I.i

I opened the door and was greeted by sun. When that faded, I was greeted by three men.

 “Give me my coin back,” one said. He was in the middle, slightly forward from the others. Looking through almost-closed eyes and harsh light the three were vague and indistinct forms.

It had been dark inside. The sunlight cut into my eyes with a ferocity that surprised me despite how many times I found myself like this. It was an effort to open my right eye into a thin slit, an even bigger one to raise my hand to my brow and shade my vision. The men in front of me coalesced into something sharper. The one in front was familiar. I wasn’t drunk enough to forget the man who I had just beat at cards.

They were leathery and rough and angry. The first two things were clearly visible, but the anger looked contained. Muscles were on the verge of tensing and arms were crossed and chests were puffed.

“Move,” I responded. My voice was dry and tired from the alcohol and work the day before. It gave the round timbre an unimpressed tone that amplified how much I wanted them out of the way. My eyes were heavy and my head was foggy and I wanted to lie down somewhere.

He took two steps forward, closing the distance between us. I saw his hand start to rise from his side and I could tell he was going to use the force from his steps to put a palm on my chest and push. I braced and felt my muscles give a bit of protest, and his arm simply stopped, like hitting a bag of sand.

He didn’t like that. He continued his interrupted journey and came within an inch of brushing noses with me. Through the veil of fatigue and alcohol I could feel my chest begin to turn. My breathing began to quicken. My knuckles cracked as I drew my hands into fists.

“Give it back, bitch,” he spit. The sentence was punctuated with a poke to my chest from his other hand. Not hard, because I’m sure he was worried about a repeated stumble in front of the other men.

Everything began to tighten. My jaw clenched and my lip twitched. I stared at him and then through him, seeing my reflection in his eyes. It wasn’t hard to do, because on the flat ground outside the building, I still looked down at him.

“Fuck off,” I said.

He threw a punch after that, which I saw out of the corner of my eye, and then felt as it hit my nose and something crunched. It was wild and big and wide, and it took my head to the side and down a bit. There was a warmth on my lips and then my chin, which I felt on my tongue as I inhaled with my mouth and came back to my original position.

It was barely half a breath before I used the powerful muscles in my neck and shoulders to draw my head back and pound my brow into the center of his face. He dropped, and the sand and dirt below began to muddy with the crimson pouring from his head.

The man on the left was already moving. I saw him begin a punch as wide as his friend’s, and I took fast steps in and pushed his arm back, stopping the blow halfway through before it had a chance to build up. My elbow greeted his jaw in return, ripping flesh and cracking bone.  

I caught some sort of movement to the right, which I assumed was the third man. Before I had a chance to look at him or see the man I had just struck hit the ground, I felt arms around my waist and I was partly-carried and partly-thrown into something wooden that had sat beside the bar’s door. I crashed down to the ground, hearing wood splinter and seeing dust kick up around me.

A foot entered my field of vision from above, stomping down in my direction. I pushed it to the right, and the man stumbled, throwing his arms out, hands meeting the wall of the kapalia to balance him.

I was already up by the time he gotten back into position. I stumbled slightly. Sloppily knocked another punch away from my head. I threw out a fist, half-blind, no power behind it. It connected with flesh and bone, and the man reeled lightly, more surprised than hurt. The couple seconds pause gave me time to orient myself. I grabbed the side of his head, grasping his skull and pulling back, throwing it into the stone wall he’d been using to balance a moment ago. There was a crack and more crunches and more blood in the sand as he fell.

Some people were staring, but not many. The ones that were gave it a passing glance and moved along. Blood and unconscious bodies amidst the scent of alcohol weren’t that exciting.

I hadn’t seen any Lycons in the village when I entered the bar, but that had been a couple hours ago. I wasn’t interested in whatever questions or attention they would want to give to three bloodied men and the one woman still on her feet. Everyone else thought the same, because the immediate area cleared up quite fast.

I began to walk.

I didn’t know where I was going. I let my feet lead without thinking. It was midday, the heavens beating hot sun down on the swathes of day time travelers that zigzagged through the sandy streets. Eyes met not my own, but the edges of my form, the spots where blood already began to crust and bumps slowly began to rise.

A skirmish in the door of a kapalia may not incite curiosity, but even after months here, I did.

I walked past stalls and small homes and eventually onto soft, white sand. The waves gently lapped at the edge of the land, which is where I decided to stop. I splashed warm water on my face, washing off blood and dirt. The salt bit into the torn skin stretched across my nose. I ran my fingers over it, feeling pain that would lead into a headache but nothing that made me shout. It most likely wasn’t broken.

To my right were a line of small boats, used to fish by people in the village. There were many. I was sure that was this village’s only commodity. Some were broken, smashed hulls or torn sails, and I knew that was the Lycons’ doing. 

I walked over to them, pausing to take my sandals off as I did. The sand was sunbaked. The warmth was soothing on the soles of my feet. I let myself fall to the ground ass-first right next to one of the wooden vessels, leaning my back into it and digging the edge into my sore muscles to massage them. I thought that someone may not be too pleased if they found me sleeping against their boat, but I let my eyes close anyways.

In my dream I saw two faces. One was on a body much taller than I. It was hazy and blank, with features I couldn’t remember. The other was a boy, only slightly smaller than me, with the same straight nose and thick hair and dark eyes. Niko.

Like all dreams, the form and focus was ethereal and slippery. For what seemed like days I pulled ropes to raise sails and bring in baskets of fish from the water under the gentle guidance of the hazy figure. His hands were strong but soft. When he picked me up, I felt a small comfort. Every so often, the sharp breeze would fade into warm candlelit air. Niko and I sat swaddled in a shared blanket, and with a deep voice the figure spoke undetailed stories to us.

Then, with the blurry and unaware transitions given in sleep, Niko was beside me. The air was light and sun-struck. He laughed and smiled, which made his features pull out of focus for me, an action reaching too far back in my memories for me to picture clearly.

The grass was soft underneath as we wrestled, in the strong but gentle way that siblings do. I threw him to the turf, staining his tunic with bits of green. This happened again and again and again, him hitting the ground or being pinned, and he giggled and smiled and continued, undeterred. Then, moments later, we clashed fake swords of bark and wood, splinters clogging the air. We beat and bruised each other in good fun. For now.

Soft footsteps roused me not too long afterwards. I opened my eyes and saw a woman walking in my direction. Once again, I thought of the boat I was leaning on. She was a short woman, sinewy and callused, bronzed by the sun. Her arms looked dense, though. This could very well be her vessel.

“Mathos?” She said, stopping a foot’s length away from me. The people in the village knew my name, yet none felt the need to call me it. If they needed something, I was mathos. If not, they left me to myself.

I gave her a look, implying she should continue. She walked a hair closer as I rose and dusted myself off.

“Have you many jobs right now?” She asked. Her left hand hovered near her hip, where a small bag full of something sat tied to her belt of worn rope.

“No,” I answered. My voice was still off, eroded by the alcohol and nasally from blood clogging my airways.

“Then may I ask you to do something for me? The whole village, even?”

In response, I let a non-comital noise fall from my throat.

She looked at me. She was uneasy. She was going to ask me to kill someone. Or at least injure them.

“I work as a serving girl some nights. I see the Lycons many times. They say things and sometimes do things, and we’re told to ignore them. The owner doesn’t care, and I’m not very bothered either. They’ll grab me when I serve them and call me names, but it doesn’t hurt. I’m not shamed by it.” She paused. Her lips pursed, and her eyes looked away for a moment. I said nothing. I had nowhere else to go. I just continued to stare at her.

“Two nights ago, they fought with a man. That happens a lot. We all know that. And it’s not just the Lycons.” She gestured to my face. I looked impassively back. My cheek was tightening now, even hotter than it should be under the high sun. Dried blood created organic stitches that pulled at loose strands of hair caught in the weave.

“But they didn’t stop after this man fell. The solider he argued with continued to hit him. The men with him didn’t stop him. I’m sure he was dead long before the beating ceased. I didn’t know the man well. But that’s not how these things should go.”

I still didn’t know what she wanted me to do. So I stared at her yet again.

“I’ve asked around. We’ve begun to hear tales of a Lycon general staying at the camp outside the village. These are his men that are doing these things to us, and he has yet to stop them.” She took a breath and rolled her shoulders back.

“I want you to kill him. I’ve heard tales of what you’ve done for people in this village, and I want you to do whatever you can and kill him.”

“Killing is expensive,” I said, still resting my weight on the boat I was now doubting was hers. She wasn’t shrill or breathy or speaking in such a tone to bother me, yet my head ached at her words. I wanted her to leave. I wanted to continue my nap.

 Her eyes shifted slightly, and she stared at me.

“I fish for a living, in a village of fisherman,” she gestures to one of the far boats, with a hole in the sail,” That boat was mine. I refused to sit in the lap of a Lycon soldier. Now I work even more nights serving them. I have nothing to give you. Hardly any of us do.”

I said nothing. She stared at me, and I stared back. Then I bent down and began to do up my sandals.

“I have seen you fight. You’re brave enough to do this.” Her tone was beginning to rise. She wasn’t going to leave. The walk was more than my legs wanted, but they’d been through much more troubling trials. I had a bed at home.

“Do it yourself.”

“You are the only one in this village with the ability to face any of those men. We know it, and they know it. I see the way they avoid you, I know they’ve heard the tales of the woman who fights like a man.”

I pulled the final thong on the final sandal and began to walk by her. She looked at me as I did. As she left my sight, I heard a tiny thump in the sand behind me. I turned, and saw the bag that had been at her hip nestled in the ground.

“We all pitched in as much as we could spare. Probably more. I told them we wouldn’t need it. You hate them just as much as we do.” Her face fell as she spoke. I picked up the bag and looked inside. It was a pile of twenty or thirty coins.

The gold inside glowed gently where the sunlight leaked in. An itch formed on my right wrist, underneath the bandages wrapped around it. Some force making me aware of the marking below it.

The generals had told us to let hate fuel our swings. We hated Tirus. Tirions. The entirety of the mainland. Whoever had left us in the streets to be eventually saved by Lycos.

The generals had told us to let fear spread through our enemies unabated. Fear of Lycos. Of Lycons. Of us, eventually.

I was a candle with two wicks burning towards each other. For years I saw their colour, of blood and flame, in my mind. It followed close behind wherever I travelled. After months in this village, it finally caught me.

Every day I woke, walked the streets beside the wolves. They knew nothing of me, but I still felt them look. Felt their presence in this village. In my dreams.

niko

That was hate. The other side-

Wasn’t fear.

Lycos had kept something valuable to me.

The woman must have took my pause for agreement.

“He’s called the Wolf of Lycos,” She said. She looked at me, something hard and dark in her eyes, and then turned and left.