Caracara's Hunt 116 Not Alone

The darkness of the evening was a welcome sight. Arawn sat with his back against a cold wall with half-lidded eyes. The memory of what had happened earlier stood before him, impossible to shake away.

It haunted him like the ghost of his dead brother.

Arawn smiled at that thought. Now his brother had company. There were many more people who had joined him on his quest for vengeance.

'Monster! Monster!' they all shouted over one another. Their voices turned into a cacophony, which almost deafened Arawn. He covered his ears against them, but it wasn't of much help. He couldn't get their voices out of his head.

"What are you doing here?" a familiar voice asked, cutting through the loud noise.

Arawn snapped his head up and breathed hard as his eyes cleared from the dream. Mutallu's face came into view then. The kid was standing at the entrance to the dilapidated building Arawn had found shelter in.

"Mutallu?" Arawn asked, blinking a couple times to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Who else would bother to check up on you?" Mutallu asked and went inside.

He was wearing travel clothes, and two daggers were strapped to his belt. He seemed to have just come to the capital and not even had time to freshen up.

Mutallu stopped before Arawn and looked down at him with a frown. "What's up with you? Did you kill someone?"

"What if I did?"

"Good. You're still alive, and the city isn't after you. A job well done," Mutallu said as if it was the most normal thing, and Arawn felt bile rise up his throat.

Who had he been a.s.sociating with lately? Was he actively trying to become worse than he already was?

But just as those thoughts reached him, Arawn threw them aside in disgust. He was the monster, not Mutallu or anyone else. They were risking their morality and sense of right and wrong by a.s.sociating with him, not the other way around.

A b.u.mp from a dagger hilt to his forehead brought Arawn out of his thoughts. "Stop thinking whatever you're thinking. I'm sure it's something stupid," Mutallu said with absolute certainty in his voice. "Better tell me why you're sulking now. Was Val already executed?"

"No," Arawn said with a shake of his head and turned away. "He was not."

"So what's the problem? Go and get him out."

"How?" Arawn shouted out, his emotions suddenly getting the better of him. He jumped to his feet and began to pace while swinging his arms wildly. "What exactly do you want me to do? Slaughter everyone I meet on my way to the heavily guarded cell? I'm not a murderer like you! I don't want to kill innocent people! Those guards are just doing their jobs, nothing more! And I should kill them for that?"

Arawn turned on Mutallu, his eyes narrowed from unrestrained fury. "What do you take me for? Just another monster?"

His words struck Mutallu like a blade. The youth was stunned at first, but in just a moment, his expression s.h.i.+fted, morphing into something ugly. "I AM an a.s.sa.s.sin," he hissed through his teeth, "but I thought we shared at least the simplest of connections. You s-saved me back then… G.o.d, I must have contracted the idiot virus from you! I thought we were friends, but clearly, you don't think the same, do you?"

Mutallu's words came in a rush, like he was letting out something that had been held back for a while, and it left Arawn momentarily dazed. His anger and self-hate gave way to confusion and uncertainty. He just stood and stared, not knowing how to react.

Noticing his blank stare, Mutallu smiled bitterly and turned away. "Why else did you think I came to this G.o.dforsaken city? Do you think I care if that friend of yours died? Well, good to know I just wasted my time."

Arawn raised his hand to stop him from leaving, but no words left his mouth. He just stared at Mutallu's fading figure, trying to make sense of what he had heard.

Mutallu actually considered him a friend?

Arawn had saved Mutallu from the king's pursuit because he was one of Corwal's children, and Arawn was sure Mutallu knew that. After that, they had entered a sort of alliance since they were both runaways with no home, but Arawn had never considered the possibility that Mutallu cared about anything but himself. Wasn't he always saying that he did everything only because he was bored and had nowhere else to go?

'What do you know about friends.h.i.+ps to judge him?' Arawn's inner voice asked, and he lowered his gaze. His first and probably best friend was Corwal... who had lied to him, tricked him, and then abandoned him. Arawn didn't know much about friends.h.i.+ps, but he doubted that was how they were supposed to go.

Then, there was Rain and Val. The two of them had not lied to him or used him, as far as he knew, but was that really enough for a friends.h.i.+p? He called them friends, but he wasn't sure if they even remembered him.

That pointed to a very unwelcome truth, and Arawn shook his head to get it out of his mind. He didn't want to be the kind of person who attached himself to anyone who showed the smallest kindness to him and then bothered them for the rest of their lives.

He released a long breath and looked up at the roof. 'Really, I should be more surprised that he wants to be my friend than that I missed it.'

***

"Eavesdropping is a bad habit," Mutallu said while walking past an alleyway.

At his words, Sylvester walked out without an apologetic look and shrugged. "You never seem to have a problem with it."

When Mutallu didn't say anything in reply, Sylvester followed after him. "You planning to leave?"

It hadn't been Mutallu's plan, but when he thought about it, all he wanted was to get as far away from Arawn as possible. He wasn't sure when, but at some point, he had started to think of him as someone like him. They were both orphans, both people who had been shunned by the ma.s.ses and at a loss as to why they were even alive until they met Corwal.

Sure, their experiences were different, and so their mindsets were different, but Mutallu had never thought that it would matter. When Arawn left without a word, he had felt betrayed, but he pushed it away since he knew Arawn often did stuff like that. There wasn't a time when he didn't act out on emotion and end up in trouble afterwards.

Mutallu had just called on Sylvester and dragged him along to go after Arawn. The journey was long and hurried, but not for one moment did he consider that Arawn might think of him as nothing more than a traveling companion. He should have thought about it, though. His gray skin, his foreign features, and his accent had always set him apart from others. He was unwelcome in his home country, and he was a stranger in both Ayersbert and Mairya.

Despite the peace on the continent, everyone treated him like he had some incurable disease. There were plenty of traders and refugees in Ayersbert from Tarhun, so no one paid much attention to his looks, but everyone remembered the past wars. The two countries' whole history was a never ending struggle for land.

Why then had he thought that it would be different if he was with someone Corwal had saved? It was Corwal alone that could see past his skin, past his coldness that hid the terrified kid inside. A single act of kindness had made him forget that he was a foreign devil.

"I thought I was taking care of one toddler, but it seems I was mistaken. There's two of you here," Sylvester said in a musing tone.

Mutallu whirled around to confront him, but then turned back and continued on his way. It would only prove that he was a child if he rose up to such taunting. There was no reason for him to reply.

"If you weren't a toddler, you wouldn't be angry at someone who's got the mental age of a three-year-old," Sylvester said and shrugged.

That sentiment wasn't something Mutallu had heard for the first time, and his cheeks heated up. Corwal had said that Arawn was locked up from the age of two and had almost no human communication in all those years, so it was quite amazing that he was as normal as he was.

That didn't mean that he wasn't a child in his mind though. His mindset was extremely simple, and his worldview innocent and naive. Before meeting Corwal, he actually believed in black and white morality.

To get angry at such a person was the same as finding fault with a child for not understanding politics.

"He's a lot older than me," Mutallu murmured under his breath. He was starting to feel that he had just made a fool of himself.

Sylvester chuckled behind him. "And he's adultlike— No, wait, nevermind. I wanted to say he's adultlike about some things because of that, but I can't think of anything. He's been growing up fast, but I still wouldn't say he's more than six."

That was the same as stabbing a knife where it hurt. Mutallu rounded on the doctor. "Why do you even care? I thought you hated us."

"Hate's a bit too strong of a word," Sylvester said with a laid back smile. "You're scary, and I don't like children. I need you to protect him, though."

"He could level a city if he wanted. Everyone else needs protection from him, not the other way around."

The grin on Sylvester's face grew wider. "Is that why you ran after him? Because he was going to be fine? For an a.s.sa.s.sin, you're a pretty terrible liar."

Mutallu glared at him, blew out a hot breath, and then turned around to return to their inn. He had let his emotions get the better of him, and that wasn't supposed to happen. Stone-hearted killers didn't run away from their a.s.signments just because someone didn't want to be their friend.

"I never said I was going to leave. I'm going back to the inn, aren't I?"