When Dealing with Wolves

by A. R. Thompson

  The silence stretched out, tense and sinuous.

  “You know why we are here,” Laethen said at last. “We all saw the same vision – the same account of what happened to the wolves of Ysaïn. Now what remains is to determine whether we should consider that a crime—”

  “It was,” Rostfar burst out.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Faren said.

  They stared at one another, both bristling with their own sort of anger.

  Laethen, to Rostfar’s surprise, seemed pleased at this interruption. “So you don’t deny that you did it, Faren?”

  Faren opened his mouth, the colour bleeding from his cheeks. Murmurs rippled through the crowd.

  “But what did we see?” someone demanded. “All I got was a blasted jumble of images. It was awful.”

  “Rostfar?” Laethen asked. Her voice was so gentle. Rostfar wanted to shout at her – to say that Laethen shouldn’t treat her with such respect anymore, not when she’d failed Urdven and failed the wolves – but gratitude clogged her throat.

  “I took that memory from a wolf as she died,” Rostfar said, rising to her feet. She wanted to crawl out of her own skin; it was so hard to avoid eye contact in front of a crowd like this. Her voice shook, but she stared at the stone beneath her feet and made herself keep talking. “Her name was Illarieth and she – she was a mother who only wanted the best for her family. Something had happened on Ysaïn so’s to make their hunting grounds dangerous, and they roamed nearer and nearer to Myrardaen.”

  Movement out of the corner of her eye made her look up. Faren tried to get to his feet, but Ornhild pushed him back down.

  “Ysaïn isn’t like here,” Faren spat. “We don’t get to hide behind walls. Our towns and villages are strung out, stretched thin. Myrardaen was under attack from wreathers, and we didn’t have enough land left to hunt.”

  “And you thought you’d kill some wolves to make more space?” Rostfar asked, fighting the urge to snarl. “Because that’s what he did.” She turned back to the crowd at large, more confident now. “He pretended to make a deal with them – they’d get land to hunt in, and humans wouldn’t go there. But there was something wrong with that land, and when the wolves started hunting further afield to find more food, he—” her voice shook. She had to stop and lick her dry lips before she could finish speaking. “He drew Illarieth away, then slaughtered her pups.”

  Silence. It was as if the people in the crowd had stopped breathing.

  “Did the Myrardaen council agree to this?” Hrall asked Faren. His tone suggested he knew the answer already. “I know Ast-Hrenna – he’s a fair man, and I can’t see him agreeing to trickery.”

  “I had a choice between human lives, or wolven ones. There wasn’t enough food for everyone, and it was magic causing our problems – magic, like the wolves.” Faren directed his words to Rostfar, not Hrall or the crowd. His clenched fists trembled. “I made the hard choice as a Dannaskeld should. It was the right thing to do!”

  Laethen looked narrowly at Faren. “If it was right, why did you flee?”

  Rostfar heard the question echo through the crowd. Faren tried to shrink into his stool, but he couldn’t hide the guilty flush on his cheeks.

  “Things – things started to go wrong.” His voice dropped towards a whisper, but the crowd was so quiet it didn’t matter. “They needed someone to blame, was all. And the wolves had become – not wolves. Something worse. Something we couldn’t fight. And the council said it was me who’d done it.”

  Ornhild had been quiet until then, but she burst out, “You told me you’d come here because you needed to recover from a hunting incident and wanted to see your brother while you did.”

  “That’s what I heard, too.” Someone else shouted, backed up by angry agreements.

  Another voice rose above the rest, “He abandoned his post as Dannaskeld!”

  “He lied to all of us!”

  “He nearly got us killed.”

  The anger mounted until Rostfar could taste it, but it was wrong. She cut a frantic glance towards Nat, who remained stoic and motionless in the front row. They were missing the point, all of them. Faren had slaughtered children, decimated a family, bereaved a mother who had wanted nothing more than safety for her people. Didn’t anyone care about that?

  At a nod from Laethen, Marken struck the great drum beside the moothall. The crowd quieted.

  “You’ve all heard Faren’s crimes,” Laethen said, her voice clear and strong. “There’ll be a Casting to decide if he remains here as an exile – or if we send him back to face judgement from the people he betrayed. It starts at dawn tomorrow. Is this agreed on?”

  Murmurs of assent.

  “Good,” Laethen said evenly. “The council—” Here her voice wavered. The council was an inadequate word for her and Hrall. “The council will now take Rostfar’s statement. The trialmoot is closed.”

  Marken sounded the drum again, and the crowd began to disperse. Ornhild took Faren away, no doubt to wherever he was being kept. Rostfar couldn’t move. This couldn’t be it.

  “What about the wolves?” Rostfar demanded. People faltered, turned back. She read uncertainty and confusion on their faces. “You all felt Illarieth’s agony, her grief. Faren’s massacre did something to the pack – let something in, maybe the wraiths – and that destroyed them. They were a Kind like us, with their own language and culture and ways, and that’s all gone now. You’ve destroyed the Deothwicc pack’s home! Don’t any of you care? How can you talk about what’s right or fair when you haven’t even mentioned the wreck you’ve made of dozens of lives?”

  “Rostfar—” Hrall began, but Rostfar wouldn’t let him quiet her. She had practised this speech with Isha and Mati countless times over the last two days, and by the stars she would make them listen.

  “When Norðunn, Erdan and Hrafnir drove back the wyrdaetha and their wreathers, they didn’t just do it for humankind. It was for humans, wolves, bees, and other beings we never had the chance to know. It was for the animals, the plants, the sea creatures – for all life.

  “They weren’t gods. They were wyrdaetha, but ones who knew the world had to change. Norðunn took her heart and she planted it deep in the forest so’s to grow a tree; its roots reach into the earth and its branches spread up through the wyrdness, into the eðir. She did it to bind the realms closer and make them stable – so we could use the wyrdness to learn about one another, and share our memories and beliefs. That tree is everything that’s left of Norðunn, and you nearly burnt it down.

  The wolvenkind have guarded the Speaking Tree for hundreds of years, and all they’ve ever gotten in return in hatred. I knew you’d hate me if you found out what I was, but I worked to keep you all safe anyway. I’ve lived every day of my life in fear that the people I love would turn on me – maybe stone me, like you did that wolf pup last year.” The stone of the dais bruised Rostfar’s knees as she collapsed. She blinked through her tears at the sea of stunned faces before her. Disbelief, shame, horror, confusion, embarrassment – they bloomed through the wyrdness, making the current thrum like a plucked thread. Rostfar pressed her knuckles against the cold stone and kept talking, even as the careful words she had planned unravelled. “He was called Nessen, and he was young and curious and he didn’t know he should’ve been afraid. He should never have had to be afraid. When Almr Wyrdsaer said we didn’t have to fear, she meant we didn’t have to fear each other – but we made ourselves forget that, and it’s ruined us.”

  Hands took Rostfar’s shoulders. “You’ve said your piece, Rost,” Hrall murmured in her ear. She wanted to resist him, but she was so tired. He got her on her feet and guided her into the moothall.

  Chapter 59

  Rostfar slumped over the table in the moothall and put her head in her hands. Marken had made tea, but hers remained untouched. Laethen and Hrall sat watching, waiting. Expecting a story. But this was the first story Rostfar had ever encountered that she didn’t know how to tell.

 
“Things were supposed to change,” she whispered to the tabletop. “I thought we’d have a new world for Ket to wake up to, one where she could grow up without fear. That’s what Urdven died for.”

  “Change won’t happen overnight,” Nat said from where she sat on Rostfar’s left. Her voice was soft, but that didn’t lessen the bite of her words.

  “I know,” Rostfar admitted. “Doesn’t stop it feeling wrong, though, like we’re all one slip away from going back to how things were.”

  “We’re not,” Laethen said fiercely. “Are we, Hrall?”

  Hrall didn’t reply. He sat in the chair furthest from the door, arms folded, eyes distant.

  “Yrl Hrallvir?” Laethen prompted.

  Hrall finally turned and looked at Rostfar through unfocused eyes. “You’re saying that Norðunn is – out there, alive, in that forest? That she chose the Wolvenkind?”

  “No. Well, I don’t know for certain – it’s so complicated. There’s a whole history we . . . Oh, I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start with the wolves,” Marken suggested. “If you want us all to understand them like you do.”

  Rostfar took a deep breath, and told it. She told Hrall and Laethen about how Estene had made her remain in Deothwicc after laying eyes on the Speaking Tree. About how she had slowly adjusted to life in Deothwicc and the ways of the Wolvenkind. The words became easier the longer she talked. She recounted every strange vision and brush with the wyrdness; the way the forest seemed to come alive for her, welcome her, in a way nothing ever had before. She talked about Yrsa and Grae and Estene and the rest of the pack, and all they had been through. Then Rostfar told them what she knew about the hrafmaer and Ylla’s decision to cleave away their history. She left out the truth about Ýgren and Aethren’s lineage, but explained the rest in as much detail as she could.

  When Rostfar finished, she saw that everyone’s drinks were untouched. They were all staring at her, eyes misty, wrapped up in the story she had spun. Rostfar took a self-conscious sip of her cold tea.

  “You’ll need to talk to Aethren when they’re up to it,” she said, desperate to break the odd stillness. “There’s things only they can tell you.”

  Laethen blinked as if woken from sleep. Hrall rubbed his forehead. Nat discreetly dabbed her eyes with the corner of her cloak.

  “I don’t like it,” Hrall said. “I didn’t like what Ethy and Faren were doing but I don’t like all this about us being fine with magic and wolves, either. It isn’t fine. None of this is.”

  Rostfar was hurt. She should have expected it, and yet Hrall’s words cut deeper than the frightened eyes of the crowd. “I’ll leave then,” she said.

  Hrall stood and walked around the table. He remained motionless before her for a few moments, twisting his fingers together – and then incredibly, unbelievably, he knelt. His hands were raised towards her, somewhere between supplication and a warding-off gesture. “Nobody but you ever gave me real hope for our future, Rostfar. I’ve watched this town stagnate over the years and part of me has always known it’s our fear and hatred of magic that holds us back, but that doesn’t mean I know how to let those fears go. Can you forgive an old man his weaknesses?”

  “Oh, Hrall . . .” Rostfar reached down and took his hands where they trembled in the air above her knees. They were wrinkled and calloused, cool beneath her touch; the same hands that had patiently shown her how to hold a spear and build a trap. “I can’t,” she whispered – because she couldn’t do anything but whisper. These were some of the hardest words she had ever said. “I have to demand more – I’ve come too far and lost too much for me to demand anything else. But I believe in you. I always have.”

  Hrall’s head remained bowed over her knees for a long time. When at last he looked up, there were tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks. Rostfar helped him back to his feet and into the chair beside her.

  “Thank you.” He had to choke the words out. “We need time, Rostfar. Marken and Kristan are trusted – indispensable, I mean. Their return won’t be so hard. But you and those closest to you – if I thought that you’d be welcomed back—”

  “Hrall, stop,” Rostfar said gently. “Just – promise me this won’t all’ve been for nothing, okay?”

  “I promise,” Hrall croaked.

  “There’s one of the wolves, Grae, who might help,” Nat said. “He’d be like an . . . ambassador, of sorts. It will be slow, and difficult, and I expect there’d be resistance – but he wishes to learn, and hopes you will too.”

  Laethen frowned – thoughtfully, though. Not in disagreement. “We can make that work, I think. There’s much for me, Hrall and Marken to discuss.” She leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers on the table. “Hrall, Marken, Natta – would you wait outside? I’d like to talk to Rost alone for a moment.”

  Marken seemed reluctant, but Rostfar nodded for him to go. As soon as the door closed behind the others, Laethen relaxed. She had always dealt with scrutiny and leadership far better than Rostfar, but she’d confessed more than once that she didn’t enjoy it. Rostfar couldn’t blame her.

  Laethen rubbed her temples with one hand. Her other hand lay protectively, idly, on the soft bump of her belly. “I want to ask you something. About Magna.”

  "Is he okay?" Rostfar asked, alarmed.

  "Well, he—" Laethen’s voice caught. Was that panic in her shaking breaths, or upset? Rostfar offered a comforting hand regardless, and Laethen took it gladly. "He's always been a little different. Bright, but sort of too bright, if that makes sense? He's got a knack for knowing things he shouldn't, and claims he just heard it somewhere when we ask. Me 'n Vinni tried not to think about it, but now . . . He remembers his time asleep, when he was sick. None of the others do. And he says – says that it was your Ket who woke them. That she called and brought them back, and he followed her into the currents. He says he saw all kinds of strange and wonderful things ‘up there’, wherever that is.”

  "What're you saying?"

  "I think he's got – that he's like—" Laethen made an unsteady gesture towards Rostfar.

  "That he's wyrdsaer?” Rostfar suggested. When Laethen looked blank, she added, “Touched by the wyrdness?"

  Laethen nodded and buried her face in her hands. Looking at her, apparently struck by grief at this revelation, Rostfar couldn't help but feel a flush of irritation. She withdrew her hand.

  "He's still your son, Laethen. You needn't act like this’s something to be scared of."

  Laethen looked up from her hands. "What? No, you misunderstand me!

  I'm scared for him. I'm scared because I don't want him to be lonely, Rost-Skelda. It must've been so lonely for you and Ket both, and I keep thinking how hard it was for you. Ket's nightmares, everything that's happened to you – I don't want him to feel alone in this." She drew in a deep breath, then asked a question that left Rostfar reeling: "Will you teach him?"

  "Um," Rostfar said. She took a drink of her cold tea again as something to do, then grimaced as the tealeaves hit the back of her throat. "Teach him?"

  "There's got to be things he has to learn. How to make sense of it, how to – well, use it, I suppose. I don't know how any of it works." Laethen gave an embarrassed shrug. "That's rather the point. I could bring him out to Eahalr now and then, and you and Ket can do . . . whatever it means to be what you said – wyrdsaer – with him."

  Rostfar couldn't believe her ears. "You're serious, aren't you?"

  "Yes," Laethen said, simple but bold. "It's the best way I can think of to make sure he doesn't feel wrong."

  Rostfar found herself blinking back tears. "Thank you.”

  "Thank you?" Laethen just stared at her. “What’re you thanking me for?”

  “For wanting better for him. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that means.”

  Laethen smiled. “I haven’t much enjoyed this stint as Dannaskeld, but I’m thinking I’ll put myself in for Dannhren, if Nat-Hrenna won’t. Our children need a better world.�
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  “So do we.”

  “Indeed we do,” Laethen agreed. “And I’m ready to help you make it.”

  Chapter 60

  Grae’s limbs hummed with tight, restless energy as he paced before Erdansten’s northern gate.

  “Sit still,” Kristan said from where he sat on a rock nearby. “Your pacing is making me dizzy.”

  Grae bared his teeth at Kristan, but the gesture was half hearted. “I’m trying to think.”

  “About Mam’s idea?”

  Grae flicked one ear in affirmation, but he didn’t look up.

  “We don’t even know if the council will accept it yet,” Kristan said lightly. “Better to wait and worry about it then.”

  Grae shook his head like he was trying to get rid of a bloodfly and pointedly turned his back. The pack’s scent was barely more than a whisper on the gentle breeze. Such a reminder might have been a comfort once, but now he just felt guilty.

  “I cannot simply forget my worry,” Grae snapped and turned to face Kristan. Kristan rolled his eyes, a gesture that Rostfar had never made. Grae couldn’t tell if it signified amusement, that thing called sarcasm, or some combination of the two.

  “Either way, you’ll have somewhere to stay. Isn’t that what matters?”

  Grae lowered his head. Eahalr was a paltry territory, little more than a collection of sunken stone dens, hidden amongst hemlocks and ash trees and water-plants. The trees were wreathed in ancient magic and the land remembered the touch of wolven feet. Grae had taken one look at the place and known he wouldn’t find what he sought there.

  “I don’t want to stay with the pack, but I . . . am unsure. About whether staying here is a better option,” Grae said at last. “I don’t understand the point.”

  Kristan wrinkled his nose. “Look, you don’t need to understand it completely. It’s all very twisty and cunning – which makes sense since it was Mam’s idea. Point is, you were wronged by Ethy and Faren. The people were also wronged by Ethy and Faren. Most of us don’t have the wyrdsight or any connection to it, and neither do you right now. It makes you safer to them than your siblings, so Mam reckons they could learn to get used to you.”