When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

Rostfar spread her cloak and pack and lay down by the smouldering embers. She was full, more at ease than she had been in a while, and yet. . .

  Paws padded against the ground, followed by a soft hmph of breath as Yrsa lay down beside Rostfar. Yrsa’s nose nudged Rostfar’s hip, and she idly laid her hand on Yrsa’s head.

  “Are you okay?” Yrsa asked quietly.

  “I think so,” Rostfar said.

  “How can you not be sure?”

  “This feels wonderful, Yrsa. But something’s . . . wrong, maybe with me.”

  “You miss your pup.”

  Rostfar closed her eyes. The moth-pulse in her throat gave a shudder and Rostfar touched blood-stained fingers to it. She could feel the warm, magical energy humming in her fingertips, but it wasn’t Arketh. It would never be Arketh.

  “Yes,” Rostfar agreed.

  “You’re tired.” Yrsa stretched out so that the weight of her warm body was against Rostfar’s legs. “You must sleep.”

  Rostfar wanted to argue, but she knew Yrsa was right. She turned over, bundled herself up in her cloak, and soon drifted into an easy, warmth-filled dream.

  Chapter 32

  The soft, warm pillow beneath Rostfar’s cheek rippled and shifted. She grumbled and tried to pull her blanket tighter, but there wasn’t any blanket to pull on.

  “Mati, giv’m back,” Rostfar mumbled and reached out to pinch Mati’s arm. Her reaching fingers found only dirt.

  Rostfar came awake in a heartbeat. Two pairs of reflective eyes shone from the darkness above her.

  “Rostfar, hurry,” Yrsa whispered. As her eyes adjusted, Rostfar made out Myr and Yrsa’s shapes as darker patches of shadow in the grey gloom. The sun was obscured by a bank of clouds, and sleep still lay heavy on her thoughts like old snow.

  “Unwolf,” Myr said, and all Rostfar’s newfound peace vanished. He turned and pointed with his snout towards a slope not far from where the wolves had settled. A thin, wolven silhouette stood alone atop it.

  The pack moved close together in a defensive knot. The air swelled and trembled with their low growls, breaths steaming out in clouds. Rostfar couldn’t see the unwolf clearly enough to read its expression, but its pose, although static, seemed quite relaxed. Unhurried. As if it were idling away an hour watching baby goats play.

  “It’s been standing there, watching,” Geren’s uneasy snarl came from Rostfar’s left.

  “We attack,” Grae said. He had circled behind Rostfar to get closer to Yrsa, and now stood protectively at his littermate’s side.

  “No.” Myr raised his head and fixed Unwolf with an unwavering gaze. “Let it come, if it will.”

  Anger, blood-hunger, grief – they rose inside Rostfar like the tide. No matter what Yrsa said about the day of Arketh’s disappearance, this creature had blood on its teeth. She reached for her spear, but Yrsa’s mouth closed gently around her wrist.

  “What are you doing?” Rostfar hissed.

  Yrsa withdrew her teeth to answer. Rostfar seized her spear and bolted up the slope at a flat-out sprint. She lost sight of Unwolf for a single, fleeting second as she scrambled up a jut of rock, and skidded to a halt at the uneven summit. Alone.

  Unwolf’s disembodied voice floated from the dark. “A human among wolves.” It sounded both mocking and genuinely affronted. “You . . . of the red hair. The not-raven spoke of you.”

  “What?” The cold air burned her throat and drew tears to her eyes as she spun. Fog rolled along the ground below, too dense and swift to be natural. It hadn’t climbed this slope yet, but Rostfar could feel it anyway: creeping, hungry, toying with her senses.

  “Wanted to know if I’d killed you, like I did that little child.”

  A dark shape flickered out the corner of Rostfar’s eye. She whirled and thrust with her spear in a single, fluid motion. Something rushed past her, so close she could smell old blood on its breath, and she spun to face it again. Too slow. Quick as a hare and just as mad, Unwolf raced towards the top of the ravine where the caribou herd had been grazing.

  Rostfar gave chase. She skidded more than she ran, but that didn’t matter. Unwolf was ahead of her, little more than an arrow-shot away. One of the pack lunged from the fog, but Unwolf seemed to know where he would strike: it turned on its haunches and raced back the way it had come. Towards Rostfar.

  It crashed into her at full pelt, teeth snapping. Her world flipped over and the ground smacked the side of her face. She heard a snarl, a yelp, a hiss drawn through sharp teeth. Paws struck the earth right by her head and a black-furred belly blotted out her view of the sky. Her fingers scrabbled for her spear, but found only splintered wood. There was rain in her eyes and pain in her ribs and she had failed failed failed.

  “Rostfar!” The voice echoed from far away, torn to shreds by the wind. Myr was no longer standing over her. She hadn’t noticed him move. “Rostfar!” Yrsa’s voice, right by her ear. “Rostfar, are you hurt?”

  “No.” Rostfar felt her lie in the ache of her ribs. She couldn’t breathe properly. The world was hurtling away from her, Yrsa’s voice fading in and out.

  Myr and Bryn materialised at Rostfar’s side. Other wolves were circling towards them now, drawing tighter and tighter until the pack were gathered together. They were all snuffling each other, checking their siblings and littermates for wounds; hemming Rostfar in on all sides.

  Rostfar tore free from the confines of the group. Her knees gave out a few steps away and she folded down on herself. Only when she began to cough did she realise she had screamed. The sound came again, wild and raw, from some shattered force in the pit of her stomach.

  Yrsa’s voice was soft with fear. “Rostfar?”

  Rostfar pressed her knuckles into her eyes until her vision dissolved.

  “Rostfar!” Teeth nipped at her arm. Not hard enough to bleed, but enough that Rostfar spun around to face Yrsa’s frightened eyes. “Have you seen Grae?”

  “Grae?” What did he have to do with anything? Rostfar opened her mouth and no sound came out.

  “He’s gone! I lost him in the storm.”

  Finally, the fear in Yrsa’s voice broke through to Rostfar. She gasped. Looked around. The terrible darkness encompassed the closely packed wolves on all sides, and somewhere out there, at the mercy of a mindless beast, was Grae.

  ⁂

  Grae wasn’t sure when he realised he was alone. Surrounded by dense fog, he had reached for the wyrdness – and, when nothing answered him but the terrible silence, began to run.

  When he finally stopped, pawsore and trembling, he found himself atop a broad plateau. There was nothing to guide him: no wyrdness, no scents, no sounds. The sun shattered across rocky mounds that seemed to float in the low-lying fog, and he stood alone on an island of windswept black rock.

  “Spare a moment for a traveller?” The unwolf slunk out from behind a rock. It was thin enough that he could see the sharpness of its bones beneath its grey coat. Its eyes glittered from sunken depths, aflame with the sort of hunger that no meal could sate. Grae took one step back and then another. His foot skittered over the ledge.

  “I can see your tongue lolling out,” Unwolf said. “So why don’t you use it?” One ear pricked up in question. The other ear was too torn to do much of anything.

  “You’re not welcome here.” Grae spat the words at Unwolf’s feet, too frightened to look it in the eye. If he looked, he would have to confront what he was seeing. Unwolf, they called creatures like this – but it still had a wolf’s body.

  Unwolf sat. “I’m not welcome anywhere,” it said and licked at what remained of its left forepaw.

  The air quivered as Grae blinked, and his wyrdsight returned. Part of Grae was elated that he could see the wyrdness again, but part of him wished he’d remained blind to this particular sight. Any strand that touched Unwolf momentarily ran black then flickered dangerously, ominously, as if the wyrdness dared not feel her thoughts.

  What had she done? What had been done to her?

  T
hese were questions Grae desperately needed to have the answers for.

  He only managed a quiet What—

  She was on him. Grae’s body tensed for the fall that would surely come, but Unwolf pinned him with enough brute force to keep him from skidding over the edge. One of her paws planted itself firmly in the hollow of Grae’s throat. His breath choked off.

  “You can’t talk to me like that, little one.” Unwolf’s voice dropped until it was almost tender. Grae’s body went cold. “I know you’re doing it, reaching into your precious wyrdness, but your words won’t touch me.”

  “I won’t—” Grae writhed under her hold. “I’m sorry!”

  Unwolf let him go so quickly that Grae’s spine arched forwards from the leftover force. She let out a harsh, mocking noise and tossed her head.

  “Scared of me?” Unwolf feigned surprise. It horrified Grae to realise that she spoke like a human, with that same odd tone that Bryn said was called scar-casm. “‘S wise to be so, I suppose.”

  Grae got to his feet. He circled around Unwolf, so she had her back to the drop and he had plenty of space to run. But something compelled him to stay. Terrible as it was to see a wolf unconnected from the wyrdness – from the very soul of the world – something in that isolation called out to Grae.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Across the ice,” Unwolf said slowly, as if struggling to recall. “From a dark wood, through the drowned forest.”

  Grae thought about that. He had a feeling it was a very long way. “Why would you do that?”

  “I wanted to come here, to Deothwicc where Wolvenkind walk free.” Unwolf eyed him carefully. Her whole body was tense like the ice before it fell. Then she shuddered and her teeth flashed in the cold sunlight. “And what do I find? What manner of beast are you? Letting a human into your pack, one who bears the stench of sadness like a weeping wound.”

  “Because you slaughtered her pup!” Grae burst out. He surprised himself with his conviction.

  “Oh!” Unwolf’s voice lit up with delight and she stopped just before reaching his face. “Perfect. Do you want the human gone, out of your coat?”

  Grae hesitated. Yes, he wanted to say, but he thought again about Yrsa. Unwolf must have sensed his hesitation, because she leaned in and nuzzled him as Estene or Myr might. Grae held till and let her, ignoring the indignant snarling in his veins.

  “There are humans crossing the marshes as we speak, no doubt coming for their own. And how do they know where to go, hm?”

  “I don’t . . . are you sure?”

  “Humans armed with their weapons, ready to fight.”

  Grae pictured it – a whole pack of humans, each one armed with their long, wooden teeth and strange ways of hunting. He shivered despite the rising anger-heat in his veins.

  “The human in the forest must be using one of those tricks, calling messages to her pack. I’ve seen them do it before, with birds.” Unwolf lowered her voice and added, “You’ve only got to bring her to me.”

  Grae stared down at his feet. This was perfect. This was everything he wanted. Yrsa would forget, in time, and life would resume the comfortable pattern Grae had always lived by. He thought about Yrsa curled up at the human’s side, talking about stories and dreams and other, nonsensical things. He didn’t know how to reach his littermate anymore; Rostfar was a barrier he couldn’t get around. Everything had

  (already been wrong before)

  gone wrong for him when she arrived.

  “Where?” Grae spat out the question before he could lose his nerve. He hated himself for asking and hated that he felt so conflicted.

  “To the borders of the Wyccmarshes, where the mountains start to sink. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Grae whispered. Then, louder, “Of course.” He flinched as Unwolf drew nearer to him. She leaned in close, and Grae went stock still as she ran her nose over his neck. Only Estene, as pack-mother, had any right to greet him like that. His heart climbed up his throat.

  “You’re a friend, little one.” Unwolf murmured by his ear. “And I am yours. We who have been abandoned must cling together, after all.”

  “I haven’t been . . .” Grae’s throat closed up.

  In the sudden emptiness that followed Unwolf stepping away, Grae realised he could no longer see the wyrdness-threads; not where they broke around Unwolf and not where they clung, healthy and alive, to everything else. It was as if he had been cast adrift in a black ocean. A whimper rose in his throat.

  “It’s not so bad, not once you’re used to it.” Unwolf licked his shoulder. “Bring me the human, and I’ll give you everything you need. The wyrdness might have left you, but I won’t.”

  “You’re not my pack.” Grae’s protest was alarmingly fragile.

  “Not yet.” Unwolf flashed her teeth and before Grae could move, they sunk into his shoulder where she had licked him a few heartbeats before. He yelped at the sudden burst of white pain, whirled to nip back, and bit down on nothing but empty air.

  Unwolf was gone, and there was nothing left to distract Grae from the crushing enormity of his own choices.

  Chapter 33

  Aethren and Isha left Erdansten during the small window of darkness just after midnight. They travelled by foot and arrived at Eahalr on the evening of the next day, just as a stiff wind began to whistle across the grassy planes. Isha spoke little during the journey, which surprised Aethren. They had expected him to complain about the march or, worse, try to make small talk. Aside from requesting a few more breaks for water than Aethren would have liked, he bore the brisk pace with a bowed head and tense shoulders.

  “Do you think Eahalr is a good idea after what happened to you here?” Isha asked as the hemlock trees came into view. He had stopped walking, forcing Aethren to turn and look back at him.

  Aethren inhaled sharply through their nose. No, they didn’t think it was a good idea. Unfortunately, it was also the best idea they had. The Wyccmarshes stretched all the way across Ys from west to east, and most of that land was impenetrable. Eahalr’s position at the Harra foothills meant firm ground to walk on – or at least, firmer than the sucking, hungry depths of the Wyccmarshes proper.

  “If there’s any sign of trouble, we’ll just have to move on,” Aethren said, and felt proud of themself for their confidence. They picked up the pace and led the way through the old grove of drowned trees and into Eahalr. Isha rubbed his face, but followed without further complaint.

  He hadn’t been thrilled when Aethren explained their planned route, and the discomfort still lingered in the way he looked at them. Was he regretting his decision to trust them, Aethren wondered, or was he doubting their ability to get them both safely through the marsh? They weren’t sure which idea rankled them the most.

  A bitter, icy rain began to fall just as Isha and Aethren entered the stone hut. Aethren sank down against the back wall and wished they could have a fire. There was no way they would find any dry wood here.

  “Got any tinder?” Isha sounded out of breath. Aethren looked over to snap at him and stopped short. From a long bundle strapped to the side of his travelling pack, Isha was unwrapping a selection of dry wood. Aethren had to force themself not to be impressed.

  “Shavings will do. Toss me one.” They caught the stick Isha threw and fought against their numb fingers to delicately shave small curls of wood from its base. Isha must have noticed the look on their face though because he let out a laugh, then froze as if surprised by his own sound.

  “I . . . figured it would be hard to find dry wood.” Isha shrugged. Aethren grudgingly let slip a small half-smile.

  “Not bad, for a southerner,” Aethren said.

  “You forget, I’m a northerner first,” Isha retorted. “More a northerner than you ast nh’aka, anyway.”

  “What does that mean? Is that – did you just insult me?” Aethren peered at Isha, surprised.

  “Do you mean southerner as an insult?” Isha asked.

  “Point taken,�
� Aethren grumbled, and returned their attention to the fire. Once it was lit, Aethren laid their damp gloves on the rocky floor to dry and nestled down into their blankets.

  Beyond the mouth of the hut, the driving winds were like sheets billowing straight across the entrance. It was impossible to see anything; this was a wind that could strip the flesh from your bones and drive frost straight through your core.

  “You still really don’t like me, do you?” Isha blurted. Aethren frowned at him.

  “It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s more like . . . you love Rost, right? And she loves you. But you’ve not exactly taken any blows for her.”

  Isha turned away quickly and withdrew a small loaf of fatcake from his pack. Made with seal or whale blubber and birch-flour, fatcake was a staple food during the long, cold months of the Howling and the Quiet. They shouldn’t have been eating it this close to the Bloom, but there was little choice now the crops and roe harvest were ruined. Aethren’s stomach clenched as Isha handed them two slices with some dried whale meat.

  “Rostfar can defend herself,” Isha finally answered.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Aethren said. When Isha just looked genuinely perplexed, Aethren flung up their hands. “Stars and skyfire! Look, Faren treated Rostfar like crap, threw all her secrets in the mud, and acted like she wasn’t your family.”

  Isha looked as if he was about to be sick. He slowly lowered his meal into his lap and stared at Aethren with an expression impossible to read. “What are you saying?”

  “I think you’re like an entry rug, okay? And I don’t like that.” Aethren bit the inside of their cheek with a small, frank shrug. “You let people use you to scrape the shit off their shoes, and if it’s just yourself, then . . . fine. But it’s hurting other people too and I just don’t think you should let that happen.”

  The knob in Isha’s throat bobbed visibly. When he started to speak again, it was with a soft and distant tone. “After Mam died – I was eight winters, or there about – Pa came to get me. The tribe weren’t thrilled, but he insisted I should come live with him. Meet my half-brother. I suppose Mam must have liked him, or maybe she just didn’t know. Maybe he never let her see – he certainly fooled my Anash’ki and the other seniors—” Isha’s voice broke and he sagged against the wall behind him. “He wasn’t what I thought. What anyone thought. And Faren, this brother I was so excited to meet, was sharp as shingle. I guess he thought if Pa was going to hit him, he’d at least make sure Pa cut himself, too. But it didn’t work like that.”