One Hundred Years: Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Wolf Tales and Bedtime Stories

Ten years earlier...
February 1st, 2110

The snow had begun to fall heavily and the wind was howling outside the small one story school house in the mountains. Four people huddled inside the abandoned school house: half-brothers Pike Vershevin and Cooper Redwing, and Maxwell Winters and his son Dolf. They were from warring tribes, Maxwell was in fact the leader of the Winter Wolf tribe that was swallowing up other tribes throughout the area. And now Maxwell was telling the brothers that he was their father, that the relationship that they had was his doing.

Maxwell smiled and looked and Pike and Cooper, as they stared at their apparent father.

"I should start at the biggest sticking point. Pike's mother left, fled to be exact, and stole Cooper when she did so. So obviously both of you will be influenced by this fact."

Maxwell settled back into his seat and pulled a pot from his backpack and then removed a small metal stand as well. He quickly set the stand in the fire and then put the pot on top of the stand. He then emptied the contents of a water bottle into the pot and began removing instant hot chocolate packets from his coat.

The boys stared at the packets. It was expensive for tribals to get chocolate.

"No point in denying simple truths, you are both warriors. I can see it in your eyes. You're wolves living amongst crows. So let's start at the ugly part. I took Pike's mother by force. I took her during a raid on the Redwings, and then I claimed her as a prize of war."

Pike glared at Maxwell, the young man's eyes were so intense they almost could have burned like coals into Maxwell's forehead.

"You can hate me for that, but it is the truth. What's further truth is that I don't regret it and I won't apologize for it. After I claimed your mother, Pike, I gave her food and lodging and protection, and did the same for you when you were born. I paid full price to your mother for what I took. This is the currency of the strong, and the weak resent it. The weak try to foist ridiculous 'moralities' that have no bearing on real life upon the rest of us in order to tie us down. The weak try to feed off the strong, and use propaganda and 'morality' to justify it. I found your mother attractive and strong, I knew she would bear strong children. I took her for that reason, but I respected her enough that I paid for what I took. I could have left her for the younger warriors, the lower ranked wolves. They would have enjoyed her, but there wouldn't have been much left once they were done with her."

"Machiavelli said that before all else, we should be armed. The strong survive. The strong prosper. The weak either die out or feed upon the strong. So hate me if you need to on this point, but understand the point. I hate many things that my father did, but I have done more and worse to keep my clan alive."

Pike shook his head, "I hear justifications for savagery and greed. I hear the False King speaking to me across the span of history when you talk."

"Ah, yes, the false king. That is a quaint fairy tale. Tell people that he who is using the most effective tools available is evil and you keep people stronger than you from trying too hard."

"Do you want to know who branded me, father?" Acid hung on the final word, "It was some hulk of man named Fyodor Vanya. I was thirteen and he apparently thought I would make a good slave and male concubine. He managed to drag me back to Winter Wolf territory in a metal cage on wheels before I escaped and killed him- slowly. I saw what your lands look like."

"So that's what happened to 'Teddy Bear' Fyodor."

"You aren't listening to me." Pike continued, "One hundred years ago everything fell apart, because people thought they could take as much as they wanted. They thought that there would be no consequences. One hundred years ago we got ten thousand years of delayed consequences! Any yet your lands are clear cut and your rivers are dried or diverted or so poisoned that the dead fish that float on the water will not rot. I saw people in chains working vast fields! I saw that you have coal burning factories in the center of your territory. I saw the smog and the soot. Five years ago you tricked the other tribes, and they didn't condemn you. Now everyone sees what you are. Everything you say is poison and everything you touch sickens and dies."

"And what's the other option?" Maxwell laughed, "Live in the stone age like your little crow tribe? Coal is an intermediary stage, it's the only fossil fuel that didn't peak and crash. With a little more work we can live like the Africans do, with those vast solar farms and all the power they need for a good standard of living. Your adoptive people live like cave men. It's unsanitary, its sub-human. We were meant for better things."

"We have technology. We live simple lives but we aren't luddites, we just don't want to make such a deep footprint."

Maxwell snorted, "The only reason you have metal arrowheads, let alone technology, is because you trade with people who still mine the ore and build the factories and do all of the things that you abhor. Without other cultures to take the blame for you and do the dirty deeds you won't do, you would have stone arrows and mud huts."

"Better than your way. Your actions will bring back the dark years!"

"You're talking about history like it's mythology boy! The Africans, look at them. Nobody alive when the world collapsed would have expected Africa to be the first world in a hundred years. I'm sure you've read about it, even in your little backwater. The rest of the world was pulling in, and cowering, trying to survive." Maxwell was waving his hands now, and actually dropped the hot chocolate packets as he gestured. The brothers were so wrapped up in the argument that nobody reached for the packets.

"But in Africa," Maxwell continued, "A few visionary leaders began to expand- they started building solar collectors and expanding their influence. Expand when others are scared, and now they are the first world and we are the third. Shifts like these happen all the time boy. Nobody foresaw the fall of the Soviet Union. Nobody expected the great Empires of Europe to implode following the first world war. Nobody expected the fall of Rome. But when they happened opportunists were there to take the reins. The Franks took the reins from the Romans. America took the reins from Europe, and again from the Soviet Union. You called it the dark years, well boy, I call it hunting season."

"Enough."

Maxwell and Pike turned to look. Cooper had spoken with such direct finality that both actually went quiet.

"I don't care why you live that way. I don't care why you do anything. Why doesn't tell me who I am. Why doesn't tell me who my mother was and that is all I care about right now. you can argue with Pike afterword. But if you are a man of your word, then you will honour your promise and you will tell me who my mother is."

Maxwell laughed, "Even in that nest, you still became my sons! Very well, I would never keep my son waiting when I had promised him something. your mother is Rose Winters. She was Rose Hunter before I married her, her father is the Mayor of Whistler County. The marriage cemented the alliance between our two groups. I love her very much and she misses you. Although she thinks you're dead."

Cooper shook his head, "A townee. My mother is a townee and my father serves the False King. I may as well fly a locust flag outside my home."

"You mother is a good woman, and you should show her some respect."

"It doesn't make her any less a townee, even if she was an Ascended Master, it still means by rights I should fly a locust as my flag."

"You should really fly a wolf flag. Or a hawk- Hawk is still your name after all. Nothing that nest of crows does changes that. Do you know how it turns my stomach to know that you have been living with Redwing all of this time? Who knows what damage that old fool has done to your education."

Cooper's eyes darkened, "My name is not Hawk. My name is Cooper Redwing. I am named after my Uncle: Redwing-lives-forever. Even if he was lying when he said I was his nephew, he has been more of an Uncle to me, more of a parent to me, than you could ever be."

"Oh he wasn't lying. He is your uncle- your great uncle to be exact. Although I didn't think he was capable of doing anything right, much less telling the truth."

"Why do you hate him so much?"

"He killed my mother: his sister-in-law. You'll have to ask him about that, if you ever see him on the battlefield. I don't enjoy relating that story."

"What do you mean, see him on the battlefield?" Pike interjected.

"You don't think that I'm going to let my sons go back to my lifelong enemy, do you?"

Pike sprang to his feet, but Maxwell waved idly at him, "Don't worry about that until the snow storm has stopped. You can try and fail to get away once the weather is reasonable. Weather this cold can't last too long."

Pike reached for his machete and Maxwell was up in a moment and had his left hand clamped around Pike's right, preventing the younger man from drawing the blade.

Pike reached his free hand around and grabbed his father's pinky finger and snapped it backwards, provoking a yell of pain and a series of curses from Maxwell. Maxwell let go of Pike's hand and Pike and Cooper used the space to bolt out of the room and dash in opposite directions.

Maxwell stared, and then cursed matter-of-factly.

He looked at Dolf, "Stay here, I'll be back and likely, so will they. Eventually they will want their backpacks, so guard them. Dolf nodded his head.

Maxwell turned back to the door and walked out after his elder sons.

Dolf was alone at the fire as his father closed the door to the room behind him.

"Would anyone like hot chocolate?" He said quietly, and then picked up the fallen hot chocolate packets. he tore one of them open carefully and poured thepowdered mix into his thermos and then gently poured some of the boiling water from the pot into the thermos. He replaced the pot on the stand, letting the remaining water continue boiling. Then he sealed the thermos and shook it vigorously. After a minute or so of shaking, he unscrewed the cap and- after letting the hot chocolate cool- began to sip.