Don't Call the Wolf

by Aleksandra Ross

  Ren gave him a withering glare.

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  The two men obeyed.

  They moved carefully forward. The trees kept watch, but none of them stirred. Ren loved her forest, even the bad parts, and it broke her heart to see it acting like this. The roots kept snaking out to catch at their ankles, making the horses stumble. Once, a tree branch dropped out of nowhere, straight across the path in front of them. Koszmar shrieked and fired an entire round of bullets into it before realizing it wasn’t another monster.

  After that, when they’d gotten the horses back under control, Czarn took the lead. Overhead, the branches closed to blackness, and they could no longer see the Mountains. It might have been years since he had come down from their icy slopes, but the big black wolf did not hesitate; he still had the nose for mountain air.

  Ren wasn’t sure how, but she soon found herself walking next to the Wolf-Lord.

  Czarn did not speak often of his cubhood. But Ren knew he had been raised on cold nights and fear, marked by an exodus from a beloved home to a place where the wolves survived, even if they did not quite love it. Ren wondered if, despite his dislike of Jakub and his new distrust for the Wolf-Lord, Czarn longed to see the purple hills.

  She wondered if the same was true for this Wolf-Lord.

  “How is your shoulder?” she asked as the thought occurred to her.

  He grinned down from his saddle, easily enough that Ren knew he was fine. But instead of answering, he said, “Suddenly the queen of the forest is interested in a lowly, savage Wolf-Lord?”

  “I never said you were savage,” muttered Ren. “I would never say that about someone.”

  The grin froze. To Ren’s immense surprise, he dismounted and landed, flinching slightly, on the earth. Now they were walking beside each other.

  “What are you doing?” asked Ren.

  “What do you mean?” he replied in an innocent voice.

  “Why are you walking with me?”

  “Do you want me to leave?” The grin returned.

  “If only you’d asked that two days ago.”

  “Oh really?” He looked surprised, but there was a wicked tilt to the edge of his mouth. “What’s changed?”

  Ren sputtered.

  “No—I—that’s not what I meant.” Then she drew herself up to her full height, which—annoyingly—was still not as tall as he was. She tipped her chin back and said, in the iciest voice she could manage:

  “I do not like you.”

  Lukasz laughed again.

  “I can tell.”

  Before Ren could retort, there was a loud yelp up ahead. A spidery creature plummeted out of the branches, landing squarely on the black wolf’s back. He yelped again and went down on his wounded side.

  Nocnica.

  Before Ren could transform, a deafening blast echoed beside her.

  The spidery monster exploded in a spray of brown guts. She reeled, ears ringing, and Lukasz—grinning, the expression completely changed—slammed a new round into the gleaming rifle.

  Ren glowered. It hadn’t been a fair fight, with guns instead of claws. And yet . . . seeing Czarn struggle back to his feet, unharmed, she was—a very tiny bit—grateful.

  “I could have handled it,” she snapped.

  “I was faster,” he said, and shrugged.

  Evening fell, and the forest changed again. The branches unknotted to reveal the sky, almost apologetically. The paths were clearer. Roots didn’t try to curl around their ankles as they ran. Nothing called down from the treetops. The air was fresh.

  And whatever Ren might have thought about the Wolf-Lord, she could not help feeling a small thrill of hope. Even if he was annoying and arrogant, his presence—their deal—meant there was at least a chance that this might work.

  As night fell, they stopped amid a collection of closely packed spruce. Jakub went to gather firewood, and Lukasz disappeared with his rifle and returned an hour later with a half dozen dead nocnica in hand.

  He tossed the spidery things in a heap by the fire. Their hairy legs twitched.

  Koszmar yelped and jumped to his feet.

  “What in God’s name are those?” he demanded.

  “Dinner,” said Lukasz. He must have seen Ren’s expression, because he added: “Your brother told me you don’t eat animals.”

  Ren hid her surprise. Ryś was nowhere to be seen, probably off doing the things lynxes liked to do on dark nights. Ren made a mental note to tell him off when he got back. It wasn’t safe out there. Sooner or later, he was going to get himself killed.

  Lukasz leaned down next to Koszmar, and after a small mechanical click, the kindling began to glow. Beside him, Koszmar tugged at the emblem around his neck.

  “If you think I’m eating giant spiders—” he began, a little shrilly.

  “Fine,” interjected Felka easily, sweeping past. “Don’t eat them. More for me.”

  She put her hands to her mouth and waved her fingers like spider pincers. Koszmar almost tripped, stumbling backward.

  “Nuh-uh,” he stammered as Felka advanced on him with her spider fingers. “No—stop that!”

  He skirted back out of the way, and Felka gave chase. Lukasz watched, laughing. His fingers snapped at the small contraption in his right hand. Click, click. His laughter had a devilish tilt to it.

  “It’s not funny!” hissed Koszmar, dancing out of Felka’s way.

  “Don’t run too far,” warned Lukasz as Koszmar tripped over a saddle. “Or you’ll meet the real thing.”

  Koszmar stopped dead, and Felka crashed into him.

  Jakub Rybak returned at that moment with an armful of dry wood. At the sight of him, the beginnings of Ren’s good mood evaporated. Czarn looked up from licking his scarred paw. Ren could practically feel the hatred radiating from him.

  Leaving Koszmar alone, Felka hauled a pot from the army-issue camp gear. Together, she and Lukasz began carefully preparing what they called a “hunter’s stew.” Still with an eye on Jakub, Ren listened to Felka’s chat about how the dish usually included cabbage and a selection of sausages, but how tonight, the nocnica would replace the usual meats. Across the fire, Koszmar sat staring at their dinner with abject horror.

  Ren felt oddly touched that Lukasz had spoken to Ryś. Cared enough—or been wary enough?—to heed her laws. The memory of his heart pounding under her fingertips came back to her.

  No games, they had promised. Shaken hands.

  It occurred to her that were it not for the Dragon, she might never have met him. And for some strange, irrational reason, the realization lit a glow in her heart.

  Lukasz glanced up. Black hair hung messily over one dark eyebrow. His eyes narrowed, and when he smiled, her stomach flipped. The corner of his lip curved upward. His eyes glittered.

  Ren looked away.

  16

  FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS, they moved steadily in the direction of the Mountains. Lukasz kept Franciszek’s notebook in his coat pocket, and even just knowing it was there gave him a sense of hope he hadn’t felt in weeks.

  If anything, during those three days, he was almost happy. The routine of things somehow reminded him of the old days—the first days—before the hotel rooms and the palaces, before the gold and the glory. He liked the wild dark beyond the campfire. He liked the whisper of unseen things. He liked the hunt and the gamble.

  He liked, he realized, the company.

  Every night, Lukasz and Jakub shared a watch, and Jakub did his best to teach Lukasz his letters. But Franciszek had been right: he had put off learning for a long time, and it had gotten harder while he ignored it.

  “Is there somewhere else you would rather be?” asked Jakub.

  Lukasz glanced up. The pair of them were seated on a fallen tree, about thirty feet outside the light of the fire. The others were getting ready to sleep for the night, and he and Jakub had an old camp lantern. Strange moths fluttered up to it. They smelled like vinegar and emitted a faint, haunting m
elody.

  “Sorry.” Lukasz winced and stretched out his shoulder. “My arm itches.”

  Jakub Rybak gave him a long, unreadable look.

  “They could be venomous, you know,” he said. “I think we may be the first people to survive their embrace. If you’d let me have a look—”

  “It’s fine,” said Lukasz, a little more shortly than he’d intended.

  “Not to study it,” said Jakub gently. “Just to see if I could help.”

  “It’s fine,” repeated Lukasz. “Let’s just practice, okay?”

  Even as he asked, his hand twinged.

  Jakub sighed and closed the book.

  “Lukasz,” he asked, “why do you need to learn this now? I’ve seen you with that notebook. If you don’t need to read it to understand it, why bother learning out here in the middle of nowhere? Why not wait to go back to Miasto and get a real tutor?”

  Lukasz hesitated. Behind them, the others were still crowded near the warmth of the fire. Out here, despite its being late summer, the air was chilly. It reminded him, horribly, of the nawia.

  “The only reason I knew about the nawia was because Franciszek told me,” he said at last. “As long as I’m not reading, who knows how much I’m missing? And besides—”

  He paused, and then continued:

  “Besides, I’m only good at one thing.”

  Jakub waited. Made him spell it out.

  “I’m only good at hunting dragons,” said Lukasz finally. “I don’t do anything else. I can’t do anything else.”

  The hand twitched again. That weak, traitorous, misshapen, sorry excuse for a hand.

  Lukasz didn’t tell the truth: That he knew he couldn’t do it. That he was as good as retired, and if he went back to Miasto and lived like a king, he’d be dead of boredom by the end of the year.

  “What if one day, I can’t do this anymore?” he asked instead. “What happens then?”

  Jakub chuckled. He pushed a few messy blond strands behind his ear.

  “Lukasz,” he said gently. “I think you’ll be hunting dragons for a long time.”

  Lukasz didn’t respond. For a moment, he desperately—irrationally—wanted to tell Jakub the truth. That he’d made a deal with the queen that he could not keep. That he’d lied to find his brother, and he had no intention of sticking around or going after the Golden Dragon. He’d shaken hands and promised no games, and he’d been lying through his teeth.

  “I’m worried,” said Jakub after a moment.

  Lukasz realized he’d been scratching at his shoulder again. Jakub seemed to search for the right words before he said, very uncertainly, “Lukasz, I’m . . . I’m worried she may be the princess.”

  Lukasz choked.

  “Who?”

  “Ren,” said Jakub.

  Lukasz couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  It took him a moment to realize that the Unnaturalist was being perfectly serious. The forest was black and still around them. And in the darkness, Lukasz remembered the sight of that white castle, looming over the trees. Perfectly preserved, except for its single, charred spire.

  “Jakub, the princess died in the tower fire,” he said.

  The Dragon had devoured the queen, torched the tower, and burned the baby to death in her own crib. Everyone knew that.

  But what if . . .

  “She died in the fire,” he repeated, less certainly.

  “Think about it,” murmured Jakub. “How old is she? Seventeen? Eighteen? She came from the castle, Lukasz. She can change into a lynx—the official symbol of the Kamieńa crown. I was not sure, at first, but . . . but her name is Ren.”

  Lukasz felt his brow furrow.

  “So?”

  Jakub shook his head.

  “The queen’s name is Ren. The princess—the one who died—her name was Irena.”

  Lukasz was stunned.

  “No,” he said shakily. “No way. It’s impossible. I don’t—”

  The baptism. Only a queen . . .

  “She looks like her mother, Lukasz,” continued Jakub. “When I saw her in the village that night, I knew it was her. It couldn’t be anyone else. And now you . . . you have kidnapped her. Why do you think I followed you into this forest? I was trying to stop you. Whether you knew it or not, you’d committed treason.”

  Lukasz held up both hands.

  “Wait a second. I tried to help her. Kosz hit her—”

  “You didn’t stop him.”

  “So?” demanded Lukasz. “The villagers would have killed her. You saw them. If anything, we did her a favor.”

  He didn’t believe it even as he said it. And from the expression on what was left of Jakub’s face, Jakub could tell.

  “The queen would have torn that village apart, long before they did her any real harm.”

  “Fine. So we saved the village. Or what’s left of it. And why the hell would you care?”

  Jakub closed his one eye for a moment, as if searching for words. Then he said, very carefully: “I set my traps, Lukasz. I went calling the wolves from this forest, and I have paid for it.”

  Something very cold and very painful rose in Lukasz’s throat. He knew that warning well, had heard that warning so many times.

  Those words. He thought of the notebook, even now, folded against his heart. He should have learned. . . .

  A new possibility seized him. One that could derail their entire venture.

  “Well—you’re not going to tell her, are you?” He could hear the edge in his voice. “I mean, you don’t even know for sure.”

  Overhead, Jakub’s pale eagle settled in the branches. The one-eyed Unnaturalist looked upward, then back at Lukasz. Then he said in a stiff voice, “I am not in the business of emptying another man’s snare.”

  Relief loosened Lukasz’s chest. He rolled back his once-wounded shoulder. It still itched like hell.

  “All right,” he said, before adding, “Thank you.”

  Jakub shrugged.

  “It is not for you. I have no desire to be attacked again.”

  There was a rustle behind them. Both Jakub and Lukasz whipped around at the same time, rifles primed. A tall, slim figure stood in the darkness. Green eyes flickered in the light from the camp lantern. The moths kept singing, and for some wild, irrational reason, Lukasz wondered if they were singing to her.

  Jakub’s face split into a smile. Lukasz was less willing to lower the gun.

  Had she heard . . . ?

  The green eyes flickered from face to face, then to the small book on Jakub’s lap. Then she took on more detail: slim cheekbones and a pointed chin. A mouth that seemed to move slower than the rest of her, slow to speak, slow to form the human words.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  For a second time, it struck him: she sounded shy.

  He wondered if her shyness was the natural inclination of an animal, or whether it could—just maybe it could—be more. He wondered if she knew that she had him. He wondered if she knew he was already wrapped around those long, inhuman fingers.

  He wondered how long he could lie to her.

  Lukasz lowered the rifle.

  “Reading,” said Jakub. “Would you like to join us?”

  There was a scuttle overhead and chattering sounds in the trees beyond. Ren froze, eyes suddenly luminescent and feline. Lukasz’s hand closed on the rifle.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  The trees seemed to shift closer together. The blue-gray mist gathered overhead in their branches and trickled down to form a carpet on the forest floor. Between the knee-high fog and the moment of utter silence, it was like they’d been immersed in a nightmarish cloud.

  At last, Jakub broke the silence.

  “Strzygi,” he breathed.

  Lukasz glanced around, a chill stealing over his soul.

  “Close?” he asked.

  No one replied. They held their breath, each one primed. Lukasz could think only of those beaky faces, of the eyes that had once b
elonged to children, to women, to men. Of the three bodies in three lonely graves. Three shovels, coming down hard.

  There was another rustle, and the night cleared.

  “They’re gone,” murmured Ren.

  They were quiet for a time. Then Ren whispered in a very soft voice: “Felka told me that when someone disappears in the forest, the villagers blame me.”

  “Not all the villagers,” said Jakub.

  Ren smiled, wreathed in mist and woodsy darkness. Lukasz had only ever seen a vila once in his life, and in that moment, she looked very much like one. Then she crept closer and settled on the ground. Lukasz noticed that she chose Jakub’s side instead of his. Once again, he felt that irrational stab of jealousy.

  “What are they?” she asked. “The strzygi?”

  “Lesser demons,” said Jakub. “From the same family as upiórs. Bloodsuckers. Equivalents exist in other countries, I understand. Simply put, they are amalgamations of greed. Creatures created by the consumption of others. In being consumed, the dead find rebirth.”

  Thinking of another monster, Lukasz asked, “Could—could a living person become a strzygoń? If they were attacked—but not killed?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’m not sure anyone knows. But we do know that not everyone killed by a strzygoń is destined for the same fate. In fact, statistically speaking, the majority of victims stay dead.”

  Lukasz fought the urge to rub at his shoulder.

  Jakub paused for a moment, and when he continued, it was as if in a rapture. Thinking of Damian Bieleć, Lukasz reflected that Jakub would have made a better professor.

  “Some believe that strzygi rise from a duality of souls,” said the Unnaturalist. “In this belief, most humans have one soul. When that human dies, their soul and body die with them. But—but if by some fluke of nature, a human was to have two souls . . .”

  He paused before continuing.

  “When the human is consumed by the strzygi, the first soul is consumed with them. But in this school of thought, that second soul lives on. Comes to inhabit their new body. And that soul dies more slowly, more painfully. Trapped in the body of a worsening monster.”

  “That’s madness,” said Lukasz, suppressing a shudder. “No one has two souls.”