Tales and Tails

By Candy Rae

Stories from Planet Wolf: Characters old and new. Thirty-six new stories, some contemporary with the five books in the series, others not. What happened to Tara and Kolyei after the Battle of Trumpet Keep? How do the telepathic Lind search for their human life-partners? What is it like to be a slave-child in the Kingdom of Murdoch? Life-bondings, pirate raids, cadets training, murders and more.

THE EARLY YEARS :-
SOFIYA - MIRACLE - ANASTASIA AND SANDAVDR - HOW MANY LCTSTAS DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A LIN? - DISASTER AVERTED - LEGACY OF INSURANCE - FAREWELL - I LIKE TO MAKE THE PUNISHMENT FIR THE CRIME - COMING OF AGE - NOT EVERY GALLEY IS BAD NEWS - LEAVING - BROTHERS, SISTERS AND A BLUE FLAG - I AM BLIND - THE MADNESS OF KING ELLIOT - ELLIOT’S MISTRESSES - ROUTE FOUND - OENYA AND OEI
THE MIDDLE YEARS :-
THE VISIT HOME - THE RAID - THE FIRST DAY - THE RELUCTANT PRINCE - THE HOLIDAY - THE EX-CAPTAIN - THE GRADUATION - THE RELUCTANT KING - THE PLANET - THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY - THE LITTLE MATTER OF MARRIAGE - THE GREAT CIVIL WAR
THE LATER YEARS :-
LIFEBOND - BROTHERS THREE - DANAL AND ASYA - NIAILL AND HANS - THE GIRL WHO THOUGHT SHE MIGHT HAVE TO BE A QUEEN

PLANET WOLF
(1) Wolves and War - (2) Conflict and Courage - (3) Homage and Honour - (4) Dragons and Destiny - (5) Valour and Victory - (6) Ambition and Alavidha - (7) Paws and Planets - (8) Tales and Tails

DRAGON WULF
(1) Journey and Jeopardy - (2) Gossamer and Grass - (3) Flames and Freedom

FLYING COLOURS
(1) Rascals and Renegades - (2) Outlaws and Overlords - (3) Sparkles and Sphinxes (forthcoming)

T’QUEL MAGIC
(1) Ephemeral Boundary - (2) Enduring Barrier - (3) Eternal Bulwark

MULTIVERSE MUDDLE (forthcoming)
(1) Vampyre Crypt - (2) Faie Castle - (3) Shadow Cave - (4) Demon Citadel

SAMMY THE CAT
(1) Cat in Charge - (2) Cat at Christmas - (3) Dog not in Charge

KILL BY CURE

• Language: English
• Publisher: Candy Rae
• Release date: Feb 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458062314

Candy Rae

Candy Rae has been an avid reader since childhood, with fantasy and science fiction appearing on her bookshelf in her first year of university when a friend introduced her to talking dragons. All her life, she has wanted to write, but it wasn’t until Christmas Day in 2003 that she sat down and started planning the book that, after many revisions, became the first book in the Planet Wolf series: Wolves and War.As a former accountant, Candy was notorious among her family for elongating her commute home by parking in a safe space and starting to write, having got into the habit of carrying a notebook with her wherever she went, a habit she continues to this day. When she’s not writing, her hobbies include knitting, tapestry, and trying to figure out ‘whodunnit’ in murder mysteries.Candy lives in Ayrshire, Scotland, with her large black cat, Sammy, and her Labrador-Corgi cross, Alex. She writes her books in British English with a Scottish flavour.

Book preview

TALES AND TAILS

Candy Rae

* * * * *

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Tales and Tails

Copyright © 2011 Candy Rae

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead; is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

* * * * *

Tales and Tails is dedicated to the memory of my beloved husband Jim who died in December 2010.

"Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying: ‘To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving, to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth whereon the pillars of this world are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending - a wind is rising and the rivers flow.’" (Thomas Wolfe (1900-38) from his novel ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’)

* * * * *

BOOKS BY CANDY RAE

PLANET WOLF - Wolves and War - Conflict and Courage - Homage and Honour - Dragons and Destiny - Valour and Victory - Paws and Planets - Tales and Tales - Ambition and Alavidha

DRAGON WULF - Journey and Jeopardy - Gossamer and Grass - Flames and Freedom

T’QUEL MAGIC - Ephemeral Boundary - Enduring Barrier - Eternal Bulwark

Kill by Cure

INSURGENCY (2017) - Rascals and Renegades - Outlaws and Overlords - Soldiers and Songsters

Artwork Copyright © 2011 Jennifer Johnson

* * * * *

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1 - THE EARLY YEARS

1. SOFIYA

2. MIRACLE

3. ANASTASIA AND SANDAVDR

4. HOW MANY LCTSTAS DOWS IT TAKE TO MAKE A LIN?

5. DISASTER AVERTED

6. LEGACY OF INSURANCE PART ONE

7. FAREWELL

8. ‘I LIKE TO MAKE THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME’

9. COMING OF AGE

10. NOT EVERY GALLEY IS BAD NEWS

11. LEGACY OF INSURANCE PART TWO

12. LEAVING

13. LEGACY OF INSURANCE PART THREE

14. BROTHER, SISTERS AND A BLUE FLAG

15. ‘I AM BLIND’

16. THE MADNESS OF KING ELLIOT

17. ELLIOT’S MISTRESSES

18. ROUTE FOUND

19. QENYA AND QEI

PART 2 - THE MIDDLE YEARS

1. THE VISIT HOME

2. THE RAID

3. THE FIRST DAY

4. THE RELUCTANT PRINCE

5. THE HOLIDAY

6. THE EX-CAPTAIN

7. THE GRADUATION

8. THE RELUCTANT KING

9. THE PLANET

10. THE VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

11. THE LITTLE MATTER OF MARRIAGE

12. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR

PART 3 - THE LATER YEARS

1. LIFEBOND

2. BROTHERS THREE

3. DANAL AND ASYA

4. NIAILL AND HANS

5. THE GIRL WHO THOUGHT SHE MIGHT HAVE TO BE A QUEEN

CHARACTERS

GLOSSARY

APPENDICES

* * * * *

Many readers have asked for more. Tara and Kolyei (Wolves and War, Conflict and Courage) are firm favourites, as are the four girls, Jess, Beth, Tana and Hannah who make up ‘The Quartet’ (Homage and Honour). Tales and Tails might also help clarify some unanswered questions. Some questions must remain as I believe imagination has a large part to play in any readers’ perceptions. Read about characters old and new; participants in stories that were written and not included in the main series. Enjoy!

* * * * *

PART 1 - THE EARLY YEARS

* * * * *

SOFIYA (AL 2)

This is a story about Tara Sullivan’s adoptive brother Brian Randall. When Tara and Kolyei went off east with the army to fight the Larg and the convicts (Wolves and War) Brian was left behind. The tale was written by Tara some years after the event.

From ‘Tales of Rybak’, Volume 2, Chapter 26

Written by Tara Sullivan-Crawford (born, AL -12, died circa AL 55)

Janice Randall was sobbing.

I didn’t think that when your father and I signed up with the colony for Riga that one day I would be waving my husband and eldest son off to a war on a strange planet in a distant galaxy.

Your adopted daughter goes as well, Brian added, you mustn’t forget Tara.

And she’s only a bairn. Just thirteen!

Brian looked and felt uncomfortable. He didn’t like to be reminded that Tara was going to the war and he had to stay behind at domta Zanatei.

They’ll be back before you know it Mum," he said, patting her shoulder.

I do hope so, Brian. Janice’s face was pensive.

Dad said that I was to look after you and the little ones, he said, and I will do that, no matter what happens.

You are a great comfort Brian, Janice answered as her son began to steer her towards the raw-looking log cabin that was their home.

Intent on looking after his distraught mother, Brian did not notice the pair of large wistful brown eyes watching him some lindlengths away.

Sofiya, a soft-spoken young female, had sensed Brian’s thoughts as soon as the Randall family arrived at the domta some moons before. She had known from the first that the lad was the human for her. She had watched as Brian’s older brother Louis had paired for life with Ustinya, the formidable female Lind from pack Vanya, and yearned for the same type of partnership with Brian.

Gentle and diffident in disposition as many young Lind were, Sofiya felt nervous about approaching the lad, especially since in the close-knit, noisy and extended group that was the family Randall privacy was hard to come by. Brian was not often alone and she most certainly did not want an audience watching her overtures. Sofiya was only thirteen summers old, still considered a child in Lind terms and her sense of dignity was very precious to her.

As she watched Brian elude her yet again she sent a tendril of thought in his direction and had the satisfaction of watching him shake his head and rub his temple with his free hand. It was obvious to Sofiya that her telepathic messages were getting through, but caught up in the preparations for war and the farewells, Brian appeared to be ignoring all her entreaties, indeed, the lad seemed to be resisting her mind-sendings in some peculiar way and was managing to block them.

Sofiya wondered if there was something ailing the young human male, did he not want a Lind life-mate? No, she thought for the umpteenth time, all the indications are that he does. She had caught the longing looks when he gazed at Louis and Ustinya and Tara and Kolyei too. He wanted to form the bond all right, but he had erected a barrier to stop her mental contact.

She padded away to her lonely daga. The only one of her lin, or litter to survive into adulthood, the youngest of her family and the only one not away to the war, Sofiya decided that as Brian was ignoring the usual approaches, it was time to be more forceful. She had no intention of sitting around doing nothing. The gentle tendrils of thoughts were about to become tight blasts. She remembered Kolyei talking about how he had managed to ‘persuade’ Tara to forage in a certain area of the woods just before their own all-important mind and life-pairing, the first ever of human and Lind.

During the next few days, Sofiya began to put her plan into action, increasing the strength of her emotive thoughts to Brian and doubling their frequency and persuasiveness. Brian, lonely at the departure of the army east to the war at last began to be aware of the strange buzzing within his head that never seemed to go away. He was relaxing now the excitement of the last days was over and was, had he realised it, more receptive than ever to mental undercurrents.

Images began to form in his mind and he began to dream of a misty four-legged figure and of her yearning to meet him. With this increasing awareness came a compulsion to find out where the pictures were coming from.

As the days passed, one image began to appear more often. It was of a tranquil copse, one that Brian had never seen before. A small stream of water trickled into a pool. Flowing fronds from the river trees and rushes dangled in the eddying and rippling water, the compulsion to find this copse increased with and one morning, before anybody else was awake, he filled his pack with a carry-meal, picked up his knife and set out.

He didn’t understand why he knew the pool was situated in the direction his steps were taking him. He wandered through the domta in a half bemused state, past the ltsctas gambolling in the early morning sun, growling and worrying at each other. The adults watched him, tails wagging idly in greeting as he passed by.

Something was directing his steps, he did not know what, but he let it happen, for the first time not attempting to resist the insistent tingling within his mind.

It took him all morning to walk the distance and when at last he heard the trickle of the stream as it bubbled he knew he had arrived at his destination.

Sofiya was waiting.

: What kept you? :

The words intruded into his mind, casting aside the self-imposed barriers and Brian’s eyes opened wide with shock and surprise as Sofiya kept a tight hold of the contact and his whole being was filled with a sense of welcome and love.

This is what Tara and Louis tried to explain to me. Tried and failed because mere words were not enough to explain the senses that were overpowering him. He sank to his knees and opened his mind.

She entered with a care not to frighten him and with a sense of accomplishment.

You are Sofiya? he gasped. "I know you, I have felt you."

But not ready to accept me until now, she replied. But you are my vadeln and I am yours.

You brought me here?

I have known thee for my vadeln for many moons but you would not accept me. You shut me out.

She sounded aggrieved.

I am thinking only of you now.

I know. Her words were full of meaning.

Brian stumbled towards her and looked with adoration into her beautiful eyes, filled with love for him and for him alone. With a low moan, he wrapped his arms around her, savouring the spicy warmth of her furry body. Sofiya sighed with contentment as Brian continued to hug her, tears of joy streaming down his face : I love you Brian. I will always love you no matter what happens :

The new life-bonded vadeln-pair stood still for a long time, sharing thoughts until at last Sofiya shifted. Brian felt the movement and stepped back, although he kept his hand on the ruff of her neck. He did not want to let go.

: Now that we understand each other : she began : can we move on to more practical matters? :

: What ? :

: Let us go and run and hunt ? : she explained : I wish to feel the wind in my fur :

That seemed like an excellent idea to Brian.

Yes, was his exultant shout. Let us just!

Together they rode away from the copse. They returned in the seasons of togetherness ahead. It was a special place.

Sofiya did not tell Brian until much later how she had ‘persuaded’ him to go there.

: I ‘kolyeid’ you : was all she would say. A new saying had entered their world’s vocabulary.

* * * * *

MIRACLE (AL 2)

A Randall story.

Janice Randall was humming to herself. She was taking a well earned rest, having been busy since sun-up. The cabin door burst open and her adopted daughter Tara appeared at the door.

Janice, she said in a loud voice, Winston sent me. He needs help, fast. Kolyei’ll take you. I’ll stay and look after the girls. He says to bring your bag.

That instruction could only mean one thing. Janice was the resident midwife among the human population here at domta Zanatei. She racked her brains but none of the pregnant women who had come west into the rtathlians of the Lind with the Randall family were due to give birth. There was one who was having a troublesome pregnancy.

Is it Agnes?

No. Talmanya. Winston says that the babies are stuck in the birth canal.

A Lind? But I don’t know anything about Lind physiology, Janice cried with dismay.

"You’re a midwife. Winston says they will die and Talmanya too unless …"

Tara was hustling her adopted mother out of the door as she spoke and almost before she realised it Janice found herself mounted atop Kolyei. Tara handed her her medical bag.

* * * * *

Talmanya raised eyes glazed with agony to Janice as the woman entered the daga at the southern edge of the domta of rtath Zanatei. She was too weak to do more. The Holad of the rtath, Talya and Zhenya, responsible for its medical well-being, hovered anxiously over her.

Janice’s husband Winston was busy to one side. He raised his head as Janice entered.

I’m trying to get this down her, he said, I’m afraid I’m going to have to operate else we’ll lose mother and babies both. She’s been in labour for hours. The first pup is stuck in the birth canal but she’s so weak I don’t think she can survive the operation.

You should have called me sooner, admonished Janice as she knelt down beside the labouring Lind and laid a hand on her distended stomach.

I’ve only just got here myself, he protested.

Then someone or somelind should have, she said, "the babe is stuck," she affirmed, feeling around. She kneed herself up to Talmanya’s head.

Breathe deeply, she instructed in a low and calm voice. Talmanya didn’t understand the words but Zhenya translated and she felt Janice’s presence; a haven of comfort and calmness in her pain-filled world.

This is her first time, offered Zhenya.

The way out is not so obvious, agreed Janice, pushing back her sleeves. You must translate for me.

Zhenya nodded.

Tell her to stay calm and concentrate only on her breathing … deep even breaths.

Zhenya translated that.

Janice took a deep breath of her own.

I’m going to try and turn it. The babe is back down.

I’ve tried that, protested Winston.

I’m the midwife, not you, she retorted.

She pushed her hand up into the birth canal, searching for the little one and thanking whatever looked over little ones in their time of need that it was not stuck at the top but had managed to push its way down a considerable way.

Got it, she gasped as her hand found one leg then the other. She began to turn the ltscta, ignoring the moans and whines of the mother who was sensing her little one’s awareness slipping away.

The ltscta came free with a slither and Talmanya groaned again.

Is dead.

Janice freed the mucus from the mouth and began to breathe into the tiny little aperture that was its mouth.

Birth canal free, the next ltscta began its entry into the world.

Zhenya ignored what Janice was doing and began to encourage Talmanya. In her world if a baby was not breathing it was dead, then Janice was rewarded, with a splutter and a cough the little female began to breathe for herself. She rubbed at her, stimulating movement and within a minute or so she staggered over to her mother.

Is a miracle, announced Zhenya in Lindish, looking at Janice with unfathomable respect.

* * * * *

ANASTASIA AND SANDAVDR (AL 2)

‘The Larg are the enemy’. ‘The Larg are nasty, vicious creatures’.

That is the common view, but are they all bad? They are warlike as a race, but as individuals?

Surely there is some good in them? They are of the same genotype as the Lind.

‘One day,’ teach the Elda of the Lind, ‘we shall be as one with the Larg again’ and so believe the Lai. So what, thought I, would happen if a Larg found himself separated from his compatriots? What would happen if a Larg, after one of their forays into the northern continent, got left behind?

* * * * *

Anastasia Aitova wet her pants. The hot and pungent liquid ran down her legs and on to the dirt floor and she was sobbing with embarrassment. Few noticed. They were too scared.

Anastasia was cowering in the cellar underneath her uncle’s home. There were many people crowded into the tiny space. The air was fetid with sweat, fear and other unmentionables.

Fear.

Anastasia had never been so frightened in her life, not even on the WCCS Argyll when the space debris had hit and all the lights went out. That seemed a long time ago now although it had not been much over a year. Luckily her whole family had survived, their section hadn’t even been damaged. After that Anastasia had come here, to Planet Rybak and up until a few months ago she had been happy.

Her father was a farmer and she, her sisters, brothers and her mother had moved out of the crowded initial settlement as soon as they could and began to carve out their farm on the virgin land.

Yes, Anastasia had been happy. Of course, the work was hard, the hours long and as the second oldest, (she had a big brother), she had had to help her mother care for the youngest but she had not complained, at least not often and never within earshot of her father. That first sunny season the family had managed to grow a whole field and a half of the nourishing roots that had done much to sustain the colonists during that first vital winter.

Anastasia had burgeoned into young womanhood during these months. She was now fourteen years old. With a fair complexion and also what her mother fondly described as a bubbles crop of brown hair she could so little with (and not for the want of trying) she did not think she was pretty. Carina was. Carina’s parents had staked their claim to the land next to Anastasia’s family and there was no doubt that Carina was a beauty with long fair hair and a milk and roses complexion.

Anastasia wondered where Carina was now, not here in Settlement and Anastasia was so very glad. Carina and her parents had been one of the group who had gone west to the pack woods of the Lind when the call had gone out for volunteers, but that was after the idyllic months were over and the Armstrong farm had been attacked, its inhabitants massacred, when the colonists had realised that there existed vicious predators on the planet that not only ate the kura, zarova and jezdic, the native herbivores but man, woman and child too.

A short time after the Armstrong farm debacle word had come to confirm what had been suspected, that the group of large wolverines who had killed the Armstrong family were not alone, in fact there were thousands, perhaps millions of them on the southern continent.

They also had a name, Larg.

With the bad news had come some good.

The colonists were not alone in their war against the Larg. On their own continent lived another sentient species who called themselves the Lind and the Lind would stand with the eight thousand or so colonists when the army of Larg attacked in the summer. But, then a bigger problem emerged; with this encouraging news had come more bad.

Of the seven ships that had made up the convoy that had left Earth for Riga one had not held colonial families but twenty-thousand male convicts. The WCPS Electra had somehow managed to land here too and the convicts had allied themselves with the Larg, Anastasia had no idea how and were intending to join with the Larg in their invasion of the north.

This was why Anastasia was cowering inside her uncle’s dank cellar. This was why Anastasia had, to her shame, wet herself.

The convicts had attacked Settlement that morning and Anastasia knew that things were not going well for the colonists of the WCCS Argyll.

Settlement, for the most part made of wood, was burning. The smoke caught at her throat. She couldn’t hear sounds of the fighting above, the trapdoor to the cellar was shut tight and she knew that a hardwood chest had been dragged on top which muffled all but the loudest but the smoke was seeping down through the cracks in the floor.

Funny, she had always thought that smoke rose up into the air.

How long before we choke to death?

She raised agonised eyes to her mother but she was trying to comfort her smallest sister and did not respond. Anastasia herself had the next youngest on her knee. Diane was whimpering and nothing Anastasia could say or do could comfort her.

Anastasia’s father, uncle, aunt, older brother and cousins were up there in the streets, fighting for their lives. A voice from above, she thought it was her brother, had called down to them some time ago saying that the convicts had broken through the palisades and to stay where they were.

But that had been before the smoke had begun to pollute the atmosphere and with it the possibility that they would suffocate.

Anastasia coughed and nor was she the only one coughing and spluttering. Diane began to sob.

I wan go home, whispered the small mite in her big sister’s ear. Pwease Stacia, me go home.

Soon, she whispered back through another cough.

The smoke however, didn’t get any worse and Anastasia was finding that there was enough oxygen getting through to her lungs to stop her from passing out.

Diane fell into an exhausted sleep.

The hours passed. Anastasia didn’t know how many. She didn’t want to disturb Diane’s slumbers by moving her arm so that she could see her chrono.

She strained her ears, trying to catch the faint sounds from without; men’s voices; the shouting; but she didn’t know who they belonged to, if they were as she would have called them in her infant days, ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’.

We must wait, mouthed her mother and Anastasia nodded. Her face was grey with fatigue and strain, or was it smoke?

Please let it be over soon, one way or another. Please.

Anastasia lifted her head as she heard the heavy footfalls, they resounded on the planks and strained to hear if anyone was saying anything and if she could recognise a voice.

Under that chest.

Anastasia took a deep breath. It was her father’s voice but it sounded both the same and different as well as bone-weary and heavy.

Hearts in mouths, Anastasia and the others heard the heavy chest being dragged away from the trapdoor. There was some fumbling and the sound of a bolt being drawn back.

The trapdoor opened and fresher (not fresh) air began to ooze into the cellar and a face looked in at them.

It was her father, grimy faced, a filthy bandage wrapped round his forehead.

With a shock Anastasia realised that he had been crying. Thus it was that Anastasia found out that her beloved elder brother was dead at fifteen years and nine months, killed by the convict army.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Three days later the depleted Aitova family returned to their farm, taking their brother’s bloody and mangled body with them and began to pick up the threads of their lives once more.

He had, her father informed Anastasia, been felled by a blow to the head with an axe. It was scant consolation to know that his death must have been instantaneous.

Anastasia hated those of the south, the convicts in particular and the Larg by association. She took to carrying a knife around with her, just on the off-chance the might meet up with one of them and so avenge her brother but it seemed that all the convicts and the Larg had fled back to the southern continent.

Some days after her return to the farm her mother sent her to gather wild fruit from the nearby wood. The area had been searched and declared safe so Mme Aitova watched her go with a light heart.

However, the clearance squads had not been as thorough in their search of the woods as they should have been. Also, though an oversight no Lind had accompanied the search parties.

In a leaf-covered hollow in the middle of the wood and where the trees grew thickest there lay a southern refugee from the battle.

He had four legs, not two.

* * * * *

Sandavdr was a Larg, the same age as Anastasia. He had been wounded by a crossbow bolt during the battle and had dragged himself from the carnage, intent on finding one of his kohort who would pull the bolt out of his thigh.

He had managed to reach the edge of the battlefield and had waited but not one of his kohort had come (he had not known that the Larg Commander, Aoalvaldr had ordered them to take part in what turned out to be a suicidal flanking manoeuvre). His pleas for help had been ignored by the warriors of the other kohorts.

Then word had come of the defeat and everylarg capable of moving had fled, leaving those who couldn’t to their fates.

Sandavdr was a canny Larg. He knew that if he remained where he was he would be dead by nightfall. He must try to get away, find a safe spot and try to get the metal bolt out himself.

With painful effort , he dragged himself into a dried out stream hollow and made his slow way towards the nearby wood. It was a miracle he made it without being smelled out or spotted by the Lindars who were scouring the battlefields and its surrounds for escapees such as Sandavdr.

Now nine night-falls had come and gone and still Sandavdr hadn’t managed to get the bolt out. The area where it was lodged was inflamed and very painful. Fever was setting in.

Sandavdr was settling himself down for death. There had been a pool of water in the hollow but he had drunk it all, the fever demanding liquid.

He laid his head down between his paws and shut his eyes.

* * * * *

He was only half aware of a creature falling to her knees beside him with a cry of pity and of the stroking of his head. Fresh water was being dribbled into his mouth, down his throat, it felt good. Whoever it was moved down to sit beside his leg. He whimpered as his wound was touched and investigated. There was then an agonising second or two or three or four. He bit back a howl.

Hush, said Anastasia and stroked his head again, I’ve got the bolt out. Lie still.

Sandavdr realised this was a human, a female human he rather thought from the voice-timbre and although he didn’t understand the words, he did understand that she was helping him.

Thank you, he managed to say. Anastasia didn’t understand the words anymore than he hers but realised that the Larg she had found (she knew he must be a Larg as a Lind coat was always colour striped and