The Reluctant Jackal

Autumn, 400 Anno Astrum

7

They left without goodbyes in the middle of the night less than a week later. Dalibor lingered behind the others, staring back at the ranch. It had been easier than he'd expected to sell the place. Easier than he would have liked to sell his entire life. He had known that Timora wouldn't refuse the offer, no matter how much she protested—"I wanted your dick, Dalibor, not your ranch."—but still. Having the deal finalized, having his work of the past decade reduced to a chest of coins strapped to the rump of a horse… It stung more than he'd anticipated. Some warlord. He couldn't even accurately project his own emotions.

Rasha quickly noticed him missing and circled back to join him in a final vigil over their shared home of nearly a decade. They had built the house themselves. The barns they'd commissioned, but the house was the work of their own hands. The joints weren't square, the walls whistled in the wind, and there was one spot in the hallway between their bedrooms where they always had to put a pot when it rained, no matter how many times they rethatched that section of roof. It was theirs. It was everything they'd wanted to be and everything they'd become. It was as much family as they were to each other. It was being left behind.

Rasha sniffed and rubbed his eyes. "We had a good time here, yes?" he asked.

Dalibor leaned his head against the bear's side, and his father pulled him into a sideways hug. "We did, Papa," he said. He tried to smile, but his lips were shaky and his tail was still. "Do you have any last goodbyes to say?"

"No," Rasha said. "I said goodbye to Mira when she stopped by yesterday. She will let my other suitors know I am gone."

Dalibor looked up at his father's face. He'd always thought the bear's insistence on calling his passel of casual sexual partners, both female and male, "suitors" to be a bit overly diplomatic, especially for Rasha, but he didn't push the point that evening. "What about to Dalya?" he asked.

Rasha sighed, and the two of them looked towards the tree line behind the house where both knew a rough stone cenotaph sat just out of sight, three names carved into it with a shaky hand. Dalibor's own assumed name was carved there, testament to the murdered son whose name Rasha had bestowed upon a young jackal whose own name was no longer safe. The old bear had adopted him officially not long after. "No," Rasha said again. "He is with his mother and his brother. And my son is with me." He gazed down at his adopted jackal with a weak smile.

Dalibor smiled back up, his tail wagging slowly. "Here's to our next adventure together, Papa," he said.

"I'll drink to that," Rasha replied.

"Not firewater, you won't," Dalibor told him. "We didn't pack any of it."

"You didn't pack any of it, you mean," Rasha said with a wink, and Dalibor laughed.

The journey through the Sunken Sentinels was far harder than any of the wandering Dalibor had done with Sara over the previous month. The Old Roads that had once passed through the mountains of northern Aquitania and Italia had long since fallen to ruin where they hadn't been entirely destroyed when the northern countries sank during the Fall of the Star. There were no established villages, much less any major settlements, so, by and large, they were on their own. Rasha and Musca worked together to chart their route eastward, sticking to valleys or the north coast whenever possible. What paths they could find were often too rough or narrow to safely ride through, so they were walking alongside their horses nearly as often as they rode them. Rasha insisted on avoiding the peaks entirely. Winter came early in the heights, and the chill rolled down the mountainsides even during the days.

During those days, Dalibor worked with Laenas to forage and hunt to stretch their preserved food as much as possible. What free time he had, and he had a lot of it, he spent riding or walking alongside Sara. They didn't talk much. Sara would ask about trees or animals or the weather, and he would answer dutifully. Some days he would ask about what life was like in New Rome, and she'd ask about life in Aquitania. She did not ask any more questions about his history with murder, and he did not discuss anything before his and Rasha's arrival in Massilia.

After his failure in planning during their flight across Italia, however, he knew he had to have one awkward conversation with her when he smelled something familiar not long into the journey. With a deep sigh and a sidelong glance at the princess riding beside him, Dalibor asked, "Do you still have all the rags I gave you last month?"

Sara's cheeks flushed pink, and she did not look at him. "I do," she said tightly. "Why?"

"You're going to bleed again soon, and I wanted to make sure you were ready since I still feel bad about missing it last time," he said.

At that, she did look at him, her eyes narrow. "How do you know that?" she asked. "Are you counting days?"

"What?" he asked. "No. Sara, I can smell it. Same as I could smell when you were fertile a week or so back, so I knew to expect this since I recognize the smells now."

Her cheeks burned a deeper red. "Well I am glad you didn't mention that at the time," she growled. "And what does being fertile have to do with me bleeding?"

He tilted his head to the right and stared at her. "It's part of the same cycle," he said. "Did they not teach you that?"

"Of course they didn't, because that's nonsense," Sara said. "Women bleed because our humours retain more fluids, and we have to purge the excess about once a month."

Dalibor tilted his head so much farther to the side that the bones in his neck popped. He shut his mouth when he noticed his tongue lolling out. "Do your scholars really believe that?" he asked.

"Why wouldn't they believe the truth?" she asked through clenched teeth.

He knew he was upsetting her, but he couldn't let this stand. She was too intelligent to be allowed to believe that. "Because every single non-Homin can smell that they are very wrong on the matter," he said. "You bleed when you don't conceive so your body can prepare to conceive the next month. I also find it hard to believe that any scholarly woman would allow such nonsense to persist."

"There are no women scholars, Dalibor," Sara told him. "Women are expected to bear children, raise their families, and nothing more. My father was debating whether or not to ban them from the Legion also."

"That feels unwise," he said. "There are too few people left in the world to just ban half of them from doing anything outside the house."

"But that's the very reason we are consigned to the household," Sara retorted. "There's too few people these days, and only women can bear more."

Dalibor grimaced and fixed his lip when it got stuck. "Okay, yes," he said. "Only women can bear and nurse children. But that only requires a few months before they can get back to whatever else they want to do, and men are more than capable of helping with absolutely everything else. Like my father always said, babies don't care who they shit on."

Sara burst into laughter. "I can see Rasha saying that, yes," she said.

Dalibor's ears folded back. She wasn't wrong. He could see the old bear saying that too, but it had been his Sabwan father, not Rasha, who had said it. He could still clearly see the stately old jackal, his colorful tunic covered in liquid poo, as he tried to swaddle Basma himself because her mother had died during childbirth. Dalibor's mother also, leaving behind a husband, two sons, and a helpless infant daughter. "Right," Dalibor said, and he let the matter drop.

On clear nights, they would all gather around the campfire to roast whatever game they'd caught or cook up a forester's stew. Dalibor would play his lute, and Rasha or some of the others would sing, and they'd relax after the exertions of traveling through trackless mountains into unknown wilderness.

After the campfire, or earlier if it rained one of the cold evening rains of the mountains in autumn, they'd retire to their tents for the evening. Laenas and Musca shared one, Dalibor and Rasha another, and Sara slept in one alone between the others. Dalibor was almost surprised by how easily he and Rasha fell back into their habits of sleeping together from when they'd traveled across the length of the world together ten years ago. Their current tent wasn't any larger than their old one had been, so there still wasn't even a foot of space separating their bedrolls, and with as large as Rasha was, it meant they were essentially cuddling together every evening. Which Dalibor was fine with. They'd shared a bed often enough at home when Rasha's suitors weren't visiting, and the nights in the mountains were plenty chilly. Besides, sleeping curled up with the old bear still made him feel safe and peaceful. He'd lived with Rasha for so long that it didn't even occur to him that others might find his enjoyment of cuddling with his father odd, especially given Rasha's continuing habit of sleeping naked. That is, he didn't consider it until the night Rasha asked him why he was sharing a tent with the bear instead of the princess.

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"She deserves her own tent," Dalibor told him.

"Have you not seen how she looks at you?" Rasha asked.

"I have," Dalibor told him. "Which is why I really shouldn't be sharing a tent with her."

"You and I sleep together without sex. You can do that also with her," Rasha said. "Though you certainly could have sex with her if you wanted. I don't think any of us would hold the noises against you with how loud Laenas and Musca can be."

"That's not fair to her, Papa," Dalibor retorted. "You know she's going to want more than cuddling."

"What if she does?" Rasha asked. "She is not Jadia, son."

Dalibor tensed, and visions of dead jackals in a blood-drenched kitchen flooded his thoughts. "You know what, Radomir?" Dalibor spat, squirming out from under Rasha's arm. "Maybe I'll just sleep outside. You're obviously trying to get rid of me."

"No," Rasha rumbled, pulling him into a tight hug. "Please, I am sorry. I should not have mentioned her. Besides, you're warm and it's cold out."

Nighttime quarrels aside, Dalibor found the entire journey immensely boring. While he'd been fleeing New Rome with Sara, there'd always been something to plan, some gambit to counter, some pursuer to outsmart. Every day of every week on the road, he'd been running through contingency plans or emergency routines, trying to predict what the Enforcers' warlord would do so he could outflank or outrun him. It had been the hardest thing he'd ever done in his entire life, even harder than leaving behind his first life and fleeing a different set of pursuers just over a decade earlier. He hated to admit it, but his time together with Sara had been some of the most fun he'd ever had. It had been awful, sure, absolutely, but he had never before had the opportunity to put so much of his Verdant Blade training to use. All the planning and counterplanning and maxims and hierarchies that Laetorius had drilled into him had always seemed excessive and borderline pointless before, but now, having gone through the exact sort of situation he'd been trained for, he really wanted to do it again.

This trip, however, was not going to give him the opportunity to do so. There was nobody coming for them. The Legion was heading to Massilia, but they wouldn't be there for weeks yet, and any trail they could possibly follow would be long cold. There were no cities in the Sunken Sentinels from which the emperor's spies could track them. By the time they reached Cibalae in a month or two, they could enter the city separately in disguise and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they'd come from. He'd have to keep his crooked fang hidden, of course. That was pretty distinctive. But other than that, there was nothing to plan, and it was driving him crazy.

He confided in Laenas about his boredom during one of their foraging expeditions. It was almost an accident, but it slipped. "Yeah, I can imagine," Laenas told him while they gathered nuts on their way through a copse of walnut trees, leading their grazing horses alongside them. "I mean, you're a trained warlord. It's what you do. I saw how much you managed to outright infuriate Gallius, too. You should have seen him after he spent two whole days on Ilva trying to find where you'd hidden. He didn't let a single boat or ferry run the entire time we were there."

"He blocked all transit to the island for two days?" Dalibor said. "The merchants must have been ready to murder him."

"Oh, they were hot, yeah," Laenas said. "But you should have seen Gallius when he got back to the mainland and I had to tell him you'd already been gone two days in gods knew what direction. Where'd you learn to wrestle like that, by the way? I haven't been beaten in a grappling match for years."

"Papa taught me," Dalibor said. "He was a wrestler and boxer in the New Roman arena years ago. Also, you'd been stabbed."

"I still can't believe the princess did that," Laenas said, rubbing his shoulder. "Anyway, we got word from Clusium that you were headed to Ravenna and we figured we could beat you there only to find you'd never showed up. Spent another two days waiting before Gallius finally had enough and started treating you as if you were a warlord yourself. He'd never admit it, but I think you impressed him. I heard him talking to Lucilius one night about how perfectly you'd followed the Verdant Blade's tenants for outwitting a warlord. He hated your guts for it, too. You impressed him, but he hated it so much that a dog had managed to outfox him."

"Jackal," Dalibor corrected. "And let's hope the two of us never see each other again, because I can guarantee you that the feeling is mutual."

"I'll bet," Laenas laughed. "Ooh, mushrooms."

Dalibor leaned against a tree while Laenas inspected the mushrooms he'd found to check if they were edible. "It's just that there's nothing for me to do out here," Dalibor said. "The plan is made, and now we just have to do it. I don't even know enough about Cibalae to make plans for once we arrive. I mean, it'll likely be nearly winter by then. What will we even do on the north coast in winter?"

"Have you ever considered just existing in the now?" Laenas asked. He picked several of the mushrooms and stowed them in his horse's saddlebag.

"I don't think I understand the question," Dalibor said.

Laenas dropped his pack and his horse's lead, spread his arms, and turned in a circle. "I mean this," he said. "Just be, Dalya. Let go of the past and let the future come when it will. All that matters is here and now."

"Don't call me Dalya," Dalibor said. Dalya was a dead bear's nickname and always sounded like a girl's name to his ear beside. Rasha insisted it was a term of endearment, so he tolerated it from him, but he wasn't nearly close enough to anybody else to put up with it from them. "And that doesn't make sense anyway. There is always a future coming, and I need to be ready for it. Ignoring it goes against everything I've been taught. Even back when we were running the ranch, I was always planning ways to improve the next season's output or expand our operations. I can't just turn that off."

"Yeah, I was always bad at it too," Laenas said. They'd reached the end of the walnut trees, so they both got back up on their horses. "It's one of the Azure Hand's meditations, trying to get us to focus only on the fight in front of us. To get us to exist only in what is currently happening so we can bend the next second of the fight to where we want it to go. The trainers always got on me for being too hotheaded, too quick to think about myself instead of the fight."

"How'd you get picked as an Enforcer if you weren't good at the Hand's meditations?"

"By breaking the face of the guy they wanted to pick," Laenas said. "Had to do it three more times before they gave up and picked me."

And so the days went. And went. And continued to go. As the nights grew colder and colder, the leaves of the trees in the valleys changed, and the snow crept down from the peaks. Rasha would grumble and groan about the way the cold crept into his joints every morning. "Maybe it wouldn't bother you as much if you wore more clothes," Dalibor told him, and, to his absolute surprise, the bear stopped sleeping naked. The jackal counted that as one of the greatest victories of his life.

His joy, however, proved short-lived, even though the cause of its departure was the very thing he'd asked for: something to occupy his thoughts. They were at the far eastern edge of Italia and on their way down out of the Sunken Sentinels into Illyricum when Musca spotted something while she was scouting from higher up the side of a mountain. Her face was grim when she returned to them, which struck Dalibor as a very bad sign. He wasn't certain he'd ever seen any emotion on the defender's face except when she was talking about her helmets. "Something is wrong," she said.

"What'd you see?" Laenas asked.

She pointed slightly south of the direction they were heading. "There is a village that way," she said. "But something is wrong."

"What something?" Laenas asked.

"It doesn't matter," Dalibor said. "We need to avoid people seeing us if we can."

"This is the first sign of civilization we've seen in weeks and you want to avoid it?" Laenas asked. "I'd like a real bed for a change."

"I'd like a real bath," said Sara.

"Nobody will see us," Musca said. She scratched at the short stubble of hair she was growing out to change her appearance. "There are no people. Something is wrong."

Laenas and Musca entered the village first, Musca's punctured shield covering them both as they advanced. Dalibor, Rasha, and Sara followed a short distance behind. The homes were all constructed of the same timber and thatch as the scattered hermitages and homesteads they'd bypassed on their way through the Sunken Sentinels. They crept through the village on well-trod streets, passing between houses, beside wells, along fences. It could have been any other village in the mountains except for the fact that it was abandoned. The silence unnerved Dalibor more than anything else, though. More than the empty streets. More than the scratched and battered doors. More than the arrows stuck into the sides of storehouses. Even more than the shredded Homin corpse lying in the shade of yet another scorched building or the fading smell of old smoke and abandoned iron.

His hackles rose when they at last reached the town square. Around a massive and long-extinguished pyre at the center of the square were a series of heads mounted on spears. At first, Dalibor thought they were the heads of Sabwa, but Laenas and Musca were already inspecting them. "They're wolves," Laenas said, covering his nose and mouth as he leaned closer to one of the flyblown, rotting heads. "The eyes are burned out. Must have been radiance-cursed."

"Those are bones," Musca said, pointing at the pyre. "Homin bones."

"The wolves must have gone radiant and killed everybody here," Laenas said. "I wonder who came by to clean up the bodies."

"Maybe not everybody died?" Rasha asked.

"My father said he had campaigns to cull the wolves," Sara said. "This must be why. It was probably the Legion that cleaned up afterwards."

"Thunder's stones," Laenas swore softly as he looked around at the buildings surrounding the square, running his hands through his curly hair. "Normal wolves are bad enough. Can you imagine trying to fight off an entire pack of radiant wolves? Super strong, super fast, and super crazy with the cursed fire inside their skulls blazing out through their eye sockets? Farmers wouldn't stand a chance."

Dalibor looked everywhere and at everything he could. The combat-marred streets. The flame-touched buildings. The severed heads around a massive pyre. One of the mounted heads was too small to have come from anything other than a pup, but its eyes too were burned out of its head. A beast was a beast no matter its age, after all. But still he knew that he was missing something. Laenas's reconstruction was plausible and likely correct, but there were gaps in the story. His warlord's mind wanted to inspect every inch of the village, piece together every scattered skirmish, every individual victory, every crushing defeat until he was absolutely certain that he knew what had happened here. Only then could he be sure that he could prevent it from happening to his own companions. Unfortunately, his warlord's mind also knew that they could not, under any circumstances, stay here one minute longer.

"We need to get out of here," Dalibor announced, still scanning the empty buildings around them.

"No kidding," Laenas said. "This place is haunted."

"Not that," Dalibor said. He scowled and felt his crooked fang catch his lip, but he didn't care. "Okay, yes, it definitely feels haunted, but if the Legion was here then we need to not be here. Once we're clear of this place, I want us all to travel closer together than we have been. Watch for any sign of wolves or the Legion, because we very much need to avoid both."

They left the village much faster than they had entered it, but Dalibor paused one last time to look back at it after the others had already ridden away. An entire village erased by radiant wolves. Emperor Poplicolus was right to be wary of them. Something gnawed at the back of his thoughts, but he did not have time to search the ruins and indulge it. With a final shake of his head, he rode away. At least he had constructive things to worry about now.