Don't Call the Wolf

by Aleksandra Ross

  Over the crossed blades, Koszmar snapped at him like an animal. Half his tongue was gone. Blood sprayed over Lukasz and he realized that Koszmar was now taller than him.

  “What have you done to yourself?” he breathed.

  “I let the magic in,” whispered Koszmar. “I was undone and remade.”

  What remained of his lids fluttered over his sockets. The half-out eye swiveled against his cheek.

  “How? You shot yourself,” growled Lukasz. “I watched you blow off your face.”

  “But I didn’t die,” murmured the Wrony. “I didn’t die, Lukasz. And now . . . now I am so good at this.”

  Sweat and rain poured down Lukasz’s face. He was fighting right-handed, and he knew he wasn’t as strong as he used to be. But he was angrier. With all his strength, he twisted the glass blade. Koszmar’s saber spun in his grip as he stumbled backward, slipping. He regained his balance, and Lukasz advanced.

  Koszmar lunged again. The saber hacked down onto Lukasz’s once-wounded side. The glass blade came up, knocked steel away. Wind slashed across the mountaintop like a whip. Lukasz pushed back his hair, snarling. Water and wind stung his eyes.

  “So am I.”

  He pushed forward and Koszmar stumbled back. They were battling closer and closer to the cliff’s edge. Koszmar’s ruined face was shimmering gold in the gray. He went down on one knee, scrambled back to his feet.

  Lukasz kept advancing. He tugged down his collar, showed the scarred expanse of brown skin over his shoulder.

  “All better,” he said, and grinned.

  Koszmar smiled back. It was like he could not feel pain at all.

  “So am I.”

  Koszmar lunged.

  The swords smashed with superhuman force. Lukasz used both hands, but still the glass shuddered under the effort. For a moment, it looked like the glass blade might shatter. But then it shivered, glowed a little brighter, and held. They broke apart. Circled like wolves.

  Koszmar was too strong. He was too fast. He had evil on his side, in his blood. The next time the saber hacked down, Lukasz could barely raise the glass sword in time to stop it. Lukasz fell back. Koszmar grinned, long teeth gleaming.

  Lukasz fell back again. Koszmar swung hard and seized the advantage. He brought the hilt down, hard, on Lukasz’s wrist. Pain shuddered up his arm, as the sword clattered out of his hand and spun across the glass.

  Lukasz skidded after it. His bad leg twisted and gave way. He half fell, half lunged after the sword, but it skittered out of his fingers. Off the edge of the Mountaintop. Lukasz crashed to his knees. Watching, helpless, as the glass blade glittered and spun away, disappearing into the gray clouds below.

  The voice was soft, musical. From lips that had once blown smoke rings at dark skies and shaped words of admiration.

  “I’m curious, Lukasz.”

  Lukasz could hear every one of Koszmar’s footfalls.

  Looking over the edge of the Mountain, trying to wish the sword back, Lukasz watched the gray shifting and sparkling. The swirling fog gathered weight, gathered darkness. A dark shadow loomed, growing bigger by the second.

  “How does it feel, Lukasz?” crooned Koszmar. “To have failed so completely?”

  . . . sparkling?

  Lukasz flipped onto his back. Koszmar loomed over him. The wild animal look was back. He snarled, the muscles of his face arranging, rearranging, drawing back from his teeth.

  “Your queen is dead.”

  Koszmar had been utterly destroyed, from the toes of his scuffed boots to the last, unnaturally silver hair. Lukasz felt the saber’s point slide up his chest to settle at the hollow of his throat. He could hear his breathing coming hard and fast.

  Koszmar grinned down at him. The ice-cold, animal grin. Made worse by the rips in his cheeks, by the long fangs. By the blood slipping, unheeded, over his chin.

  “Your brother is dead.”

  Thud. It was faint. Thud. Almost imperceptible. Thud.

  But Lukasz had spent a lifetime in pursuit of one thing. And as Koszmar laughed, he couldn’t help grinning, not even when Koszmar whispered, in that sweet, slightly nasal voice:

  “You couldn’t even kill the Dragon.”

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  “You’re right,” said Lukasz.

  Koszmar hesitated, as if he could see the grin on Lukasz’s face. That open-jawed, crooked-toothed, half-laughing grin. The grin a hundred other monsters had seen before they died.

  Koszmar’s head twitched to the side, almost quizzically. Water and blood dripped from his hair, down his wrists, ran down the length of the saber. The blade at Lukasz’s throat wavered, for the barest instant.

  “You’re right,” Lukasz repeated. “I never killed the Dragon.”

  56

  THE GOLDEN DRAGON ROARED.

  The Mountain shook. Lukasz watched as, reflected in its glow, Koszmar’s face turned from triumph to shock, before transforming to terror. He stumbled backward.

  Lukasz felt the rush of wingbeats behind him, sensed the shadow falling over him. The Dragon shot straight past the Mountain’s edge. Lukasz glimpsed dead black eyes and six-foot black teeth. Then they were gone. He caught the underside of the Dragon’s jaw, covered in serrated, armor-like scales. Then the expanse of pale gold belly, racing past, as if forever, punctuated twice by sets of legs and claws, before giving way to a long, tapered tail.

  For a moment, the Golden Dragon blocked out the sky.

  Lukasz raised himself on his elbows, looking past Koszmar. Queen Dagmara was walking toward them. The glass sleeves of her gown shimmered like dragon wings as she raised her arms. Koszmar was gaping at the sky. Then, as if in a dream, Lukasz watched him turn back to Queen Dagmara.

  “This is for your soul,” she said, in a voice that carried over the expanse. “And this is for my daughter.”

  She dropped her arms.

  And, like an eagle, the Dragon dived.

  Koszmar was fast. He dodged out of the way. The Dragon’s teeth closed over air, its claws scraping the glass. Koszmar shot back to his feet, eyeless face twisting into a smile. He still had his saber.

  Koszmar laughed.

  Lukasz started to get to his feet, then stopped.

  The Dragon’s tail swung across the mountaintop. It cleared a path through the golden trees, splintering the trunks as it came. Lukasz watched the explosion of gold and glass. Still laughing, Koszmar turned around too late.

  The tail caught him across the chest. His ruined face registered surprise.

  The force sent him skidding across the mountaintop. He careened straight over the side.

  But for a moment, he hung on. The clawed fingers scrabbled, carving bloody lines in water and glass. His shredded face leered over the edge. A crack was spreading, splintering up from under his hand.

  “Help, Lukasz, help me—”

  His old voice. His human voice. The voice that had made plans, had paid compliments. The voice of a strange, reluctant friend.

  The crack gaped wider. Lukasz almost went for him. He almost hauled him back. Almost tried to save this second soul, when he had already abandoned the first.

  But Lukasz didn’t move. He couldn’t. However many souls Koszmar had—whatever horror had brought him here—whatever bit of his friend was still inside, still trapped, still trying to get out . . .

  Koszmar had killed Franciszek.

  A rumble, and the ledge loosened. Koszmar was slipping.

  Koszmar had killed Ren.

  “Please, Lukasz, please—”

  Glass screeched. The ledge came away. Koszmar screamed, disappeared, and then all that was left was his screaming, getting fainter and fainter, disappearing into the fog and rain. The Mountain was silent.

  Lukasz walked slowly to the cliffside. Glass stretched downward as far as the eye could see. It disappeared into gray clouds and oblivion.

  Koszmar was gone.

  Lukasz turned away. He was suddenly aware of his pounding heart. No longer in time with the
dragon’s wingbeats, now hard and painful and constricting his throat.

  Ren.

  Queen Dagmara was hunched over her body amid the wreckage of the forest. The trees had been destroyed by the Dragon’s tail. Golden trunks lay on their sides, the last bits of strzygi still twitching on the glass. A single severed foot hopped in a circle.

  Ren was still a lynx. She had not changed back. Lukasz fell to his knees beside them. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel.

  “It isn’t working,” the queen repeated to herself, over and over. She hugged her daughter’s soaked body. “It isn’t working.”

  Lukasz saw the golden apples on the glass, most of them wet with blood. One with a bite out of it.

  Queen Dagmara was sobbing. Lukacz touched Ren’s head. Then, carefully, took her from Dagmara’s arms. She was heavy. Her fur was waterlogged. Her lynx eyes were closed and her shoulder was matted with blood. Her whiskers were bent. Blood and water swirled on the glass around them.

  “No,” he said hoarsely, smoothing back her wet ears. “Not like this.”

  It wasn’t right. She was the queen. She’d conquered rusalki and banished mavka. She’d befriended the Leszy and charmed the Baba Jaga. Even the Dragon was on her side, for God’s sake! To him, she had been untouchable. He had never worried, not for a single moment, that she would have—that she would be the one—who— While he held her, she began to change. The fur disappeared and her ears changed to dark hair. She grew lighter in his arms, more fragile. The glass slithered up over her body, re-forming the gown. It trapped the blood from the bullet wound underneath, turning the gown crimson instead of silver. She had always been pale, but now she looked paper-thin. Nearly colorless. The blue veins of her throat stood out starkly. Blue circles hung under her eyes. Blue veins even spread out from her lips. Her hair was wet, flat, draped over his arm. It was lifeless.

  This was his fault. Their fault. The villagers had thrown rocks, the soldiers had kidnapped her, and in the end—

  When he took her face in his hands, her skin was cold.

  Koszmar had killed her.

  He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Intending to listen, he lowered his head. But he was worn thin. He wasn’t thinking straight. His mind was full of blood and strzygi and everything they’d lost, everything he’d lost, and for some reason, hands shaking, he bent still farther and found her cold mouth.

  For the last time, he kissed her.

  A hand pressed into his shoulder. Then it transformed, fingers to claws and back again, and it took him a moment to realize what was happening. Ren’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Oh my God,” he muttered. His trembling hands ran over her cheeks, through her soaked hair. Hope soared in his voice. “Oh my God, Ren—”

  Her eyelids fluttered again. And then those cold lips twisted and smiled, and green eyes looked into his. A bit hysterically, she began to laugh.

  And then, beneath branches of gold and upon glass washed clean by rain, Lukasz kissed her.

  57

  ALIVE.

  Ren couldn’t help it. She laughed, and Lukasz’s mouth was on hers again. Her hands found his face, and she kissed him. Again.

  Then they were both laughing. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she was relieved. Maybe she was just rattled. Maybe she was brave. She pushed herself up on her hands, still half supported by Lukasz. The queen leaned over and, unexpectedly, hugged her.

  Mixed with blood, torrents of water washed over the ground, carrying golden branches, golden apples, and broken glass. A dozen feet away, the water parted around the Dragon’s huge gleaming claws. Black smoke poured from its nostrils, down its body, caught in Ren’s heart. She realized, with a start, that the rain was thinning.

  The Dragon had saved them, she realized. So many times. It had saved them. It had escaped from an underworld of monsters and spent seventeen years at war. For her kingdom.

  Gold scraped on glass, and the Dragon advanced.

  The big equine head wove down from its great height. Ren got to her feet. She closed the distance between her and the Dragon until they were so close that she could smell the smoke on its breath.

  When it looked at her, Ren recognized its expression. Its eyes were dull black, reflecting absolutely no light at all. They looked cautious. A little afraid. Curious. Hopeful.

  She’d seen that look before, in a hundred other animals.

  She reached out, and her hand met gold.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t cold, like she had expected. Or slimy, or hard, or like the ice-cold armor of a stone-cold killer. It was warm, soft. Almost like fur. The Dragon closed its eyes. Then it purred. The whole Glass Mountain vibrated.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I misjudged you.”

  The Dragon purred louder. Then, to Ren’s surprise, it spoke. Inside her head.

  You have done well, my queen.

  A rumble shook the mountaintop. The ground lurched beneath her, and Lukasz’s hand closed protectively over her shoulder.

  The Mountain trembled. The last of the golden trees toppled, crashing into the glass. Golden leaves exploded, and apples rolled across the ground. Behind them, the castle was shaking, and blocks of glass were crumbling from the edges and tumbling down into oblivion. Ren turned to the Dragon.

  “What’s going on?”

  The Dragon spoke again. It is time for us to return.

  The Golden Dragon knelt down on its front knees. It took Ren a moment to realize what it wanted, and as soon as she did, Lukasz shot her a disbelieving look.

  “Oh, no—” he started.

  “Trust me,” said Ren over the crashing of glass. “It’ll be all right.”

  Looking very pale, Lukasz helped Queen Dagmara onto the golden scales before swinging up behind her. Ren came last.

  As the dragon pushed off, the glass mountainside crumbled beneath its talons. They soared down to earth, weaving between hurtling chunks of glass. Cracks shuddered down the smooth sides and splintered up from its base. Ren resisted the urge to cover her ears, while the Mountain crumbled.

  A gale surrounded them, strong enough to lift whole tons of glass as if they weighed no more than dead leaves. Like a spinning, twisting hurricane, the glass spiraled around the crumbling Mountain.

  They landed in the field of armor, sliding off the Dragon’s back. Ren stumbled on a fallen shield. She had almost forgotten about those poor knights.

  “You said they weren’t dead,” she said, turning to Queen Dagmara. “Can you bring them back?”

  “Wait.” Behind them, Lukasz slipped off the Dragon’s back. “They’re not—?”

  They have been sleeping, said the Dragon. I will wake them.

  Ren watched in wonder as another gale lifted the armor. As if borne up by ghosts, the armor and swords and uniforms rose into the air. Shoals of shattered glass blasted through the valley, like torrents of rain. They shot through the floating armor, pinging off helmets and blades.

  The gale rose to a roar, and Ren was suddenly aware of shapes forming within the armor. No, not shapes. People, formed of glass. Then the glass gathered color, and substance, and all of a sudden—

  Everywhere, knights pushed back their visors and examined newly re-formed hands. Long-dead horses unfolded cautious legs. In the moat, a hand broke the water’s surface. More knights surfaced, brandishing swords and pennants, and dragged themselves onto dry land.

  Ren could hardly believe it. They’d brought back the queen. They’d raised an army—an army big enough to take back her forest. They’d resurrected the Wolf-Lords, brought them back from extinction. Raised enough of the dead to fill the empty streets and warm halls of the great lodge.

  And there, a few feet away, at the water’s edge—

  “Oh my God,” breathed Lukasz.

  Before Ren could stop him, Lukasz had dashed away. She followed. He slipped in the mud and shoved aside the kneeling knights. Ren skidded to a stop beside him.

  Slim in his black uniform
. Facedown, black hair everywhere. The mud was dark. Lukasz fell, shaking, to his knees. Ren heard him sob, fell next to him. He ignored her.

  Lukasz turned the body over. It was Franciszek.

  He was dead.

  “No,” he moaned. “No, God, no . . .”

  The cold, wet body. The stained coat. The bullet, buried in this heart. Franciszek. Poor, frightened Franciszek.

  “I’m so sorry,” whispered Lukasz. “I’m so, so sorry—”

  Then real tears came to Ren. People shifted, and Ren realized they were surrounded. Nine black-haired men and one black-haired woman looked down at them. The woman and one of the men wore silver crowns wrought from dragon bones. Most of the others wore black uniforms, but some wore leather and fur.

  One of them was the spitting image of their father, with a beaky nose. A second looked almost exactly like Lukasz, but with sadder eyes. One with a bright, pretty face, now stricken with grief. Two men who could only be the twins, one with silver teeth and the other with a big purple scar. One as asymmetrical as he was mesmerizing. Another who was quite possibly the most perfectly handsome human Ren had ever seen. One brother who looked younger, a little different, from the others.

  “What have I done?” Lukasz asked. He was crying.

  Eight brothers, back from the dead. One lost forever. They fell to their knees, and Ren felt like an intruder.

  “This is my fault,” he choked. “This is all my fault—”

  The twins flanked Lukasz, each with a hand on his shoulder. He had his hands over his face, and Ren didn’t know what to do. The brothers crowded in, barely even noticing her. They went to Lukasz. Comforting him, consoling him. Telling him it wasn’t his fault and Franciszek had known what he was doing.

  Ren rubbed the tears out of her eyes, getting to her feet. Even after everything they’d done, they still hadn’t been able to save their brothers.

  Queen Dagmara stood a few feet away, beside a tall man with a dark beard. He wore a golden crown and a deep violet military uniform edged in gold. It took Ren a moment to recognize the insignia on his cap, so similar to the one Lukasz used to wear with his Wrony uniform.