Renegade Heart (15 page)

I
n the caves and tunnels deep below the forest floor, the people of the Spectre tribe went quietly about their daily business. The tribe seldom ventured above ground, and on the rare occasion that they did–menfolk only, never the women–they made sure they were never seen by the surface dwellers. A man could catch a glimpse from the corner of his eye, but by the time he turned his head there would be nothing and nobody there.

The Spectres had no desire to make their presence known. They had seen the violence the surface dwellers brought to the forest. Watched from afar as two tribes waged war on each other, killing and maiming, the blood of the dying poisoning the earth where they fell. The Spectres, a peaceful race by nature, wanted no part of it, certain, once their existence was discovered, that the surface dwellers would take or destroy all that the Spectres had.

Tuinn, at fourteen turns, was not yet considered man enough to go to the surface. Such was the way with his people. It was not age that determined a man, but his actions and the manner in which he served the tribe. As the youngest son of the Spectres’ chieftain, Tuinn had not had the opportunities to prove himself in the same way as his brothers. Even his friend Motza, who was no older than Tuinn at all, was recognized as a man among the tribe and had been to the surface.

It was so unfair, Tuinn thought, as he clambered awkwardly through the thick green vines that looped from one side to the other of the steep sided crevice. He knew running off to sulk by himself was not the way to prove his maturity, but, at that moment, he cared little what his father and the tribal elders thought of him. A short while on his own to ease his temper and he would return to the caves and apologise for his bad behaviour.

The narrow crevice was one of Tuinn’s favourite places to go when he felt in need of solitude. A couple of times, he had attempted to climb the steep walls, getting less than a quarter of the way before tiring and turning back. Tuinn looked up now, wondering if this would be the day he would make it to the top. He narrowed his eyes, spotting something hanging from the vines. He edged closer warily, because he knew, without doubt, that what he was looking at was a surface dweller.

Tuinn cocked his head to one side as he studied it. From the stories he had heard, Tuinn had imagined them to be bigger. This one was small and looked as though it was dead. Its eyes were closed, its skin pale, although still not as pale as Tuinn’s. The surface dweller had a shock of black hair which fascinated Tuinn. His own hair – like all Spectres – was pure white and hung, long and straight, to his waist.

Cautiously, he climbed up the vines until he was close enough to touch the stranger. That was when he saw the truth. This was not a fully grown surface dweller. It was a young. Tuinn stared at it in shock. Did the surface dwellers not value their young? Were they not precious? Not cherished and feted as the future of the whole tribe? Tuinn found it too incredible to believe the surface dwellers could be so ruthless as to simply cast away a young. He made a decision. The young might not be a Spectre, but Tuinn would treat it with the same dignity and respect as if it was.

He wrapped a vine around his forearm to stop himself from falling and, with difficulty, freed the young from the binds keeping it suspended in the air. Once he had a firm hold of the young, Tuinn dropped nimbly to the ground. In his arms, the young moaned softly, almost startling Tuinn into dropping it. The young was alive!

Tuinn hurried back to the caves as fast as he could, clutching his precious prize to his chest. Ignoring the curious gazes of the tribe members, he made his way along the low tunnel to Othan’s stone chamber. Just a short while ago, Tuinn had turned his back on Othan’s offer to teach him medicine and ran from the chamber in anger, telling himself he wanted more from his life than becoming a healer. He had been wrong, he saw that now. Othan was the only chance the young had of surviving and Tuinn finally understood that a healer was probably the strongest and most important member of the tribe.

“What have you there, Tuinn?”

“It’s a surface dweller,” Tuinn said, gently laying the young on Othan’s wooden table. “I found it in the crevice.”

Othan raised an eyebrow. “This young is clearly a male, Tuinn,” he said. “You should refer to him as such.” His amusement faded as he leaned over the table and began to examine the young. “We must summon your father. He needs to know. If the surface dwellers come looking for their young, our existence here could be at risk.”

“They won’t come.” Tuinn ran a hand over the unconscious young’s dark hair. “They cast it… I mean him…they cast
him
away. I think he was murdered.”

It was the Spectres’ belief that a crime was a matter of intent. If a man purposely attacked another person and left them for dead, then–in the eyes of a Spectre–that man had committed murder, even if his victim survived. Not that Tuinn had ever heard of one Spectre deliberately causing another harm. It was not their way. Life so far below the ground was hard enough without the tribe turning on each other. The weapons they forged were for hunting, the blades for carving wood and meat, the axes for cutting firewood. A Spectre’s weapon would never be used to kill and main his fellow man, which was more than could be said for those foolish surface dwellers.

“Can I keep it…him?”

“Tuinn, this is not an object you have found. This is a young and, even if you’re right and his tribe doesn’t search for him, your father could choose to return him to the surface. We have never taken an outsider into our midst and I don’t believe we will change that for a surface dweller. The young does not belong here.”

“But we can raise him as one of us. He will not remember his life before. He will grow up thinking he is a Spectre.”

“If you can convince your father…” Othan began.

The rest of Othan’s sentence went unheard as Tuinn hurried from the cave in search of his father. Raising a young was considered a woman’s work, but maybe his father would recognize Tuinn was mature enough to accept responsibility for something in his life and concede he was now a man. Tuinn felt his excitement build as he ran, certain his father would agree to the young staying with the tribe. Tuinn thought of the young and the shock of wild, black hair that reminded him of the cubs that sometimes played close to the caves. He smiled, thinking that would be a good strong name for a male young.

Tuinn would call him Wuulf.