The Healer Read online

  “Stay back, Son. You know what I need you to do.”

  Snapper backed into the damaged bedroom to keep out of sight.

  A flare sailed over the enemies’ heads and into Old-Timer’s bedroom, striking the bookcase behind Snapper. Black smoke coming from under Snapper’s door told him that this was not the first flare to get inside. The house was on fire.

  The dogs, birds, and pigs struck. Snapper hid behind the doorframe as commanded, watching his father closely. He was ready to mend any wound that appeared. He had known of his father’s legendary fighting ability, but he had never seen it firsthand. Old-Timer’s strength, Snapper realized, was not in the sheer size of his horns but in his creativity.

  He stepped out of the path of a charging dog, scooped it off its feet with the curve of his horns, and used its momentum to hurl it at another foe. He spun and ducked his head, raising his rear hooves off the ground in a whirling kick. He hooked a horn under an enemy’s armpit and threw it headfirst into the ground.

  Snapper focused his energy, closing up every cut made by tusk or beak or fang, keeping his father in top condition. The clones were too occupied to see the glow in his eyes and realize that he was responsible for Old-Timer’s disappearing wounds.

  The fragile birds went down with a single blow each. The dogs were built for fighting but still broke under the assault of a ram. The pigs, with their stout bones and thick hide, were the last to go.

  When the last pig’s head slammed into the fireplace, the commotion of the fight faded. Snapper stepped out of the bedroom and the two of them ran for the door.

  Another dog came in to block their path—an intelligent dog, not a raging clone like the others.

  “Fowler!” Old-Timer roared.

  Chapter 23

  “I warned you this was going to happen, Trampler,” the sand-colored dog snarled. “You should have left those quarry sheep to their fate like I told you. When I report to the pig that you’re alive, he’ll send another wave. This won’t stop until you’re dead.”

  The old ram advanced. Snapper felt an icy shudder as his father seemed to visibly swell with rage. The great head ducked, red-stained horns near the floor.

  “My house!” Old-Timer bellowed. “My house, Fowler! MY SON!”

  Fowler turned to run, but a swift horn tripped up his back leg and his chin slammed on the concrete floor. Snapper averted his eyes as Old-Timer surged forward. When the young sheep looked back, he knew that Fowler would never get up again.

  Old-Timer jumped over the corpse and Snapper followed him into the front yard. The fires behind them illuminated the row of warthogs and fat city pigs in front of them. The city pigs looked positively gleeful, the warthogs bloodthirsty. Old-Timer leapt ahead of Snapper to charge through the line of pigs. As he drew near, they scattered.

  Snapper grinned, moving to follow his father through the gap in the line. But as he looked ahead, his stomach took a plunge. The pigs were not fleeing but parting.

  Old-Timer came to a dead stop when he saw the gigantic figure stepping over the property line. It was too far from the fire to be illuminated, but Snapper could tell that it was a pig standing on two legs. A pair of green eyes—a sicker, yellower green than the healing glow from Snapper’s eyes—glared down at Old-Timer. All Snapper could see other than that was a round body and a tiny, pink snout with curled, ivory tusks.

  The old ram cast a look back at Snapper. His eyes were hard and his teeth were set.

  “Run away, my son.”

  The calm finality of his tone brought another punch of terror to Snapper’s guts. Old-Timer tore past the line of pigs and ran headlong at the giant. The boy screamed for him to stop, but his father paid him no heed.

  Old-Timer’s horns never found their mark. He was caught, lifted off the ground by a pink hand. Snapper tried to run forward, but in his horror his knees gave out and he fell to the ground. This creature was massive. Unstoppable. And it had his father in its hands.

  The old, grey ram struck with horns and hooves, thrashing ineffectively in the air. He was lifted up to the pig’s face, near the tusks and pale green eyes. Snapper couldn’t see the mouth, but he knew this monstrous pig was smiling.

  The other pink hand grabbed one of Old-Timer’s horns. Snapper felt another twisting jolt in his stomach as he realized what was about to happen, but he could not make himself look away. As the towering pig held Old-Timer tight, it used the horn as a lever to wrench his head around. Too far.

  The lifeless body that had a second before been Snapper’s father dangled by a horn from the fat hand. The gigantic pig turned to leave. Snapper’s shaking eyes fixated on the retreating figure as grief and fear and rage threatened to tear his insides apart and spill him all over the ground. But he couldn’t move.

  “I trust you have things handled,” the giant’s low voice drawled to a fat city pig nearby.

  The little pig craned its head up and nodded. “Yes, sir. We’ll clean up from here.”

  “Alright. Bye, now.” The murderer vanished into the darkness along with Old-Timer’s remains.

  The warthogs moved toward the house as the city pigs withdrew. Snapper knew that they were coming to kill him and make sure every inch of their property was scorched bare. But the ability to run had been taken from him. He could only watch the beasts approach. The one nearest him salivated with bloodlust as it lowered its snout to skewer him on its tusks.

  But the warthog was hit first by something much more ferocious.

  Chapter 24

  Snapper scampered to one side as the warthog was tackled by a burly, white-chested brown dog. The muscular attacker pinned the pig to the ground and finished it off with a targeted bite.

  The young sheep staggered away from the new interloper, who made no effort to chase him down. The dog instead drove into another approaching warthog. Even so, Snapper turned away to look for an escape route. He could barely see through the smoke and tears irritating his eyes.

  An ear-shattering scream from above stunned Snapper into a standstill once again. A huge bird, bigger than any that Snapper had ever seen, dropped from the sky in a flash of amber wings and landed on the next pig about to reach him. Iron-black talons found the warthog’s heart.

  The great bird swiveled its head almost all the way around and found him. Snapper only saw its form in a blur, but the orange eyes looked almost demonic in the firelight. He felt panic rising in his chest at the sight of this hellish predator. Now he found the will to run. To his fright, he heard the beating of the huge wings. It was after him.

  He ran his hardest, but he was overtaken before he reached the fence. He screamed as the talons came down on both sides of him. But when they took hold of him, they did so without piercing. His feet left the ground, his body firmly grasped in the bird’s scaly toes. He kicked and bleated and thrashed with all his might.

  “Snapper,” the gentle voice above him entreated. “Please calm down. It’s alright.”

  The voice was so even, yet firm, that Snapper felt the fight leaving him. He bent his neck to look up at the bird holding him. This close, his raw eyes could see the face that gazed down at him with sadness and concern.

  “We haven’t seen each other since you were a lamb,” the owl said. “My name is Caper.”

  Snapper still shook from fear and grief but relaxed in the professor’s grip. The owl turned in a wide arc to pass near the burning house.

  “Be thorough!” Caper called out as he swooped low. “None of them can report what happened here!”

  Snapper was close enough now to see the muscular dog fighting off the last of the warthogs. He plowed through the invaders with a finesse and brutality that rivaled Old-Timer’s.

  “We’re leaving,” Caper said. He turned again to fly over the house, catching the column of hot air from the fire with his wings. The rising air pushed them up several hundred feet. “Boxer will finish off those thugs. No one will be coming after us, I assure you.”

  Chapter 25

 
; Snapper squinted to see through his swollen, stinging eyes. He had never seen the land from so high. Under cover of darkness, they flew over the lights and signs of Fleece City. Caper descended toward the ivy-covered stone walls of University.

  The cobblestone walls stood some thirty feet high, enclosing a carefully manicured courtyard and garden. Caper swooped into the courtyard, dropping Snapper gently on the lawn before landing beside him.

  “Did they hurt you, son?”

  Snapper shook his head. “No, they never laid a claw on me. My dad made sure they… My dad… He…”

  Snapper fell to his knees as the grief overwhelmed him. Wracked with sobs, he barely noticed the great feathers against his side as Caper put a wing around him.

  “It’s alright, Snapper,” the owl said, his own voice shaking. “You’re safe. That’s what he wanted more than anything.” He raised a foot and wiped his own eye. “Walk with me. We need to get out of sight. There may be more of those horrid birds nearby.”

  Snapper forced himself to his feet. He continued to weep and look at the ground as he walked, letting Caper’s wing around his shoulders guide him. The professor took him to the front of the lecture hall and pushed open a heavy double door made of wood and iron. After leading Snapper up a flight of stairs, Caper retrieved a ring of keys from his private office and opened a tiny bedroom further down the hall.

  “This is my guest room,” Caper said, motioning the sheep inside. “You’ll stay here until things calm down. I know isolation is not good for the grieving process, but you need to hide for the time being.”

  Snapper finally looked at him. “Why are you doing all this?”

  The old owl sighed. “It was arranged a long time ago. Your father knew he was not well regarded by the pigs. He asked me years ago to raise you if something happened to him.”

  “Did they kill him because of me?”

  Caper shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not.”

  “Then why?”

  “You will have that answer soon. For tonight, please try to sleep.”

  Snapper slowly pulled back the blankets on the tiny bed and climbed in, although they both knew he would not get any rest tonight. He rolled over and blankly regarded the owl. Caper stood in the doorway and stared back for a minute.

  “Snapper, I need you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t seek revenge. Your father’s greatest fear was that you would die in some fruitless rebellion against the pigs. Now more than ever, if you were to throw your life away like that, it would be an insult to his memory.”

  “OK. I promise.”

  Caper nodded and made his exit, switching off the light and slowly pulling the door closed. Snapper listened to the soft clicking of his talons against the tiled floor as he walked down the hall to his office.

  Lying on his side, Snapper closed his eyes and let the tears flow again. How could Caper ask him to sleep? He was never going to see his father again. How could he give a thought to his own needs? He was too sad, too scared, and the violent things he had seen tonight were too vivid in his mind.

  But other factors were taking their toll without his knowledge. This bed was soft, the room was pleasantly cool, a light rain had started to patter against the windowpane, and Snapper was drained of energy from the night’s events. He would never know how sleep ever found him that night, but it did.

  ✽✽✽

  Old-Timer and his young son circled each other in the living room, playfully trading fake charges, feints, and light head-butts.

  Tiny Snapper lowered his head and rushed at his father, pushing his forehead into the rough, warm wool of the ram’s side and shoulder. With exaggerated grunts and growls, he tried in vain to push Old-Timer over.

  The old man laughed and scooped the little boy off the floor with the crook of his horn. Snapper squirmed to get free, tumbling over and landing in a ball of laughter on the rug.

  “No fair with the horns!” Snapper said, still giggling. “Just wait until I get horns too—then you’re going to have to watch out!”

  The old man went quiet.

  Concerned he had said something wrong, Snapper scooted along the floor on his bottom until he was close to his father. “Are you OK, Dad?”

  “Yeah, Son.” Old-Timer blinked. “I’m sorry. Maybe we shouldn’t wrestle anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think you’ll be growing any horns, Son. And I want you to know you can be perfectly happy without them. That’s all.”

  “Oh, I see. But why should I be happy about that?”

  “Because…” Old-Timer sighed. “There’s not much place in the world for horns these days.”

  “OK, I’m a dog instead! I’m going to bite you!”

  Old-Timer chuckled. “Son, you’re missing the point. Fighting does not help anything. Not anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “We just don’t fight these days. You don’t need to be a dog. And you don’t need horns, alright? Ever.”

  “OK, Dad. No horns ever.”

  ✽✽✽

  Chapter 26

  “Well, here you all are,” Professor Caper addressed the class of some fifty young sheep. “You made it through primary school, and now you sit in your first day of University classes. The fast track to success. Here you’ll learn things about the world you never even guessed. We’ll discover new ways to think and new ways to navigate this society of ours. You’ll join that most valuable class of sheep, the graduates. The pigs will smile on you and give you the most lucrative careers. Paths that you never knew existed will open to you.”

  He lifted a foot to pick up a piece of chalk. “Let us begin. I’ll open with the one topic you’ve all been dying to learn about since you received your acceptance letters.” The students leaned forward with anticipation as he started writing in his large, flowery script.

  THE CANINE-AVIAN WAR.

  Caper cracked a private grin as he watched the collective slump of disappointment. No one dared sigh or say a word, which made him want to laugh. The alumni had a long-standing story they told incoming students: Caper’s vision was so sharp that he knew exactly what each student was doing at all times in his lecture hall. For that reason, he very much enjoyed the freshman classes. They sat quiet, nervous, almost rapt.

  “I know you’re all sick to death of hearing about the War,” he continued. “But since that’s all the history you’ve been taught, we’ve got to start there to have a reasonable foundation. I promise, you’re going to enjoy this. Now, who wants to give me a little summary of what you learned at the primary school?”

  A few cloven hoofs timidly rose into the air. Caper ignored them. His eyes drifted up and scanned the assembly.

  ✽✽✽

  Even now, the sights and sounds and smells of that night invaded his thoughts. The acrid stench of the burning home. The screams of the cloned attackers as they fell to his father’s horns. The sounds their bodies made as he beat them against the walls and floor. The flares and the smoke. The oddly knowing look on Old-Timer’s face before he charged at the beast that killed him.

  Snapper had thought for a long time about that look on Old-Timer’s face. It was as if his father had known exactly what was going to happen. As if he knew he couldn’t possibly win against that pig.

  That giant pig. Those yellow-green eyes. That sneering smile. And that low voice, sickeningly pleasant, singsong in its delivery.

  Bye, now. That’s what it had said.

  Three months since that night. Ninety days. Ninety times that monstrous pig had visited him in his nightmares. He was no longer sure if his memory was accurate, or if his terror and the incessant dreams had warped his recollection of the actual event.

  If only Caper had talked to him during the summer instead of shutting him in that room and keeping him at arm’s length, maybe he would know more about—

  “Snapper.”

  The young sheep’s gaze whipped to the front of the
room. He felt his cheeks warming. “Yes, sir.”

  “How about you?” Caper’s cheeks crept up in an unmistakable grin.

  “Uh…” Snapper glanced around. Several students were looking in his direction. “How about I… do what?”

  “Come up here, please.”

  Snapper heard muffled snickering as he stood up and made his way down to the front of the room. On the way, he passed by Swifter, who ignored him.

  Reaching the lectern, Snapper kept his gaze on the floor. His face and guts burned. NOW you can’t leave me alone? he wanted to rage.

  Caper smirked at him. “Your reputation for not paying attention in class precedes you. I’m told that none of the students in your year know the primary school’s version of history better than you do. Why don’t you sum it up for us?”

  Snapper shifted his weight. “Uh… sure. I can do that.” He swallowed the hot wrath and cast his thoughts back to the final exam he had taken just a few months earlier.

  The same day. I took that exam and my dad was dead ten hours later. With a massive effort, he pushed that thought away.

  “Nothing important happened in history until about fifty years ago,” he said haltingly. “Before then, dogs were savages and birds had no humility to temper their intelligence.”

  Snapper glanced over at Caper. The owl offered no response, which annoyed the young sheep further.

  “Sheep were seen as ideal physical laborers. We’re strong, hardy, and have thick skulls. But sheep were cowardly and their minds were weak. They were easily controlled by whoever could intimidate them. Sheep slaves built the shrines to Optera up in the mountains, and to Karkus in the volcanic hotspot underneath Fleece City.

  “When iron and gold were discovered fifty years ago in the ravine near the ocean, dogs and birds both got greedy. They dug it into a quarry, and they both tried to take full control over sheep to make use of these new resources. The birds said they would manage sheep labor more efficiently. But, of course, the dogs went straight to violence. The birds were forced to respond in kind, and the Canine-Avian war broke out. Most sheep didn’t fight, but the horned rams took sides.”