Chapter 3

Dante

“I know what you are,” Peter said, ominously.
We had traveled at least seven miles that day. After leaving behind the dead rapists, I made sure to not travel in a straight line and even walked down a river for half a mile so that we couldn’t be pursued easily. Of course, I did all of this with Peter’s body thumping against my back every step of the way. Still, we had traveled a good distance and hadn’t run into any other complications, which I was grateful for.
The sheet of night had already hung over us when we stopped to make camp. Before leaving to go hunt for dinner, I had tied Peter to a tree, only this time I made sure to bind his mouth shut so that he couldn’t chew through the rope again. Luckily, the rope he had chewed through was still useable and had been the perfect size for a gag. Although, after the day he had, I suspected that Peter knew better than to go stumbling through the dark by himself. But, just in case he was foolish enough to try, I tied his muzzle closed nonetheless.
After leaving Peter for about twenty minutes, I returned with three doves ready to roast. It wasn’t much, but neither of us had eaten all day, so we certainly weren’t complaining. I had eaten two of the birds, while Peter only ate half of one. He chewed very slowly and washed it down with water from my wineskin. I didn’t think he enjoyed the taste very much. However, I was already full, so I tossed the half-eaten bird, along with the bones from the other two, into the fire and sat down against a tree to watch intently as the embers ate their fill.
We had been sitting silently for a moment before Peter announced his vague declaration.
I fed the fire with another branch, which the flames joyously received and spat up swarm sparks into the night sky that glowed amongst the stars.
“Did you even hear me?” Peter asked, not attempting to conceal his irritation.

“Yes,” I said, just before I leaned back against my tree, letting the trunk straighten out my spine. “I heard you,”
“Of course you did,” Peter said.
I merely grunted at his enmity.
Peter gave a tug on the rope around his hands that secured him to the tree’s trunk. “You know,” the prince began, “you don’t have to keep me tied to this tree,”
“And have you run off again?”
Peter scowled at me and released a deep sigh. “That was before I knew there were bandits and rapists out there,”
“I told you there were,”
Peter’s fur bristled. “Yeah, but I tend not trust guys that kidnap me and keep me tied up!”
“Tough,” I told him, pitilessly.
Seeing that his protests were getting him nowhere, Peter leaned his head back against his tree in defeat. Then, he slowly raised his head again and looked back over the flames of the fire with a smug expression. “So?”
“So?” I repeated.
The otter smiled, gaily. “I know what you are,”

I stared down at the fire, not even slightly interested in whatever it was he had to say. “I thought it was obvious that I was a wolf,”
“No, not that,” Peter said and then leaned as far forward as his binds would allow him. “I know that you’re from royalty, just like me,”
A second passed and neither of us spoke.
“How did you come to that conclusion?” I asked, after glancing up from the fire.
“Am I right?” Peter prodded.

“Maybe,” I said and flicked my ears, “but I’d like to know what makes you think I should be polishing some golden throne with my tail,”
Peter brashly gave a cocky smirk. “For one,” he said and tugged on his binds, “in all my experiences with lowlifes like you, I’ve never once met a criminal that read books for fun or owned a gun,”
I produced to him a small shrug. “And?”
“And,” Peter continued, “last time I checked, not a lot of pickpockets read or carry a weapon that’s worth more gold than they can steal in a lifetime,”
I stretched my legs out and groaned with pleasure as my muscles relaxed. “All that proves is that I’m not a common pickpocket. For all you know, I used to be a merchant’s son, which would explain how I can read proficiently, who stole a gun from some careless prince,”
“Yeah,” Peter said and rolled his eyes. “Right,”
“Care to elaborate?” I asked.
Peter lowered his head slightly and appeared as though he were about to stab me with some hidden dagger. He used words rather than a blade, yet the chilly sting was no different. “The Divine Comedy,”
I sat there quietly, showing no sign of a reaction.
Taking note of my silence, Peter proceeded to further his point. “‘Seventh Circle’? One of the nine Circles of Dante’s Inferno?”
“How did you know that?” I pondered, truly curious.
“Please,” Peter sneered. “I read that shit when I was seventeen. Of course, my tutor forced me to finish the damn thing. I wanted to quit just after reading the first stanza! Probably one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. Who wants to read a poem that long?”
“It’s called an epic poem,” I explained, holding back the seeds of frustration that began to cultivate in my chest. “That’s why it’s so long. You were probably too busy drinking to understand how great it is,”
“That’s not the point!” Peter continued. “How many people read The Divine Comedy just for fun? None! The only people who do read it are princes because their tutors require it! And Dante isn’t your real name, is it, wolfy? Yeah. I figured out your little alias. You think just because you use his name, you’ll be just like him? Even if you were just like him, that would mean living in exile. And he never went back to Ansil, did he?”
“No,” I answered.
Dante Alighieri never returned to his birthplace. If he did, Dante would have been executed, since he was involved in this gigantic political uprising against whoever was ruling Ansil at the time. His group lost and things went rather poorly for all of them. After narrowly escaping death, the lion wandered around Alpis and died at the age of fifty-six. Of course, all the kings and queens at the time refused to give him a proper burial, since he was deemed a heretic for his Divine Comedy, in which he criticized many priests for being greedy and portrayed them brutally suffering in the rings of Hell. So, to this day, nobody knows what was done with his remains.
Peter smiled as though he had me by the throat. “That dusty old book in your bag? I’d bet my life that it’s The Divine Comedy,”
Silently, I stared back at him.
“And I can probably guess what Family you belong to,” Peter gloated. He then examined my face, as if I had some telltale sign. “I’m going to say… Yurl? No. Seril? No! I’ve got it! You’re a Talis aren’t you?”
Quietly, I rose and walked over with the rope-gag in my hand.
As I leaned down to close Peter’s muzzle for the night, he uttered one last whine. “Come on. Just tell me!”
After I had double-knotted the bounds around Peter’s muzzle, I went back to sitting under my tree and closed my eyes.
Peter certainly had an intolerable mouth. Maybe that was why he was out there, in the real world, drinking himself stupid instead of living in a palace. He probably pissed off the wrong people. No. That couldn’t be true. Why would his father be offering one hundred thousand gold coins for him? Even so, he didn’t seem like a prince to me. Peter never looked at me as though I were one of the wild animals that lived in the woods, rather than the civilized animal that I was. He hated me, of course. I couldn’t deny that, but his hatred was certainly not without a good reason. I had tied him up and was dragging him back to a place he had run away from. I guessed that made him better than most princes, but not by much.
Before I was able to fall asleep, I realized that I had forgotten to extinguish the fire. I then rose from my seat and began to splash waves of dirt over the flames with my boot.
After I killed the final flames, I looked down at Peter, who had already fallen asleep. Before lying back down against my tree and letting the abyss of unconsciousness wash over me as I closed my eyes, I wondered what the otter would think if he knew who I really was.
I woke up before Peter the next morning, which astounded me since I was the one who had carried him like a cub for miles while running the pervious day. I contemplated shaking him until he woke up, but then I remembered that this was all new to him. He was probably used to having someone to counsel him whenever something pivotal occurred. To go from the luxury of having advisors for every task to nearly being assaulted in the middle of a road was certainly a tremendous change. The day before had been an eye-opener for him. Needless to say, whatever lay between Lowpive and us wasn’t going to be exactly stress-free, either.

Once my pity convinced me to let Peter slumber for a little longer, I left him tied to the tree and headed out in search of breakfast. I was careful not to go too far off, so as not to lose where I had left him. Unfortunately, my hunt wasn’t as bountiful as the one from the previous night. For when I returned, all I had to show for my efforts was a measly wild squirrel, which Peter and I would have had to spilt between the both of us.
I skinned the wild animal, carving off its pelt with my knife. When the animal was naked, I placed the pelt in my knapsack and lit a fire amongst a circle of stones with my flint. Moments after the infant flames began to arise from their birthplace, I placed the squirrel meat onto a thick branch and held it over the fire, allowing the meat to roast over the flames that hungrily reached for it.
When Peter’s eyes finally crept open like curtains, his eyes were null of all interest and concentration as he looked over at me.
“Good morning,” I greeted him.
An unenthusiastic grunt came from Peter’s bound muzzle.
After I finished cooking our meal and had divided it in half, I moseyed over to the drowsy prince and set his half of the food onto his lap before I began to undo his binds. First, I undid the rope around his muzzle and then loosened the one that kept his arms secured to the tree. When I had finished, I turned back around and went to sit next to my knapsack, where I had placed my piece of meat.
“Eat,” I said, after sitting down and noticing that Peter was merely staring at his food.
Peter looked up at me with a confused expression, like a child who suspects a cruel trick. “Shouldn’t you keep my arms tied up?”
I dragged my knapsack in front of me, moving my meal closer to my crossed legs. “No,” I said, letting my hands land on top of the meat and hold it up it my snout, just before I took a large bite, allowing the juices to engulf my tongue in a fresh wave of delight.
“Is this what its like?” Peter asked. “Being a hermit?”
I glanced up from my breakfast to gaze at the otter. “Hermit is an ugly word,”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s used to by more fortunate people to demean those who are less fortunate,”
“You mean princes?” Peter wondered, with a glint in his eyes.
I shook my head. “No. Not just princes. I once saw a baker kick a begging five-year old boy off his doorstep because the boy was ‘so ugly’ that he was ‘scaring away customers’,”
Peter’s forehead furrowed and his eyes widened. “The boy was a beggar?”
“A starving beggar,” I said. “His legs were as thin as candles and I could make out parts of his skull just by staring at his face,”
“Fucker,” Peter said. “I hope you killed that stupid baker like you killed those assholes yesterday,”
I silently took a bite of my squirrel.
“Well?” Peter wondered. “Did you?”

After lowering my food from my mouth, I replied. “No,”
“No?” Peter nearly shouted in disbelief. “Why not? He deserved it! The kid was starving and you just stood there?”
“I’m not God, Peter,” I said, “or a king. I don’t have the authority to walk around and choose who lives and who dies. That’s not how things works,”
The otter still persisted to argue. “What about those guys from yesterday? You seemed pretty sure about killing them!”
“That’s different,” I defended myself. “They were going to kill you after they were done raping you. Once I had stepped in, they were gong to kill me, too. Even the horse, the one who begged to be set free, would have gone to fetch more Talth to kill us,”
“What the hell’s a Talth?”
I sighed and explained. “The Talth are a mercenary group. Believe it or not, they’re more ruthless than they are expensive. But, when they’re not working or hunting bounties, they pillage whoever they can find on the main road. They take what they want and God help you if you’re in their way,”
“Why don’t the all the kings and queens just kill them if they’re criminals?” Peter demanded.
“Because,” I clarified, “there are about eight hundred of them,”
Peter gasped. “Eight hundred?”
“Yes,” I nodded somberly. “And that’s only north of Owl’s Overwatch. In the south, there are about four hundred Talth,”
“Shit…”
“Nobody wants to deal with them because all of the kings and queens would have to be hunting them together, since the Talth are in every single Kingdom in Alpis. And nobody can really prove that the Talth are the ones who rob and kill most of the travelers on the road,”
“Why’s that?” Peter questioned.
“The Talth never let anybody live,” I said.
Peter’s shocked gaze was accompanied by stunned silence.
I placed my meat down and grabbed the upper part of my left arm. “You can recognize them by the yellow armband they wear on their left arms,”
Peter continued to quietly sit against his tree, staring at my arm and no doubt recalling the events of the previous day.
I picked up my breakfast once again. “Eat your food before it gets cold,”

After a moment’s passing, Peter slowly looked down at his food, picked it up and began to eat with slow bites.
When we had both finished eating, I tossed the leftovers into a bush and extinguished the fire with dirt. Next, I re-tied Peter’s hands together, during which he gave no sign of resistance. I then threw my knapsack onto my back and we soon headed out into the trees.
It wasn’t more than five minutes later when Peter began talking again. “How long till we reach the Fanged Peaks, Your Highness? I want to grab a parka before we go over them. I don’t think my little otter coat will be enough to keep me warm,” He said the last sentence with a high-pitched voice, obviously trying to annoy me.
“We probably won’t reach them for a few weeks. Until then, we won’t need to pick up parkas. And I’m not a prince,”
“Oh, yes you are,” Peter said, “and you still never told me what Family you’re from, wolfy,”
I sighed and felt like tugging on Peter’s rope. “I’m not a prince,”
“Come on!” Peter whined with a smile as he walked to my left. “We don’t have to lie to each other! You’re a prince and so am I. We’re almost like brothers. Brothers should be honest with each other,”
It was blatantly clear how every word that left Peter’s mouth was an attempt to get under my pelt. I knew he was just trying to annoy me, but it was working. The mere thought of having him pester me all the way to Lowpive began to make the gold seem not worth the price. But, somehow, I kept my frustration under control.
“I’m no prince,” I asserted. “And I’m not your brother,”
“Fine. If that’s what you say,”
A moment of wordless silence passed before Peter spoke again. “You’re no fun,”
“You may have gotten a reaction from whatever servants you used to bully back in Lowpive, but you won’t get one from me,”
Peter didn’t seem to care anymore. “Sure,”
He was probably still bitter over not getting a rise out of me. I could only imagine the inner anger that must have been swelling inside his chest like a cyst. Good. That feeling would have had to harden him if he ever hoped to still be in one piece after our perilous jaunt together.