Chapter 9 - Rage

	There’s a stark difference between anger, and rage.  And that difference is unmistakable, if you’ve ever felt it.  Anger can be repressed, controlled, hidden away and unspoken of.  Anger can exist in your mind without ever surfacing and affecting those around you.  If you’re strong.  If you have self-control.  If you’re smart enough to think through the consequences, most of the time, it isn’t the best choice.
	Rage is not a choice.  Rage cannot be controlled, it cannot be reasoned with, and there is no keeping it from the world.  
	Men like my father, men who lose themselves to drink or drug, or simply lose control because they had no discipline to begin with, are not in a rage, they’re just weak-willed.  They’re angry and they let that anger take hold of them.  They can control themselves, if they really have to.  They just don’t, because they don’t care enough.
	Rage is primal, something from the time before we had speech and culture and respect for one another.  It’s what happens when we fall to that feral side and fight on sheer instinct, with all the wrath we once lived by.  It’s a desperate state, and in my opinion, you have to earn the right to be pushed over that edge with a lot of pain and suffering.  A lifetime’s worth.
	I remember falling over that edge, but I don’t remember much about the fall, and I think that’s for the best.  I remember the moments that led up to it.  The fight with my father, about nothing more important than what we’d always fought over in the past.  His earnings, and where he was spending them.  His harsh words to my mother for spending too much at the market, when he was drinking away half of what we made.  I’d been married for a few months then, and maybe that’s why I was so quick to fight.  Things with my new wife were going poorly.
	My mother was one of the best women I’d ever known, and she was wasted on my father.  I came to feel that way even more once I married.  She’d given him everything my wife would not give me – respect, understanding, love.  She deserved a husband who would give her just as much.  And I’d deserved a father who was respectable and strong, man enough to face his life without the crutch of the drink to lean on.
	Questioning his manhood was one sure way to start a fight, and I knew it.  I wanted one, that day.  He hadn’t even used his fists on us in some time, I was just itching for it.  I just had so much anger brewing inside me, like a pot with the lid on tight, waiting to bubble out.  I was frustrated with my marriage, offended every waking day by the way our world was, hurt inside and out from years and years and years of abuse I couldn’t escape, even at home.
	I wanted to hurt someone back.  
	Every time we’d fought in the past, he’d beaten me into the ground.  He was always bigger, stronger, or so drunk he couldn’t feel anything.  But I was older, taller even than him by then, and this time our argument was in the morning, when we were standing at the bank of the Hyronses getting water.  He was sober, and I was a grown man.  He’d finally lost his edge.
	The monster I’d both respected and feared my entire life was mortal at last.  And this time, he wasn’t going to put me in the dirt.  This time, I was going to make him afraid of me.
	He seemed to realize a few blows in that he’d finally been overcome.  And honestly, had he simply done what he should have rightly done, and given me the chance to fight him and beat him at last, that’s as far as it ever would have gone.  But instead, the man crumbled before my eyes, and took all my remaining respect for him away.
	He threw his arms up and began begging for me to stop, yielding to me, denying me the victory he’d had over me so many times.  The very first time he ever faced defeat by my hands, he backed down like a coward.
	And that was the last thing I can remember, before the rage took over.  For all his shortcomings, and all the pain the man had inflicted on my mother and I, I’d never before seen him for the weak man he truly was . . . until that moment.  And it made everything I’d endured over the years come to the surface, all at once, like a wave crashing ashore.  
	He wasn’t going to deny me the right to overpower him and have that catharsis.  I deserved to beat him.  I deserved to beat him until he was down on the ground, his vision gone black, like he’d done to me so many times.  He’d endure what I’d endured, at least once.
	At some point, he’d fallen.  My mind was back in our hut, awash in memories from the dozens of times he’d done this to me.  But we weren’t in my hut, with the straw mats on the soft earth.  We were on the riverbank of the Hyronses, the jagged rocks from the quarry making up most of the shoreline near the slums.  
	He must have hit his head.  
	I honestly, even to this day, cannot remember those last few blows.  I just know that when I came back to myself, I was sitting beside his crumpled body, my feet in the water, watching the slow curls of blood floating atop the gently-swirling eddies at the edge of the river.
	My father never woke up again.  And I never told a soul what happened there that morning.  
	No one ever looked for him.  The only people in the world who cared about him were my mother and I.  My mother assumed he’d finally left us, or gotten himself in trouble drinking in the city.  And I spent the next few days trying to forget that I knew exactly where he was.
	I don’t mourn that he’s gone.  But I mourn what I became that day, because it left me forever changed. 

	I can tell when we’ve entered the Clan family’s main quarters, by the sheer level of opulence.  The floors shine like the surface of water, with elegant natural patterns through the stone – marble, I think.  Working at the kilns, sometimes I’d see some of the stone from the quarries in the mountains come in.  The walls are covered in ornate henna patterning, painted by hand on to nearly every surface.  Some of the colorful borders and molding look like they’re made of gold.  Equally-elegant vases adorn the thick windowsills we occasionally pass, full of exotic flowers from the gardens outside.  The place smells like poppies and incense, and beneath it all, the distinctive musk of hyenas.
	Our feet pound down the immaculate hallways, tracking blood and sand in our wake.  We haven’t stopped running since we escaped Anala, and I can tell Lochan is tiring, but he doesn’t let up.  I’m beginning to wonder how large this place could possibly be, before he finally slows to a stop near the end of a hallway, pressing his back against the wall and putting an arm out for me, grabbing at my chest to stop me before I overtake him.
	“Silent a moment,” he snaps in a harsh whisper.  “I hear something.”
	I press my back against the wall with him, and wait, craning my ears towards the hallway beyond.  My shoulder presses against his, and as I lean to try to look over his mane, I get a strong scent of blood.  My gaze falls to the gash in his side, which for the most part he seems to be ignoring, and I grimace.  Graze or no, he’s bleeding a lot.  I can hear my own blood pumping in my ears from the run, so it’s no wonder why.
	A shout echoes down the hallway, sharp and sudden, and thanks to the echo it’s hard to tell from how far away it came.  It didn’t sound like the warning bark of one of the guards, though.  It’s hard to tell what it was, except a surprised noise.  And female?  Higher-pitched, but with hyenas it can be hard to tell sometimes.
	I can tell by the way Lochan scrunches up his brow that he’s equally confused, trying to pick through the sounds and discern what’s going on.  There’s another of those shouts, even shorter and more clipped this time, like someone in a struggle.  Scuffling, claws on floors, rumbles that could be growling.
	I bump his shoulder impatiently, and his gaze briefly flits back to mine, then he nods and pulls his weapon.  I do the same.
	He charges around the corner, and I in his wake.  The hallway beyond is more narrow, with no windows, and there are cabinets along the walls and doors every few feet.  The corridor dead-ends, so the noise has to be coming from . . . .
	The last door at the very end of the hallway is open, a lantern dimly flickering from a wall sconce the only light illuminating the corner.  As we race towards it, two figures suddenly stumble out and slam into the door, bashing it back against the wall adjacent.  A third figure follows in their wake, grabbing at the second.  
	Two of them must be guards, based on the armor.  And they’re both struggling in vain to tackle the third, thrashing and bucking at them like a feral beast.  I can hear chains amidst the cacophony, and then one of the guards shrieks and reels back, or at least tries to, if it weren’t for the jaws clamped on her arm.
	“To hell with this!”  The other shouts, reaching desperately for her belt to pull her blade.  It’s just then that her ears twist and she looks up to see us, though.
	“The revol-“ she gets out, before her distraction costs her a kick to the gut from her prisoner, and I see my chance as she buckles.
	Up until now, every time I’ve swung my shotel, it feels like I’ve been doing so blindly.  This time, I keep my eyes wide open, fixed on the spot I want to swing.  There’s a weak spot where the camel hide isn’t layered, along their lower backs.  I’ve seen Lochan target it several times.  If I had his accuracy I’d aim for their necks, but right now I just want to make absolutely certain I connect.
	I grip the hilt of my shotel with more certainty than I’ve been able to muster thusfar, knowing as I close that I’m going to hit where I intended, with real strength behind it this time.  I remember Lochan’s words.  Hang on to the blade like it’s your lifeline, because it is.  This time I keep my eyes wide open, and force myself to watch it connect.  This is a life I’m trying to take, and I need to own that.
	The blade catches her right where I intended and sinks in deep until it’s lodged, and then I yank on it to be sure, hooking her flesh in the crook of the weapon.  She doesn’t scream – more gurgles, and coughs suddenly in shock, dropping her scimitar on the ground with a clatter.  Her rust-colored eyes flick over her shoulder as she tries to crane her neck back, but it’s too little too late, and we both seem to know it.
	She manages a wet-sounding rasp of, “Please. . .” and for the first time tonight, I feel a pang of extraordinary guilt, before I re-grip my weapon and finish what I started, yanking the blade out of her with all my might.
	Pieces of her . . . that’s all I know what to call them . . . come out with my blade, and she’s barely able to clutch at herself before falling over.  Lochan has already dispatched the other as I’m shaking off my blade, my whole body shuddering like the last leaf on a tree.  She’s crying now, and the hilt of my shotel feels slippery in my palm.  I stare down at her crumpled, bloody form for a few beats, readying myself.
	Lochan spares me, bringing his own blade down on the woman’s neck.  At that, I do glance away.  I’m not certain I’ll ever get used to seeing someone’s head separated from their body.  But I do understand now what he said earlier.  I don’t want to hear what dying people have to say before they die, ever again.  Quicker is better.
	The shifting of chains breaks me out of my dark reverie, and once again, I’m beaten to the moment by Lochan, who’s already stepped over the two dead women to the other crumpled figure on the floor.  He’s shaking as badly or worse than I am, his fur marred by blood, mostly around his wrists and his muzzle, and he looks more terrified and frayed than I’d ever even seen him out in the fields, but it’s definitely Ahsan.
	For a few moments he doesn’t even seem to recognize us, pressing his back against the wall and digging his claws into the ornate paint.  His eyes are wild like I’ve never seen them, pupils blown so wide he looks feral, his teeth out and bared.  
	Lochan stops a few feet from him and slowly lowers himself to a crouch, reaching out for him with an offered paw, dropping his usually deep, commanding voice to something far less intimidating.  I feel oddly out-of-place watching the moment, like I’ve intruded on something intimate.
	“Ahsan,” he coaxes, moving just a bit closer to the hyena, hand still out.  “You’re here with me.  You’re not in the black place anymore.  Please.  Come back.”
	Clarity slowly returns to the young man’s eyes, and then they begin to tear up, and he chokes on a sob.  Hesitantly at first, he inches away from the wall, then all at once throws himself forward.  The aardwolf catches him easily and wraps his arms around him, then slowly stands with him.
	Ahsan turns his head against Lochan’s shoulder and notices me, finally.  He drags a thick breath through his nose and blinks a few times, rasping a quiet, “Kadar?  Is that you?”
	“Yeah,” I reply, rolling a shoulder a bit uncomfortably beneath the unfamiliar armor.  I force a half-smile.  “Don’t let the leather fool you.”
	Lochan brushes a rough palm over the hyena’s mane, smoothing some of the jagged edges back.  “Fought like hell, did you?”  He asks him, a hint of pride evident in his tone.
	Ahsan’s whole body begins to shake anew, enough that I can see it even from where I stand in the dimly-lit hallway.  His voice is equally shaking when he speaks again, punctuated by a sobbing breath every now and then.  “She had them . . . put me there . . . when they took me from the field,” he says.  “I woke up and just . . . just . . . darkness, and I was alone, and then when they finally came for me she was so angry at me,” he hisses between his teeth at that, terror in every word. 
	He grips Lochan’s biceps and stares up at him, eyes wide and intense.  “She’s angry . . . I left her,” he cries, something in his normally weak, strangled voice shifting to sound more . . . outraged.  “She said if I wanted to leave her, she would sell me.  She knows I don’t want to go to him.  She wants him to hurt me!”
	Lochan shakes his head, ears tipped back, his grip on Ahsan still tight.  He pulls the hyena in just a bit closer for a moment, then slowly releases him, looking him in the eyes.  When he speaks again, his voice is that low, deep tone I’ve come to know.  Intense as an oath, in every word.  “You’re not being sold to anyone,” he promises.  “Especially not that bastard.  And you’re not staying here any longer.”
	Ahsan looks between the two of us, suddenly seeming to realize what’s going on.  “Where are we going, then?”  He asks, uncertainly.
	“Away from here,” he replies, as if that’s enough.  And honestly for right now, it is.  I haven’t put  much thought to where we’re going when we leave here, either.  I assumed Lochan might have a plan, but if the extent of his plan is to run from here as far and as fast as we can, that’s good enough for me.  
	I wipe off the hilt of my shotel on a rag I’d stuffed into my belt earlier, and glance down the hallway.  “We should get going then,” I say.  “While we still have a chance.  We can talk more later.”
	“Ahsan,” Lochan says, catching the hyena’s attention once more.  “Do you know where she is?”
	I’m momentarily uncertain who he means, before it dawns on me.  The Matron would be well-guarded.  Wherever she is.  Which means we need to avoid her at all costs.
	“She . . . was in the parlor, last I knew,” he says, his eyes going blank for a moment at the memory.  “She had them bring me to her, then after she . . . talked to me . . . she had them bring me back here.”  His shoulders hunch, and he winces as if in pain, casting one fleeting look over his shoulder, at the open doorway behind us.  For the first time, I take stock of the room itself.  It seems like the two guards were struggling to get him inside, when we arrived.  
	It looks so normal, from what little I can see from here.  Just a closet, essentially.  With nothing in it.
	Except claw marks marring every possible surface.
“Who was with her?”  Lochan presses.
“She was alone, except for two guards,” Ahsan answers quickly.  “One was the priestess.”
	“We already ran into her,” I mutter, glancing worriedly down the hallway.  “We’re in a dead-end here,” I point out, “we need to move.”
	“There is no way out of this area of the house that doesn’t go through either the parlor, or the main entrance hallway where we ran into Anala before,” Lochan growls thoughtfully, looking down the corridor.  “We’re essentially in the center of the manor.”
	We’re all silent a few moments, before Ahsan speaks up, his ears perking.  “What about the courtyard?”  He asks.  
	“The courtyard’s even more central,” the aardwolf states, confused.
	“There’s a servant’s entrance,” Ahsan presses.  “For the gardeners.  There’s an access hallway that heads right out the gardens, to the water pump.  I used it sometimes to tend Moth-“ he stops himself for a moment, then murmurs, “the Matron’s personal poppies.”
	“Lead,” Lochan nods, then as Ahsan steps forward, grabs his shoulder and pushes him back behind him, “I meant tell me where to go, don’t actually take point.  Let me handle that.”
	“Left at the end of the hallway,” Ahsan says, and we start to move.
	We run into one more guard who thinks the better of fighting us and tries to escape, but Lochan insists we can’t let her, and I end up being the one to chase her down and tackle her, being the fastest one amongst us.  This time, with my comrades behind me, I have the conviction to bring my blade down in an arc that catches her in the chin.  One swing doesn’t do it, but I tear out most of her throat at least, so she isn’t able to say much of anything before I deliver the final blow.
	Lochan gives me a nod as I stand and join them again, and then it’s one elegant room and hallway after another as we make our way towards the central courtyard.  I can smell it in the distance before long, fresh air and pollen, an escape from this opulent prison and the choking incense and stale herbs in the air.  I know it’s not, at least not yet, but it feels like the promise of freedom.  Whatever lays beyond this, at least we’ll be free of this place.  Ahsan will be free of the Matron, and the confusing life he lived here.
	The pale gold of the morning light filters between pillars on a stone patio beyond us, at the end of one more long corridor.  My spirits lift, and even Ahsan begins to hurry his pace.  But Lochan, strangely, stops.
	I stumble a bit and halt my own pace as well, staring back at the guard as his ears flick from side to side.  “What is it?”  I ask.
	“Something . . .” He’s silent for just a second, then with a flare of his nostrils, his eyes go wide and he lunges forward, grabbing for Ahsan around the waist.
	She moves like a lioness in the brush, pouncing between the two men from just behind one of the pillars.  I’m mortified I never saw or smelled her there, but the woman is like a specter, fast and nearly scentless, something she must do intentionally.
	I go for my blade, my heart leaping to my throat as Lochan, for the first time since we’ve come in here, fails to pull his blade in time.  The fumble could cost him everything.
	Anala doesn’t have her blade drawn though, I suddenly realize.  Instead, she wedges an arm between the two men, and easily wrenches the hyena away from Lochan, who’d only intended on moving him away from her, not holding on to him.  Ahsan is easily flung to the ground by her, and soon she’s atop him, pulling a knife from her hip and drawing it against his throat, pulling him back up to his feet screaming.
	I’m not able to act fast enough to stop the whole chain of events from unfolding, and by then I can hear the pounding footsteps of two more guards behind us, or rather to the side of us, from the wall along the inside of the courtyard.  Two big males, with man-catchers.  
	Lochan viciously swears, finally pulling his scimitar and starting towards Ahsan, before Anala barks a warning.  “Back!”  She bares teeth, pushing the small blade in her hand up beneath Ahsan’s collar.
	To his credit, the hyena is kicking and fighting her, but the woman is dense and muscled, and I know he can’t overpower her.  Lochan glances behind him, then back to Ahsan, his gaze going from angry to helpless over the course of a few seconds.  I look to him, uncertain what to do.
	“We can’t let them-“ I begin.
	“No matter what, you get him out of here,” he snarls at me, beneath his breath.  “Remember what I said.”
	“How?”  I insist.  “She’s got him.”
	“This isn’t like her,” he growls in frustration.  “She’s under orders.”  He stares back out into the courtyard, to where she’s pulled Ahsan back against a row of flowering bushes.  He bucks against her and they crash into the leaves, shaking petals free in a maelstrom around them.
	I notice something then, behind them in the center of the courtyard.  And even a peasant like me knows the hyena pantheon.
	“Look,” I point it out to Lochan.
	He notices too, his eyes widening.  And then he raises his voice to Anala, shouting at her across the field.  “Your goddess looks down on you, Al’Dahia!  Will you disgrace yourself under her very gaze, by using an innocent as a shield?”
	The woman’s red gaze fixes on us, and then she slowly lifts her head, looking behind her and above her.  The statue of the hyena warrior goddess looms in the very center of the courtyard, tall and imposing, cast in stark relief in the morning light.  I can see her expression shift slowly as she stares at the chipped, worn red paint beneath the sandstone eyes, mirroring her own markings.
	“No!”  A shout echoes across the garden, a new voice from a distant doorway, barely visible through the shrubs and trees.  I don’t need to know her voice from memory to know who it is, by the way Ahsan suddenly stiffens and shrinks back, his tail quaking.  
	The woman steps out from another pillar in the ringed courtyard, on the far side.  There’s no mistaking her, even in a simpler saree and wrap than when she was expecting guests the last time I beheld her.  She’s tall, stately and sharp-featured, and I can feel her hate from where I stand.
	“Bring him to me!”  She demands.  “Do not let him goad you!”
	The two guards I heard are behind us now, blocking our only other way out.  They seem hesitant to approach us even with the man-catchers, probably because they’ve already seen the trail of blood and bodies we’ve left in our wake.  Lochan’s full attention is on Anala, though.  And honestly, so is mine.
	The woman seems caught in indecision for far too long, although it might honestly have only been a few seconds.  At last, she narrows her eyes and stands to her full height, grabbing Ahsan by the collar and retracting her knife from beneath his throat, before shoving him in the direction of the Matron.
	“Let the men restrain him,” she says coldly to the Clan leader, who snarls at her, then snaps her fingers at the two men behind us.
	Anala turns her gaze back towards Lochan.  “We have unfinished combat, aardwolf.”  She pulls her blade, and steps towards him.  “No running, this time.”
	“No running,” he agrees, then looks to me silently.
	I know what he intends without needing it explained.  There are two remaining guards, and one unarmed woman.  It’s more than I think I can handle, but there isn’t a choice.  It’s the only chance we have.
	The two men circle wide around us to get to Ahsan, who’s only now recovering and trying to get to his feet, gripping at his neck where the blade was pressed.  I narrow my eyes and split from Lochan to follow them, giving the two warriors just as wide a berth.
	When they clash, even with my back turned, I can hear it.  There’s no mistaking the slide of steel against steel.  I force myself to look away, knowing I have my own task.  I try to focus on Ahsan, stumbling up with the help of a tree as the men close in on him.
	The first is easy to catch by surprise, since he’s got his back to me.  The other notices me at the last moment and tries to bark a warning, but too late.  I go direct this time, jamming my shotel, point first like a dagger into his kidney.  His armor is thicker than the woman’s, but it’s easier to puncture when I’m stabbing, rather than slashing.  
	My blade doesn’t sink as deep as I want it to before he pulls away from me, but the end of the shotel is hooked, and that proves to be fatal for him.  He screams as it tears away a hunk of bloody flesh and camel hide in its wake, and stumbles forward, giving me the chance to drop my knee down on his lower back, and raise my blade high, swinging it down towards his thick neck with all the force I can manage.
	Either Lochan is far stronger than I am or his weapon’s just much better at this, but I don’t nearly manage as deep a cut as he always seems to.  It’s enough that I tear a bloody gash through the back of the guard’s neck muscles though, and that seems enough to, if not kill him, knock him out of the fight.
	I hear the other’s man-catcher before I see it, the hook descending on me with all the precision of the guards in the field.  This time though . . . this time, I’m not going to let it happen.
	I put my shotel up to catch it, hooking it in the curve and trying to push it aside.  My weapon’s size works against me though, he’s got a lot of leverage once we’re locked, and he uses it to fling the blade out of my hand.
	I curse, angry at myself once again.  This time though, I’d held on as tightly as I could, there was just no escaping being disarmed.  The man knows what he’s doing.
	He begins to close with me, and then much to my shock, sags backwards as a pair of arms lock around his neck, pulling him down from behind.  Ahsan snarls and clings to his back, fighting desperately despite the sheer bulk the far larger hyena guardsman has on him.  It’s all the chance I need, though.
	His knees are shaking trying to keep from being pulled backwards, so I level a kick at the side of one of them.  He buckles, tumbling over, losing his own weapon in the process.  And then Ahsan is on him, balling both fists and bringing them down hard on the man’s nose, blood spraying out as he connects.  The guard snarls and snaps at him, proving his grit.
	I circle around, and in the process, catch sight of what’s happening in the clearing.  Lochan’s abandoned his shield for speed and the two warriors are dancing around one another, circling and cutting through the air at the space they leave behind, in a way that makes me dizzy.  If it wasn’t so terrifying to watch, it would be stunning.
	It isn’t like when he sparred with the lioness.  They could kill one another with any swing, with any mistake made.  They’re fighting for their lives, with every fiber of skill they possess.
	I glare back down at the hyena guard, who by now has managed to shove Ahsan off of him.  He has a knife on his belt like most of them do, and I can tell his hand is inching down towards it, so I level another kick at his wrist, pinning it.  I’m about to grab for it myself, when something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention.
	She’s slunk around the edge of the courtyard, and honestly, she’d been no apparent threat, so I hadn’t been watching her until now.  But Matron Sura has, for some reason, made her way closer to the fray, her thin figure silhouetted between two of the pillars.  She stands there for a moment, gaze moving from Ahsan and I to the two warriors fighting nearer to where she is now.  And then, for some reason, her shoulders straighten and she begins to stride into the morning light towards the fighting.
	She lifts one arm straight in front of her, gripping something that glints silver and strange.  It looks like she’s pointing at them. . . .
	A crack like thunder splits through the courtyard, echoing off the walls and momentarily deafening me.  I wince and tip my ears back, a scent permeating the air like the world is burning.  It smells like a forge.
	I hear Ahsan cry out before even I’ve registered what’s happened.  Anala steps back from where she’d been standing, staring at the Matron in shock, her blade frozen in the air.
	Lochan drops his blade, and sinks to his knees.
	“No!”  Ahsan screams raggedly from beside me.  I can’t stop him when he bulls past me, rushing right past the priestess, who doesn’t bother to stop him either.  Ahsan skids down onto his knees beside the aardwolf, gripping him by the shoulders as Lochan shakily reaches around to clutch at his stomach . . . and his back.
	He has two holes in him, like he was run through from behind.  And I have no idea how she did it to him.  But I barely have time to process it all before the woman is looking towards me, and lifting that thing in her hand again.
	Her expression is like the twisted demon masks they wear at the lunar carnivals along the Hyronses.  I literally feel for that moment in time as though I am staring into something so empty, so dark, I could fall into her eyes and never be seen again.  
	There is nothing I can do against this kind of power.  I stand my ground, and wait to die.
	And . . . nothing.  There’s a metallic click, but little more.  At that, her expression falls, twisting into one of frustration and she stares down at the thing like it’s betrayed her.
	The guard behind me is gone, probably fled for his life.  For a moment, everything is silent save Ahsan’s quiet sobbing words to Lochan.  The aardwolf still appears to be drawing breath, but blood is thick in the air and I can smell worse, viscera from inside him.  He’s barely even able to stay up on his knees, even with Ahsan’s help.
	“Kill them!”  The Matron shrieks at Anala, who for her part has done nothing since the weapon fired.  She looks back to the older woman with an expression of disbelief still painted on her features.
	I step over to where my blade fell and pick it up in shaking hands, my thoughts a tangle of panic and uncertainty.  I have to get to Ahsan.  
	“I HATE YOU!”  Ahsan suddenly shrieks, catching even the Matron off-guard.  She takes a step back at the ferocity of his roared words.  My own fur stands on end.  The way he slowly stands from where Lochan is slumped is . . . wrong, somehow.  Everything about the way he’s moving is wrong, for him.
	“I never loved you!”  He screams, frothing between his canines, his mane standing high on his shoulders, every fur on end.  The next words he gives are more growl than anything else, growing from a low place in his chest to a full-throated shriek by the time they escape him.
	“I. . . deserved. . . better than YOU!” 
	He crosses the space between them in a few seconds, far too fast for her to react, other than to throw her arms up.  He moves like a feral, his lean form moving with a fluidity I didn’t know he possessed.  When he slams into her, he topples her to the hard stone pavement, and she manages only one cut-off scream before he’s pummeling and tearing at her with his fists in equal measure, ripping her fine garments and battering her muzzle bloody.
	She cries out his name several times, skittering back, her clawed feet kicking uselessly at his legs.  At some point she manages to roll free of him in the midst of the frenzy, and I feel compelled to follow them when she takes off running towards the threshold we came through.  
	I round the corner in time to see him catch her, bashing her into a wall, and grabbing for her throat with both hands.  She gags and claws at his hands as they tighten around her windpipe, legs thrashing futilely.  He’s got her lifted full up against the wall now, and I’m at a loss as to whether I should stop all of this.
	The option is taken away from me when, after one last agonized look into his eyes, something  cracks, and her gaze goes dead.  
	Ahsan stands there for a few silent moments, looking at her.  There is nothing of the hyena I know in his eyes.  They’re wild, lost in rage.  I remember what it felt like, and I can only wonder if he’ll even remember this, later.
	What ultimately brings him to his senses is a sound from outside.  Lochan, giving a rasping cough.  He drops her in a heap on the floor, hunkered there for just long enough to assure she’s dead, I’m sure.  And then understanding passes back over his gaze, and he blinks slowly, looking up at me.
	“Ahsan?”  I take a tentative step forward, and remembering earlier, offer him my hand.  It takes longer this time, but slowly, shakily, he takes it.
	When we make our way out into the courtyard, I’m shocked to see Lochan is standing, albeit not without the support of one of the nearby pillars.  He’s left a trail of blood in his wake from where he fell, making his way towards us.  His armor below his wound is almost entirely stained red, and I can tell from the weakness in his eyes that he’s in a terrible amount of pain.
	“Lochan,” I move to support him, but when I get close, he puts a palm out, rebuffing me.  Ahsan will not be dissuaded so easily, and pushes past me to go to him.
	Lochan lifts the hand from over his wound, slick with blood though neither of them seem to care, and takes Ahsan’s.  “You have to go,” he says in a tone laden with pain, “with Kadar.  Right now.”
	“No,” Ahsan shakes his head vehemently, his voice nearly gone.
	“Ahsan,” I say pointedly, gripping my shotel as I stare over his shoulder.  Anala is still there, standing in the center of the courtyard, weapon still drawn.  I have no idea what she plans to do, but she’s armed and uninjured, which is more than most of us can say.
	“You have to,” the aardwolf says, in a tone more pleading now, betraying some of his weakness.  “I need you . . . to do something for me.”
	Ahsan only shakes his head, but I look to Lochan, setting my jaw.  “Anything,” I assure him.
	“The brothel where they kept her,” he says, wincing and closing one eye entirely.  “Near the Faariz Oasis.  Help . . . the women left there.  And,” he narrows his grey blue eyes, “burn it to the ground.”
	“You’re coming-“ Ahsan starts to say, but Lochan interrupts him.
	“Kadar,” he growls, “I’m holding you to your word.”
	I nod, and before Ahsan can say anything more, I grab for one of his arms, wrenching it behind his back, and wrapping my other arm around him.  He shouts in surprise and weakly pulls against me, his body clearly exhausted as he struggles against my grip.  
I feel the need to look back at Lochan once more as I step past him.  I drop my muzzle to my chest, then turn to him, speaking quietly.  “Master Lochan,” I murmur.  “Stand up straight.”
	He gives me an indignant snuff, but there’s also the barest hint of a smile there, beneath all the pain.  “You too, jackal,” he replies.
I have to pull Ahsan away, fighting and screaming, and force him across the courtyard towards the servant’s entrance.  I can see the simple doorway plainly from where we stand, and I know I have to just keep staring forward, or even I’ll lose my resolve to leave here.
	Ahsan doesn’t.  He looks behind us the whole way, and I know when Anala’s made her move by the ferocity with which he starts fighting me.
	When we make it to the doorway, even I have to turn to look.  The hyena is closing in on Lochan, who’s managed to make his way back towards his scimitar, lifting it in one shaking hand.  When he stands again, he forces his shoulders up, raising his blade.
	When he dies, he dies hearing Ahsan call his name.