by R. Lee Smith
Nona sat up, automatically pulling the coarse pelt higher over her shoulders. Her feet poked out on the other end, letting all the winter wind in to bite her. It was some little while before she could nod and mean it. In the meantime, the wolf just watched her. The growl of his voice could have belonged to anyone, but she knew him. Broad through the shoulders and lean at the hips, with wolf-gold eyes and all-black fur, except for the white crescent-shaped patch on his neck that marked him as the one who’d found her broken knife, and the hottie all the lycan ladies had been sighing over earlier.
When Nakaroth saw recognition in her, he pulled himself upright into a hunker. It was a strangely graceful movement. Beyond him, another hide-covered lump meant Heather was sleeping already, and beyond her, dozens more wolves lay around the clearing. Most were Fringe-wolves, huddled together for warmth with the most important among them at their center, but a few were wolves of some rank. Low, for the most part, as Nona understood the hierarchy here, but still with rank. And then there was Nakaroth, second only to Lord Kruin himself, sleeping outside in the cold.
“Don’t you have a den of your own?” Nona asked.
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you in it?”
He tipped his head. Moonlight slanted down, frosting his features, showing her his amusement. “There are others here with dens. They are not in them, either.”
She started to ask if he’d follow his packmates off a bridge, too, but didn’t, first because it was rude as double-dipped hell, especially considering the position she was in, and then because she realized he was actually answering her question. He wasn’t following the crowd, he was protecting the humans who slept so trustingly among wolves in the lean of winter. She scowled, her hand stealing beneath the edge of the fur she used for a mattress to grip the haft of her broken knife. “I can take care of myself.”
“My chief would rather not lose even a fool.”
“I said, I can take care of myself!”
“Perhaps I should speak plainer. My chief would rather not lose even a foolish wolf.” Nakaroth’s body uncoiled in that shadowy, graceful way to come another few inches closer. He glanced up the slope at the cliffs, pitted with the open mouths of many caves. “You would be more comfortable, I think, in a den.”
If there was anything more miserable than sleeping out in the open like this, it was sleeping in a dark, wet cave full of bats and smelling like wet werewolf.
“Were you to ask our chief,” Nakaroth prodded, “perhaps he would allow you and your pack a place in his den.”
“He’s not my lord. I appreciate what he’s doing for us,” she added tightly, “but he’s not my lord and I’m not going to lie and tell him what he wants to hear just so I can sleep in a cave.”
Nakaroth’s head cocked the other way. “He does not want to hear lies.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant…” What did she mean? Or was she just being a bitch for no goddamn good reason? Again.
Nona cupped her hands over her mouth, stalling by breathing warmth onto her fingers, hoping he’d take the hint and go away.
“I think it is difficult for you to be here,” the lycan said after a while.
Nona huffed out a breath that did not know whether it was a snort of anger or of humor.
“I think you have always run alone.”
“You think you know me pretty damn well, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah? And what else do you know?”
He reached out and scratched a claw across the ground. Not just the ground—the dark stain where that big yellow bastard had stood dripping his disgusting handful of intestines and kidneys. “I think this made you angry.”
She laughed, a real laugh this time. “Wow, you got a real eye for details, don’t you? I hid it so well.”
“It made you angry because you were hungry.”
Nona stopped laughing.
“It made you angry because you have always fed yourself. And now you can’t. You don’t know how. Now, when you have others to feed.”
She looked at the fire.
“It made you angriest because Vru knew all these things also, but he did not feed you to make you welcome. He fed you to make you grateful.”
“I’m overwhelmed by your insight,” Nona said as sarcastically as she could. Her voice only shook a little. She disguised it with a shiver. It was cold. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want you grateful.”
She looked at him, realized what a mistake that was, and stared grimly at the fire.
“So I think it is difficult for you to be here,” Nakaroth continued, raking his claws across the stained earth and giving his hand a shake to clean them. “As it is always difficult, when one runs alone, to be taken in, to be one among many. But this is High Pack.”
“And I should be glad I’m here?” Nona guessed and mentally cursed herself for the bitchy sneer she heard in her voice. Of course she should be glad and yet here she was, saying, “I should be home, that’s where I should be. I shouldn’t be having to deal with any of this. And I definitely shouldn’t have to deal with—”
But there, she belatedly managed to shut the hell up, although she couldn’t quite stop herself from looking at Leila and Heather beside her. She shook her head, rubbing the feeling back into her wind-chapped face, knowing Nakaroth had seen the glance and probably knew the resentful thought behind it. “It should not be me,” she said, without bile this time, without much of any kind of emotion. “It should be anyone but me. I’m not good with people.”
“You have done well by your pack.”
She would have laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “No. I haven’t.”
“You have brought them here. We were, many of us, travelers when we came to High Rock. See me,” he said, with quiet intensity. “I am a wolf of Dark Water. I came to the Fringes in my running days. I was brought in to be a low wolf. I am second now. Look and see Low River, Snow Peak, Smoke Run, Sky Hunter, Thousand Falls. See every pack, in all our thousands, come together as one here at High Rock. You are not the first to be taken in.”
“I never thought I was.”
“You are not the first human,” he amended and watched her face intently. He must have liked the reaction she struggled not to show, because he smiled and came even closer. “There was another before you. Not long ago. She lived among us to buy peace between her land and ours. You are not even the only humans dwelling among lycan at this moment, for there is one among Sliver Moon Pack, though she is only a cub. But you will be the first to truly join High Pack.”
“I’m not joining you.”
“Ah yes. You are leaving in the spring.” Nakaroth scratched at the white mark on this throat. “And where will you go?”
He wanted her to say home again, back to Earth, so he could ask her how she planned to get there. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Lifting her chin (his gaze dropped to her throat), she said, “Wherever I want to.”
“Brave words.” Nakaroth glanced over his shoulder at Heather. “Will you take these with you?”
The thought filled her with despair and she tried to swallow it, hating herself for the feeling. “They’re my friends.”
“No,” said Nakaroth, without venom. “They are your pack and you are their chief. They would follow you, even were you to leave this instant. But winter has only just begun. It is a dangerous time.”
“Are there ever any safe ones here?”
“No.” He looked back at her again, flashing his fangs in one of his unsettling smiles. Nakaroth got up, came forward, hunkered down. He was close enough now for her to feel the heat of his body, to smell the animal scent of him. “Not for one alone in this land. Not even for two, especially two so new to it.”
Two, he said. Not three.
Nona looked down at Leila.
So did Nakaroth, after a moment. His ears lowered slightly. He moved some of Leila’s hair, then arranged her furs higher around her neck. The rhythm of Leila’s shallow
, labored breaths did not change, not even when Nakaroth pulled back the wrapping on her hand to look at the herby mess packing the wound. “Does she need anything?”
“She seems pretty comfortable right now. Kruin’s, um, one of his…you know. Lady friends or…?”
Nakaroth merely waited, offering no suggestions.
“Whatever,” mumbled Nona. “Sangar. Sangar gave her some tea that she said would help her sleep and it clearly did.”
“Sangar. Kruin.” His ears tipped forward. “Speak my name.”
“Nakaroth,” she said guardedly. She was sure that was it…wasn’t it?
He grinned his wolfish grin, sharp teeth shining.
“Isn’t that right?”
“The right sounds in the right order. You say them oddly.”
Heat crawled up the sides of her face. She didn’t have to ask what he meant by that, but how was she supposed to talk like a damned wolf? “Say my name, then,” she challenged.
“Nona.”
Damn it. He said it just fine.
“Good enough, I guess,” she muttered.
“It is a pack-name. Our lord’s mother was named Nona.”
Nona frowned, suspicious of this information and its source. “Kruin didn’t say anything like that.”
“He may have forgotten. Kruin is High Pack born and the wolf in them is strong. The wolves of Dark Water do not forget so easily.” Nakaroth stood. “Walk with me.”
“Hell, no. I mean, no thanks. Why?”
He nodded at the hollow horn lying close to Leila’s hand. “Pain is a thirsty thing. Let me show you where to draw your water for drinking.” He paused. His smile widened. “Or would you like your water brought to you?”
She managed to shut her mouth before it got her into trouble, but couldn’t keep the fuck-you out of her eyes, apparently, because his tail wagged once, lazily.
“Fine. Sure.” Nona adjusted Leila’s furs, then got up. She put her knife in her pocket, then took her shoes away from the fire and put them on. Toasty-warm. Picking up the horn, she said, “Heather, you awake?”
Nakaroth looked in that direction.
“No,” Heather mumbled. “And I don’t care where the water is.”
Nakaroth returned his level stare to Nona.
“Now I’m definitely not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m not leaving my friends alone here.”
Nakaroth glanced at two of the nearby lycan, who, although they had seemed to be sound asleep, both promptly sat up and assumed watchful postures.
“Telash and Metaka,” said Nakaroth. “Strong wolves. Aces, blooded and scarred. They killed many men.” He glanced at the other, more distant lycan. “They will not hesitate to kill a dog.” He looked calmly back at Nona as wolfish silhouettes faded even further into the shadows. “Your pack is safe under their watch. Come.”
Nona followed him away from the clearing and into the woods. There was a path, narrow but deep, and he stayed to it. Her footsteps crunched over winter branches frosted brittle. His were silent.
“If you planned this to get me alone so you can tell me how bad Leila’s hand is, I already know,” she said.
“Good.” He walked a while in silence, then said, conversationally, “What is your way of honoring the dead?”
The wind gusted, freezing her to the bone. She hugged herself, suppressing a shiver, and stared straight ahead. “What’s yours?”
“We give ours to the land. We howl their loss and burn meat in friendship to Anu, who takes their souls across the river.”
“Good enough.”
Nakaroth nodded. He eyed her hands, rubbing up and down on her sweater-clad arms. “You’re cold.”
She stopped rubbing and put her arms at her sides. “So?”
“Coverings could be made.”
“I don’t have anything to make them with yet. As soon as I do—” I’ll magically figure out how. “—I’ll do something about it then,” she finished, as much to shut up that laughing inner voice as the wolf walking beside her.
“You were given furs.”
“I’m not cutting them up. I have to give them back.”
That seemed to genuinely surprise him. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? They’re not mine!”
“Mika gave them to you. They are yours.”
“Yeah, right! She made those, you know! And she said her dad killed most of the animals they came from. She worked on them for ‘a thousand moons’. She didn’t give them to me so I could cut them up.”
He studied her from the corner of one gold eye and finally said, “These are human ways. They are not ours. You have much to learn.”
“I don’t have to. I’m not going to be here long enough. Anyway, ask her,” she challenged. “Tell her I want to take a knife to all those pelts she worked so hard on and ask her—”
“I will not insult her. As you insult her,” he continued calmly, “to suggest she is a selfish, deceitful, greedy bitch who gives only to take back.”
Her face burned. “I’m not saying that at all.”
“Then take what she has given you. Use her gift to warm your people. Let all eyes see you find them fine and worthy.”
“Yeah, right. Because my opinion matters so fucking much. I’m sorry,” she said immediately, disgusted with herself. “I’m grateful. I swear I am. I’m not really angry. Not at you, anyway. It’s just…I can take care of myself. I can!” she insisted when he looked at her.
“You could,” he corrected severely. “On Earth. But this is Arcadia and you cannot survive here without help.”
She opened her mouth to ask him what in the hell made him think she needed to justify herself to him in any way and instead heard herself say, “My mother has lived her entire life using everyone she ever met, including me. Especially me. Her idea of heaven was someone else taking care of her. You can say what you want about how I’m being stupid and stubborn, but if that’s what it takes to survive, I’d rather die.”
She thought he’d laugh at her or roll his eyes or whatever the werewolf expression of smirking disgust was, but he didn’t. He only listened and when he said, “I think I understand,” she thought he really did. He didn’t approve, but he understood and for now, he let her have it.
They walked without speaking down the muddy path through dead trees. Nona’s shoes crunched and splashed and slogged their way along, losing their comfortable roasted heat and taking in the sting of icy water until her toes numbed over. She’d walked like this for weeks, but today, it didn’t seem so bad. Just knowing there’d be a rest soon and a fire by which to dry herself out helped. She found herself relaxing, almost against her will, in Nakaroth’s quiet company.
It shouldn’t be so easy, she told herself. When she stole glances his way, she saw fur shining black and thick over a body that was almost, but not quite, human. She saw feet that were nearly paws, and claws capping his essentially normal, if furry, hands. She saw a wolf on two legs. She saw a fairy tale monster that no young girl should ever, ever let walk her through the woods alone.
As these thoughts chased each other through her mind, Nakaroth, without warning, reached out and stroked one hand down her arm, tugging up the sleeve to look at her scratches in the instant before she yanked away.
“Has Sangar seen those?”
“Yes and they’re fine,” she said through clenched teeth.
He uttered that woofing little canine laugh—just a low pant of steam issuing through his knowing smile—but didn’t argue. Instead, he said, “I have killed fellcats,” and tapped the tooth slung around his own neck.
“Congratulations. Am I supposed to be impressed?”
He shrugged. “They are dangerous even for many wolves to hunt. Your kill had courage. I am impressed.”
His praise, however casually spoken, unnerved her. She didn’t reply.
“There.” Nakaroth pointed beyond the woods, into a second clearing. There was a small pond here, iced over for the season. One edge was rumpled w
here the ice had been broken and frozen again many times. A tall rock cliff half-enclosed the pond, emitting a small trickle of water and a thousand icicles. “It is clean,” the lycan beside her said. “You may drink directly from the rock without fear.”
“Thanks.”
“To my knowledge, it is the only source of such water. All the rest must be boiled.”
“We’ll be fine. We have a pan,” she said, and looked around as though the cast-iron skillet would appear, floating in the air, to back her up. “I…I guess we lost it.” She couldn’t even remember when. She only knew that it had been so heavy, every day, just a little heavier. And then one day, she’d realized it wasn’t there anymore. But of course, the lycan had found them soon after that. Very soon. “I’m surprised you didn’t find it when you were tracking us.”
“I did.”
She blinked at him. “Why didn’t you bring it back?”
“I do not need it. And you did not seem to need it.”
Fair enough. What else was he supposed to think when she’d left it like that? Still, it annoyed her.
“I could smell blood on it,” he said, watching her face closely. “Human blood.”
Nona shrugged. “It was all I had at the moment.”
“Your first kill, then?”
“Yeah. Or…no. I’m not sure. There were three of them in that first group. I know what order I hit them, but I’m not sure which one actually died first.”
And why did she say that? What did it matter? And now she could almost smell it again, burning meat and hot lard. She could hear the gargling, sizzling sound it made…but yes. Yes, she was pretty sure it was the one she’d hit with the pan that died first.
“Can you use a stone-thrower?” Nakaroth asked.
The change in questioning threw her. “A what?”
He raised his arm and drew back the other, miming the shooting of a bow.
“No,” said Nona, bewildered. “Why?”
“It is a human weapon.”
Suspicion gnawed at her again. “What do you want with human weapons?”
“I?” He barked laughter, then stepped swiftly in front of her and stopped, leaning in close. “What need have I for stone-throwers? Ha! Or for the guns of Earth? These are my weapons.” He gestured to his wolfish smile with a curled, yet open hand, showing off fangs and claws together before tapping at his forehead. “And this, ha. My greatest weapon. I need no others. But you, you have only one tooth, and it is broken.”