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Standing outside the stables by Erdansten’s eastern gate, Aethren eyed the distant horizon with mistrust as they waited for the rest of the search party to gather. Clouds lay heavy in the sky, but there was nothing unusual in them. Nothing like the sky-wolf in the storm.
“Hey,” Kristan said. Aethren jumped and turned to see him standing by the tethering frame with his hand on Pony’s flank. They licked their bottom lip and swallowed, aware of how dry their mouth had become. Kristan tilted his head. “You alright?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Aethren leant against the tethering frame and folded their arms, eyeing Kristan carefully. Red rimmed his tired eyes, and his lower lip was cracked and bloody. He must have been biting it again.
“Yeah.” He hid his mouth under pretence of scratching his nose. Aethren didn’t push any further. “Do you have to go again so soon?”
It was Aethren’s turn to look away. The last five days since returning to Erdansten had been a nightmare. The tension in the air was unbearable, and every glance or whisper had Aethren’s neck prickling with cold sweat, convinced that people were blaming them. That wasn’t true, probably, but Aethren’s brain didn’t care.
“I want to find this beast.” Aethren stroked their hand along Pony’s shaggy mane. “How’s Rostfar doing?”
“Ask her yourself.” Kristan flicked his chin in a direction just over Aethren’s shoulder.
Rostfar stood at the very edge of the group, tying up the saddlebags on her own pony, Sylfr. Aethren approached her slowly, walking around to Sylfr’s other side and pretending to help with the saddlebags.
“What are you doing here, Rost?” Aethren lowered their voice so the words wouldn’t carry in the strange stillness. Rostfar glanced up sharply. Her face was open for a moment, wrecked and vulnerable, and then her expression slammed shut. Rostfar gave Aethren a look that reminded them exactly who had seniority here, and who was supposed to coordinate the security of Erdansten. Aethren flushed.
“My job.” Rostfar’s tone was too stiff, too harsh. Aethren shivered despite feeling rather warm in their furs and stepped back.
“I just thought—” Aethren bit off the rest. I thought you weren’t supposed to know about this, they wanted to say, and – if anything happens to you, Natta and Mati and Pa and everyone who matters will hate me forever. But Aethren couldn’t say that, not when Rostfar was glaring at them with fire in her eyes. They looked away as the blood rushed to their cheeks. “Of course.”
Aethren stared at the ground, weighing up their options, until something cold and wet hit the back of their head. They whirled around and saw Denan grinning at them expectantly. He was sixteen, gangly and green as a sapling. If it were up to Aethren, the newer trainees wouldn’t be coming – but Ethy had said they needed every pair of eyes they could get.
“We’re waiting,” Denan said. Aethren scowled and shook the snow out of their hair. They cleared the distance in a few brisk steps and smiled with all their teeth. No humour. Kristan called it the killing-smile.
“If you’re going to cub around,” Aethren said crisply. “You can stay here and watch the babies.”
Denan crossed his arms, jutting out his chin. “You’re not in charge here.”
Aethren turned away from him. Their rising temper was familiar; they knew how to deal with it. A few deep breaths, that’s all they needed. They’d be fine.
“Shut it,” Aethren hissed, meeting the boy’s eyes again. He stared back, immovable and proud. Stars, Aethren hated how eager and arrogant so many new trainees could be.
This was a serious hunt for a cold-blooded murderer. A beast that had killed two children. And this boy would joke, would make light of the situation like a child at play. Blood rushed to Aethren’s cheeks.
“What’re you gonna do?” Denan quirked an eyebrow. “Punch me?”
The air crackled and contracted. Like it had when they shot the ptarmigan. Nobody else seemed to notice, but panic exploded in Aethren’s gut. They felt like a length of yarn was wrapping itself around their throat. Aethren wanted to step back, but their feet moved two steps forwards. Denan was almost a full head shorter than them – a fact which he apparently hadn’t noticed before. His expression faltered.
Aethren felt a tug, deep in their gut, followed by a scorching heat behind their eyes. White sparks burst inside their skull.
Denan gaped. First, his cheeks went white as snow, and then coloured up to an impressive shade of red. With a small, strangled yelp, he dropped his bag and ran.
Dizziness doused Aethren from head to toe. They looked around to make sure nobody had seen anything strange, but they needn’t have worried. All anyone had eyes for was Denan, beating a hasty retreat home.
“What . . .?”
“Wet himself,” Rostfar said, filling in the leader’s role without missing a beat. Aethren stared at her for a split second and Rostfar managed a tiny shadow of a smile. “Not everyone’s cut out for wolf hunting.”
The hunt was solemn and subdued and grew ever more so as the day wore on. Those who had been larking around before they left went silent; there would be no travelling songs or stories to fill the hours, not with the knowledge of wolves so close to home.
Despite her insistence she was doing her job, Rostfar seemed content to allow Ethy to take the lead. The hunters made a base at Whiterift’s mouth, and Ethy split the party up into smaller groups. Aethren was dismayed when Ethy put them in charge of one of these, but relaxed when they realised Laethen would be there to back them up. Just another part of their training, Aethren told themself. They could do this, and they would do it well.
“We’ll scour the caves down this section of the coast,” Aethren said. There were twelve in their group, including themself and Laethen. “Leave the ponies here – this’ll be easier on foot. Keep in sight of the next person in line at all times, and only enter a cave in threes to watch one another’s backs. Nobody goes off alone.” Aethren risked a quick glance at Laethen, who nodded her approval.
“What if we find something?” Ornhild asked, stepping up to Aethren’s side as Aethren’s group began to search. Everyone else was spread out in an ordered line, with Laethen at the furthest end and Aethren holding the other.
“We fight.” Aethren touched the strap of their quiver. “This is what we’ve trained for.”
Ornhild lowered her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I—” her step faltered and Aethren reached to steady her, but realised she hadn’t stumbled. She was trying not to cry?
Oh.
“It’ll be okay, Orna. Maybe if we do find – something – then, well. It’ll give Rost-Skelda some closure. At least.” Aethren hoped they sounded surer than they felt. Ornhild seemed encouraged, though. She straightened up and nodded.
“Closure,” she said. “We could do that for her.” Aethren watched her retake her place in the line, and felt their own determination surge.
It didn’t last.
A day of searching the caves and rocky planes of the shoreline yielded no results. The only eventful thing happened when a squirrel burst from its burrow a few strides away and dashed across the path. Aethren had nocked an arrow and shot the poor critter clean through its neck before they realised what it was. Realising that their search was getting nowhere, Aethren ordered a return to camp.
The hunters’ camp was in a semi-sheltered bay, close to where Whiterift met the sea. A huddle of walruses lolled on the black sand in the moonlight, grumbling amongst one another and jostling for places while seabirds screamed overhead. An air of bitter disappointment lay like a cloud over the whole area.
Aethren was quick to volunteer for firewood duty. Out of the corner of their eye, they saw Rostfar walking in the same direction and slowed down. She gave no sign that she’d even noticed them – her head was down, shoulders slumped. Lost in thought.
Aethren paused at a dying scrub tree to twist off one branch, testing for the green splinter of useless wood. The branch broke clean in two. A snapping sound indicated that Rostfar had joined them, and the two of them worked in silence. There was no need to speak during such a mundane chore, but Aethren had to say something.
“I shouldn’t have taken my eye off her, been faster on my feet, I—” Aethren got out before the words choked them. “I’m—”
“Don’t say sorry.” Rostfar glanced up at Aethren properly for the first time since that morning. “If you say sorry . . .” Rostfar took a deep breath and sat down on a nearby tree stump. “I’ll have to be angry at you, because it’ll be like you’ve done something wrong. So, don’t.”
“Okay.” Aethren sat down next to Rostfar and tucked their knees up to their chest. “Are you okay to – can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Rostfar said it with a sad smile, but her eyes were warm.
“Before the, um, attack . . .” Aethren rubbed their forehead. Just talking about the incident was enough to make their stomach twist itself into knots. “I saw a . . . thing, in the sky.”
“I’ll need more explanation than that,” Rostfar said patiently. Aethren sucked their bottom lip and released a shaking exhale.
“The storm clouds looked like a wolf, coming right at us. And I don’t just mean in that vague, fluffy way clouds sometimes have shapes. I mean – unnaturally, uncannily, just like a wolf.” Aethren tugged off their gloves and swiped away the sweat on their hands before curling their fingers into the hem of their heavy cloak. “Does it mean anything, do you think? Like, a wolf . . . controlling the weather?”
Rostfar tilted her head back in quiet contemplation. For the moment, she looked comfortable, rattling off information about stories as if she’d been born to do it. “It’s possible. There’s one story – it’s old, hard to find on telling-stones – about a wolf that made a deal with some sort of wreather. A wraith, perhaps. The deal meant that the wolf could control the weather, or that the wreather could use the wolf’s body . . . the details get hazy.” She shrugged, and her shoulders slumped. “Or it just happened.” There was a slight twitch at the corner of her left eye, a little tell she wasn’t comfortable.
Aethren stared at her, hard, waiting and hoping for some other giveaway. But there was no more to come. Rostfar just got to her feet and hefted the bundle of firewood across her shoulders.
“But that doesn’t just happen!” Aethren protested. Guilt immediately rushed into their stomach when Rostfar flinched away from the sound of their voice.
“Aethren—”
“This mist came out of nowhere, thicker than anything I’ve ever seen. You weren’t there—”
“Don’t remind me.” Rostfar sped up.
“I just meant – you didn’t see the change!” Aethren started to jog after her and slipped on the slick earth with a yelp. Wordlessly, Rostfar turned around and helped them up.
“Aethren, please.” Rostfar shook her head. “Just . . . stop.”
“You really don’t want to talk about this with me, huh?” Aethren tried to sound light, but the words fell heavily in the still air. Rostfar glanced away and scuffed her feet in the packed earth of the pathway.
“I don’t care how it happened.” Rostfar twisted her fingers in the hem of her cloak. “Wolves came, they vanished, and Arketh’s gone. That’s all.”
That’s not all, Aethren wanted to shout. They wanted to sink to their knees and tell Rostfar everything: the wolf’s words, the strange things happening, the helplessness when Aethren had told Arketh to run. But Rostfar wouldn’t listen, and it wasn’t fair to force her.
Back at camp, everyone sat up around the blazing central fire with drinking-bowls of tea and blankets, sharing salted fish and strips of a roasted squirrel that had been unfortunate enough to run into Aethren’s line of sight.
Ethy stomped over and dropped down opposite Aethren and Rostfar. She had muck in her greying hair and a disgruntled expression on her face.
“Nothing?” Aethren eyed Ethy hopefully, banking on her seniority and the skills she had got throughout years of tracking and hunting. Ethy shook her head.
“Got out onto the tundra proper and hit the edge of the salt marshes.” Here Ethy paused and licked her bottom lip. Aethren’s eyes narrowed.
“What happened?”
“Heard a wolf. I didn’t get a good look, but I glimpsed a red sort of coat. Then it was gone.” Ethy shrugged and took a long drink of her tea. “Don’t know where it could’ve vanished to, mind. Not unless it sunk into the marsh.”
Aethren glanced at Rostfar just in time to see her whole face tighten. She looked away from the group on pretence of fiddling for something in her bag, but Aethren saw straight through the tremble in her shoulders.
“Red wolf. Right,” Aethren muttered. They scuffed at a few fallen embers from the fire with a scowl. “We should bed down for the night.” They placed aside their half-eaten meal and lay down, saying nothing more. The comforting sounds of other people settling formed a soft cocoon of familiarity in the darkness. There were whispers, small stirrings of insults and a single, strained laugh. A log popped. The voices faded away.
When Aethren woke, Caerost’s red light had the entire world stained an off-kilter sort of pink, dark and ruddy. A watcher’s torch burned a few strides away. It was impossible to see who had drawn that straw against the starry sky, but Aethren suspected the bundled-up black shape was asleep, whoever it was.
“If you want something done . . .” Aethren muttered the words without breath or sound for fear of waking Ethy or Rostfar. They picked their way over sleeping bodies as quietly as they could and sat down on the other side of the torch, picking up a still-warm bowl of tea with a sigh of relief, grateful for the heat as it spread up their fingers. A stiff breeze had picked up while they slept, and it had a cruel bite.
A low bank of fog was rolling over the distant huddle of walruses further down the beach. Aethren eyed it as they sipped at their drink and tried to place the source of prickling fear resolutely making its way up from the pit of their stomach.
A small, pearly light flickered in the murk.
Aethren was in a crouched stance within a heartbeat, reaching out for the bow and quiver they had left with their sleeping mat. All they had on them was a sharp, short knife and an empty bowl; not exactly ideal for facing down whatever lurked in the fog. Cold sweat broke out under their arms.
Thoughts of the hrafmaer came, unbidden, to Aethren’s mind. The daughters of Hrafnir, barely human and only somewhat like ravens, they were said to stand as high as a child and cause only harm with their efforts to help. A story. Only a story.
Three more lights were flickering into being, each one leading further from the last, and Aethren began to tremble.
“We’re not lost,” they called in a strangled whisper. “We don’t need your help.” That was what worked in the stories, wasn’t it? The hrafmaer were benevolent, after all. They just didn’t understand – or couldn’t remember – what it was to be human.
One light blinked out.
Aethren let out a breath they didn’t know they’d been holding when the rest of the lights faded back into the fog. They uncurled their aching fingers from unconscious fists and leaned back against the torch’s frame. Shook their head. It was only eyes, they told themself, something with eyes that glowed in the dark come to investigate the strangers on the beach. Nothing to worry about.
Aethren stood up, tiptoed on trembling legs back to their sleep-roll, and knelt by the shadowed shape of Rostfar.
“Rost?” Aethren whispered near Rostfar’s ear. They felt childish asking, but Aethren needed someone to reassure them just then. “Hey.” They reached out to shake Rostfar’s shoulder – and found only a pile of empty blankets.
