Eavesdropping

“You need to stay here, Stripes.” Runt whispered and signalled with his hand to reinforce the command. There was a pressing job at hand. A twenty-yard dash to the shadows cast by the arch and then, who knows? He watched as the next pair of guards wandered past and around the corner. Runt became the scurrying mouse once again as he sprinted across the way. Had the guards turned they would have marvelled to see a young boy with a wolfskin flapping in the breeze who suddenly vanished in the slim shade of the arch around the gate.

Runt stood there, tightly pressed against the wall, thinking invisible thoughts as the coolness washed over him. He looked up and began to doubt whether the one half of a plan was any good at all. The stonework was well crafted. The gaps between bricks were barely a finger width apart and only about as deep. A week of tree climbing meant Runts arms and hands were strong but even trying to lift himself up to the first brick seemed impossible. He tried anyway and, one brick at a time, he began to climb.

The ascent was agonising. Not only did he need to use all his strength to climb, with his fingertips and toes screaming in discomfort, but he also needed to keep calm enough to concentrate on staying invisible. Runt remembered looking up right before he slipped and fell. The wall seemed to rise forever and, had he managed to make it to the top of the arch, he still would have been several yards short of the top, and standing in full light for the rest of the ascent. Instead, he found himself sprawled at the base of the gate, cursing his fingers which betrayed him, and forgetting, for an instant, that he was sitting half in the shadow, half in the light.

“Oi! Stop there!” a trooper’s voice echoed across the wall and into the night. Runt scrambled to his feet and stood in the shadow straight as a sapling with his arms by his side. He listened to the sounds of two men approaching and contemplated the sprint across to the buildings and his dog waiting there.

“What did you see?” a gruff voice asked.

“Not sure. I thought it was a child for a second. But it was furry.” This voice sounded younger. Runt resisted the temptation to peek around the corner.

“Probably a cat.” The gruff man replied.

“No, bigger than a cat. Actually, it’s odd. For a second I thought it was a wolf.” The young trooper said, defensively.

“No wolves up here, mate. You’re dreaming.”

The sound of their footsteps grew louder. Runt saw the glare of a lantern casting a shadow as they approached. The handle squeaked and the shadows shifted as the man lifted the lantern above his head.

“See? Nothing.” The older man said, then added, “have you ever even seen a wolf, Thomas?”

“I’ve seen pictures! I’ve seen their skins. But, no. Not yet. I heard there was going to be a hunt tomorrow night, though. And that, maybe the Captain was going to be there. I thought I’d ask if I could join.”

“Oh? Why?” the gruff voice grunted. The lantern snapped shut and they continued walking. Runt held his breath as they walked into view. The younger man, Thomas, continued to speak.

“Well, I mean, everyone wants a wolfskin cloak, don’t they? The ladies love them. Not to mention, if I made a good showing in front of the Captain. Who knows? Maybe I’d get a shot at being a guard in there.” He pointed at the wall, then, right through Runt’s shadow.

The older man, white haired with grizzled grey stubble, grunted in reply.

“Most of all,” Thomas continued, “I guess I just want to see how brave I am, you know? To see if I’m a real man.”

“Bah!” the gruff old man stopped, turned, and poked a finger under Thomas’s nose.

“That’s drivel, bunkum, and bollocks. You have no idea, do you?” he barked, “You’ve been brainwashed, mate. Bravery? Pah!” At this, he spat on the ground. “You’ve been sucked in. I went on a wolf hunt once. Do you know what I figured out? The bloody wolves don’t even eat sheep, let alone people. Bravery? Bollocks!” His hand slapped against his thigh.

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“What in the blazes are you talking about, old boy?” Thomas protested.

“It’s like this,” the old trooper continued. “The fellas heard the Captain was coming on the hunt and so they wanted to make it a sure thing. It looks bad when the boss turns up and the wolf is a no show, see? So they took a couple of chickens and tied ‘em to a stake out near the scrub. Chickens! That’s what the wolves eat, if they can get ‘em. Not bloody sheep.” He shook his head and looked out to the horizon, remembering.

“So what happens next is, most of the blokes wait out of sight just drinking and carrying on. One person gets the boring job of being a spotter. When a wolf comes out sniffing about the chickens the spotter calls out and they let the dogs loose. Then everyone jumps on the horses. It’s usually all over before the horses even get there. Not much competition between one wolf and a handful of dogs.” The old man shook his head and spat on the ground again.

“No, I’m sure you’re wrong about that,” Thomas protested, “my uncle works on a farm and he’s had more than one sheep dead from a wolf.”

“Ha! Saw it happen did he? I’ll tell you what eats sheep. People. Chances are his sheep got ate by a thief. Or a bloody dog. A feral dog can take down a sheep in under a minute. But I never saw a wolf do one.”

“But you hear talk of farmers seeing wolves around the place all the time!” The young guard protested, crossing his arms.

“They’re after the bloody chickens you nonce! And you can’t hardly blame them. The farms is all built on land that used to be part of the Wilds, too, isn’t it? They built the farms where the wolves used to hunt. They’re just doing what they always done.” He shook his head and continued. “You know what? You should go on that hunt. You’ll see for yourself. Who knows? You might even get a wolfskin cloak out of it. Then again, if the Captain’s heading out there, no one gets nothing. He’s good like that.” He laughed bitterly, then clapped the young trooper on the shoulder.

“Did they say where the hunt was happening? No good turning up to the wrong cottage, young fella.” The two of them started walking off, away from Runt, towards the corner. He strained his ears to hear the rest.

“Well, yes and no. They said to meet at Greybeard’s cottage on dusk. Which means nothing to me.”

“Huh. Interesting. They don’t often go out that way.”

“Could you tell me how to get there?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah. There’s a scrappy track heading scrub-ward between the tannery and the horse yards. It’s an old, ruined cottage out on the edge of the Wilds. If you talk to Gunther, the stable master, he’ll fill you in. He’ll know about it anyway. He seems to know most of the comings and goings out on the edge of the city, these days. Oh, and young fella? You be careful. Last time there was a wolf hunt one of the blokes died.”

“Really? The wolf got him?”

“Nah, he drank too much booze and fell of his horse!”

The gruff old guard’s laugh echoed off the walls long after they were out of sight. Runt looked up at the arch, shook his head, and dashed back into the shadows next to Stripes.

“You know what boy? If we can’t get to the Captain, maybe the Captain will come to us…”

Runt did not return to the great fey-tree that night. There was too much to do.

He did stop by the tannery, though, to remove the wolf skins drying on the wall and leave the mark of the Wolf-ghost in their place. Then he headed for the deserted cottage on the edge of the Wilds. Runt visited the farmhouses along the way. They were easy to find. Most of them had oil lanterns hung just outside the door. They stood out against the night like little islands of light. The lanterns didn’t stay lit for long and, after that, he was invisible. Several more wolfskins disappeared. More carvings were engraved. Runt moved on.

Dawn’s rosy fingers were beginning to creep above the dragon’s spine when Runt finally made it to the abandoned cottage. The gruff old guard called it Greybeard’s cottage but that didn’t really make sense, because Greybeard lived somewhere on the edge of the city. Still, Runt was careful to sneak through the cottage. It was deserted and, for the most part, empty. Nature was slowly reclaiming the place.

Dusty cobwebs covered the walls and draped over the one broken chair that sat hunched in one corner. Vines crept under the door as well as through the shattered window. An empty bird’s nest, also covered in dusty webs, squeezed between the crumbling roof thatch and the ceiling beams. Three beds mouldered in another corner, two small, one large, and, beneath the two smaller beds, Runt found a pink bunny (mostly brown with age) and a wooden sword that fell apart under his touch.

He moved on. From memory, the track to the cottage veered off here and led to the booze factory hiding in the Shallow Wilds further north. Runt ignored this, though, and headed straight for the nearest scrub. The sun poked above the mountains, now. Runt squinted and felt the familiar sickly reminder in his stomach that he needed to sleep. The higher the sun climbed, the worse he began to feel.

“Just a bit further, boy, then we can rest.” he said to Stripes, hoping to find a fey-tree. Eventually, they did. Runt unloaded the loot from the night’s raid into one of the nests in the clearing. “A gorgon’s nest” he thought, and the idea was so jarring that he almost couldn’t accept it. He looked around in the brilliant morning light and tried to imagine those destructive monsters lounging in the nests, or eating fruit from the tree. He shook his head. “We’ll have some answers soon, boy,” he said aloud, and ruffled the fur on his pup’s head. Before long, he was fast asleep.