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Aethren rattled the back door of the Dannhren’s house. The latch must have been down from the inside because it only opened a finger-width before jamming. They cursed under their breath.
“Here,” Kristan said. “Let me.” He put his armless shoulder against the door and drew his herb-cutting knife, sliding it through the narrow gap. After a moment’s concentration, the door swung inwards.
Before Aethren could get a look inside, Kristan let out a wordless shout and darted over the threshold. His knife clattered to the floor. Aethren burst in after him.
Natta lay on the floor, her chair toppled over sideways, a pool of blood around her head.
“Mam—” Kristan went down on his knees at Natta’s side. It must have hurt, but he didn’t flinch. “Can you hear me? Mam? Aethren, get the shutters open. The ones at the back.”
Aethren did as he asked, cold certainty filling their chest. In the new daylight they saw two bowls of stew at the table, the wooden map-board spread across it, a half-drunk bowl of root brew. Natta groaned something unintelligible, her eyes flickering.
“Who did this? How . . . why?” Kristan asked, apparently talking to himself more than his mam as he pulled back her eyelids. “Shit. Shit.”
“What is it?” Aethren knelt on Natta’s other side, taking in the pallor of her face and the blood matted in her hair.
“The shadesleep essence.” Krist was emptying vials and sealed pots from his bag across the floor, sorting through them with deft fingers. “It’s missing.”
“Shade . . .? As in shadeberry?” Aethren stared at him. “Krist, why the fuck do you have poison in your bag?”
“It’s a sedative – strongest one there is. Dangerous, but not in small—”
A resounding boom from outside cut off the rest of Kristan’s sentence. It came again, followed by the sharp peel of a bell. Aethren had only heard that particular summons once before, when a man went on trial for hitting another trader during the tradesmoot. He had been banned from the tradesmoot for the next three Blooms; Aethren doubted Ethy was going to be so kind to the wolf. Their heart flopped wetly into their stomach.
“I’m going to kill Ethy,” Aethren spat. Kristan stared at them, freezing with a vial of dark liquid halfway to his lips.
“My bag – she . . . she gave it back to me, after we captured the wolf. But . . .” Kristan spoke slowly, his voice tight and tremulous. “No. No. She said I’d left it behind – someone else must’ve taken out the shadesleep, maybe Faren. Ethy only wants to help. This—” he motioned to Natta, the dark liquid in the vial sloshing sluggishly. “Isn’t . . . she wouldn’t.”
“You can be really stupid, Krist, but you’re no fool.” Aethren took the vial from Kristan and pulled out the cork, then returned it to his hand, closing his fingers over it. They fought to soften their voice. “You know that’s not true.”
Kristan looked down. The hum of noise from outside had vanished, smothered by tense expectation. Natta’s breathing rattled in the sudden hush.
“Mam—” Kristan let out a choked sob as if in answer. Aethren squeezed his shoulder.
“Do what you’re good at. Take care of her.” They stood up. “And I’ll stop this bloody moot.”
The shutters at the front were fastened shut. Aethren opened one a crack and peered out at the mootplace.
Ethy stood on the dais, flanked by Faren and Hrall. The crowd began to part, and the muttering rose again like a swarm of angered bees. A small knot of people emerged from behind the hall, dragging a covered shape on a large stretcher.
Aethren looked back at Kristan. He was absorbed in his task, propping Natta’s head up on his knee so he could pour something into her mouth. His face was pale, but his hand was steady. He knew what he was doing.
Straightening their cloak, Aethren stepped through the door. Nobody noticed them. All eyes were fixed to the front as Faren and Hrall hauled the stretcher onto the dais. At a gesture from Ethy, they each grabbed a corner of the waxcloth and pulled it back.
A collective gasp shuddered through the crowd.
The wolf was bound to the board, its muzzle tied with rope, its eyes wide and afraid. Aethren tried to urge their feet forwards, but they felt paralysed.
“The wolf,” Ethy said, her voice grim and clear as it echoed across the mootplace, “responsible for killing Astvald and Arketh.”
The wolf snarled and tried to lift its head, but the bindings were too tight. Its breaths were ragged and shallow, its sides trembling with each inhale. Aethren could see pink in the foam around its muzzle.
“That’s not true!” Aethren heard themself shout. Dozens of shocked faces turned to Aethren like flowers to the sun.
“Aethren.” Ethy, for the first time in a long time, looked completely flummoxed.
“Yrl Aethren, you mean,” Aethren said. Anxiety bubbled in their stomach and exploded beneath their skull, but Aethren let the breathless rush carry them on. They slammed the door of Natta’s home shut and strode forwards, refusing to slow for anyone in their way. Nobody tried to stop them.
Ethy recovered herself quickly. “This wolf has torn children apart, Yrl Aethren.” She spat out the honorific like a stone. “It admitted its crimes. It even wounded Rostfar. Everything that’s happened, this beast has been behind it.”
“Arketh is alive,” Aethren said, careful to keep their voice loud without shouting. They saw Mati out of the corner of their eye but ripped their gaze away. “I found her. With the hrafmaer.”
Ethy let out a bark of laughter. “The hrafmaer? Do you expect us to believe that?”
“Believe what you like.” Aethren shrugged. “But it’s true.”
“Even if the hrafmaer do exist and they do have Arketh, what does it change?”
“A whole bloody lot, that’s what.” Aethren mounted the first step. Ethy didn’t move. Cold, spiteful fire burned in her eyes. “That wolf—” they pointed behind Ethy, “is not the one that attacked me. I think you know that, but you’re using it as a convenient post to scrape the shit off your shoes.”
“They’re all the same,” Faren spat. “One wolf is as guilty as all the rest.”
“We’re not murderers!” Aethren snapped back. They turned and faced the rest of the crowd, challenging and defiant. “Killing anyone at an unfair trial is a terrible thing.”
Uncertainty rippled through the mootplace. Aethren could see it in darting eyes and shuffling feet. Emboldened, they mounted the dais properly.
“Enough of this,” Ethy sneered. She faced Aethren instead of the crowd, but her words were clearly meant for all to hear. “How do we know you are trustworthy, Aeth-Skelda? You confronted the wolf, but you didn’t kill it – we’ve only your word for what happened. You vanish from the place you’re supposed to protect, and then return with tales of the hrafmaer, claiming that Arketh is alive. Where is she, then?”
“Hrafnholm.” Sweat prickled along Aethren’s hairline. They could feel the moment sliding out of their grasp. Now was the time to announce Ethy’s crime to the masses, but then what? They hadn’t any proof.
Ethy gave Aethren a sickeningly sympathetic look. “They’ve got to you, too, haven’t they?”
“What?”
“The wolves and their magic. They’ve crawled inside your head.” Ethy placed a hand on Aethren’s upper arm. “You’re sick, poisoned. It’s okay. Faren will take you home.”
“No!” Aethren didn’t mean to do it. As their panic rose, so did their hand, fingers splayed to ward Faren off. There were at least four strides between them when Faren shuddered to a stop with a choking sound. He collapsed to his knees.
Aethren flung themself past Ethy, elbowing her in the face as she tried to catch them, and dropped to their knees by the wolf. Their stomach was cramping, their lungs burning. The world was thin and stretched to breaking point.
Strings, Aethren thought, It always comes down to strings. And what was rope, if not thousands of finely woven fibres of string?
The strands of magic that held everything together came alive beneath their fingers, crackling with energy, and the ropes burst. For one sharp breath, the wolf didn’t move. It stared up at Aethren, a snarl building in its throat. Everyone seemed to be watching, waiting; the whole world bound up in Aethren’s spell.
“Go,” Aethren whispered.
The wolf lurched to its feet.
Screams exploded from the centre of the crowd. A child’s screams. The wolf looked towards them, its sides heaving and its breath misting in the air. It met Aethren’s eyes.
“Don’t hurt them,” Aethren said, barely able to force the words out. They stood, ignoring the dizzy roaring in their ears.
Ethy was on her knees, clutching her face as blood ran through her fingers. Hrall stood in shocked silence, a quarterstaff held loosely in his hands. Most of the crowd were either trying to leave or staring at Aethren in disbelief.
“Catch them!” Ethy spat. Faren lunged at the wolf with his dagger drawn, but was hauled bodily back by Mati, who hurtled up the dais steps.
“This way,” Mati gasped, taking Aethren’s arm. Aethren looked from Mati to the wolf, then back to where Ethy was getting to her feet. The wolf made a near-imperceptible movement with its head that might have been a nod.
All three of them plunged off the dais into the crowd. People scattered – but whether to avoid the wolf or Aethren was impossible to tell. Someone grabbed Aethren’s hair and they turned, lashing at a glimpse of exposed skin with their fist.
They didn’t want this. But there wasn’t any choice.
“Ren!” Kristan’s voice cut through the confusion. He was holding open the door to his home with his shoulder, gesturing madly. The wolf darted ahead, faster than a human could possibly be, and disappeared inside. Mati went next and managed to pull Aethren through just as a stone struck them in the soft meat of their thigh. They crashed to the floor on the other side of the threshold, and the door slammed shut.
⁂
Grae thought his head was going to explode. Whatever the humans had tainted that hare carcass with had long worn off, but he could still feel the burn of the ropes around his stiff limbs. The human voices in the room buzzed like bloodflies inside his head.
“—that’s a wolf,” the large human was saying.
“Well it’s not a hare, is it?” Snapped the one who had rescued him. They were still on the floor, a cloth pressed to their nose. Grae could smell their blood – but he could also smell their determination, their anger. And their magic.
The boy Grae had first met at the walls started to speak. “Aethren, we can’t smuggle it—”
“Him,” Grae said sharply. Four heads swivelled to look at him. Kristan swallowed and continued talking, not taking his eyes off Grae even as he pointed to the human lying on the floor.
“We can’t smuggle . . . him and Mam out, not with everyone watching for us.”
The one who smelled of magic, Aethren, fixed Grae with their dark eyes. “You’re capable of running, aren’t you? Fighting?”
“I can run,” Grae agreed
(too good at running)
and shifted his weight tentatively from paw to paw. The inside of the human’s den seemed to be shrinking; the sounds of the crowd outside were getting louder.
(at running away)
“Right, that’s good.” Aethren stood up, clearly struggling to put weight on both legs. “You wanted a healer for Rost, didn’t you? Then here he is, one of the best.” They pointed to Kristan. “So, if you carry Natta on your back, you can escape with the rest.”
Grae’s lips twitched unhappily. “I am not one of your ponies.”
The door to the den shook. The large human signalled to Aethren, and the two of them moved a wooden construction in front of it. Grae could hear someone outside shouting about an ice-axe, whatever that was.
“Doesn’t matter what you are,” Aethren said sharply, “You’ve got to get out of here, and Natta’s too sick to move anywhere.”
“I,” said the one on the floor, her voice brittle but sharp around the edges, “have an idea, if anyone would care to listen?”
Everyone turned to her, Grae included. She didn’t look well: her breathing was uneven, her face was pale as a hare’s coat, and there was a smudge of something dark staining her lips. Grae couldn’t help but notice how much she looked like Rostfar.
“Mam, you’ve got to rest,” Kristan said. The woman – Mam? – let out a shaky laugh.
“If we stay here, the only rest I’ll be getting is death.” She wiped her mouth, pulling a scrunched-up expression. “But if we escape through Hrenna’s Passage . . .”
Kristan made a startled noise. “What?”
Grae watched everyone’s reactions carefully. This clearly meant something important, but he didn’t know what.
“The hearth – it comes away. Help me up.” Kristan and Aethren each took one of Mam’s arms and helped her over to something in the corner. Grae twitched nervously. There were ashes inside the structure, still smelling faintly like they’d been burning not long ago.
He slunk back, watching from a safe distance as Mam instructed Kristan where to push. The hearth thing slid sideways, revealing a narrow hole in the ground.
“Brilliant!” Kristan sounded far too excited, given the circumstances. Grae growled at him, then wished he hadn’t when everyone tensed. Not that he could blame them. Rostfar had been much the same when she first arrived in Deothwicc, hadn’t she?
“Are we to . . . enter that?” Grae flicked his nose warily at the hole.
“It goes to—” Mam swayed, and it took both Kristan and Aethren to stop her from falling. The colour had drained from her face and her skin shone with dampness. “Stables.”
“I’m so bloody sick of tunnels,” Aethren grumbled, leaning over to peer into the darkness. Grae couldn’t understand what they meant, but he didn’t think anyone else did, either.
“Go,” Aethren hissed. “I’ll go last and shut the entrance.”
One by one, the humans sat on the edge of the hole and then dropped out of sight. The sharp claw-like thing was wedged in the door. According to the angry voice outside, it had gotten stuck.
“Hurry up.” Aethren tapped the floor with their foot. Grae looked at the door, and then at the hole. He didn’t want to go down there, and not just because of the darkness.
“I . . . don’t want to.”
“Do you want to get ripped apart by an angry mob? Because I sure as Nys don’t.”
Grae snarled at himself. Then, because he didn’t know what else to do, he snarled at Aethren. “There isn’t any reason for me to go with them. Let me fend off the humans outside.”
“No!” Aethren reached out and grabbed the scruff around Grae’s neck. He was so surprised that he forgot how to move. “Look, you can go wherever you want once you’re out of here, but I didn’t reveal my magic to everyone just so you could die like fish bait.”
The door shook. Aethren’s eyes flicked to it, and then back to Grae. They lifted a hand.
“I’ll make you,” they said.
Grae longed for the wyrdness; if he still had his wyrdsight, he’d know whether Aethren was lying or not. They looked uncertain but determined, their hand steady. Even if Aethren was lying, it seemed to come from a place of . . . compassion? Which made no sense, because Grae was a stranger to them. He was barely a wolf anymore; there was no kindness between the two of them. But Aethren wasn’t going to budge. He didn’t need the wyrdsight to know that.
Grae met Aethren’s eyes and bowed his head in assent. He clambered down into darkness, and Aethren followed.
This tunnel was not like Deyjaholm. The air was musty and old, and cold bled from the walls in a soul-numbing ooze. When they came to a slope and a mouldering wooden door, Grae was barely able to wait for the large man, Aethren and Kristan to shove it open before he bounded outside.
Everyone else followed him into the open air, save for Aethren. They remained standing in the tunnel’s mouth, frowning.
“What are you doing?” Kristan asked.
“I have to go find Pa,” Aethren said, then looked at Grae. “Carry Natta on your back so you can all run if you have to. Krist, lead the way to where we usually meet when we go to Eahalr. I’ll find you there.”
“But Marken might to even be back! Or he could see what’s happening and stay away. You can’t—”
“I have to,” Aethren repeated firmly. “I can’t leave without putting things right with him. I need him to be safe.”
“I’ll come with you,” the large human said.
“No, Mati. You need to help with Natta. If I’m not back by midnight, leave without me.” They flashed their teeth in a not-quite smile, then turned and walked back into the cold darkness.
