Wolfbreed

by S. A. Swann

  He used it as a spear, without thought of defense. He connected because the wolf thing was paying him no attention at all. The blade only penetrated because he hit it in the soft part of the torso, under the rib cage.

  The creature howled, letting go of his father. But, to Uldolf s horror, his attack was far too late. His father's body slid to the ground, followed slightly later by his head.

  The shock of the sight prevented Uldolf from reacting to the creature as it turned on him, snarling. He felt its claws gripping his right arm and twisting.

  A blinding flare of pain, and he stumbled backward clutching his shoulder with the surreal realization that his arm was no longer there.

  His breathing went quick and shallow, and he felt as if he was falling away inside himself. He stepped back, and his foot slipped on something. He saw it as he fell backward; he had tripped on his own mother's hair.

  Seeing his mother's mutilated face caused something to give way inside him. He scrambled away, and he could dimly hear himself screaming, “Stop it! Please, stop it!” over and over, but he wasn't completely there anymore.

  His vision went gray, and the wolf thing bent over him. He could feel its breath on his face, hot and stinking of blood. Somewhere inside himself, he was prepared to die.

  Then the creature's inhuman hand, matted with blood, lightly touched Uldolf s cheek.

  To Uldolf s deep horror, it spoke. “No. Not you.”

  “Stop it!” Uldolf shook his head. “Please, stop it!” The only three words left he could say. Tears burned his cheeks, and the fire in his shoulder throbbed to his pulse, overwhelming everything else. His vision dimmed to black, with occasional flashes of white and blood red.

  “I wasn't supposed to hurt you, Uldolf.”

  Before he allowed his mind to slide into a dark, welcoming abyss, he realized that the wolfs voice was familiar.

  Vespers

  Anno Domini 1239

  Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis,

  non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es.

  Virga tua, et baculus tuus,

  ipsa me consolata sunt.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

  thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  —Psalms 23:4

  Chapter 26

  Uldolf ran. He ran, trying to escape the images that had burnt themselves into his brain. It wasn't Lilly. It couldn't be Lilly.

  But it was.

  Heart racing, not looking where he was going, he dove into an open doorway, tripping and falling face-first to the ground. After a moment, he rolled onto his back, clutching his gut where the knight had punched him.

  He closed his eyes. In the distance he heard the snarls and growls of the thing that had been the woman he—

  Has your farm been troubled lately ... by strange beasts? Men or animals killed or injured?

  He sucked in ragged breaths, only feeling the pain in his face and in his stomach now that he had stopped running. His pulse hammered at him, screaming at him from inside—

  Run!

  His hand balled into a fist over his stomach, pulling his shirt tight. In his mind he kept replaying what had happened to Lilly, changing from the first woman he had made love to, to the beast that tore into the Germans like, like ...

  Like what had happened in the stronghold of Mejdân.

  Uldolf folded over on himself, huddling against a wall. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want this image in his mind. He tried to will himself to forget, to push it away, to erase the vision.

  He curled against the wall. His phantom right arm hurt worse now than it had since that same monster tore the living arm from his body.

  “I don't want to remember this,” Uldolf whispered.

  But he remembered now.

  He remembered the demonic red wolf leaning over him, breath sour with blood, muzzle streaked with gore. He remembered it speaking in Lilly's voice. “I wasn't supposed to hurt you, Uldolf”

  He remembered everything.

  ***

  Lilly tossed aside the knight in her hands. He rolled over by one of his dead comrades, arms broken, eyes closed, still chanting his prayers.

  She ignored him. She needed to find Uldolf.

  She went to Uldolf s cloak. As she walked, muscles slid over creaking bone. Her body shrank and her joints moved as the wolf retreated inside her. She was long used to the changes it wrought in her balance.

  She pulled the cloak out of the mud and draped it over her naked shoulders. The fur lining settled warmly against her skin, smelling of him— feeling like the moment by the pool when they faced each other, briefly innocent of their past.

  She had no idea what she was supposed to do now—but overriding everything was the need to face him.

  She retrieved his bag and followed his scent. It wasn't hard; the miasma of sweat, blood, and fear flowed like a river. And it didn't go far. After rounding only two corners of the long stable, she was ultimately unprepared when she found him.

  He huddled in a doorway, back to the wall, clutching his right shoulder where she had ripped his arm out of its socket.

  No, Ulfie. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

  She stood, barely two paces from him, unable to move. Her mind twisted and fragmented under the weight of memories—taking his food, swimming with him, making love, tearing free his arm, slaughtering his family.

  “Ulfie,” she whispered.

  His head snapped around. He scrambled to his feet. “No. Don't you dare!”

  “Ulfie, please—”

  Still backing away, he clutched his empty shoulder, face as pale as if the injury had just happened. “You have no right to call me that!”

  She took a step back, chest tightening as if Uldolf had struck her. “Please. I am so sorry.”

  “You killed them! Jawgede was barely five! Why?”

  Lilly shook her head, tears streamed down her cheeks, and she clutched Uldolf s cloak closer to herself. “I—I served my master.”

  Uldolf shook his head. “Then why let me live? Why not pull my head from my neck, like my father?”

  “Don't—”

  “Why not tear me open like you did my sister? Cut my face open like my mother?”

  She stared into his face, and saw nothing but hate there.

  “Why?” He kept backing away. “Why spare me? Does your master want to torment me that much?”

  “No. I loved you.” She sucked in a breath and repeated, “I love you.”

  Uldolf shook his head. “You monster! How dare you say that?” He shook his head and looked past her. “Oh, no.”

  “Uldolf?”

  “They weren't taken, were they?” He shook his head. “My family. I left them alone ... with you.”

  “No.”

  “Is that why you're here? You've come to kill my family again!”

  He leapt at her, grabbing her neck. His attack was clumsy, but she was unprepared for it, and she fell backward under him.

  “I didn't!”

  His knees fell painfully on her chest as his hand clutched at her throat. “What did you do? What did you do?”

  “I didn't. I—” She choked back the word couldn't, because she knew it was a lie. Of course she could have. It was what she was, wasn't it? She stared up into Uldolf s terrified face, and could see the ten-year-old boy she had left bleeding eight years ago. He was right; it would have been kinder if she had torn his heart out.

  With the blackness filling her soul, she laid her head back, exposing her throat, allowing him to throttle her. Perhaps, if she gave in to it, it would all be over. Her life was all she had left to give him, the only compensation she could offer.

  She gasped and wheezed, her lungs not nearly as resigned as her brain. It took all her effort not to struggle as her vision slowly went black.

  I am sorry, Uldolf. You will never know how much.

  Chapter 27

  Li
lly didn't know what she expected from death. Maybe her master's Lord Jesus Christ might make an appearance to explain why she wasn't worthy of his forgiveness or an afterlife. She was nothing but a soulless animal, after all. Or maybe she would fall into a deep dreamless sleep where she could lose herself so completely that it wouldn't matter what she was.

  She did not expect to sneeze, or itch, and she did not expect to smell horses. Lilly opened her eyes and found herself staring up at the underside of a thatched roof.

  From beside her, she heard Uldolf s voice. “You're awake?”

  She turned her head and saw him standing over her. They were in an empty stall in a stable somewhere. From the blood smell that still hung in the air, she could tell it was behind the rooming house, where she had killed—

  She shook her head and tried to sit up, but something tightly bound her arms and legs and she couldn't push herself upright. She glanced down at herself and saw she was naked, sawdust sticking to her skin. Her arms were tied behind her, and she saw that her legs were bound as well.

  Uldolf had wrapped her legs together with a long leather strap that circled from her knees halfway down to her ankles. He'd done a better job of restraining her than the bastard who had raped her. She could probably break the leather, but only if she had some leverage or freedom of movement, and from what she could feel, he had done as good a job on her arms, strapping her forearms together behind her back.

  “I don't think you're getting out of those,” Uldolf said. He walked over and hooked his hand under her armpit and lifted her so that she was in a sitting position. Then he dragged her a couple of steps across the sawdust-covered floor of the stall so she could lean against the wall.

  “Thank you,” Lilly said quietly.

  Uldolf shook his head and walked away.

  “Why didn't you kill me?” Lilly asked.

  He turned around and looked down at her. “I tried,” he told her. He held up his hand, palm up. “You didn't leave me much to work with.”

  “Oh.” She didn't realize until then that she had held out some hope that he might have had a change of heart, that he might still have a scrap of feeling for her.

  He paced around the stall, and she saw that he had the silver dagger back, shoved into his belt.

  If he has that...

  “Why didn't you kill me?” Uldolf asked her. I loved you. I've always loved you.

  “I told you.” Lilly shook her head. Then she realized that the silver tore was back on her neck.

  Uldolf saw her notice and he smiled grimly. “I don't know very many German words, but I do know the word for silver.” He pulled the dagger out of his belt and held it up before him. “I drove a sword through you once and you don't even have a scar, but the cuts you made yourself with this dagger are still trying to heal.

  There's a reason the Germans are armed with silver weapons, isn't there?”

  “Y-Yes.”

  “And there's a reason they put that around your neck.”

  “Yes.”

  “They know what you are.” Lilly nodded.

  “Tell me what you are.” He crouched down across the stall from her. She sucked in a shuddering breath, watching the dagger, wondering if he would use it. Hoping he would use it.

  He gestured with the dagger. “Tell me.”

  “They say I'm an animal,” Lilly told him. “A beast that can mimic a human being. They say my true form is the wolf thing you saw, the one that hurt you.”

  “Who are 'they'?”

  “The monks of the Order,” Lilly whispered. “I was raised in one of their monasteries.”

  “You're their creature?”

  “I was.”

  Lilly told him of her life, such as it was. She told him her memories of the ruined monastery where she was raised, how she had served her masters in the Order. She told him of the villages she had attacked, preparing the way for the Order; how she would slip in with the surrounding villagers and farmers trying to escape the attack, and when the town was shut up for the siege; how she would slip into its heart and tear it out.

  Uldolf shook his head.

  “You let them use you like that?”

  “It was what I was for.”

  “Because that is what they told you?”

  Lilly nodded.

  “If they abused you so, why didn't you just run away? Leave one of those villages before you started killing?”

  “I had nowhere to go.”

  “Then where were you going when you escaped from them now?”

  Lilly raised her head and looked up into Uldolf s eyes. He stared back for a long time before shaking his head.

  “No, you're not telling me—”

  “I tried to forget this place,” Lilly said. “I tried to force myself not to remember what happened here. I thought it had killed every part of me that felt anything good ... But I didn't forget—”

  And I didn't kill that part of myself It woke up when I saw you.

  Uldolf turned away. “Stop it,” he whispered.

  “When my master abandoned me here, it all came back—so much I lost myself in it.” She blinked back tears. “Uldolf, if we could have been together, without a past—”

  “Even if I didn't remember, you aren't even human. How could you believe, even for a moment—”

  Lilly shook her head. “We both did, for a moment.”

  Uldolf was silent for a long time. He finally said, “You are cruel.”

  “God is cruel,” Lilly whispered.

  “Were you telling the truth, that the Order took my family?”

  “Yes, I was. I didn't hurt them—”

  “No?” Uldolf whispered. “Why were they taken, Lilly? Why is any of this happening?”

  “I didn't want any of this.”

  “But you caused it, didn't you?”

  “I—”

  “They want their pet monster back. What do you think they'll do to my family when they find out we sheltered you?”

  “No, your family didn't know—”

  Uldolf whipped around, striking her on the face with the back of his fist, the blade of the dagger he held coming perilously close to her eye. Her skin burned where he struck her, the sharp taste of blood filling the left side of her mouth. “These are the people responsible for the slaughter of my first family! You think they'll show mercy to my second one? Do you think innocence means anything to them? You think you're the only monster here?” Uldolf stood up. “You are right about one thing. Your God is cruel.”

  He is not my God.

  “What are you going to do?” Lilly asked, surprised at the sound of fear in her voice.

  “I'm going to offer them a trade.”

  ***

  Landkomtur Erhard von Stendal bent over his brother knight Gregor. The man was a wreck, arms broken, skin pale, barely conscious. Even so, he prayed as if his soul was in mortal danger. Gregor was the only one left conscious.

  “What happened, Brother?” Erhard asked him.

  Two of his fellows had never even had the opportunity to draw their swords. One was dead, neck horribly twisted; the other had bruises and deep wounds on his neck mirroring those on the corpse, but somehow still breathed.

  Three other bodies still lay where they had fallen in the road, necks broken, windpipes crushed. The wounds showed the rending of claws that, combined with the position of the men, left no doubt that this was Lilly's doing.

  I trained her too well.

  She would have been a monstrous foe if she had been left ignorant in the woods of her birth. But that wasn't enough. He had taught her how to be a much more effective monster.

  He didn't know what troubled him more—the fact that she was now back inside the walls of Johannisburg, or the strangely bloodless way she had overpowered six men. Until he had returned her to this place, he had never known her to leave a victim alive. When they let loose the creature on the pagans, it had torn through the enemy with pain and terror as much a goal as the death she left in her wake.
By comparison, what he saw here was dispassionate, almost merciful.

  What did it mean?

  Why was Gregor alive?

  “What happened here?” Erhard asked more forcefully than he should have of an injured man. Gregor blinked up at him, eyes focusing.

  “Gregor?”

  “Erhard ...”

  “What happened here?”

  “We have sinned. Lord save us, but we are damned for what we have done.”

  “Gregor?” Erhard grabbed his surcoat and the injured knight winced.

  “Pray with me, Erhard,” he whispered. “May Christ have mercy on our souls.” He closed his eyes and began praying again. Erhard let the fabric slide through his fingers, letting Gregor ease against the wall.

  Erhard crossed himself and joined Gregor in prayer. What have we done?

  The dozen men with Erhard now seemed inadequate.

  “Halt!” one of the soldiers with Erhard called out in Prûsan, interrupting Erhard's prayer.

  He turned toward the man. Sir Johann was a minor lord from south of Hamburg, from a family line so dilute that his inheritance consisted of only a title and a horse. Johann was one of many secular knights crusading with the Order who saw Prûsa, potentially, as the seat of a new family demesne. He was also the German in this company with the best command of Prûsan, outside of Erhard.

  Johann's outburst had an urgency that pulled Erhard to his feet, prayer unfinished. Erhard turned toward the focus of Johann's attention, as did the eleven other men filling the crowded alley.

  A young man, eighteen or nineteen years old, stood at the entrance of the alley, by the corner of the neighboring stable. He wore muddy breeches and a linen shirt that was splattered with brown stains that could have been blood. He was missing his right arm, and over his left shoulder he carried a burden wrapped in an oversized leather cloak.

  God help us, another body?

  The one-armed youth struggled with his burden, half walking, half staggering. A fresh wound cut across the right side of his face, black and purple with dried blood and the bruise underneath.