Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

Down. Crouch. Relax your legs. Dig your toes into the ground. Now RUN!

Old Cat was right behind Ar’tor now, jaws snapping, and Ar’tor ran, sprinted almost without breathing, ran as fast as he ever had in his life. He dug in his heels as he neared the rocks, stumbling to a halt.

No! Turn and RUN!

Ar’tor didn’t bother to plead for mercy. He turned and ran, every muscle and ligament in his body burning.

Over and over and over again he ran, until he had to stop to chew mushy snow, to heave for breath. To stretch out his cramping leg muscles.

And then, after a meal of the rest of the bird, he picked up the knife.

Cover your belly! Old Cat’s mindspeak was a scream. The cat emphasized the point with a paw swipe so much faster than Ar’tor’s sweat-stung eyes could follow that his attempted defense was a travesty.

Old Cat’s claws raked Ar’tor’s midsection, leaving three roughly parallel lines that seeped blood. Ar’tor stared at them in astonishment. Surely in another instant his intestines would gush forth, and he would die howling in the snow.

You disgust me. It's a scratch. Next time, a little deeper. Now crouch! Cover your belly! Up on your toes! FIGHT!

On and on they went, Old Cat mindspeaking Ar’tor through the movements, until the boy wasn’t sure who controlled which body. There were times that he felt Old Cat in his mind, command and response so close together it seemed he had no volition at all.

And other times, as Old Cat stalked toward him, the feline’s mind was open and talking to him, so that he felt what Old Cat felt, understood the tensions and relaxations that gave a cat its power and speed.

And other times, most of the endlessly long and exhausting day, Ar’tor felt like the clumsiest and most stone-footed creature that the gods of Spring and Summer had ever let live.

That night, Ar’tor tried to escape.

Quietly, oh so quietly, Artor crept out from between the rocks and peered around. There was nothing in sight, no sign of Old Cat. Perhaps the old bastard was out hunting. If so this was a perfect opportunity to . . .

He scampered across the plateau, and began to climb down.

Good. Nothing to stop him. He’d be gone before . . .

That was odd. What was under his foot didn’t feel like a rock. Not like a branch, either.

Even in the freezing cold, Ar’tor began to sweat.

He looked down, directly into a pair of narrowed yellow eyes.

RUN!

Old Cat just behind him, Artor ran so fast that his feet barely left an imprint on the ground. He dove the last few feet into the rocks, rolled losing skin, and lay there panting.

Well. There was a little speed left in you after all.

And this time, for the first time, there was a trace of amusement in Old Cat’s “voice.”

For some reason that Ar’tor couldn’t totally understand, he slept the rest of the night curled onto his side, smiling.

The days began to flow together in a pattern. Every morning, Ar’tor would rise and stretch his body. Then he would eat. And then run. In the afternoons, he would fight, and fight, and fight. And when he had no more strength, Old Cat made him stretch, and then run some more. Not the invigorating, healthy loping stride of the Hillpeople, but a sudden, start-stop movement that drained all of the strength in his body and made his limbs flame.

After the first week, he stopped thinking about the pain, because it was a constant, enveloping thing.

He accepted that this was his lot, and with that acceptance, the pain began to recede. Yes, his limbs hurt, but the agony was more a signal of growth than a warning, and he was able to push it from his mind.

Making' room for other things. First, and now most important, Old Cat himself.

On the ninth morning he left his fissure and found no meal sitting out on the edge. Old Cat sat at the lip of the plateau, gazing out over the valley. His tail moved slowly from side to side. He turned to see Ar’tor coming.

Ar’tor could have sworn that he heard a purr of welcome. Hello, little one.

“No food today?”

/ found nothing last night. I am sorry.

Ar’tor sat next to the creature, for the first time looking upon it as the beautiful animal it truly was. Beneath its black-brown coat, muscles rolled fluidly. Though the skin was loose now, it was easy to imagine Old Cat in his youth. What an unutterably magnificent creature it must have been.

“There is still goat from yesterday.”

It is not fresh. It is not good.

“I’ll survive.”

Old Cat said nothing.

At length, Ar’tor asked, “What are you?”

I am far from home, Old Cat said.

For long minutes Ar’tor thought Old Cat was going to speak again, but he didn’t. Come. It is time for our lessons.

Ar’tor warmed up, loosening his back, flicking the knife with controlled, whiplike motions. Speed is loose. Speed is like a hiss, Old Cat had told him once.

“You’ve known men before, haven’t you?”

Many, the cat replied. Once, long before you were born, I ran the plains with men. I loved them, and they loved me. I had a place in their society. Old Cat shook himelf. But come.

For once, Ar’tor stood his ground. “No. You bring me here, and run me until 1 cannot stand, and then make me fight until my arms are on fire. I want to know. I have a right to know!”

Perhaps you do, stripling. You will know. You will know someday. Eventually, a being wants a mate. A creature to sleep next to at night. To give cubs to. Something to love. I was a creature of the plains, but I found my mate in the mountains. It seems insane now. I could have stayed with my friends, and fought, and lived . . .

“But you didn’t.”

I didn’t. She would not come with me to the plains. And I loved her too much to leave her. So I came here, and I stayed. And we lived together. We had no cubs for many years. Men have a word for this. / don’t know it. Only last winter did I finally feel my seed burn within her. Come summer, she would bear my cubs. And so it came to be.

Then came the one you call Tluman. A renegade, a mumbling mindspeaker, one who came after my separation from the men of the Horseclans. He had done something terrible, and failed the Test of the Cat. He hated my kind, and when he found that I lived in the hills, he hunted me. By the Great Cat, how he hunted me. And at last he caught my mate, and my cubs, and he skinned them slowly, trying to bring me out. And I did not come, because I knew that my only chance to kill him would be to use stealth. I would kill him in my own time, in my own way.

Old Cat looked at Ar’tor. This is my time. You are my way.

“What did men call you when you walked among them?”

They called me Yelloweye.

Ar’tor crouched in the brush, watching. On the other side of the clearing, Old Cat was moving. He didn’t know where; the hunter had disappeared into the snow three minutes before, and Ar’tor had since seen no sign of it—of him—since. Yelloweye was a male, from his story.

Here the bushes were odd, twisted white lumps in an icy, flowing carpet. But between two of the lumps, nibbling through to a bit of twigs, a small doe was in sight. She stopped eating even as the thought doe crossed his mind. Her slender brown head quivered, the black rings of her nostrils quivering as she tested the air.

Ar’tor held his breath. A dozen trees separated him from the deer. Thirty yards behind her, trees broke from the snow, forming Yelloweye’s closest possible cover.

The deer turned back to the twig, stripping away a scrap of bark. Then her head snapped up again, and Yelloweye exploded from the snow. Somehow, in a manner that Ar’tor couldn’t quite understand, he had worked his way ten yards closer than the nearest tree. The doe panicked, bolting directly toward Ar’tor.

Ar’tor exhaled and leapt as he heard the hooves pounding against the snow. One part of his mind screamed, Too soon! Wait until \ou can see her! Another listened to the sound of the feet, working from some instinctive timing more precise than vision.

Ar’tor catapulted smack into the doe. Her hooves struck him in the face, but he managed to snake an arm around her neck and drag her to the ground. The terrified creature bit and kicked as Ar’tor found his grip on the knife, twisted so that he wouldn’t stab himself in the buttock, and drove the blade in.

The deer’s convulsions tore the blade from Ar’tor’s hands. The two of them lay on the ground, panting, as Old Cat padded up. A great victory. Will you live?

“Long enough to wish your worms a hearty appetite.” Ar’tor got to his knees and pulled out the knife, cutting the deer’s throat. He set to stripping away the meat.

/ liked that. You did well.

Despite his punctures and scrapes, Ar’tor smiled as he worked.

Ar’tor sat on the lips of the plateau and looked down over the valley. Distantly, he could make out the cookfires of the Hollow. The night was impossibly crisp and clear, and it seemed as if he could see to the edge of the world.

Karls would have liked the view. He would have made a joke about how far one could cast a spear from here, but it wouldn’t have fooled Ar’tor. Karls would have found great beauty, would have asked Ar’tor to write a poem for it. A poem Karls would later give to Eloi.

Ar’tor felt suddenly, terribly alone. He took his bone pipe from its bag, slid his fingers gently across its polished surface, and plucked the first low, cool note.

He was immediately lost in the song, something slow and lonely. He barely noticed when Yelloweye walked up to sit behind him.

The big feline began to growl along with him, the sound climbing to a howl. At last Ar’tor reached out to feel the warm scruff of Old Cat’s neck. Old Cat rolled against him, and together they sang to the moon. The sounds mingled with the wind itself, was carried across the valley. And those few who heard that wind wondered what form of demons haunted these hills.

The weeks passed. They spent their days fighting and running and hunting. Sometimes Ar’tor would abandon the knife and wrestle with the big cat.

Yelloweye’s reflexes were impossibly quick. In twisting and flashing from beneath the paws, Ar’tor found himself moving faster and faster. Working with a blunt stick instead of a knife, Ar’tor found that he could dart in and out, and that he could touch Yelloweye now and again.