Blue Curse (Blue Wolf Book 1)

by Brad Magnarella

  The Great Wolf, I thought.

  He rose to all fours, eyes elevating high above Baba’s head, and merged into the blackness. Baba remained sitting in her layers of robes, face fixed as though entranced. Buzurg stalked around the pit, his enormous form shifting in and out of the blue light, until I sensed him behind me. An aggressive heat radiated from him, more intense than anything I’d ever felt.

  He sniffed my neck in great huffs. My animal heart thundered in my chest, and I felt an urge to fall onto my back, to submit, but I resisted. Submission to a threat had been trained out of me a long time ago.

  Buzurg drew back, his growl rumbling through the room. The sound resolved into a deep voice in my head.

  Why have you called me?

  I cleared my mind of the strangeness of what was happening until I was completely focused. “I understand that you have chosen me to be the Blue Wolf, the Principal Protector,” I said in tone both diplomatic and direct. “I’m honored, but I have other commitments. I’ll help the Kabadi people, but not like this. I need to be returned to my human form.”

  You ask to abandon your duty?

  Though menace coursed through his words, they struck a nerve. In my sixteen years in the service, I had never been accused of abandoning a duty. “This isn’t something I agreed to,” I said, anger climbing in my voice. “I have duties to my own people, to my family.” I thought about Daniela and our future monsters, three or four of them. “With all due respect, the Kabadi people are neither.”

  You were born under the Wolf, he thundered, or I could not have chosen you.

  Not knowing what he was talking about, I remained silent, letting my request stand.

  Buzurg began to pace, his tread heavy and restless. I pictured great muscles bulking and shifting over his frame. Without warning his teeth seized my neck and slammed me onto my back.

  I struggled but couldn’t get out from under his shadowy form. He shifted until his teeth were wrapping my throat. I tried to pry his jaws apart, but he didn’t seem to be wholly material. I couldn’t grasp anything. But that didn’t seem to be a problem for Buzurg. One jerk of his head, and I would be throatless.

  Look into my eye, he growled.

  I stared up his muzzle to where his right eye gleamed like a star. And then it was a star, set against the black void around us. I felt disembodied as I watched the star separate into twelve smaller stars, each a different color. They took the shape of animals—the red star a bear, the green one a fish of some kind. But my gaze was drawn to the blue one, which was changing into a giant wolf. The animal stars spread and rotated into what looked like a large zodiac.

  You were born under the Wolf, Buzurg repeated. The Protector. You heed an urge to defend, negotiating when you can, killing when you must, exceeding at both. It is who you are. If you can look into the light of the Great Maker and refute this, then I will release you.

  Was he really giving me an out?

  I opened my mouth to tell him those qualities were the result of my training, not being born under any star. But as I looked at the celestial animals, I couldn’t form the words. The light of the blue wolf shone into me, and I was overcome by a sense of brotherhood—like with my own men, only more intense. In that moment, I couldn’t deny its influence any more than I could abandon my team in battle. I felt my mouth close again.

  Do you see? Buzurg said harshly. His teeth unclamped my throat and he stood back, the stars disappearing from his eye. I recognized your true nature. The transformation would have killed you otherwise. The pack is weak. It needs the leadership of the Blue Wolf.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Why can’t you lead them?”

  For the first time his eyes shifted from mine. I’ve been relegated to the shadows. I have too little power here.

  Something in his tone told me not to pursue the question. “I can help in other ways,” I insisted. “I can give the Kabadi weapons and ammunition, improve their fortifications. I can train them.”

  That will not be enough against the White Dragon.

  I recalled my battle with the vile creature. “Who is he?”

  He is an aberration. He is greed. He knows we are weakened and smells blood. You surprised him tonight, but he will return to test you. He is determined to end our line and claim the valley, even if it means tipping creation back into eternal night. You must not let him.

  I didn’t understand this talk of creation and eternal night, but I saw an opening. “And if I manage to keep the White Dragon at bay, the pack will be safe?”

  They will be more secure, but they will not be safe until the next generation of warriors comes of age.

  When he spoke of the warriors, a bolt of guilt shot through me. They were the blue-haired wolfmen the Kabadi had tried to hide in the infirmary when we arrived. But with Baine’s command, that generation had been wiped out. The next generation was their children. A primal need to protect and lead them rose up inside me, but I forced it back down.

  “I’ll make you an offer,” I said. “I’ll hunt down and destroy the White Dragon. In exchange, you’ll release me. The pack will be safe. There will be no more need for the Blue Wolf.”

  The White Dragon is not easily hunted and even less easily destroyed, Buzurg said. He is wily and powerful. More likely, he will destroy you, becoming more powerful still. Without their protector, the pack will be slaughtered.

  “I’m hunting him regardless,” I said.

  The Great Wolf growled at my insubordination, but he had already shown his hand. He needed me more than I needed him.

  “If I’m going to be the pack’s Blue Wolf, those are the terms.”

  After a long silence, Buzurg said, Then you must strike while the White Dragon is still weak.

  I nodded, already thinking tactically. I would need as much firepower as I could gather. What about the handful of young men in the village who had helped repel the dragons?

  No! Buzurg shouted, picking up the thought somehow. Though the Wolf does not express himself in them, he is latent in their blood. They must remain alive to repopulate the pack. Their children may still become warriors or greater. After a moment of brooding silence he said, There are the beasts. If they accept your leadership, you can take them.

  “Beasts?” Did he mean the things behind the locked door?

  But at that moment the old witch moaned, and the cube around her neck shifted. Buzurg swung his head toward her. The da’vat is ending. I must return to the shadows. He looked back at me with his large predatory eyes. Be prudent in your hunt. If the White Dragon proves too great, fall back. You are all that stands between him and what remains of the pack. Between him and absolute darkness.

  “Do we have an agreement?” I asked.

  We do, Wolf, he said, and leapt across the pit of blue embers.

  As he disappeared into the old woman, she picked up the rapid, lip-twisting chant as though she’d never stopped. I could feel the room rotating again, the doorway to what must have been the Great Wolf’s realm closing. The woman wound down the chant, and the embers returned to orange. The darkness receded. I could see the room around us now, the mounted wolf’s head a sagging parody of the powerful being I’d just spoken to.

  Now I just had to pray the being would keep his word.

  15

  “How did it go?” Parker asked when I emerged from the shrine room.

  “Interestingly,” I said, accepting my camo pants that he was holding out and stepping into them. “He didn’t change me back, obviously, but we came to an agreement.”

  “What agreement?” Nafid said.

  “I destroy the White Dragon, and I don’t have to play Blue Wolf anymore.”

  “White Dragon?” Parker frowned. “Do you mean that huge thing that was flying away when we arrived?”

  “That’s the one,” I said, pulling my shirt on.

  “Tell me everything that happened,” Nafid said.

  As I put my vest and pack back on, I gave a succinct report of the ceremo
ny, from her great-grandmother’s chanting to the Great Wolf returning to his realm. Nafid watched me intently as I spoke.

  “Then there is much to do,” she said when I finished. “But first you must eat and rest. Come.”

  Parker and I followed her from the building. Outside, night had paled into a misty pre-dawn, and the first ragged cries of roosters were rising in the village. The activity around the compound had thinned, and though large amounts of debris remained, the dead were no longer lined up in the courtyard.

  “We have a crypt underground,” Nafid said, “where the dragons cannot steal them.”

  She led us across the courtyard into another building whose large front room was crowded with villagers. Dusty, exhausted, and no doubt in shock, the villagers ate in silence. Nafid spoke, and a group scooted over to make room for Parker and me.

  No sooner had we sat, the villagers began passing us cups of tea as well as clay pots of what looked like stew. The stew was, in fact, bread soaked in broth and topped with lentils, raisins, and succulent chunks of lamb. Ravenous, I wolfed mine down. The villagers seemed to appreciate this and several of them tried to pass me another pot. I showed my palms, but they insisted.

  Nafid, who had taken a seat on my other side, said, “It is an honor for them to feed the Blue Wolf.”

  I didn’t feel it was an honor I deserved, but for their sake I nodded and held up a finger to indicate I would have just one more. Though I paced myself this time, I could feel the watchful villagers ready to spring forward with another offer of food the instant I finished.

  “I have some questions,” I said, turning to Nafid.

  “I expected you might.”

  “Where did the Great Wolf come from?”

  She cast a glance at Parker as she sipped her tea.

  “You can trust him,” I said. “Nothing you tell us leaves Team 5. Isn’t that right, Parker.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “He came from the Great Maker,” Nafid said. “You say you saw a light in his eye. That was the Great Maker, the light of Creation. The Great Maker then divided Herself into twelve Guardians, each one representing a quality, each given a place in this world to defend against the return of darkness. The Great Wolf is the third Guardian, protector of the valley.”

  “But the Great Wolf said he’d been relegated to the shadows,” I pointed out.

  “When humankind arrived, worship of the Great Wolf and the other Guardians followed. That worship bolstered the Guardians’ power, but it also brought temptation. Several Guardians coupled with powerful priests and priestesses. The Great Wolf was one of them. He mated with a sorceress in this valley. As punishment, the Great Maker sent him and the others to a shadow realm, leaving their mortal descendents to carry on their role. It is how the world became so fragile.”

  “Interesting creation myth,” Parker remarked.

  I looked around the room to find the villagers watching us, several touching their wolf tooth pendants. Whether it was history or myth was irrelevant. “Spec Ops is about adapting to realities on the ground,” I reminded my civil affairs officer in a lowered voice, “and right now those realities are whatever she can tell us about the elements in play.” I turned back to Nafid. “Is that why there are men among the Kabadi with wolf attributes?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The attributes are passed from father to son, though they are not always expressed. Some children show no wolf features, others show an even balance—those are the warriors—and in a small number of children they are fully expressed.” I suspected in the last case she was referring to the “beasts” the Great Wolf had mentioned, the ones who had been clamoring behind the locked door. But before I could ask her about them, she went on. “In much the same way, the attributes of the sorceress are passed from mother to daughter.”

  “That explains the spell craft and light shows,” I said.

  “As well as why armies never successfully invaded the corridor,” Parker put in. “If this is all true,” he added quickly, though I could tell his brain was inching over to the new reality.

  “So, your great-grandmother…?” I said to Nafid.

  “She is the full expression of Nasreen, the sorceress who mated with the Great Wolf. According to our stories, there has never been another like my great-grandmother since Nasreen. She is the Great Wolf’s link to our world.”

  “And that’s how I was turned into the Blue Wolf,” I concluded.

  “Yes, the Blue Wolf is the manifestation of the Great Wolf’s essential qualities.”

  “How old is your great-grandmother?” I asked.

  “Baba is older than two hundred years.”

  When Parker made a skeptical face, I pointed to my own. He examined my hairy brow and long muzzle before waggling his head to concede that anything might be possible.

  “She could live two hundred more,” Nafid said.

  “I have to ask,” Parker said, leaning forward to see her better. “Where did you learn English? I mean, I would’ve thought with your isolation that would be difficult, but you’re fully fluent.”

  “I learned from you,” she said simply.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, from when you were translating earlier.”

  “Um … even if something like that were possible, our exchange barely scratched the surface of the language.”

  “It didn’t need to,” Nafid said, gesturing into the air. “Once I learned where you were making the translations, I went there too. You have a well-organized system. Very easy to work from.”

  Parker sputtered. “Wh-what do you mean ‘where you were making the translations’?” He tapped his temple hard enough to knock his glasses crooked. “It was all happening up here.”

  “Yes, and in the Kollec,” she said. “That is where organized thoughts live. The Kollec is like a big building with many rooms, but you have to know which room you’re looking for in order to enter.”

  Parker gave me an exasperated look before straightening his glasses and returning to his food. It was too much for him, which was just as well. We were starting to veer off topic.

  “So how did the dragon shifters come into the picture?” I asked.

  “In much the same way as our wolves. But in this case, the Great Dragon mated with a warlord of a region north of the Wari River.”

  “Wait a sec,” I said. “The Great Dragon was one of the original Guardians?”

  “Yes, she was the ninth Guardian, Opponent of the Great Wolf.” Seeing my confused look, she said, “Creation requires opposing forces—positive and negative, you call them—otherwise, Creation collapses. When the Great Maker divided herself, she ensured each Guardian had an Opponent. For the Great Wolf that was the Great Dragon, champion of the high peaks.”

  I thought back to the lights I’d seen in the Great Wolf’s eye. Though I’d been drawn to the blue light, I remembered seeing a white light across the zodiac in the shape of a winged creature.

  “The first son of the Great Dragon and the warlord was Orzu, the White Dragon.”

  “The shifter who visited us last night? He’d have to be thousands of years old then. How is that possible?”

  “Though a vestigial connection exists between our people and the Great Wolf, our men are not shifters. They remain as they are. Their power is never replenished. Over time they weaken and die. Not so for the descendents of the Great Dragon. When a dragon shifter returns to their human form, their dragon form merges into the Great Dragon. There it regenerates until the shifter calls on it again. Though a dragon shifter only comes along once every ten generations, they cannot die unless killed. For this reason, they have become very good at survival. Rarely have two dragon shifters been killed so close together as happened last night. Orzu was overconfident. He will not make that mistake again.”

  “The Great Wolf said something about him wanting this valley.”

  “By his dragon nature he is aggressive, while the human line from which he came makes him greedy. He prizes riches
above all else. For centuries he has thrived in the opium trade, but his lands are nearly exhausted, while ours are the most fertile in the province. With them, he could triple his wealth.”

  “But why here?” I asked. “It seems like a shifter that powerful could go anywhere and take anything.”

  “Because his power is rooted to the place of his creation. The farther he strays, the weaker he becomes. He would be foolish to challenge anyone outside our province.”

  “And your wolf kind has kept him at bay all these centuries?” I asked.

  “There have been nine great battles and countless skirmishes. Though the White Dragon has consumed many of our warriors, he is careful. He will only attack when he believes he has a decisive advantage. Even so, the Kabadi have always managed to repel him. But last night was different. He arrived knowing our warriors had been wiped out. Indeed, he was gloating over his prize as he toyed with us.” Her green eyes fixed on mine. “But last night was the closest he came to being killed.”

  “Doesn’t he risk destroying Creation, though?” I was beginning to understand something else that had seemed nonsensical when the Great Wolf told me. “Because with your line gone, there’s no more opposition to the Great Dragon. Creation implodes, right? Darkness returns.”

  “The White Dragon does not believe the myths,” she said.

  “But then wouldn’t the same be true if you destroyed the White Dragon?” Parker challenged. “Implosion and darkness and all of that?”

  “He is just one dragon shifter, so no,” Nafid replied. “There are many of his line, though not all of them became full shifters. As long as that line continues, so does the essence of the Great Dragon—which will continue to stand in necessary opposition to the Great Wolf.”

  “Couldn’t another shifter just step into his place, then?” Parker asked. “Give you the same trouble?”

  “Theoretically, yes. But the dragon shifters in existence are less powerful than the White Dragon and mostly solitary. The White Dragon contracts the greedier ones into his service. Otherwise, we would rarely see them. The natural opposition between the Great Wolf and Great Dragon keeps us apart.”