Forever Wolf

by Maria Vale

  The westends call him Garm. Who knows what his name had been in Ironwood—certainly not Garm, which is not a Pack name. But the passing centuries spent underground bleached his fur white as bone. Those centuries spent on guard had changed his eyes too. One became as pale as the sky that he watched for threats from the gods. One became as green as the earth that he watched for threats from humans.

  Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh. Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh. Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh.

  It is said that he is waiting until Eormenburh’s children are big enough and powerful enough. Then the Banwulf, the Bone Wolf, who sees both heaven and earth, will howl and that…that will mark the beginning of the end of both.

  Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh. Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh. Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh.

  I know packs on the edge, and not one of them is secure enough to look at a white wolf with those haunted eyes and gamble that this is simply an Arctic wolf with pronounced heterochromia, not the harbinger of the world’s end.

  Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh. Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh. Ruuucccckkkk, Shhhhh.

  I will make sure that the white wolf is healed, but then he will have to move on, a wanderer until he dies. A wolf without a pack. I have done what I can; besides, I could do a hundred times that and never be absolved of my failure to save that other white wolf.

  They were both strange wolves in a world that has no room for either.

  That’s what I tell myself when I go back to the toolshed and switch out the grass blade for the short, thick brush blade.

  Then I turn my back on Westdæl and its eye-shaped cave, and with short hacking strokes, I begin attacking the brambles.

  Shukk, shukk, shukk, shukk, shukk.

  “Shielder?”

  I let the stroke run out, lifting the scythe. Sweat runs down my neck, between my shoulder blades, and between my breasts. I cup my hand over my eyes so that I can see a figure so slight, he has to work at casting a shadow.

  Arthur, the 12th’s nidling, is thin with wavy-brown hair that, given the slightest breeze or no breeze at all, whispers like cobwebs around his worried face. He is always hunched, his shoulders curved forward, his arms wrapped around his waist, his chin tucked into his chest. Everything about him is constricted and looks like defeat.

  There’s an old saying that lone wolves are the only ones who always breed, their children being Frustration and Dissent. To control weak and solitary wolves at the bottom of an echelon’s hierarchy, they are consigned to be nidlings, servants to the Alpha pair.

  Setting the heel of the snath on the ground, I take the file out of my back pocket again and, with long, smooth, curving strokes, bring the blade back to an edge.

  There are not many nidlings. Not only are they weak, but they are peculiarly prone to outrageous accidents: a fatal hoof to the chest, a careless leap across a gorge, running in a straight line away from a gun when every wolf knows you need to zigzag.

  Quicksilver Nilsdottir, the 14th Echelon’s runt, was a nidling for a few minutes before Tiberius Malasson showed up. Mala, Tiberius’s mother, was a nidling until she ran away and met August Leveraux and became the root and source of so much trouble.

  “The Alpha sent me to inform you that all Alpha pairs are being called to the Meeting House.”

  Lorcan hasn’t spoken a civil word to me since that worm thing.

  “Tell the Alpha I’ll be there as soon as I clean up.”

  I dry the bramble blade, then hang it, cleaned and honed, next to the others.

  After wiping the damp dirt away, I bend the hoe that Lorcan never repaired back into shape and hang it from the brackets sized for it.

  Chapter 9

  The wolves of Vrangelya had little use for houses and no trust whatsoever for the things that lived inside houses, so it was a tradition of that pack to touch the lintel above any door we passed through. Touching the lintel was our talisman, our fervent wish that no matter what we met upon entering, we would live long enough to exit.

  As hopes and aspirations for the future went, it was admittedly small beer.

  The Great North is different. The first Alpha bought land here about 350 years ago, and every passing generation added to it whenever possible. Sometime in the last century, the Pack bought a great camp from some bankrupt businessman. It was a windfall of land and nearly sixty buildings: Laundry, Carpentry, Boathouse, the Great Hall that lasted until the Shifters burned it down this winter. The Pack has added other buildings, mostly small cabins used for mated wolves.

  Lorcan told me once that the Meeting House had been a chapel to the westends’ God of Dominion, which I suppose explains the elaborate decorations of curved branches gracing the gabled entryway and the balustrade around the deck.

  The Great North uses it for meetings and lyings-in, and when the Great Hall burned this winter, the Meeting House was the crowded heart of Pack life.

  I can’t help but touch the lintel as I enter. As soon as I see that the Alphas have been joined by various Pack lawyers, I heave a sigh and touch it again.

  The air inside is damp and warm with the breath of so many wolves tightly crammed together, and Evie signals for the windows to be opened.

  A Pack without leadership tends to revert quickly to pure, feral id, so Evie keeps a tight schedule. Josi begins talking immediately about the helicopter incursion over Great North airspace. Airplanes must fly higher, but not helicopters. They are allowed to fly low over any “unimproved” land.

  The lawyers are going to try to claim that the helicopters are disturbing the “Great North Kennel,” an invention meant to disguise our inordinately large consumption of cheese chews, peanut butter toothpaste, and skunk spray, but the “kennel” is small because more than twenty-five “dogs” will necessitate an inspection by state authorities.

  Our lawyers assure Evie that they are doing everything they can. Money will be spent, and favors called in. Humans will be slapped with lawsuits—as soon as they can track down which human is responsible.

  Elijah Sorensson, the 9th’s Alpha and the lawyer in charge of the trust meant to protect us, seems distracted. He cradles his cell phone in his big palm. It must have buzzed, because he jumps, his massive hand trembling around the little thing, but after a quick thumb swipe, he covers it again with a murmured “sorry.”

  Several of the Alpha pairs exchange glances. Lorcan smiles at me conspiratorially, meaning, I suppose, he’s forgotten about the worms.

  “He does that all the time. Checks his phone,” Lorcan whispers. “Apparently he’s hoping the human will come back.”

  Lorcan doesn’t like the 9th’s Alpha. Something about a wasp’s nest when the 9th and the 12th were assigned to clean the Boathouse for Silver’s lying-in. But as much as I believe we should have killed the human, I take no pleasure in another wolf’s distress. Elijah is thinner now. One bootlace has broken, and rather than fixing it or replacing it, he ties it in an awkward knot low on his ankle.

  He has always been a hard worker and is a capable Alpha, but his discipline is slipping. And for a human.

  “I’m thirsty,” Lorcan whispers, looking around for Arthur, who is standing ready in the corner, his head bowed, but his eyes searching. “Do you want something?”

  “Gestille, Alpha.” Be still, Alpha. I put my hand on his leg, my fingers tightening.

  Elijah presses the phone to his chest as if his heart is listening for some reassuring noise.

  All this for someone who could never be part of the Pack. My eyes flick to the window. It’s hemmed in by trees, but beyond the woods and waterways and open spaces and bogs and low slopes is the western edge of our land and a wolf who is in the same predicament.

  Our lands, Josi says, lie between two rich shale producers. One of those producers is eager to start exploring for gas here. Others are looking for a route to pipe the gas in the shale of Quebec to points south. Hence the helicopters.

  In the
end, there are a few questions fielded by the lawyers. When they are done, I stand silently grasping the hilt of my sheathed seax until Evie nods toward me.

  I tell the Pack that I was on Westdæl, almost parallel with the helicopter, and could see wolves running under the leafless hardwoods, even from there. If the helicopters come again, I tell them, they must curl around the roots of the nearest tree, even if it is bare, and stay absolutely still, because westends in the air respond to movement.

  I sit back down, my forearms on my thighs, my fingers curled over my knees.

  “The Pack will follow the advice of the 12th’s Alpha,” Evie says, then grimaces slightly. She’s made this slip before, calling me Alpha, and while I’m glad the Pack will do what I need them to, I now have to deal with Lorcan, who is very jealous of his dignity.

  He growls deep in his throat. He folds his arms across his chest, casting around to see how that slip has played among the other Alphas.

  Aside from that momentary grimace, Evie wastes no time on Lorcan’s wounded pride. She wants the entire perimeter covered and has posted a roster in her office. Every echelon must volunteer a wolf—and not just any wolf but a Homelands wolf, one who knows the territory well.

  The Alpha starts as she always does with the 1st. Each echelon volunteers one of their own without hesitation, but then it comes to the 12th, and Lorcan angrily volunteers…me.

  Evie takes a deep breath and leans against the table. I can see she is not happy with his choice, but for her to question his decision is to question his leadership, which she can do only if she is prepared to both fight him and deal with the chaos when she wins.

  Chapter 10

  “Nu is seo mæl for us leornian þine laga and sida.”

  After all these years, I still find it unnerving that these wolves can dare be so loud.

  Through the windows come the sounds of pups and juveniles responding to Victor’s call to the law with words or whistles or high-pitched howls, depending on what shape they’re in.

  It’s a signal that our meeting is at an end and the Alphas must go back to the business of taking care of their own.

  I head to the Great Hall to sign up for perimeter watch, threading through the pups and juveniles emerging from the woods to join their Deemer at the stairs leading up to the porch.

  Nils chases Nyala up the steps, first trying to wrestle something from her jaws, then grabbing hold of her tail. Victor sends them away. They won’t take the law until after their first kill, which will be a year at least.

  In the coldest months, his pupils gather around Victor near the huge fireplace and learn the laws and the Old Tongue. It’s warmer now and the sun is up later, so to get up the stairs, I have to weave my way through the tussling crowd of fighting pups and jealous preteens, still so desperately uncomfortable in skin.

  “Nu is seo mæl for us leornian þine laga and sida,” he shouts again.

  Now is time for us to study your laws and…sida? I must remember to ask Victor how he would translate sida. Later, when he is not preoccupied. As long as I have been here, there are still words that I can’t translate. Like sida.

  The door to Evie’s office is closed. I knock with one hand, touching the lintel with the other.

  Querulous barks answer, and over them, a voice that is not Evie’s says, “Come in, but be careful.” Through the crack of the door, a fuzzy black head sticks out. I push his snout with my toe, then enter and shut the door quickly behind me, making sure that none of the tiny nurslings sniffing around my ankles escape or catch their wagging tails in the door. All four of them have gathered, heads bent to the side, waiting expectantly for me to pick them up and mark them.

  “There’s a roster for the perimeter wolves?”

  Quicksilver points to the Alpha’s desk and the corkboard above it. I lean over, pulling out the worn wooden tack with a number on it that was probably left over from some ancient plan of Homelands, before everything was digitized.

  Tiny pin-sharp claws puncture my jeans on either side of my calf. I shake them off.

  “John, come here.”

  John Tiberiusson may not understand the words, but he responds to his mother’s voice and pads over to where she sits surrounded by papers. Clambering over one pile, he slips and sprawls flat. Silver reaches for him distractedly, rubbing her cheek into his tiny muzzle, first one side, then the other. Then she holds him in her lap, stroking his belly while she sorts through papers that smell like almond and old paste.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The Alpha needs new copies of things we lost in the fire. Just some of the important documents from the safe.”

  The fire that destroyed our Great Hall. That almost destroyed our pups. The fire that was brought by the Shifters who invaded Homelands, led here by Quicksilver’s mate, the half-Shifter, half-Pack Tiberius.

  My guess is that the Alpha means to protect the runt. She is still recovering from her lying-in, and the four pups, whose eyes and ears are now open, are still too blind, too deaf, and too clumsy to avoid the careless crowds of enormous wolves now wandering Homelands.

  I look toward the roster. I am not sure how I feel about the second window that was installed in the Alpha’s office. The one that looks north toward Westdæl. It is a change, and like all wolves, I have learned to mistrust change.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  Silver pulls one from the collar of her shirt and throws it to me.

  “Theo!” The runt’s runt is teething on the handle of the Alpha’s desk. Silver fishes into a box next to her for a cheese chew that she tosses to the little black dot. The three pups on the floor wobble and stumble for it, while John torques and struggles to get away from his mother.

  Nudging the tussling pups away with my toe, I lean over the Alpha’s desk, looking at the roster. Most of the segments of the perimeter closest to Home Pond have already been claimed.

  “Be careful of that,” Silver says.

  “What?”

  “The letter. It’s from the Alpha.”

  In the middle of the big, old desk, recently refinished and still smelling of linseed oil, is an older and deeply creased piece of paper. I lean over, my hands behind my back, careful not to touch it. There are only two letters in signature at the foot of the page.

  A. M.

  When Silver says Alpha, she means not Evie Kitwanasdottir, but Ælfrida Mechtildsdottir, the Great North’s first Alpha. The one who forced her obstinate Pack from Mercia to the wild vastness of North America. She struck out from the dying Forest of Dean with a sad group of thirty adults, but before she’d even left the Old World, she had added a dozen or so pups from the butchered Pack Wessex.

  She and her Deemer, an injured runt from Pack Wessex, rewrote the Old Laws so that new wolves could add their strength to the Pack. So that wolves would learn to use the laws of men to protect themselves.

  Wolves had originally laughed at what they called Ælfrida’s Folly, but within fifty years, survivors of more than one decimated Pack had dragged their broken bodies across Europe and the Atlantic to what was now called the Great North.

  Well, she might have been a legendary Alpha, but her penmanship was crap.

  “Can you read it?”

  “Mmm,” Silver says, struggling to get up from the floor. I do not offer help. She would not appreciate it. A runt whose hind leg is dislocated when she is wild, Silver knows better than anyone that we do not coddle weakness.

  “I’ve spent the past weeks studying her handwriting,” she says and hunches over the page.

  “‘We are nothing if not’… Ælfrida writes anwendedlic, so ‘mutable,’ I suppose, is best. ‘We understand the miracle of change and must not fear it in ourselves or in our laws. I do not care to know the many pedants who will be able to repeat these laws verbatim; I was present at their creation. Instead, I would fervently pray to meet t
he lawmaker with the strength of marrow to change what we got wrong.’ Signed ‘A. M.’”

  I frown first at the paper, then at the runt reading it. The Alpha does not need this letter for any legal purpose. It has nothing to do with the land or the Great North LLC. No, its only possible purpose is as a shot across the bow of the Deemer.

  “How old are you, Quicksilver?”

  “Almost 280 moons.”

  As I thought. “You were born to a powerful pack at a time of peace. So you think peace is your birthright. It isn’t. Terror is our birthright. Fighting for our lives…that is our birthright. This peace of yours is a fool’s idyll.” There is a marbleized tin, beige and dark blue, on the Alpha’s desk. Kusmi chai, it says. Evie uses it to hold the prepaid cards we have always used for Offland shopping trips. When I open it, my nose takes in the lingering hints of cinnamon and cardamom and clove and black tea. It reminds me of a long-ago smell from my faraway home, though how Vrangelya came to have something so luxurious, I cannot begin to guess.

  I close it again. “You have no idea how little it takes for Pack to turn on one another, and once that happens, they are all dead. There is a reason we start every Iron Table saying ‘In our laws we are protected.’ The protection we need is not just from outsiders; it is from our own most vicious selves.”

  Silver rubs her palms together slowly. Like with all Pack, her skin bears the marks of her wild life—the scars of hunting, of running through the harsh land with nothing but fur and claws for protection. But when she holds up her right hand, she spreads her fingers, displaying the upward-pointing arrow, a rarer, deliberate marking.

  I wasn’t there, but I heard about the fiasco of her first visit Offland this past fall. Silver went to Plattsburgh with Tiberius. It was a routine supply run—groceries, bookstore, and pet store to stock up on the all-important cheese chews and peanut-butter toothpaste—but Offland proved to be too oppressive for Silver’s wild, and she changed. In the car. In Plattsburgh.

  Any westend looking through the window could have seen her little soft mouth and tame nose contort and lengthen and turn into a ripped gash and a long muzzle. Only Tiberius’s lead-footed driving and pure dumb luck prevented someone from seeing this transformation that would have doomed the Great North.