Don't Call the Wolf

by Aleksandra Ross

  “The youngest of the Brothers Smokówi. At first there were ten, then two. The smallest brigade in Wrony history.” He smiled. He had very long teeth, with slightly too much space between them.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong,” said Lukasz at last. “This is my favorite fairy tale. But I have heard it before.”

  “Of course. How thoughtless of me. You’ll forgive me. It’s a rare day that one meets a Wolf-Lord.” Koszmar replaced the helmet on his head, the vila-hair plume cascading over one shoulder. He glanced over and asked abruptly: “How is your hand, by the way?”

  Lukasz felt his jaw tighten.

  A group of young women had congregated near the fountain. Their hair was as dull as the stripes on their long skirts, their skin was almost as white as their blouses, and they held thin cigarettes in thin hands. The only things colorful about them were their bloodred boots, vivid against the dull street.

  “You’d think they’d never seen Wrony before,” observed Koszmar after a moment.

  Wrony was the nickname for the royal army. The Crows.

  “They probably haven’t,” replied Lukasz.

  Warily, he watched as the women moved a little too close to Król for his taste. Sometimes, the antlers proved too great a temptation.

  “I’ve been here for three days,” said Koszmar in a thoughtful voice. “No one stared then.”

  “I’m a Wolf-Lord,” Lukasz said without thinking. “People always stare.”

  Koszmar turned to him, and for an instant, he seemed almost predatory.

  “Yes,” said Koszmar in a very soft voice. “Yes, they do.”

  Against the dim haze of the village, Koszmar looked somehow sharper. Only his eyes reflected the gloom around them: pale, gray, and flat.

  Lukasz glanced back at the women, unsettled. One of them, maybe a bit younger than he was, was stroking the black horse’s neck. Król turned toward her, ears flicking forward, and she produced a carrot from her pocket. Even from across the square, Lukasz could see the horse’s eyes light up.

  “So,” began Koszmar, extracting a pipe from his pocket. It was an expensive little trinket, carved and inlaid with amber. He puffed a few perfect smoke rings in the gathering gloom and asked, with deliberate casualness: “Lukasz. I suppose you’re here for that Golden Dragon?”

  God, I wish.

  Lukasz curled and uncurled what was left of his fingers. It had taken eight weeks, a trembling blade, and a Golden Dragon, but at least he could start admitting it to himself.

  His dragon-slaying days were over.

  He shook his head. Koszmar Styczeń watched him closely. His eyes had gone black, and they were set back under brows much darker than his blond hair. It gave his face a hard, closed look.

  “Not to point out the kikimora behind the stove, but you are a dragon slayer. Possibly the greatest dragon slayer in history.” A smile unfurled on Koszmar’s face. Then he added: “Lost your nerve, have you?”

  Lukasz curled his melted fingers under, out of sight.

  “Saw the light, more like it,” he replied. “At the end of a very long hallway, and it turned out to be dragon fire. I’ve retired.”

  In the heartbeat that followed, Lukasz decided that he had no interest in elaborating, and simply added, “I’m here looking for my brother.”

  Koszmar’s eyes narrowed. Smoke poured out of his nostrils and swirled, as languid as his gaze, toward the sky.

  “Your brother?” His brow furrowed. “Which one?”

  Lukasz wasn’t surprised that Koszmar knew nothing of Franciszek’s disappearance. Franciszek didn’t like photographs; he was shorter and thinner than the others, and whereas the other nine were instantly recognized as Wolf-Lords wherever they went, Franciszek was often mistaken for a townsman. Besides, he always preferred to remain behind the scenes, to step in when needed, but otherwise, to leave the glory to Lukasz.

  Lukasz missed that about him.

  “What are they doing?” he asked, changing the subject.

  The gravediggers had finished digging, and one at a time, they rolled the bloody, sheet-clad figures over the edges. The bodies made thick, wet sounds as they hit the mud.

  Thud.

  “Burying the dead,” murmured Koszmar.

  Thud.

  “Lonely way to go,” observed Lukasz. He tried not to consider the possibility that more likely than not, at least a few of his brothers had gone in lonelier ways.

  Thud.

  The gravedigger with the rifle took it off his shoulder and held it ready. One of the men jumped into the grave. He raised the shovel and brought it down, hard.

  Lukasz jumped back from the fence. The second man climbed down into the second grave. Brought his shovel down, hard.

  “What the hell—?”

  “They were killed by strzygi,” explained Koszmar in a calm voice. “A villager found them buried in the woods today—only they hadn’t been dealt with correctly. So they brought them back here to do the thing right. Strzygi victims need to be buried facedown and beheaded. Otherwise they could turn into a strzygoń.”

  “Who says?” asked Lukasz.

  He’d heard of strzygi, but he’d never seen one up close. Dragons were more his wheelhouse.

  “Superstition?” Koszmar shrugged. “You’d have to ask that writer on the edge of town. Nasty face. Looks like a regular gargulec,” he added, without sympathy.

  One of the men climbed into the third grave and, lifting the shovel high, severed the head of the last body.

  “The poor bastards put up a good fight, though,” said Koszmar. Thoughtfully, he ran his fingers through the vila hair where it shimmered on his shoulder. “There were over a dozen dead strzygi in that clearing. Quite impressive, really.”

  Briefly, Lukasz wondered what took a man like this from Miasto, dragged him here, to the edge of the world. To stare into graves, lean on fences, and make conversation with dying breeds.

  “Writer?” Lukasz repeated suddenly. “What writer?”

  Koszmar looked at him blankly.

  Lukasz’s voice came out rougher than he intended. “You called him a gargulec—”

  “Oh.” Koszmar raised his hands to the darkening sky. His tone did not alter from its soft, controlled elegance. “Rybak, I think? Jakub Rybak? Fancies himself an Unnaturalist, or something of that kind. He lives in one of the ruins on the edge— Hey!”

  Koszmar broke off as Lukasz lurched back from the fence. Jakub Rybak. That name . . . a name six years old, left in a different lifetime, learned in a dark cellar, Lukasz and Henryk crouched in the darkness, a notebook changing hands . . .

  Lukasz’s burned hand closed on Koszmar’s arm, and the elegant Wrony recoiled.

  “What—?”

  “Take me to him,” growled Lukasz.

  The girls by the fountain watched them. The men burying the strzygi victims looked up warily, the one hefting his rifle. Lukasz ignored them all. He had eyes only for Koszmar Styczeń, for that wily curve to his mouth, for the sly spark in his eyes. But even caught in the grip of the wolf, Koszmar did not cower.

  “Take me to him,” said Lukasz hoarsely. “Take me to him now.”

  “Take me to the Dragon,” countered Koszmar in a silky voice.

  Lukasz shook him hard, once, shoving him back. Koszmar hit the rails of the fence and grinned. Realizing too late what he was doing, Lukasz stumbled back, catching his breath.

  Unruffled, Koszmar readjusted his helmet and straightened his cuffs. Lukasz wondered if he was used to people losing their temper with him.

  “All right, all right,” Koszmar said, smirking as he righted his helmet. “Get your horse. I’ll take you to your gargulec.”

  7

  LUKASZ WAS SO PREOCCUPIED THAT he didn’t notice the girl.

  It came as no surprise to her, for in her eighteen years, she had rarely been noticed. After all, she looked like everyone else: faded, tired, hollowed out, and with just a little bitterness in how her mouth always tended to frown. Of the red-boote
d girls in the square, she was the only one who had not been smoking.

  He and the blond soldier came and took the black horse away. They were so absorbed in their task that they didn’t notice that she’d given the horse the only food she had. They didn’t notice her fade back into the gray, all dull skin and dull hair and—yet—the most spectacular pair of eyes in the village.

  Why should they notice her? No one else did.

  So of course they didn’t notice her following them.

  8

  REN APPROACHED THE VILLAGE LIKE any animal would: with caution.

  She’d insisted on coming alone. Czarn and Ryś were tough, but Ren couldn’t risk it. After what had happened to Czarn, she didn’t want anyone else getting hurt. Besides, she was the queen. This was her battle. Better to fight it alone.

  The last hundred yards of forest were marked by solitary chimneys and crumbling walls, by moss growing over collapsed tables, by books and candleholders and children’s toys disintegrating into the mud. Even if she disliked the humans, it had still broken her heart a little bit. She’d found herself wishing, as she crossed the rotten expanse, that they had gotten out in time.

  Her careful feet, a little clumsier because they were human, brought her at last to the edge of the village. The remaining houses were circled up like deer against wolves. Orange light spilled from the windows, pooled on the ground.

  Forest floor gave way to stone streets, and Ren tugged her cloak over her hair. Trying to brush it out had only made it bigger, and the pale blue hood barely covered it. Woodsmoke drifted between the houses, and she fought down her fear at the smell.

  She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t even really know what she was looking for. If he was still alive, she reasoned, then he would probably have come here, to the village. These humans seemed so afraid of solitude. They built their homes so close together. Leaned upon one another in the streets, huddled together before tiny fires.

  The afternoon rain had faded to fog, and the dampness crept into the fabric of the clothes and made her shiver. She passed a house with a cat on the windowsill. It hissed until she looked back at it with feline lynx eyes, and it fell silent. In the room beyond, a family was sitting down to dinner. They called out to the cat, and it jumped down and stalked across the room. Completely unafraid, it curled up near the fire. Eating, speaking, walking, sleeping . . . they were incapable, she thought disdainfully, of being alone.

  She watched, feeling contemptuous—and somehow, a little sad—as one of the children knelt down to pet the cat. Even their animals couldn’t be alone. Didn’t like being alone. Ren wondered, oddly wistful, what the cat saw in them. Wondered, very briefly, if she was missing something.

  She moved silently along the streets. They weren’t completely unfamiliar. After all, she hadn’t always hated the humans the way she did now. Back when she’d been a child, she’d crept into these streets to look through the windows at night.

  And who could blame her? She’d been the only human in a castle of animals. These creatures—these creatures who looked like she had, back then—had fascinated her.

  Listening at their windows, she had learned the humans’ language. If anyone had ever seen her, they had never bothered her. They’d probably assumed she was just another orphan, cowering in the dark. Little had they known. One day that little girl would grow claws sharp enough to tear a man to pieces, and she would haunt their dreams with glowing eyes and wicked fangs. She would be called queen by the animals, and they . . . they would call her monster.

  No fangs tonight, though.

  She wondered where she might find him.

  Can I help you? he’d asked.

  Best to look for his horse, she thought. It had been so distinctive: antlers mounted on its bridle, with hundreds of other, tinier antlers hanging from the saddle. Were they all from dragons?

  She paused by a small garden filled with purple flowers. She ran two fingers around her lips, thinking.

  I won’t hurt you, he’d promised.

  It made her stomach twist with the same feeling she’d had seeing the cat. She knelt on the damp cobbles, brushing her hand through the flowers. Not twisted in a bad way, exactly . . .

  “What are you doing here?”

  Ren froze. The voice spoke again.

  “Who are you?”

  Careful not to move too quickly, Ren looked up. It was a girl, maybe her own age. Her hair and skin were almost identical in color, with freckles scattered over her cheeks. The girl wore very different clothes than the ones Ren had selected: a striped skirt and bright red boots. While Ren wondered if she had chosen the wrong disguise, the girl crouched down.

  Ren’s heart began to pound.

  “I am—” She could hear her harsh, growling accent as she tried to lie. “I am from the village.”

  The girl had deep hollows under her cheekbones. Purple circles swung, like dark moons, under her eyes.

  “You’re lying,” said the girl, without any anger. “Why are you stealing flowers?”

  Fury flared, and before Ren could stop herself, claws burst out of her fingertips.

  “I am not stealing!” she snapped.

  Pain seared across her palms as the claws cut into them. She bit her lip and forced the claws to slide back. Heart hammering, panic growing, Ren raised her gaze to the other girl.

  The girl’s eyes had gone wide, but there was no fear in her face.

  “You’re the monster.”

  Despite her words, her voice was full of wonder, not insult. Ren wiped her palms on her skirt. She fought the urge to change. To slip back into the dark. She suddenly didn’t trust herself. Not around a human.

  “I am not a monster,” she said.

  “I saw what you did to Jakub,” said the girl.

  Is that the Wolf-Lord’s name?

  Even the possibility made Ren’s anger burn. Liar. She’d saved him. Blood thundered in her ears. It took every ounce of her strength to keep her voice level.

  “I saved him,” she said. “Whatever lies he has been telling. I saved him.”

  “You ripped his face off!”

  Ren froze. Her heart plummeted right into the cobbles. The girl hadn’t meant the Wolf-Lord. She’d meant . . .

  Then all at once, it was flooding back. The smell of fresh snow, metallic blood. The cold. The sudden warmth of fur. The wet black body heaving in the white. Her best friend, dying.

  And the huntsman.

  “He deserved it,” she whispered.

  The girl shook her head. It was short, clipped.

  “No one deserves that,” she said.

  A door banged up the street. Ren’s head snapped over. A shadow appeared on a threshold. She felt her eyes transform, drink in the darkness. She caught the silhouette of a man’s face, eyes wide. Skin pale.

  Then the door banged again, and he disappeared.

  “He’s seen us,” said the girl. “You need to leave.”

  “I need to find—” Ren began.

  The girl cut her off.

  “Don’t you understand? They’ll kill you. You need to go.”

  Ren turned her eyes to the girl, and they slid from green to gold. Her voice came out as a growl.

  “I am not afraid of them.”

  The shadows of houses bled into the street and formed the shadows of people. A crowd gathered in the darkness, forming a wall against the night. There might have been fifty of them—maybe more. Their voices blended together, and she didn’t know their language well enough to understand what they said.

  The girl had not moved. They were still crouched by the flowers.

  “It’s all right,” she said, and put a hand on Ren’s lace-clad arm. “Stay quiet.”

  They smelled like fear.

  They all did. Ren could smell it sticking in their throats. She could smell it dripping from her skin. The girl smelled most like fear, and Ren could feel it in the hand trembling on her arm. She could hear it in the tightness of her voice. This girl was
the most terrified person in the village, and yet she stayed.

  “Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Let me talk to them—”

  The humans crowded around. The murmur of their voices rose to dull thunder. A few began to shout. Metal flashed among them, and Ren shifted backward. They stood in her presence, and they thought weapons could save them . . . ? Ren climbed to her feet. Mist clung to her, wreathed the street behind them.

  “Please,” said the girl. “Please, let me—”

  Fear washed over her. Not her fear.

  “Please—”

  Theirs. Ren began to shake. The fight was struggling to get out. Trying to force its way out of her skin, rip off the humanity. Leap into the frightened, spectral shadows. Ren reined it in. Clenched her teeth and bit it back.

  This had been a mistake. The faceless wall of darkness was closing in, suffocating her with fear. As the whispers scuttled out at her, she caught the same word repeated, again and again.

  Monster.

  Monster.

  Monster.

  And she didn’t mean to. She couldn’t help it. It just slipped out from between her teeth: a growl. It was low but loud enough to cut through the whispering. For a moment, silence held the village.

  Ren took another step back. If she attacked, she would not be able to stop herself. She would tear through them faster than they’d demolished the strzygi. And she might even kill the Wolf-Lord. . . . She needed to get back to the forest. Escape into the darkness before her human skin was covered with fur and yellow fangs pushed her teeth out of her gums . . .

  She shouldn’t have come.

  “Get out!”

  Ren spun around, just as something sailed out of the shadowy crowd. A rock collided with her cheek and stars exploded.

  Ren hit the ground. Wet poured down her face and stung her eyes. The word pounded her into the earth.

  Monster. Monster. Monster.

  Ren hissed. It ripped out of her human throat with animal volume. She lurched to her feet. She was bleeding from a cut below her eye.

  She faced them. Felt her teeth ache, her throat close. Here it came.