The manticore squatted down on one of the benches most definitely not built for someone of his size. “Just a few minutes, Jith. I’m very busy!”
“Yes, of course, very busy,” Jith nodded as he scampered over to one of the opposite benches and clambered onto it. He turned around, his own feet dangling from the edge of the bench and not quite reaching the floor. The young gnome leaned forward in anticipation. “But first you tell your story.”
Yes,” RuuKag said. “Well, once between a moon long ago there was a manticore named RuuKag. .”
“No, that’s no way to start a story!” Jith interrupted. “You start with, ‘I, RuuKag.’ ”
The gnome milled his hands through the air, urging RuuKag to continue.
The manticore bared his canine teeth in frustration. “Very well then. . ‘I, RuuKag’. . and then what?”
“Tell me about your family!” Jith suggested.
RuuKag closed his eyes. “I have no family.”
Jith caught his breath in surprise and excitement. “What a wonderful beginning! ‘I, RuuKag, have no family.’ Why?”
“Why. . why what?”
“Why do you have no family?” Jith asked. “You must have had one sometime-did you lose them?”
“No,” RuuKag replied, looking at the wall. “They. . well, my father threw me out of my clan. He proclaimed me dead and banished me into the savanna-the eastern edge of this same savanna, as a matter of fact.”
“Banished!” Jith drew in a long breath. “How terrible for you!”
“It was. . I was heartbroken at the time,” RuuKag replied. “My father was a proud warrior who had joined the rebellion against the elven occupation, leading our clan out of our traditional lands and into the wilderness of the Northern Steppes. His name was KraChak, and his armor was ten generations old-very prestigious among our clans. He was the result of a long line of brave warriors with their own tales of bravery in battle and honors in their warfare. He taught me the use of the spear and the blade at an age when other cubs were still wrestling across the green. My mother-her name was Lyurna of Clan Khadush-was so upset with our father that day that he had to call a clan council just to get away from her for a few days! They were both proud manticores who were in a lot of pain now that I look back on it. They had lost everything in the Rhonas occupation-everything but their prideful resentment. My father had lost his ancestral lands, and that was a terrible thing for him to bear. My parents could not give up the life that they once had-maybe they didn’t know how to live any other life. .”
There was something about talking to this little gnome that felt good to RuuKag. He had been carrying the words around inside himself for so long, never daring to tell them to anyone. He had forgotten them entirely while under the elven Devotional enslavement magic, but their burden had returned to him in force with the fall of House Timuran. He wanted desperately to return to the mindless bliss of his enslavement and to rid himself of the weight of his own decisions and consequences. But here and now, in the quiet of the night of a far-off land, he could tell those bitter words to this little gnome and somehow be rid of them.
Soon the words started coming unbidden and in a rush, as though the story had been there all along waiting for him to tell it and be rid of it. He told of his life growing up in a clan exiled from their own nation. He spoke of the customs of the manticores and how disputes were most often settled in combat. He told of the wonders of getting up at dawn on the Northern Steppes and hunting at his father’s side. He talked of lying under the canopy of the night and listening as his mother explained the lights in the sky and how they were his ancestors looking down on his honor from above.
As he spoke, another gnome happened by and stopped for a time. Then a third and a fourth came and sat down. RuuKag took little notice as he spoke, for he seemed lost in the telling of his tale to the large eyes of the enraptured Jith.
“All these wonders. . all these beautiful stories,” Jith said as RuuKag paused, “and your clan family, they are lost to you? Why?”
“The Battle of the Red Fields,” RuuKag said, his voice breaking as he spoke the words for the first time in decades. “The Rhonas Legions were not satisfied with taking control of the government of Chaenandria, they wished to crush all possibility of rebellion once and for all. With the aid and assurances of the Chaenandrian Council, the elf Legions moved north to challenge our rebel clans directly.”
“A war then?” Jith asked breathlessly.
“Barely even that. It had been a hard winter, and we did not expect them to join us in battle so soon,” RuuKag replied. The hall was now full of gnomes, but he no longer cared. To speak the words unburdened him. “When their Legions were reported, there were few that the rebel clans could field. Everyone who could hold a blade was pressed into service-many of them barely trained youths, and I counted myself among them.”
Jith was in awe. “You joined the battle?”
“What choice did I have?” RuuKag snapped. “I was the son of the Clan Elder-an honored warrior with ancestors covered in glory for a hundred years! I had grown up on stories of fortune in battle. It was all such a fabulous game to me. Here was my chance to add to the name of my clan, to add to the glory of my ancestors, to. . to. .”
“To what?” Jith urged.
“To prove myself to my father,” RuuKag roared. “To show the rest of the clan that I wasn’t just a child of privilege but that I, too, could stand with my ancestors and lay claim to my father’s armor.”
“What happened?” Jith asked.
RuuKag sat back and lifted his head. He could see the field before him as though he were there once more. “We formed a line as we had been taught. None of us were tried in battle-we barely knew how to hold a sword much less use it against a cunning enemy. We were supposed to be in reserve-not to be used in the battle itself-but the lines before us broke. The Legions of Rhonas stormed into the gap, pushing back the lines to either side, trying to flank them. But our leader was an old warrior whose mind had grown brittle and his judgment stale. He saw the gap in the lines and ordered our unit to charge into the bloodiest part of the battle.”
“And what happened?” Jith whispered.
“I. . I couldn’t move,” RuuKag replied in a voice that felt detached for the images in his mind. “I saw the death and the blood and the slaughter in front of me, and I just couldn’t move.”
The room was filled with gnomes now, but only the sound of RuuKag’s quiet voice was heard.
“The line closed again as the manticores fought back,” RuuKag continued. “As it turned out, the charge was in vain; the line would have closed anyway, and all those young manticores who stood next to me and charged died for nothing. Yet there were a number of us who just didn’t heed the call-and we lived. It would have been better for us to have died that day-we were branded as the cowards that we were. We lived-and that was our shame.”
RuuKag paused and looked up. Gnomes filled the story-cavern and were standing at the entrances. Each was facing him in rapt attention, sadness in their eyes.
Sadness for him.
RuuKag was now intent on letting all the words come out. He had forgotten his urgent reasons for departing. He spoke of returning to his father’s clan, his shame of a coward son. He told of his banishment and the tears and howls of his mother echoing in his ears as he departed into the Vestasian Savanna.
He spoke of his longing to die.
His words spilled from him throughout the night in one tale that was many tales: the tale of his enslavement to the Devotions of House Timuran; the tale of Drakis teaching him the pain of knowing the truth and RuuKag’s longing for the peace of not knowing at all; and finally the tale of Belag and Drakis leading them across the savanna and how a dishonored manticore now stood on the edge of a knife trying to decide between the oblivion of the elves and the hope of a life at last.