“Well-Jith-where do we get this sorry tale over with?”
Jith wrapped his small, long-fingered hands around the manticore’s paw as best he could though even both hands failed to encompass it entirely. He tugged at the manticore, who dutifully followed him into a round, side cavern. In its center sat three curved benches that formed a circle. “Here, RuuKag-ki! This is the storytelling place. Sit!. . Sit! Sit! Sit!”
The manticore squatted down on one of the benches most definitely not built for someone of his size. “Just a few minutes, Jith. I’m very busy!”
“Yes, of course, very busy,” Jith nodded as he scampered over to one of the opposite benches and clambered onto it. He turned around, his own feet dangling from the edge of the bench and not quite reaching the floor. The young gnome leaned forward in anticipation. “But first you tell your story.”
Yes,” RuuKag said. “Well, once between a moon long ago there was a manticore named RuuKag. .”
“No, that’s no way to start a story!” Jith interrupted. “You start with, ‘I, RuuKag.’ ”
The gnome milled his hands through the air, urging RuuKag to continue.
The manticore bared his canine teeth in frustration. “Very well then. . ‘I, RuuKag’. . and then what?”
“Tell me about your family!” Jith suggested.
RuuKag closed his eyes. “I have no family.”
Jith caught his breath in surprise and excitement. “What a wonderful beginning! ‘I, RuuKag, have no family.’ Why?”
“Why. . why what?”
“Why do you have no family?” Jith asked. “You must have had one sometime-did you lose them?”
“No,” RuuKag replied, looking at the wall. “They. . well, my father threw me out of my clan. He proclaimed me dead and banished me into the savanna-the eastern edge of this same savanna, as a matter of fact.”
“Banished!” Jith drew in a long breath. “How terrible for you!”
“It was. . I was heartbroken at the time,” RuuKag replied. “My father was a proud warrior who had joined the rebellion against the elven occupation, leading our clan out of our traditional lands and into the wilderness of the Northern Steppes. His name was KraChak, and his armor was ten generations old-very prestigious among our clans. He was the result of a long line of brave warriors with their own tales of bravery in battle and honors in their warfare. He taught me the use of the spear and the blade at an age when other cubs were still wrestling across the green. My mother-her name was Lyurna of Clan Khadush-was so upset with our father that day that he had to call a clan council just to get away from her for a few days! They were both proud manticores who were in a lot of pain now that I look back on it. They had lost everything in the Rhonas occupation-everything but their prideful resentment. My father had lost his ancestral lands, and that was a terrible thing for him to bear. My parents could not give up the life that they once had-maybe they didn’t know how to live any other life. .”
There was something about talking to this little gnome that felt good to RuuKag. He had been carrying the words around inside himself for so long, never daring to tell them to anyone. He had forgotten them entirely while under the elven Devotional enslavement magic, but their burden had returned to him in force with the fall of House Timuran. He wanted desperately to return to the mindless bliss of his enslavement and to rid himself of the weight of his own decisions and consequences. But here and now, in the quiet of the night of a far-off land, he could tell those bitter words to this little gnome and somehow be rid of them.
Soon the words started coming unbidden and in a rush, as though the story had been there all along waiting for him to tell it and be rid of it. He told of his life growing up in a clan exiled from their own nation. He spoke of the customs of the manticores and how disputes were most often settled in combat. He told of the wonders of getting up at dawn on the Northern Steppes and hunting at his father’s side. He talked of lying under the canopy of the night and listening as his mother explained the lights in the sky and how they were his ancestors looking down on his honor from above.
As he spoke, another gnome happened by and stopped for a time. Then a third and a fourth came and sat down. RuuKag took little notice as he spoke, for he seemed lost in the telling of his tale to the large eyes of the enraptured Jith.
“All these wonders. . all these beautiful stories,” Jith said as RuuKag paused, “and your clan family, they are lost to you? Why?”
“The Battle of the Red Fields,” RuuKag said, his voice breaking as he spoke the words for the first time in decades. “The Rhonas Legions were not satisfied with taking control of the government of Chaenandria, they wished to crush all possibility of rebellion once and for all. With the aid and assurances of the Chaenandrian Council, the elf Legions moved north to challenge our rebel clans directly.”
“A war then?” Jith asked breathlessly.