Don't Call the Wolf

by Aleksandra Ross

  “Come on, Wolf-Lord,” she said coldly.

  Ren stepped off him, turned once more to the monsters.

  She heard him get to his feet behind her, drawing his sword. Koszmar was waking up, unholstering the revolvers. Around them the nawia closed in, and Ren swiped and brought one down.

  A dozen feet away, the third human knelt among the monsters. He did not look up. But Ren recognized him.

  I saw what you did to Jakub, the girl had said. The man grasped the little nav with both hands, speaking to it. You ripped his face off.

  One eye, five scars. Ren had thought he was dead. She thought she’d killed him.

  Jakub.

  While Ren hesitated, her eyes flashed to the trees beyond. Shapes moved among the trunks. For a moment, she barely believed her eyes.

  It could not be. . . .

  The rifle blasted. Ren came back to the present.

  The screaming became punctuated as Lukasz fired round after round into the monsters. Ren and the three humans formed a tight circle, while the nawia came at them from every side. Between swings and bites, Ren kept glancing back toward the big human—and at the creatures in the trees behind them.

  Ren froze. Her heart pounded in her throat. She had to be wrong—but the creatures in the underbrush were getting closer. Creatures she knew better than anything else . . .

  “We’re outnumbered,” said Koszmar, desperately, behind her.

  “Not anymore,” murmured Ren.

  Czarn and Ryś leapt out from the trees.

  13

  RYŚ AND CZARN FLEW HEADLONG into the nawia, and the humans—apart from Felka—paused. Only Felka’s sword flashed in the darkness. Nawia screamed. The night shattered around them.

  “What is—?” started Koszmar, the saber wavering temporarily.

  Lukasz’s voice cut over the screaming nawia. He tossed the rifle aside and drew his sword. “Just keep killing,” he said. “They’re with her.”

  A nav shot toward her. Ren sank her teeth into its throat, and it dissolved in a spray of silver. She whirled around.

  The man—Jakub—was still speaking to the tiny nav. His remaining eye had gone glassy. The little monster had long, silvery hair and eyes that looked almost human. Oddly, its fingers were delicate. Nothing like the long, sawtooth claws of the rest of the nawia.

  “What are you waiting for?” growled Czarn, while Ryś launched himself into the mass of monsters. “Kill it, Ren!”

  Czarn’s jaws closed around the arm of another nav and bit clean through. The hand hit the earth and twitched, claws scraping in the dirt. Czarn twisted around, muzzle coated in silver blood.

  Ren remembered herself. She turned back, teeth bared, and lunged.

  “Stop—”

  Lukasz flung out an arm and caught her across the throat. The blow knocked the wind clear out of her, and she rounded on him.

  “It’s going to kill him!” she snarled.

  “No.” He had a smear of silver blood down one cheek. “Look at it.”

  The nawia surrounded them. She realized suddenly that the small nav’s eyes were those of a child. It smiled and touched what was left of Jakub’s face, and for the first time, she recognized the slender fingers as human. Ren’s heart dropped into her stomach.

  “It’s human,” said Lukasz, realizing at the same time she did. Then he added, more slowly: “It’s still human.”

  The one-eyed man was weeping.

  “What—” she began.

  “Oh my God,” said Lukasz suddenly. “I’ve heard of these. Nawia are the souls of unbaptized infants. If they wander in the forest for seven years, then they become . . . these.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Sword gripped in both his hands, he swung at another nav. Beside him, Koszmar fenced rather elegantly with another monster, one of his service revolvers propped against his shoulder.

  “My—someone told me, once,” stammered Lukasz. “I just remembered. Oh my God, it’s a child. Did Rybak have a child?”

  Ren lashed out with a paw and severed a nav’s arm.

  “Who’s Rybak?” she demanded.

  The ground was silver ice. The trees were silver ice.

  It was Felka who answered.

  “Yes!” she screamed, while five nawia swarmed her, and Koszmar blasted them away with his revolver. “He had a daughter! She died, five years ago!”

  Lukasz looked back at Ren.

  “You can’t kill her—” he gasped.

  The nawia kept attacking. Her mouth tasted bitter with the monsters’ smoky blood. Strzygi, rusalki, and now these nawia? It had to stop—it had to stop somewhere—

  “I have to!” she burst out.

  Lukasz stopped for a split second. Sweat carved lines through the silver smeared up his neck as he turned to her.

  “Please,” he said. “I’m begging you.”

  A nav loomed behind him, claws brandished. His name tore itself from her throat.

  “LUKASZ!”

  He spun around too late. The claws came down. He gave a strangled yell and fell. The nav recoiled, claws over its head, shrieking, and struck again. There was a streak of black, and Czarn leapt past him. The vivid white body fell away. Silver sprayed across them, flecked even Ren’s fur.

  “Lukasz—”

  He was already struggling back to his feet.

  “I’m fine,” he gasped. He had a hand clamped down on his shoulder, and crimson spilled over the black glove. He stared at Czarn, looking a bit dazed. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  It was so cold among the nawia that steam uncurled from his blood.

  A few paces ahead, Felka and Koszmar were back-to-back, Koszmar skillfully dancing in and out of the terrible claws. Meanwhile, Ryś was on his own in the middle of the fray, tearing into the heart of them. Enjoying the battle alone. Typical Ryś. Always the daredevil.

  “I have an idea,” said Lukasz, turning to Ren. He was breathing heavily, hand still tight over his shoulder. “We can save her. I need you, though.”

  Ren swiped at an encroaching nav. It retreated, hissing. Lukasz swung his sword with both hands and took the head off another one that got too close.

  “I’ll keep them out of the way,” Lukasz was saying. He ripped at his coat, getting the first few buttons undone, and then tore a scrap of bloodstained fabric from his shirt. “Take this.”

  He held it low enough for her to take it in her teeth.

  “What is it?” she said, around the metallic taste of his blood.

  “You have to baptize her,” he said. “You can do it, as the queen. Literally just say—I baptize you, or something. It’ll save her. At least, it’ll save her soul.”

  “Bap . . . baptize?” repeated Ren. She had no idea what that meant.

  He stepped sideways and put himself between her and the remaining nawia. Czarn crossed the expanse and joined him.

  “It will work,” Lukasz said over his shoulder. “Trust me.”

  His shirt and coat were soaked with blood. Koszmar and Felka backed up to join them, their human clothes stark against the crushing white bodies. Six of the living against a thousand who, until this night, had never really died.

  Ren turned back to where the man and his dead daughter spoke in their ghost world, serenely unaware of the war being waged around them. The man didn’t even blink when Ren, a huge lynx, wound around them. His glassy gaze was fixed on his daughter.

  Ren addressed the girl.

  “Little one—”

  The child turned toward her, face wet with tears. Ren gulped but didn’t recoil. Even though she found herself shaking a bit, she nuzzled the child’s cheek. It was as cold as steel. Around them, nawia screamed and died.

  Ren felt the child’s fingers in her fur, and the little nav stroked her ears.

  “You cannot stay here,” said Ren. And not quite sure why she said it, she added: “Your father loves you.”

  The little girl withdrew from Ren. She put her arms around her father’s neck and held tig
htly, small shoulders shaking. Ren’s throat tightened with tears, and it surprised her. These were humans.

  “HURRY UP!” roared Lukasz.

  Ren still had the cloth in her mouth. Now she dropped it on the ground, a bright square against the bloodstained earth.

  “As the queen of this forest, I free you of this world,” she whispered, eyes burning as she spoke. “I baptize you, child. You are free. Go home.”

  The smell of blood and rot receded around her and the shrieks seemed to melt into silence. Ren watched the little girl and her father cry. Then, as if in some terrible nightmare, the death-white child faltered and dissolved. Jakub was alone. Still on his knees, he bent forward until his forehead pressed into the silver-stained earth. Ren knew, without seeing his expression, that he was weeping.

  “They’re still coming!” shouted Lukasz, tearing her away.

  Ren got back to her feet. While the rest of them brought down more monsters, Ren spoke over the screams. Fury filled her voice.

  “I am the queen,” she said.

  A thousand nawia on every side, a thousand silvery monsters, and they put down their claws. Ren hoped she didn’t look as shocked as she felt. The nawia closed their lips over needle teeth. They turned their silent faces toward her. Listening, she thought. They are listening to me.

  She wasn’t sure how to continue. Still in a frenzy, Koszmar swung once more and a last nav collapsed in spattering silver.

  Ren didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what she was doing. She only knew this one word, and she hoped it would be enough.

  They were mysterious creatures, these humans.

  “Go,” she said shakily. “Your time here is finished. I . . . I baptize you.”

  The woods went silent. Lukasz, breathing hard, lowered the sword. Koszmar, trembling, dropped the saber. It clanged against some armor. Ren was overwhelmed by the smell of blood. It almost made her gag.

  Some nawia looked upward. Their faces grew shorter and their eyes grew smaller, and suddenly they were as human as the scarred man’s daughter.

  Others remained, still looking like demons from the depths of her nightmares, but they were silent also. And then, almost as one creature, they seemed to fade away, growing more smoky than solid. A gust of wind blew across the trees, and in a swirl of white smoke, they were gone.

  “What did you do?” breathed Koszmar, behind her.

  They were alone in a forest of corpses, and it seemed impossible that light had ever touched this place at all.

  Lukasz was struggling to catch his breath. He still had one hand clamped over his shoulder. Blood bubbled between his fingers, and under his jacket, his shirt was plastered to his skin. Ren wasn’t sure if he noticed. He was looking at her with something near wonder.

  “It worked,” he breathed. “The baptism. You . . . you are a queen.”

  “Of course I am the queen,” returned Ren coolly. “I would not lie.”

  Koszmar’s expression changed, too. He looked at Ren with an unreadable, entirely new expression. Lukasz did not respond. He stuck his sword, point first, into the earth. He took his hand away from the wound and examined his blood-slick glove. Then, looking faintly surprised, he collapsed.

  Koszmar turned sharply. Ren was faster. Lukasz’s glistening black gloves curled like claws over his chest.

  “I am not going to die here,” he said thickly.

  Koszmar crouched beside them. He lifted back the shirt and coat. They peeled away with thick strings of congealing blood, and Lukasz moaned. Five deep cuts scored his skin over his neck and shoulder, laid open to the gleaming white bone. In the wreckage, the silver cross shone jewel-red.

  “Oh,” Koszmar was murmuring. “Oh my . . .”

  Ren glanced at him. He was looking at Lukasz speculatively, biting his lip. There was nawia blood in his hair; it only brought out the silver in his eyes.

  “Aren’t you going to do anything?” she demanded.

  “Honestly,” he murmured, “I don’t think I need to.”

  Ren was about to snap back at him. But then she saw it.

  “But how . . . ?” she breathed.

  “I know,” replied the blond soldier, in a voice filled with wonder. “It’s beautiful.”

  A few inches from where Koszmar’s red fingers held back the dripping coat, the impossible was happening. The cuts had begun to narrow. Flesh covered bone. Skin, shimmering wetly with red and a silvery substance, knitted together. Ren swallowed, and Lukasz moaned, and then she was staring at an unwounded, unscarred shoulder, coated in red, human blood.

  Lukasz blinked and raised himself on his unwounded elbow.

  “What the hell?” he muttered. He ran his hand over the bloodied shoulder, smearing it up his neck and flecking the ground with tiny red droplets.

  Lukasz looked up at Ren.

  “Did you do this?”

  Ren stared back, eyes wide.

  “No—” she stammered. “No, I did not touch you—”

  “Amazing,” murmured Koszmar as he rubbed Lukasz’s blood between his fingertips.

  Lukasz was still looking at Ren. He searched her lynx face for a moment, but she suspected his human eyes were unused to the expressions of animals’. A wave of heat swept over her. She was suddenly dizzy. It took Ren a moment to name the emotion. Relief.

  The realization made her stagger backward, in line with Ryś and Czarn. Czarn nuzzled her cheek, his face wet and cold with blood.

  “We have to get out of here,” he whispered.

  “He’s right, Malutka,” echoed Ryś. “Let’s go home.”

  At long last, the sky began to pale. Ren watched it turn from violet to purple over the treetops, and she could just make out the low shadow of the Mountains in the distance. If the nawia had been terrible, then Ren could only imagine what the Dragon might promise. She’d had her taste of fear. Her forest had surprised her. She’d needed these humans for the nawia. And now, looking at those low dark hills, she knew she needed them for more.

  “No,” whispered Ren. “We need them.”

  Rafał

  FIVE YEARS EARLIER

  “‘NAWIA,’” READ FRANCISZEK, USING ONE finger to trace the letters as he went. There was no point; they all looked the same to Lukasz. “‘Or nav, in the singular, is a term often referring to lost and restless souls. Nawia encompass a vast array of apparitions, from those of demonic origin (e.g., witches, upiórs, strzygi) to pure souls who have died tragic or violent deaths . . .’”

  Franciszek looked up.

  “Raf!” he hissed. “Stop distracting him!”

  “I’m not doing anything,” protested Rafał, who had been using a slide rule to catapult spitballs onto unsuspecting library patrons below.

  Lukasz snickered, and Franciszek whacked him.

  “Ow!”

  Ignoring him, Franciszek turned to Rafał.

  “My God, Rafał.” He cast a nervous glance back at the librarian’s desk. “We’re guests here.”

  They were spending the autumn in Kwiat, a small town in the southwest. The buildings were brick, the coffee was good, and the pipes were filled with dragons.

  Well, not anymore.

  “We’re guests of honor.” Rafał grinned. “They can’t kick us out now.”

  “They still could,” growled Franciszek.

  Rafał clutched his heart in mock disappointment, winking at Lukasz. Although, as much as he admired his eldest brother’s devil-may-care attitude, Lukasz tended to agree with Franciszek. The people of Kwiat may have been grateful, but if their library was anything to go by, then they were also colossal snobs.

  Books lined every wall on the three-story Biblioteka Kwiatów, and there were even shelves built into the vaulted ceilings. These hard-to-reach books were retrieved by special white doves, who otherwise spent their time sitting on their assigned librarians’ shoulders and judging the patrons.

  Among all this finery, the brothers looked out of place in their Faustian-fur vests and coarse brown trouser
s. The heavy broadswords on their belts had knocked against the stairs with every step up onto the balcony, and Lukasz had noticed the dirty looks the librarians were shooting in their direction.

  “All right,” said Franciszek, apparently satisfied that Rafał had been—for the time being—subdued. “Let’s try again.”

  Lukasz groaned.

  “‘A rare subset of nawia,’” read Franciszek, “‘are mavka. Of Ukrana origin, mavka have occasionally been sighted in eastern Welona, notably in forests of Kamieńa Kingdom. Mavka are of a particularly violent nature and prey on humans, luring their victims with a beautiful song and subsequently decapitating them.’”

  Lukasz stared at the open book on the table. Franciszek had chosen a subject he hoped Lukasz would like: a book of monsters, complete with some delightfully gory illustrations. The current page showed a beautiful woman, dressed all in white with pure black eyes. In the long, spectral fingers of one hand, she held a man.

  In the other hand, she held his head.

  “‘Though typically classified under the larger umbrella of nawia, mavka are unique in the derivation of their souls. If a child dies without a baptism, that child’s soul remains trapped in a spiritual wasteland between life and death, bound to the earth. These souls have seven years to obtain a baptism; if they do not, then they are doomed to live forever as mavka. Their baptism may be performed by priests, monarchs, and sea captains and requires the use of a white cloth tossed upon the ground.’ Lukasz!”

  Lukasz sat bolt upright.

  “What?” he said a little too loudly.

  On the other side of the room, one of the doves made a cooing noise that sounded suspiciously like SHHHH.

  “Are you even listening?”

  “Of course,” lied Lukasz, promising himself not to doze off again.

  To celebrate the defeat of the city’s Lernęki dragon infestation, Rafał had taken them on a night of revelry that the twins were still sleeping off in their hotel room.

  Lukasz rubbed his eyes. “Navs are demons—”

  “No,” said Franciszek, and he repeated the passage again. “Nawia is the plural, Lukasz. Come on, please try. It’s only going to get harder the longer you put this off.”