Chương 313: 4.3

Evren strode up the main road of the Fortress city of Kars dressed up like a prize bull. They had combed and oiled his fur to a shine. Shaved intricate patterns into it like his family did for the summer harvest dance. Laid heavy tassels in all the colors of the rainbow down his flanks and draped banners of elvish silks everywhere else. He also jangled with so much metal clattering against each other. Clipped to his fur and mane by the dozens upon dozens was shining brass, gold and silver tokens.

If it was not for the wind in his muscles supporting him Evren was unsure he could have stood. But he marched without a tremor under the burden. Just more lies smothering him. The people gawked and cheered. A teeming mass of strangers. A riotous blend of all the people of the Vanand. Most with snubbed noses, the women bare faced and the men with tight braided beards. But not all. There was the shine of bald heads with glittering scales or at most feathers at the brow and crown on some.

But second most common were those familiar from his home's hills. Furred faces with snouts like his family. Most wrapped in cloth but some even revealed their kind openly. Which was a change to the people in Kars. If a slow coming one. Nearly all still stayed entirely covered despite the baking heat of the summer sun. No matter how much they like his sister would have to suffer fur stuck together and stiff in sweat's salt afterwards. As had been normal since forever according to his parents.

But there were some now in the city who wore the looser clothing favored in the hills far away from city walls. So far he'd even seen five with silks normally meant for the rich, although despite the wealth hanging from their shoulders they seemed yet uncomfortable with it. Again like his family. Like Evren himself dressed in riches that did not really belong to him. A fortune weighing him down with the labors of so many years. So many lambs for market, so many mountains of wool.

His keepers tried to teach him about 'finery' but it just made everything a heavier burden. So much work to drape him in decorations. A weight he saw on the backs of people who were just as uncomfortable as he was about it. He had heard talk in the halls of the Kars Keep. A palace by a different name. About the families 'elevated' from the shepherds of Vanand. Families beyond his neighbors gifted eggs in hopes of hatching another Wyrm. Drowned in 'gifts' and likely given the parcels and hills of their neighbors.

Put in new built houses and told they were in charge while trapped even tighter in service to the lords. There were those that definitely walked and watched and cheered for him with their fur free to breath in the summer breeze simply because they had been drowned in silk bondage and riches for even a chance of a Wyrm child. But they were not the only ones. Men and women stood with bare furred shoulders, free tails, ears and uncovered snouts with simple cloth garments like one would wear back home.

Where the unfurred men and women were neighbors and friends, where they didn't sneer or spit on the ground you stepped on. Where mothers did not hurry their children to cross streets if you approached from behind them. When Evren had first come to Kars there was not a single uncovered snout or tail among the crowds. But now there were dozens scattered amid the crowds.

And in their faces he had started to appreciate there was a different character to their cheers, to their smiles, to the perk of their ears and the sway of their tails. So much was lies in Kars. Evren appreciated these moments of truth. A mother with barely more than a simple chest wrap and skirt was holding her furred child up in the air so he could see Evren better. Whispering in a tongue that the wolf prince did not know, but there was joy on both their faces. Genuine joy that he was here.

Simply walking down the street. Something true in a midden of falsehoods. It made the roiling storm inside twist and bite like acid in his chest almost worse than the other watchers. The fully shrouded men and women suffering in their fur and sweat who glared and rumbled under the tumult of the crowd at the 'indecent' ones. Who judged those that dared to not hide. They were even worse than the glares and sneers from the furless squashed faces that took offense to uncovered 'mongrels' or 'gnolls'.

Worse then the ones who seemed intent to simply not look at bare fur in the sun. Evren hated the city. With its walls upon walls. Stacked terraces and looming towers at every corner. Buildings crowding in so tight there was hardly room to breath. Tiered higher and higher til it reached the fortress from which the city was named. Where the deepest valleys of the city's streets cut off the sky from those that walked in its shade. The Fortress city surrounded him on all sides with its countless walls.

Only some of which were made of stone. The soldiers of Vanand were a wall as sure as any of the stonework of the edifice that closed off all ways through the valley. His keepers lectured him about it, how the city and its orchards had filled the valley to the edges of the lesser vault in the time of old Cantor's invasion. He'd not slept well after that. The thought of a city growing like a creeping rot in meat. Like a mold on grain until it oozed up the foothills and layered everything in terraces.

The keepers who all claimed to be such wise men in the world spoke of it like a beautiful thing. But Evren could only think of his home, of all the cliffs and shrub that had good grazing, of the secret little springs in the cliffs. Of it being buried in bricks and roofs. Of the water and grass being buried under streets and cut off with all the more walls. Walls between not just lords and herders. But rich and poor and then somehow poorer still.

Evren listened, he learned, he paid attention as he was told, as was promised. But some nights it was all he could do but to hold onto the sound of wind inside until the nights finally came and then cry to himself in the too soft and far too quiet room. Surrounded by pillows and silk when all he wanted was his family's simple house or even the touch and breath of the flock in the old sheep hold he had moved into when he grew too big. Why did he have to wear all of this silver and gold and brass and silk?

It's not like the heat of the sun or the chill of the night touched him. Still he walked, he marched and the people of Vanand cheered around him. He tried not to let the way that the High King was making him a liar to their hopes curdle inside. Tried to focus on how at least some people seemed to be able to stand without smothering robes in the summer heat because of him. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Focus on the words.

He understood some of the whispers around him. They called him 'our prince'. Not the wolf prince, not the Prince of Vanand, not lord. They saw his fur and his snout, they saw his mountain hill colors. They saw his common sheep-griff plumage. Even under all the gold and silver and silk and daubs of powdered lapis and patterned fur shaving made at the wrong time of year. It was something. Something better then- A figure rushed the guards. Running with unshoed feet.

But he heard the way ill kept claws scraped the stone. The sound of a pad at just the front of the foot, slapping stone without touch of a heel. He heard wind in fur and the desperate panting that his mother always told all her children to never let foreigners see no matter how badly the heat burned inside. He turned and saw men in the armor and colors of Vanand chasing a girl through the crowd. For a moment before the scent of her reached him he thought it was Dorka.

Thought it was his sister who was running to him with tears in her eyes after some stranger said cruel words to her again. The soldiers, the living wall of armor and blades keeping back the crowd moved to stop her, but just like Dorka the girl was swift and agile and she moved in a way that mother always told them not to, as any mother Evren was sure would have. But she did it anyway. She did what no one but the most desperately afraid would do.

Something Evren had struggled again and again to try and avoid until his father had told a shivering and tearful boy hardly larger than a yearling lamb that it was alright. That for him it was okay to walk on all fours. She stooped and moved. Hands as much as feet. Like a beast. She moved in the way Mother always said proved all the hateful men's words true. And passed the wall of metal, armor and swords, leaped up to him, grabbed hold around his neck, throwing the ostentatious cloth and silver tokens astray.

Her hands clenched tight in his fur, the claws of her toes and fingers caught and dug into the scales beneath his coat. The scent of her was unrivaled terror and desperation. Her body was a shuddering mess. She was not Dorka. He did not recognize her scent. This was not his sister but even so her voice was just as pleading as if he was her brother. Cries full of terror for her life. And even though he did not know those words, did not recognize it from any of the other more distant hill tongues of Vanand.

It was clear as the baking summer sun she was begging for help. The soldiers were in a tumult. The ones that were chasing her were saying things. But Evren did not care about whatever their words were. Fancy lies that the speaker believed to be true. Technicalities and excuses. More lies trying to drown him. He could smell fresh blood on their hands and clothes, a woman's. He took a heavy breath and could not keep the rumble of a growl out of his throat.

He could not stop his fur from bristling, his wings from flaring. Mother and Father were going to be so disappointed in him. The scent of blood was kin to the child crying into his fur. The blood of a mother. This girl so much like his sister was here with him, clinging to his neck just where it joined between his shoulders. Desperately keening for help in words he didn't even know but understood far too well. So desperately afraid she would abandon every lesson that was supposed to keep her safe.

Every promise she must have made to her parents to be sure that no one could claim she was 'just an animal' after the fact of beating her. The men that bore the freshly spilled blood of her mother on their hands were making noises at Evren. Were making lies at him and the wall of soldiers. He stopped walking. The crowd had gone silent. He turned to the wall of soldiers talking and talking and talking to the liars. The men. The possible murderers.

Evren was not sure by the scent of blood alone if the mother still lived. The brutes. Wearing the same colors that Evren had been draped in. Chasing a child through the streets. His voice came out awfully beastial. Precisely how his mother had told him and his brothers to never do. But if the matter was dire enough a girl would bound on all fours and risk being labeled a beast herself how could it not warrant his anger to be so openly displayed. The soldiers had finally shut up. Evren stood before them.

The wall of armor, shields and spears parting to let their fellows stand alone in front of him. And finally though he could smell the mix of joy, amusement and righteous self assurance still lingering on them in a stinking cloud there was also fear. Fresh fear. They shut up and stared at him. Before the filthy lies could start again Evren spoke. Voice booming and lips snarling, not the fine delicate words of the high court that he was being taught and forced to use in training and proclamations to the people.

Like he was supposed to be giving a speech at the end of this parade in. No Evren spoke the tongue of his mother and father and the hills of his home.

"You struck her mother." It was not a question, but the men began to blabber. Evren did not let their lies fill the air. Speaking over them.

"You enjoyed it." That got one of them to shut up. Recognition on the face. But the others were still speaking. Using the words preferred in Kars. The foreign tongue that Evren only knew somewhat sparingly. Something about crimes, about uncleanliness, about disrepute? But one was a word he knew. Evren remembered hearing Dorka crying that the men on the road had called her that. The wind boiled inside him faster and fiercer than ever before. He'd heard enough. His jaws were open.

There was a flash of light, white hot. The sound of thunder. And then the five men that had chased a little girl were almost entirely gone. The furthest back one was still there. Well half of him anyway. His chest thrown back from what had once been his feet. His ribcage was torn open and scorched by the touch of Evren's 'wyrm flame'. His meat inside charred black and weeping blood. His neck twisted at an awful angle from where it landed bent and snapped. His head had cracked on the street, bleeding.

Adding to the red spilling from his ruptured and scorched torso. But besides that Evren's aim had been true. Not even the stones were marred. He turned to one of the soldiers that had wisely separated themselves from the awful men. He remembered to speak in the court's tongue. The one he was told to use to make declarations on the battlefield." Find one that speak this small one's tongue. Small one's mother hurt, Smelled blood. Bad men. Find and help mother." Evren half expected the soldiers to yell at him.

Like the instructors, like the commanders. Or maybe try to lie while smelling like they told the truth like the regent did. But they moved as he commanded. And while some one was found to translate for the shivering figure still clinging to his neck Evren looked around and saw a multitude of faces awash in expressions. Some were afraid. But whether hooded or bare to the sun he saw something more in those with furred snouts. And even among the less well dressed of the skin faced men and women in the city.

He heard the quiet whispers of the name the High King had given him." Wolf prince." In the court's tongue at least. But in far more directions than he expected he heard the words of his family and home. That he had just spoken in snarling anger. All around a murmuring of a different title. But with a reverence that it had lacked until now." Our prince."