When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

  Mati’s heart swelled in sympathy despite his slow-simmering anger. He had been blessed, he knew, to have parents who loved gently and stuck around when they were needed. Isha hadn’t; all he had was Faren, and Faren was a sharp little bastard who never knew when to stop. That wasn’t Isha’s fault.

  “Come here,” Mati said and took Isha’s hand. Isha’s skin was cool against Mati’s throbbing fingers.

  “You tucked your thumb in, you daft turnip,” Isha said softly, a hint of incredulity creeping into his voice. The familiarity of the phrase brought a small, brief smile to Mati’s lips.

  “I’ve never punched anyone before,” he admitted as he flexed his fingers. Pain shot from his swollen thumb and he hissed through his teeth. “I didn’t even mean to. I just – wanted him to stop talking.”

  “You managed that.” Isha shook his head. He got up and rifled through a box on the shelf above the hearth until he found some bandages. These Isha dipped in water from the basin before he returned to the table and gently began to bind Mati’s fingers. Mati leant away from the pain and tried to think about other things.

  Once finished, Isha sat down and curled an unused bit of bandaging around his fingers again and again.

  “I—” Isha began, at the same time as Mati said, “Listen—”

  Both broke off. Mati cleared his throat and motioned for Isha to continue.

  “What happens now?”

  Mati bit the inside of his cheek. What does happen now? How are we supposed to keep going? Mati suspected there would be a punishment for injuring Faren, and he didn’t mind accepting that. But. That would only clear a small sample of the shit heap he and Isha were in.

  “I can’t say,” Mati admitted. Isha lapsed back into silence. The dull thud of his heel hitting the floor as he bounced his leg repeatedly was the only sound in the room.

  “Do you blame me?” Isha finally broke out. Mati hesitated. He had been expecting another outburst, not that question, barely whispered into the fraught silence.

  “I think,” Mati said carefully, “that you’ve fucked up.”

  Isha bowed his head. He looked so small – or at least, smaller than he usually did to Mati. Aching inside, Mati closed his hands over Isha’s again. Isha looked up, startled.

  “You fucked up, but everything’s . . . it’s all different now. It’s just you and me, and I’m too exhausted with it all to be angry at you.”

  Tears glistened in Isha’s eyes. He looked at Mati, expectant like a tame raven awaiting feed. Mati exhaled slowly. He knew what he had to say next; the words had been building up inside his chest weeks, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  “I’m standing by Rostfar and Arketh, and you know that.” Mati licked his lower lip and plunged on before Isha could say anything. “So no, I don’t blame you, even though I probably should. But you pushed Rost away and you let Faren get into our home, our family, our bed. He’s always overshadowing us. I can’t pretend I understand magic or the wyrdness much other’n praying to Erdan for a good crop harvest, but none of that means shit. It’s our daughter we’re talking about, not some monster from the marshes. She’s kind and sharp and wants to see the good in the world and now she’s—” Gone, Mati wanted to say, but the word stuck like bile in the back of his throat. He sucked in a sharp breath and clenched his wounded fist, letting the pain ground him. “We can’t give up on her.”

  Isha stood up. For a moment, Mati thought Isha would leave or hit him or both. Instead, he came around the table, took the front of Mati’s shirt, and leaned in to kiss him. Mati put a hand on Isha’s chest.

  “Not now,” he said.

  Isha’s eyes filled with tears. “But—”

  “Isha . . .” Mati closed his eyes and brought one of Isha’s calloused hands to his lips. “I’m sorry. But I can’t – not now,” he mumbled against Isha’s knuckles. Isha sniffed and pulled away to wipe his nose on his sleeve.

  “I’ll fix this.”

  “I don’t think any of this can be fixed.”

  “No!” Isha’s eyes blazed with rare determination. “You’re wrong. It can – I’ll find a way.”

  “What . . .?”

  “Rostfar said Arketh’s not dead, so I will believe that. And I swear, on Erdan and Norðunn and all else that’s good, I’ll make this right.” Isha’s fists were clenched and his cheeks were flushed. “I’ll – I’ll find Rost and bring her home, and we’ll fix it together.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll find someone capable of tracking; someone we can trust.” The look on Isha’s face was one that Mati recognised – it was how he looked when working out how best to fill a complex request at his forge. And when he looked like that, he always succeeded.

  Mati nodded. “But don’t swear on the gods. People swear on them all the time.”

  Isha looked Mati directly in the eye. “Then I swear it on the wyrdness,” he said. “And I swear it on our family.”

  Chapter 20

  Twice, Yrsa had flitted past the scrape in which Grae slept and twice, he growled at her. She was inviting play, and although it should have been innocent enough, Grae could feel a conversation brewing. A conversation he didn’t want to have.

  “You’re like a bloodfly,” Grae mumbled without turning to look at his littermate. “Annoying.”

  He heard Yrsa pad closer and felt the gentle nudge of her nose against his flank. Scenting. Testing his temper.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” Yrsa said. Grae stretched and turned around so he could look at her. The smell of the human clung to Yrsa like a down of morning dew, faint but still impossible to ignore. Grae’s hackles lifted, briefly, before he jerked his head away.

  “Not you.” Grae corrected. Yrsa huffed.

  “Come on,” she nipped his flank, more mouth than teeth. “Ros – the human is still asleep. I’m just here for you.”

  “Fine,” Grae said. He snarled playfully and rolled over. Yrsa’s mood immediately perked up.

  Grae and Yrsa raced one another through the trees, out of the undergrowth and over the outcroppings of folded black rock that marked the landscape. For Grae, it was less about play and more about trying to outrun the frustration that burned in his veins at a near constant simmer these days, always ready to flare up no matter what he did. Anger wasn’t becoming of a wolf; he knew that. Had grown up hearing it. But that didn’t change how he felt.

  He supposed he should be grateful Yrsa wanted to help distract him.

  Grae was stronger, but Yrsa was swift and light-footed. Her smaller size allowed her to race well ahead of him, over roots and rocks until the two of them broke out of the thinning trees into the outer slopes. Black soil and thick grasses encompassed the start of Deothwicc, rolling away into hillocks and plateaus.

  At a small, rocky spine, Grae skidded to a stop. Yrsa turned back to him, her head cocked to one side. They were both panting heavily in the chill air, their breath misting out in colours. Grae stared at her for a long time before he licked the top of her head with a reassuring little sound low in his throat. He couldn’t direct his anger at her when she wasn’t the cause. The cause lay miles behind them, ensconced in the safety of a den it had no right to. Grae growled.

  “You’re angry again,” Yrsa said. Not a question; a statement. Grae saw how his own anger coloured the wyrdness, spiralling outwards like a cloud of bloodflies on a foggy morning. No matter how hard he tried, he could not rein it in. “Having the human here could be wonderful, Grae. It’s not even been two days—”

  “No!” Grae snapped at her flank and she leapt away from him. Her scent spiked, briefly, and then settled down again. He knew Yrsa would never be afraid of him, that she would bite back if he went too far, but guilt swooped over him. He scrambled to explain himself. “Humans can’t see this, Yrsa,” Grae flicked his nose at the soft shroud of light surrounding a fallen branch. The branch itself was dead, but new growths and insects pulled the wyrdness tight around it like morning dew.

  “I know.”r />
  “They may as well be prey animals, or even—” he shivered at the comparison he was about to make. “Unwolves.”

  Grae expected her to snap at that.

  Yrsa surprised him. She nestled herself down at his side and stretched, completely at ease.

  “You’re thinking about Nessen.”

  Grae bowed his head.

  Yes, Nessen. The memory-ghost that padded close behind him, no matter how fast or how far he ran. Grae’s hackles prickled and he shivered, despite Yrsa’s warmth at his side.

  Yrsa licked him in a mirror of the place where he had bitten her and, trusting, Grae lowered his head so she could lay hers atop his. While he was all sharp edges and bristling anger, Yrsa was yielding; in her presence, the wyrdness between them hummed like a distant den of bees. Calming. Gentle. Grae exhaled slowly.

  “He had barely seen two moonturns,” Grae mumbled into the silence.

  I know how you’re feeling, said Yrsa’s shoulder against his, I understand your pain. But she didn’t. It didn’t matter that the pack shared their deepest memories; Grae kept these private.

  The scent-paths in his head were saturated with blood whenever he tried to follow it to Nessen. He couldn’t remember what Nessen’s summer coat was like or what humans had been responsible for his death, but the moment was frozen inside him forever. There had been heat and screams and a long, dark space into which Nessen ran. A trap. And then there was blood in Grae’s mouth and weight on him, and all he could smell was the acrid, salty stench of fear.

  “Maybe if Rostfar stays here, the humans could learn. Maybe nothing like that has to happen again.”

  Maybe. Could. If. Wolvenkind rarely spoke in possibilities – their future was too uncertain, their lives subject to human whims and fears. Grae knew that better than anyone.

  “You shouldn’t talk in possibilities,” Grae hissed. His head thrust forwards, teeth showing. Yrsa didn’t back away. She stood up, determination filling every line of her slight frame.

  “She could have been one of the humans who – she could have been there,” Grae said. He didn’t miss how something quick and sharp spiked through Yrsa’s scent before vanishing back into the peace of the morning. “She could,” Grae spat again.

  “You shouldn’t talk in possibilities,” Yrsa said quietly with a bite in her tone.

  “I don’t want this human in our space, and Estene said nothing about not harming her.”

  Yrsa showed a slight flash of teeth in her frustration. “Just talk with her, please.”

  “No!” Grae snapped for Yrsa’s haunch. Yrsa stepped back.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I know Estene has made the right choice, and I can’t keep on helping you if you fight it.”

  “Yrsa—”

  “I barely recognise my littermate anymore.” She slunk away from him, backwards at first and then the flash of her tail disappeared into the trees. Within a few moments she was downwind of him, and Grae lost her amongst the quiet murmuring of the mid-morning wood. Guilt closed around his stomach and Grae whined into the space where Yrsa had been.

  With nothing else to do, Grae hunted. He wandered through the low grasses, following the scent of a hare-pup that wound away ahead of him. The scent-trail was fresh and layered over with new blood, promising an easy meal when he finally found it. Hares were hard to catch, usually requiring two or three adult wolves for a small meal, but they were essential during the Starving Time. Just until the bigger prey came up from the south.

  Something flashed in the undergrowth.

  Grae froze. One ear slowly pricked up. It was impossible to pick out the shapes of the hare-pups with their dark coats, but he could smell their fear. His tongue felt thick with their scent and his own hunger. If he waited, the hares would bolt. Then they would be his.

  Or, they would have been, if Grae hadn’t caught the scent of the human.

  His head snapped in the human’s direction. He couldn’t see her, and as soon as the breeze settled again, he lost her. The combination of saliva and hatred went straight to Grae’s head. He was hungry, but what exactly he was hungry for had become confused. Trying to regain his thoughts was futile. Grae remained stuck in his crouch, bristling and seething, and waited for the landscape to reveal its secrets. His muscles shivered in anticipation.

  There.

  Grae snapped into a run at full force, throwing up stones and muddied snow. Hare-pups scattered in all directions. He lunged after the nearest one and tasted blood as his teeth grazed its hind legs. So close. Not close enough. The hunt had become a chase of reaching neck and desperate speed and trying to regain footing as the small blur of hare changed direction.

  Grae was so focused on it he didn’t see the trap until he was lying on his side in the muck with his tongue bitten clean through.

  He tried to get up, but the trap had caught his left foreleg. His attempts to pull it free only made the pressure increase.

  The human stood a little way away from him, fingers outstretched. Tension resonated from her shape in painful waves. In her hand was the young hare, twitching in a macabre death-dance but seemingly unharmed.

  “You need to keep still,” the human said. Grae tried to step away again and felt whatever held him in place draw blood. The human approached at a shuffling crouch. “The hares can’t see the snares and run right in. I didn’t realise that wolves can’t either . . . please, keep still.” The tender note in her voice on the last plea made Grae stop his attempts to move entirely. Gentle fingers tugged at whatever it was around Grae’s leg, and bit by bit the pressure lessened. The human sat back on her haunches and stretched her fingers. The dead hare lay between them, its neck snapped in a clean, efficient way.

  Grae didn’t understand. He had come across caribou in pits with spears in their flanks and grounded birds with broken wings, and always where humankind had been there was blood and pain. Never had Grae seen a kill so bloodless.

  He circled the human and the hare-pup with his hackles raised and gingerly sniffed his foreleg. The cut there wasn’t deep, but he deliberately licked it anyway and snarled when the human moved. If he were going to harm her, now would be the time to do it, to finish what he had started.

  “Are you hungry?” The human asked. Grae recoiled.

  “Hungry,” he repeated.

  She must have taken that as a yes because she took her detached, silver claw from under her clothes and cut the back leg from the carcass. She dropped the rest of the meal on the ground and pushed it towards him with her foot.

  Grae could only stare.

  Only members of a pack shared food, and there were always rules. Those who had hunted ate first. Yearlings had to wait their turn, and if Grae had hurt a pack member in the way he had hurt this human, he would go hungry. There had to be a trick involved.

  “Why?”

  The human’s face crumpled. “I—” she lifted her shoulders. “I’ve nobody else to share a meal with here, so . . . I’m sorry. I’ll take it if you don’t—” she reached out and Grae snapped at her fingers.

  “Oh, okay.” The human held her own portion tighter to her chest. So, she was still afraid of him. That was good. At least she wasn’t completely without sense. “You’re Grae, aren’t you?”

  Grae just took the carcass in his mouth and walked away.

  Chapter 21

  Tired and hungry, Rostfar traipsed back to the clearing with the den. She hesitated to call it her den – nothing here belonged to anyone; it was all so wild and alive – but nobody bothered her there. If she crouched with her back to the tiered pools, she could see anything coming before it saw her. Less chance of getting jumped again as she had in the Speaking Tree’s clearing.

  Rostfar sighed in relief as she sat by the fire pit she had already built. Before long, she had a fire going and the young hare’s leg roasting on a handheld skewer. It wasn’t much, but the crackle of roasting meat gave her a sense of familiarity amid the strangeness of the forest.

  Rostfar had jus
t begun to relax, cheered at the prospect of her first decent meal in days, when a furious snarl broke the illusion. She reached for her newly-reclaimed knife – too late. The only thing between her and the wolf was the fire, and Rostfar had no doubt the wolf would leap over it at a moment’s notice.

  “It’s going to kill us,” he said to someone over Rostfar’s shoulder. She spun around and saw a second wolf had climbed onto the ledge of the lowest pool. This one almost looked like Estene, but she was smaller, and her eyes were blank and unseeing. She thrust her head forwards so that her bared teeth were only a finger’s breadth from Rostfar’s face. Rostfar didn’t dare to move.

  “Where’s the fire?” The second wolf sniffed at the air. “What’s the human doing with it?”

  “I’m just—” Rostfar paused. Would wolves know anything about cooking? Could she explain it to them, or would they attack her for speaking? “I’m not doing any damage.”

  “You’ve brought fire into our home,” the first wolf snapped and stepped forwards. Too close to the open flames.

  He leapt back with a yelp as an ember landed on his muzzle. Rostfar started towards him, but something closed around the hood of her cloak. The second wolf’s breath was hot against her ear.

  “Ysmir! Geren!” Estene’s voice rang out in a shout that went deeper than sound. Rostfar didn’t have the wyrdsight – but she didn’t need to. She could feel the power of it in her bones; it made her teeth hurt and her vision blur.

  The pressure around Rostfar’s neck vanished, followed by the sound of running paws.

  Estene stood before her, but the sight brought no comfort. Like her children, Estene was bristling and snarling in pure, cold fury.

  “Remove it,” Estene said in a tone that reminded Rostfar of Nat.

  “But I—”