Hi all! This is an excerpt from my completed novella, Riversong. It's available on LuLu.com, so I guess you could call this promotion, but feel free to review it all you want. I love opinions. ^_^
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Prologue - New Light
Night had fallen upon the forest, but there was no rest to be found there. The trees rustled in the shadows as a silver wolf pushed his way through the undergrowth, his head low to the ground, his muscles tense with anticipation.
The wolf’s name was Corvus the Sky-Eyed. He was the Alpha of a great wolf pack, a mighty pack that held dominion across the entire world. He was Corvus, the great Alpha, the ruler of all wolves, the instrument by which justice was held in place. He would reign for many years, and by his paw all things would be kept together.
So he told himself. But even as he walked he could hear the distant rumblings of the smoke-spouters, see the unnatural yellow light cast by their glowing eyes. Suddenly, there was a distant crash, followed by an anguished howling sound and the fluttering of wings. Another tree had been felled.
He quickened his pace. In the distance he could see the light of the Man-city. He had to admit that from here it looked beautiful. He wondered how Man did it, how he managed to create his own light, make his own stars. That such a foul race should have such great power was twisted, evil. He turned his eyes to the stars, the real stars made by the Creator. How can the spirits let this happen? he thought.
Corvus’s paws touched pavement. He was in the city. Walking extremely quickly, his head bent even closer to the ground, he loped along through the shadows. He kept up this pace until he reached a long series of Man-homes that ran along the west side of the city, their backs to the woods. The houses were surrounded by short wooden fences. Corvus took a running start and cleared a fence with ease, landing gracefully on the short, spiky grass.
His gaze scanned the all-so-familiar yard; the rough wooden deck, the weedy flowerbeds, the tall, dark shape of the birdbath. He sniffed, and smelled a diluted blend of Man, grass, weed pollen, bird droppings, and . . . Farien.
But his mate was not in the yard. He hadn’t expected her to be; she was probably inside. Corvus had never been in the house before. But he would go in for his children. Slowly, he climbed up the deck to the flap door and entered.
He immediately cringed at the overwhelming smell of Man that dominated the building. He sniffed wildly, casting in every direction for a tiny whiff of loamy forest scent, of slumbering mice and running water, but there was none. Taking every step with trepidation, Corvus slowly edged his way over to where a red-and-white malamute lay in a woven basket at the end of the hall.
“Hello, Corvus,” said the malamute softly.
“Hi, Fairy. Are you all right?”
“Never better . . . just look.”
There in the basket, snuggled amongst white sheets and cushions, lay a single male cub.
“Just one?” said Corvus.
“Just one,” said Farien. “But isn’t he beautiful?”
Yes, yes, thought Corvus. He looks just like me. Slim, sturdy shoulders, big ears, and such strong muscles. And yet he was different. His fur was darker, thicker. And his tail, instead of being straight and branchlike like his father’s, was feathered and plumed. Never in his life had Corvus seen something so wonderful. A surge of fierce pride pulsed in his veins, filling his limbs and his brain, overwhelming him. Here was his son, his own son, an heir worthy of his name.
“He’ll be a great warrior someday,” said Corvus, seeing the fierce way his son sucked, the strength in his limbs as he nursed.
“Corvus?” said Farien suddenly.
“What?”
“I’m sure he’ll be a great warrior . . . but Corvus, he needs you to be there to teach him.”
Corvus straightened and raised his tail above his head, his expression fierce. “I will never give in to the humans,” he said. “You know that. I’ll stay here and take care of my son whatever it takes.”
“I’m sure you will,” said Farien softly.
Corvus looked down at his son, now slowly drifting off to sleep, and up again at Farien, smiling peacefully down at the pup. He could not say which one was more beautiful.
“He’s wonderful,” he said. “And I promise I will be there. For you. And for . . . what are we going to call him?”
Farien looked down. She watched the puppy for a long while. When she looked up, her eyes were shining with love for her mate and her son.
“There are dark times upon us, my love,” she said. “But no night lasts forever . . . and even during the nighttime, we have stars and the moon to guide us. No matter how dark these times become, our son will always be there for us. He is our light, our song, our star. He is our Nova.”
Chapter One - Comdenation
It was morning. Nova lay with his head buried between his legs, shutting out the blinding light that penetrated the darkness of sleep. A dozen familiar scents flooded his nostrils – of dry dog food and cold cement, of buried droppings and warm squirming puppies. The smells of the dog pound.
Nova had just awakened from a very strange dream about great silver beasts, who threw back their heads and howled a song to the moon. There had been much sorrow in the song, but beneath the sorrow there was hope and love. He could still hear the song in his chest; it seemed to have come to life inside of him.
“Hey, there! Dogs!”
The familiar call of the Attendant reached his ears. With a sigh, he rose to his feet. All around him other dogs were whining, barking, scratching and panting in their kennels. There were old, hairy dogs, bright-eyed young dogs, skinny dogs whose ribs stuck out in all directions, bulgy dogs with ungainly lumps all over their bodies – dogs of every size and shape and color. This was all familiar to Nova. His gaze fell instead on a dark-haired boy with ripped pants wandering idly down the corridor. The boy’s lidded eyes scanned the nametags on the kennels.
“Rover . . . Perks . . . Sam . . . Cherry . . . ”
Nova made a noise halfway between a whine and a growl and darted over to the front of his kennel, thrusting his head up to the grille. Near the end of the corridor, an ancient, bat-eared terrier named Leon shifted restlessly. Leon had been Marked with a red sticker the day before and everyone knew it was his turn to be taken away.
The boy stopped at Leon’s kennel and stared at him for a few seconds. Leon stared back, half defiantly, half fearfully.
There was something chilling about the boy’s manner, Nova thought: it was casual, almost bored, despite the thing Nova knew was about to happen.
Suddenly, before Nova had time to blink, the boy wrenched upon the kennel grate and seized Leon with his gloved hands. Leon bit; his sharp teeth punctured glove and skin easily. Nova scented blood. The dark-haired boy grunted but did not let go.
Nova turned away. Leon’s fate was inevitable. He had seen it happen many times before. About once a week, an Attendant would Mark a dog by sticking a red sticker on its name tag. That dog was condemned to be taken to the place known to most as “the death room,” where he was killed. It had to be so, Nova was told, because there were too many dogs. Dogs were being born faster than they were dying, and the Attendants were doing their duty on earth by killing them.
The other dogs never seemed to care. They made no sound as their brothers were taken to their deaths. To most of them, the red stickers were a part of life.
But not to Nova. He, too, made no sound as he watched this cycle of death, because he knew the other dogs would talk. But he would look at his brothers in their final moments of life; stare into their eyes, try and decipher their thoughts. And late at night when all the others were asleep, he would curl up in the corner of his kennel and wonder . . .
“Farien’s here.”
Nova’s ears pricked. An elderly golden retriever named Willow lived in the kennel to the right of his. She, like many other kennel dogs, was spayed. They say that neutering civilizes animals, but Nova thought she was one of the most uncivilized beasts he had ever met, and that had nothing to do with her always-untidy fur. She was constantly making up rumors and spreading gossip. If you so much as whispered to Willow that the dog in the opposite kennel had earworms, or that Fido had a crush on so-and-so, she would lick it up and turn it into something much, much nastier.
So when Willow had told Nova that Farien, his mother, was coming with her Master to visit the dog pound, he wasn’t quite sure what to believe. He cocked an ear at the sleepy old pit bull in the kennel to the left, seeking confirmation.
The pit bull raised his head for a minute, grunted, and said, “’s true.”
“And you know what I heard?” said Willow, an insane gleam in her brown eyes. “I heard she’s in love – in love with her Master –”
“A dog in love with a human? That’s impossible!” Nova snorted.
“Don’t be foolish, puppy; I have heard of that sort of thing happening before,” said Willow. “There was that beagle in Peru –”
“You don’t even know what Peru is,” said Nova scathingly. “Right?” He glanced back at the pit bull, who licked his drool-covered lips and muttered something unintelligible.
“Hey, I never asked you, Nova,” said Willow. “What breed was your father, anyway?”
Nova was taken aback. Willow hardly ever went asking for gossip fodder; usually, it came to her.
“I know Farien’s a malamute – that’s where you get that thick fur, I suppose – but you have bigger ears than her – and of course, your fur’s gray – that came from your late father, of course –”
Nova cringed. A dozen questions that he had bound up in his heart came springing to the surface again. Farien had never told him much about his father, besides that his name had been Corvus, and that he had been a very remarkable creature. She had never even told him how Corvus had died.
“I don’t know my father’s breed,” he said firmly.
Willow paused, looking disappointed. “Oh, well,” she said. “A dog can’t know everything, I guess.” But when she turned to leave, Nova could have sworn he heard her mutter, “No harm done, I’ll think of a good story – say he’s half greyhound, maybe – nasty breed, those greyhounds –”
But the rest of her words were drowned out by the unmistakable sound of screeching hinges as a door was opened.
It wasn’t an Attendant. A wonderful scent filled his nose – a sweet, clean scent. Nova’s own malamute mother, Farien, came striding down the corridor. Nova felt his heart pound. She was beautiful. Her fur was red and white and fell thickly around her shoulders like a mane. She was groomed. Well-groomed, just like her Master, a tall, fair male human who wore a long coat and bowler hat. Both of them moved with immense grace.
They moved, dreamlike, down the corridor, and stopped at Nova’s kennel. Farien’s Master immediately struck up what seemed like a very meaningful conversation.
“Hello, son,” said Farien softly.
“Hi,” said Nova.
He realized how bad he must look, here behind bars, skinny and filthy, and felt a twinge of shame. Both he and his mother had been dropped off at the pound after his father had died. His mother, being as beautiful as she was, had been Adopted almost immediately. Nova wondered how much she knew of the horrors that went on inside the pound, if she knew anything at all of the death room.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Piers – that’s my Master – he’s working to find a home for you. To get you Adopted.”
She turned to the two humans, her face screwed up in concentration.
“Can you understand them?” Nova asked her.
Farien nodded.
“Every word?”
“Almost.”
Nova cocked an ear. He did not feel particularly envious.
Willow was edging closer toward the bars. She was practically quivering with excitement (“What did she tell you, Nova? Your father’s a praying mantis, isn’t he?”) Farien caught her eye for a second.
“That’s Willow,” Nova told her.
“I know,” said Farien.
“You’ve met her?”
“She was in the kennel across from mine,” Farien said, still watching the retriever with dislike. “Before I got Adopted. Funny dog. Spreads rumors a lot. We never liked each other much.”
She turned back to the conversing humans. The female Attendant had raised her voice. Piers was watching her down the bridge of his long nose, looking equally angry, but keeping silent.
“They’re talking about you, Nova,” said Farien in a low voice.
Nova twitched. “And what –”
“They’re saying, ‘We can’t keep him much longer. I don’t care how much you’ll pay, Piers, he has to go. . . .’”
Cold fear spread through Nova’s veins. Thoughts sprang up in the back of his mind, thoughts that he wished he would not think.
You have been here longer than most of the other dogs . . . an Attendant should have come for you sooner . . .
But his silent thoughts were drowned out by a shriek of triumph from Willow. Farien whirled around, bristling. Willow was standing, gasping for breath, her face a mask of glee.
“I should have known it!” she said. “I should have guessed! No wonder nobody would Adopt you! Don’t look so shocked, Farien, didn’t you know I can understand Man talk too?” Farien drew back, her teeth bared. Willow was shaking uncontrollably. Spit was dribbling out of her mouth. Several dogs standing in other kennels had turned to watch, looking startled. “And to think he didn’t know, to think you never told the little rat – but soon, every dog in this whole stinking place will know – he’s a wolfdog!”
Nova opened his mouth in a shout of protest, but Willow cut him off.
“And now they’re going to kill you! Kill you, because you’re tainted! Nobody wants a wolfdog, little rat! Don’t look at me that way, Farien, you know it’s true!”
Her gaze swiveled back to the humans. They had stopped talking now and were staring at each other in angry silence. Then Piers shouted something and turned on his heel, dragging Farien along with him.
“Wait!” Nova cried. “Come back! Mother!”
Farien strained on her leash, choking, but her Master overcame, and the door at the end of the corridor slammed.
“Mother,” Nova called again, much more weakly.
Beside him, an insane smile twisted Willow’s mouth.
“You’ll never see her again. Never ever.” She raised her head. “Look.”
The female Attendant had pressed a red sticker onto his nametag. Her fingers were shaking ever so slightly, but her face was set and she gave no other sign of emotion. Neither did any of the dogs. Save for Willow, who was still watching him with unrestrained glee, they looked away.
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