The Princess and the Wolf (The Princess and the Hound)

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  “I am human. I was born a princess. You stole me from this very castle, from my true parents,” Ina accused him. As she said the words, she was surprised at how much stronger she felt. All doubts had left her mind.

  “Born human, yes. But I had thought to reeducate you. You were an experiment, my dear. A glorious one. To see if a human could be made back into an animal.”

  “And did it work? Was I an animal?” asked Ina, still struggling not to lie down at his feet as he worked his magic with his voice.

  “For a time, I believe it did work,” said the Olde Wolf. “I thought that you had forgotten all that was human inside you. But this past year, you have regressed. I think that I brought you too close to humans again, and their presence corrupted you.

  “If I could take you far away. Or make sure that all humans were gone from this place, then we could try again.” His eyes gleamed and the warmth in his voice made her feel his love.

  Of course, that was what he meant her to feel. He had done it before, made her think he loved her as a father. But it was not so.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said plainly. “You took me for some other reason. What was it? To hurt King George? To make him surrender to you? He would not do that, not even for his own daughter.” She said this though she did not know the king. It was what she thought a good king would have to do, and from all she had heard, King George was a very fine king, and sacrificed all that was necessary for his people.

  The Olde Wolf gave out a harsh, sounding bark of laughter. “I hardly need your help to make King George do what I wanted him to do. He has been even easier to fool than you. An old man, ruined by time and crushed expectations. They are the easiest of all humans to subvert.”

  “Then why?” said Ina.

  “Why do you think?” asked the Olde Wolf, circling her once more, his teeth grazing against her fur, then biting her firmly on left buttocks, where her tail would have been.

  She yanked herself free of him, heedless of the pain. And she thought. What did she have that her father might want, besides her identity as a princess? She could think of nothing—except her magic.

  All her life, the Olde Wolf had warned her not to transform herself into a human. He had threatened her and lied to her about who she was. Even now, if she watched him carefully, there was a caution in him. He did not dismiss her directly because he wanted something from her still.

  “My magic,” she said softly.

  “Your magic!” the Olde Wolf derided. “Your little magic to change from a human to a wolf and back again. I can do it as well as you can.”

  “Can you? Can you do it without me?” said Ina. “You always return to the forest to change from Lord Morlieb to the Olde Wolf. You needed to be near me. You have been stealing my magic from me all along, since I was born.”

  She felt triumphant to have understood this at last. One last secret, and this was not one she had been told. She had revealed it herself. “You didn’t want me to use the great magic for myself because that meant you would have less of it to take from me.”

  The Olde Wolf stared at her and stopped moving. “Clever girl. You were always too clever for your own good. Human through and through.” He had given up using the old language, as if he no longer cared if she believed him.

  Ina did not realize how dangerous that was until he leaped on her, teeth at her neck. He tossed her side to side.

  Ina changed herself into wolf form in a flash, and wrestled with him. But he was bigger than she was, and more experienced. And he fought to take her magic from her. She could feel it with every touch on her body, each time he bit at her, trying to make her feel pain so she would lose her concentration and give to him what she had only now seen streamed out of her so easily.

  Captain Henry tried to get into the battle, but he made things more difficult, rather than easier. Ina had to beware of hurting him, instead of letting her wolf instinct take over in the battle.

  The Olde Wolf had been so powerful a figure to her all her life. She had loved him as a father. She had believed in everything he had told her. And now, that love was transformed into hate. She could see herself as the easy mark she had been. He had taken her as a child and had trained her to obey him. She could forgive herself for that much, but why had it taken her so long to see through him?

  She should have been looking for her father herself. She should not have needed others to tell her the truth. She should have kept her magic to herself and fought against her real enemy. But it was still hard to face him, as the wolf she had known all her life. It was hard not to think of him with warmth.

  Finally, Ina did what she had to do. She transformed the Olde Wolf into a human, Lord Morlieb. And she remained herself as a wolf.

  Now she could attack him with strength.

  She dug deeply into his leg with her teeth.

  Behind her, Captain Henry took out a dagger and threw it into Lord Morlieb’s eye. Blood dripped down and he screamed out in pure pain.

  Ina felt a moment’s triumph, and then Lord Morlieb took a breath and held it, until he had control of himself once more. Then he spoke in the old language and called for the wild bears of the forest to circle around the human and the golden she-wolf and hold them there.

  “I do not know if you will be worth keeping alive purely for the sake of your magic. I will decide after this battle is over if you will be my slave even still. Unless you insist on making yourself a threat to me now.” He nodded to the bears and whispered to them to keep her still, no matter what the cost.

  “No!” shouted Ina. She struggled against the bears, and would have let them kill her, if Captain Henry had not pulled her back, kicking and spitting.

  “Let me go. Let me fight,” she said.

  “When it matters,” he said. “I will not see you die for nothing.”

  “You will see so many humans surrender their lives here, then? To the Olde Wolf?” she demanded. “You will let him win?

  Captain Henry was unmoved. “Wait,” he said. “For the right moment.”

  Lord Morlieb pulled the dagger out of his eye, took a stumbling step, then recovered himself and straightened his shoulders. Except for the wound, he seemed as strong as ever. He looked as if he were waiting for something to come out of the castle.

  And then King George himself, and Queen Marit, appeared on one side, and the other princess on the other.

  Chapter Twenty-four: True

  True saw Golda first, in human form now, but just the same expression and brightness that he had first seen in her wolf form. She had golden hair instead of golden fur, and her teeth weren’t quite bared, but there was strength and threat in her. If she did not get what she wanted, she would be a power to reckon with. Somehow, seeing her reminded him all over again how uncomfortable he was in his own human form. She was not as uncomfortable, but there was still the wolf in her every move.

  There were two humans trying to hold her back from Lord Morlieb, the Olde Wolf who stood in front of all the animals he had made serve him. He, too, was a reminder of what True had seen in other wild animals. That hatred was not something he was proud of, nor the hint of jealousy. But it was real, and it was something that True had felt himself, in one degree or another. He didn’t feel it any longer, but sometimes it did seem that the humans had too much ease and power in the world.

  At a sound behind him, True turned to see Princess Dagmar, striding out bravely from behind the other humans, her eyes flashing. All thoughts of the golden she-wolf dropped away from him.

  He felt as if in seeing her, he was using his eyes for the first time. This was what they had been meant to see. All the rest of his life he had been blinded, until now.

  Princess Dagmar was taller than he remembered, and her eyes were brighter, her stride more certain. She was the most beautiful human he had ever seen. It was in part, he admitted to himself, because she had the courage of a hound. She could have been the lead female of any pack in the forest and no one would question her pla
ce.

  “What is she doing here? She will be killed,” said King George under his breath. “Where are the guards? She should be sent away, back into the castle.”

  But there were no guards that True could see who had not already laid themselves out in front of Lord Morlieb and his animals, ready for a quick death.

  “She cannot be your little girl forever,” said Queen Marit. “She must face the dangers that you face, when you were younger than she was. It will make her stronger.”

  “She belongs here,” said True, surprised to find himself talking so firmly to the king. “Here more than any place else. Can you not see that?”

  “On a battlefield? She has never held a sword except in the practice circles. She has no idea what death is,” said King George, barking.

  “George, she is our daughter. If we have done nothing right, then at least we have taught her what it means to be a princess, to serve her kingdom and her people and even the magic that is not hers.”

  “I have lost one daughter,” snarled King George. “I will not lose another.” He leaped forward and cut across Dagmar’s path. But when he tried to bark at her, she could not understand him. True thought that she did not even realize that the hound before her was her father.

  Dagmar shook him off and strode toward Lord Morlieb.

  King George followed after her.

  True took a step, but Queen Marit put a hand out. “Don’t waste yourself,” she said. “When it is time for you to act, you will know it.”

  “But what can she do against him?” The princess did not have animal magic like her father. She was strong and brave, but Lord Morlieb had the old magic.

  “She is more than she appears,” said Queen Marit. She looked at True and added, “As are you.”

  True did not know what to do. He could not stop Lord Morlieb. He was not as susceptible to the old magic as so many others, but that did not give him his own magic.

  Still, he could not allow the princess to face the danger alone. He moved to stand just behind her as she faced Lord Morlieb.

  She wore a well-made gown, but one that had no ornamentation on it, and her hair was streaming down her back, unbraided, tiny snarls in it, sweat licking at the curls around her forehead and ears. The hem of her gown was dirty and she smelled of the stables, where she had spent the night before. She looked beautiful to True, but he had never understood how the humans decided on their royalty. It had nothing to do with beauty or strength, it seemed, but only with who wore a crown. And Princess Dagmar did not wear a crown or any other jewels.

  “Ah, so this is the one who is not a princess,” said Lord Morlieb.

  The insult did not seem to touch the princess, however. She kept herself focused on her enemy, as if she were trying to find a wounded place on his hide that she could aim for with the dagger she held at her side.

  “I will kill you,” she said aloud.

  The king barked behind her that he would do it first, but there were animals who had moved to keep him from reaching Lord Morlieb. He bit at them, but it did not seem to matter to them. They had no reaction to the pain.

  The old magic again, thought True. Lord Morlieb was using it to eliminate the animals’ natural reactions to fear and pain. And he said that he was on their side? How could that be?

  Lord Morlieb smiled at Princess Dagmar and lifted a hand to stroke her chin. “We were to be married,” he said. “Have you forgotten so soon?”

  “You never intended to marry me,” said Princess Dagmar, lifting her head proudly but not pulling away from his touch. It was as if she had been challenged and she would not show any hint of retreat.

  “But I did. I intend to marry you still, after all this—” he waved a hand at the two armies standing against each other “—is over. Our children will be a new generation, humans as they were meant to be.”

  The thought of Lord Morlieb having children with the princess enraged True in a way he had not known before. He felt a burning sensation in his chest that spread to his brain and he rushed forward without thinking how or what, only why. Princess Dagmar was why, and that was enough.

  He slammed into the chest of Lord Morlieb and knocked him down. But Lord Morlieb was laughing at him all the while. He had ordered the animals around him to let True attack him. That was how little Lord Morlieb feared True.

  True took a step back, telling himself he must think, the way that Lord Morlieb could think. He could not defeat a human who was also a wolf unless he used both sides of himself.

  As he hesitated, King George charged into the space he had left open, and the animals did not know immediately what to do. In that moment of freedom, the hound King George roared at the human Lord Morlieb and used his claws to rake his enemy’s face.

  More blood dripped down his cheeks, in a pattern of claw marks beneath the wounded eye. But still Lord Morlieb only smiled once more, as if this was all what he wanted to happen. Indeed, Lord Morlieb slipped a hand to his vest and pulled out a dagger. As the hound/king stood panting after his attack, Lord Morlieb thrust the dagger into the hound’s chest with amazing strength and accuracy.

  The hound/king staggered back, caught himself, and then let out a terrible sound of agony. What it meant True could not tell. It did not sound like any hound language he knew.

  A moment later, Queen Marit’s piercing voice called out, “George, no!”

  She rushed forward as the hound’s eyes seemed to glaze over and his whole body fell to the ground, limp and barely moving with breath.

  Lord Morlieb kicked at the hound body and the queen wept, throwing herself over it.

  “Farewell, King George,” said Lord Morlieb loudly. “The human who ruled over the animals is dead!”

  The animals all around Lord Morlieb called out triumph, but to True’s ears, the sounds were forced and unhappy.

  Then Lord Morlieb spat on the hound/king. “I had always planned for you to die, but I did not think that you would make it so easy. Know that your daughter will now face me alone.”

  Queen Marit was trying to pull the body away from the field, toward the castle gate. True moved to help her, but she made a sound at him that he had heard only once before, when a female hound held her dying mate in her arms, and bit off the ear of a hound from her pack who tried to pull her back from the passing rumble of moose who might kill her, as well.

  The hound’s form slowly transformed back into a human one, with the dagger in the human chest. It looked worse that way, for the hound had been covered in fur, and the human was naked and his body looked old and fragile and naked.

  True stared down at his own hands, waiting for his own transformation back to hound, now that the king who had worked the magic was dead. But it did not happen. He looked up and saw Princess Dagmar shaking her head over and over again.

  “No. Not him. It should have been me,” she said. Her body was curved toward her father, but her head pointed to Lord Morlieb, as if she could not decide to mourn or to attack.

  She is not a hound, thought True. Not truly. Nor was her father. Neither of them belong in this battle.

  But he did.

  Even if he still wore a human form, he knew how to fight like an animal fought. He knew a wolf’s tricks. And he knew how to throw himself into a moment that did not think of the future.

  He growled and rushed at Lord Morlieb. He used both fists to hit him in the stomach, near the kidneys, because that was a vulnerable spot on every animal, and more so on humans, who stood upright and exposed their bellies to the air.

  There was a pleasure he could not explain that came to him when he looked up and saw that the ever-present smile on Lord Morlieb’s face was wiped clean with an exhaled breath and a sound of surprise.

  True did not hesitate. He felt no need to give this man a chance to fight back as a human might have. He pummeled Lord Morlieb again and again. He took Lord Morlieb’s return blows, to his face, his back, his stomach, his legs, his groin. He felt the pain, and then put it away as he had whe
n he had been a hound, to be dealt with later, when the battle was won, and the prey was killed.

  Or he was.

  He remained upright, as a human, during all of this and it did not occur to him until he fell back that this meant something. But what?

  Chapter Twenty-five: Hans

  Hans was near the end of his capacity to absorb darkness, he was sure. He had lost count of how many animals of the Olde Wolf he had cleansed and set free. There were still so many more, though. He could never get them all. He knew that now.

  He hadn’t saved Ina, either. She was still with her father. He could sense her, a spot of brightness against a field of darkness. There was darkness everywhere, and most of all, inside of him. It felt as if he had concentrated darkness and pressed it into the one hand. It throbbed and demanded to be cut out. He understood the urgency he had seen in the man at the Order.

  He had a sword still. He put it to his hand and closed his eyes. If he cut off his hand, then surely the darkness would be gone. He could go back to the Order and they would take him in. He would have a home, and safety.

  But he would not have Ina.

  He let the sword down and moved toward her, stopping as often as he had to when animals stood in his way. He touched them with the sword, freed them from their darkness, and took even more into himself. It began to spread up from his hand, until his whole arm was full of the darkness, and from there, it moved into his chest. He was breathing darkness into himself.

  Then he found an animal suffused with darkness, and when he touched it with his sword, he realized it was a human inside. It had the form of a lynx, and it snarled as a lynx, but when he took the darkness into himself, the creature did not know what to do. It stared at the forest, but there was no freedom in going there. It stared at the castle, and then at its own form. It could not go there, either.

  Hans had no great magic to change a lynx into a human again. He did not know how the Olde Wolf had done it. That was not a part of the old magic. It should have been anathema to the old ways. Changing from one form to another was newer magic. It had come with the humans, who wanted to have power over all.