When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

  He turned and padded back through the trees until he came upon a small group of his packmates. Among them were Geren and Ysmir, both of whom had been present when the human nearly set them all on fire. Bryn was at the back of the group, his eyes wide and watchful.

  “The human tried to leave,” Grae announced. The other wolves in the group stirred at that.

  “Really?” Bryn asked. He sounded disappointed – but at what, Grae couldn’t tell.

  “So, it’s gone?” Geren sat up.

  “No.” Grae slumped into the dirt between Ysmir and Geren. “Estene spoke with it, and then it came back.”

  Grae could feel general disappointment, a little unease. Wariness. Two older wolves got up and left together without a word, letting their tensed muscles and bristling hackles do the talking for them.

  “I don’t see why that’s such a problem.” Ysmir, Geren’s littermate, spoke up. “The human can sense the wyrdness, like one of us.”

  A rustle went through the gathered wolves. This was news to Grae.

  “It can—” Geren cocked his head at Ysmir with a long, calculating gaze. “Are you sure?”

  Despite her blindness, Ysmir seemed to stare straight into Geren. “Yrsa told me so last night. The earth responded to the human to make her a den, just like anyone else.” She gave a casual little heave of her body and slumped back down with her muzzle resting on her paws. “As long as she keeps her fire away from the Speaking Tree, I don’t much care what happens to her.”

  Grae and Geren exchanged a look. He could tell from Geren’s unsettled posture that he, too, had noticed Ysmir’s change in words. She, not it.

  “That changes nothing.” Grae sat upright. He tried to keep calm, but he could feel his hackles prickling. “The human’s not welcome here, none of its kind are.”

  Geren’s agreement was less vehement than before. Ysmir’s revelation had struck a chord.

  “If that’s how you feel,” Bryn spoke from the shadows of a fallen tree with a yawn. “Take it up with Estene yourself.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed. Everyone knew Bryn would be fathering his own pack within a year or two, and his words carried more weight than their idle ramblings. Grae bristled.

  “The human has gotten too close to Estene. I don’t think she’ll listen to me.” Grae said. He wondered where his new streak of defiance came from.

  Bryn stretched. “I’m not a carrier of other’s words.” His whole body was languid with the satiated sort of peace that came after a good hunt and an even better sleep. It made Grae want to bite him and hold on until Bryn bled; until he finally realised this was serious.

  “Maybe I’ll allow an accident to befall the human,” Grae snarled at Bryn’s retreating hindquarters. “I’m sure Geren would help me.”

  Bryn turned and knocked his claws across Grae’s face. “We raised you better than this.”

  Silence fell. Cold fear prickled down Grae’s spine. He hadn’t meant to say his thoughts out loud or admit the extent of his fury. Bryn wasn’t quite snarling, but his lips twitched.

  Grae stared at his brother, uncomprehending. Not wanting to comprehend. Bryn stared back. His unbreakable, unshakeable gaze scraped along Grae’s already raw nerves like teeth. A test. Show me your anger then, Bryn’s bodyspeak said, show me what you’re becoming. Grae backed away. Horror sunk through his stomach. He had trusted Bryn to be on his side, not the human’s.

  Why?

  Grae had to know. Bryn’s scent was glassy-smooth, betraying nothing, and his hackles had settled again. Grae couldn’t believe Bryn was so calm about all of this.

  “They killed Nessen,” Grae said, but the words sounded oddly hollow this time. His heartbeat was loud enough to fill his entire body. “They . . .” he couldn’t say anymore. The other wolves rose and, one by one, drifted back towards the deep forest without a word.

  “You’re falling, Grae.” Bryn’s stance softened with pity. “Remember who you are: you’re not a human, you don’t need revenge. You’re better than that.” Bryn licked Grae’s shoulder and then left as well.

  Grae remained where he sat for a long while. He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to spool out into the wyrdness until it brushed up against the borders of the Speaking Tree. Warmth suffused his veins.

  At least this was normal. This hadn’t changed. He was still of the wolvenkind and still part of his pack. He was Grae, named for his love of the open sky. He was a wolf. He was—

  Spiralling.

  The warmth that had cradled him only a heartbeat before turned to ice in his bones and the only thing Grae could see, feel, and hear on all sides was a chilling void. He twisted and turned in defiance and howled out for the Speaking Tree, for his pack, for Yrsa, Estene – but his cries went unheard. The breath in his lungs turned to ash. The darkness pressed in on all sides.

  Grae’s eyes flew open.

  He lay sprawled on his side in the leaf-litter. An owl’s hunting call echoed from somewhere high above him. The wyrdness crawled through the debris in front of his nose, hazy with the lull Grae expected from the evening hours. Relief flooded through him.

  He could still see it. His world was still turning.

  Paws padded towards him and Grae hauled himself to his feet.

  He drew in a deep breath and steeled himself to face the small, slender figure that loped from the cover of the trees.

  Yrsa. Alone.

  “Where’s the human?” Grae hadn’t intended to ask her that first. He bit his tongue with his back teeth and lowered his head.

  “It’s the human’s sleep-time—” Yrsa broke off and sniffed over Grae’s coat with an anxious snuffling in the back of her throat. “What have you been doing? Bryn said there was an argument and he left you here.”

  “I had to catch my breath.” Grae shifted himself away from Yrsa’s nose.

  “Your breath can’t have run away from you that fast,” Yrsa said. It was a joke, Grae knew it was a joke, but the edge to her voice didn’t go unnoticed. He drew his tail close in between his legs and took yet another step away from her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bryn told me that just after the first moonrise. It’s the night’s middle now.”

  Horror crashed over Grae in a wave. He was certain he had only been out of the world for a few moments. But. A glance up at the sky told him Yrsa was right.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes,” Grae said. “Just hungry.”

  Yrsa brightened considerably at that. She pricked up her ears and darted back to the treeline where she tenderly picked up the corpse of a squirrel. Grae’s mouth filled with saliva at the smell.

  “Ysmir caught the scent of prey-herds this side of the mountains.” Yrsa’s bodyspeak betrayed her excitement. “So, eat up. We’ll be hunting soon.”

  She didn’t need to tell him twice. Grae tore into the hibernation-toughened flesh with gusto.

  Only once Grae had finished did he realise he had told a lie. It was so small, so simple, and it had slid off his tongue with slippery ease.

  Are you alright? Yrsa had asked.

  He wasn’t. He was the furthest from alright he had ever been. But he had said yes.

  Part III

  New and Tentative Roots

  Chapter 25

  Approaching Eahalr alone felt . . . different. Aethren couldn’t put a name to the feeling, but it was as if the world had been knocked ever so slightly sideways. Perhaps it was the mist, which lay a bit too thick upon the shrubs and trees; or perhaps it was the silence, which stretched out on all sides like a bowstring about to snap. Even Pony’s heavy breaths sounded hollow, like the silence was determined to remain intact.

  Aethren sighed in relief. The atmosphere was oppressive, yes – but it was also familiar. At least they could breathe freely here among the skeletal plants and lonely shrubs, away from home.

  When they reached the water hemlocks at Eahalr’s edge, Aethren dismounted. The mist here was a living, breathing thing, c
ircling Aethren and Pony like a hunting animal. Pony let out a nervous breath and shifted her front hooves, ears plastered to her skull.

  “It’s okay,” Aethren murmured, stroking her nose with a small, incredulous smile. “It’s just us. Finally.” They leant their forehead against her neck and shut their eyes. Erdansten felt increasingly like some sort of twisted trap. It seemed to draw Aethren in, crushing them, even as it pushed them away.

  In the week since the peoplesmoot, three more children had come down with a strange new sickness and people wanted the council to find answers. Laethen did her best, but she kept delegating the training to Aethren as she dealt with wider issues of supplies and security. It was all too much, all of the time. The eery, mouldering stillness of Eahalr was like paradise in comparison.

  “I’m offended by how easily you ignore me.”

  Aethren whirled around.

  A wolf stood alone in the centre of the grove. It was rake-thin and looked mangled, like it had narrowly escaped some giant beast. Scars marred its ragged coat, and part of its left ear had been torn off.

  Aethren had an arrow nocked and ready within a heartbeat. The wolf just stared at them with its pale eyes. Unafraid.

  “Hostile, aren’t you?” the wolf remarked lazily. “But I would expect nothing less from a child of the raven.”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  “Because I can smell the magic on you.” The wolf circled Aethren. “And the fear. You’re so afraid.”

  With a whinny of terror, Pony turned and fled. Aethren wanted to go after her, but their legs refused to move.

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Then why are you hiding among the humans?”

  “I am a human.”

  The wolf snarled, its teeth bared.

  Shoving their fear down, Aethren took a deep breath, and asked, “Did you kill a woman, a woman with red hair? And a child?”

  “I shan’t answer anything if you keep pointing that weapon at me.” The wolf sat and put its nose in the air in a mockery of disdain. Such a human expression; so out of place on this feral, ragged beast.

  Aethren’s grip trembled. Their arm muscles were starting to ache from holding the draw, and they still couldn’t move their feet. Would they even be able to fire? And then another question, even more terrible – would an arrow be capable of harming this thing? They knew that wolves could die, but this wolf seemed so unreal. Wrong.

  Aethren lowered their bow. The arrow dropped to the mud at their feet.

  “There was a child, yes . . .” The wolf mused, its voice momentarily faint. Then it snapped its gaze back to Aethren. “But that was the other. Not me. I only wounded the boy-child.”

  Astvald. Aethren grimaced.

  “He died.” Aethren shook their head in disbelief, but not even their horror at the casual answer could take away from a glimmer of hope. “But that was the – the other, you said? So, you’re just two wolves. Not a pack?”

  The wolf didn’t seem to hear their question. “Wolves?” It repeated in a dull voice, and looked around suspiciously. No, not just suspicious – confused, as if it genuinely didn’t understand what Aethren meant. “There are no wolves here. Just me, and you, and the mist-wraiths.”

  The hair on the back of Aethren’s neck prickled. Mist-wraiths. That would explain what had happened at Whiterift. And why they couldn’t move. The mist pressed in on all sides, thick with magic and malice.

  “Why are the mist-wraiths here?” Aethren asked, wracking their brains, stalling for time.

  The wolf’s eyes snapped back to Aethren. “Because the other asked them to help us – to help the ones like you and me.”

  “There is no ‘you and me’.”

  “You are one of us,” The wolf said, and – was that desperation in its voice?

  The wolf lunged.

  The stench of its breath was overwhelming, the weight on their chest immovable. Their bow splintered beneath those huge paws and the wolf knocked it aside with its nose. The wolf’s forepaws pressed down at the hollow of their throat.

  “I’m not—” Aethren coughed desperately, “playing.”

  Teeth gnashed together a hair’s breadth from their face. “Arrows and spears won’t save the humans from what’s coming. There will be nothing left for you here.”

  Aethren tried to shove the wolf off and received a swipe across the face for their efforts. Blood, hot and blinding, spilt into their eyes. The pain came next.

  It was only as Aethren found the air to scream that they realised the wolf was no longer on top of them. It had pulled back and was staring at its paw. At Aethren’s blood.

  “Red,” it murmured. “You bleed like a human.”

  “What else would I bleed like?” Aethren wheezed, pressing their sleeve to their bloodied face. The wolf looked up at them, horror and terror burning in those hollowed eyes.

  “Other said you were not. Said I would be disappointed . . .” It shook its head, slinking back from Aethren, its teeth bared fully now.

  “Not what?”

  “The hrafmaer,” it said, and launched itself at Aethren’s throat.

  Instinct, raw and wild, pulsed through Aethren’s veins. They moved like a doll on a string – arms jerked up, fingers splayed wide, fanning droplets of blood across the frosty earth. New pain blossomed in their gut, like a fist clenching shut.

  The wolf shuddered to a halt in mid-lunge. Aethren could see – feel – it straining to escape. Its back legs were bunched and its upper body frozen in the process of lifting off the ground, and its open mouth seemed stuck in the midst of a pained snarl.

  “Run,” Aethren grunted as the clench in their gut released. “While I’ll still let you.”

  The wolf collapsed. It heaved as if retching, then scrambled to its feet and fled from the grove. The hungry, creeping mist trailed away after it.

  For a long time, Aethren sat shivering on the ground. At some point, they went from sitting to standing, and from standing to walking. They thought they might have screamed – their throat felt raw – but they weren’t sure. All they knew for certain was that their face hurt, and the blood had dried in a stiff sheet down their cheek and neck.

  The landscape passed in a blur. When the voices and torches swam out of the low-lying fog, Aethren barely noticed. People were calling their name, searching, shouting. A familiar voice, ragged and frightened—

  Kristan.

  Aethren stopped walking. They looked up.

  From around a bend in the path came a group of figures with torches and weapons. The light dazzled their eyes, so that for a moment they couldn’t tell who was who.

  “Ren!” Kristan crashed into Aethren before they could comprehend what was happening. He grabbed the front of their shirt and buried his face in their chest, holding on like a boy determined to never let go. Aethren didn’t need to think about it. They hugged him back.

  Arguments meant nothing after staring into the slavering maw of a wolf.

  “You’re hurt!”

  Aethren tore their eyes away from the top of Kristan’s head and saw Mati, whose mouth dropped open as he took in the damage to their face. He took off his own cloak and wrapped it around their shoulders, almost drowning them in fabric.

  “What happened?” Kristan demanded. “Pony came tearing back, but you weren’t there – Marken said you were getting herbs – wait, let me look at your face—”

  “Wolf.” Aethren let the word drop from their lips, expecting to feel relief. Kristan went silent.

  Mati stepped in, easing an arm around Aethren’s shoulders. That was odd. They didn’t remember their legs giving out.

  “They’ve lost too much blood,” Kristan said. “Can you carry them?”

  “Wolf,” Mati repeated. He didn’t seem to be listening to Kristan. “Did – did you kill it?”

  No, I didn’t kill it. I couldn’t. I failed.

  The truth was too strange, too difficult to explain. A hysterical bubble of laughter broke past Aethren�
��s lips. I didn’t kill it because we had a chat.

  “What is it?” Kristan asked. Aethren shook their head and immediately regretted it when bright colours exploded across their vision.

  “Nothing,” Aethren muttered. “Everything. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Mati lifted Aethren as if they weighed nothing. “Let’s just get you home.”

  Chapter 26

  Measuring time outside of the structure of Erdansten was hard, but Rostfar guessed she had been in Deothwicc for about two weeks. The Starve was at its peak, and with it came longer days and a warmer sun. Rostfar lay in a patch of dry grass just beyond Deothwicc proper and stared up at the sky. She and Mati used to lay in one another’s arms and find as many shapes in the clouds as they could at this time of year. They had done it with Isha and then later, with Arketh. It brought her a little comfort now.

  “Get up!” Yrsa came bounding out of nowhere. Rostfar almost jumped out of her skin when Yrsa pressed her cold nose against Rostfar’s neck.

  As Rostfar’s brain clicked back into the earthen world, she realised Yrsa was excited.

  “What is it?”

  Yrsa danced from foot to foot, her tail waving in a manner Rostfar associated with laughter. “You’re accompanying us on a hunt.”

  Dread filled Rostfar from head to toe. She nodded shakily.

  “That’s . . . uh, that’s nice.”

  “It’s excellent.” Yrsa spun on her back legs and started bounding back towards the thicker trees.

  “Wait!” Rostfar stumbled after her. Yrsa turned around. “I don’t – I have nothing I need, no spear or, or traps. I don’t even know how you hunt.”

  “How different could it be?” Yrsa asked flippantly and disappeared among the trees. Alone, Rostfar let out a bitter bark of laughter.

  Hunting was the furthest thing from Rostfar’s mind. Her hands crept to her upper arms and she hugged herself. She wanted to stay here, to make the most of the short daylight in a place she could pretend was like home.

  Deothwicc was dragging itself out of hibernation, towards the light and life of the Bloom. On the flats beneath Deothwicc, woolly lousewort was breaking free from its fluffy cocoon and the tops of grasses peeked above the remaining snow. Rostfar wondered if they had completed the Bloom Tower at Whiterift, or if that tradition had become another casualty of the unwolf.