The Wolf, the Butterfly, and the Kraken

Chapter 1

I could barely stand on the block. I was five and a half feet tall, but even on the 3 foot tall block I felt short next to the lycants who stood watching nearby. There were seven other women near me. They were in better shape. I had struggled to get out of my bindings three times. The first time I had been only hours from the plantation my father and I lived at. I had worked my way loose from the rope and run like mad towards home. I was caught within 10 minutes, and once we boarded a boat two Lycants argued over what to do with me in their gutteral, ferral language. The young one, or at least smaller of the two, won. He restrained me with hemp cord tied tightly into my raw, rope burned wrists.
           Even though his face had wolfish features I could tell he wasn't pleased, he was unsettled about the situation, but determined. My watercaster abilities could tell me that. I could feel his emotions. I never knew the lycants felt emotion. But it was there, plain as day. The boat was thick with greed and pride, or joy at the things they found and brought back. They were not mindless monsters, but chose to do this, and were still very much monsters.
I almost broke free when they stopped along the river. I had been able to use the tip of a metal screw to undo the cord. I managed to poke and stab my arm several times in the dark hold in the process, but undid the bindings and flew up a ladder. Something heavy and furry slammed on my right shoulder and I fell down, hitting my head on the floor. When I awoke my head felt swollen and sore. A blonde girl said a Lycant raider had bandaged me carefully and then placed me in the metal chains.
I had spent many hours with my father, the blacksmith, and only had to bide my time. The other girls all thought I was mad, or had hit my head too hard. They said we would be sold as slaves when we got to port, and that the better we looked the better our conditions might be. They all did their best to eat all their food and keep their hair tidy, and to ignore one solid fact. Lycants were not elementals. They were not buying sex toys. When lycants came down the ladder they would look over the freight and us girls. We were nothing more special than any of the other goods they had stolen on the raid. They would look with a calculating eye at us and seem to be weighing our value. I was skinny, bruised, and cut. More than once the young raider stood between me and the sea. Sometimes some of the older raiders would come down, see me, and just shake their heads like I was a waste of space.
I wouldn’t have argued with them. No one was sure what the lycants did with the elementals they captured. However, none were ever seen again. There were rumors that they were skinned and eaten. My monthly came and went on the journey across the sea, as did any hope of drowning once we got to port.
When the raiders undid my chains from the floorboards of the ship I tried to run again. Claws slashed down my back. I almost hoped they would go across my throat, but they hadn’t. We were all dragged to get a rough bath by a one eyed lycant. He snuffled out disapproval when he saw me. The soap burned in my cuts, and was rinsed none too gently in cold water. Then all of us girls watched as our clothing went up in flames. On another day I wouldn’t have minded seeing stained, smelly, disgusting clothing being burned. However, I didn’t exactly have a dress to replace it with.
A fair meal was given to us that night. I didn’t eat it. My stomach rumbled and my knees shook on the block. Fresh blood dripped down my back and legs. The noon sun beat down. Six lycants came up to inspect us. Not a square inch was overlooked. Most passed me by with hardly a glance. One looked me carefully over before moving on to the blonde beside me, and then each of the others.
Then the bidding began. The raiders watched with anticipation on their wolfish faces. The buyers didn’t raise a hand, but would instead twitch an ear to bid. I was last in line. The blonde had gone for a high amount. No one bid on me. I couldn’t speak lycant, but I could sense the displeasure of the auctioneer. He tried lowering the amount several times, but the buyers weren’t interested. Apparently I wasn’t worth the water I drank that morning.

***

Raam laughed at me. He had been on many raids and made enough to have purchased his own small ship. The raiders he had taken on were going to get a cut of what they brought back. Elemental females often went quick at auction and for a high price. The tailors would use their hides and long fur for highly fashionable items or religious wear. If not them then a butcher would purchase them for elite feasts or fancy restaurants.
“Why wasn’t she bought?” I asked.
“There is damage to her skin and she has much bruising. You would not pay top dollar for a bruised apple would you?” Raam replied.
“No. Now what do we do with her?”
Raam looked skeptical. “We? You owe me for transporting unsellable goods on my ship, and all she has cost me in food and management. You can do whatever you please with her.” That said, he turned to see how much he would get from the rest of the cargo. I watched as well, hoping to do better than break even.
Once all was said and done the auctioneer handed me one elemental female, two gold coins, three silvers, and twenty coppers. I paid Raam his share, one half, and wondered if what was left would carry me through the winter. I trudged home after picking up some consolation liquor.
Home was a farm I had grown into manhood on, my uncles. He gave it to me when his son trained to be a warrior. The barn, den, orchard, and three fields were all mine.
I threw the elemental in the barn, tying her with rope in one of the stalls. She would probably get out and runaway, get caught by someone and then become their problem. That in mind I went to my den and drank.
In the morning I realized I could still sell her hair. Maybe she could do simple chores and stuff around the farm. Maybe the farm would make more then. Maybe I could even leave her in charge of it while I tried for another raid after the spring planting. Then I could try for warrior training.
I opened the barn door and realized that plan would only work if she had lived. It had gotten cold last night, and she was furless. And wounded. Elementals were such fragile creatures. She was not where I had left her, but I could smell her. She was laying in the straw and old refuse from what had been my pig sty. I felt her fever burning before I touched her.
I filled a trough with water in the barn and rinsed the worst of it off her. I didn’t want all of that in the den or my bathing tub. I held her upright and scooped water over her head a few times. She murmured something I didn’t understand.

***

I was in the barn. I could smell the pigs, straw, and other things. Someone kept trying to get me. Eric. He was always pulling tricks on me. The young watercaster loved casting buckets of water over my head when he was sure no one would catch him at it. I groaned. I was tired, so tired. And it was hot. When would summer make way for fall? Another bucket slooshed over me. It was cool, but now I was all wet. What would I tell mum this time? “ ‘Ric stop it.” My eyes were heavy and my joints ached. Another bucket cascaded over me and I sensed him beside me. I swung my fist at the young watercaster who would have some explaining of his own to do then.
My fist connected with a furry muzzle, and heavy eyes opened. “Where is Eric?” Then I saw him, the lycant raider who took me so far from home. The one who hadn’t been able to sell me at auction because I was damaged. The one who tied me up in a barn, like some sort of animal, with no clothes on a freezing cold night. And I had just hit him. I almost flinched away, but was too tired to care how he might retaliate.
He snarled at me.
A rational, sane person would have shrunk away from the 7 foot tall wolf/man creature. I was not feeling like either of those things. I bared my throat to him, “Go on! Rip it out! I didn’t get you anything after all the effort you went through of bringing me here. So either finish me or send me home.”
He tilted his head curiously. Then eyed the refuse covering me.
I jutted my jaw out, “Well you’d smell like shit too if some asshole had left you no choice but to sleep in it.”
He dumped another bucket of cold water on me and tossed me a rag to wipe down with. I glared at him and rubbed as much off as I could. Then he pulled me to a standing position. I whimpered as pain shot up my back. He drug me out of the barn, and into even colder air. We went out aways from the barn and around a hill. On the other side of the hill was a door. If I hadn’t been in so much pain and half frozen I would have stopped and stared.
The door was 12 feet tall and made of some sort of wood I had never seen before. It was entirely etched, but I didn’t have time to see what was on it before going inside the hill.
It was quaint. There was a fireplace, bench and table, a bed of sorts, and a few other creature comforts. But it was painfully obvious that this guy was a bachelor. Liquor bottles littered the floor and table. Leftover meal drippings were stuck to the side of a large pot sitting over the fire. There was a broom, but the floor and rug had not been swept in ages.
He pointed to the bench by the fire. I wasn’t going to argue. I sat on the tall bench while he eyed me. Would I wind up in that pot? Finally, he grabbed a dirty bowl, shook out crumbs, ladled something from the pot into the bowl, and placed it before me. I don’t know what I expected, but not beans and tubers. There wasn’t a spoon so I sipped from the edge. At one taste I realized I had hardly eaten in days and ate every single drop.
While I was eating he put water on to boil. After I had finished eating he scrubbed my back clean. It hurt and I did cry, but I knew it was necessary. The water, the rag, the bench, and the floor were bloody by the time he was done. I sobbed when I saw him pull out a needle and thread. A watercaster could have healed this, no problem, and no pain. I quickly lost count of the stitches and just held myself as still as possible. He laid a sickly sweet smelling balm over my back, then wrapped me in bandages as best he could. I fell asleep at the table.

___________

So, tell me what you think. Do you like the characters so far? The premise?

Cover art is currently still in process, but this is the latest version of it, courtesy Nick Killpack.

I am going to try to get a chapter posted a week. Sometimes life happens and it gets a bit delayed. Sometimes I can get more out. My goal in posting my stories here is to actually finish them. And it's working.  I finished up two other stories this week (yeah, a bit bleary eyed), and will continue on this one. Thanks for reading!