Call of the Wolf (The Kohrinju Tai Saga) Read online

  And now, my chance had come.

  ___________________________

  When he rose up into a partial crouch, I could see his face was a caricature of amazement. I also quickly noticed that he was favoring his left leg. There was no time for personal satisfaction, however. If I succeeded I could reflect later.

  Keeping the initiative, I skipped in with the right foot and gave a partial jump up with the left knee as a faking strike. As he brought his arms up and stood to protect his snout, the most obviously vulnerable part of his body, I extended the left foot down and landed on the ground while thrusting forward deep and low with my right foot just below his belt line, something I have heard called a Jumping Chicken-Kick.

  As he groaned and grabbed low to the cavity just above his groin, I delivered a wicked uppercut with the stiffened fingers of my left hand into his throat. This caused him to reel backward, and again catching my tall opponent off guard I immediately shot in against his left leg and took him down. Stepping in quick and rolling him over, I knew I had only a fraction of a second. His unclad underside was fully exposed, and through my still partially blurred vision I saw what I was looking for.

  There was only one way to beat this walking abomination, it was literally a case of do or die. For a split moment I was able to keep him in a rolled position, and I hammered my fist into his exposed genitals with all of the strength I could muster. I felt him buck hard and his loud exclamation might be considered humorous in other conditions.

  Karthanook managed to roll out of my grasp and stumble to an almost standing position. Grabbing his right foot from behind, I was able to hold onto his ankle as he hopped around on the other leg, his expression was almost pleading. I kicked him savagely and methodically into the groin four times, each kick causing him to leap into the air with howls of pain. With the fourth kick he finally fell to the ground, pitifully clutching his privates as he writhed upon the coliseum floor.

  The anguished cries of Karthanook were horrific, sounding like a mixture of a woman screaming and a wounded dog’s yelping, but I felt no sympathy for him. He had intended to humiliate, mutilate, and then slowly kill me. Not only for the entertainment of the crowd, but for his own pleasure.

  He rolled in agony to his knees and I watched his torso muscles drop. The muscles had released and the solar plexus cavity was now exposed. This is what I had been hoping for, as his head was just too hard to keep hitting with my fists and his throat too well protected by the way he held his head. Frantic in his movements, Karthanook was struggling to get up on his right leg.

  I went in hard, ramming in and upward with my right fist into his exposed belly with every vestige of my being. Again I hit him, and then again five times more. With each strike I was directing all of my strength and power. I felt as if I were consumed by living fire. With each strike I could hear myself screaming as an enraged beast.

  Karthanook reeled and I grabbed his head, hard I brought my left knee under his unprotected chin and I felt the teeth crunch. I knew I could not beat his bones into breakage, so I tore off the remains of my own tunic and twisted it. With his head bent forward and toward me I wrapped the twisted fabric under his neck, around his exposed throat, and turned his body over and onto my back.

  Standing bent forward, I now held Karthanook stretched over my back, his belly exposed to the sun, his windpipe closed and sealed by his own weight from my garrote. I stood there until I felt him wretch in the spastic shudder of a creature in death, and then held him a bit longer before letting him drop.

  Nearly falling down myself and staggering from fatigue, physical abuse, and the sudden release of my heavy opponent, I faced the crowd. They, who only moments ago had been chanting for my death, were now chanting my name in victory.

  I remembered … I remembered the sole reason why I had no fear of death. I remembered why I had to win. Harboring the vilest of thoughts, I looked at these people. I looked into their eyes and hated. I hated each male, each female, and each child with no racial exceptions.

  I hated and visualized every single one of them, their homes, their livestock, and their pets. I visualized each and every one lying upon the ground dying, their eyes looking up at me with their last glimmer of life. The same look of so many who had died in the coliseum, breathing their last breath for these people’s amusement. In my mind, I envisioned these people looking at me with pleading spirits. And in my mind, I spit upon them.

  Into the crowd I screamed an ancient curse from a language no longer spoken “Thel-dohnarize Kn’Shuratt!” It was a curse they could not understand, but which damned them and blasphemed the gods they served.

  Today, Karthanook’s death made two hundred and sixteen opponents I had killed in coliseum combat.

  I won because they came to see me die by one of their own, and I refused to give them the satisfaction.

  Turning my back on the screaming crowd, I felt myself stagger as I turned to go into the tunnels leading to where the fighting slaves were kept. And the guards … they moved out of my way.

  Chapter 2

  ________________________

  FOUR GUARDS WAITED inside the tunnel to lead the way and a compliment of six more gathered behind me; ten well-armed and trained men, each taller and bigger than I, to escort my battered form back to my cell. As I stepped in from the light of the sun, I wavered and almost fell. Hesitating a moment, the guards just stopped and gave me some space. They had each seen me fight many times before and knew me well. I was not feigning, this time I had been taken beyond my limits; Karthanook had dealt me more punishment than anyone had before.

  Fighters and fight promoters had been watching me for years, now. It might sound like flattery in some regards, but the point of the matter is that they were studying how to beat me. Diversification of style and tactics had kept me in the win, but there is only so much you can do. I had seen and fought many who perceived them self as unbeatable, but I knew better. Sooner or later I would be matched with the right opponent, or I would make a fatal mistake, and it would be over; I would be dead, and all for the sake of spectator entertainment.

  My dilemma, though, was how to get out? I was a slave … a well-guarded slave.

  My head, it was so-o-o hard to think straight. The remains of my adrenaline rush were washing away, quickly, and the perfectly hewn rock walls of the coliseum’s lower levels seemed to fade in an out of darkness. Closing my eyes, I shook my head, but when I opened them I was seeing double images of everything, and they were separated into triple and quadruple images.

  I saw four mouths open and begin to speak, it was so eerie and surreal, but then I realized it was the same person, as his visage slowly came back together. His words sounded impossibly slow and a loud hum was in my ears. Bending over and bracing myself with my hands on my knees I fought to keep consciousness; if only I could walk the distance to my cell where I could lie down, get some small amount of nourishment, water in my system, and rest.

  Reeling, it was a battle just to keep my footing as the guards stepped back, not wanting to come close enough for me to touch them. I think two of them drew swords just in case. One guard, I know, was still talking to me in an alarmed tone, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  As the world seemed to spin I thought I could smell my momma’s griddle cakes simmering on the breakfast fire, the feel of my bare feet on the finely woven grass mat covering the floor of our quarters, and the distant sounds of Barlan, the hostler I knew as a child, putting the horses to harness first thing in the morning. But my feet weren’t bare; compelling my eyes to focus I could see and feel the stone floor of the tunnel.

  Again, everything went to a blur and it seemed I was a small child, waking in the middle of the night from a horrible nightmare. ‘Momma?’ I thought to myself and mouthed the words, ‘Is that really you?’ I started to reach out, to call for her, when my knee struck the tunnel floor and sharp pain jolted me back to reality. I forced myself to stand back up, desperately pushing through the wea
kness with the sheer power of will.

  Finally gathering my footing, I was able to somehow make my way down the corridor. My mind, however, my mind kept flowing in and out, back and forth in time, as I began to remember things I thought I had long since forgotten, some things I strangely realized I hadn’t remembered since I was a child … how odd to suddenly remember them now …

  According to my momma, I was born on the 17th day of the 3rd month in the Dahruban Year of 436. If you want it in the colorful Old World Elvin vernacular, you would say my birth occurred at the apex of eventide during the Ebbon Qiuthox of the 4th Age, in the year of the Black Leopard, upon the 17th day of the month Kizokudahm.

  The Selestian Star was out and burning bright blue that night, which was a rare thing that happened for only a few days every two thousand years or so. Momma believed this to be an omen and named me Komain J’Sehf; Komain being an Elvin name meaning Soldier of, or Guardian of Light.

  Kelshinua was my momma’s name, and she was beautiful, and I don’t just say that because she was my momma. She was of olive complexion with ashen colored hair mingled with a creamy white that seemed to come alive in the breeze. Only slightly less tall than most human women, she was what most would call slender. She had the most beautiful deep brown eyes that could look right into your soul, and a voice so pure it’s almost impossible to describe. When she sang … the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, horses, any creature round about seemed to stop and listen.

  My momma’s smile made you feel all warm inside; her touch like the brush of silk yet gently firm at the same time, and when she walked it was almost as if she floated from one movement to the next. You would have thought she was a queen, she was so elegant, yet there was no pretentious arrogance about her.

  Even though my momma’s fingers were strong, when she brushed the strings of her guitar, the sounds were as if they had been caressed from the air itself. When I was hurt, her fingers could brush over me and it would actually ease the pain. Sometimes, if I banged my knee or elbow, you could actually see the bruise fade at her touch. There was just something so special about the feel of my momma’s hands and fingertips.

  Just being next to my momma was like a magical experience, and I was next to her most of the time for my first nineteen years, but don’t compare that to human years. Humans breed and grow way too fast, at nineteen they’re practically full-grown and d’warvec aren’t too far behind.

  Elves of all varieties are just entering adolescence at twenty and aren’t fully mature until around forty or fifty years of age, depending on type and whether they have a human parent or not. Human parentage among modern elves isn’t exactly unheard of, but it is highly uncommon to rare.

  When I came along my momma was four hundred and fifty years old, but she was an elf of the Shihnuthai Clan, said to be among the last of the T’dahrosheim, which means old-bred, or true-bred, depending on dialect translation, and a T’dahrosheim Elf of good health could live to be as much as six or even seven hundred years old. One of our ancestors, an immensely powerful Druid named Shumang Thai, had even lived to be one thousand and seventeen years old, only he wasn’t a slave, and we were. It hadn’t always been that way, though, at least not for my momma.

  Kelshinua Fhai’Tuhra was born into the Sh’Nika Tribe of Itahro Mountain Elves and was the only great-granddaughter of Kn’Yang T’Oun Shu, last Great Chief of the Dsh’Tharr Nation. Outsiders who have even seen the Itahro Mountains are few and far between and the Sh’Nika Elves had long since been labeled Wild Elves by the humans. More often than not, anyone who travels that way are never heard from again. There are even legends of famous trappers and explorers who traveled that way, looking for treasure more often than not, and didn’t make it back.

  The Itahro’s are the northernmost range of the imposing Hoshael Mountains. Located within the Arctic Circle, the territory is a mixture of ice-covered peaks, canyons, glaciers, lakes which are frozen half of the year, and vast forests of virgin timber. Momma said there are trees out there which two dozen grown elves couldn’t reach around.

  Breathing in deeply you can taste the purity of the atmosphere and feel the crisp, vibrant presence of evergreens mingled with vast plains of sheer ice. As cold as the temperatures are, though, the air is very dry and a person used to humid snow can easily freeze to death thinking they are warmer than they are. Momma recounted times when elvin hunters came across the petrified remains of humans whose warmest clothing was tied to their backpack; they had just fallen over and succumbed to Tuat nio’Huatka, what many call snow sleep.

  It’s the land of the Shastien Eagle, arguably the most intelligent of all eagle species, two hundred pound wolverines, the Sapphire Rose, deer big enough to ride, Uordak Trolls, the woodchuck-like Kahfotaur folk, and the dreaded Windigo. Rugged and treacherous to be sure, yet my momma’s people embraced the territory and made it their home, and she not only grew up there, she flourished in that land.

  Many times as a child I have laid before the night fire in my blanket and listened to my momma weave tales of her childhood; tales of the numerous baby deer she rescued and raised, running carefree through the dangerous woodlands with birds flying all about her as watchful companions, playing hide and seek with chipmunks and ferrets, and then there was the time she fixed an eaglet’s wing and carried it for five days until she found its nest on high up Gadriel’s Peak.

  Kn’Yang himself went to go find her, and then he let her ride on his shoulders the whole way down the mountain as he told her stories of his own antics as a child. I often think back in awe and wonderment, what nerve and courage my momma had, even as a little girl. Only a person of magnificent valor, or an absolute fool, would do some of the things my momma had done … and to know her was to know this, the great-granddaughter of Kn’Yang was no fool.

  Of course, any child fortunate to be around animals and to have pets will always remember that one special, favorite pet. For my momma it was an albino mongoose whom she dearly loved. Together, she said in fond memory, they went on so many adventures. In their play world they visited the far distant Dsh’Tharr Mountains, where the Itahro Elves once lived under legendary Elvin King Oshang; they helped found the original castle where the city-state of Dahruban is now located; they even visited other worlds by rediscovering how to use the ancient Ciquoa’Stän.

  Momma had actually seen a Ciquoa’Stän somewhere north of Belmond Glacier. It was a large ring of tall stones, each connected at the top by another stone laying from one to another. At the backside of the circle it was maybe eight rods high at the top, and at the front it was about nine rods tall. There was no mortar and they were fitted perfectly. Momma said seven of these were built around the world by the fabled Dorhune, long before the Age of Druids.

  She loved that mongoose and when she talked about him it always brought tranquility to her soul. What happened to him I never asked, but who wants to talk of a dear pet in its passing? She never told me his name, but she would call him her little Thon’Cier, which translates into Longish, the most common language in Aeshea, as “masked one.”

  For nearly three hundred and fifty years my momma lived in that wild country, yet in the stories she told me, never did she reveal anything of her own life beyond childhood. Was it because I was still small and she sought to keep the horrid images of war from my mind? For there were wars in that rugged land, and although she never talked about it, I somehow knew she had seen things no person should have to.

  If so, it would be like her to do such a thing; not to hide me from the reality of death and destruction, but to wait until I could understand and she could teach me values based upon her own experience.

  Many were the tales she told me of Kn’Yang, however, since she and her great-grandfather held a special bond, and when she spoke of him it was with majesty and grandeur. I got to hear of his fighting trolls, his magic quiver of a thousand arrows, and how he led the Itahro Elves through two hundred years of warfare into conclusive victory over their enemies.

/>   Among those defeated were the Sn’Yter-Guymar people, an elvin name for a sub-human race of inbred cannibals; long feared for their cruelty, deception, and villainy to those who might attempt to travel throughout the country. Under the leadership of Kn’Yang, the Sn’Yter-Guymar were all but exterminated like vermin and the few survivors scattered into the icy wastes of Pel’Fynqiuah.

  Kn’Yang was known as Gahjurahnge Miu Grandé, translated in the human tongues to mean The Great Ranger. Momma told me even the trolls feared him, and if you know anything about the ferocity of trolls, that is saying a lot.

  It was said he could walk from tree to tree, covering miles of territory in only a few strides, and when he walked through the forest the laurel and thorn bushes would part for him to pass. Personally, I always thought that a bit too far out to believe, but it sounded good when momma talked about it and I never questioned anything she said.

  How my momma came to be captured and brought to Gevard was a tale she would not tell me. But for over one hundred years my momma was kept within the walls of the Fel’Caden Family’s main keep, housed in her own little dwelling behind the apple trees, and not once did any of those elvin warriors ever appear. As far as I was concerned she had been abandoned by her own kind, cast away and ignored to be used by human filth in whatever way they chose.

  Sure, my momma’s official purpose was to cultivate the flowers, vineyard plants and the various orchard trees. By her hand did Fel’Caden Keep become the most beautiful in all of Gevard. Often she would be called upon to sing and/or play her homemade guitar for gatherings sometimes held at the keep. But there was more; my momma had visitors at times in the night, visitors she did not want nor willfully indulge, and these visitors were not gentle.

  Some of my earliest memories are of having to endure the looks of the humans, both adult and child, and hearing them refer to me as “the spike, spike-ears, slink, half-breed, bastard” and other degrading things. When once I tried to join the other slave children in play, they instantly turned on me with laughter, hurled mud-balls at me, and chants of “hit the spike, hit the spike …”