It was summer and that meant heat, the kind of heat that kept men and women in the shade. That didn’t keep the kids from running about though. Boys will be boys the adults thought as five tore through the seaside village of Eastover, each within a year of their 9th summer, all in various cuts of cotton smocks and leather sandals. This was not a gang, and the lead runner was not the leader, he was the prey of a pack on his heels. Boys will be boys, especially if one isn’t quite the same.

“Darkie! Darkie!” The chant followed like howls. The lead shortened and the boy, bigger than the others, and many shades darker, knew it was almost over. He wouldn’t make it easy though. He was strong but not stronger than the four of them. Finally, the fall came, a slipping of his sandals against a slippery mass on the ground.

“Great I’m going to get beaten thanks to dog shit,” he thought. He was already pushing himself up when the hands shoved him back down.

“Damn Darkie! Think you can just walk around here like you’re one of us!?” That was Miles. All of them were sun dark though Miles less so. In a town of fishermen, his father owned a store and he worked inside a lot. He added a stomp to the fallen boy’s thigh, where a bruise wouldn’t usually show which also kept him from getting up. Miles continued, “Your kind owe us, owe us for making this place civilized so that animals like you have a home!” Big words for a child. Caliph thought he heard the boy copying his father in those words.

Caliph’s scream was swallowed under the growl that formed in him. The boy named Noel, he was tall, paused and when he did the prey put a heel to the squash and potatoes. Tears formed as Noelstumbled back guarding his groin too late. The fallen boy, his skin not tanned but as black as rich loam tried to stand or grab a leg but the kick came to his stomach. It was pulled but just a little. He felt the growl form on his lips and around his fangs that just went past his lips.

Now a kick came to his upper arm, the left one on which he had already broken his fall. They knew how much punishment he could take from repeated practice. They knew how to keep him down and how to keep away once he was down. Still, he wasn’t helpless. He rolled fast and brought his elbow down fast striking the youngest boy, Sean, Miles’ first lieutenant. His toe made a sound and that would swell. Boys will be boys.

The dark-skinned boy now got both his legs grabbed and they began to spin him. They felt like playing today and for them, the real fun began. It took a long time before the dark boy began to go numb, going through the pain to somewhere else. He knew they would stop this side of permanent injury. He knew they would intend to. He knew that boys made mistakes.

It was later, the sun was much further in the sky. The boy awoke and favored his right leg as he walked. It was just pain. He knew it well enough to know it would pass only to return when they caught him again. The path home seemed long though the shore was only half a mile away. As he approached the cabin he smelled the smoke, the fish his father was preparing for sale.

“Caliph! Boy!” The voice rang harsh, angry at his son being late but the face softened as the boy’s pace quickened making the youngster’s awkward gait more obvious as he hurried.

“Shades of damnation, they got you good huh.” The man with leathery skin, long accustomed to salt spray, turned into the cottage. “Come on.” Over the mantle was a jar. It was white clay, and the mouth showed signs of being resealed many times with beeswax. “Show me” was all he said, the boy took off his smock, pointing to where the bruises didn’t appear against his dark skin. Salve was applied and the jar was put back. The older man found a simple corked bottle and two tin cups. He splashed a dash of amber liquid in one and much more in the other. He handed the lighter cup to the boy.

“Rum?”

“Good spiced stuff, off the savages on the Arund Isles. They’re beasts but make damn fine drink.”

“You sure?”

“If you’re old enough to take a beating without complaint you’re old enough for at least a mouthful.”

They sat in silence for a bit. The rum burned his throat and he felt the salve heating his muscles and numbing them.

The boy said, “We need to get the boat ready. The catch won’t catch itself.” It was something his dad liked to say.

“You rest. I’ll handle it.”

“No sir, I can do my part.” He worried about his father who was getting old, already humans seemed frail to him but he loved his paps more than he words for. Father and son then went out and headed towards the sunset for the evening fish. Later his mother would come home. She would mother him, kiss him and worry over every bruise. She would be mad and want to confront Miles’ parents but the boy wouldn’t tell her who had done it. His father never asked and like his father he knew it wouldn’t matter. While his father was night fishing she would make the boy tea and he would make dinner, then they would read together and fall asleep. And everything would be all right.

Five years later.

It was Fall, the last day of the seasonal market, festival day, and his father had given Caliph a fist full of coins after all the goods sold. The girl had fiery hair which the teen Caliph had never seen before. She must have come in with family for the festival from another town. She didn’t seem all that bright but was beautiful and seemed to like a bit of rough all of which fit the half-born just fine. His father watched from the other side of the market. The market festival was a good time for love, spiritual and physical. Then they came up. The boys were older now too and used to using words rather than fists, more of was expected of them after all. They were the sons of the finer gentlemen in town and they still moved as a pack who spotted their favorite prey.

The dark-skinned boy was taller now, heavier, and beginning to show the shape of a man just at fifteen winters. He had taken to carrying a small hatchet with him under his jacket, a light thing that in his hands could still split wood as easily as crush bones. He felt a need to stand extra firm in front of this girl. Caliph tensed and time seemed to stop but in a moment the boys left, laughing, heading towards a knot of girls that made tastier prey. Caliph turned back to the girl and she took his hand as he leaned into her ear. She smiled and followed him into the woods. Caliph thought this snow skin girl was beautiful but he thought of the boys and he didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed.

Hours later, night had fallen and it was dark. Caliph came in from the dark carrying chopped wood. He emptied the split logs from his arms and refilled the wood bin before sitting in the chair on the other side of the fireplace from his father. He sat a few moments before his father spoke.

“You’re madder than sumthin’ else.”

Caliph grunted a response, half confirmation, half dismissal. His fangs were longer now and a lot of words sounded like growls even when he didn’t try to make them sound like that. He leaned over and picked splinters off the wood. His father continued.

“You’re good’un wit the axes. You keep them sharper than a monk keeps his balls clean. Hell, I’ve seen you fillet a fish with an axe just cause you didn’t want to fetch a knife. This...” he threw the splinter at his son “is sloppy. And you ain’t barely said nothing since we got back.”

That made the boy smile, just a bit. “I was just wondering about mum.”

“Ah. I saw you at the market. That girl, those boys. I thought it was about that.”

“Naw, not exactly.”

“Did you, she,...”

“Gentleman doesn’t tell. But no, I’m no looking to get betrothed just yet.”

“You always liked them silver piece words. I’m glad you got book learning.”

“They were trying to get a rise outta me. I brushed it off but thought about it later. I guess it’s festerin’ in me now.”

“Then let it out boy.”

“Miles, the shop keep’s son. He called mum a whore, said his pa told him about it.”

“His old man should keep his pecker out of whores and his tongue in his mouth more. Your maw wasn’t a bed warmer, not that there’s anything wrong with that if it comes to it, but she wasn’t. Fact is old man Hightower once offered her coin to warm his and your maw slapped him so hard he had to tell his wife he got in a fistfight to explain the bruises. It wasn’t no one time slap, she sent his fool ass back and forth. Your maw was a dancer and singer, world and book smart. She was hot-tempered too, comes from being thrice blooded. She said I calmed her down, hopefully, passed some of that onto you.

“I try, sir.”

“I know ya do. But yeah, she danced and sang, might as well have, she knew shit all about being a fisherman’s wife. So, she worked in town at the inn. She may not have taken to fishing but once you was born it was like motherin’ was something she knew perfectly though I only let her cook twice.”

“So, she didn’t?”

“Let’s be clear boy, nothing wrong with surviving whether it’s with your hands, your mind, or what’s ‘tween your legs. She didn’t but that shouldn’t rile you up. I’m not saying that before we wedded she didn’t get to know a few folks but nothing wrong with that. Maybe even accepted a few gifts. But she had pride your mum, the kinda strong pride that means she’d never take coin to do something just for coin. She woulda starved first. Course Hightower also probably thinks his wife was a virgin on their eve. I know at least three fellows that warmed her up.”

The boy grinned. “Were you one of them?”

It was his father’s turn to grin, “A gentleman doesn’t tell.”

It was silent for a while before he said something. “I still miss her Dad.”

His father rocked in his chair. “Me too, boy.”

“The priest said the pain would go away but it’s there. It don’t think it will go away.”

“Priests don’t know shit boy. If they did they wouldn’t be taken vows of chastity and poverty. Nobody in their right mind don’t own nothing on purpose.”

“After he said those things, I thought about finding Miles, feeding him his teeth.”

“Well, best you didn’t.”

“So, you wouldn’t?”

“Honest? At your age I’d have left him beaten in the dust. As it was I thought going over there and beatin’ him today when I saw him and his little tag alongs.”

“Mum wouldn’t have approved.”

“No, she was hot-headed, passionate but believe’n in words to fix things.”

“You don’t?”

“I’ve not seen the sea be real talkative when tryin’ drown me or convince fish into the nets.”

“People aren’t fish pops.”

“Fair enough but mores the pity, at least you’d know what you’re dealing with. The sea isn’t cruel, it just don’t care and it’s honest about it. I think that’s a good thing, to know where you stand with something.”

“Mom cared about everyone.”

“Well, ‘less they pissed her off, and even then she’d sometimes soften on them. She tried to see how things could be and tried to make them like that. ‘Fact, did I ever tell you about your name?”

“Just that it’s a foreign word, from the south lands.”

“Yeah, I should’ve said more though. I guess I always figured your maw did or would.”

Silence came again but the half-orc Caliph knew his father was lost in thought. Sure enough, he started again.

“She went there once before we met. She said it was a great place. Orcs lived in cities and didn’t have to live in tribes out in the wild. She said caliph was their word for king and no one cared what her blood was, only what she did. So she named you Caliph, to remind you that there are places where a half-blood can be a king.”

Silence fell again and Caliph got out the rum glasses. They didn’t talk anymore that night but they listened to the sea.

5 years later

The priest spoke, spoke of marrying the dead man and his departed wife. Old Woman Edith spoke of his kindness. Maria, his sister, spoke of family fights and warm cider on cold nights. Eastover wasn’t a large town but they turned out to say goodbye. One person called him an old soul. Caliph thought it was wrong. His father’s soul was neither new nor old, it was a part of the sea that became stranded on land. Like seawater in cupped hands no matter how tight those fingers clenched eventually it had to run back.

Caliph was the son, firstborn, only born, closest kin left. It came to be his turn, the final words, and Caliph turned to the hundred-odd folk who had turned up.

“My father didn’t like to use words where silence would do. I’m not much of one for words either but one of my earliest memories is of being on the sea with him and he would sing. Every song he knew was a song of the sea - of sailors, fishermen or tradesmen or fishwives and every song was sad, somber, and beautiful. My best memories are of my mother singing. My parents often sang but never together, they lived together and apart at the shoreline. They listened to each other frequently. I remember her singing this song and in her it was bouncy and light and when I heard my father sing it ... I’m going to sing it now like he did. Anyone wants to join me, do so - a sea song is meant to be shared.”