by R. Lee Smith
15. The Song Of Endings
That night was the worst in all Kruin’s years of memory, worse than that first empty night after Ruaknar took High Pack’s females and cubs away to die with him, worse than taking little Cham’s gored and lifeless body away from howling Tan, worse than walking alone back to his den after his betrayal of trusting Taryn. He could not say just why, either. He had heard the screams of human agony as he waited with his pack in the woods and they had chilled him, but he had heard suffering before. He didn’t know why it should feel so terrible to return once quiet resumed, only that it did.
He passed the pond on the way to High Rock and there encountered Nona, washing her face and hands over and over while Nakaroth crouched beside her. Wide-eyed, stone-faced, her skin blue with cold, and she, still washing, oblivious to Nakaroth’s presence until he put a hand on her, whereupon she lashed out, slapping and snarling and shoving him away, only to drop again to her knees and plunge her arms back through the ice into the freezing water, washing.
Kruin went to her, but had not reached her when she swung on him and asked whether the blood and the noise would bring wyverns. Her voice was too calm, almost enough to indicate disinterest, but it was her eyes that held him. They were eyes that stared through him and a thousand leagues on, to the skies, to the stars hiding beyond the curtain of day, to the song of Endless pouring down from its making-place in the heavens, to the empty wastes of Nothing that lay beyond.
“High Pack protects its own,” he told her.
She did not answer, only stared at him, flinching now and then with the force of her thoughts, then leapt up and ran for High Rock with Nakaroth right behind her.
Kruin followed, and there, he had been surprised to see that Leila yet lived.
Barely.
Her dark skin, which had been so radiant with fever, had been bled to the color of weathered wood. She, too, had been washed, and the stone she lay on scrubbed clean, but the stink of blood and burnt meat and death hung over her still. It came from the bandages wrapping the hewn half-limb of her arm. It came from her breath as she moaned and wept endlessly. It came out of her very pores.
A terrible night.
Heather, hysterical after mere minutes in the company of this wailing, thrashing, mutilated thing, fled into the woods and Kruin had to witness the hungry leap of wolves attempting to follow, had to order them back, and then order Burgash to hold watch over the human because he knew some would not obey him. Leila wept and moaned and screamed herself hoarse, struggling weakly when Sangar tried to give her healing aids, and the sound of her dry, anguished wails drove every wolf one by one from the clearing…all but those who saw Leila helpless and insensible and Nona naked under her flimsy fur wrap. And so Kruin had to hold a watch, hating the males who necessitated it, hating himself for ruling a pack in which such wolves could be welcome, and listening to Leila’s pain bore itself into his brain like beetles until he was only watching for Nona to sleep so that he could creep down and end it, just end it.
But Nona never slept. She crawled beneath Leila’s cover and pressed herself against the writhing body of her packmate and lay awake all night, listening to each ragged, sobbing, screaming breath. Listening and waiting for it to stop.
But the dawn came and the human yet lived. Still pale, still soaked in shock-sweat, still writhing and weeping with pain, but living. And she yet lived at mid-day, when she woke from her stupor of suffering to drink half a cup of Sangar’s tea. She lived at nightfall, when her piteous moans stilled for the first time into real sleep, albeit a short one. And when she lived at dawn the next day, Kruin saw the light of hope come into Nona’s face. He retreated into his den to stare at the stone wall, thinking of how urgently he prayed for her to sleep so that he could push her packmate into Anu’s arms, gorging himself on shame and ugliness until Madira and Sangar crept in and coaxed him to forgetfulness in the healing bliss of their bodies.
And though the second day was not always easier than the first, there were improvements. Leila’s pain was never-ending, but Sangar’s tea ensured some periods of quiet. She seemed more aware, and towards the evening, even managed a short, exhausted exchange of words with her chief as Nona changed her wrappings.
On the third day, Leila sat up in Nona’s arms and held her own cup of tea. She still suffered—tears streamed from her eyes at all times, when talking, when sleeping, even when forcing out her tortured laughter—but she no longer thrashed or screamed, and though she slept often, her sleep was true. Nona slept, too, at last. Heather returned to the clearing. Holding his watch over them, Kruin heard snatches of conversation in which they discussed the ways in which Leila might be of use to the pack, once she was healed.
And on the dawn of the next day, the fever came back.
Leila tried to laugh it away, claiming she was always light-headed after giving blood. These incomprehensible words clearly held no comfort for Nona. She forced more tea on her packmate, but this hunt was done. Before the sun was high, the fever claimed her innards; her weakened body purged itself explosively and Leila wilted before their eyes. She lost her strength, lost the power to sit up by herself, lost the ability even to roll over when Nona tried to clean her. She fell into long stretches of thrashing sleep and raved when she was awake, shouting in a tongue Kruin could not understand, and sometimes cursing Nona. This, the human’s chief bore in silence, accepting the weak cuffs and scratches sent against her, and giving back hot tea with gentle hands.
Towards late afternoon, she quieted and seemed to come around. Nona sat with her, helping her take drops of tea—and it was mere drops by this time, just enough to wet her chapped lips—listening as Leila mumbled brokenly but lucidly about the cub she’d left on the world of her birth. When she finally trailed off into sleep, Nona got up to join Sangar at the fire and Kruin met her there, as chiefs meet.
“She’s quieter now,” Nona said. “Was that it? Is she going to be all right now?”
Sangar hesitated, running her hands over her jar of healer’s herbs.
Kruin watched Nona’s look of hope die, bleeding out of her exhausted face to be replaced by no emotion at all. She said, “She looks better, doesn’t she? She has more color. And she’s quieter than she was.”
“The fever is in her lungs and heart,” said Sangar softly. “She is quieter because her air is fading. She has color because her blood is dying inside her. She…is dying. She will not see the sun set. I am sorry.”
Nona nodded, her face stone. Then she turned away from them and smiled across the clearing. She started walking. “Good news,” she said, taking her place beside Leila. “Sangar says your fever’s going to break before nightfall.”
Sangar looked at him. Kruin sent her on wordlessly. There were many shades of truth.
“Oh thank God,” Leila whispered. “Feels like someone’s…crushing my lungs. I don’t…know how much more…I can take.”
“Well.” Nona dribbled a few more drops of tea against the dying one’s lips. “The worst part is almost over.”
“Good. Good.”
The human faded into sleep. Nona sat beside her, holding her hand and looking into the fire. Kruin watched, his heart a chip of frozen clay. None of his pack spoke. The third human sat at the very edge of the clearing, softly crying and sometimes rocking herself like a cub wanting its mother’s arms.
“Nona?” Leila whispered.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“I’ll never forget…you jumping at that…big badger.”
“Neither will I.”
“Ka-pow.”
“Ka-stab.”
The dying one laughed and slept again.
Heather got up and ran towards the pond. Ararro whined, watching her go, then touched her mate’s arm wordlessly. Burgash rose and followed her, his head low and hands in claws as he passed through the Fringes.
After a while, Leila stirred, coughed, and roused herself enough to look around. “Oh,” she said. “I thought I was…somewhere else.
”
“Where?” Nona asked, still watching the coals.
“I don’t know. By some river.” Her eyes were sliding shut. “It scared me…for some reason. I don’t know why. You…You’re not scared…of anything.”
Nona did not reply.
“Will you…teach me to…hunt?” Leila asked. “With a slingshot? When I’m…better?”
She had forgotten the loss of her arm, but Nona did not remind her. Her eyelashes fluttered, but she met the dying one’s hopeful eyes and calmly said, “Sure, if you want, but Gef and Madira are a lot better than me.”
“I had one when…I was little. Slingshot. I was good…too. I could…pick it up again…no time. I…”
Leila slept.
Time crawled.
“Bet,” Leila finished thickly, and looked around again. “Was I asleep?”
“Sleep is good,” said Nona.
“I feel…better…I think.”
“Good.” Nona’s lips smiled, but her eyes were far away and staring.
“You’ve got to…to teach me…I want…to make you proud of…me. Proud you…saved me.”
“I didn’t,” Nona said, and now she did look down at the human whose hand she gripped. “You saved yourself. Be proud of that.”
Leila was asleep before the last word.
Sleep. No. Kruin knew it was not sleep anymore. These were little deaths the human dipped her fingers into, testing the waters she was soon to cross. He shifted on the rock and Sangar touched his shoulder, then lay down beside him. He could feel his body leaning back, seeking her warmth and finding it. Madira came to curl against his thigh. He moved his ankle to lie across hers, braiding all three of them together.
“Know what I…I keep hearing?” Leila asked. This time, she did not open her eyes.
“What?”
“Mia Rose. The singer. Crazy…huh?” She laughed, little gasps of wet breath that ended in bad coughing. “My little girl…loves her. God knows where she…ever found out…about her. Skinny little white girl from…from way back when, singing…singing pop blues on the acoustic guitar. You…You know her?”
“Love is Dangerous, right?”
“Yeah…Yeah, that’s her. You do know her.”
“Hell, you couldn’t get away from that song after that one movie come out.”
“You don’t…don’t like her.”
Nona rolled a shoulder. “She’s all right, I guess. I got into her a bit in high school. Everyone else was going big into industrial or speedcore. She was about as far from that as you could get while still feeding my teenage fuck-you fatalism. God, I was a tool.” She shook her head, still staring at the fire. “Which song are you thinking of?”
“The one about winter, only not…not really. She bumps into her ex or…something…and they’re talking like…like it’s supposed to be sad, but it’s not. And it’s….it’s cold and rainy, but it’s okay. Do you…You don’t know what I’m talking about, huh?”
Silence met that, but not a long one. Nona took a breath, then let it out. She glanced down at her hand enclosing Leila’s limp one, then stared straight ahead again. This time, when she took her breath, she let it out in song.
“Winter is coming…all the leaves have turned brown…and there’s a cold rain falling on the ground.”
The sound surprised Kruin. Never in all his life would he have thought humans could sing. Nona’s voice was low and rolling and gentle, falling and rising in natural waves that seemed to hold genuine feeling and world-weary humor. Her face remained distant, untouched. “And you want me to sing another broken-hearted song…but nothing’s wrong.”
“That’s it!” Leila tried to sit up, but settled for lifting Nona’s hand and shaking it. Her face glowed with what was left of her spirit, transported with joy and slick with sweat. “That’s the one!”
A sorrowing song, a laughing lament. Many of the words were beyond Kruin’s understanding, but something in the song itself made their meaning plain. It was a song of standing on a precipice and looking back, seeing the winding road of all one’s days tangled up behind one, and the misty drop that lay before. The song of Endless splintered as Nona’s voice rose and fell, and Kruin could feel something inside him flinching back.
“Summer is over…there ain’t no color in the air…and it’s a cold wind blowing through my hair…And you tell me I should sing about the heartaches we had…but I ain’t sad.”
Leila’s lips moved as she tried to sing along. She had no breath for it. Her eyes slid shut and Kruin looked away. He scratched at his chest, scratched hard, and felt the cut of his claws. He forced his hands down and found himself thinking, without warning, of his cubs. Not merely Alorak and Gef, but all of them. Of clever Cham and her baffling dolls. Of Tia and pale-faced Demanno, who had been found by Sky Hunter pack and were raised there now, motherless and silent. Of their young brother, Krunee, who would never be found. His heart told him there had been others, and his mind gave him one indistinct face, the ghost-memory of scent, but he could remember no name. No matter how he struggled against the veil of the Endless, he could remember nothing more.
“Sometimes I just go walking…It don’t mean I’m running away…I ain’t lost in your memory, just a—” Nona’s voice cracked. She took another breath and sang on, steady. “—a beautiful grey day. If my face is wet, it’s raining. If I shiver, it means I’m cold. Quit telling me I’ll be okay. I don’t need to be told.”
“God, that’s nice…that’s really nice.” Leila’s voice was dry as dust, a dead harmony to the laughing skull of this terrible song. “You have a beautiful voice.”
“It’s late. It’s too late, baby…I got nothing more to say. I gotta go and…” Nona’s song broke a second time and it took several breaths and Leila’s hand patting at her arm before she brought it back, not as strong as before. “And you ain’t coming with me…We each got to go our own way.” Another pause, before she sang, almost in a whisper, stone-faced: “Seasons change…You gave me roses when summer’s sun hung in the sky…Seasons change and summer’s over. Winter’s here, when roses die.”
Kruin listened, heartsick. In his mind, he saw the haunting face of his unnamed cub, whose dark eyes stared out imploringly. ‘This is our winter,’ he thought, scratching bloody furrows over his aching heart. ‘We are hunters of wyvern and fathers of forgettable young.’
Sangar’s hand brushed his shoulder. He rolled toward her at once, exposing his belly and the bloody mat of his chest. She licked at him, then settled, pressing close to hide his trembling, and Madira put her arms around them both. He loved them both from the depths of his confusion and despair, and he felt their love rise to touch his. It had not always been this way. It had not ever been this way. These were changes. The human sang of changes, and Kruin saw clearly now, in the eyes of his unremembered cub, that things could change. If the humans stayed, there would be lycan seed to root in human wombs, human thoughts to strengthen wolf-memory. These new young would not all remain in High Pack, either. Young wolves would rove. Young bitches would be wooed and claimed by mates from other packs. Like wing-seeds in the wind, their wisdoms would spread.
One day, there would be no more forgotten faces.
“So long. Maybe I’ll see you…Just don’t expect me to cry…Lose you? I never lost you. Can’t lose what was never mine…And I don’t need to sing about it…because I’m fine.”
Nona stopped singing. She did not trail away, she simply stopped. The last note of her strange song hung in the air, uninterrupted.
Kruin raised his head. Neither human moved. Nona continued to sit and stare into the embers of the firepit, showing no expression as she blew steam out into the world. After a moment, she moved Leila’s hand to Leila’s breast and gently let go. No steam rose from Leila’s mouth. Her eyes were open, but they did not see.
Nona’s chest heaved a few times, her eyes welling bright, but no tears fell. She blinked and eventually, they dimmed. She stood up and walked away.
The
Fringes parted to let her pass by, but some closed in again behind her, as hunters close behind prey. In another heartbeat, Nakaroth had parted them again, slipping into the shadows of the forest and leaving growls of resentment in his wake.
Kruin, caught between the song of Endless and of Endings, could not immediately react. He could only watch as wolves jostled one another, hackles stiff and teeth bared. The air thickened, stinking of male musk and death. He could actually see it spreading, as ripples in still water, reaching outward from the Fringes to his own pack.
In a hoarse voice he hardly recognized for his own, Kruin said, “I will kill the wolf who challenges over her now.”
The Fringes, clearly startled, settled again. It was not enough.
Kruin stood but could not walk. His legs were water. His heart was fire. He looked at his people—his protected, his pack—and for a moment, he hated them. “I will not tell you again,” he said. “I will not have a wolf among us that I must warn and warn and still watch over. No. I will pour out his life upon the stone where nothing grows and I will bury him in the earth and I will be done with him. Look there!” he snarled suddenly, aiming a shaking claw down to the place where the body lay. No one looked; their naked throats were arched too far to even see where he pointed. “Look and see a stronger wolf than any of you!”
One of the Fringe-wolves, already flat to the ground, rolled to show his belly and now they were all rolling, some panting or whining in the extremity of their submission. Far from placating him, the sight brought on an even darker rage.
“Be grateful the Black Wolf does not make bargains,” Kruin spat. “I would put you all upon his ferry to have her back! Wretched, rutting beasts! I am sickened by the sight of you!”
He turned his back on them to find Sangar and Madira standing close behind him. He paused, then walked between them without speaking, letting his arms brush at theirs, taking strength from them in that small touch. He went down to the fire and gathered Leila into his arms. His Land was always hungry and it was time again to feed it.