Wolf's Search

by Jane Lindskold

  Whether any of her companions heard, Firekeeper could not tell. Bad as things were for her, the situation was worse for them. Each of the humans and Rusty were coated head to foot in the red-winged insects. From how the humans staggered about, hands raised to cover their faces, Firekeeper guessed that they had no idea in which direction they were moving. Rusty was more sensible. The billy goat bucked and wheeled, then probably scenting his own back trail, he retreated in the direction from which they had come.

  One figure—oddly shaped, as if it had a second, skinny body poking up alongside it, stood frozen. After a moment during which dozens more of the scarlet butterflies died beneath Firekeeper’s spinning arms, she realized that this must be Wythcombe. Either he was completely overcome or—she hoped—he was working a spell.

  Above, she glimpsed Farborn racing back. Alone of their company, the merlin was in his element. He was able to duck and dodge, the agility that let him pluck a sparrow in mid-flight from the air serving him well here.

  He darted down to fly a circle around Firekeeper’s head. “We saw and thought that some bonfire had been set alight, for all Blind Seer swore there was no scent of burning. He comes, though more slowly than I.”

  “Go,” Firekeeper said, her command part gesture, part sound. “Fly around Wythcombe as you do me. If he is not smothered, he may have some magic to aid us.”

  Farborn tilted his wings in reply and sped off. Firekeeper spun in place, seeking her pack mates. There was a human-sized lump on the ground. Arasan or Ranz, she thought. Laria’s smaller, slimmer figure was pushing its way out of the swarm. Perhaps the younger woman’s talent gave her some hint as to the safest direction, for she was angling away from the deeply fissured ground.

  Wythcombe remained standing, Farborn now dancing a wild orbit about him. Those two were safe but, in the few breaths Firekeeper had spared to glance after Laria, the remaining human figure had staggered closer to one of the chasms. The butterflies were not wolves to deliberately drive their prey, but they seemed to have a primitive wisdom that if they left a space open, their prey would move into it. In this way, they had lured the man—Firekeeper could not tell whether Ranz or Arasan—to where he staggered over the broken ground. It was only a matter of moments before he would fall over the edge and be lost—for Firekeeper was certain that these butterflies were not here by chance. This was their hunting ground, and they would dine well on the carrion.

  There was no choice. Howling had proven a mistake. Therefore, in silence she took her bearings. Half-blinded by butterflies, the wolf-woman raced to where she could put herself between the human figure and certain death. She reached the edge before he toppled in, bashing him away from the edge. When her feet came down they landed not on solid ground, but on stone slick with insect gore. She slipped, then plummeted, glimpsing jagged rocks below.

  The anguished howl she heard as she fell was her own.

  Listening to the voices of the earth, Laria fought her way out of the butterfly swarm, at last reaching where mere hundreds, not packed thousands, of the scarlet wings beat. Anxiously, she scanned the swarm, trying to locate her companions and figure out who she could help. Farborn was flying a patterned orbit about someone—Wythcombe?—the merlin’s wild dashes and darts thinning the butterfly horde.

  Laria didn’t consciously look for Ranz, but on some level she knew that it was him, not Arasan, she sought. Remembering the many kindnesses given to her by the two who shared Arasan’s body, Laria felt a flicker of guilt, but it didn’t last. Perhaps in her heart of hearts, she didn’t believe that anything could harm the Meddler without his willing it. Perhaps she was eager to rescue Ranz, in that way repaying the debt from when he had helped rescue her when the sword’s magic had ensnared her.

  When she saw the figure on the ground, increasingly buried beneath a settling mass of scarlet wings, she acted. Whoever that was didn’t have much time. Dropping her pack, she unrolled her bedding. She draped the blanket over her head. Leaving only a small gap for her eyes, Laria awkwardly gripped the “hood” closed. This way the butterflies might cover her back and sides, but would have trouble reaching her face.

  Half-running, half-shuffling, Laria made her way to the fallen man and straddled him, letting the skirts of the blanket tent over his upper body. This did nothing to clear away the butterflies already engulfing the victim, but it did slow others from accumulating. Standing with her legs awkwardly splayed, Laria bent to brush the butterflies from the vicinity of the man’s head. When her fingers caught in his hair, she knew—although she had never touched it before—that these were Ranz’s dark locks. The skin of his face felt oddly cold. Her heart sank when she realized that he might already be dead.

  Then Laria heard a cough. It was thick, clotted with spume, but definitely a cough. Her fingers moved to clear away more of the insects. As she did so, Laria realized that the layer of butterflies closest to the skin were cold, that some crackled with ice. Ranz must have worked a spell to lower his temperature, slowing the insects when they attempted to clog his nose and mouth. However, the need to work a spell in such inimical circumstances meant that while Ranz had delayed his death, he had also made it nearly impossible for him to do anything else.

  “Laria!” Once his mouth was clear, Ranz managed only the one word, but his smile spoke his gratitude. Grabbing the protecting blanket, he shoved himself into a sitting position. Laria understood. They could shift the blanket so that it would cloak them both, enabling them to get to their feet and out of the scarlet insect storm.

  Even with the unaccustomed bulk of her sword, Laria managed to seat herself on Ranz’s right side. As soon as she was pressed against him, Ranz used his left arm to grab an edge of the blanket, then slid his right arm over her shoulders. In order for them to both stay under the blanket, Laria needed to put her arm around his waist. Ridiculously, she found herself blushing as she did so.

  “Which way?” Ranz asked when they were both standing.

  Laria tugged. “This way. Come on!”

  Although the butterflies still darted onto Laria and Ranz’s faces through the gap they were forced to leave in their makeshift hood, the insects were neither particularly intelligent nor particularly determined. The one thing they had on their side was numbers, and the swarm thinned rapidly as the pair made their retreat.

  Glancing back, Laria saw that Wythcombe had summoned a breeze and was blowing butterflies away from him so that they resembled nothing so much as flower petals in the wind. Firekeeper raced to where a butterfly enshrouded figure—it had to be Arasan—tripped and stumbled. Flailing her arms to keep the butterflies away, Firekeeper closed the distance, occasionally stumbling over the broken ground. But, when the wolf-woman reached the stumbling figure, she did not do as Laria expected—grab him and give him support. Instead, she leapt, twisting in mid-air, so as to put herself between him and… What?

  Only when Firekeeper’s impact had sent Arasan reeling, did Laria realize that there must be a pit or crevice concealed beneath the scarlet horde. They had encountered many such chasms during their days of hiking deeper into the ruined lands, but most were easily detoured around. Surely Firekeeper would have judged her landing with her usual exquisite care.

  But when the wolf-woman’s feet touched, it became immediately evident that the footing was unreliable. With a scream that held the cry of a wolf, she teetered for a moment, then vanished over the edge.

  Blind Seer had begun racing back as soon as he and Farborn had seen the cloud of red bursting forth where they had left the slower humans and Firekeeper. However, while the merlin could fly in a straight line, the wolf must run a jagged course, darting around those obstacles he could not leap over. Sometimes these were heaps of rock, sometimes prickly scrub growth, sometimes crevices too wide for him to safely hurdle. Nonetheless, muscles bunching, limbs stretching out, the wolf made good time. But swift as Blind Seer was, the swarm of scarlet butterflies had already engulfed their prey.

  Knowing how much huma
ns—even his dear Firekeeper—relied upon vision, Blind Seer immediately recognized his companions’ peril. Blinded, disoriented, moving over cracked and broken ground, it was only a matter of time before one or more lost their footing. And when they did, the insects would smother them.

  Although he did not rely upon vision as the humans did, the butterflies’ odor masked the subtleties of human scent. But there was one person’s scent Blind Seer could always distinguish. Therefore, as he dove into the flood of scarlet wings, Blind Seer sought Firekeeper. Once they were together, they would decide who they would help first. That they would be the ones who needed help didn’t cross his mind until he saw Firekeeper leap to push someone—Arasan?—so that he stumbled clumsily back from a chasm that was almost invisible within the swarm.

  Firekeeper landed with her usual lithe grace, then slid and tumbled, not only to the ground but down. Until that moment, she had fought in grim silence, but now she howled his name.

  The sound cut into Blind Seer’s heart. In the two bounds it took him to reach the edge, he had laid his plans. Howling reply, he leapt, forepaws and nose pointed to orient him upon his beloved, and fell. Beneath the edge, there were fewer butterflies, scattered raindrops rather than a torrent, so the wolf could quickly assess his surroundings. The chasm was very deep, tapering slightly toward a rocky bottom ornamented with shattered bones. The caterpillars that doubtless someday would be scarlet butterflies squirmed over the bones, their multi-legged bodies craning upwards in anticipation of their next meal.

  Wythcombe’s many lessons streamed into Blind Seer as the wind of his fall cut into his fur. These were not the rote incantations that the spellcaster had demonstrated, but transformed so that intent would become action. This was the wolf’s way, a way adapted for hunts in which a dip of a horned head, a slash of a hoof, changed everything and left no time for fussing over details.

  Blind Seer pulled mana from the reserve that he had been building during each day’s run, draining it so that it would fill his desire in an instant. Then, from the joints of Blind Seer’s shoulders, there sprang wings. There was not time to plan them as he had dreamed of planning his new human self, so they took form from his surroundings, were shaped with his need. The wings must be there to, there to…

  To speed him toward his plummeting beloved, to catch him when he caught her.

  Blind Seer felt the buffet as his new wings caught the air and beat it behind him, pushing him so he was no longer behind Firekeeper but within reach of her. She had oriented herself so that she would land feet first, possibly shattering her feet and legs, but sparing her vulnerable head. Her dark eyes widened as she saw him coming after her, widened further as she saw the wings blossom from beneath his fur. A human would have said something, but Firekeeper was human only in form. Instead, she threw her arms wide, mutely offering him his choice of holds.

  As he would during a hunt, Blind Seer let his need shape his choice. Although he knew what he did would cause Firekeeper great pain, maybe even break bones, whatever injury he would inflict on her would be less than what landing on that stone-and bone-strewn bottom would do. And at least she was wearing leather, not flimsy cloth. Without further delay, he clamped his jaws around her left shoulder, even in that moment of extreme need remembering that Firekeeper could do better without use of her left arm than her right. When he had a firm hold, he beat his wings hard, slowing, then stopping their fall. Firekeeper hung limp, but he felt the shudder that went through her when his jaws closed.

  “Land us,” she said, her voice tight with pain. “Then either I will climb out or you can bring a rope and the others can pull me out.”

  He snorted disagreement. “If those caterpillars eat flesh as their more usual siblings eat leaves, you might not survive. Still, you are heavy.”

  Their conversation was not in words only, but in the cant of his ears, his snort of objection. He cast around. Slightly below them was a ledge hardly larger than a chair seat, but it should take her weight. He angled there and set Firekeeper down, then hung in the air flapping his wings.

  Firekeeper tested her shoulder, winced, and forbore from future motion. Instead, using her sound right hand, she tucked her left arm into her shirt so it no longer dragged unsupported.

  “Wings,” she said, her voice soft with wonder. “Wolf-hued butterfly wings.” She gently touched them, tentatively. Clearly surprised at what she felt, she applied a little more pressure. “They’re tougher, though.”

  “They wouldn’t be of much use if they were as fragile as actual butterfly wings,” Blind Seer replied.

  He paused, canted his ears, then his head, trying to interpret a rushing sound from above, hampered by the fact that the sides of the crevice dampened sound below. Firekeeper was also looking up. The sky above was no longer scarlet but instead showed blue streaked with red—and the red was thinning rapidly.

  “A wind blowing away the butterfly swarm?” Firekeeper offered. “Maybe Wythcombe’s doing?”

  At that moment, a small silhouette—the head and upper body of a human—poked over the edge. Laria’s voice, tinged with panic, called, “Firekeeper! Blind Seer! Firekeeper! Can you hear me?”

  “We’re here,” Firekeeper shouted back immediately. “Blind Seer caught me. We’re all right.” She looked at Blind Seer, her dark eyes sparkling with mischievous glee. “I could climb a rope, but doing so would surely further injure my shoulder. Can those strong wings bear us both up? If so, I would prefer not to hang from your jaws again.”

  As reply, Blind Seer angled himself so Firekeeper could get astride, tucking her legs behind his wings. “Let us go and astonish the humans.”

  He wished he could completely share her delight at his achievement, but he knew there would be consequences.

  When Blind Seer bore them both above the rim of the crevice into which she had fallen, Firekeeper’s wolfish heart was warmed by everyone’s evident astonishment. It was not until later, when they had left the territory of the scarlet butterflies far behind them, that she realized that in saving her life, Blind Seer might have sacrificed his dreams.

  They hadn’t camped at the spring Blind Seer and Farborn had been inspecting when the butterflies had attacked, but had hiked into the early darkness to reach an area that Farborn had scouted thoroughly in advance. Despite Ranz using his cold magic to make an ice pack, Firekeeper’s shoulder ached tremendously. She missed Doc’s healing gift which—even when he scolded her for being impulsive or careless—he only withheld if someone else needed treatment more. Nonetheless, she forced herself to help set up camp. The lights the humans needed to flash around might draw a predator even more dangerous than the butterflies—and neither she nor Blind Seer were at their best.

  Once camp was made, while Arasan and Laria were putting together a cold meal from their stores, Wythcombe took out a selection of medicinal ointments and did what he could for Firekeeper’s shoulder.

  “There’s magic in this,” he said, “to encourage healing, but it will work best if you eat a good meal, then relax. The rest of our injuries are less traumatic—although I suspect we will be coughing red dust from our lungs for the next several days. The scarlet butterflies seem to rely upon either smothering their prey, or causing them to fall to their deaths.”

  Ranz produced a few of the showy insect corpses from where he’d preserved them in a folded paper envelope. “I wondered how we could walk right into the middle of them without seeing them. I thought it might be some sort of illusion magic, but it seems to be a natural adaptation to their environment. Look!” He held one of the butterflies where it could be easily seen in the firelight. “Tilted this way, the wings are a dull reddish brown, very similar to the surrounding stone. Only when they are in flight does the scarlet catch the light. The butterflies layered themselves over the chasm opening, as well as in pockets in the surrounding stone. We were lucky that Firekeeper was on point. Anyone else would have pitched right in when the butterflies erupted.”

  “Lucky in
deed,” Arasan said, handing Firekeeper a thick chunk of cheese and a slab of dry flat bread. “Even so, the butterflies nearly won. If Laria had not gotten to you, Ranz, and Firekeeper had not kept me from falling, then Wythcombe’s wind would have blown the bugs away, only to reveal our corpses.”

  Wythcombe sighed deeply. “I am sorry I couldn’t work faster, but first I had to preserve my own ability to breathe freely. I regret that my slowness meant that Firekeeper fell, and that Blind Seer was forced to take dramatic actions to save her. I fear there may be long-term consequences for his ability to achieve his goals.”

  At Wythcombe’s request, Blind Seer had not banished his wings, but had folded them closed. In this manner, they had tucked neatly against his flanks, more after the fashion of bird’s wings than those of a moth or butterfly. Even so, they changed the line of his familiar silhouette, leaving Firekeeper vaguely disturbed whenever she glanced in his direction.

  Blind Seer had reclined next to Firekeeper, but when Wythcombe crooked his fingers in a “come here” gesture, he sighed, rose, and padded over. Wythcombe spent some time inspecting the wings, before motioning that the wolf might return to his usual place.

  “These are very unusual,” he said. “I will admit to being impressed. Although these resemble the wings of a moth or butterfly—I am not enough of an expert to decide which—they are much stronger. The membrane resembles that of a bat, and the scales have some of the qualities of fur. Blind Seer, you have done an amazing work of transformative sorcery more or less on impulse.”

  “On the fly, so to speak?” said Arasan, who had risen to set more water to heat over the fire.

  “Have you been saving that?” Laria asked. She laughed, but there was a tightness to the sound. Taking in a deep breath, she asked the question Firekeeper couldn’t bring herself to voice. “Wythcombe, what do you mean about Blind Seer and his goals? Isn’t this a good thing? I mean, it shows he’s a natural for shapeshifting, right?”