Book 2 Season's Change Spring's Revenge

Part 33 The Violence We Sow

The storm passed just as quickly as it struck leaving Avriel alone and muddy on the ridge where Katana had been standing with nothing but an aching heart filled with more fear and pain than he would ever know. Had his whole life been stolen from him by a flash flood and a bolt of lightning? Had it?

He couldn't give up on Katana, but grief consumed him and controlled him keeping him on his knees crying in the mud. Finding the strength to see past the crippling pain and regret he felt was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Somehow, he did it. He raised first one knee and then the other. He was off the ground. The fet joined him on the hill. It looked about, sniffed around, and curled on the ground where Katana last stood. Avriel looked down at his fet and felt its sadness wash over him and combine with his. "I know. I know, Boy." He sank back down to the ground defeated and curled around the fet. His tears fell to the ground. His sobs were absorbed by the downy feathers of the fet. His whole body shook as he cried. "I never told her, never let her know how --how much I-I." His voice broke as the words caught on the lump in his throat. He couldn't breathe. His chest felt tight like a giant was sitting on it and his throat tighter. He gulped in air and stumbled through breathing. He suddenly couldn't breathe through his nose any more than he could past the lump in his throat. He thought maybe that lump he felt was his heart. His broken sobs and shattered wail filled the afternoon air. "No, No! NO!" His eyes shot open. "NO! I refuse to believe it!" He looked at the fet as he sat up. "She's a fighter. Surprised or no, she'd never stop fighting to survive. Not anymore!" He was on his feet shaking his fists at the lightening sky. "She wouldn't let you take her. She's stronger than that. She would not leave me out here alone. She wouldn't."

He started doing what he should have done in the first place rather than letting fear and grief control him; he looked for tracks and traces of her passage. She was not like him in that regard. She always left some trace of her wherever she went. The river washed all of the immediate ones away. The fet got up to help try to pick up the scent of his charge and companion. But the rain had washed all that away too. He looked from Avriel to the water to the ground and then back up at Avriel again. A small whimper escaped him. He felt his companion's hand warm and comforting on his head. He leaned against him as his friend ran his hand down his back. He was comforted by the touch and rubbed his side against his friend's leg. He was listening to him talk when he heard the faint sound of his tiny companion. His eyes shot up to his human's face.

"I heard it." The small sound repeated itself. "Is that Ferret? Be careful Fet. Careful now. I can't lose you too." They moved in the direction of the small cry for help as quickly as they dared in hopes of finding both Katana and the ferret hung up and holding on. "Hold on, little one." There was only the ferret. "Hold on we're coming to get you." When they found him, the ferret was soaking wet and clinging to an exposed root part of the way down the embankment. The water had receded just as quickly as it had come leaving a swift-flowing river very far below a short jagged cliff. A fall to the rocks below would surely kill either of them. The ferret was just out of Avriel's reach as he lay on the edge of the cliff and stretched down toward the ferret. "I can't reach him Fet. He's too far down." The fet moved to the edge of the cliff and offered Avriel his tail. "Won't that hurt?" The look the fet gave Avriel seemed to say, does it matter? "No. I guess not. Let's rescue your brother."

Once the ferret was safe with the fet and it was verified that he was free of any serious injury, Avriel returned his attention to locating any trace of Katana. Maybe she didn't fall. Maybe she got away somehow. Hope is a very sharp double-edged sword one didn't want to fall on. It cut Avriel deeply as he searched the shores downriver. First, he found her dagger, then her blades still on their belt and finally her saturated cloak snagged as all her other equipment had been on some jutting rock from the wall above him or on some large fallen tree that had also been washed down the river.