The road to the alcove is not far from where the Garm stood its ground.
Sol looks toward it in the small illumination that Nia's fireflies provide, and he sees that the Garm's body is skinny.
It is emaciated. It hasn't fed for… what, days? Weeks? Can something even last weeks without eating?
The Garm slows, stops, and looks back at them as if checking whether they are keeping up. Its gleaming, ruby-like eyes are no longer that color. They have shifted to another shade entirely. Sol cannot tell which.
Nia nods to the Garm and crouches near it.
"We're here, doggy. Don't worry."
The Garm whines softly and keeps walking. Nia turns to Sol and smiles. "I think it's starting to trust us."
"Yeah." Sol goes quiet, his right hand still holding his flimsy dagger. He knows that if the Garm turns on them here, mid-path toward the alcove, they are dead. "Hopefully that's the case."
"It's not hopefully, Sol." Nia looks at him; her emerald eyes turn a shade more serious. "He trusts us."
"He?"
"It's a male doggy."
"How did you know that?"
"Um…" Nia thinks for a second, then just looks at Sol. She winces, eyes crinkling, then softens it with a tiny "ehe," tongue out, a sheepish sorry.
Another "ehe," huh. Sol cannot feel anger toward her; it seems like she moves by instinct rather than knowledge. Perhaps it is because she is a sorcerer? Yet Nia is nothing like the stories of human sorcerers he heard from the village elder for years.
"Freaks. That's what they are. They control the elements with a single thought, conjure explosions with a mere word, awaken the ocean with a phrase, and stop the sun from shining when they are together. Hundreds of thousands of my brethren were murdered. If not by the flame fields that steelbirds drop on us, then by the foul magicks of the sorcerers." He can still remember that day clearly.
It was a cold day, but the sun was shining bright. A summer day when the citizens of Elm did not have to contend with snow, a rare occurrence. The younglings—Dobsy, Saylan, Kaiyo, and the others—were sitting near the chief's residence, just ten meters or so from the well where the women of the village usually got their water.
There is a clearing there. Short green grass grows freely when the cold is bearable, and the younglings are usually told to sit there for a short sermon by the chief. They do not like it, of course. But they do not really have a choice. Either sit in silence for a couple of hours, or venture to the Stake to harvest wood, potentially for a full day. They choose to sit.
Sol, as usual, was not invited. But Dobsy, Saylan, and Kaiyo said he could wear multiple pieces of clothing so his body would seem bigger than it is, and they forced a hood on him so his single horn would not be noticed so quickly.
It was his first time sitting there with everybody else. It was boring for everyone, but for Sol it was a day to be cherished. He still remembers the warmth of the sun, the prickliness of the grass, the smell of the soup cooking in a house to his right, the sound of the Wyvs—dog-sized, two-legged, webbed-winged lizards (short for wyverns), bred by Elm's handler as guard animals or emergency food since their tails regenerate endlessly—cackling excitedly because it was feeding time. For some Wyvs, half the tail even needs to be cut every few weeks.
For the first time, he could sit with everybody else. For the first time, people did not evade him like a disease. For the first time, he felt happy.
The chief's stories were mostly rambling, with war tales that were certainly not fit for younglings' consumption, but Sol listened to the full two hours with eyes that glimmered with excitement. It was amazing, the story about the war, about the atrocities of the angels in Gehenna, their home world, that prompted the seven lords to open a gateway to a new place, only to find it filled with human sorcerers who bent nature and steel to their will, using strange contraptions to launch small, sharp arrows from long tube-things they called "weapons."
The Geherrim's magicks worked, somewhat. Yet they did not fight at full strength from the start; the mana of this world felt off.
Sol comes back to the present and crouches a bit to avoid a jutting stalactite dripping with condensation. A slow drip keeps time in the dark. He remembers that the chief looked in his direction often that day. Dobsy said there was no way the chief would recognize him, but he thinks the chief actually knew. He smiles a little.
Then the smile turns sour almost instantly. That same warm feeling is what makes the betrayal sting even more. The one who approved his joining Rahzar's party was the chief.
That means the chief wants him to die in the wilds, and not come back to the village.
His chest feels off. There is a small stabbing sensation there.
The Garm stops again and looks at him. Sol instinctively grabs his dagger with his right hand. Nia notices his tension and touches his left hand, easing him just a bit.
Sol breathes out; his right hand eases on the hilt of the broken dagger. The leather wrap is cold and cracked beneath his fingers.
The Garm takes a step toward him. This is the same beast that tried to kill him some five minutes back; of course he feels defensive.
The Garm stands almost as tall as he is, yet it is still half the size of the Snow White Garm that saved him last night. It looks into Sol's eyes, seeming to understand his pain.
Then it sniffs Sol's right hand, which is no longer gripping the dagger's hilt.
A couple of sniffs, then a small lick. Sol's right hand withdraws reflexively. The Garm is not startled by that. It turns its back and continues to lead them toward the alcove.
Sol looks at his right hand. A Garm's tongue is… rough. Yet it is warm, and it does not hurt.
When was the last time things were not hurting for him?
Nia walks ahead. "I think he likes you, Sol."
"Huh? But we just… tried to kill each other."
"He's not angry at you."
"He's not…?"
"He knows you're a protector, just like him."
Sol goes silent. Guilt stings in his chest. He knows he was trying to defend himself, but the Garm was doing the same.
Sol looks toward the Garm again.
It is just a puppy, perhaps as young as he is, perhaps even younger. Yet it is already putting its life on the line for its siblings.
The way forward opens up a bit. An opening, a third of it covered by a natural waterfall; the sound obscures any movement or chance of detection. The other two thirds of the opening are big enough for a full-sized Garm to go in and out without getting wet. Mist beads on Sol's lashes as they draw near.
The Garm goes in, then Nia, then Sol.
Sol has been here multiple times. The space opens to a natural groundwater lake on his left. The waterfall that covers a third of the opening comes from inside the mountain and feeds the lake. Over time, the water has eaten channels through the stone and drains away, which is why the alcove does not flood. Kaiyo said back then that the lake connects to another place, perhaps some part of the Dalmas he never explored. Above the lake, a fairly large hole lets light in. It is not wide enough for snowstorms to fill the chamber.
Green foliage grows between the cavern rocks, and beautiful orange-purple crystals hang from the ceiling of the alcove. The air smells faintly of wet stone and carrion. A thin draft sighs across the floor.
To the right, the space opens up more. The alcove is large, enough for at least two or three full-sized Garms to sleep inside it. And in the middle of the open space, several shapes are curled into tight balls. Nia's fireflies dim to soft embers, letting the daylight do the rest.
Garms.
At least four of them, and they are visibly smaller than the Garm escorting them. Their ribs rise and fall in shallow, uneven breaths.
They are littermates. Sol looks at the Garm standing beside them. Its eyes are locked on its siblings, who are resting while poison ravages their bodies from the carcass of a deer rotting near the entrance.
This Garm might simply be bigger than its littermates. The Garm looks at him, head tilting to the left. "Arf?"
He's a freak.
Just like him.
Perhaps they did not give him much food, or perhaps his unusual size is also the reason the poison did not take him down as quickly.
Perhaps the others pushed him out. Maybe he waited near the fields to watch for his mother, to warn her that the deer was poisoned.
For the first time in his life, he feels something that was never taught to him, yet he knows it instinctively. This is how it feels.
This is how an understanding feels.
Any desire for conflict, any defensive feeling he had, vanishes completely. This Garm was only looking for help. Nia was right: it is in great pain, from the inside and from the outside.
Sol puts his left hand on top of the Garm's head and ruffles the fur. The coat is coarse, a little damp, and very warm.
"You did well, big guy."
Sol can now see the Garm's eye color very clearly, it's dark brown.
Just like his.
The Garm and Nia look at each other.
The Garm's tongue lolls as he pants softly, almost a smile.