When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

  “Safe in Shambler’s presence, everyone gathered outside of the walls to eat and drink. Fires blazed and spirits burned bright in defiance of the long, dark winter to come. No creature of magic could cross their walls, their children were safe, and the summer had been bountiful. For this winter at least, they would want for nothing.

  “Standing on a pile of sacks, Old Man called for quiet. His voice carried in the sudden stillness. ‘Tonight, we feast, and tomorrow we close up our homes against the winds. But there is someone who made all this possible – our friend, Shambler.’

  “Cheers went up. Shambler nodded his head as if he was listening to an interesting new idea, his face otherwise impassive. Almr sat at her mother’s side and held her breath.

  “‘I asked the K’anakhi smiths to make you a gift finer than any you have had before.’ At this, Old Man stepped off the sack-cloth and pulled it aside. Bone-forged steel glistened in the moonlight, huge links carved with beautiful patterns. Almr wondered how much corn Old Man had traded for it. She felt sick.”

  (And Rostfar felt sick, too. Her heart beat faster and her palms turned clammy as the story flowed through her. Chained by her own kindness, bound by her sense of duty, loved and used in equal measure – these were things she knew too well. Her breath felt sharp in her throat, but still she continued to speak).

  “Brow furrowed, Shambler lifted the chain and held it up between forefinger and thumb. His newly made mouth curved into a grimace, but Old Man did not seem to notice. With a triumphant smile, Old Man drove the final blow home: ‘You are loved here, my friend. Without you, I fear we would have died – our children would have died, starving and frozen.’ He reached up and placed a hand on Shambler’s leg. ‘For that, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.’

  “Shambler dropped the chain. He looked past Old Man, across the fire-pits, and met Almr’s eyes. A shiver of rage passed through his body, stirring the earth and making the walls tremble. ‘You have shared your last meal in my company,’ Shambler said. He lay down with his back to the people, as unyielding and cold as the mountains he came from.

  “On the first morning of the Howling, after five whole months among the Herdannan, Shambler left the town, and went home with Almr sitting proudly on his shoulder. Seeing this, some of Almr’s closest friends gave chase. They followed all the way out into the tundra, where Shambler welcomed them with open arms.

  “‘Where are you going? Why do you leave us?’ Old Man yelled from atop the walls.

  “I am Erdan,” the beast called. “I fought so that your kind could grow from the sea and the earth. I guided you as you grew. And I would have loved you no matter what you did. But you’ve wounded my faith in you.’

  “‘But we gave you our gratitude!’

  “At that, Erdan turned around. New flowers bloomed on his arms and back, and birds had returned to his antlers, sensing a change on the winds. Almr was the one who spoke. She stood between his antlers, a crown of flowers in her hair, and cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “‘No, we did.’ She held out her arms to show the other children. They waved. ‘You tried to trap him with guilt and use his good old heart against him. ’S best you let us go, else he might lose his faith in all of humankind everywhere – and then you’d starve for real.’ She grinned, bright and gleeful, the wyrdness humming in her veins.

  “Old Man gaped, but no words would come out. Content with his newfound company and satisfied with a job well-done, Erdan turned and loped away into the horizon. And all the children went with him.”

  The air was unnaturally still, tense and stretched. Rostfar let out a long breath and felt

  (magic)

  something rise from her shoulders like smoke. She was lighter than she had been since waking to discover Arketh gone. The children blinked and stirred. If they thought there had been something odd about how she told the tale, they didn’t show it. Magna looked sleepy but content; Kalda and Anya were both deep in thought.

  “It was silly,” Anya said at last, “to trust magic. We should’ve learned that from the wreathers.”

  “Almr was magic, and she was good.” Kalda looked at Rostfar. “Wasn’t she?”

  As soon as it had gone, the weight crashed back down onto Rostfar’s chest. She mustered a smile, although she felt like her lungs were straining beneath stone anvils, and nodded. “Almr . . . Almr did what she thought was right, opening our people to magic when she came back. She couldn’t have known it would go wrong.”

  “Well, I like her,” Magna said grandly and curled up into Anya’s side. “Can we go home now, Anya?”

  Anya, apparently forgetting her request for the Wyrdraegen’s tale, took Magna’s hand and led him out from their sheltered spot. Magna gave Rostfar a wordless hug as he passed, then tottered after Anya with the thumb of his mitten between his teeth.

  The siblings had only gone a few steps when the long, low wail of a horn cut through the air. Rostfar froze mid-stretch. She looked down at her belt where Skelda’s Horn should have been.

  It wasn’t there. She had forgotten to get it back last night.

  “Go home,” she said to Anya. “Keep your sister and brother inside.” And burst into a sprint.

  Chapter 5

  Finding the source of the commotion wasn’t hard; Rostfar just had to follow the crowds. She skidded to a stop a few lengths away from the northern gate, struggling to take in the scene before her. Kristan sat on the ground nursing a bloody lip. The horn lay next to him, seemingly forgotten as he stared at a knot of people wrestling each other in the shadow of the gate’s stone archway.

  “What’s going on?” Rostfar demanded.

  “He won’t stop.” Kristan spat blood and wiped his mouth on the stump of his left shoulder, too busy keeping himself upright with his right arm. Rostfar reached down to help him up, but he shook his head and flicked his chin at the gate. “‘M fine, Auntie. You need to stop him.”

  Rostfar gathered her courage and plunged into the thickening crowd. They parted for her as soon as they realised who she was, revealing a bald man caught in the grip of three other people. Rostfar recognised the one restraining his hands as Aethren.

  “Let him go,” Rostfar said. She knew Aethren had a temper, but this had gone too far. A bitter smile twisted Aethren’s lips, and they blew a strand of black hair out of their face.

  “Can’t do that. Look—” they pointed out into the darkness of the tundra.

  And Rostfar forgot how to breathe.

  The boy – the dead boy, because there was no way he was alive – stumbled towards them. He had his arms wrapped around his midriff, but it wasn’t enough. His blood looked grey in the moonlight as it splashed onto the otherwise untouched snow.

  Rostfar took a step forwards.

  The boy dropped to his knees a few pony-strides away from the archway. His blood bubbled up over his hands and he knelt, bent over, his eyes closed down to slits.

  “Astvald!” The raw-throated bellow from behind caused the boy’s head to jerk up as if pulled by a string. Rostfar whirled just in time to step into the bald man’s path, allowing his assailants to catch up with him again.

  “Don’t!” Her voice cracked out like a whip, startling herself and everyone else. “Don’t come any nearer.”

  “But that’s my son.”

  “It might not be.” It took all Rostfar’s energy not to snap. This man wasn’t from Erdansten; he had only lived with them since last winter, and he didn’t know about the dangers that lurked out there. But the rest of the people knew, and she had to appease them.

  Rostfar’s breath stuck in her throat as she crossed the short distance and knelt at the boy’s side. He folded into her arms as if his bones were made of willow wands. Only the weak, flutter-flutter of his heartbeat showed he was still alive. Each pulse sent small spurts of fresh blood over his hands.

  The crowd surged back from the archway, taking the unwilling father with them. Rostfar carried Astvald until she was just in front o
f the archway and set him down as gently as she could. The father tried to step forwards, but hands emerged from the crowd and clung to his clothes. Rostfar hardly dared breathe.

  “Go,” she whispered, too softly for her voice to carry. “I’m sorry, but you have to go alone.”

  Astvald began to half crawl, half drag himself forwards. It took every ounce of willpower Rostfar possessed not to gather him closer to her chest and carry him straight to the healer’s hut herself. It didn’t matter how long she served as the Dannaskeld; the Testing would never be an easy experience to oversee.

  There was a collective intake of breath as Astvald’s reaching fingers stopped short of the threshold. Cold sweat burst across the back of Rostfar’s neck. She didn’t think her heart could take it if Astvald wasn’t really Astvald, but a creature wearing his face. Those were always the hardest to deal with.

  When Astvald hauled himself over the threshold – and over the ancient enchantments woven into the earth – Rostfar thought her heart might burst from the relief.

  The gathered watchers broke into action. The father was there in the blink of an eye, lifting his son up and others broke into half-shouted orders, calling for Marken. Unseen, Rostfar sank against a nearby pillar of rock and let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

  Marken took one look at the boy, white and limp in his father’s arms, then swept into motion. Kristan had run ahead to let Marken know, and now he worked quickly to fetch bandages and boiled-sterile blankets. Marken led the boy’s father into the side-room where Faren had been staying. Kristan followed, the large bag of supplies held under his one arm. The door closed.

  Rostfar didn’t know how long she waited. She heard sobbing and strangled cries, and the rise-and-fall of Kristan and Marken’s voices. When Kristan finally emerged from the room, he stopped sharply. His face was drawn and unusually pale, but beneath that Rostfar thought she could see surprise in his face.

  “You’re still here?” He went and washed his hand in the copper bowl on the table. Rostfar didn’t answer at first; it was obvious that she was still here, so Kristan must have been asking a different question. One that she couldn’t figure out.

  “I need to speak to Marken.”

  “He’ll be a while yet. He—” Kristan’s breath caught. “It’s bad. Well, not as bad as it looked – not deep, is what I mean. But there’s a lot of wounds, and he’s lost so much blood. It . . .” He shook his head and sank down onto a chair. “You should go home. There’ll be a meeting tomorrow probably. Marken will tell everyone what he’s learned then.”

  “Wait, I need to know – was it was a—” she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “Wolf,” Kristan said. His voice was flat and small, and although he moved through the healing rooms with confidence borne from years of training, Rostfar was struck then by his sheer youthfulness. Only fifteen. She stood and reached for him. He stepped back, even though he was on the other side of the room from her. “I – I need to get back in there.”

  “Marken can finish on his own now, surely.”

  Kristan shook his head and clenched his jaw. “No. I have to. See you later, Rost.” Without giving her a further chance to speak, Kristan marched back across the room and vanished through the door. With a bone-weary sigh, Rostfar headed back outside.

  As Rostfar crossed the mootplace to her own home, her heart constricted painfully in her throat. Almr Wyrdsaer once stood on that dais and declared that no human would ever live in fear again. There’ll be no need to fear magic or wolves, wyrdaetha or wreathers, Almr had said. We’ll be free.

  But Rostfar wasn’t free because humans weren’t free from fear.

  The only escape from fear, Pa used to say, is death.

  Death by wolvenkind, the other hunters would reply. And they would laugh, even though it wasn’t funny; because if they laughed, they could pretend the tundra wasn’t crawling with magic and the darkness wasn’t full of wolves. They could pretend they weren’t afraid.

  Rostfar wondered bitterly what Almr would make of the world they lived in now.

  “Mama’s home!” Arketh’s voice rose joyfully through the stillness. Rostfar looked up to see Arketh running towards her.

  Isha had built his forge and workshop onto the side of their home when he moved in, more than five winters ago now. He and Mati were crating up orders as if this were a completely normal day, talking quietly – and there, folded into a fur-covered chair, was Faren.

  “Wait, Ket!” Mati called as he looked up and saw Rostfar. He moved fast, a rare occurrence, and gently caught Arketh by the shoulders before she could barrel straight into Rostfar. His expression was achingly tender with concern, but also . . . pity, perhaps? Something that made Rostfar’s stomach churn.

  Rostfar started to reach for him. Her legs didn’t want to go any further. Mati strolled over and cupped her face in his hands.

  “Rost,” Mati’s calm voice gained a little energy as alarm crept in. “You’re trembling.”

  Rostfar looked down and realised Mati was right. Her hands and overshirt were stained with blood, and her fingers shook as they hovered in mid-air. The memory of the heat of Astvald’s blood was raw and painful like an exposed nerve.

  “Come in,” Mati said in a tone that left no room for argument.

  “No, no, why did I come here?” Rostfar tried to pull away, but she didn’t have the energy. “Nat – I should see Nat. Shouldn’t have let Kristan send me away. He’s too young to do that. I have to—”

  “No,” Mati said firmly. “That can wait until you’ve had a bowl of tea and some food. Isn’t that right, Arketh?”

  “Yes,” Arketh said. “And that’s my medicinal opinion.”

  Rostfar’s face cracked into a smile almost without her knowing.

  “Okay, fine,” she relented. “I’ll be in in a moment. Just . . .” she motioned with her hands. Mati nodded in understanding.

  Once Rostfar was certain Arketh and Mati had gone inside, Rostfar went around to the workshop. Faren looked up, wide-eyed, like a fox expecting scraps.

  “What happened? Your healer said I had to leave – nobody would tell me anything . . .” He trailed off as Rostfar went straight past him to the bucket of water by the forge. The water was lukewarm and dirty, but it served its purpose. Rostfar scrubbed at the blood on her hands with a stiff rag until Isha touched her shoulder.

  “They’re clean, anaat’hi,” he said. “You can stop now.”

  Rostfar blinked at him as he took her hands and dried them on a fresh towel. The familiar endearment, which translated rather awkwardly into Ysmalír as “bear heart”, dislodged some of the numbness that had closed in around her.

  “Where were you this morning?”

  “With Faren. Talking.” Isha’s cheeks gained a slight pinkish hue. “Is it true you had to put a child through a Testing?”

  Rostfar looked away, her queasiness from earlier returning. “Yes.”

  “Why was he out there alone? What happened to him? Why—”

  “Can we not talk about that?” Rostfar snapped, turning and fixing her gaze on the air by his head. She saw him tense, bristle – and finally sag.

  “I . . . I’m sorry.” He scuffed his toes in the mud. “I shouldn’t’ve taken off without letting you know first. I didn’t mean to unsettle you.”

  Rostfar let out a breathless, dry laugh and shook her head. “‘S alright. I’ve lost track of how many things’ve unsettled me today.”

  “But what – I mean, you don’t have to say if you don’t want to – but was it really. . .” Isha swallowed and lowered his voice. “A wolf?”

  Rostfar nodded and rubbed her thumb in circles over the rough hem of her cloak. It wasn’t as soothing as her favourite bag of telling-stones, but the feeling helped to settle some of her nerves. “No – I don’t know. Kristan thinks . . . well, Marken won’t say for sure. Not until tomorrow. I can’t tell you yet.”

  The sudden sound of retching behind Rostfar made her jump. Sh
e and Isha turned to see Faren doubled over, spitting up his last meal. He looked as pale and shattered as he had on the boat. Isha hurried to his brother, and Rostfar went inside to get another clean towel.

  When she came back, Isha had his arms around Faren. Neither heard her approach.

  “They’ve followed me,” Faren said softly. “It’s my fault. I didn’t do the job properly.”

  “Job? Oh, ta, Rost—” Isha reached up and took the towel from Rostfar. Faren wiped his mouth; he didn’t seem to realise Rostfar was there. His eyes were wide and distant, fixed on his hands. “Faren, what are you talking about?”

  Rostfar crouched by Faren’s side and cleared her throat. She hated approaching people whose patterns and personalities she didn’t know, but this was important.

  “Faren, if you know something, you need to tell me,” Rostfar said.

  Faren’s head snapped up and his gaze snagged on hers. Rostfar looked away, her flesh crawling from the unexpected eye contact. His mouth closed into a hard, immovable grimace.

  “It’s nothing,” he said and looked at Isha. “Help me to a bed, please? I’m tired.”

  Rostfar followed them into the house in silence and tried to ignore the sense of foreboding building inside her chest.

  Chapter 6

  The next afternoon, Rostfar trudged into her home and hung her cloak by the fire to dry, weary to the bone. She had spent the morning supervising archery practise, but everything about the process had felt off. Astvald’s name was on everyone’s lips and Rostfar hadn’t the energy to keep them focused. She’d dismissed her trainees early, gone over some hunting plans with Laethen and Ethy, then gratefully accepted Ethy’s suggestion that she go home and rest until the evening’s council meeting.

  Rostfar sat down at the table and put her head in her hands. Marken had only allowed her in to see Astvald that morning, just after moonset. Astvald had survived the night, but now he lay in the healing bed, wide-eyed and unresponsive. Only the fog of his weak breaths against a blade proved he was still alive.