Ren grinned.
“It would be a pleasure, Czarn.”
“Excellent,” he said, nodding to the trees opposite.
Ren turned slowly.
The strzygoń hadn’t been alone. The rest of its pack paced at the edge of the clearing, hunters weighing their prey. Their limbs moved in unnatural directions. They all had variations on the same face: some with beaks, some without eyes. Some still looked almost human, except for the feathers trailing over their skin, the wicked spikes of their teeth, the insect eyes peering out of their faces.
Czarn shifted his weight to his good paw. Ryś flexed his claws, growling. Ren’s stomach knotted and unknotted.
“How many?” she asked.
The strzygi wove in and out of the trees, disappearing and reappearing.
“Nine,” counted Ryś.
“Three each,” said Czarn, divvying them up.
“Unfair,” Ren griped. “I already killed one. And I was bait.”
“If you’re scared,” Ryś said, chuckling as the strzygi began to move more purposefully, “then I can take four—”
“I’m not scared—”
“I hate to interrupt,” drawled Czarn, always the picture of elegance. “But—”
The strzygi charged.
The animals met the monsters mid-clearing.
The fight was short. And bloody. One of the beakier strzygi managed to take a chunk out of Czarn’s ear before the wolf’s powerful jaws closed around its throat and severed its head. When all the creatures were dead, the three of them went through the corpses and ripped off the rest of their heads. It was not clean work. By the time they were done, the trees were sprayed with blood, and Ren was drenched from nose to claw.
She wondered how long these strzygi had been a pack. Ren didn’t know exactly how it happened, but they often started as humans. She suspected they were the villagers who’d wandered into her forest, got lost, and—unfortunately—survived. The longer they stayed, bathed in the forest’s particular kind of evil, the more monstrous they became. A warm breeze riffled the clothes on the humans who had been killed. Next to the strzygi, they looked almost . . . peaceful.
Ren shuddered.
To think these had all once been humans. Had once looked a bit like her. . . .
Czarn wove through the corpses, tongue lolling over his wet chin. He was tired, and it made his limp more pronounced.
“I’m too old for this,” he panted, flopping down.
“You’re younger than me,” Ryś replied, rolling over and stretching into a lynx-shaped crescent. A shaft of sun braved the thick boughs and shone in, warming his belly. Czarn just smirked and crossed his long black paws. A patch of whitish-gray fur covered his injured foreleg.
“Czarn, Ryś,” Ren interrupted. She avoided looking at the dead humans. “We need to bury them.”
Czarn and Ryś looked up at the same time.
“They can bury themselves,” snorted Ryś. “That’s what they get for coming in here.”
“I’m serious,” said Ren. “They could still turn into strzygi.”
Czarn and Ryś exchanged a glance. Recrossing his paws so his scar was hidden, Czarn said, “We don’t know that for sure.”
“That’s the point,” replied Ren. “We have no idea how they change. I don’t want them waking up tomorrow and then we have to kill them again.”
There were too many strzygi these days, and she couldn’t run the risk of adding three more to a forest already boiling over.
Ryś looked doubtful.
“Very well,” said Czarn at last, getting to his feet. “I will help you.”
“Thank you,” said Ren, moving aside as he passed her.
Ryś made an annoyed sound but grudgingly joined them.
They dug in silence. Czarn helped Ren tip the bodies into graves. The dense branches trapped the late-afternoon sun, and the work was punishingly hot. Now that the strzygi were dead and her panic had faded, Ren was acutely aware of the heavy warmth in the air.
There were more monsters every day, every night. And not just strzygi. Other, terrible things. Zmara, who hung around throats in the night and throttled their victims into a permanent slumber. Rusalki, who dragged humans under the water and wore their skins above it. Nocnica, who drank up any foolish souls sleeping too near their webs. Psotniki, who collected eyeballs in their high-up nests.
And of course, the humans.
They came rarely, probably because what had happened to Czarn—and to the hunter—had lit the fires of fear in their hearts. If the occasional hunters ventured in, someone else usually got to them before Ren did. They died at the claws of strzygi, rusalki, nocnica, psotniki . . . they died at the whims of the forest itself. Tangled in roots, hemmed in by walls of trunks. Captured on trails that circled for miles, yielded no secrets, and eventually, without warning, closed in forever.
Despite everything, this was Ren’s forest, and she loved it. But even if she had wanted to leave it, she wasn’t sure whether it would let her.
Czarn finished kicking the dirt over the bodies. His black fur was drying into sticky points, and when Ren ran a paw over her own face, she found it was crusted and sticky with blood. The strzygi had left their mark on the surrounding forest, too: bloody scratches in weeping tree trunks, bits of rotting flesh strewn around the perimeter. The trees themselves bent a little lower, the grass a little slimier, the horseflies a little hungrier. The smell of blood was overwhelming in the clearing. It smelled like fury. Anguish. Evil.
It smelled like monsters.
Sweat broke over her shoulders. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be in the clearing. Didn’t want to be covered in blood. Her power rippled away, and she was human once more.
“Hoping to get eaten, I see,” observed Czarn in his lazy voice.
“I’m going for a swim,” she said. Blood coated every inch of her body like a second skin. “I need to get this off.”
Ryś was already using a dampened paw to wash behind his ears. He gave her a look of supreme disdain.
“Or”—he sniffed—“you could just be normal and lick it off.”
“Be careful,” called Czarn as Ren disappeared into the trees. “There are rusalki in the river!”
“I’ll be fine,” she called back, already deep in the trees. “Wodnik will be there!”
As Ren got farther from the clearing, the forest changed. Trees unbent, dark trunks lightening to golden brown. Overhead, boughs untangled and welcomed in the sun. Rot yielded to grass and the hushed voices of the last animals brave enough to stay in the forest.
She breathed in the clean, woody air, and with it came a sense of relief. She hadn’t realized how tightly wound she was—hadn’t noticed the sense of dread hanging over her. It was so constant that she often forgot how heavily it weighed on her. How much longer? she asked herself, never daring to speak the words out loud. How much longer could she keep her animals holed up in the castle, keep these last parts of the forest sunny and bright?
She didn’t know. The forest had already driven out most of the humans. Now it was coming for them.
The river roared into view. The trees were smooth and straight, covered with thick green moss. Cool light filtered through the treetops, and everything smelled fresh and clean and alive. No claw marks on trees. No blood spattering the ground.
No monsters.
Ren glanced over her shoulder, frowning. Nothing had followed her, and the trees were silent. Somewhere, crickets were chirping. But all the same . . .
She hadn’t noticed that this part of the forest lay so close to the strzygi’s clearing . . . hadn’t realized that the river—her river—had almost been in the strzygi’s path—hadn’t realized things were getting so bad so quickly—
Ren forced down the dread. She was catastrophizing. Everything would feel better once she’d gotten the blood off.
Ignoring the wild water, Ren sat on the riverbank and slipped easily into the coolness. The water instantly calmed.
&nb
sp; “Thank you, Wodnik,” she said across the expanse.
The water spirit didn’t reply. The river was still.
Ren smiled and pushed off, swimming for the center of the swell. It was ice-cold and perfect. Even though she was mostly lynx these days, there was still some human left in her. And that human loved the water more than any cat ever would.
As the crusted blood melted off her skin, she began to feel better. Cleaner. Like there wasn’t a pile of strzygi corpses and buried villagers a half mile away.
A wave broke over her shoulders.
A new, horrible thought occurred to Ren. The poisoned parts of the forest were expanding—might even have reached this river. A second wave rippled inquisitively across the clear surface. Literally, it seemed, testing the water.
And then a third. This one was high enough to brush her chin as it passed.
Ren’s heart skipped a beat. Was there a monster in the water? Something other than Wodnik? One that could hear that skipped beat below the surface. That could see her bare legs, kicking. That . . .
Ren kicked harder. Whatever it was, it touched her ankle. She screamed, floundered—
The voice was as soft as water.
Our queen, it whispered. We have returned.
The water began to roil.
Our queen.
Fear released her. She knew these creatures: nimfy.
Silver fingertips broke the surface. They tangled her long dark hair. The strands slid down their silvery forearms as the creatures rose from the water. Hollow eyes trained on her, cold fingers played over her lips, her chin, rubbed away the blood. And then Ren was surrounded: one dark-haired girl surrounded by dozens that—it seemed—had been cast in silver.
Our queen. Their voices carried through the water, sank into Ren’s skin. Our queen. Each one repeated the words. Our queen. Our queen. Our queen.
One nimfa pulled away from the others. She clutched Ren’s shoulders in icy hands, silver-white webbing glittering between her fingers. She bent and kissed Ren’s cheek.
Our queen.
The water churned, and three dozen silent silver bodies slid up from the depths and kissed their queen.
“Welcome home.” Ren grinned, hugged their shoulders as they came. The kisses were ice-cold on her cheeks. “You’ve grown.”
Back in the winter, half of these creatures had been just tiny tadpoles. They’d flitted in and out of the bulrushes, too shy for Ren to hold them, always darting back to the safety of Wodnik’s arms. Then, as they’d done every spring, the tadpoles disappeared upriver to grow strong and beautiful. For the first time in her life, Ren had feared they might not make it back. They had seemed so fragile, and the evil had not spared the waters.
Ren heard a sudden splash as bubbles appeared near the opposite bank. The brownish rushes trembled. It was so subtle that anyone else might have ignored it completely.
But Ren wasn’t anyone else.
“Wodnik,” she called. “Is that you?”
From among the bulrushes, a single bulbous eye blinked. Wodnik didn’t answer, but a second eye joined the first. He had no eyebrows, just raised scales over vivid yellow eyes. He blinked again.
Ren couldn’t help but grin. Typical. She liked Wodnik.
“I wish you’d consider bringing your nimfy to the castle this year,” called Ren. A very small nimfa, still a bit more tadpoley than the others, clambered up on her shoulders and began to braid her hair. “We killed some strzygi half a mile from here.”
Wodnik blew some bubbles, which sounded suspiciously like “We’re fine.”
Somewhere, a horse whinnied.
Ren twisted around. She met the questioning eyes of the nimfy. Had she misheard . . . ? The horse whinnied again. The nimfy shrank low in the water, all silver tendrils and hollow eyes.
There were no horses in her forest. Except . . .
“Go,” she growled.
The water cleared. No whisper of the slim bones and silver hearts that had been there a second before. The horse whinnied a third time as a hand closed on Ren’s shoulder.
Ren whirled around, teeth bared.
But it was only Wodnik. He had risen almost out of the water, that toady face framed by damp rushes instead of hair. He met her gaze, silent. The only sound was a small splash as a fish flopped out from behind his ear.
Wodnik blinked. He took her hand, looked toward the opposite shore.
“No,” she whispered back. “Someone has to stay. We don’t know what it is.”
Wodnik tugged her toward the shelter of the bulrushes.
Run, he seemed to say. Run now.
But Ren didn’t budge.
“I can smell him,” she hissed.
Smoke first. Then horse, which she was expecting. But then: blood and tanned hide and oiled leather. Even if every scent was animal, it was a hideous kind of animal: a patchwork of different creatures. The most gruesome of monsters. Clothed in the bodies of others.
“It’s a human.”
3
IT HAD BEEN TWO MONTHS since the Apofys had burned Lukasz’s hand.
He barely remembered most of it, just staggering down the pink-carpeted stairs, coming face-to-face with a dozen reporters, their cameras sparking and billowing smoke. Standing there in a daze, burned arm buried in his black coat, while Damian Bieleć had rushed up to him, shaken his remaining hand, weaseled his way into the photographs.
After that, Lukasz had collapsed. At least, that was what he’d been told.
His next memory was of white hospital walls and a doctor wearing pale blue. They’d kept him knocked out with opium for a full two weeks. For the pain, the doctor had explained.
He’d been confused.
For your hand, she’d reminded him, pointing.
He’d looked. He’d remembered. And he’d wept at the sight of it.
Six weeks of nimfy-hair dressings and the best care Miasto could offer, and it was a horror. Stripped of flesh and burned to the bone, the ends of two fingers had eventually been removed. What remained of the hand had initially been glistening red, and as it had healed—was still healing—it shrank and withered away.
And it was his left hand. . . .
The hand he fought with. The hand he needed. It looked like wax left too close to the flames, melted and then re-formed, molded into some grotesque semblance of a human hand.
Lukasz hated it. He hated looking at it, and he hated anyone else seeing it. The photographs from the Apofys hunt had been bad enough. He’d looked gaunt and dazed in every last one of them. Thank God he’d had the wherewithal to hide the horror at the end of his arm.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. Every dragon slayer ended up with some scar sooner or later. And at least it wasn’t his face; Michał and Eliasz had had far worse luck than he. Anyway, even if they’d ended up scarred and disfigured, it hadn’t mattered. It ended for them the way it ended for all Wolf-Lords: swallowed up by this goddamned forest, devoured by that goddamned dragon. . . . But the dead didn’t need to worry about pain. That was the burden of the living.
The light was getting dimmer. The trees crowded closer together. The ground was puddled with pools of brownish, sweet-smelling water. Apart from the buzzing flies and Król crunching on his bit, everything was silent. Maybe the sun was beginning to set.
Or worse: maybe he was lost.
“Whoa, boy.” Lukasz drew up Król’s reins.
The black horse halted. In the dim light, the bridle’s silver antlers almost glowed. Lukasz produced a small leather-bound notebook from his coat pocket. He opened it against Król’s neck, flexing what was left of the fingers on his left hand.
He carefully turned the tea-stained pages, wincing as they rustled in the silence. Neat, elegant writing took up most pages, interspersed with the odd hand-drawn map or illustration. Most of them had been drawn by Franciszek—although, before he had disappeared, Jarek had often contributed his illustrations, too. Lukasz smiled at the memory. If Franciszek had been the scholar of t
he family, then Jarek had definitely been the artist.
Even if Lukasz couldn’t read them, Franciszek’s neat notes were oddly comforting. Not for the first time, he wished he’d actually paid attention every time his brother had tried to teach him the letters.
“Why did you leave?” he muttered. One of Król’s ears swiveled toward him. “Why did you leave, when I needed you?”
He kept turning pages. Franciszek would have known how to kill that Apofys. Franciszek would have taken his time; he’d have disappeared into every library and museum in Miasto, and they’d have taken weeks to do the job, but they’d have done it in the end. Lukasz would have gotten his adventure.
And he’d still have his hand.
But Franciszek had left. Franciszek had done what they’d all done, uttered some nonsense about mountains and going home, and he’d left. He’d said other things, too. Things that made Lukasz’s stomach turn over with guilt.
At last he found the page he needed. It was a map of the country, less detailed and elaborate than the one from Bieleć’s lecture. No nicely drawn dragons or fancy lettering here. Lukasz considered it for a minute.
He’d ridden north from Miasto, following the half-constructed railway, asking directions from the crews along the way. It must have been a sight for the ages: a Wolf-Lord on an antlered warhorse, cantering alongside the lumbering engines, yelling at the bewildered operator over the noise.
After that, he’d stayed out of the forest for as long as he could. The borders of Kamieńa had been expanding for almost twenty years. Not out of any human intention, but because the forest seemed to be spreading, and with every mile closer he drew, the towns grew emptier. Finally in view of the first trees, he’d spent the night in an abandoned village on its borders. Unseen evils had chattered in the trees and the stars had seemed particularly dark that night, so dark that Lukasz had brought Król indoors and slept in a modest little kitchen, rifle pointed toward the door.
The next morning, he’d entered the forest.
There’d been no one to stop him. Even if Kamieńa wasn’t exactly forgotten these days, it was at least ignored. Besides, Welona was an unusual country in that most of its internal borders were unofficial. Ruled centrally from Miasto by King Nikodem and his parliament, Welona was also separated into smaller constituent provinces. Often referred to as kingdoms, these provinces were governed by minor kings—usually the descendants of the great war chieftains of medieval days when the country was constantly at war with itself.
Don't Call the Wolf Page 3