As Mikahl stood, and began pacing, Grrr eased up to Hyden’s side, and lay down close to him. Hyden sensed that the big wolf was as worried for his friends as he was. Feeling his concern and despair as well, Talon came fluttering down out of the trees, and perched on his shoulder.
“I don’t even know who I am!” ranted Mikahl. His voice was tired and desperate. “I was raised and trained, as a commoner, by a King who always spoke to me, and treated me as a father might, but I was never his son. I never had a father. The kingdom I grew up in has now been taken over by some dragon riding wench. Everyone close to me seems to die because of this sword, and now I’m supposed to save the world from a fargin demon! This is insanity!”
Mikahl was about to pull his own hair out of his head, in an act of sheer exasperation, when Vaegon strode back into the camp.
“WAAAAAHHH!” the elf made the sound of a baby crying, and threw a wadded piece of cloth at Mikahl, as if it were a heavy stone. The mocking tone, and rude sarcasm in the gesture, caused Mikahl to look at the elf as if he had just burst into a shower of golden coins. Vaegon fought back a laugh.
“Quit your crying Mik! Dry your tears! I’ve already cried enough of them for the both of us.”
The last few words were spoken through a sincere grin. Mikahl’s tirade had reminded Vaegon of just how much he hadn’t lost. It forced him to see that he wasn’t the only one suffering.
Mikahl’s angry expression softened when he realized that the elf was trying to cheer him up. Seeing his yellow-eyed friend come out from under the dark cloud, which had been smothering him for the past few days, went far towards lightening his own gloomy load.
“I suppose you cried your eye out.” Mikahl tried valiantly, but couldn’t bite back his laughter.
Hyden burst out as well, causing Grrr to sit up suddenly.
Vaegon’s face went blank, as his mind registered exactly what Mikahl had just said, then, he too joined in the chuckling. For the first time in days, they were all smiling at the same time.
Urp, Huffa, and Oof returned in the midst of the new found mirth. Huffa had a limp creature clutched in her jaws. She dropped it at Vaegon’s feet, and the elf wasted no time preparing it for the spit.
“What is that?” Mikahl asked.
“I have no idea,” Hyden responded, with a curiously crinkled nose. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
The animal was the size of a spring fawn, but looked nothing like any deer or antelope that the boys had ever seen. Its head was small, and similar to that of a badger or an opossum, and sported two small forked antlers. Its fur was the same muted shade of green as most of the forest’s undergrowth, and its long bushy tail had darker rings around it, like a raccoon’s.
“It’s a ring-tailed buck squirrel,” Vaegon told them with a satisfied smile on his face. “This is what we elves like to call one fine supper.”
And it was. The meat was succulent and buttery, and seemed to melt in the mouth. The wolves liked it too. When he had finished with his portion, Vaegon gathered up the small bones and skin, and started off into the woods.
“One last look around,” he said, meaning that he would be gone for a little while.
Oof and Urp began to snarl and growl over the last piece of the meat. Heads lowered, hackles bristled, and it seemed for a long moment that they might actually fight over the scrap. When they began to circle each other, Grrr gave Huffa some silent command. The she-wolf strode calmly over between the two would-be combatants and snatched the morsel for herself. With a challenging posture, she strutted back to her place near Mikahl, and munched it down. Both of the younger males stood there, and watched her, stupidly. A short while later, while Talon picked the big bone clean of the meat the wolves had missed, Oof and Urp were nuzzling, and yapping at each other as if nothing had happened.
Hyden watched all of this transpire with an attentive eye. He could tell the wolves’ moods clearly by the way they moved, and the positions of their tails and ears. The message Grrr had sent Huffa had been simple: “Your kill, your claim.”
Oof and Urp’s lack of response when she had taken the meat had been more than just a look of shock and longing. There’d been embarrassment and regret in their postures as well. Not regret for taking the last scrap of meat, or fighting over it mind you, but regret for not making the kill themselves in the first place.