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'Kindred' is a Historical Fiction / Adventure / Romance set in the Red Lantern world, roughly 4-5 years before the events of Red Lantern, the graphic novel. It tells the story of Finnegan and Tulimak, two strangers from opposite ends of the world brought together by circumstance, and their journey across the Carvecian frontier. Kindred's focus is on the idea of what constitutes a 'family', versus 'lineage'. Kindred will contain, as most of my stories tend to, adult themes, including - violence, sexual situations, furry-world equivalents of colonial exploitation and specism, homophobia and familial abuse (obviously, things our protagonists will be combating, not reinforcing). If any of this is subject material you feel you aren't up to, it might not be for you.

Up to Chapter 11 has already been released over on Patreon. If you'd like to take part in beta-ing this book, you can read ahead here - https://www.patreon.com/Rukis?tag=Kindred

If you are interested in the series as a whole, you can find the main comic here - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4260941

I welcome feedback!

Chapter 4 – Unfamiliar Waters

For the rest of the afternoon, I could feel the canine’s eyes on my back, whenever I wasn’t looking at him. You get a sensation for that sort of thing even as a predatory species, an awareness that you’re being sized up. Any time I turned to regard Finnegan, he’d just smile wanly at me, apparently neither ashamed of being caught, nor too awkward to lock eyes with me. The man was never awkward, which for someone like me, would have been miraculous character growth. For him, it seemed effortless. Even while we took the mile-long hike down the riverbed towards where I’d stowed my raft, with nothing but precarious deer trails and ice-slicked stone and mud, he moved with a confidence that belied his size, (and if I’m being honest, his physical abilities). That’s not to say his footing was always stable, he just never seemed deterred.

But then, I was fast learning that Finnegan was the sort of man whose every step had purpose, or at least, that was certainly the impression he wanted to make. I wasn’t well versed with the world, but I’d always thought myself to be a good judge of character. Since I’d met him, he’d wasted no time in deducing who I was, how I might be able to help him, and he’d told me just enough about himself and his task to ensnare me, but little more. I didn’t begrudge him any of that, nor did I doubt his sincerity. The men hunting him had been proof enough that he truly needed help, and he spoke so passionately about his cause, I had to believe it was genuine. But I’d be a fool to be led around by a man I’d met a day ago without at least taking stock of what he’d permitted me to know, and what else might remain unsaid.
One thing was very clear. This was a wolf. . . dog? Wolfdog? With a clear direction in life. My otterfa would have called him ‘driven’. That intense gaze of his was a permanent fixture, and it suited his equally intense personality. Even while injured and so clearly far from the society he called home across the sea, he managed to keep that confident air about him. And no matter how hard I squinted, I honestly couldn’t tell if it was an act, or if he was truly possessing of the certainty he put off.

Despite this, he wasn’t lacking for charm, either. Helping my otterfa at the trade posts over the years, I’d met plenty of independent, confident lone men. And while I respected the sort of assuredness it took to venture off into the wilds and trap for months at a time, alone, they didn’t tend to be much for conversation, and their demeanor was usually what I’d call ‘gruff’ at best. Finnegan was generally pretty merry and pleasant to talk to, when you weren’t discussing his much-loathed kindred across the seas. As we walked, he talked to me about a great many things, none of any real importance, just light conversation. Fish, for one. Because I’m boring, and we were near the water, so of course I talked about fish. . . but it didn’t matter that I was boring, or that I earnestly took a delight in explaining the spawning habits of salmon, because he listened to me enrapt all the same. I suppose to him, my very mundane life here might have been exotic.

I wasn’t usually much of a talker. Even with my family, I’d always favored listening. But in the short afternoon we spent together readying for our trip, I found I couldn’t bear the silence that would occasionally pass between us. I’m not sure if it was an anxious need to fill the space with words because I was traveling with a stranger, or if it had more to do with the fact that he seemed to want to listen to me as much as I usually gave way to listen to others. Finn was not lacking in questions for me to field, or anecdotes of his own, (yes, even about fish) but when I’d say something, whether it was about food, the trip or whatever else came to mind, his big black ears would snap up and he’d look at me and listen. It was oddly thrilling to have the foreigner’s attention. I’d barely ever spoken this much to anyone outside my tribe, let alone someone from another land. And if he was merely feigning interest, he was doing a convincing job.

The mile hike up the river took a few hours, primarily due to the fresh snow and ice, and the occasional breaks we had to take for Finnegan to rest. I was carrying all of our possessions by then. He obviously didn’t have the endurance for travel that I had, but it was more than that. His injury was bothering him. He clearly didn’t want me to notice, but I could tell.

We came to a stop near the upturned, gnarled roots of a fallen spruce that had grown too close to the banks of the widening river. Nearby was a clutch of birch, a trio of the young, peeling white trees. My marker. I began sniffing about.

Finnegan gave a heavy sigh as he lowered himself to sit on a curled root that absolutely would not have supported my weight. He brushed off the fresh snow first, apparently not so exhausted that he was willing to have a cold, wet rear. I heard him wince even though I wasn’t looking his way at that moment, a low, almost imperceptible whine through his teeth.

I turned to regard him sympathetically. “I hope it’s not a broken tailbone,” I murmured.

“Not hardly,” he assured me. “I didn’t fall that hard. It’s more in my hip, in any case. Sort of twinges down my leg, and I can feel it in my back whenever I have to stretch or bend,” he sighed, looking frustrated. His green gaze flicked up to mine. “You must think me quite the fragile lad. Can’t even take a slight spill in an alley.”

“You fell on cobblestones,” I felt my brow crease, and immediately tried to unfurrow it. It always made me self-conscious for some reason when I could feel the folds of fur on my face. So unlike my sleek-furred family members. I plodded over towards him and sunk down to one knee, putting a hand on his shoulder gingerly as I took stock of the way he was sitting. As if I’d glean some way to help. I was hardly a healer.

He glanced at my paw on him, and I realized how big my hand looked against his lean, small shoulder. I withdrew it, immediately.

“Why do you do that?” He asked suddenly.

To say I was caught off-guard was an understatement. I hadn’t expected him to. . . to call me out for the transgression. I’d removed my hand-

“I-I’m sorry,” I said, humiliated, looking anywhere but him. “I shouldn’t have touched you without your permiss-“

He snorted. Actually snorted. It was a laugh, I realized after a moment. And a pretty undignified one. When I looked up at him, he wasn’t bothering to cover it, either.

“Not that,” he guffawed. “I’d say we’re pretty well past impropriety at this point. You scraped me off the ground while I was getting the shite kicked out of me by two blokes in a back alley. You’ve been helping me carry my overstuffed satchel all day, and soon we’ll be sharing what I suspect will be tight confines on a. . . is it like a canoe?” He guessed.

“It’s a timber raft,” I said, my long claws itching at my palms where they were curled.

“Lovely,” he said, unconvincingly. “Well look, regardless of my accommodations while traveling with you, they’re a fine sight better than dead. Which is what I’d be without your intervention. So you have absolutely earned the right for an occasional companionable pat on the shoulder.” He chuckled. “Really, more, if you want.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. Sometimes his comments didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Cultural differences, I suppose. “So. . . I haven’t offended you. . . .” I ventured.

He rolled his eyes, and stiffly got to his feet. “No, Tulimak, you haven’t offended me.” He sighed after a brief pause following that statement, like something I’d said, or not said, was exhausting him. “Damned if you’re not a hard bloke to read.” He muttered the last part as he headed towards the bank of the river, flexing his unclad toes in the rocky, wet soil near the edge of the water. I couldn’t help but notice the way the shallow tendrils of water trapped in crevices along the banks were beginning to freeze.

“We should try to make some progress with what’s left of the day,” I said, abruptly fixing my mind on the task ahead. Travel, I could do. I knew how to travel. I knew this river. Navigating this new friendship would have to wait.

I heard his footsteps crunching through loose stone and ice as I moved off towards the clutch of birch trees. “How much more of a walk, then?” He asked, his voice fading a bit into the wind as I put some distance between us. It was going to snow again tonight. I could smell it.

I felt around in the fresh snow with my foot, until I found what I was looking for. A forked stick, half-buried in the frozen soil. I reached down and wrapped both paws around it, and began to pull upwards.

“What in God’s name are you-“ he began, then gasped audibly as the snow spread before me in a wide patch began to shiver and lift upwards, sliding down off the buried, half-frozen expanse of stretched hide I’d laid out days ago over my possessions. It was actually the watertight, cured skin of two bull moose, sewn together with beaver skin cording. It was a simple tent, really, or at least it made up the roof of the lean-to I used when I slept. It would come in handy tonight, if my guess on the weather panned out. It was simple, just a large hide really, but it served to keep the elements out and went up quickly. It also made for a good cover to hide my things under.

I shook the cumbersome hide out as well as I could, unknotting it from where I’d tied it to the unique stick. Good thing I’d anticipated the snow, without the marker it might have been hard to find. I heard Finn approaching from behind me, padding carefully through the snow-covered underbrush. “Is that-“ he began.

“My cache,” I said with a grin, looking down proudly on my hidden treasure. My raft had weathered the cold well, it didn’t look like any of the lashings had snapped, and nothing had gotten at the frozen canvas sacks I’d buried in the snow alongside it, which I happened to know were full of salmon I’d saved for my own enjoyment on the trip home.

Finnegan seemed less impressed, his ears drooping a fraction.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, looking down at him.

“I-I just, I don’t mean to offend,” he gestured helplessly at the lashed timbers. “But it’s. . . it’s just timbers tied together. There are holes, even. Spaces.”

“Here and there,” I shrugged. “I’m sorry it’s not a canoe, but my father can’t spare those. And anyway, they’re too small for me.”

“Will it even float?” He asked dejectedly.

I chuckled. “How do you think I got here? I’ll show you, but I’m going to need your help launching it, and we need to be ready to get onboard once we’ve got it to the bank, alright? Help me find the oars, they’re buried around here somewhere. . . .”

I began digging about, as he asked almost disbelievingly, “ ‘Oars’?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “We’re traveling up-river. It’s not a fast-moving river, but we’ll still need to row.”

“And you were going to do this alone?!”

“To be honest, this is my first time making this trip alone,” I admitted. His expression following that was so aghast as to be almost comical. I tried not to laugh, and only half succeeded. “Don’t worry,” I tried to assure him, patting his slumped shoulder again, this time with more confidence. “I promise you, it won’t be as hard as it sounds.”



“So if I-nnhh. . . said. . . at any point. . . that this is harder than you made it sound,” the wolfdog grunted again as he sunk his oar into the cold, churning river, “would that be trite?”

“Sorry, I never learned that word,” I called back over my shoulder at him. “Is it another way to say ‘whining’?”

There was a marked pause from my companion, followed by a quieter, “Touche.”

“That one I definitely don’t know,” I informed him chipperly. I couldn’t help my sudden good mood. It was just so great to get out on the water again. There was such familiarity in it, such comfort. The river wasn’t exactly ‘home’, but it had been a constant companion throughout my life. Indeed, it had brought me to my eventual adoptive family. In a way, it had delivered me to my parents, like a healer bringing forth life into the world.

Finnegan seemed less enamored.

From the moment he’d set foot on my raft, unstable and panic-stricken by the time I settled my bulk aboard, he’d found more and more reasons to be dissatisfied. His clothing wasn’t suited for long periods of sitting and crouching, and looked to be made of cotton and wool, so it would soak up the cold water. And there was simply no way to avoid getting a little wet now and then on the raft. I wore a water-resistant breech cloth and a cloak I could tie back when I was on the river, and that was about it. Just like my otter family. To be fair though, our fur was made for the water and the cold. Mine somewhat less-so than my otter brethren, but still far better suited than Finn’s seemed to be. Even now, as I glanced back briefly at him, he looked miserable and shrunken in on himself. Coupled with the fact that he was underweight for any man, woman or child living in the north in the winter, he’d suffer from the cold on this trip. We’d have to make frequent stops so he could warm himself by a fire. And once the snow started falling, we’d have a whole new problem.

As unfortunate as it had seemed at the time, our meeting in the alley might have been fate. I don’t think he would have made this trip on his own. A lot of foreigners tended to underestimate the winters in this part of the country.

Well, that confident air about him had lasted all of the walk here, at least. The realities of traveling by river looked to be dampening his spirits.

“That wasn’t even Amurescan,” he assured me with a sigh. “I don’t know why I expected you’d know it.”

“What language is it?” I asked, hoping that perhaps conversation might cheer him up some. Luckily or unluckily for us, some of the fastest-flowing waters were actually here, closer to this part of the river. We had a few hours navigating through the worst of it, (which wasn’t even that bad this time of year, really, not like in the spring during the melt). It was unfortunate that it would be over the first leg of the trip, but at least we wouldn’t have to be rowing so hard through a winter storm.

“A dead one,” he said, and I heard him dipping his oar back in. I’d had to slow to match his pace, which was fine. The water was choppy, but we weren’t moving against a particularly fast current, and I was enjoying watching the scenery go by. This close to Otherwolf land, we were passing a lot of game trails, homesteaders and even a few other canoes and rafts. None of the famed Otherwolf barges yet, though. I’d been hoping to see one.

I nodded. “There are a lot of words, phrases and paoken- that’s hand-signs- we use in our tribe that are from tribes that no longer exist. Lost to time, to disease or famine, or. . . .”

“. . . to us?” He guessed accurately.

“Well not you, specifically,” I reasoned.

“Look, I know this isn’t worth much,” he raised his voice to speak up just enough that I could hear him clearly over the sound of the oars and the water, “but you don’t need to do that, alright? Excuse it all. Just let me apologize, whether it changes anything or not. We both know what’s been happening to your people at the hands of mine,” he said it matter-of-factly, his voice dipping to a regretful tone. “I’d rather not pretend otherwise. Even if I haven’t personally had a hand in it, it seems. . . I don’t know. . . disingenuous to tiptoe around it like you’re worried about offending me.”

I was silent for a while, uncertain what to say. My impulse was to again assure him he bore no guilt, but the truth was, that wasn’t entirely what I felt in my heart. The Otherwolves were all benefiting from their incursions into our land, whether they intended to or not. And just because I liked some of the things they’d introduced us to, and my father had decided to adopt many of them, didn’t mean my otter tribe wouldn’t still be better off if they didn’t have to worry constantly about losing their land.

“Well then,” I cleared my throat,”for whatever it’s worth coming from a tribal orphan, because I can’t speak for my adopted family. . . I’d rather none of that get in the way of our friendship.”

“Fair enough,” he replied, and I felt him shifting his weight around, likely to avoid the water splashing up between two particularly gnarled and ill-fitted logs that ran the length of the raft. The water always found its way up between those two. . . I’d have to seal them better when I got home.

“You know,” Finn said, breaking me out of my thoughts, “you said your lineage was mixed, but you never mentioned being adopted. Makes me feel a bit foolish for complaining about my family.” He paused. “I mean, not really. I meant everything I said about the man who sired me. But still. I was at least raised by my mother.”

“As was I,” I said with the briefest of smiles. I couldn’t help it. Thoughts of her always brought with them a certain warmth, like sunlight in the morning. “I lost my blood mother very young. My adoptive mother was all I ever could have asked for, though. I don’t feel I’ve been denied anything.”

“How old were you when you lost her, if you don’t mind me asking?” He asked gingerly.

“She returned to the earth two springs ago,” I replied.

He didn’t ask me how she died. I was glad for that.

“. . . it was more like three years, for me,” he said after a time. “Feels so much more recent.”

I had no reply for that. I felt exactly the same, some days more acutely than others.

“But, so,” he paused, “that must have been your adopted mother, then. If it was only a few years ago.”

He seemed confused, so I clarified, “She’s the only mother I’ve ever known. She’ll always be my mother. Just as the man who took me in will always be my father.”

“Oh,” he was silent a beat. “Do you ever think about them? Your real parents?”

“My real parents were-“

“Alright, I get it,” he sighed. “Your blood parents, then.”

“Of course I do,” I said softly. “What they might have looked like, how they might have raised me, what it would have been like to grow up in their clan. . . but. . . it just wasn’t to be. Whatever befell them, the river spirits saw to it that I was guided safely into another life. I try to be grateful for that, and not think about what might have been.”

He didn’t reply for a time, and then he coughed, a smile in his voice. “You’ll forgive me for not entirely buying that horse shit. You’re an overthinker. I’ve known you half a day and I’ve yet to watch you make a single decision without some degree of agony.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, yes, fine. I think about it all the time. I don’t know that I’ll ever. . . not wonder at what might have been.”

“Understandable,” he said knowingly. “A life denied is a hard thing to come to terms with.”

“I was being earnest about being grateful, though,” I insisted. “It’s not that I feel I should have had more, I just. . . it’s more wondering about what could have been different.”

“Nothing wrong with wanting more,” he said, shaking his oar out as it caught in something below the water’s surface. I turned when I heard him grunt, and watched him struggle with it for a few moments. “Snagged,” he got out between grit teeth as he struggled with it.

“Could be a sunken tree, or fishing nets,” I said, turning my bulk carefully so I could lean closer to him without tipping the raft too badly. I put my oar down, then reached over him and moved my arms alongside his, taking hold near his hands so I could test how thoroughly it was stuck.

“Definitely a fallen tree or something of the like,” I confirmed as I shifted my grip to knock the oar beneath the water’s surface against whatever it was snagged on. I looked down at the canine’s black muzzle from above, and saw his green-eyed gaze drift upwards towards me for a moment. I moved in closer against his back and gripped one of his hands with my own, guiding it so he could move the oar as I had. “See?” I directed. “See how it moves cleanly to the side then stops abruptly? If it were snagged on a net, it wouldn’t ‘knock’ like that. It’s caught against something. Probably roots or interlocked branches. Snags feel more like you’re pulling something. See?”

“Hmm,” he hummed, testing the oar again. His back pressed against my cloaked chest, and at first I thought he meant to lean into me as leverage to pull the oar out, so I braced my arms against his to help.

“Turn the oar,” I suggested. “Whatever you’ve gotten it lodged in, it must have found a way in to begin with. You just need to find the angle it’ll come loose at.”

He didn’t bother with the oar, though. If anything, his grip on it relaxed.

“You’re warm,” he murmured.

I sucked in a breath. “Wh-“

The churning water a foot from our raft exploded, a sound cracking out across the river and the surrounding countryside. At first, my instincts screamed that it must be cracking ice. But it was louder, more like thunder. And of course, the river wasn’t frozen over. It took me longer than it should have to register what it was I’d heard, and what had happened. By then, Finn was at rapt attention, and was grabbing me by the cloak, pulling me.

“Get down!” He snapped, and I struggled to comply, flattening myself as much to the surface of the raft as he was. Which wasn’t accomplishing much. I was too big to take cover behind our lashed-down bags like he was.

“Finn, I can’t-“ I felt panic freezing up my body. “Who’s shooting at us?!”

“Someone must have followed us from town,” he deduced rather obviously, his eyes scanning the nearby riverbanks. Of course, he was right. I just wasn’t thinking rationally. “Make your silhouette smaller,” he commanded me fiercely. “As flat as you bloody well can!”

“I’m trying,” I whispered, not sure why I couldn’t get my voice out full-throated. It’s not like keeping my voice low would help us. The reality of our situation was settling in fast, and fear was seizing my body. We were almost in the very center of the river, the only object in what was essentially a clear line of sight from every shore. And the shores here were thick with pine and spruce, debris from the river and brush, all with a fresh coat of snow. Finn at least must have thought the shot came from the right bank, but that still left a lot of ground our attacker could be firing from. And if they were camouflaged well enough we’d never see them.

What’s worse, even if we did, we’d have to slowly make our way to shore while getting shot at before we could do anything to defend ourselves. And our oar was stuck!

“They probably followed us from town and waited until the right moment to jump us,” he spat. “We gave them a perfect chance, going out on the water. . . damn. Tulimak, grab my-“

Another shot crackled across the cold landscape, this one gone far wider than the first, puncturing the water ahead of us. Finnegan and I both flattened ourselves to the raft regardless.

I glanced past his prone form to where I was still gripping the oar in one hand, and considered releasing it. I’d lose an oar, but. . . .

“I’m going to let go,” I told him. “At least if we let the current take us, we’ll be a moving target.”

“No, keep us steady,” he said between grit teeth, and turned to his stomach, crawling a foot or so past me and reaching out for where his satchel was leaning against our supply bags.

“Why?” I asked, uncertainly. The bulk of our bags, mostly full of carrots, potatoes and frozen fish, were all the cover we had out here. He couldn’t reach past them for his satchel, so I inched my arm out to do so for him, pulling the strap to his hand

“Hang on, I’m counting,” he said distractedly, pulling his satchel clumsily towards himself, the strap snagging a few times on the uneven surface of the raft.

Ten seconds later, something struck one of our bags and blew off chunks of canvas, potato and I swear, some of the fur along my back. Through the shock of it, I barely felt the pain.

“A little under thirty seconds,” he gave a ‘tch’ noise between his teeth, as he dug into his deep beaverskin bag. “Fucking cocker. . . got to be a percussion musket. That or he’s a better loader than he is a shot.”

“What?!” Was all I could say.

He finally yanked something out of his bag. . . the pistol I’d seen him with that night, I realized. He was either masterfully falsifying confidence again, or he knew what he was doing with it, too, because not a moment after he’d gotten it free, he began frantically tinkering with it. It looked like he was opening it up? For all the little I knew about fighting, I knew even less about guns.

“It means it’s a nice weapon,” he clarified, shedding his coat quickly as he spoke. “An expensive one. Someone other than the foxes is hunting me. If they’d had a gun like that, they’d have used it.”

“I thought you said you had no ammunition!” I exclaimed. “Why bother with yours?”

He took a moment to inspect the weapon once more before closing it up, seeming content. “Good, still dry. What do you think I spent the last of my coin on?”

He risked lifting his head after that, peering over one of the sacks of frozen fish. I began to beg him to get down, when another shot skipped across the water, this one coming close like the first, but not managing to peg our raft as the last had. My back felt wet.

“Got him,” he growled out, and stood.

Before I could do anything- as if there was anything I could do in this situation, a thunderously loud noise broke from his outstretched hand, far louder than I’d ever imagined up close. He held the weapon out still and straight in front of him, like he was a stone statue pointing towards some distant horizon. I had never actually seen a gun fired so close to me before. It looked and felt like a pronouncement. That’s the best way I can honestly think to describe it.

There was a very distant noise I could only barely hear over the sound of the river and the pounding of blood in my ears. It might have been a voice. If it was, they were none too happy by the sound of it.

“Nicked him at best,” he snarled, letting his pistol fall at his side. “Tulimak, can you get us moving? I don’t know if that’s put him off entirely.”

I nodded numbly and re-focused my attention on the oar, turning it in my palm like a key, until I found the right angle to free it. As it came away, I pushed myself to my knees and grabbed the other oar, spinning them both up into the air then digging back into the water for the most powerful stroke I could manage.

We were getting out of here as fast as my arms would take us.

The hunter took no further shots at us as we began moving upriver again, this time at a much less leisurely pace. We traveled in silence for a time, Finnegan facing down-river all the while, his ears pivoting from place to place, gaze firmly fixed on the banks we’d left behind.

“He shot at us four or five times,” I said at length. “You got him in one.”

I’d meant it as a compliment, but he only shook his head. “No, I didn’t,” he said regretfully. “I took too long to aim. He was taking cover when I got my shot off. I might have grazed his shoulder, but that’s all. I’ll take it, though. Looks like he’s thought the better of it. You can probably slow down.”

“This is the least I can do,” I shook my head. “I was no help, and I was supposed to be the one protecting you.”

“Yeah, well I’m sure the only reason they waited to take me out was because I had a big bear with me on land,” he tried to assure me. “Besides, I essentially used you as a blind. Oh, hell. . . Tulimak,” he kneeled down suddenly, and I felt his paw on my back. I winced when it found its way to where that burning wet feeling was. His paw came away bloody.

“My winter coat and skin are thick there,” I insisted at his look of worry. “I hardly feel it.”

“You’re bleeding everywhere,” he said, looking down at his bloody palm, ears tipped back. “Please don’t lie to me. I-I don’t have any medical. . . shite, are you going to make it?”

I actually laughed, only wincing a little. “I know this is hard for you to imagine,” I insisted, “but I really am fine. It’s going to bleed, but I can feel it didn’t penetrate deep. My body is different than yours. I have more I can afford to lose.”

“I’d heard bear and some big predators were a bit more durable,” he said uncertainly, his paw gingerly stroking my shoulder near, but not over, where I’d been grazed. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t play hero,” I said soothingly. “Look, if you want to help, tear off some clean cloth from my bag, I have a spare breech cloth there. Press it to the wound for awhile and it ought to help stop the bleeding.”

He started looking through my bag diligently, murmuring as he did. “Hurt yourself often? You sound experienced.”

“Like I said, my skin is thicker than yours,” I said, pausing and stabilizing the oars long enough to unclasp and remove my cloak. “I scratch and tear it up sometimes without realizing it. Especially in the winter, when I’ve fattened up some and my winter coat comes in.”

“We truly live in different worlds,” he chuckled nervously, the conversation lightening the moment for both of us despite the fear we both clearly still felt. “In Amuresca no one would intentionally fatten themselves up for a season. It’s the land of. . . corsets and girdles. . . .” I heard him tearing cloth, and soon he was pressing a small bundle to my back.

Silence passed between us for a time. “This is a first, though,” I said. “I’ve hurt myself plenty over the years, being as big and cumbersome as I am, it happens, you know? But I’ve never been shot.”

“The musket ball itself didn’t do this,” he said. “You’re lucky. It probably grazed our bags and caught you with debris of some kind. Trust me, if you’d actually been shot, a little fat and thick skin wouldn’t have made much of a difference. We’d be dealing with a whole different problem, now.”

“I’ve seen a bad gunshot injury before,” I said quietly.

He was still pressing the cloth to my wound, but his free hand was gingerly stroking my opposite shoulder. It was unnecessary, but I found I quite liked it, so I didn’t ask him to stop.

“I’m sorry this is happening,” he said at length, voice laced with honest regret. “I-I didn’t mean to get anyone else involved.”

“I’m glad I did,” I replied emphatically. “I’m no warrior. . . obviously. . . but whatever good I might be to you on this leg of your trip, I’m glad to give.”

“How can you say that?” He asked incredulously.

“If what you said was true, I know I’ll have done something important with my life,” I explained. “Even if just for a few days. These people you’re trying to help, I’ll have played some small part in that. I’m so used to receiving good will, it’s high time I paid some of it back.”

“It’s all true,” he said solidly, squeezing my good shoulder. “You can be assured of that.”

“I believe you,” I nodded. I glanced back at him, managing to smile a bit through the discomfort. “You talk about your. . . quest. . . like a hero of song. No one could doubt your passion.”

“Ha,” he huffed, his ears tipping back, muzzle lowering somewhat. “I don’t know about all that. I’m. . . this whole thing was borne from self-interest.”

“It clearly isn’t in your self-interest to keep pursuing it now,” I pointed out.

“I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “Sometimes I just don’t know my own mind well. Maybe it’s. . . anger. . . that’s kept me going? Lord, that sounds awful. I know I’m not nearly as charitable as your sweet words make it sound, though.”

I leaned back to look at him over my now bare shoulder. His hand was still resting on it. “I think,” I said carefully, “that it’s probably natural to have doubts, given what’s happened? I have doubts all the time, over everything, really. But, this is extraordinary. What you’re doing.”

“What we’re doing,” he corrected me.

“I’m a glorified ferryman,” I reasoned.

“You got hurt helping me,” he said, again with that woeful tone. He looked up at me, eyes wide. “It’s a small list, the people who’ve bothered that much on my account.”

It seemed a dramatic statement, but much like his many other dramatic statements, it sounded sincere. And that thought made my chest twinge, not unlike it did when I saw one of my younger siblings get hurt. I wanted to make it not so.

This was why I wanted to help him, I realized. Why I’d continued to help him since we met, despite my better judgment.

Why I was well and truly in trouble.

I forced myself to look away, down the expanse of river ahead of us. “Did you see who he was?” I asked, partially filling silence, partially because I was honestly curious.

“The hunter who shot at us?” He asked. “Not well. He wasn’t a fox, the tail was wrong. He was wearing a pale cloak of some sort, which doesn’t bode well.”

“Why?” I asked, confused.

“Means he was prepared enough to camouflage himself against the snow,” he said. “Means he’s a professional. At least, more so than the lads in town. He looked tan, what little of his face and tail I caught. Other than that, it was hard to tell.”

“How did you know he’d be on the right bank?” I asked, remembering.

“I guessed,” he shrugged. “Accurately, as it turns out. Town was on the right side, and we hadn’t passed any bridges.”

His answer was simple, but impressed me all the same. I wasn’t always capable of such insight. Not without more time to think it over.

“How was his tail shaped?” I asked suddenly, something occurring to me.

“Long,” he paused. “Longer than a canine’s, anyway.”

“And tan?” I snuffed out a puff of warm air into the chill. Cold was slowly gripping my body, but not because of the temperature.

“. . . you have a thought,” he surmised.

“It sounds like a lion hunter,” I said, not able to hide the edge in my voice.

“There are lions here?” He honestly sounded as though he hadn’t known.

I nodded. “They haven’t kept to tribes for years. Tend to be solitary, stick to family hunting parties, or take up residence with a different species’ tribe. There aren’t many of them left in these parts, but I know a few who come to trade with us from time to time.”

“. . . and?” He pressed after a few moments.

“You should hope it’s the young lion who traps game in the mountains,” I told him. “And not a lioness.”

“I certainly couldn’t distinguish their gender,” he sighed. “I just. . . assumed it was a man. Why?”

“If it’s a well-armed mountain lioness in these parts, it’s probably Odina,” I said solemnly. “She is not a woman you want hunting you.”

“Ideally I don’t want anyone hunting me,” he chuckled, then cleared his throat, his tone sobering. “But you look worried. I’m guessing I should be worried.”

I nodded sagely, still not turning to face him. I could feel him grow tense though, through his hand.

We passed the longest time in silence following that since we’d met. Despite the palpable air of fear we were sharing, which had been bound to catch up with us eventually after our brief bravado following the near-death incident, Finn stayed close at my side. Eventually he was shoulder-to-shoulder with me, close enough that I could feel him shivering. I couldn’t reach out to him as he had to me though. Not if I wanted to keep rowing.

My shoulder was beginning to ache, and the first drifts of snow were touching down and disappearing on the water’s surface, when he finally spoke up again. I’m not sure how long it had been. Hours.

“If I am to die in the coming days,” he said softly, “at least it will be in good company.”

“I’m not as prepared for death as you seem to be,” I admitted, letting the vulnerability I felt slip into my tone. “So let’s try to avoid it, if we can. Maybe you injured her. Maybe she’s given up. Maybe it’s not even her.”

“Maybe,” he conceded. But I could tell he was only saying it for my sake.

That prompted me to look down at him where he was hunkered against my side. He’d drawn most of his body into his coat, feet pressed together, ears limp. The shivering when it came was sporadic, but pronounced.

Taking only a moment longer to decide, I pulled one of the oars up, and began to twist the other. “We’re going to make camp,” I declared.

“Have we put enough distance between us and her?” He asked, glancing behind us.

“I honestly don’t know,” I confessed. “But I need to rest my shoulder.”

It was true, but it wasn’t why I wanted to make camp, and I think he knew that. Still, he didn’t question me. He just moved closer against me, took up the other oar, and nodded.