by Tracy Falbe
Thal asked his father if he was ready to chant the spell of changing.
“Let them be on their own this night,” Sarputeen said.
Thal believed a taste of autonomy could be good for them but hesitated.
“They are safe here tonight,” Sarputeen said.
Thal announced to the pack that they should do as they pleased. Their nervousness tapped against his senses. Altea came by and brushed him with her furry shoulder. He caressed her soft face and said encouragingly, “You need me least of all, my love.”
Drawn by the freedom of an evening prowl, she trotted off, and Lenki was quick to follow. Lanky Ansel came to Thal next. The young man wanted his guidance, but Thal gestured to the forest.
Reluctantly, everyone left, and Thal and his father joined the other men by the fire.
Sarputeen groaned as he sat down, “I could use some rest,” he admitted.
“I’m not sure if I can sleep in this place,” Valentino said. He had camped in the open on many occasions, but tonight he felt like a little boy frightened by nursery stories.
“You shall sleep and you shall dream,” Sarputeen said.
Valentino frowned at the ominous statement. He spread his broad hands over the flames. “Who wants first watch?” he asked.
“No need to set a watch tonight,” Sarputeen muttered. He arranged his fur on the ground and stretched out to sleep. He tucked his hands beneath his cheek, and despite his elderliness looked sweetly childish in his sleep.
“Methinks we should still keep watch,” Valentino whispered.
Thal said. “I shall watch over you.”
“You still do not grow weary?” Valentino wondered.
“Not here,” Thal said. He put a bare hand against the ground. He felt the distant vibrations of his pack moving through the forest, or at least he imagined it.
Mileko prepared his bedroll. “Condottiere, you can trust in Sarputeen. Sleeping here could rejuvenate you,” he said.
“What is this place?” Valentino demanded.
Mileko yawned as if overcome by one of his potions and did not open his eyes.
Thal answered, “Fairies live here.”
Valentino wanted to laugh, but the creeping sensation that wiggled the hairs on his neck and arms made the answer much too plausible. He wanted to protest, to invoke the Blessed Virgin, as all the habits of his life told him to do, but his eyelids betrayed him and his head nodded heavily.
Thal straightened after tossing a cloak over Valentino. His friend was breathing slowly. The firelight played gently across his face. Thal wondered why the drowsiness had not afflicted him because even Pistol snoozed. He wandered a short distance from the fire and held his hands up to the moonlight filtered by the tree branches overhead. His potent blood throbbed in his veins with wild desire, but he dismissed the urge to shift and walked farther on. Unlike his previous hike, his steps effortlessly came upon sure footing. He took a zigzagging path up a hill among mighty trees.
When he looked back, his footprints were stark in the snow and moonlight. The folds of the land already blocked his view of camp. Doubt overtook him, followed by a strange panic that warned him to retrace his steps while he still could.
But Thal was bold by nature, and he looked forward again. The unbearable knowledge that if he turned away now he would never forgive himself gave him courage.
He tested the air with his nostrils as if the scent of things would always hold the answer. The smell of fresh water calmed him. The trickling music of its flow beckoned him anew, and he ascended the hill.
A tiny stream resisted the freezing night, wetting the snow at its edges. Thal followed the water to its source at the base of a rock face. Rounded towers of ice flanked the drizzling spring and gathered its purity into a small pool hemmed by glossy ice.
Thal knelt beside the spring. He reached fingers tentatively into the dripping water. The drops stabbed at his skin icily. Pleasure rippled through his body, and he withdrew his fingers reluctantly.
The moon glistened on the pool. Thal looked into the waters. His reflection appeared free of the cares that nagged at his heart. He imagined this would be how he looked in a perfect world free of sorrow and regret.
He blinked and looked up at the dripping waters. He felt with an animal certainty that he was not alone.
“Son of Gretchen.”
“Son of Sarpu.”
Two distinct voices made the whispering statements that could have been real or imagined. He probed the shadows and dark cracks along the rock face and then whirled and scanned the trees. Their aged and burled trunks and tangled limbs could have hidden a thousand tiny creatures, but he saw nothing.
“Show yourself,” he demanded.
A giggle. “If you saw us you could not go back,” a voice said. Was it female? Male? Could he smell it? Anything?
“Look into the pool,” the other voice suggested, and he almost did.
Sensing a trap, he made a supreme effort to keep his eyes off the pool. He stared instead at the persistent rain of water coming from the rock. Its icicles and sparkling drips veiled a dark space.
“You spoke of my parents,” he said.
“Look in the water. It’s safe to see us there,” a voice instructed.
Thal could not resist this time and looked down. He caught his breath upon seeing two figures standing over him. Their faces shimmered next to his in the water. One was pale and the other the color of shadow. Great elderliness hung over them like clouds on mountains. Frosty patterns etched their delicate skin, and their silvery locks fluttered gently without a breeze. Crowns of translucent leaves and berries encircled their brows. They regarded him with gentle eyes that had witnessed the truth of creation yet were full of lies.
Their reflections smiled back sadly, and Thal felt their immense power.
“Can you help me?” he said. “I go to face a great enemy.”
“We know,” they said in unison.
“So you’ve heard of--”
“Speak not his name!” they interrupted. “We know who embraces the dark magic. He would only remember the light so as to yoke it and burden it with his addiction.”
“I’m bound to slay him,” Thal said.
“And you shall walk forth from our realm with our blessing,” the sable one said, and Thal was grateful.
“And one more thing,” the pale one said. “The ages weigh upon us, but we have one thing that will aid you in this hard battle.”
Thal tensed as he felt feathery lips brush his right ear where the dark fairy hovered just beyond the periphery of his vision. He kept his eyes on the water where the images of the fairies did not shift.
“We have the power to move unseen,” the dark one whispered.
“Find it in the water,” the white one said.
Thal plunged his hands into the cold water. The ripples erased his reflection as he felt around the smooth rocks and silt. He pulled out a silver earring studded with small crystals. As he beheld it in his wet palm, it disappeared.
A sharp pain in his left earlobe informed him of its new location. He gasped and slapped a hand over his ear and felt the earring where it had pierced his earlobe.
“Tap it three times to move unseen,” the white fairy said.
“It stops when you stop moving,” the other said.
“Thank you,” he managed, overcome by the greatness of the gift.
“Remember us, son of Gretchen,” the fair one said.
“Remember us, son of Sarpu,” the dark one echoed.
He felt their presence lift away. “Do not go!” he cried and saw only himself in the water.
He spun on his knees and looked for them, forgetful of their warning, but the silent frosty forest hid their passing. Great sadness overwhelmed, and he hung his head. The brief encounter had left him with a longing that might never be fulfilled.
Turning back to the water, he touched his tender ear and studied the earring in his reflection. He thought to take it off and have a cl
oser look, but he decided against it.
A sudden thirst afflicted him and he cupped his hands to gather the dripping water. He drank until his belly was full of cold weight. The curtain of water drizzling before his eyes became increasingly distracting and he slid effortlessly into a trance.
******
“Thal!” His father’s voice intruded upon the void of deep sleep, and he awoke to Sarputeen shaking his shoulder.
Thal snapped upright. His right boot cracked away from the ice where it had become frozen to the wet dirt next to the flowing water. He ran a hand over his face and cracked some tiny icicles off of his beard and eyebrows.
“Father,” Thal said and clasped the other’s man shoulder. “I remember many things now. I remember leaving mother and going back to you. I remember you changing me.” He grew more excited and added, “The lessons you gave me. I understand them now.”
Sarputeen smiled and looked unusually gentle. “Some things take a lifetime to understand. You’re only just beginning to learn,” he said.
Thal agreed. His returning memories of his time with his father before being transformed to a wolf were as disorderly as dust on the wind, but he believed that they would settle into some kind of order.
“Fairies came to me here,” Thal said and scanned the ground for tracks that he knew would not be there.
“They came in my dreams as well,” Sarputeen said.
“Not in my dreams. Here,” Thal said and turned his left ear outward. Sarputeen’s eyes widened in surprise to see the earring.
“I welcome this boon,” Sarputeen said and then urged his son to get up. “We need to return.”
Thal noted that the morning was well advanced after judging the shadows of the trees. His sleep had left him much renewed.
His thoughts remained deep as he followed his father, but Sarputeen eventually broke the silence. “Son, I want to tell you this alone. The fext still walks the Earth. The fairies showed me in my dream last night.”
Chapter 37. Black Ruins by Dawn
As the moon waned, the nights lengthened into true winter. Thal and his company kept to the wild places as they traveled eastward.
A thoughtful silence hung over the group as everyone reflected upon their private experiences in the fairy place. Like Sarputeen, Mileko and Valentino had been visited in their dreams, and the werewolves during their nocturnal romp had found the hunting strange. Spirit animals beckoned them but could never be caught.
As the group hiked eastward for several days, the warm hearths of remote homesteads and villages tempted them on cold nights, but an unspoken consensus kept them away until one day when dark columns of smoke bled into the sky. Pistol stopped ahead of Thal and Mileko and contemplated the burning village with his tail held high.
“We approach the Highlands,” Mileko said and gestured to the ascending land that served as a backdrop for the molested settlement.
“I wonder if this is the work of Janfelter?” Thal said.
“Perhaps,” Mileko said. “But there could be some local dispute we know nothing of.”
“Let us go help them,” Thal proposed.
Mileko raised a skeptical eyebrow. “These folk might view us as enemies and surely outlaws,” he cautioned.
“Then let us act as good-hearted travelers and help them put out their fires,” Thal said.
Mileko supposed that the action might earn goodwill, and they learn some news of value.
Once they entered the cleared fields around the little village, they could see people rushing about with buckets still trying to quench the flames.
Thal and the other men hurried to join them and haul water. The strong backs of the crew of strangers sped up the bucket line from the well considerably. The locals were too panicked to question the strangers pitching in at their elbows.
After much effort, the residents stopped the spread of the fire that had lit the thatch on three homes. One home looked to be a total loss, but the other two had fared better.
“What happened here?” Thal asked. He took off his hat to wipe his brow. He could tell that those who heard him found his speech strange but not entirely unrecognizable.
Before anyone could attempt a reply, an elderly woman rushed forward and clasped her hands before Sarputeen. “Father! Please, my husband dies. Please pray for him,” she begged.
Her entreaty moved Sarputeen to take his masquerade most seriously. He radiated a holy calm and said, “Of course, dear woman.” On his stealthy killer’s feet, he appeared to glide in his brown robe in the wake of the wife soon to be widow.
Thal and the others followed them to a shed where a man lay next to barrels. His wounds bled heavily, and the bloody scent tickled the sensitive nostrils of the werewolves who smelled mortality as easily as men noticed baking bread. Some other wounded people were being tended nearby, but this man was too far gone.
Sarputeen comported himself with gentle dignity. He made such a convincing display of reciting Roman prayers for the dead that Thal believed that he really might be doing it correctly. Of course, the people at this far flung border settlement probably had no way to know if his Latin words were an entreaty for the forgiveness of sins or a blessing for a boat.
Sarputeen murmured soothingly as the wife wept. The man died as soon as Sarputeen completed the task.
“He is free of his pain,” Sarputeen announced gently, adopting the dialect of the region almost effortlessly for he had traveled this land in days long past.
“God sent you for him. I would’ve needed days to fetch a priest,” she said and lapsed back to weeping. Her kin gathered near and shared in her grief.
Mileko, Johan, and Altea went to help the wounded while Mitri, Ansel, and Lenki lent their hands to clearing away burned debris elsewhere in the village.
Sarputeen withdrew gently from the dead man and joined his son. They observed the traumatized people wandering the lane among agitated foul and dogs. The sorcerer beckoned a random man and said, “Who attacked this place?” His tone was righteous as if he fully expected to mete out punishment for the pillaging.
“Akinci,” the man spat. He clenched his fists.
“What did they want?” Thal asked.
The man saw Thal’s pistols and armor right away. “Have you been sent to fight them?” he asked hopefully.
“How many are there?” Thal asked, but the trauma was too fresh for the man to answer correctly. Whether they had been beset by ten or one hundred he could not have recalled the difference if he even could count.
“They demanded too much this time. We turned them away. Winter is setting in. We can give up no more food,” the man said, but then shook his head with regret. “We should have done as they said.”
“They’ve come here before?” Sarputeen said.
The man nodded. “They come from the border fort,” he explained.
The father and son exchanged a look to confirm that they were sharing the same thought. Thal asked from which direction the raiders had come, and the man pointed to the east.
“Thank you,” Thal said and then told his father that he would go look at the tracks left by the riders to see what he could learn.
“I’ll check on the wounded,” Sarputeen said.
Thal gestured for Valentino to join him, and they headed to the eastern edge of the settlement. The rutted and frozen lane offered few clues. Too many local tracks from feet and livestock dotted the area, but Thal persisted in his examination of the chaotic signs as he moved toward the overgrown edges of the woodland. Farther down the lane, he gained some insights. The riders had come across a snowy pasture before entering the lane, and here Thal found fresh tracks from at least a dozen horses. The trail cut through the snow until it disappeared into the woodlands at the base of the eastern hills. He followed it.
Valentino kept pace with him. “These akinci might be too much for the two of us,” he cautioned.
“I’ll be careful.”
“That’s good to hear,” Valentino chuckl
ed.
Once they were under the cover of trees, Thal started taking off his things.
“You’re going to change?” Valentino said as Thal held out his weapons for his friend to hold.
“I’ll track them and come back. I think they’re going to the fort we plan to raid. Wait here with my things,” Thal said.
He took off his armor so that he could move with greater stealth and stole off farther into the woods naked except for his wolf skin. Valentino heard him chant the spell from a distance and caught a glimpse of his shaggy form racing off among the dormant saplings. The sight staggered him every time.
Thal checked the trail frequently and noted immediately when the horses appeared to drop to a walk from a gallop. He advanced carefully and soon heard laughter and voices in the distance. He crept closer until he heard a couple horses whicker. The wind had shifted and the attentive herbivores had noted his proximity.
The raiders, however, knew nothing of his carnivorous presence. They passed around a couple jugs freshly taken from the settlers and appeared to be celebrating what they considered a victory. He counted twenty men and spent time gathering details about their arms and dress. They all had swords and some had muskets. Their dress appeared foreign to him, and he surmised that the word akinci referred to Ottoman soldiers. After diligent scrutiny, he determined that Janfelter was not among them.
Although he wanted to indulge his anger over the harm done to the folk at the village, he withdrew silently. Valentino smiled with genuine pleasure to see Thal return without the bark of gunfire or the blaring of hunting horns.
Thal shifted and dressed hastily. “I counted twenty of them,” he reported. “They appear to be drinking. I wish we could strike them right now.”
“Drinking, eh? I heard that Moslems don’t drink, poor souls, so maybe they don’t drink at the fort in front of the others,” Valentino speculated.
Thal tossed his cloak over his shoulders and adjusted his pistols on his belt. “Condottiere, tell me what are the chances we can recruit a few fellows from that settlement to help us attack the fort,” he said.