Chapter One: Out of Place
"This isn't right. Where's Kumar and Toomay?" Jeera muttered to herself, "This place is damp, and it smells different. And this damn cage-" She quieted. Loud footsteps rang on the dirt floor. Jeera peered through unfamiliar shadows, making out the slight out line of a doorway. Past the rotting framework she could just see a large expanse of dirt, similar, but much too big to be a breezeway of a barn. Across the breezeway were wooden box stalls that had the front walls and the gates ripped away. Inside the stalls were crude, homemade cages that had been fashioned from old sheets of steel and bars of twisted metal. The stalls gaped at her, wooden lips drawn back in mock smirks, exposing metal teeth that leered and glinted in the gloom.
Jeera herself was in an old tack room, waiting to be placed in an even smaller kennel than the one she was in now. Her stunning white coat was caked with mud, and mats clung to her sides and slender legs. Jeera's wolf eyes glistened with barely controlled fury and hatred. These men had taken her from her humans, thrown her in a wooden crate and shipped her off in a wagon full of nothing but darkness and haunting thoughts. They would pay for their misdeeds, but for now Jeera just wanted to get out of here.
"Okay! I do it ‘Oss! The wolfess jus' got 'ere!" A heavily accented voice drifted in from the open part of the barn. Jeera stiffened and sniffed the stagnant air. The strong, stinging smell of spirits seared through her nose. Coughing, Jeera tentatively sniffed again, this time ready for the stench. Once again the smell of spirits clung to her nose, but she found another smell lingering beneath it. Dogs.
“Move then! Her training should start soon. Al Shaba will be here before month’s end and we need to find some better prospects." The supposedly Boss’s voice replied crisply.
"I'll ‘et Keyah about to 'er shall I?"
"Get someone to look after her," Boss growled.
Jeera heard their footsteps fade away. Then the accented voice drifted back, calling for a chain boy, Keyar, to get about his duties. Jeera's ears perked as a lanky lad came shuffling in with an armload of freshly butchered meat.
"Yes, Master Tumbleweed,” he mumbled dejectedly, plopping the meat down on the straw strewn ground. He wiped off his arms with a dirty rag, stuffing it back in his torn breeches after he was done. His coarse, baggy tunic hung on his lanky frame and his crudely cut red hair had clumps of mud stuck in it. His red freckled face had flecks of dirt and blood splattered haphazardly across his thin cheeks and straight nose. His deep green eyes strayed from the sloppily stacked meat to Jeera, who was staring at him behind scarred bars of wood.
"Hey, there pretty girl," Keyar said as he sat down to inspect the new arrival. Jeera scrutinized the boy thoroughly, his surprising eyes catching her interest. She instinctively tried to see past the guarded walls in the depths of the green, straining to see deeper into his thoughts. His eyes clouded for an instant in suspicion, and then the walls reappeared, keeping Jeera’s gaze firmly out of the thoughts and emotions that raged behind his protective barrier. Trust was nowhere to be seen. “You are a catching one, aren’t you?” Keyar murmured in a low voice.
"Please, I’m no dog." Jeera muttered in her own wolf tongue. She expected him to carry on as if she had just barked softly, but he sat there in silence, his face so pale that Jeera could see every feature on his face filter through the darkness. The awkward silence went on for a moment, giving the two acquaintances time to process that the human and the wolf understood each other. Of course the wolf knew Trebian, she could understand each word that was said in the human tongue but she couldn't speak it. No, it had been the boy who had just interpreted the ever-complicated language of the wolves.
"I know you understand me so say something." Jeera said impatiently. It was rare for a human to understand her tongue, but it had happened before. Garnier had told her stories of this sort of thing back when she was a pup. Her kin had passed down prophecies, entwining the human and wolf races into one for generations. Besides, she had first hand experience with ancient magic. Her own human, Toomay, could understand all living things, no matter which language they used.
“For the love of Tatorak…I-I… You spoke Trebian!” He gasped in realization.
“No I didn’t! You spoke…are speaking wolf tongue,” Jeera said with a touch of annoyance, “everyone knows that wolves can’t speak your simple minded language. Everyone knows that humans’ tongues are far too thick to speak wolf language! Except for very few. Those few obviously were either born with it, or taught it by Ones of Old.”
“What are Ones of Old?” The boy asked.
Jeera was caught off guard as the walls began to fade away and his eyes filled with curiosity. She took advantage of the openness without hesitation.
“Given that you don’t know who the Ones of Old are, you were born with the ability to speak wolf. Now then, can you give me a hand and get me out of here?”
“Then how come none of the other dogs here can understand me?”
“Oh, they can understand you. All dogs can understand Trebian. How do they know when to sit when you say ‘sit’? No, you don’t understand dog language, which is far dumber than Trebian. Dogs have minds the size of an acorn. Even Council Wolves have trouble understanding them.”
“But I’m talking to a dog right-“
“Dog! You’re calling me a dog?”
“That’s what you are.” Keyar stated.
“I certainly am not! I am a wolf! A very important wolf at that. I am Jeera, Halamenon of the Council of the Wolves.”
“Halamenon?”
“I’m a…soldier that is controlled by the Council. I carry out important tasks that the Council gives me. Now get me out of here!” The boy’s questions kept coming, straining Jeera’s patience, if he could understand her, he must realize she didn’t belong in this place.
“So I can understand wolves, but not dogs?”
“Yes! Now please get me out of here!”
Just then Tumbleweed squeezed his broad shoulders through the doorway, shrinking the size of the room with his heavy build. He had breadcrumbs stuck in his bristly dark beard and his long, greasy hair was pulled back in an unsightly ponytail. He wore a long tunic with an expensive dragon leather vest overtop that bulged slightly from the man’s small ale belly. Worn riding boots peaked out from under the thick breeches he had on under the scratchy tunic. Glints of steel shimmered in the faint light from the toe of each boot. Keyar eyed those steel toes nervously.
“She’s supposed to ‘e in a cage ‘y now ‘oy! Git her in one!” Tumbleweed growled, his long mustache trembling.
“Yes sir. I was just getting her out…” Keyar replied hastily, opening Jeera’s cage and slipping a rough rope around her neck. He ignored the bristling hairs that stood up along her spine. Tugging her gently, he slipped past Tumbleweed, barely dodging the steel toes.
Keyar led Jeera to the far end of the barn silently, his curiosity beginning to fade into denial. He couldn’t speak wolf, he was a chain boy, normal and alone. If he could speak wolf, what did that mean? It would turn his entire world, a world he had worked so hard to safely rebuild, upside down and sideways. He was still suffering losses he had buried deep within him, the only thing speaking to this wolf would bring was more of that loss. That pain. Pain he didn’t need.
Jeera could sense his hesitation and disbelief as they passed many fenced in rectangular training pens and sunken pits surrounded with hay bales. Jeera’s attention shifted from the boy to her surroundings, wary of the unfamiliar objects. At either end of the circular pits there was a slanted path leading down to the sunken circle. At the end of each path were two thick chains secured to the either side of the path. The air that clung to the pits seemed to brim with anticipation.
“What’s that?” Jeera whispered to Keyar. He didn’t respond at first, now trying to deny his ability. As they passed another pit, Jeera repeated her question.
“The arenas where the dogs fight. One dog is chained at one path and another on the other path. Then when the referee says go, the chain boys’ -like me- undo the chains and set the dog off into the middle of the arena. We also block off the paths so they can’t go anywhere.” Keyar said quickly, keeping his eyes on anything but the wolf beside him.
“What if they refuse to fight?” Jeera persisted. She needed him to come to terms with this. She needed him to help her escape.
Keyar’s jaw clenched in frustration as Jeera repeated the question over. He swallowed before replying hoarsely, “They don’t, we train them to.”
“For entertainment?”
“That and profit,” Keyar spat out before he could check himself.
“Sick,” Jeera hissed as they walked along the perimeter of a training pen. A huge brown dog was snarling visciously as a couple of men hurled rocks at it from outside the fence. They laughed as the dog charged and smacked against the fence with an outraged howl.
Keyar nodded in reluctant agreement and turned into a stall with slightly bigger cages than the ones in the stalls that Jeera had seen from the tack room. These cages were empty. The others had been full of viscious and unnaturally huge mutts. All of those dogs had been well muscled and very ill tempered.
“Those dogs back there were just as large as I am, but they were in smaller cages. Why?” Jeera could smell Keyar’s anger as he unlocked one of the cages. His reluctance to answer was fading quickly, but his stubborn denial was still there.
“It keeps them angry and ready to fight. Just wait till they’re done training you. Then you’ll be just like them,” Keyar answered, his voice icy. Why was he answering her? He must be going mad. Madness, that was the only explanation he could accept right now. Magic was the way of the world but he was not one of the sorcerers. He was not.
“Please get me out of here, I need to find my humans,” Jeera said abruptly, the desperation in her voice surprising herself. Here she was begging for help from an adolescent human while the rebels searched for her own adolescent humans. But he didn’t understand their importance. He didn’t understand that with Kumar and Toomay unprotected the rebels would try to destroy them. If that happened, the Trebizondian human race would die out. If it died out it would alter the balance of all Trebizond, causing the domino effect. If only the rebels understood this.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” Keyar said, forcing her into a cage.
“Keyar! You don’t understand! My humans will die if I’m not there!”
“So? Everyone dies, it just a question of when and how!” He bit his tongue; he shouldn’t be talking to a damn dog!
“But their existence is important to the world!”
“Why?” Keyar asked quietly through the bars, locking the latch expertly with a resounding snap. He knew he was being cold, but he couldn’t smuggle her out. Tumbleweed would kill him! Besides, he knew about death, the very subject turned his soul icy, bitter and dangerous.
Jeera stopped short. She had said too much already. The Council had told her personally that this task was strictly confidential and that she could never, under any circumstances, give even the smallest hint of why Kumar and Toomay had to be protected.
Keyar bit down on his tongue again, cutting off the retort that threatened to spring from his lips. He shouldn’t be talking to her. He couldn’t be talking to her! She was a wolf! He stood up silently, trying to push the remorse back down to where it came from. Cursing himself for the sympathy that involuntarily reached out to this new wolf; Keyar turned around and strode quickly out of the stall.
“Great Jeera! Just great! Now what are you going to do?” Jeera hissed to herself. How could she get out of here?
She yawned deeply, her wolf fangs dripping with warm saliva. Irritated with her own fatigue, Jeera furiously began to sort out the thoughts that had been shoved into her busy mind. If she was going to try to escape tomorrow, she needed rest, whether she liked it or not. Reluctantly Jeera closed her weary eyes and curled up in a ball, draping her bushy white tail over her cold nose. Her deep breaths came out in wispy puffs, floating to the top of the cage before dissolving into the musty air. As Jeera slept, the rescue team the Council had dispatched a week ago immediately after Jeera’s disappearance, quickened their pace; hastening towards Jeera and her captors.

{<<<~>>>}

Jeera forced herself awake, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Her cramped muscles ached and she immediately realized that it wasn’t Kumar and Toomay that she woke up to. Instead it was a rotting barn seen behind bars of imprisonment and bathed in gray, dawn light. Dust danced among soft torrents of wind that floated through broken windowpanes and missing pieces of the rotting wall. It was cold, deathly cold. The air was full of misery and suffering. But the most distinct smell was the perspiration of dogs and men alike. Jeera could hear panting from a nearby training pen.
Suddenly Keyar appeared; he turned and came toward her with the coarse rope that he had led her with. Not breathing a word he opened the cage and slipped the rope around her neck.
Jeera looked at him with annoyance and anger. He couldn’t ignore the fact that he could communicate with wolves. That talent obviously meant that he had a significant role to play in his race’s history.
“You can’t ignore me forever. Eventually you have to realize that you’re not mad, just amazingly talented.” Jeera snapped. Keyar just tugged her gently out of the cage. He wouldn’t respond to Jeera, it would only make him more insane than he already thought he was. Besides, he’d found out yesterday that she was very persuasive. It had been hard to just act like he didn’t care about Jeera. He did. He cared about all the animals that were stolen from their homes, beaten into fighting and barely fed. Keyar tugged again on Jeera’s rope, forcing his feet to move toward the training ring off to his left.
Jeera followed reluctantly, glancing around at the converted stalls full of whimpering or snarling dogs. A shiver ran up her spine as they passed through a steel gate into a training ring. All around them, steel wires had been twisted and braided together to make a strong, impenetrable fence that stretched in a rectangle, not permitting any chance of escape.
Except if you jump it, Jeera thought. She looked around, estimating the height of the fence. It wasn’t too high, just past Keyar’s hip.
“Well Keyar, brought us a new one then?” A tall and lean man asked as he strode over, his steps long and purposeful. He had short, brown hair that had a permanent windswept look to it and short stubble gave his broad jaw line a handsome touch. His eerie, gray eyes were filled with a tracker’s knowledge. His callused hands gripped a scarred club, fingering it with giddy anticipation.
“Yep, a she wolf.” Keyar said giving Jeera a sympathetic look out of habit.
“I don’t need your sympathy.” She said in return.
“Of course you don’t,” he whispered back sarcastically as he slipped off the rope and fastened a thick, leather collar with cruel, twisted spikes onto her neck.
“I’ll be going then, Niron,” Keyar said to the man leaving Jeera with him.
“Okay chaps, lets have ourselves some fun, then shall we?” Niron smirked. His gray eyes glinted dangerously as he flexed the powerful arm that wielded the scarred club.
“Oh we shall, Niron, we shall.”
Jeera backed away instinctively as the group of men advanced on her. A growl erupted from deep in her throat as they came even nearer. They sneered at the threat, one taking a swing at her with a heavy, marked club. Snarling, Jeera turned on her heel and took off across the ring, sending bits of dirt and hay into the air. Groaning, the men followed.
Jeera checked her stride and took off over the metal mesh fence with ease and grace. Landing lightly on the other side, Jeera increased her speed and galloped off towards the end of the barn.
“Damn it!” Niron cursed. “She’s a damned runner and a jumper! Come on, after her!” Vaulting over the fence, the men called to the many other humans working busily throughout the barn.
Jeera knew there were too many to maneuver around and there was no other place to run. As Tumbleweed cut her off, Jeera turned into a stall, leaping on top of the cages she made a desperate jump towards a shattered window.
“Stop ‘er!” Tumbleweed yelled, also leaping up towards the window. Reaching out, he snagged her back leg. Jeera yelped as she was wrenched out of the air and thrown to the unforgiving ground, her bones jarring against the dirt.
“That’ll teach ya a lesson, she wolf,” Tumbleweed hissed in her ear as he bent down to grab her collar. Grunting, Tumbleweed dragged her out of the stall and into the open breezeway. Jeera gritted her teeth as the coarse dirt and pebbles ground against her skin, leaving long scrapes along her side. The men had crowded around the stall in the excitement, many of them not even aware of why. Now they chuckled at the she wolf, eyeing her with the greedy and cruel eyes of a fight trainer.
“What’s this then?” Boss’s voice echoed throughout the barn, reverberating off the rafters and walls. Tumbleweed sucked in his breath as Boss stepped in front of him. Jeera could only see a pair of heavy leather boots and the hem of a royal blue robe that swept along the ground.
“Well, ya see ‘Oss, tis, uh, she wolf here jumped da fence and tried tuh make a ‘et away…” Tumbleweed explained nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. He stared at the ground, avoiding his master’s penetrating gaze.
“What are you going to do now?” Boss asked calmly.
“Um, er, I was goin’ tuh, uh-“ Tumbleweed stuttered, his eyes slightly cross-eyed with the unexpected gentleness of Boss’s tone.
“Put her in the tank for two days you inbred Langarian! Have you forgotten? Al Shaba will be here in less than two weeks! This she wolf needs to be disciplined before then!” Boss exploded, giving him a heavy bop on the head. “And what are you scum doing; just standing there like a bunch of idiots! Well? Get a move on!”
The barn bustled immediately with hasty men. Tumbleweed gulped, hooking his sausage fingers in Jeera’s collar and dragging her off in the direction of her cage. If only it was her cage that he was going to put her in. Jeera was thrown roughly into a small stone cellar, an old, underground icebox. The walls were jagged, full of points and dents from dogs throwing themselves madly at those horrible hunks of stone.
Jeera blinked, adjusting her eyes to the inky darkness of the cellar. Lying down, the freezing ground sent shivers coursing through Jeera’s body. Her side was raw from the scrapes that friction had inflicted upon her skin and her left back leg ached from being jerked out of mid air by such a crushing grip. She tried to move it but excruciating pain flooded all over, sending her careening into a world of senseless darkness and shifting shadows.

Notalent

January 19, 2011 at 9:46 PM PST

This is action packed. You would be a great screenwriter. I can see the movie of your words in my head. You are going to add more to this story and not keep me in suspense, right??