Page 31 of The Shape of my Scar
They made their way back to the homestead. A family of deer stopped grazing and watched their progress with wariness in their glittering brown eyes. In the distance, there was a lone, blinking red light which marked the beginning of the electrified fence.
From here, you could see the property for what it was on paper—a registered rare breed preservation site. An effort, supposedly, to conserve and study the behavioural ecology of feral pigs. Grants had been approved and academic types from the University of Leeds had visited once or twice. The right photos had been taken. The fact-finding groups visited twice a year.
And yet…
Out in the wilderness section of the estate, behind two layers of reinforced fencing, a sounder of wild pigs roamed. Not your pink, lazy barnyard lot, though they were no less clever. These were feral, muscle-packed creatures, with bristled coats, sharp eyes, and tusks like knives. These were the creatures the Romans had hunted.
They ate everything, bone included. All they left behind were teeth and hair.
It was useful.
Zel had once joked that Maro should charge for “body disposal services.”
Maro didn’t laugh. He just replied with a straight face, “Teeth burn hotter if you grind ‘em first.”
The pigs didn’t bother him, though. That had taken some doing.
He’d raised half the current lot from piglets, bottle-fed the dominant sows during a hard winter, dragged in half-butchered deer carcasses, and bled out a trafficker once in the clearing while they watched. All the while, he made eye contact, establishing dominance. He never said it was about trust, but the pigs treated him like some grim god they did not like to anger. They never charged him, never challenged him. Even the biggest sow, a barrel-shaped beast with half an ear missing, stepped aside when he entered the enclosure.
Zel once saw him walk straight through the centre of a grunting mob, and every last pig parted like the Red Sea.
“They’re smart, social creatures.,” Maro said once. “Good at hidin’ and workin’ together. They have a hierarchy, and it starts at the tit, like a pack. Remind you of anyone?”
Zel muttered, “Yeah, us…but with more manners.”
Feral pigs, especially in a place like this, weren’t just livestock. They were backup plans, insurance policies. If something needed vanishing, Maro’s clearing was where it went.
And if someone got cocky enough to go snooping past the main fences?
Well…
Woe upon the fool who backs a feral pig into a corner.
The rich and savoury smell hit them before they even opened the front door.
Slow-cooked and heavy with garlic, the shoulder roast was ready. Thane had started it that morning, browning the meat like a quiet ritual, layering root vegetables with precision, checking the simmer regularly, as if it were a bomb with a timer.
By dusk, the pot roast was perfect—meat falling apart under the weight of a fork, broth thick and dark, carrots and potatoes soaking up every drop of spice.
They ate at the rustic table in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up. Just steam rising in the glow of warm overhead lights and the occasional grunt of appreciation. A bottle of whisky from the hidden cabinet sat in the middle.
Maro licked his thumb. “Better than that shit we had last week.”
“That wasyourcooking,” Thane said.
“Exactly.”
Zel sopped up the last of his gravy with a chunk of bread. “Keep this up and you’ll make some lucky dame a good wife.”
Thane didn’t even look up. “Stop being a misogynist fart.”
They all laughed—dry, tired chuckles—but none had forgotten those times of hunger which lived in their bones. They remembered too well what starving had felt like: rib-thin, shivering through winter, chewing stale bread in silence. Lirian used to hoard sugar packets under his pillow. Maro once hid meat in the lining of his coat. Zel went to the other extreme, counting every calorie out loud until Thane had to stage an intervention.
They didn’t joke about it much; they also didn’t talk about it.
After dishes were cleared and the fire in the living room crackled, they settled in the living room.
Lirian kicked his boots up onto the edge of the table. “We’ve got a window now. The warehouse meet-up is in forty-eight hours.”
