When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

  “Closure,” she said. “We could do that for her.” Aethren watched her retake her place in the line, and felt their own determination surge.

  It didn’t last.

  A day of searching the caves and rocky planes of the shoreline yielded no results. The only eventful thing happened when a squirrel burst from its burrow a few strides away and dashed across the path. Aethren had nocked an arrow and shot the poor critter clean through its neck before they realised what it was. Realising that their search was getting nowhere, Aethren ordered a return to camp.

  The hunters’ camp was in a semi-sheltered bay, close to where Whiterift met the sea. A huddle of walruses lolled on the black sand in the moonlight, grumbling amongst one another and jostling for places while seabirds screamed overhead. An air of bitter disappointment lay like a cloud over the whole area.

  Aethren was quick to volunteer for firewood duty. Out of the corner of their eye, they saw Rostfar walking in the same direction and slowed down. She gave no sign that she’d even noticed them – her head was down, shoulders slumped. Lost in thought.

  Aethren paused at a dying scrub tree to twist off one branch, testing for the green splinter of useless wood. The branch broke clean in two. A snapping sound indicated that Rostfar had joined them, and the two of them worked in silence. There was no need to speak during such a mundane chore, but Aethren had to say something.

  “I shouldn’t have taken my eye off her, been faster on my feet, I—” Aethren got out before the words choked them. “I’m—”

  “Don’t say sorry.” Rostfar glanced up at Aethren properly for the first time since that morning. “If you say sorry . . .” Rostfar took a deep breath and sat down on a nearby tree stump. “I’ll have to be angry at you, because it’ll be like you’ve done something wrong. So, don’t.”

  “Okay.” Aethren sat down next to Rostfar and tucked their knees up to their chest. “Are you okay to – can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” Rostfar said it with a sad smile, but her eyes were warm.

  “Before the, um, attack . . .” Aethren rubbed their forehead. Just talking about the incident was enough to make their stomach twist itself into knots. “I saw a . . . thing, in the sky.”

  “I’ll need more explanation than that,” Rostfar said patiently. Aethren sucked their bottom lip and released a shaking exhale.

  “The storm clouds looked like a wolf, coming right at us. And I don’t just mean in that vague, fluffy way clouds sometimes have shapes. I mean – unnaturally, uncannily, just like a wolf.” Aethren tugged off their gloves and swiped away the sweat on their hands before curling their fingers into the hem of their heavy cloak. “Does it mean anything, do you think? Like, a wolf . . . controlling the weather?”

  Rostfar tilted her head back in quiet contemplation. For the moment, she looked comfortable, rattling off information about stories as if she’d been born to do it. “It’s possible. There’s one story – it’s old, hard to find on telling-stones – about a wolf that made a deal with some sort of wreather. A wraith, perhaps. The deal meant that the wolf could control the weather, or that the wreather could use the wolf’s body . . . the details get hazy.” She shrugged, and her shoulders slumped. “Or it just happened.” There was a slight twitch at the corner of her left eye, a little tell she wasn’t comfortable.

  Aethren stared at her, hard, waiting and hoping for some other giveaway. But there was no more to come. Rostfar just got to her feet and hefted the bundle of firewood across her shoulders.

  “But that doesn’t just happen!” Aethren protested. Guilt immediately rushed into their stomach when Rostfar flinched away from the sound of their voice.

  “Aethren—”

  “This mist came out of nowhere, thicker than anything I’ve ever seen. You weren’t there—”

  “Don’t remind me.” Rostfar sped up.

  “I just meant – you didn’t see the change!” Aethren started to jog after her and slipped on the slick earth with a yelp. Wordlessly, Rostfar turned around and helped them up.

  “Aethren, please.” Rostfar shook her head. “Just . . . stop.”

  “You really don’t want to talk about this with me, huh?” Aethren tried to sound light, but the words fell heavily in the still air. Rostfar glanced away and scuffed her feet in the packed earth of the pathway.

  “I don’t care how it happened.” Rostfar twisted her fingers in the hem of her cloak. “Wolves came, they vanished, and Arketh’s gone. That’s all.”

  That’s not all, Aethren wanted to shout. They wanted to sink to their knees and tell Rostfar everything: the wolf’s words, the strange things happening, the helplessness when Aethren had told Arketh to run. But Rostfar wouldn’t listen, and it wasn’t fair to force her.

  Back at camp, everyone sat up around the blazing central fire with drinking-bowls of tea and blankets, sharing salted fish and strips of a roasted squirrel that had been unfortunate enough to run into Aethren’s line of sight.

  Ethy stomped over and dropped down opposite Aethren and Rostfar. She had muck in her greying hair and a disgruntled expression on her face.

  “Nothing?” Aethren eyed Ethy hopefully, banking on her seniority and the skills she had got throughout years of tracking and hunting. Ethy shook her head.

  “Got out onto the tundra proper and hit the edge of the salt marshes.” Here Ethy paused and licked her bottom lip. Aethren’s eyes narrowed.

  “What happened?”

  “Heard a wolf. I didn’t get a good look, but I glimpsed a red sort of coat. Then it was gone.” Ethy shrugged and took a long drink of her tea. “Don’t know where it could’ve vanished to, mind. Not unless it sunk into the marsh.”

  Aethren glanced at Rostfar just in time to see her whole face tighten. She looked away from the group on pretence of fiddling for something in her bag, but Aethren saw straight through the tremble in her shoulders.

  “Red wolf. Right,” Aethren muttered. They scuffed at a few fallen embers from the fire with a scowl. “We should bed down for the night.” They placed aside their half-eaten meal and lay down, saying nothing more. The comforting sounds of other people settling formed a soft cocoon of familiarity in the darkness. There were whispers, small stirrings of insults and a single, strained laugh. A log popped. The voices faded away.

  When Aethren woke, Caerost’s red light had the entire world stained an off-kilter sort of pink, dark and ruddy. A watcher’s torch burned a few strides away. It was impossible to see who had drawn that straw against the starry sky, but Aethren suspected the bundled-up black shape was asleep, whoever it was.

  “If you want something done . . .” Aethren muttered the words without breath or sound for fear of waking Ethy or Rostfar. They picked their way over sleeping bodies as quietly as they could and sat down on the other side of the torch, picking up a still-warm bowl of tea with a sigh of relief, grateful for the heat as it spread up their fingers. A stiff breeze had picked up while they slept, and it had a cruel bite.

  A low bank of fog was rolling over the distant huddle of walruses further down the beach. Aethren eyed it as they sipped at their drink and tried to place the source of prickling fear resolutely making its way up from the pit of their stomach.

  A small, pearly light flickered in the murk.

  Aethren was in a crouched stance within a heartbeat, reaching out for the bow and quiver they had left with their sleeping mat. All they had on them was a sharp, short knife and an empty bowl; not exactly ideal for facing down whatever lurked in the fog. Cold sweat broke out under their arms.

  Thoughts of the hrafmaer came, unbidden, to Aethren’s mind. The daughters of Hrafnir, barely human and only somewhat like ravens, they were said to stand as high as a child and cause only harm with their efforts to help. A story. Only a story.

  Three more lights were flickering into being, each one leading further from the last, and Aethren began to tremble.

  “We’re not lost,” they called in a strangled whisper. “We don’t ne
ed your help.” That was what worked in the stories, wasn’t it? The hrafmaer were benevolent, after all. They just didn’t understand – or couldn’t remember – what it was to be human.

  One light blinked out.

  Aethren let out a breath they didn’t know they’d been holding when the rest of the lights faded back into the fog. They uncurled their aching fingers from unconscious fists and leaned back against the torch’s frame. Shook their head. It was only eyes, they told themself, something with eyes that glowed in the dark come to investigate the strangers on the beach. Nothing to worry about.

  Aethren stood up, tiptoed on trembling legs back to their sleep-roll, and knelt by the shadowed shape of Rostfar.

  “Rost?” Aethren whispered near Rostfar’s ear. They felt childish asking, but Aethren needed someone to reassure them just then. “Hey.” They reached out to shake Rostfar’s shoulder – and found only a pile of empty blankets.

  Chapter 14

  Rostfar stood in a flourishing valley, wondering why she was there. The last thing she remembered was drifting off to sleep on a tide of muttering voices, the shuffling and settling of a dozen hunters making their place for the night. Here, all was quiet. Not even the bloodflies that shimmered across the grass made their usual sound. The skin at the nape of Rostfar’s neck prickled.

  She turned around.

  Arketh stood there, blue-lipped and bloodless, her halo of pale auburn hair translucent in the midnight sun. Rostfar would have screamed, but she realised she had no lungs to scream with.

  Take it, Arketh said. She had something cupped in her outstretched hands. A moth. Its wings were like pale moonlight, veined with silver. Rostfar met Arketh’s eyes for a painful second before looking away, back down at the moth.

  I don’t have hands to take it with, Rostfar wanted to say, but didn’t. Arketh was moving closer, leaning up on her tiptoes, and although Rostfar didn’t have a body, she knew those cool lips had just kissed her forehead. Rostfar stepped backwards—

  And woke up, waist-deep in muddy water and frozen to the bone.

  Rostfar didn’t think about it; there wasn’t time. Move, her brain said, and her legs responded. She stumbled as her knees struck something hard beneath the surface and she went sprawling onto a bank. She clawed her way forwards on hands and knees until she could collapse, shivering, on soil darker than pitch.

  There was a backpack on her back – the one she had been using as a pillow. Rostfar shrugged it off and slumped against it, coughing and shaking and unable to do anything else.

  She had become an expert in waking up in strange places over the years, but not like this, so far from where she had been and without her boots. With only fur wraps for protection, her feet would likely not make it through the night.

  Bag. Rostfar jolted upright. A soft, white light spilled out from the seams of her rucksack. She undid the straps with shaking fingers and flipped open the flap to find the moth from her dream nestled among her supplies. And there, illuminated by its wings, was a spare pair of boots. Rostfar could only stare in confusion until it hit her: the last person to use this pack was Isha, and Isha was always prepared.

  The boots were ever so slightly too small, but better than nothing. Rostfar turned to the moth and found it level with her face. Impossible as it was, she got the sense it was smiling. She held out a finger, but the moth landed on the lapel of her shirt instead. It remained for a moment, then vanished from view. Rostfar touched the hollow of her throat, where she could still feel its steadily beating wings.

  Rostfar had stopped shivering. Any traveller knew the real trouble began when the shivers and cold stopped, but this was . . . different, somehow. Rostfar felt it in her bones. There was a softness to the wind, a sense she was being kept safe. Protected. She cupped her hand protectively over the place where Arketh’s moth-soul rested and swallowed the sudden sob that threatened to break from her mouth.

  The leftover glow was getting brighter. Rostfar hauled herself to her feet and turned to the east, where the sun was just showing its face over the edge of the distant sea. The horizon shone pink and pale gold, showing a spectrum of colours that flickered over the melting snow and finally faded to the white of the sun.

  The first dawn of the Starve.

  “Thank you,” Rostfar whispered, uncertain if she was talking to Arketh or to some nameless, faceless god she didn’t believe in.

  Rostfar turned away from the sunrise and looked over at the jagged Harra Mountains. Beyond them lay Deothwicc, the legendary forest the wolvenkind called their home. Rostfar couldn’t see it yet, but she could feel it, like a fishing line lodged in her gut. It called to her with something deeper than words, overriding her initial instinct to turn back to Erdansten.

  She gritted her teeth. Maybe the wolves had taken Arketh, or maybe it was something else. Deothwicc was a stronghold of magic – and magic was at the root of all her problems.

  “What do I do?” Rostfar asked the empty air. But she already knew the answer. If her friends and family would hide things from her and claim it was for her own good, if they would insist on coddling her like a child who couldn’t be trusted with sharp toys, then she would have to carve her own path. Find her own truth.

  And the wolves, it seemed, had all the answers.

  This was a land that knew no human laws; it was untouched and unsculptured. Dangerous. Rostfar couldn’t take any chances. Even the water was strange to the taste, with a flavour reminiscent of the scent after a heavy rain. She watched the wild animals to see where they drank and what they avoided and used the tracks they wore in the rocks to keep from losing her way.

  There were rivers made of black rock, folded like the batter for honey cakes. They should have felt soft, but they were solid and rough. Rostfar didn’t find it much of a stretch to imagine this had once been living rock, now frozen and never to move again. She clung close to these black rock fields until the hills became the grey mountains of the Harra. The slopes provided cover at night and easy bolt-holes during the day.

  Rostfar had no way to hunt. Her lips cracked from a daily diet of dried fish and hunger hounded every step. Still, she kept going. There was nothing else she could do. The thought of going back to Erdansten was too painful.

  By the middle of the fifth day, Rostfar realised Deothwicc had been creeping up on her for the last dozen or so leagues. Lone shrubs became trees, which became undergrowth, brambles, trees – and then the forest swallowed her.

  Rostfar remained calm enough on the outside, but her stomach was doing its best to crawl into her chest. Her muscles were tense, ready, waiting. She wanted to run. Any minute now, she would be attacked or killed; there would be no questions, and she wouldn’t hear the wolf coming. Or wolves. They would tear her apart.

  Although for that to happen, reasoned the snark in Rostfar’s head, she needed to encounter an actual wolf.

  Deothwicc was as silent. The trees crowded close together for warmth, their folds of green needles like skirts from tip to toe. Twice Rostfar tripped amongst the gnarled underbrush, and twice she stumbled to her feet with her heart in her mouth, convinced something must have heard her fall. But nobody came.

  The daylight hours were short during the Starve. Soon, Rostfar could barely see her hand before her face. She had to feel out each step with her hands and feet before she could move. Her own footsteps seemed to walk in front of her. Time vanished.

  Until Rostfar found herself in a broad clearing.

  It’s a heart, she thought at first, then – a tree, or – a god. Tree was the closest Rostfar could decide, and so she went with that. An ash. Its boughs were like a web that spread ever outwards, sheltering not only the clearing but the whole of Deothwicc, although Rostfar could see the sky through its branches. She didn’t have the words to explain the double-sight

  (wyrdsight)

  that occurred whenever she looked directly at it.

  This was something ancient, something powerful, a being her mind probably could never compr
ehend. It created its own shadows, and they threw startling illusions up and down the trunk. One moment, hands scuttled along the boughs. In the next, the tree had the god-face of Norðunn, with her two sets of eyes and proud horns. The branches whispered together softly, and as Rostfar stood caught in the drift between two very different worlds, she thought the tree was calling her name.

  Rostfar moved towards it.

  A twig snapped beneath her feet.

  Rostfar’s mouth went dry, and she stopped in place, her ears straining for any other sound. The whispering stopped and its absence brought a profound, roaring silence. Sweat beaded on her spine. From the darkness to her left came the sound of padded feet.

  A wolf slunk from the treeline, fangs bared, and eyes locked on Rostfar with deadly intent. Its fur was a dusky brown and its eyes glistened with an all-too-human sheen of malice. Rostfar lifted her hands to show them empty, but they weren’t. She had a knife she didn’t remember unsheathing. The wolf kept coming.

  This wasn’t the wolf from Arketh’s memory, and why would it be? There were dozens of wolves in Deothwicc. That hope had been futile, and now Rostfar had nothing else to hold on to. The best she could do was blink away her tears and keep her breathing as steady as she could.

  “How dare you come here,” the wolf snarled. Rostfar began to move backwards and froze mid-step. The wolf circled her.

  “I’m not here to fight,” Rostfar said. She didn’t know where the words had come from or if they were even hers, but as she spoke, she knew it was the truth. Her tone must have reached something behind those furious eyes because the wolf hesitated.

  “No?” Its nose flicked towards the knife in her hand.

  Rostfar’s stomach dropped.

  The wolf lunged.

  Rostfar darted out of his way, tripping and landing flat on her face. White exploded behind her eyes, but she pulled her foot free and crawled forwards. Lashed out blindly.

  The wolf caught her wrist in his mouth.