Requiem for the Wolf

by Tara Saunders

  The tunic’s billow saved the hulk from serious harm, but even so a slow crimson stain spread across his front. He grunted and backed up a step, his hand steady on the knife.

  “Do you want to get out of this or not?”

  The door swung open sharply and Sionna caught a glimpse of red-blond hair too short to plait, drizzled around a pointed fox-face. Fear and exasperation combined in his bared teeth and clenched jaw.

  “Come on!” He gestured into the darkness behind him.

  Sionna snapped out of her stupor. She groped for Breag’s pack, pulled it towards her, and stretched for Tarbhal’s. Cú.

  The hulk lunged again, from Breag’s right this time. Breag crab-stepped left, struggling to keep his body between the knife and Tarbhal. The guard had found his feet, but his bruise-dark eyes wandered like a newborn lamb’s.

  “Lead them right.” Sionna spoke barely above a whisper, her stomach tight with the fear that Breag wouldn’t listen. Why should he?

  Breag didn’t respond, his eyes on the hulk. He jabbed twice then seemed to slip, retreating slightly to his right. The hulk sneered and followed. Breag shuffled backwards again and the hulk pressed his advantage.

  Tarbhal swayed, exposed, but the cadre of thugs trailed their leader, eager for the finish.

  The boy eased the door fully open, his face tight and afraid. He grabbed the packs and disappeared inside. From the darkness Sionna heard Cú growl, soft and squeaky.

  He doesn’t recognise the scent. Sionna eased an arm around Tarbhal’s shoulders. Or else he knows there’s something very wrong with this.

  She led the guard towards the open doorway, shushing him with a finger across his lips. Tarbhal swayed and only the boy’s arm joining Sionna’s around his shoulders kept him upright.

  The thugs pressed Breag hard now. Sneaky and the henchman had manoeuvred behind him, forcing him to divide his attention. The hulk still grinned, but sweat beaded his forehead and his gut was sashed with red.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Tarbhal swallowed in darkness. All safe now. Except for Breag.

  He faced away from Sionna and the door, Sneaky and the other standing between him and safety. The hulk blinked sweat from his eyes, concentrating on Breag. Soon he would glance away from the fight long enough to realise that his eel had slipped its gaff.

  For one seductive moment Sionna thought about how easy it would be to leave Breag. She could step through the door, pull it behind her, and be rid of him.

  But he had done as she asked, without question. He had defended her, and the guard. She owed him.

  But it would be so simple.

  Sionna gave herself no time for thought, for fear that what was easy would win over what was right. She sucked in a double lungful of foul Machan air, deep as she could manage, and she screamed.

  Even paralysed by fear she found the result fascinating. The high, pure sound rang from rotted timbers and seared a path skyward. How was it that in all the years with Proinsis she had never found her voice?

  Sneaky and his ally turned towards the sound.

  “Now, Breag!” Sionna dived through the closing door, stopping just inside to see if he would seize the slim ribbon of opportunity.

  Breag pivoted on his heel, grabbed each man by the shoulder and shoved them both outwards. In the instant they fought for balance he stepped between them and past. The hulk followed a half-step too late.

  Breag brushed past Sionna, bringing with him the scent of clean sweat and animal. His breath sounded loud in her ears as she slammed the door shut at his back. She dropped the safety bar into its solid cradle and forced the stiff guard-hook into place.

  All of them, safe.

  * * *

  To fading thumps and shouted curses from behind them, the boy led them right through the house and into an alley behind. From there they wound through a maze of side-streets and alleyways until the stench of Macha was superseded by green grass and sweet air. The edge of town was closer than Sionna had guessed.

  “Do fights usually put you to sleep?” The boy fell into step with Sionna.

  “What?” She only half heard him.

  Breag reached into the pack and freed a wriggling Cú. The cub bounced around him, his stumpy tail beating his gratitude.

  “You’re always this stupid, then. I’m sorry, I thought it was just the fight.”

  Sionna snapped her head around. She examined the boy closely for the first time.

  He was maybe fourteen years old, thin but not starved, ragged but no worse than many she had seen. He had hair the colour of sun on early harvest leaves, cut short in the fashion that the military used to mark criminals and troublemakers.

  “I always sleep during fights. Make sure you remember that next time you rescue me.”

  He chuckled low and pleasingly. “I’m Laoighre. It’s a pleasure to make your rescue.”

  “Sionna.” She would have liked to say something clever in reply, but she couldn’t think of anything.

  They walked in silence awhile, comfortable as old friends. Sionna recognised the moment he noticed Cú by the way his eyes narrowed and his head turned away from the frisking gadhar cub.

  “Isn’t it time you headed back?” A shame to disrupt the friendly feeling, but her group travelled with too many secrets.

  “Why?” Laoighre’s expression was guarded.

  “You’ll be missed. Won’t you? It’s almost dark and we’ve come a long way from Macha.”

  “Who would miss me?” Laoighre’s brow furrowed. “I can look after myself, I’m not a child.”

  “Is the house yours alone then?”

  “What house?”

  Sionna’s patience wore thin. “The house you rescued us through, where we left the hulk.”

  “The hulk?” Laoighre laughed out loud. “You didn’t think it was mine, did you?”

  “What else would I think?” Sionna retreated into bewilderment. “Who lives there if you don’t?”

  “Don’t know.” Laoighre shrugged. “I saw the trouble you were in and ran around from the front. I tried every door until I found one I could get in through.”

  Sionna digested this.

  “So, where are we going?”

  “Caislean.” No point in keeping it from him. Let Breag or Tarbhal worry about what came next.

  “Great.” Laoighre grinned. “I know a shortcut.”

  * * *

  They found a sheltered place to camp not long before the sun crossed the horizon. Sionna could tell that Breag would have liked to walk further, but Tarbhal wobbled on unsteady legs and the Lupe didn’t argue when she lowered her pack near the bend of a slow-flowing stream.

  He watched Laoighre through narrowed eyes, but for now he said nothing.

  Sionna had seen head injuries before, and she didn’t think Tarbhal’s bump would do him any permanent harm. She examined him in the way her mother had taught her, looking deep into his eyes and examining the dark spots at their centres. Right for body, left for spirit, her mother had said. Both must balance for a person to stay well. He hadn’t vomited, that was good. The morning would reveal more. For now, sleep would serve him best.

  Breag had started the fire while she tended to the guard. Laoighre was nowhere to be seen.

  “Gone to collect dry wood.” Again, Breag seemed to know her thoughts. “He won’t be long.”

  “I’ll get us some water.” Being alone with him, except for the sleeping guard, brought Sionna’s uneasiness back in force.

  Cú raced her to the water, throwing himself in and out of its flow with an exuberance she wished she could share. The day had left her feeling gloomy and drained. The cub clamped sharp teeth onto the hem of her tunic and swung, his tail thumping all the while. His sleek brindle body vibrated with joy of life.

  And why not?

  Sionna bent and unlaced her boots, trying to fend off the cub with a futile elbow. She rolled her trousers above her knee and waded into the chill water.

  Cú gloried in her c
ompany, darting after imaginary fish and barking to draw her attention to imaginary waterfowl. The pleasure of the moment eased burdens she hadn’t realised she carried.

  Sionna’s cheeks were sore from smiling when she finally stepped from the water and onto a flat rock. The grass tickled pleasantly between her toes as she walked back to the fire, her boots slung over her shoulder by their laces.

  Breag stared at her, a flat expression on his face.

  “You have only four toes.”

  8

  Breag shuttled between rage and disbelief. He stared at the feet curled into the grass in front of him. Four toes. How could this girl be Lost?

  He felt as though his mind was turned to treacle, his thinking slow and heavy. All the years. All the searching. All the Lost he had hunted. Killed. Had he passed them on the road, worked with them in their fields, broken bread with them? They had pushed him towards their wargs, their Fallen, had wished him good morning and had sent him on his way.

  He should have guessed. Proinsis’ ward, living with him for so many years. He should have at least suspected that she was one of the people.

  “That’s right.” Sionna lowered the water-filled stew pot onto the fire, eyes wide and wary.

  Deep in the bubblings of his anger, it took Breag a moment to realise that she answered his accusation about her toes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Sionna looked at him and then away. Her brow crinkled.

  She didn’t know. The thought made him angrier.

  “Don’t pretend not to understand.” Breag’s voice coarsened on every word.

  Would she really walk barefoot towards him if she knew?

  Sionna knelt by the new-made fire, head low and arms wrapped tight around her body. Her eyes stayed glued to the scuffed leather of his boots. She said nothing. Cú leaned against her, whining.

  “Answer me!” Breag felt a fleeting shame at his tone, snuffed out by the stone of rage heavy in his belly.

  A whisper of movement and a soft sigh from the blankets by the fire said that the guard still slumbered. Breag scented the tang of the old man’s dream-sweat, fleeting on a gust of breeze.

  Would he have noticed that before? A darker anger kindled, and not for the girl this time.

  Laoighre hadn't returned from his wood-gathering, thank the Lady, although the air now held the yellow-brown luminescence of approaching dark. Apart from a straggle-feathered raven in the highest branches of a waterlogged hawthorn tree, the hill was empty. There was nobody to plead for Sionna, or to mitigate Breag's temper.

  “Would you ever have told me?”

  Sionna crouched smaller, tighter, kneeling behind the curve of the stew pot, concealing herself with its belly. Breag's anger bubbled higher, threatening to close his throat.

  “I've seen you try the stupid act before, girl. It won't work on me.”

  Sionna's eyes flickered to his face for the briefest moment. Awareness chilled downwards through Breag's body as he realised just how afraid she was. Of him.

  What sort of man am I? His anger guttered, dead as his past. “I'm sorry.” Empty words. “You don't understand, I can see that.”

  He sank into a cross-legged crouch on the opposite side of the fire from Sionna's silent hunker. “Do you remember how Proinsis' feet looked?”

  Sionna straightened with a jerk, finally meeting his eyes. “How did you know?”

  “Because he was Daoine. That means he only had four toes. Like you.”

  “No.” And then more forcefully. “No! It was just a thing our family had, like some lose their hair. Or have crooked teeth.”

  “But Proinsis wasn't family to you.”

  “He must have been.” Sionna leaned forward, palms resting on her knees. “That's how I know, the toes. Why else would he take me in? Why else . . .”

  Would she stay?

  Breag eased the boot from his right foot. He pulled the sock off and stretched his leg closer to the fire. Dark hairs curled tight from where the leg poked from his trousers all the way down to whorl around his toes. Four toes.

  “You're one of the Daoine Glór na Gealaí.” Breag spoke gently now. “The Moon's Voice People.”

  “I am not!” Sionna threw herself to her feet.

  Breag had never heard her raise her voice before.

  “Proinsis was an animal. A Lupe. He was brutal and filthy, and I am not. I'm not like you.”

  Breag felt the full force of her disgust slap him into the face. He had nothing to counter it with. He had become brutal somewhere along the years. Would his mother recognise him now? Would Eithne?

  “I'm sorry.” Repetition made the words no less useless. Nothing he could do would make this right.

  “Leave me alone.” Sionna's voice shook. “When we get to Caislean I'll find a way to take care of myself. I don't want any part of this.”

  “We're not going to Caislean any more.”

  “What?” Sionna’s head jerked back.

  Again, a twitch from Tarbhal’s blankets.

  “We don’t need Caislean.” A bubble of euphoria burst inside Breag, displacing the last of his anger. “I’ve got you now. You’re a Lost One.”

  Sionna didn’t understand, but her face said that she didn’t like it.

  “I’m going to take you back to Tearmann. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Tearmann?”

  “My home. Through the Corcra Mountains.”

  “In the North?” Sionna’s voice shot up, and by her side Cú grumbled, stiff-legged. “You mean where the Lupes went?”

  “Where the Daoine live, yes. It’s where you belong.”

  “No. I’d prefer to go to Caislean.” Sionna’s voice was thick with fear and determination.

  Breag admired her for it, but it didn’t sway him. Eight years. Finally he had found a Lost One.

  “No.” No apology this time.

  “I can’t go back to that.”

  Breag didn’t understand.

  “I won’t go back to living with a Lupe.”

  Breag remembered the farmhouse she had shared with Proinsis. No wonder she was terrified.

  But there was too much here for him to lose. “It won’t be like that in Tearmann.” He attempted a soothing tone. “Proinsis was a warg. He was Fallen.”

  Sionna’s silence said she knew exactly what Proinsis had been.

  “There’s nobody like Proinsis there.” Not exactly like Proinsis. There were other cruelties.

  “I’ll go, then, if you think it best.”

  Breag didn’t believe her for a minute. But she would learn that he was no Proinsis. That she was safe with him. Like it or no, she would go to Tearmann. He needed this too much to yield to the preferences of a damaged Lost One.

  “Good girl. There are five villages of our people spaced through the mountains. If you don’t like the first you can try one of the others, live in whichever one pleases you. It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”

  Without a word Sionna fumbled inside her pack. She took out a fresh tunic and trousers and left along the path to the river. Cú snaked between her legs, tall and broad enough now to test her balance.

  She pulled on her boots before she moved a single step from the fire.

  So much to happen in such a short time. Breag had built the fire with no thought but to make good time to Caislean. Now it burned bright but not yet hot and he was saved. The Lady had brought him a Lost One. He could go home.

  “So, we’re for Tearmann, are we, lad?” Tarbhal’s words slurred but his voice was strong.

  Breag moved to the guard’s side and watched him struggle to a sitting position. The relief he felt disturbed him. “You’ll live, then?”

  “So it seems.” Tarbhal explored the back of his head with careful fingers. “What did he hit me with, a rock?”

  “Could have been. I didn’t see.”

  “What’s all this about Tearmann?” No subtlety to the guard this time.

  “I’ve found my Lost One. No more need for
Caislean now I’ve got Sionna.”

  “Ah.” The exploring fingers stilled. “That I didn’t expect.”

  They sat in silence a moment while Tarbhal digested the implications. The only sound was an arrhythmic splash from the riverbank, the quork of the raven in the hawthorn tree and the occasional pop from the fire.

  “Are you ready to go back?”

  “Are you mad? I’ve been out for eight years. Of course I want to go home.”

  “It won’t be the same. You know that, don’t you?”

  Breag knew. So many nights he had wondered, as time and distance smoothed the jagged edges of memory, what change the years had brought to those he loved.

  Was Eithne wed now? Did she have young ones hanging from her skirts? Of course she did; eight years might as well have been a lifetime. Breag had known from the beginning that she was lost to him.

  He had waited by their tree that evening, not doubting for a moment that she would come. Had eventually traced her route, frightened that she had happened on a moulting péist or caught her foot in a twist of tanglevine.

  Even watching from the high hill as Odran called to her door, the jewel-scaled hide from his first-hunted nathair rolled at his feet, Breag had been sure of her. Not until his own eyes saw Eithne’s smile of welcome, not until he watched her draw Odran inside and shut the door did he understand.

  After that, what point was there in fighting the call of the Fiacal Knife?

  “You’re not the same either.” Tarbhal spoke the truth. Eight years.

  “I’ll gnaw that bone when it comes to me.”

  “And what happened with Proinsis. Will that matter?”

  Breag’s breath hissed inwards. Of course it would matter. He hadn’t thought.

  He had almost Fallen. He had been to the place where the wolf lived; he had known a true and beautiful thing.

  Abomination.

  What he had done was a betrayal of everything his people believed. A betrayal of himself, and them, and the trust they placed in him.