When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

But the kindness of the hrafmaer, as any child knew, was often lethal.

  Chapter 36

  Days passed, storms raged, and the Starve bled into the Bloom. Grae spent his days expecting the warning-cry to go up and a pack of humans to come trampling into the forest, armed and ready to kill. Or, perhaps, they would be more subtle, laying traps for an unwary wolf as Rostfar had done with the caribou. And Grae could tell no one of the threat for fear of exposing his conversation with the unwolf.

  On the day the storms finally quieted, Grae found Rostfar in the outer reaches of Deothwicc, seated on a flat slab of rock overlooking the scrubland. Yrsa was with her too, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The two of them were almost nose-to-nose, heads bowed, and eyes closed.

  Yrsa flicked an ear in acknowledgement when Grae approached, but she didn’t turn away from Rostfar.

  “What are you doing?” Grae asked. If he hadn’t been so focused on getting Rostfar alone, he might have felt guilty for interrupting. Another wolf would have nipped him for such insolence.

  Rostfar jerked back and blinked at Grae. The wyrdness around her was a lot calmer than Grae was used to, coiling comfortably through her fingers as she brushed her hair back from her face. No sooner had Grae noticed this than his grip on the wyrdsight wavered. It had been doing that a lot of late.

  “Comparing what we call things,” Yrsa explained. “I thought maybe I could show Rostfar some of our language through the wyrdness, since she’s got some closeness with it already.”

  Grae tensed. “Did it work?” he clipped out, barely able to smother his rising resentment. If a human could gain the wyrdsight when he was losing his—

  “No,” Rostfar said and Grae relaxed. “No, I don’t think so. I felt something, but . . .”

  “But we must keep talking with our tongues for now,” Yrsa finished with a humorous quirk of her ears.

  Rostfar smiled and said “Indeed.” With affection clear in her tone. Grae could have shrivelled up inside at that, but Rostfar turned to him with that same easy, trusting expression and Grae hated how warm it made him feel. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Go where?” Yrsa’s head twitched up. Rostfar glanced first at Yrsa and then at Grae. She must have thought Yrsa already knew where they were going – or some of the truth, at least. Grae mentally nipped himself for the oversight.

  “I wanted to take Rostfar hunting. To . . . make amends.” Grae touched his nose reassuringly to Yrsa’s flank. She nuzzled back, no disbelief or doubt in her stance. Genuine happiness at this turn of events bled into her scent.

  “Happy hunting then,” Yrsa said and rose to her feet with a yawn. She loped off into the trees.

  With nothing else to delay them, Grae looked to Rostfar. “We should . . . go.”

  Rostfar stood and gazed at where Yrsa had gone, a distant expression on her face.

  “You could have told her the truth,” Rostfar said. “I think I could have gotten her to understand, if nothing else.”

  “I told the truth!” Grae bristled. Rostfar looked at him narrowly, not unlike Estene might have done. He tried again. “I told . . . part of the truth. The part that matters – if we don’t find the unwolf, we can still hunt other prey.” Grae waited, struggling to keep his breath steady, until Rostfar shrugged her shoulders.

  “Fair enough,” Rostfar admitted. “I just don’t like lying.”

  Instead of replying to that last comment – which felt too pointed, even if Rostfar couldn’t know Grae’s motives – Grae turned and walked out into the plains.

  The weather was warm enough that Rostfar shrugged off her furry outermost layer. It hung loose around her waist, revealing a mishmash of skins and fabric beneath. Whatever worked to keep in the warmth with skin like that, Grae supposed. He didn’t let himself get too curious.

  The sick horror of lying still lay in the pit of his stomach, and a strange coldness clung to his insides. Sometimes the currents of the wyrdness would flicker out of the corner of his eye as if they were taunting him, threatening him. The entire world felt thin.

  Grae halted abruptly when he realised Rostfar was no longer beside him. He whirled around, but the snarl in his throat choked off when he saw her. Rostfar was crouching over a small cluster of white flowers and her shoulders were shaking. Grae glanced up at the pale, sunlit ghost of the red moon. It was almost halfway through its arc.

  “Come on,” Grae said, trying not to sound as if he cared. He didn’t care. Couldn’t. Rostfar let out a long, shaking breath. Grae padded a little closer and saw with a start that there was water leaking out of her eyes. It smelled vaguely like the salt of the marshes. Rostfar rubbed her forehead with the heel of her palm.

  “They’re snowbells,” Rostfar said, touching one of the flowers.

  “I know,” Grae replied tersely, although he hadn’t known. Not really. They were just another scent in his scent-map.

  “Arketh loved these.” Rostfar spoke quietly. Grae had the feeling that she wasn’t talking to him. “Spring grasses make me sneeze, but I’d take her out anyway to collect as many flowers as we could carry and bring them back to Mati and Isha as a surprise.”

  Grae shifted his weight from paw to paw. Something awful was happening in his stomach and throat. He couldn’t breathe properly and the urge to flee was overwhelming.

  “Why would you do that if it hurt you?” Grae asked. Rostfar stood up and pulled the caps of her mittens back over her fingers.

  “We’ve our deities in Erdansten, and Arketh believed they lived in the flowers. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t about to take that away from her.” Rostfar wiped the water away from her eyes and made a snorting sound through her nose, breathing in deeply. “What is it?” She suddenly looked at Grae, who only then realised he was whining. He lowered his head and stared at a small caterpillar crawling through the first shoots of grass.

  “Nothing,” he

  (lied)

  said. “My shoulder.”

  “We don’t have to do this today,” Rostfar told him gently. Grae bristled all over. He looked around again. This whole expanse of land, from the edges of Deothwicc to the foothills of the Harra Mountains, would soon be blanketed in a red haze of fireweed. Even with the odd patches of snow and the scruffiness of the thawing grasses, the tundra of wolf country was beautiful. And Rostfar appreciated that beauty too.

  It didn’t matter, Grae reminded himself. It couldn’t matter.

  “We’re doing this,” Grae said tersely. “It’s too late to turn back.”

  ⁂

  Grae became less and less responsive the further out they got. He would grunt or move his head if Rostfar spoke but didn’t show any interest in holding a conversation or answering any of Rostfar’s questions. He might have been trying to make amends, Rostfar decided, but his personality wasn’t about to change. She could live with that.

  As they reached the jagged plateaus, Grae stopped walking. He sniffed the air and his hackles bristled. One ear twitched.

  “What is it?” Rostfar asked.

  “Nothing,” Grae replied, too quickly.

  Rostfar recoiled, a faint shiver of wrongness brushing over her nerves. “No, I meant . . . caribou? Or the—” she swallowed, unable to say the word.

  “Worse . . .” Grae answered, and although he had answered the question, he didn’t seem to be talking to her. He turned around, eyeing the landscape warily. “She never said—”

  Rostfar’s rising wariness spiked. She put her hand on Grae’s shoulder, fingers curling into his deep fur.

  “Grae, what are you talking about?”

  “I thought I smelt a wolven scent, but it isn’t . . . right.” He shook his head and came to a rigid standstill, eyes fixed on a rocky ridge. Rostfar could read the fear in every inch of his body, the whites of his eyes, the dip of his head. When Grae’s head snapped around, Rostfar followed his gaze.

  Her wariness turned to ice in her veins as she stared at the – thing – emerging over a scree ridge.

 
It might have been a wolf once, but in the harsh sunlight it was undeniably something . . . Other.

  Wrongness spilled from its skin in waves. A second set of eyes were positioned above its ordinary ones, which were closed. The extra eyes gazed at Rostfar from sunken sockets, full of malice and grey as fog. Saliva hung in ropes from its skeletal maw.

  It should’ve been dead. It looked dead. But dead wolves didn’t speak.

  “That’s the one,” it said.

  And a weight crashed into Rostfar from behind.

  Rostfar hit the ground and her vision shattered into stars. If she had any breath left inside her, she might have screamed from the pain. Claws tore into the back of Rostfar’s layers. With a defiant snarl, Rostfar squirmed onto her back and drove her fist into Unwolf’s throat. Once, twice – and Unwolf skittered away, wheezing for air.

  Rostfar staggered to her feet and bared her teeth at the unwolf, who circled her at a careless, meandering pace.

  “Grae, get out of here!” Rostfar yelled. Her spear lay out of reach, so she drew her knife from her belt.

  When Grae didn’t respond, Rostfar risked a glance in his direction. He cowered by a scree-heap; eyes fixed on Other.

  Unwolf took her chance. She surged forwards and latched her teeth around Rostfar’s calf. Rostfar felt her flesh tear and joints groan as the unwolf yanked her legs out from underneath her, and Rostfar’s head cracked against the ground.

  Desperate, blind from pain, Rostfar kicked at Unwolf’s soft underbelly with all her strength. The pressure on her legs lessened and she twisted around, crawling, reaching—

  And collided with Other’s feet.

  Chapter 37

  The air burned in Yrsa’s lungs. She could hear thunder in the distance – no, not thunder. It was her own heartbeat, pounding desperately in her head. Bryn followed behind her, but she couldn’t hear his pawfalls over the din of her terrified thoughts.

  No. Grae. Rost. Grae. Grae. Grae.

  “Yrsa!” Bryn finally pulled up beside her. “Are you sure?”

  “I know what I heard,” Yrsa snapped, not slowing down despite her packmate’s obvious struggle to keep her pace. Rostfar’s pain-white scream through the wyrdness still rang in her veins.

  There was no time to talk.

  Teeth closed on Yrsa’s tail. She skidded to a halt, ready to bite Bryn for his stupidity, and stopped when she saw that the ground ahead broke into a sheer drop. Below this ledge, a terrible scene was unfolding: Grae, pinned beneath a wolf Yrsa didn’t recognise; Rostfar, staggering away from a wolf-like beast as it backed her against a scree slope.

  Yrsa wanted to howl in horror. Blood soaked the earth, more blood than Yrsa would have thought possible, and Yrsa knew that some – most? all? – of it belonged to Rostfar. She started forwards, but Bryn nudged her flank.

  Bryn didn’t speak, but his scent and aura told Yrsa everything – they weren’t the only spectators of this grim fight. He flicked his nose towards an outcropping opposite them, and Yrsa caught sight of a face. A human face.

  Wide, shining eyes stared right back at her, unblinking in their terror. The human had no weapon that Yrsa could see, but his body hummed with tension as if he were about to fling himself into the battle below. Yrsa willed him not to do it.

  But he couldn’t hear her. He didn’t have the wyrdsight.

  As Yrsa watched, helpless, the human lurched to his feet and skidded down the scree with a wordless yell. The not-wolf – the wolf that had become something Other – turned on him.

  “No!” Rostfar shouted. “Leave him alone.” Beads of moisture stood out on her forehead and she looked like a strong wind could knock her down.

  “Rostfar—” the human choked out. “Rost, there’s more of them!” he swung his hand up to where Bryn and Yrsa still crouched.

  Grae also twisted to look, and his eyes met Yrsa’s. Her stomached dropped. Guilt and pain were etched into Grae’s features as he lay beneath the unwolf, making no effort to get himself free. Yrsa didn’t know what was worse – his passive acceptance, or the realisation that he had put Rostfar in this position.

  Bryn stepped forwards with teeth bared. “You’re in the territory of the Deothwicc pack,” he snarled. Yrsa was impressed by how calm he sounded. “And that human—” he glanced at Rostfar’s open, pleading face. “Both humans – are under our protection.”

  “We’re not a wolf,” said Other, “Your laws don’t bind us.” Despite Other’s bold proclamation, its companion looked less certain. Yrsa realised with a jolt that Unwolf wasn’t included in that ‘Us’.

  “You’re wreathers,” Rostfar gasped. The name meant nothing to Yrsa, but apparently the new human understood, because he whimpered. Both humans’ eyes went to the spear lying in the mud.

  Yrsa didn’t understand what it meant, but she knew what they needed. She bounded off the ridge and charged Unwolf. If it came to a fight, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She just had to put her hope in the element of surprise.

  Unwolf had no interest in fighting. It charged for Yrsa head-on, feinted at the last moment, and leapt for the scree slope. Yrsa saw no point in giving chase. If losing an ally perturbed Other, it showed no sign. It remained fixed on Bryn and Rostfar, who stood flank-to-flank with their teeth bared in identical displays of defiance. Yrsa wished she could stop to admire the sight, but there were more important things on her mind.

  “Grae?” She nudged at Grae through the wyrdness, but he didn’t respond. Yrsa’s head told her not to approach him; her heart told her to comfort him, all else be damned. She touched her nose to his side in search of injuries.

  Grae’s teeth snapped for her throat. In his eyes was the mad look of a hare that knows it is about to die.

  Yrsa barely evaded the crush of his jaws, and his teeth pulled a clump of fur from her mane. She yelped – more in surprise than pain – and drew out of his reach.

  Rostfar’s scream tore her focus away from Grae. Yrsa whirled around. Other pinned Rostfar beneath its huge paws. Yrsa froze, transfixed by her own panic, as Other closed its jaws around Rostfar’s waist and shook her like a pup playing with a branch.

  The stranger-human screamed and hurled himself across the ground to where Rostfar’s spear had fallen. He flung it at Other, sending the false fang on its end deep into Other’s left flank.

  Other reared up with an unearthly shriek. Blood and spittle flew from its lips, flesh in its teeth. Rostfar’s flesh. It turned on the stranger-human, gathering itself up for another attack. Not stopping to think, Yrsa threw herself between them.

  “You won’t hurt your own kind,” Yrsa panted. It was a wild, foolish hope, but she spat it into the face of the advancing beast with all the conviction she could muster.

  “You’re not our kind,” said Other. And lunged.

  But the killing blow Yrsa expected never came.

  Other jerked. It screeched. It threw itself from side-to-side and arched its back. Rostfar’s face appeared over its shoulder, her arms wrapped around its emaciated neck. She was pale and shaking, but clung on to Other’s back with indomitable strength.

  “Rost!” The other human yelled and tried to run forwards. Yrsa blocked his path without thinking. “What are you doing?” the human shrieked at her. Yrsa had no answer. She just knew that interference would be futile, maybe even fatal.

  The spear’s wooden end splintered as Other rolled over, trying to crush Rostfar beneath its bulk, and still, still, Rostfar held on. She dug her fingers into Other’s two left eyes as it heaved to and fro in a desperate dance of escape. It stumbled to one side and dashed Rostfar against a nearby rock – again, again, again. Yrsa watched, frozen in her despair as Rostfar slid limply from Other’s back.

  Bryn rushed in to take her place. He snapped at Other, driving the beast back from where Rostfar had fallen. It reared up to crush Bryn’s throat in its jaws, but its tortured body seemed to have finally reached its limit. Great shudders wracked its body and twisted its spine upwards, and the worn-bare skin see
thed as if something beneath its surface had begun to boil. A thick, grey-white fog poured out from its mouth and ears, and broke up into thousands of crawling, clawing creatures. Bryn tensed for a fresh fight, but the creatures had no interest in him. They flooded past and vanished into the ground.

  All that remained was the corpse of an ordinary wolf. Dead.

  The stranger-human shoved past Yrsa and ran to Rostfar, skidding on his knees to her side. One of Rostfar’s hands reached up to touch his cheek, leaving a trail of blood against his clay-brown skin. The human took her hand in his and kissed it.

  “You’re alright now. Everything’s alright,” the human whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Rostfar choked on something like laughter. Her teeth and lips were stained with blood, too. So much blood. The stranger-human pulled her into his lap, and Rostfar shuddered in pain.

  “We have to get her back to Deothwicc. The Speaking Tree can ease her pain,” Yrsa said urgently. “Grae, we need you to help—” Yrsa turned to where she had left her littermate, but Grae wasn’t there.

  The land on all sides sprawled out, rocky and empty, no other wolf in sight.

  Chapter 38

  The hrafmaer brought Aethren food in a steady stream of ever-changing faces. They never opened the door – they didn’t need to. Aethren would hear a knock, and then a moment later, a figure would materialise just inside the threshold. Ylla didn’t come back, and the hrafmaer answered Aethren’s questions with solid silence.

  On the fourth day, the one with a scarred cheek appeared inside the doorway. Startled at seeing a familiar face, Aethren dropped the arrowhead they had been carving from a piece of the wooden bedframe and rose to meet her.

  “Thrigg,” Aethren said involuntarily; it felt good to have a name in their mouth. Thrigg paused and looked at Aethren, her dark eyes searching and questioning. She had a broad nose and sharp cheekbones, and wore a circular stretch earring in the lobe of each ear – all things Aethren associated with K’anakhi traders. It was so unexpected that Aethren forgot what they had been intending to say next.