The Story of Sorrel Read online

  The last kit to wake was the one who had curled up directly atop Wren’s head. It took a direct comment from the Elder himself to finally stir the sleepy thing. In slipping from Wren’s head, it woke him.

  “What? What?” Wren snapped, jerking awake.

  He spoke the words in Crich, and the familiar language earned curious looks from the kits.

  “Oh,” he muttered, realizing where he was. “This…”

  The twins looked about the chamber. The guard that had been watching them had been replaced by a different one. In addition, aside from the kits and the Elder, a Fennec female with a small, squirming sack had entered the place. She clucked her tongue in a way that brought all of the kits scurrying eagerly to her feet, then upended the bag. A few dozen of the tiny, hopping mice that so often served as a quick snack for Sorrel and the twins here in the desert tumbled to the floor. The kits squealed with excitement and delight and bounced about to catch and gobble up as many as they could. A few made their way near enough to the twins for them to effortlessly snap them up, earning a look of admiration from at least one of the kits.

  “Breakfast,” the Elder said. “You have had breakfast.”

  The kits licked their chops and chattered among themselves. A thump of the Elder’s foot drew their attention.

  “Breakfast,” he repeated. “You have had breakfast.”

  He spoke with slow care. It wasn’t just the precise phrasing of someone speaking an unnatural language. It was the exaggerated elocution of someone teaching another how to speak.

  “Breakfast,” the kits echoed back with varying degrees of success. “You have had breakfast.”

  “We,” Reyna said. “We have had breakfast.”

  All, including the Elder, looked to her. She shut her eyes raised her head a bit. “Mama says we should speak better than she does. Learn it right the first time.”

  A few of the kits, now having experienced the twins as more than simply warm heaps of fur and cloth to cuddle with, crept over to them to sniff and investigate a bit.

  The Elder chattered something. Though they didn’t understand the words, the twins could tell it was another lesson. Somehow it was always quite easy to tell what sort of words were being spoken for the benefit of young ears.

  “Guests,” he said.

  “Guests,” the kits repeated.

  The Elder looked to the twins. “Each morning, the children learn a few words of the dragon language. And they learn the most important phrases as well. When this is through, we will discuss what we expect of you.”

  He tapped his foot again, and the kits gathered to him. A lesson began. Carefully phrased words echoed back, always in Crich.

  “Wise… Powerful… Merciful…”

  The kits parroted their teacher with little enthusiasm.

  “Bounty… Offering… Benevolent…”

  This final word was more than the kits could manage, and they stumbled a few times. Reyna crept forward a bit until she reached the end of her tether and repeated the word slowly.

  “Ben-ev-o-lent,” she said.

  Wren nodded. “Smaller pieces are easier. Ben.”

  The kits peered curiously back and forth between the twins and the Elder. He gave them an encouraging nod.

  “Ben,” they mimicked.

  “Ev,” Reyna said.

  “Ev.”

  “Oh,” Wren said.

  “Oh.”

  “Lent,” they said together.

  “Lent.”

  “Ben-ev-o-lent,” said the twins.

  “Ben-ev-o-lent.”

  “Benevolent,” they said with clarity.

  “Benevolent,” the kits replied.

  “Good. This is good.” The Elder chattered a bit to the kits, then addressed the twins. “You would be well served to learn what I say next. It should be easy for you, and it will help you if you find a home with us.”

  He took a breath and recited something. It had a singsong cadence, and the way he delivered the words was unnatural and without flavor or life. It was as though the individual words were not intended to be taken separately. It was simply a long, complex thing, spoken in full, and devoid of sincerity. He paused regularly, giving the kits the opportunity to repeat what had been said thus far.

  “Oh Boviss. You who are so wise. We present to you these offerings. May they nourish your mighty body and add to your legendary glory. May they earn for us mercy until the next full moon,” he said.

  The kits did well enough in repeating the odd little prayer, then fidgeted until a nod dismissed them. They scampered into the tunnel and out toward the heart of the village. The twins, still tethered to their stakes, remained. He approached them.

  “You speak the dragon’s language very well, for two so young. The Reds must be training you to oversee the offering.”

  Wren shook his head. “It’s all from Mama. What even is the offering?”

  The Elder regarded them dubiously. “You cannot have survived to even so tender an age without knowing of the offering.”

  “We’re not from here,” Reyna said. “We’ve said it over and over. We’re from across the sea.”

  “But surely Boviss’s influence is without boundaries.”

  “What’s a Boviss?” Wren said angrily. “You say these things like we should know them. It’s your stupid—”

  Reyna slapped his head.

  “It’s your strange custom, not ours,” Wren said, rubbing at where he’d been struck.

  The Elder beckoned for the young female who had fed the kits. He chattered with her a bit, and she nodded and hurried into the tunnel.

  “You have had a very strange life, or you cling to a lie more firmly than I had imagined. Either way, the village cannot afford to support newcomers unless they can make themselves useful.”

  Wren’s head perked up. “I can hunt! Send me to hunt.” He tugged the tether. “Take off this tether, and I’ll get something big and tasty for all of us.”

  “Not alone. Not when we do not know that we can trust you not to escape.”

  Wren leaned aside to his sister and muttered in Tresson, “It was worth a try.”

  “Sometimes it takes a child’s mind to know how best to speak to another child’s mind. You are young, but you know the dragon language. If you will help to educate the kits, you will be fed, and you will be taught the things you claim not to know.”

  “We just have to teach them words?” Reyna said.

  “And help them to understand.”

  “And you’ll feed us and keep us safe?” she asked.

  “We shall treat you as we treat our own young. At least until the time of the offering. If your people do not take you back on the day of the offering, we shall do so for as long as we are able.”

  “What about Mama?” Wren asked. “She’s a very good teacher. The best. She taught us to speak, and she taught us the game. She could teach these kits better than any of us.”

  “Your mother has another role. One that cannot be altered.”

  “What are you going to do with her?” Wren demanded.

  The Elder signaled to the guard. He carefully untied the twins and gathered their tethers.

  “To understand that, you must understand the first and most important lesson…”

  #

  The Elder led the way into the light of the sun, the twins in tow and the guard a short distance behind.

  “This village is one we call simply Burrow. If it is not home to the whole of the Fennec tribe, it is home to the bulk of it. Few who live beyond the borders of our village live long. And none of the Fennecs who venture far from our territory return. We have been spared the ravages of the world, but it comes at a price.”

  “The ravages of the world?” Wren said.

  “There are elves to the south who mean us harm. There are dwarves in the mountains, and deep in the ground who resent that we mine as they do.”

  “So people hate you here,” Reyna said. “Just like everywhere.”

 
“We are hated. But here, we are safe. Because no one, not a dwarf, not a human, not an elf, will venture into this place, for fear of what will become of them at the claws of Boviss.”

  “But what is Boviss,” Wren asked impatiently.

  “Boviss is a dragon. Old as the mountain, and nearly as large. He is invincible. He is all-knowing. He is mightier than an army, and swifter than the wind. His breath could turn the desert to glass. It could boil the sea to salt. He brings a swift and terrible end to any who enter his domain, save the malthropes.”

  “There’s one creature in the world that likes malthropes, and he’s a dragon?” Wren said.

  “He does not like us. If it were his whim, he would char us to cinders. But generations ago, he came to the leaders of the Fennec tribe and the Red tribe, and he made an offer. He would tolerate us within his domain, and we could live in the protection of his terrible shadow, if we offer to him gifts of our bounty when the moon is full. He demands meat. And he demands gold and jewels. If we satisfy his needs, he leaves us be. If we do not, penalties must be paid.”

  “What does this have to do with Mama?” Reyna asked.

  “Your mother is a Red. We shall offer to return her to the Red tribe in exchange for enough meat to make the offering.”

  “Why can’t you just get your own meat?” Wren said.

  “And why would they give it to you in exchange for Mama?”

  “Many times we have captured Reds. Always they have been in search of our mines, or to steal from our stores. You see, while they have more food than they could ever need, food enough to easily make their offering to Boviss, they have little means to acquire the gold he seeks. We have quite the opposite problem. The desert’s bounty can support the village, but there is seldom meat of the quality or quantity to satisfy Boviss. So they try to rob us. We try to rob them. And if one side catches the other, trades can be made.”

  “Why don’t you just trade gold for meat then?” Reyna asked. “If they have so much of one and you have so much of the other.”

  “That is not Boviss’s bidding. He demands offerings to prove we are worthy of his mercy. He expects us to acquire them by force or by labor.”

  “How would he know?” Wren asked.

  The Elder lowered his head. “He knows all.”

  “Wh-what happens if the Reds don’t take us and Mama?”

  “If they take your mother but refuse you, you will be raised among us. There may be some advantage to having some Reds among us, if you can truly come to be trusted. You will help teach the kits. When you are stronger, you will work beside us to pull gold and jewels from the earth for future offerings. Reds are strong. You would mine well.”

  “What if they don’t take Mama and they don’t take us?” Reyna said.

  “Penalties will be paid, because we don’t have enough food to offer Boviss for this moon.”

  “What penalties?”

  The Elder shook his head. “That is not something to trouble young minds. Come. I will show you to the other caretakers. You seem not to know the proper language of your people. You should learn.”

  #

  And so the time began to pass within the village of Burrow. Reyna and Wren did as they were told. Meals were small and rare, but they were at least assured. And after years of traveling alone and a lifetime of hearing of other malthropes only in the tales their mother told, they were with their own kind. The air was filled with the scent of their own. Until now, a village was a place requiring great caution. They had been through a few, mostly the elven ones farther south, but they could only linger briefly. Those were alien places. They were built for other sorts of creatures. Built to keep out creatures like Reyna and Wren. This? This was a place for them. In truth it was just as alien to them, but it didn’t feel alien. It felt like a home. This was how malthropes lived. Or, at least, how malthropes were meant to live.

  It took a bit of an adjustment, staying in the same place for so long, but at least the time was filled with tasks to keep their minds off the fact that their mother, and to a lesser degree they themselves, were prisoners here. The Elder requested that they stay with the kits and help teach them the trickier words in the Crich language. Thanks to the Fennec children’s smaller breed, the twins had a hard time determining just how old they were. They looked like infants, but they moved and behaved more like they were just a bit younger than Reyna and Wren. The little ones learned slowly, but that was no surprise. Though the people here believed this was a dragon language, Sorrel had taught them that it was mostly spoken by humans. The sounds were difficult to form with a malthrope’s mouth. But as with anything, a bit of dedication and practice was all it took to master the language.

  The education wasn’t a one-way street, either. While Crich was a mouthful for a malthrope, whatever language the Fennecs spoke to one another was simplicity by comparison. The chatters and chitters were made for long tongues and pointed muzzles. Reyna in particular was fascinated by the sounds. Whenever she didn’t have a task assigned, she would sit with her eyes shut and drink in the music of the language. The meaning eluded her. A dozen conversations going on at once wasn’t the best way to learn to speak a language. But by the end of the first day in the village, Reyna found herself longing for a chance to add this to the pile of languages Sorrel had taught.

  Her favorite times, though, were when she caught a glimpse of the fairies. She and Wren were no strangers to the creatures. When one lives one’s life where humans and their like can’t or won’t go, one tends to cross paths with the more mysterious and mystical inhabitants of the world. But until now, fairies were just a rare and interesting scent on the wind and buzz in the air. She’d only ever seen one as an uncertain glimmer in the distance or darting out of sight. Here they drifted through the village as though they belonged there. Reyna supposed they did.

  Wren was equally fascinated by the place and its people, but his interest fell elsewhere. He and his sister weren’t the only ones who were learning to hunt and hide. They had their own version of the game here, and it was something of a wonder to see it played. Many of their lessons took place down in the burrow where the kits slept. While he and Reyna repeated tricky words like “mercy” and “fealty” for young mouths to imitate, a darkened passage nearby echoed with scratches and sniffs. While Sorrel focused on running, being mindful of the wind, and finding a scent while hiding one’s own, the Fennecs learned quite different skills. Here, digging was key. Wren watched in awe as a creature barely his size illustrated to eager students how to dig a tunnel faster than he’d imagined possible. They learned how to navigate in darkness. Little games and tests taught them to judge how far to dig, and how to find things lurking beneath the surface.

  And then there were the weapons and tools. Sorrel knew her way around a needle and thread, but for everything else they needed—and it was precious little—they “found” them among humans, elves, and the like. These people made their own. Now and again a Fennec stinking of smoke dashed into the village toting a bundle of hammered blades. Wren caught a glimpse of people sprinkling sand on strips of cloth, then rubbing and grinding at weapons until their edges gleamed.

  By many measures, the time in that village was some of the best of their lives. They were safe. They weren’t lonely. Each had new things to learn, and new jobs to do. And they finally knew that there was a place where their kind thrived. But it was all tempered by the worry and sadness of knowing that they lacked their freedom. More often than not, they had their harnesses in place. They always felt the gaze of guards. And they were not permitted to see their mother. While they worked, learned, watched, and listened, Sorrel was caged. It was a cruel darkness that hung over this wondrous time of discovery.

  And for better or worse, it was nearing its end.

  #

  Two days had passed slowly for Sorrel. When her children had been taken away again, they had replaced the muzzle, and kept it in place whenever she wasn’t being fed. Sorrel couldn’t blame them. Half of
the soldiers in the village were nursing wounds in the shape of her powerful jaws. But without the means to speak, and with her hands and feet rendered clumsy by their bindings, she was left with little to fill the time but worry about what might be happening to her young ones. She breathed in long, slow whiffs, scouring each breath for the scent of Reyna and Wren. She seldom got so much as a hint of them. The burrows were clearly dug with the precise intent to keep scents from reaching the surface so that the place could be hidden even from those with a malthrope’s senses. This meant she was treated only to the smell of her captors and of the stinking coal lamps they used.

  At least, such had been the case until a few hours earlier. She’d been more carefully bound and hauled to the surface, where a rather ornate round cage fashioned of the same metal as their weapons had been readied for her. It was sized for a Fennec, not someone with her long, lean frame, so Sorrel was uncomfortably cramped as she was locked inside and hefted onto a sledge like cargo.

  All of her bonds were still in place, but just getting a whiff of clean air and taste of the sun again felt like freedom. Then, like a bolt of lightning, she was hit by the scent of her little ones. Her eyes locked upon the doorway of a burrow on the opposite side of the village. She heaved herself against the bars, nearly upsetting the cage. The guards surrounding her chattered angrily. A few days of hearing them barking warnings and talking among themselves had taught her little of what their words meant, but much of their tone. Threats rained down upon her, but she was quite beyond heeding such things. The two days with only a glimpse of her children was an eternity, far worse than any torture might have in store for her if she continued to misbehave.

  Sorrel wrapped her bound hands around the bars and shook them, growling muffled demands that reached the world only as angry hisses through her nostrils. The guards drew spears and swords. From the way they brandished them, this heavily bound, caged creature was every bit as frightening to them as a wild beast set loose in their village. The ornately dressed chieftain emerged and rushed to them. He issued some direct and very angry orders to his guards, then looked to Sorrel.