to see you have your senses back.  How do you feel?"

"Like shit," she said bluntly.  She was on her back, on a bed, she guessed.  Looking down, she could see her burnt chest, but that was not what gave her alarm.  Down her torso, across her belly and legs were thick straps of leather to bind her to the mattress.  She pressed against them, tried to rise, but none would give.  "What are you doing?  Help me."

"Afraid I can't," her captain told her, looking down sadly at her restraints.  "I do that and they'll tie me down as well.  They were put on you because they believed you'd be violent when you awoke.  I didn't disagree."

"Who?  Who is keeping me-"  Then she knew.  She remembered.  The southerners.  Glass-eye.  His pliers, the chain, and the electric box.  Her eyes wandered and found the same rock walls and dirt floor, an electric light on a table keeping the darkness at bay.  She looked back at Kusno, confusing plain across her face.  She knew the question that burned the brightest in her mind.

"Why are you here?  How?  Where are we?" she asked all at once, unable to keep the questions quiet inside herself.

"A grand, long story," Kusno answered.  "It will take awhile to tell you, but one answer that is simple is that we're within one of the few remaining Reono bases.  Secret, ancient, and underground.  But for us northerners, it's a prison."