by Maria Vale
Huddled deep in the hull, my throbbing arm propped on my leg, I watch the water go past and then the Holm. There’s a bloody bone there and Cassius’s boot. In the back, Evie sees the direction of my eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “We saved you some.”
Chapter 35
Evie
“That’s a flesh wound. That’s a flesh wound. That’s a flesh wound. And that…” Constantine groans loudly as Tristan pokes his collarbone. “That is not a flesh wound.”
He pokes some more around Constantine’s bruised and bloodied body.
“Nothing broken here,” he says, digging his finger between his patient’s ribs and wiggling it. “But I bet it’s painful as hell, isn’t it?”
“Fugyer, Trisin,” Constantine spits out through gritted teeth.
I suggest that Tristan try for a slightly sunnier manner, a suggestion I immediately regret it as he launches into some strangely threatening human song about sunshine.
“But if you leave me to love anoooooother/You’ll regreeehhht it all someday.”
At the upper left quadrant of Constantine’s bruised torso, Tristan pokes a few times and the pain makes Constantine gag.
He snaps off his gloves. “Ruptured spleen.”
Constantine will need a few days of bed rest so I bring my laptop and papers. Wolves have been coming in and out of Medical for two days, and I don’t bother to hide what I’m doing here. When Constantine sets his beaten and punctured hand on my knee, his finger searching out my skin through the holes in my jeans, I feel lighter for it.
“Tristan,” chokes yet another despairing voice from the door.
“As much sweetgrass as you can manage and call me in the morning,” Tristan shouts from the back as he has with every choked and desperate wolf who has come to his door.
“Isn’t there anything stronger?”
“Ah, Julia,” Tristan says, appearing from the back. “Hold on a second.”
When he returns, he is holding a sponge basin. “You could just vomit him up.”
With a tight shake of her head, Julia hiccups.
“You ate twice as much as anyone else,” I tell her. “No one would think less of you.”
After a few more convulsive swallows, Julia stands high, presses her hand tight against her stomach, and says through gritted teeth, “But I would, Alpha. I would.”
She leaves in a cloud of sweetgrass-scented air.
* * *
Poul claimed that having run from a challenge, Constantine is no longer protected by the law, but Silver was very definite that as he didn’t run from cowardice, the challenge was not forfeited, just postponed. She gave Poul the option of calling it off, but he refused.
A day or so later, Poul passed me in the hall and put his nose to my ear. I elbowed him in the intestines and told him that whatever he smelled there, it wasn’t for him, and if he stuck his nose in my ear again, I would eat his testicles.
He still wouldn’t call it off, because his interest was always in the status that came with being the Alpha’s companion. Not like Constantine, who goes along with “all the Alpha crap,” as he calls it, because that’s the price that comes with loving me.
“You were upset when he challenged me last time. Why not now?”
I don’t tell him that it’s because I believe now. I believe his love is good for me and for the Great North. I believe that if—when—Poul loses, there will be a Thing with for-speakers and against-speakers and the Pack will decide whether Constantine brings strength to the Pack. And I know, as I look at his battered body, that the answer will be yes.
I also know that Poul will lose because not only will Elijah give him all the advantage of his long years of fighting, but I will too.
“Because this time, I know you will win.”
Epilogue
Constantine
It’s just a rock, a chunk of granite tumbled by ice and circumstance down from Canada to play its part in Homelands. Who knows how many thousands of years ago it came to rest here. Long enough for lichen to soften its surface, moss to colonize it, a treelet—a tamarack—to sink its roots into a fissure. A damselfly to sun its lacy wings on top. A fox to give birth underneath.
After a long day poking through the sphagnum and sedges and muck of that patch of wetland where Cassius died, I lean against this rock, my fellow refugee, and wipe the mud from my phone against my jeans.
Even though I can’t see her or hear her, I feel her here. I hold the phone up, so Evie will know that I’ve found it, then with a sweep of my thumb, I hit Last Number and hold the phone to my ear.
“So where is Cassius?” says the familiar voice as soon as she hears me.
“He’s dead.”
Somewhere on the other side of the continent, ice swirls against crystal while she takes this in. “Hmm. And where are you now?” she says, trying to sound casual, though I feel the hunger in her voice.
My collarbone hurts, but I don’t want Evie or Tristan to suspect I am in pain and change their minds about the advisability of letting me be wild.
“Let it go, Drusilla,” I say, hooking the thumb of my free hand through my belt loop to reduce the pressure. “They’re all dead. You got what you wanted. You—”
“Don’t,” she snaps. “They are not all dead.” A door creaks on her end. “And don’t you dare presume to know what I wa— I said stay out,” Drusilla yells away from the speaker.
There is a sharp crack at the other end of the line, and when Drusilla speaks again, her voice is calmer as it always is when she’s hurt someone. “So tell me where the mutts are, Constantine, and let me let you live.”
I hear a rapid-fire clicking and picture her, tapping at the mirror glaze surface of her desk, waiting impatiently for my answer, but I have nothing left to say to her. She knew who I was, but she knows nothing of the vast, uncharted land between who I was and who I am now.
The Titanix Thunderhead pops and crumples in my fist. A few pieces dribble from my hand as I remove the battery and fold the SIM card. I set them on the boulder.
“She doesn’t know,” I tell Evie as I pull off my shirt.
When the last of my clothes are folded in a neat pile next to the broken black case, I lie down, surrounded by the dry whine of the dog-day cicadas and the buzzing of bees at the nearby milkweed. A phoebe trills, then sings fee-fee-fee high among the shifting leaves of the lacework canopy. The black wolf lays her jaw on my shoulder as I give in to my wild. She will watch over me until I can join her.
Another of the lives that must be lived unspoken in the forest strong and fierce.
Terms used in the Legend of All Wolves
Æcewulf: Forever wolf. Real wolf. The Iron Moon moves Pack along the spectrum of their wildness. Pack who are already wild at the beginning of the Iron Moon are pushed further along and become æcewulfs. There is no changing back.
Banwulf: Bone Wolf. This is what the packs call the wolf tasked with announcing the end of days. The wolf humans call Garm. “Now Garm howls loud before his cave; the fetters will burst, and the wolf run free.” —Völuspá
bedfellow: A kind of mate-in-training. Since Pack couplings are based on strength, bedfellows must be prepared to fight challengers for rights to their bedfellow’s body: cunnan-riht.
Bredung: The ceremony by which two Pack are mated. It comes from the Old Tongue word for braiding and symbolizes the commitment of an individual to mate and to land and to Pack. The commitment is iron-clad.
Clifrung: Clawing. The harshest punishment short of death by Slitung in Pack law. A wolf who is clawed becomes wearg, an outlaw.
cunnan-riht: Mounting rights.
Dæling: The ceremony that determines both the initial hierarchy and pairings of an echelon. Since challenges are a fact of Pack life, this will change.
Eardwrecca: Banished. Packs are intensely
social and exiles rarely survive.
echelon: An age group, typically of Pack born within five or six years of one another. Each echelon has its own hierarchy. Its Alpha is responsible to the Alpha of the whole pack.
Gemyndstow: The memory place. A circle of stones with the names of dead wolves and the dates of their last hunts.
Gran: An elder. The word does not imply blood relationship, as family ties are largely inconsequential in the face of the stronger ties of Pack.
Iron Moon: The day of the full moon and the two days surrounding it. During these three days, the Pack is wild and must be in wolf form.
lying-in: Pack’s mutable chromosomes mean that pregnancy is rare. When it does happen, the last month is fraught as pups change into babies and back again. The mother must change with them before her body rejects them. It is exhausting.
nidling: A lone wolf at the bottom of an echelon’s hierarchy. Because lone wolves are considered disruptive, the nidling is forced into a kind of indentured servitude to his or her Alpha pair. They rarely last long.
Offland: Anywhere that is not Homelands, the Great North’s territory in the Adirondacks. Offlanders return to Homelands only for the Iron Moon and the occasional holiday.
Pack: What humans would call werewolves. Pack can turn into wolves at any time and usually prefer to be in wolf form, but during the Iron Moon, they must be wild. These three days are both their greatest weakness and, because it binds them together, their greatest strength.
schildere: A shielder is a protector, the lowest degree of wolf pairing. From the Old Tongue. In the youngest Pack, shielders protect one another from being eaten by coyotes.
seax: The dagger worn by all full-fledged adult Pack when at Homelands.
Slitung: Flesh tearing. The ultimate punishment. Every wolf participates so that the whole Pack bears responsibility for the life they have failed.
Shifter: Shifters are not bound by the Iron Moon, and since humans are dominant, Shifters see no advantage in turning into something as vulnerable as a wolf. Unfortunately, they have adopted many of humans’ less-desirable traits, while retaining the strength and stronger senses of a wolf-changer—the worst of both worlds for Pack. In the Old Tongue, they are called Hwerflic, meaning changeable, shifty.
Wearg: Among Pack, it means outlaw, bloodthirsty. Among humans, it means outlaw or monster and derives from the word for wolf.
westend: Waster, destroyer. Old Tongue for human.
Wulfbyrgenna: The wolf tombs. It is what the Pack calls the coyotes who eat their remains.
Year of First Shoes: This is the first year that pups start changing into skin and, as the name implies, the year they start wearing shoes and clothes. It marks their transition from pups to juveniles.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Maria Vale’s The Last Wolf
Prologue
Titnore Woods, 1668
This would be Ælfrida’s fourth and last attempt. The Pack at Essex had refused, as had Anglia. Even the tiny remnants of the Pack at Gyrwe had sent her away empty-handed. Now staring at the strong and plentiful wolves of Wessex, her heart sank. She’d even caught sight of a pup staring at her from under a dead oak, the first she’d seen in England in over a decade.
Her own Mercia Pack hadn’t had a pup since Halwende, and he was almost an adult. As she waited to be announced, subordinate wolves circled Mercia’s Alpha, sniffing her curiously and gathering her scent to take back to the dominants. Others, still in skin, watched from a distance.
“Ælfrida, Alpha of Mercia. Wessex þu wilcumaþ swa beódgæst.”
Ælfrida, Alpha of Mercia. Wessex welcomes you as table guest.
She’d made sure her wolves had learned the English of humans years ago. It was ridiculous to pretend that the Packs were still the top predators. That title belonged to humans now, and Ælfrida studied them as carefully as deer studied her.
“Greetings, Wulfric, Alpha of Wessex, and many thanks for your hospitality.”
“Sprecest þu ne Englisc?” the huge man growled, though that was one of the ambiguities of the Old Tongue: it sounded growled, whether one meant it to or not.
“This is English, Wessex.” She brushed her hand against her breeches, feeling scaly bits of fur there. “Is Seolfer here?”
“Seolfer? Min nidling?”
“Yes, your nidling.” She was distracted momentarily by the scabrous clumps in her hands. Sniffing her palms to be sure, she wiped them against a tree trunk. These wolves might look well fed, but some, at least, had mange. Maybe all was not well in Wessex. Maybe Wulfric would listen to her.
For now, though, the old Alpha scowled.
“Ic þearf wealhstod,” she said, even though she actually didn’t need a translator. Ælfrida was an Alpha who issued commands and was obeyed. This bluntness had not served her well when dealing with the other Alphas, and Ælfrida hoped that Seolfer would know how to translate that bluntness into something the conceited oaf Wulfric might find more acceptable. Besides, she liked the young woman and had looked forward to seeing her again.
“Seolfer!” Wulfric yelled without bothering to look.
The woman who emerged from behind Wulfric’s lodge had dark-blond hair, typical of silvers when they were in skin. A runt, she was destined to life as a nidling, a bond servant to her Alpha pair.
Many moons ago, looking for something more than a life of endless submission, Seolfer had made a desperate run all the way to Pack Caledonia. Unfortunately, wolves tolerate neither weakness nor strangers, especially not with resources so strained. Caledonia, Essex, Northumbria, Strathclyde: all of them had sent her away with nothing but a bite to her pastern.
Then she arrived at the Forest of Dean and planted her short legs and shook her shredded hide and challenged the famously fierce and powerful Alpha of Mercia for a place in the Pack. Ælfrida took one look at the runt and laughed. Then took her in. Not because she had any room for weakness, but because she saw in Seolfer a kind of strength that Packs almost never had: the courage to face the unknown.
The runt was, as wolves say, strong of marrow.
Unfortunately, the great Forest of Dean was falling fast to the humans’ rapacious desires for lumber and grazing and iron, and with her Pack on the edge of starvation, Ælfrida had sent Seolfer back to Wulfric. She knew what waited for the girl, but submission was better than death—at least that’s what Ælfrida told herself.
Seolfer said nothing; her head was bowed low.
“How are you, Seolfer?”
“As you see, Alpha.”
“Hmm. I don’t need you to translate. I need you to make what I say palatable to the old fart. Gea?”
The Seolfer that Ælfrida had known would have laughed, but not this one. She just nodded and bent her head lower, trying to avoid Ælfrida’s attempt to catch her eye. She didn’t have much time, so Ælfrida coughed a little and started her set speech. “The time of the wolves in this country is over. It is now the time of the humans.”
She waited for the girl to translate. Wolves, both wild and in skin, came close to listen to the rugged cadences of the Old Tongue. Ælfrida wrinkled her nose and sniffed; even human, she could smell the sick sweetness of rot. Something was definitely wrong in Wessex.
“The land in Mercia is dying, and with it, our Pack. It is the same everywhere: Anglia and Sussex and Gyrwe.”
“It is not the same here,” interrupted Wulfric, looking at Seolfer to translate, but Ælfrida waved her off.
“How can you say that? When I was last here, just fifty years ago.” Seolfer stumbled over the word year, and Ælfrida waited for her to translate it into six hundred moons, a span Wulfric would understand. “The last time I was here,” she started again, “I ran into a tree to avoid a deer. Now there are neither. The same is true of Mercia, which is why I have arranged for a boat to take my Pack to the Colonies. I am asking you to join your
bloodlines with ours. Make a truly great Pack in the New World.”
“Landbuenda?” Wulfric repeated, missing the larger point in his fretting about the whereabouts of these “colonies.”
“America,” Ælfrida said irritably.
“Omeriga?” Wulfric echoed, still confused.
“Oh, by the Moon, Wessex. Vinland.” Recognition dawned on Wessex’s face, then he laughed, and Ælfrida knew that for Wulfric, Vinland was still nothing but a rumor west of Iceland. “It is real,” she snapped. “I have talked to humans who have been there. It is a great land, a wild land. There are vast forests that we could buy and have legal title to and—”
Before Seolfer had even finished translating we could buy, Wulfric interrupted.
“Why should I travel across the water to buy land, when I have land here. Land that has been ours for centuries.”
“You have lived here for centuries, but it belongs to Worthing, and the humans will have it.”
“And since when does a wolf care what humans think?”
“Since they have become stronger than we are, you sodding ass.” Seolfer glided without comment over the last bit. Ælfrida’d had a long and depressing fortnight, and her patience for Pack obstinacy was nearly exhausted. “Since they have armed themselves with weapons that will kill us from afar. Since they tear down our woods to build their ships and graze their sheep. Since they rip up the very ground to find rocks to melt into those guns and bullets. It is time for you to face the truth and do the hard thing. Do the right thing. Be an Alpha, and bring Wessex to America with us. Let us start something great and new.”
As soon as Seolfer had finished translating. Wulfric signaled impatiently for Ælfrida to follow him toward a stone shed with a sod roof. The tall Alpha of Mercia had to fold herself nearly in half to get inside.
Wulfric looked at her smugly. “You see, Mercia. I have faced the truth.”