Rue
Rue couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t get comfortable on the flat slab bed, with its flat down-filled mattress and sheepskin covers. She couldn’t relax and breathe deep of the stale air within the Egg. She was a Wolfrider of the Evertree, a rider in the Hunt. She was used to sleeping in the hollow of a tree, wrapped in furs, breathing the fresh cool air of the forest. She was used to napping in daylight alongside her wolf-friend, then opening her eyes to find a canopy of living green overhead.
But her wolf wouldn’t follow her into the confines of the Egg, and Foxglove made a churlish bedmate. Even now she made a loud show of rolling onto her side, turning her back on Rue and huffing in sleep-deprived annoyance. Rue longed to snarl at her that it hadn’t been her wish to share a room inside the stone prison of the Second Shell. But she held her tongue. They had both promised Waykeeper they would stick together, even if it drove them mad. Foxglove might grumble and chafe at the command, but Rue would obey. She’d been a bottom-wolf all her life; she knew how to follow orders.
Her stomach was bound in knots. She wondered if she could blame it on the cub. Lately she’d been feeling nipping pains deep in her bowels: her unborn child’s first stirring, according to older, wiser females. She barely had to alter her leathers breeches so far, but if she studied her belly closely she had to admit that there was a softness that had never existed before: a gentle swelling instead of flat muscle and sinew. It matched her swollen breasts, which she struggled to conceal under her winter coat. No need to attract any more attention than necessary.
Such was her motto; relative invisibility had protected her within the Hunt. Whenever one of the higher-ups wanted to bloody someone to make them feel better, they tended to turn on Burl or Blackwing. As the youngest of the Hunt, the perennial cheerful Blackwing was obvious fair game. And Burl always fought back just enough to make his inevitable, surly submission more satisfying. Rue gave in too easily, rolled over too swiftly. There was little sport in tormenting her. Not that there weren’t some who still tried.
“You’re well-named, girl, for you’re a disappointment at everything!” Elkshanks used to sneer, back when she still showed some interest in her youngest child. In one of Rue’s more frequent dreams, she was a sulky stripling again, being lectured by her mother on pack dynamics.
“Have you never looked at our own wolf-friends? No pack is whole without a bottom-wolf. There! You’ve seen it many times! Shadow submits to Bramblefoot one moment, then teases him to chase her the next. She knows her responsibility: to reduce tension, to encourage play, to keep the pack’s spirits high and light. You cannot be a leader, you cannot be a trailblazer. But you can be a joy and a delight to your tribesmates. You can make them laugh and make them love you – and live forever as a yearling pup. Think of the old howls: what would Kiv have done without his Roff?”
She knew the howls well. Kiv the Courageous, their old chief was hailed. And old Roff? He was Roff the Glutton, Roff the Fool – the butt of every joke both gentle and cruel. Live forever as a yearling pup – forever nipped and mocked by the elders and forever challenged by the cubs? Forever mounted by anyone feeling hotheaded or hotblooded? She’d rather live as a Holtbound. Perhaps she hadn’t the will to fight her way to dominance. But she had too much pride to be a jester.
So she’d been invisible instead. It had served her well for nearly two hundred years – until Recognition thrust her to the forefront of the Hunt. Suddenly her name was on everyone’s lips.
Days used to pass without her hearing it. She had preferred it that way. Now even when the world was silent, she swore she could hear it echoing in her head. Rue… Rue… Rue… Rue… like a nagging heartbeat in her temples. She heard it snarled by Softdew, sneered by Elkshanks, whispered by Quickhatch… and by Stripe.
At least she had no soulname for him to hiss in her ear. But he knew her soul nonetheless, knew that she was so much more than the sound everyone else heard, the image everyone held in their minds. And she knew his secret name, the name within him that he could never change. Such an ugly name, like the yowl of an angry cat….
He should be nothing to her now. He’d done his duty, as she’d done hers. Recognition wasn’t forever, despite the mewlings of the softhearted Holtbound. Her joining with Stripe had been nothing more nor less than the spawning of trout: an act born of overwhelming, unknowable instinct.
She would forget his soulname in time – the meaning if not the sound. Elkshanks had promised her she would. “I’ve Recognized three different bucks in my time, and their names are nothing more than echoes now. The sire doesn’t matter – only the child matters. When you and your fawn sing the birthsong together, you’ll forget all about Stripe.”
The birthsong: the only bond a mother and child were allowed to share. By custom, a Wolfrider of the Hunt gave birth alone, out of earshot of the tribe. But once named and presented to the tribe, the infant was raised communally. Every female of childbearing age would take her turn in suckling it – even if her milk refused to come in despite all the backrubs, and the baby howled from an empty stomach. Every male with a wolf to ride would take the child hunting strapped to his back. Most elves saw eight years before they ever realized which one of their many packmothers had given them birth.
Rue hadn’t had the luxury of such ignorance. She and Elkshanks looked too much alike, with whip-thin figures and long faces. Only Elkshanks managed to look lean and graceful, while Rue’s features never quite outgrew the puppyish proportions of adolescence. Her heavy-lidded eyes seemed too slightly big for her skull to contain. Her arms were too long for her torso, her fingers too long for her hands. She had the look of a mismating between a Glider and a troll, ran the joke, though no one in the Hunt could remember ever seeing either Glider or troll.
The Waykeeper had. He had once told her a troll king’s son was in fact sired on a pureblooded Glider, and that he was square-shouldered and strong-jawed enough to make any buck weep with envy. But Rue suspected he was only humoring her.
Stripe was as sturdy as any proud Wolfrider buck. Would the cub take after him, or would it come out looking mismatched like Rue? Selfishly, from that first night in the newgreen, Rue had wished for a daughter who would resemble her.
Now she lay her hand on her stomach, partly to reach her unborn child, partly just to quell the building nausea. **Redfawn** she sent. Of course she would name her cub after its Forerunner, the elf who’d died to make room for its soul. Of course she – and all the tribe – would raise it on stories of Redblade. A Hunt child knew its Forerunner’s deeds better than its own parents’. And why not? “The young come through us, they don’t belong to us.” So had said Great Kahvi, back when the Ice Wall still stood. An elf’s lifegivers were simply the kindling on which the sparks of their Forerunner’s soul had landed.
Rue’s Forerunner had been an elf named Bitterseed. She still spoke to him in private, asking his advice, begging his forgiveness, seeking his protection. She wondered what his spirit thought of her betrayal. Probably what they all thought.
Rue the Selfish… Rue the Hoarder… Rue the Thief, the Hunt’s condemnations rang in her ears. Even the Holtbound looked at her askance, murmuring whether she really understood what she meant to do.
She understood. This was her child – her accomplishment – her trophy! Stripe’s part in its making hadn’t lasted more than few heartbeats. Redblade’s death had provided the spark, but her body was kindling the flame, feeding it, nursing it to grow into a proper fire. She had finally made something unique of her own, and she would not let the others steal it. She would not let her own flesh-and-blood grow up not knowing its own mother.
It wasn’t so selfish. Many Wolfrider mothers in history had defied custom and refused to share their children. And since coming to the Egg, Rue had learned in other tribes it was common – even expected – that a child was raised by its own parents.
But you’re a Wolfrider, Rue. Rue… Rue… Rue… still the whispers called her name. Rue tossed and turned under the sheepskin, trying to find a comfortable position. Her head was pounding in pain. Nothing could seem to settle her stomach.
She tossed off the covers and groped for the cloth covering the troll glowstone beside her bed. Uncovering the stone, she filled the room with a soft, sickly green light. She sat up, breathing hard, cold sweat beading on her brow. Bare stone walls surrounded her; above her, the ceiling threatened to press her like a capnut under a millstone.
“Unh… whazzit?” Foxglove moaned weakly.
“Don’t feel good…” Rue mumbled. “I… I’m going to the cesspit.”
“Pit closet,” Foxglove corrected.
“Whatever you call it.” She called it unnatural, sitting on a stone seat and letting your waste fall down a bottomless pit to join everyone else’s… somewhere out of sight. At least the closets seldom smelled – not like the cesspits of the human camps. But her frequent visits to them only heightened her claustrophobia.
“Mmph… hmm,” Foxglove mumbled, then laid her head back on the pillow and pulled her blanket over her head.
Fighting the nausea that came with every motion, Rue struggled into her leathers, and jammed her toes into her cold boots.
“Go if you’re going!” Foxglove growled.
Clutching the glowstone, Rue unbolted the door and staggered into the hallway. A gently-sloping corridor led down one way, towards the washing rooms and the pit closets… and up another, towards the gate between First and Second Shell.
She had to get out of this stone shell. She had to breathe fresh air again.
Her blinding headache made it hard to walk straight, and she leaned against the outer wall as she climbed up the ramp. With each beat of her heart, she felt a physical pain deep inside her, and a burning sensation down her throat. She imagined a hand forcing itself through her mouth and down her gullet, wrapping its fingers about her entrails. She bent over and retched, but all she coughed up was a mouthful of saliva.
Something was terribly wrong with her. Rue! Rue! Rue! went the pulse in her head. Was it the child calling her, goading her onward? She continued to climb, feeling the urgency mount with each step. The Waykeeper said to stay inside the Second Shell, but she had to get to Duskwind and a healing. Foxglove was no use – selfish, carefree child that she was.
If Quickhatch still shared her bed, he would have rubbed her back until the nausea passed. He would have held her hair while she retched and brought her a bark-cup of water afterwards.
But Quickhatch had left her too. He craved the Hunt’s approval far more than hers. She wasn’t surprised. No one had ever put her first. Not even Waykeeper, for all his earnest words.
Why did you leave me, Waykeeper? she accused silently. You said you’d fight for me, just like Sunstill. But you left me just like she did. And you had a choice!
It was her own fault for thinking she could depend on anyone else. She’d never made that mistake before. Was it the cub inside her, making her heart soft as the rest of her? Look at her, weeping over a little belly-gripe and running for a healing… a mewling helpless weakling…. always such a disappointment… Rue the Craven! Rue the Weak!
No! she protested inwardly. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t a coward. She didn’t need Duskwind, or Waykeeper, or anyone else. She would feel better if she could just feel the bite of the winter wind on her face... if she could just see the stars again, through the lattice-dome of First Shell...
She reached one of the many doors between First and Second Shell: an oval of pure starstone set in the grayish-purple seedrock. It opened and closed with a touch and a thought – a sequence of mental commands that reminded Rue of a bluejay’s song.
One rising whistle to awaken the starstone, one sharp croak to make the crystal resonate, and one trilling pulse to open the iris. It was the first lesson any student at the College learned, and even a child like Bluestar could do it. But few in the Hunt had ever bothered to hone their sending skills when howls and signs sufficed, and the pain in her head made it impossible for Rue to concentrate.
Twice she tried the sequence. Whistle, croak, trill… whistle, croak, trill. Both times the starstone flashed with light, but refused to open. Rue’s legs trembled with the effort of holding herself up. She was about to vomit or soil herself or pass out from the sheer agony – she didn’t know which. Biting her lip until she drew blood, she summoned all her mental strength and sent the command again.
The door opened, and a blast of icy wind struck her face. Weeping with relief, Rue staggered out into the night air.
The whole Egg was always in motion – each shell at a different speed. Second Shell rotated at the gentle pace of one full turn a day. Still, the sudden loss of inertia as she stepped onto the static First Shell made her dizzy. She skidded down the icy steps into the ravine, and dropped to her knees in the snow. She sucked in lungfuls of clear, cold air, then filled her bare hands with snow and sucked up the water that melted against her fevered skin.
As the pain began to recede, she became aware of the many eyes on her. She looked up and saw them all standing on the other side of the ravine: a dozen pairs of glowing eyes, a dozen scowling faces.
**Rue,** they sent as one.
Renewed pain flared in her belly, making her double over.
She had no soulname to use against her, yet with their sendings they seemed to be able to reach into the deepest part of her. She could feel their searing disapproval, like a dozen jaws clamped into her flesh.
Eyetooth – Softdew – Woodsmoke – Elm – Half-Arm – Nettlesilk – Sorrel – Snakebite – Blackwing – High Ones help her, even Elkshanks and Quickhatch.
And leading them all, Stripe, sending at her with the force of Recognition’s pull.
**Rue. Come to me.**
* * *
“Rue?” Foxglove asked, rolling over in the gloom. Rue had taken the glowstone, but a faint light continued to burn. The lanterns in the corridor – the wooden door to their rooom hung half open on its hinges.
**Rue?** Foxglove locksent, and received no answer.
“Aw poke it,” she moaned as she threw back the covers.
* * *
The compulsion to move was almost overwhelming. Rue rose on one knee before she could stop herself. “No,” she whimpered, fighting the psychic command with all her strength. She couldn’t go to them. She knew what would happen to her if she did. The Hunt did not forgive.
**You belong with us,** they sent as one.
**Help me!** she risked an open sending.
**Quiet!** Stripe commanded, and a sharp stab between her eyes cut off her sending. She tried to howl instead, but her voice died in her throat, and all she could manage was a feeble croak.
**You belong with us,** the others sent.
**The child belongs with us!** Stripe added, as he waded through the snowdrifts towards her.
“Not… yours…” Rue protested feebly.
“And it’s not yours either,” Stripe growled as he wrenched her to her feet. “It belongs to the tribe! To the Way! Redblade didn’t die so you could rob us of fresh blood.”
**Stripe, please,** she begged in a feeble locksending.
**Quiet!** he ordered again. “Thought you could hide from us,” he hissed in her ear, spittle flying hot against her cheek. “Thought you could hide from me – hide behind Waykeeper and smile as he shamed me in front of everyone?! I’d be chief now instead of Eyetooth if you’d just done your duty. But you’ll do your duty now! You know you belong with us! Just like we knew you’d come when we called!”
“Get on with it!” Eyetooth hissed.
“Just pick her up and let’s go!” Softdew added.
“Aye, we’ve wasted enough time,” Elkshanks said.
“Order me, will you?” Stripe grumbled under his breath. “Aye, get that out of your bellies now… I’ll have you all showing throat soon enough – come on!” he snarled at Rue. He started to back away, dragging Rue with him, dragging her away from the open door, ever-so-slowly inching away as Second Shell continued its slow rotation...
“Let her go!” Foxglove shouted.
Stripe swung Rue around so her back was flush against his chest; one arm wrapped tight about her, holding her pinned, while he clapped his other hand over her mouth to silence her whimpers. She saw Foxglove standing in the doorway to Second Shell, her leathers sloppily laced, her spear held aloft, ready to throw.
“Stay out of this, traitor!” Eyetooth roared.
“That’s a cold trail now,” she dismissed.
“You can’t hit me without hitting her!” Stripe jeered. Rue bit down hard on the hand over her mouth. Stripe’s blood filled her mouth as his scream filled her ears. She snapped her head back hard, the crown of her skull cracking against his nose.
His grip on her eased just enough for her to tear away. His bleeding fingers clung to her coat. She stumbled in the snow, dragging with him with her. The rest of the Hunt was closing in, the archers with their bows drawn to hold Foxglove at bay.
“Browd!” Rue screamed at the top of her lungs, loud enough for the sound to echo through the ravine. “Your name is Browd and you’ll let. Me. Go!!”
Stripe released her. He staggered back, eyes wide with horror. Rue didn’t hesitate. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, leaping from footprint to footprint through the snow, scrambling up the icy rock steps. She heard the whistle of arrows and the pock as they struck the snow around her. Was Elkshanks one of them, shooting to wound her own daughter?
Foxglove met her halfway up the stairs. A hard shove on her back spurred her the rest of the distance, while Foxglove’s spearpoint held the Hunt back. Rue leapt through the door, Foxglove close on her heels. A quick wave of Foxglove’s free hand – sweeping up, then forming a fist – sent out the command to seal the door. The starstone seemed to take forever to obey. She could see Eyetooth and Softdew racing towards her, hands outstretched. But then the starstone iris closed up, and they were locked out. She heard them beating on the stone, a faint frantic drumming, gradually tapering off. The Second Shell continued on its endless journey.
Rue! Rue! Rue! Again came the pounding in her head, but she knew their tricks now, and that gave her the strength to resist. Or perhaps she could fight it now that Stripe no longer added his own compelling power to the sendings.
She’d said his soulname in front of the Hunt. No chief’s lock for him now: he would forever be helpless against the will of the others. A pang of guilt seized her with fresh nausea. But then she thought what her fate might have been had he succeeded in dragging her away, and she hardened her heart against him.
**Rue!** a last attempt from her mother, but feeble and distracted, as if Elkshanks’s attention was elsewhere. **You belong with us! With your family!**
**You’re not my family,** Rue sent back with a new resolve.
She felt one last agonizing psychic pull. Then suddenly she was free.
Her legs gave way and she slowly slid down to the stone floor. Foxglove gave a breathless laugh and joined her on the ground.
“Next time, just use the pokin’ pit closet, will you?” Foxglove gasped out.
Rue stared at her in disbelief. A dozen different sharp-tongued responses occurred to her, as it a sharp slap. Then to her amazement, she felt a tickle of laughter in her chest. The laugh burst out of her throat, then turned to a sob and a fit of coughing.
“Easy, easy,” Foxglove urged, gently coaxing her onto her hands and knees.
Now she did vomit. But she felt better afterwards. Her head was clear at last.
Foxglove gave her a game thump on the back when she sat back on her heels. “So, reckon we’re both Waybreakers now,” she said cheerfully.
“Is that a good thing?” Rue asked, baffled by Foxglove’s grin.
“Look at it this way: we’re now the best hunters left to the Holtbound. We’ll have them groveling like puppies for their share of our kills.”
“Will… will the Hunt really go?”
“Pft. They have to now, don’t they? Think the Egg-folk are gonna take this lying down? If they aren’t out of sending range by sunup, Cheipar and his warriors will run them down! Nope, it’s just us and the Holtbound now.” Again the smirk of empty bravado. “Hey, you wanna be the new hunt-chief? Someone will have to take the lead if we want to make a new hunting pack .”
Rue couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “What about you?”
Foxglove shrugged. “Naw, I’m thinking I might finally let Waykeeper teach me how to read and write those paint-squiggles. We’ll need a proper howlkeeper, if Waykeeper’s stepping up to be chief.”
“Is he?” Rue asked bitterly. “Where has Waykeeper gone? Why did he leave us when we needed him the most?”
Foxglove smiled, a genuine smile this time: the awestruck smile of a devoted acolyte. “He’s finding us a new Holt,” she said. She wrapped an arm awkwardly around Rue’s shoulder. “A new home… somewhere far away from humans, or trolls, or crazy magic trees. A new forest, with trees like we’ve never seen before… where even the stars are different. What a howl it’ll make.”
Elfquest copyright 2016 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2016 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2016 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts