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Measuring time outside of the structure of Erdansten was hard, but Rostfar guessed she had been in Deothwicc for about two weeks. The Starve was at its peak, and with it came longer days and a warmer sun. Rostfar lay in a patch of dry grass just beyond Deothwicc proper and stared up at the sky. She and Mati used to lay in one another’s arms and find as many shapes in the clouds as they could at this time of year. They had done it with Isha and then later, with Arketh. It brought her a little comfort now.
“Get up!” Yrsa came bounding out of nowhere. Rostfar almost jumped out of her skin when Yrsa pressed her cold nose against Rostfar’s neck.
As Rostfar’s brain clicked back into the earthen world, she realised Yrsa was excited.
“What is it?”
Yrsa danced from foot to foot, her tail waving in a manner Rostfar associated with laughter. “You’re accompanying us on a hunt.”
Dread filled Rostfar from head to toe. She nodded shakily.
“That’s . . . uh, that’s nice.”
“It’s excellent.” Yrsa spun on her back legs and started bounding back towards the thicker trees.
“Wait!” Rostfar stumbled after her. Yrsa turned around. “I don’t – I have nothing I need, no spear or, or traps. I don’t even know how you hunt.”
“How different could it be?” Yrsa asked flippantly and disappeared among the trees. Alone, Rostfar let out a bitter bark of laughter.
Hunting was the furthest thing from Rostfar’s mind. Her hands crept to her upper arms and she hugged herself. She wanted to stay here, to make the most of the short daylight in a place she could pretend was like home.
Deothwicc was dragging itself out of hibernation, towards the light and life of the Bloom. On the flats beneath Deothwicc, woolly lousewort was breaking free from its fluffy cocoon and the tops of grasses peeked above the remaining snow. Rostfar wondered if they had completed the Bloom Tower at Whiterift, or if that tradition had become another casualty of the unwolf.
“What are you doing?”
Yrsa had come back.
Rostfar frowned. “Was I meant to follow you?”
“Yes,” Yrsa said impatiently. “You need to show me what a spear is. We don’t have very long.”
Rostfar smiled before she even registered her amusement; Yrsa increasingly had that effect on her. She screwed up her courage and picked up her cloak. “I’ll show you then.”
As they headed into the forest, Yrsa bumped her head against Rostfar’s hand. Rostfar looked down at her.
“You don’t need to worry,” Yrsa said. “You know how to hunt, don’t you?”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Rostfar admitted. She had barely seen any other wolves besides Yrsa, Grae, and Estene. Her last encounter with two unfamiliar wolves would probably have ended in bloodshed if Estene hadn’t interrupted.
“I know. But nobody will touch you while I’m with you.” Yrsa sounded so convinced, so fearless. She had absolute faith in her pack. Rostfar’s smile was strained.
I had faith in my pack once, she could have said. But that would hurt Yrsa, and it surprised Rostfar to realise she couldn’t think of anything worse.
Rostfar lapsed into silence as she searched for a sturdy branch, and Yrsa followed suit.
The two of them fell into a rhythm that gave Rostfar a new, deeper sense of comfort. When Rostfar sat on a rock and began to sharpen the branch she had found, Yrsa disappeared and then returned with similar branches. When Rostfar realised she would need a sharp stone, Yrsa went to find some. Eventually, Yrsa fell into a doze at Rostfar’s side as the light faded away.
It was only when Yrsa startled awake some time later that Rostfar realised they were not alone.
Eyes glistened in the shadows, the shapes that accompanied them vague and frightening. The wolves of Deothwicc had surrounded her without a sound or whisper of warning.
Estene stepped forwards with Myr close at her side.
“We leave now,” Estene said.
Rostfar gulped and gripped her spear. Everywhere her gaze went, the eyes of the Deothwicc pack stared straight back at her. Waiting. Watching. She gathered the two spears, secured them in their new makeshift sheath, then slung them over her back.
“I’m ready,” she said, and hoped that it was true.
⁂
When the rumour that Rostfar would join the pack on a hunt had spread through Deothwicc, Grae had assumed that it was a misunderstanding. Then he wondered if it was a cruel joke – and finally, desperately, he hoped it was an underhand ploy to get her killed. He still wanted to believe that as the last lingering pack members spilled from the trees onto the open tundra.
Rostfar walked between Estene and Yrsa near the head of the pack, near enough that Grae could hear the soft clinking of the long, sharp-ended sticks Rostfar carried in a holder on her back. Connected to the wyrdness or not, the thought of her long, slim figure amidst a stampeding herd filled him with trepidation.
“She’s managing very well, isn’t she?” Myr appeared alongside Grae’s left flank with a fleeting sniff in greeting. Grae tore his gaze away from Rostfar.
“She’s a disaster on two legs,” Grae muttered and winced at how pup-like that sounded. Myr trembled with barely contained amusement. Grae hastily added, “I don’t want to talk about her,” and realised that sounded no better.
“She has those long wooden teeth, and don’t forget,” – Myr nipped Grae’s ear, softly – “Humans hunt too.”
“This will end her,” Grae said, but it was only a vague hope and Myr knew it.
Myr didn’t make any further attempt at conversation, but he remained close at Grae’s side as the pack advanced onto higher ground. They could see the herd now, snorting and stomping its way across the snow-patched rocky grassland. The pack had the advantage here in the flowing rock slopes beyond Deothwicc, but it would only remain so for a brief sliver of sunlight. Soon, the caribou would turn south towards the open tundra. They couldn’t afford to lose this chance at a big feed, not with pupping season approaching and the world rapidly thawing out.
As soon as the slopes began to level out, the pack dispersed. Grae padded in and out of the shadows of straggling trees, splitting away from Myr and Geren. His kin moved like shadows themselves, soundless and deadly; made into a cohesive whole by the humming of the wyrdness.
Grae loved this, and nothing would ruin the delight of the hunt.
Nothing but the human wandering into his path. Grae stopped and stared. The wyrdness-currents around her were muddied with confusion, running faster than they should under the sway of her rapid emotions. Grae wished she would vanish or be knocked down by a conveniently rampaging adult caribou.
The human opened her mouth. Grae bounded forwards and caught her sleeve between his teeth, tugging hard enough to make her stumble. He heard the click of her teeth snapping shut.
“What—”
Grae moved his bite to the meat of her arm instead, near to the place where he had wounded her before. Rostfar stopped. Finally, she seemed to have gotten the idea. Grae snarled at her for good measure, barely containing the urge to do more harm, and led the way in silence. Calmness was almost impossible. His mouth began to salivate. The scent of the herd was clearer than ever, and he was hot and cool and calm and tense and so, so ready for the kill.
Estene burst from the shrubbery. Grae was after her in an instant. He moved on a memory that went far deeper than muscle or mind, connected to every single one of his fellow wolves through the wyrdness. Life swelled and burst inside of him.
A bull lagged behind the herd as it thundered towards a shallow valley. Bryn and Myr coursed along at the bull’s side and drove it off at a slant from the main herd. Once their speed failed, two others surged up to take their places, nipping at the bull’s heels. Grae could taste its fear. It was lame in the back foot. Sick. But not safe, not yet. His antlers still had the power to break every bone in Grae’s body if given half a chance.
Bryn and Myr took over again, bullying the animal towards a dry stream bed. Yrsa broke from her steady loping run and headed the bull off, quick as a flash. Its front hooves skittered on the bank, and Estene used its momentary confusion to catch up with Yrsa.
Not important.
He pushed her from his mind.
The bull was trapped, hemmed in all sides by teeth and slavering jaws. Its eyes rolled and its breath steamed out in desperate clouds. Grae fell back to catch his second wind. Geren filled in his place, biting and taunting, drawing those antlers on him for a heartbeat before someone else stepped in. So close now. So—
Rostfar chose that moment to stumble into their midst. Geren had to leap out of her path and was caught by a sweep of the caribou’s antlers. Grae felt Geren’s pain like his own; like a sudden, deep bruise that exploded across the inside of his head.
The old bull had all the chance it needed. It cleared the bank and broke for the distant smudge of the herd, moving faster than Grae would have thought possible. A few faster wolves made to chase, but Estene called them back. Their advantage was lost.
Grae wanted to turn on Rostfar then. The need was born from a confused, snarling hunger – she had deprived him of the kill, of that rush, but by the Speaking Tree and the stars, he would have it anyway.
“You split-hoofed, white-bellied calf,” Grae spat as he turned towards her.
He faltered. Yrsa stood in front of Rostfar, panting heavily through a low warning growl. Behind her, Rostfar’s flat face was screwed up with the mouth loosely open; an expression Grae didn’t recognise, but a scent he knew. Guilt.
The rest of the pack fell into a circle around Rostfar, placing her where the caribou should have been. Only Yrsa was stopping them from attacking. Her eyes locked on Grae’s, ears low – help me – and tail quivering.
Please.
Grae couldn’t breathe. He looked at his siblings and packmates, at their winter-lean bodies and hungry eyes. He looked at Geren, cast aside and whimpering in the snow, his mouth red with blood from a bitten tongue. Estene and Myr huddled around him, while Bryn nursed a wounded forepaw; they weren’t about to intervene.
Atta, an older wolf, inched closer to Rostfar’s unguarded back. Yrsa couldn’t see him.
Grae could do nothing, could let Atta knock Rostfar down and walk away without a care.
But he knew he wouldn’t. Yrsa would never forgive him.
Grae grit his teeth and slipped between Atta and Rostfar with a ferocious growl. Atta recoiled as if he had just stuck his muzzle in a nest of bees.
Go. Grae said with his raised hackles and bared teeth. Nobody moved. They were all staring at Yrsa and Grae as if they had never seen the two before, and Grae hated it. He wanted to crawl inside his own throat and curl up into nothingness.
He forced himself to take a bold step forwards.
Something in the frigid tension snapped. Atta made a noise of disgust and backed away. The pack followed him.
“Thank you,” Rostfar said. Grae felt her fingertips touch his back and he snapped at her hand, missing flesh by a hair’s breadth.
“I didn’t do it for you, and I won’t do it again,” Grae snarled. “And don’t think this means you’re safe.”
“Grae—” Yrsa began.
“We’ll not get a chance like that until they come back for the summer melt,” Grae said without looking at Yrsa. He fixed his eyes on Rostfar’s pale face. “So, the human better hope we don’t starve before then, or she’ll be the first kill we make.”
