Wolfbreed

by S. A. Swann

  “Let me have that,” he said, reaching down. “You'll cut your own head off before you get that collar off with this.”

  “I ...”

  He took the bloody weapon from her hand.

  She stepped back and hugged herself. She shook her head. “This isn't right.”

  “Lilly?” He looked at her, and felt something odd about her manner, her expression. She was talking without difficulty, but the person speaking felt different. “What isn't right?”

  She lowered her head and turned away from him. “I can't.”

  He reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was cold and damp, and she trembled. “Don't worry, I'll get that off.”

  “I ... I ...” He couldn't make out all of what she was saying through the rain. After a moment, she turned around and buried her face in his chest.

  “Whatever happened back there,” he said, “I found you. That's what's important.”

  She looked back up at him, her green eyes wide and lost. “I'm sorry, Ulfie.” It might have been his nickname, but Uldolf thought he heard her voice regain the tone it had when she had first called to him across his father's field.

  He stroked her hair and told her, “I forgive you.”

  “Ulfie!” She embraced him in a rib-bruising hug.

  ***

  Uldolf led them along the creek, into a ravine. He stopped at the first reasonable shelter he saw—a long shelf of rock projecting over both them and the bottom of the ravine. Several trees had fallen from the wall of the ravine to pile against the rock, providing better cover from the storm than he had a right to expect.

  Lilly shivered in his cloak while he crawled under the projection and checked to make sure it was safe. The big rock above seemed stable, even supporting the weight of several dead trees. The ground was clean dry slate that seemed high enough not to be flooded. There was the stale musk from an old animal den, but Uldolf heard nothing moving back here. The prior occupants seemed long gone.

  Uldolf backed out of the dark and looked up at Lilly. She was smiling at him, despite the angry red scratches on her neck. At least she seemed to have stopped bleeding.

  He waved her under the rock with him. “Come on, we can wait out the storm in here.”

  She crawled in after him, and he backed up as far as he could into the cavern to give her a dry place to sit. She crept forward, little more than a silhouette against the gray storm outside. Even the lightning flashes didn't seem to reach in here.

  She fumbled blindly for a moment until he felt her hand on his leg. Once she found where he was, she crawled up and huddled against him.

  She shivered, and he placed his arm around her shoulders. “We just have to get through the night.”

  Lilly huddled closer and rested her cheek on his chest. She reached up and stroked his cheek.

  “Lilly?” He took her hand down. “Why did you stop talking to me?”

  “Ulfie?”

  Uldolf sighed in frustration. “You were almost speaking in full sentences back there. Why won't you talk to me now?”

  He felt her pull away. “Y—You don't like me?”

  What the hell? “Of course I like you. But why are you having trouble talking now?”

  “H-hard remembering.”

  Uldolf cursed himself for being too hard on her. She was still recovering from the head wound. The blow had taken something away from her, even if it wasn't as obvious as his missing arm. Even now, he still had to deal with the frustrations his own injury had caused, and those didn't even compare to how it was when the memory of having both arms was fresh in his mind. The pain of losing his arm had only started with the injury—

  “Ulfie?”

  The concern in her voice made him realize how tense he had suddenly become. He was breathing hard, his heart was racing, and he could barely feel why. Hard remembering ...

  “I'm sorry, Lilly. It isn't your fault you have trouble speaking.”

  “I—I try,” she whispered.

  “I know you do. But don't force yourself on my account.” Uldolf shook his head. They were too tired, cold, and wet to work out her language problems anyway. He opened his pack and hoped his tinder was still dry.

  He felt her hand on his wrist. He looked up at her, barely a darker shadow in the darkness. “I—I—”

  “Lilly, it's really all right—”

  “I like you, too.”

  ***

  He found some dry wood wedged in the back of the cavern, enough to get s a small fire going. He worried a little about the soldiers, but they were far away in the storm, hunting in unfamiliar woods. There was a good chance the Germans had more sense than he did, calling off their search once the dark and the storm became dangerously impenetrable.

  All in all, a far more immediate threat was the cold and wet—especially for Lilly.

  By the time Uldolf had a small fire going, she was asleep. She had unfolded the cloak underneath her and had curled herself up into a little ball on top of the sheepskin lining. There was no way he could cover her up with the cloak without waking her, so he removed his shirt, which had mostly dried out, and draped it over her.

  “This is becoming a habit,” he muttered, shivering.

  He kept watch for soldiers, expecting them to find their little shelter at any moment. When he didn't worry about the Germans, he worried about his family. He hoped they had enough confidence in him not to worry.

  Outside, the storm picked up, lightning and thunder rolling on top of each other in a near-continuous rumbling. The rain eventually became so heavy that someone would have to be right in front of their shelter even to see Uldolf s small fire.

  “What happened to you back there?” he whispered to Lilly.

  He pulled the dagger out of his belt. It was certainly German, not only from the design, but from the script engraved upon it. He recognized the style, if not the words. The blade itself glinted whiter than steel, and Uldolf frowned at it.

  Silver?

  “This isn't a weapon. It's a piece of jewelry.” Despite the heft and the wicked edge, it wasn't a very good blade. He could see several scratches and dents in the edge where Lilly had tried to pry her collar loose.

  There had been two dead soldiers on the ground back there ...

  He looked at Lilly sleeping peacefully next to him. He tried to picture her hurting someone, killing someone, even in self-defense. He couldn't— especially with this excuse for a dagger.

  He looked down at the bloodstained metal collar still wrapping her neck. There was no question that the Germans had taken her captive, though. She had one of their daggers, and they had stripped her clothes. They had her, and meant to rape her—or worse.

  So how did it end with two dead soldiers, and Lilly deep in the woods chopping at her neck with an ornamental dagger?

  “That man was savaged by some sort of beast,” Uldolf muttered into the fire. “Wolf, wildcat, maybe even a bear.” He nodded and slid the silver weapon back into his belt. “They would have been distracted by the attack. You could have grabbed the dagger and escaped.”

  He brushed the hair away from her cheek, and saw another wound, a very thin cut down the length of her cheek. “Father is right,” he whispered. “Those bastards are the ones responsible for hurting you. I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner.”

  She mumbled, sighing, and pulled his shirt tighter around her shoulders.

  “Sleep.” He pulled his hand away. “When I have better light, I'll see if I can get that thing off of your neck.”

  ***

  Uldolf dreamed in fragments, single images, torn from a larger, more painful whole. Each image—Radwen Seigson laughing, his mother smiling, his sister Jawgede running through the halls of the stronghold— every one was outlined in blood and faded into a dark abyss.

  He couldn't see through the darkness, but he smelled the blood, and felt the flesh being torn from his body.

  ***

  Uldolf woke, sucking in breaths, feeling his heart race
, and feeling the black tendrils of nightmare fade in his memory. Morning light streamed under the rocky ledge, and Uldolf had to blink a few times before he even realized he had fallen asleep.

  Sweat coated his skin as if he had just spent the night working the field. He felt Lilly hug him tighter.

  Lilly!

  Uldolf was abruptly awake enough to realize that during the night Lilly had curled up against his naked chest. Her breasts pressed against his stomach and one naked thigh was resting on his leg. She hugged him again.

  “Please,” she whispered, “d-don't be afraid.”

  It was heartbreaking to hear that from this girl—this woman—who had been so abused, so injured, so close to death. She worried about him when she was the one who had reason to fear. Those who wished her ill were real, out there, and had already done things that Uldolf didn't want to contemplate.

  What was he afraid of? Ghosts? Memories?

  He stroked her hair with his hand and said, “Only bad dreams. That's all.”

  “You have—” She squeezed him harder as she fumbled for the words, pushing the breath out of him. “You have g-good dreams. P-please?”

  “I'll try.” The way she was pressing herself into him, he could certainly imagine better dreams he could be having. Embarrassingly, his body was starting to agree.

  Does she know what she's doing?

  She gently kissed his chest and Uldolf decided that if she didn't know, she had a pretty good idea.

  What was she thinking?

  What was he thinking?

  He had come out here to save her, not to ravish her like some warlord collecting his spoils. Even if she was willing—if he took it like some entitlement, as if being Radwen Seigson's son still meant something, it would make him little better than the German brutes who abused her.

  “Lilly, get up.”

  She lifted her face from his chest and looked at him. She smiled, though the smile receded as she looked at his expression. “Ulfie?”

  He placed a hand on her naked shoulder and sat up, forcing her to do likewise. When he was free of her embrace, he bent over and grabbed his shirt from where it laid, on the other side of the burnt-out campfire. He held it out.

  For a moment she stared at him, fully naked in the light of day, for once not covered by filth, or blood, or darkness. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, so much that it ached to look at her.

  He was grateful when she took his shirt and put it on.

  She smiled at him and cocked her head. When she did, she grimaced, reaching up to tug at the collar around her neck.

  “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

  “Ulfie?”

  He reached out and touched the collar. “Can you try? I want to help you.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  She looked at him very seriously and said in a firm clear voice, “It's bad to remember.”

  Something in the way she said it made him feel as if she was talking about more than last night. He knew about bad memories. Even after eight years he still couldn't—

  A memory—less than a memory—tore through the back of his mind, making him shudder.

  “Ulfie?” She reached out and touched his face. “No cry.”

  Uldolf blinked and the half-felt horror sank back into the dark place it had come from, unseen and forgotten. He shook his head and said, “I'm not crying.”

  “Ulfie?”

  “I'm fine.” He worked to steady his breathing. “Let's take a look at that collar.”

  He took her hands away from the collar, one at a time, setting them in her lap. Then he concentrated on the damage she had done to the collar and her neck. Fortunately, all the cuts appeared superficial. His mother would have a more expert opinion, but the fact that none seemed deep, inflamed, or weeping was a good sign as far as Uldolf was concerned.

  He looked around the circumference of the collar, and found the latch in front. It needed a key to open, if it still could open; Lilly had already done considerable damage to the lock. That part of the collar bore the most extensive damage from her attack with the dagger.

  Unfortunately, the damage to the collar was as superficial as the damage she had done to herself. Uldolf looked around, brushing her hair out of the way, to look at the back of her neck.

  “If there's a weakness to this ...” He found the hinge. The two halves were wrapped around a thick pin, which was held in place by two small tongues of metal—one on top, one on the bottom—that had been bent over and hammered in place.

  If the collar had been iron, he would have had no hope of removing it. But now that he had light, he could see that it, like the dagger, was made of silver.

  “Why?”

  He suddenly revised his thoughts about where she had come from. Beautiful and untouched, she could be a noblewoman, someone's betrothed. But she could also be someone's slave. Not all slaves were for heavy labor, and if her owner kept her for beauty or pleasure, wouldn't he want her bonds to be decorative as well?

  He had a sick feeling in his stomach when he realized that Lilly might not be lost. She might have escaped from her real home—the home that Uldolf had been planning to return her to.

  “Lilly,” he whispered, “is that why you won't talk about your past?”

  She turned around to look at him, wincing at the collar.

  “I promise I will never give you back to anyone who would hurt you.” He took out his hunting knife. “Now, you stay still. I don't want to scratch you any more than what you've already done to yourself.”

  He began working on the hinge.

  Interlude

  Anno Domini 1231

  Landkomtur Erhard von Stendal, as Brother Semyon had said, was adept in the more subtle arts of warfare. Semyon might have trained his beast children to respect their Christian masters, but Erhard had taught Lilly how to fight.

  She had the brain of an eight-year-old child, but even an eight-year-old could grasp some strategy. The wolfbreed were not invulnerable, but Erhard drilled into his charge simple principles that would maximize her strengths against her pagan foes.

  Three were primary. First was surprise, to strike quickly and without warning when and where the enemy did not expect. Second was to choose the battlefield. Humans were most effective when they had space to move, light to see, so she should choose to fight them in confined spaces where they could not wield their weapons effectively, and meet them in darkness. Third was numbers. She needed to limit her combat to one to three men at a time.

  Lilly was the first, and Erhard was not disappointed.

  She learned well, and Erhard used her well. The first season he slipped her near enemy camps, and she made good on her promise to kill everyone she found there. While he treated her with the suspicion required to handle a wild animal, she never acted contrary to his direction. While he was careful to remove her shackles only when he was the sole Christian in immediate danger, she never once moved to escape or attack him. Instead, she looked at him with a devotion that was uncomfortably intense.

  In the last months of that summer, he had her slip inside a village just ahead of the Order's army. She was pulled inside the walls with the other villagers fleeing before the Christian forces. It was a significant test. She had to remain out of contact for days, waiting for Erhard's signal, blasted on a hunting horn nearly a week after the siege began.

  It was a successful test. Within one night, most of the armed defenders had died or attempted to flee, and the Order's army lost not one man. When they overtook the village, Lilly was waiting in the stables by the central fortress, sitting by the half-eaten carcass of an ox.

  “Are you pleased with me?” she asked him. Not the words Erhard would have chosen.

  The next summer, Erhard decided to use her against the troublesome village of Mejdân.

  ***

  Midsummer of the year 1231, Erhard traveled to the frontier by Mejdân, a fortnight ahead of the Order's troops. He w
as not dressed as a knight now, and the horse and cart he led were those of a tradesman, not a warrior. The two men with him were no more than would be expected for someone attempting to transport goods across the Prûsan frontier.

  Even the girl, not quite ten years old, had the appearance of a Prûsan slave, her shackles plain, painted black to obscure the precious metal with which they were constructed. The small party traveled the woods without incident. Once, a petty Prûsan warlord demanded a tribute of amber for their safe passage, but Erhard reacted as any tradesman would, paying the pagan strongman for his safety. That ensured Erhard and his party stayed no longer in the Prûsan's memory than his last meal.

  A few miles from Mejdân, Erhard stopped his small procession and took Lilly off the wagon. He instructed his men to wait, then he led the shackled beast-child off into the woods, toward the eastern side of Mejdân. When he felt he had moved a safe distance from his men, he reached down and removed Lilly's restraints. She idly rubbed her wrists, but otherwise watched him, unmoving.

  “Do you understand what you are to do?” he asked her.

  “I am to wait, unobserved, until I hear your call.”

  “And when you hear my trump?”

  “When I hear three long blasts, followed by two short blasts, I will enter the village. By the gate if I can find a crowd to be lost in, or if I can't, I climb the wall in darkness.”

  “Then?”

  “When I hear the call again, I go to the big building on the hill.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Everyone will die, master.”

  ***

  Uldolf stood in the bedchamber's doorway and called out to his sleeping parents, “Mama, Papa?”

  He hugged himself, shivering, naked feet cold against the wooden floor. Papa muttered something that might be a curse. Mama sat up in bed and extended her arms. “Come over here, Uldolf.”

  Uldolf ran to his mother, wrapping both arms around her neck.