Master Wolf

by Rose Estes

As Mika watched, the old man looked in all directions and then gestured at the wagon with both hands. It seemed to Mika that the wagon and the air around it became hazy . . . fuzzy. Mika blinked, mistrusting his eyes and wondering if they were clogged with sleep.

  The view remained the same—blurry. It was as though the old man had placed a spell on the wagon.

  The old man began to unlace the tightly stretched hide that sealed the back of the wagon. Magic-user or no, Mika was not going to stand, well, lie idly by and watch someone else steal his priceless cargo.

  Mika grasped the single crystal bead that hung from a fine gold chain around his neck and quickly uttered the words to a simple globe of invulnerability spell.

  This spell, which he had taken special care to master, created a magical buffer around his body for five feet in all directions and protected him from all spells up to the fourth level of ability.

  It seemed unlikely that the old man’s abilities would exceed third-level spells.

  The magic buffer was also capable of repelling the stun spell that had frozen him like a statue back at the arroyo. He had a score or two to settle with the old man. Next time he’d be more careful whom he enchanted. Once the spell was in place, Mika stood up slowly and began inching toward the little man.

  Mika glanced down and saw that Tam was at his side, creeping forward on silent paws. A low, ominous rumbling sound that Mika felt more than heard uttered from Tam’s throat, but evidently the little man had exceptional hearing for he whirled around instantly.

  Seeing Mika and Tam, the old man permitted a smile to cross his wrinkled face. He took his hand from the back of the wagon and fumbled in a pouch hung from his waist. Then he began to mutter in a low voice and gesture in the air, pointing his skinny hand in their direction.

  Confident that his spell of invulnerability would protect him from anything the little man might do, Mika advanced swiftly, a nasty smile on his face.

  Suddenly, Tam leaped forward.

  The old man gestured sharply and snapped out one last guttural word. No sooner had he spoken than a huge wind rose up out of nowhere and slammed into them.

  Mika was shielded from the wind by his spell, but Tam had left the area of protection and the wind struck him full force, tumbling him head over tail through the air and smashing him to the ground some distance away.

  Mika only had time for a brief glance, ascertaining that Tam was not seriously hurt, before a number of brilliant balls of fire began streaming from the old man’s finger tips and arcing directly toward him.

  He cringed, throwing his arms up over his face and head, even as he told himself that the magic missiles were but a lowly first-level spell and could not harm him. But the missiles were impressive and even frightening. Had he not been shielded by his spell of invulnerability, they would have killed him easily.

  Mika had gone no farther since the old man had begun his attack; now, growing more confident, he took several steps forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Tam had gotten to his feet and was advancing again.

  The old man looked at Mika and smiled gently, then wiggled his fingers. A great bluish white light obliterated him from sight and headed straight for Mika.

  Mika barely had time to blink before the light exploded around him, striking the shield and bouncing off with a loud booming noise. Mika opened his eyes, temporarily blinded, and heard a shrill yipping, trailing away to whimpers. Tam! All of a sudden, Mika felt a strange tingling running up and down his back from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

  He stopped running and looked down, trying to remember where he was going and why. Nothing occurred to him. He looked around, puzzled, and saw Tam.

  Tam looked very strange. He was lying on his stomach with his head between his paws and his hind legs and tail stretched out behind him. His fur was standing up straight all over his body. He looked like a giant hedgehog. And he was stiff, unmoving. Mika stared at Tam, unable to think of what had happened to him. He looked very strange.

  His mind a whirl of foggy, confused images, Mika turned around and saw the old man smiling at him. Mika put his head to one side and stared at the old man. He looked familiar, but Mika couldn’t seem to remember who he was.

  There seemed to be a lot of noise. Mika turned his head and looked between the wagons toward camp. He could see lots of people stirring around and beginning to run toward him. He wondered what they were excited about. Vaguely, he wondered if he should be excited, too.

  The fuzzy feeling still gripped him, addling his brains and slowing his actions. He tried to loosen his knife from his belt, thinking he might need it for whatever it was that was happening.

  The old man gave him a penetrating look from small dark eyes that seemed to have no pupils, and the smile dropped from his face. He glanced at the nomads and drivers and then took a step forward, raised his hand and pointed his linger at Mika.

  Mika pulled back, knowing even in his confused state that something terrible was about to happen. He thought that maybe he should run, but couldn’t decide in what direction.

  As the old man began to chant, the first of the nomads appeared between the two wagons, swords raised and torches flooding the area with bright light. The instant the light touched him, the old man disappeared, simply faded out of existence as though he had never been!

  Mika raised his hand to his eyes slowly and rubbed them, wondering if he had imagined the whole thing. He looked again, but the old man was gone, leaving nothing to show that he had been there, other than the loosened flap of hide on the wagon.

  “Mika, what is it! Are you all right?” asked a nomad named Klaren.

  “Old man,” Mika said thickly, still wrapped in confusion. “There was an old man here. Uh, not here. There, trying, trying to get into . . . wagon.”

  “Where is he?” roared a large burly driver who wore a hostile scowl and waved a heavy cudgel above his head. “Must have been a bandit! Which way did he go?”

  “Who?” asked Mika, forgetting what they were talking about.

  “The bandit! The old man!” shouted the burly driver.

  “Oh, was he a bandit?” Mika asked in surprise.

  “I don’t know. I never saw him! Where is he?” yelled the driver, beginning to get angry at Mika.

  “Who?” asked Mika, totally bewildered and wondering why the man was yelling at him.

  “Where’s the old man?” said Klaren between gritted teeth.

  “Oh. Him. Well, he was right there,” said Mika pointing to the wagon. “He was a magic-user, I think.”

  The clamor of voices broke around him excitedly.

  “What would a magic-user want with a wagon train?” asked Cob, the driver of the secret wagon, now wide awake, his brow furrowed with suspicion as he stared at Mika.

  “I don’t mind bandits, but I don’t like magic,” said the other driver, lowering his club and looking around him carefully as though the magic-user might be secreted among them.

  “What’s all this nonsense about bandits and magic-users?” said the Guildsman as he pushed his way through the throng. He looked at Mika and said, “Is this some of your doing? I will not allow you to stir up the men.”

  “No nonsense,” mumbled Mika, fighting to shed the dazed feeling that shrouded his brain and tongue. “Old man came. Unlaced wagon. Tried to stop him. Threw a spell. Musta’ been a magic-user.”

  “An old man, hmmm,” said the Guildsman, sarcasm dripping from his tongue. “And can you explain just how you happened to be so conveniently nearby to foil his attempt?”

  “Uh . . .” Mika said stupidly, flogging his stricken brain to come up with something, anything that would make sense, but nothing occurred to him.

  “Uh . . .” he stammered futilely, trying to remember.

  “I suggest that you had a little too much to drink and decided to have a look inside the wagon yourself,” said the Guildsman. “Too bad you made so much noise and got caught.”

  After a shocked moment of s
urprise at the tone the Guildsman used, the drivers broke into hoots of laughter, drowning out any answer that Mika might have made, had he been able to think of one.

  “By the Great Wolf Mother, you do not speak to a Wolf Nomad thusly unless you wish to guide your own wagons across the plains,” roared Hornsbuck, pushing his way up to the Guildsman and spitting his words down into the man’s face from his great height. “Apologize!” he roared.

  “No offense,” the Guildsman said coolly, carefully stepping back several paces. “I merely wondered if our young captain might not have had a little too much to drink and decided to investigate the contents of the wagon. He made some noise and, fearing detection, invented this ridiculous story of an old man who appears and disappears at will. I simply suggest that yon nomad’s interest is far more likely than some mysterious magic-user who has most conveniently vanished.”

  “Mika?” growled Hornsbuck, looking at Mika for words of hot denial. But Mika could barely keep his eyes from crossing much less speak eloquently in his own defense.

  Hornsbuck looked at Mika with disgust, Mika’s very silence damning him in the older man’s eyes. Hornsbuck spat on the ground at Mika’s feet, then turned and shoved his way back through the crowd, flinging drivers from him like water off a dog’s back.

  Klaren gave Mika a shamed look, then followed Hornsbuck, trailing hoots of laughter from the drivers who were not unhappy to see the haughty nomads revealed to be no less human than themselves.

  “Wait!” muttered Mika, but nobody paid him any attention.

  “Tryin’ to steal a little somethin’ extry fer ‘imself, ‘e were,” guffawed a rough-looking driver with only one eye. “I alius said them stuck-up sons of a she-wolf weren’t nothin’ special.”

  “Wonder if he found anything?” commented another, peering at Mika to see if there were any suspicious lumps concealed on his body.

  Finally, Mika was left alone. Sinking to the ground, he cradled his aching head on his arms and tried to put his dazed thoughts in order, but it was impossible. As soon as he focused on one thought, it splintered into hundreds of others trailing confusion in their wake.

  Mika sat there for a long time. At last, just as the moon was about to slip below the horizon, the fog lifted from his mind. He stood up shakily and saw the Guildsman leaning against the side of the wagon, arms folded across his chest, watching him.

  “You know I did not take anything from the wagon,” he said, his anger building rapidly.

  “There was an old man, a magic-user, and he put a spell on the wagon, I saw him do it. And I’ve seen him before. It was at the River Fler. He put a spell on me there that paralyzed me. He tried to kill me this time and would have succeeded had I not protected myself with a spell of my own.

  “I can prove I’m telling the truth. Call the driver. The magic-user’s spell seemed to affect him, too. Get Cob up here, if he can move. Let’s see who’s telling the truth!”

  “That’s not necessary,” said the Guildsman, with a wave of his hand. “I’ve no doubt that you’re telling the truth.”

  “Then why did you make me out a liar and a fool?” Mika hissed angrily.

  “Because it would do me no good at all to have my men looking over their shoulders for the remainder of the trip, soiling their pants at every shadow,” the Guildsman said harshly.

  “Protecting us is your job, Master Wolf. Whether against bandits or magic-users. So do it! That is what we hired you for, to protect us. Or have you forgotten that? And how do I know that this magic-user is not after you instead of the wagon? After all, you are the only one who’s seen him and the only one he’s hurt.

  “It seems entirely probable that you have irritated someone enough that they hired this magic-user and instructed him to turn you into a rock. I wish him better luck next time.

  “I urge you to count your enemies and try not to cause any more trouble between here and Eru-Tovar or I shall keep my promise to speak to the Guild!” Fixing Mika with one last cold gaze, the Guildsman turned on his heel and stalked away.

  Mika was shaking with fury, and he held his tongue with difficulty, wondering for the first time if it were possible that he himself was the target. Perhaps the wife of the baker back in Yecha had followed through with her tearful threats to tell her husband . . . No . . . he had kissed her and she had quite forgotten her complaints. Of that he was certain.

  Mentally turning over a list of all who had grievances against him, Mika trudged slowly back to his own bedroll.

  “Come, Tam,” he called half-heartedly, noticing for the first time that the wolf was not at his side. But Tam did not appear.

  Memory flooded back, and Mika remembered with a rush, the whirlwind sequence of events of his encounter with the magic-user.

  The gust of wind had struck Tam in mid-air, while he was outside of Mika’s aura of protection. It had tumbled him head over tail out of the direct area of confrontation. Yet Mika had heard him cry out, as the lightning bolt struck.

  Mika was overcome with fear, and his heart began to pound as he looked around him, searching for the wolf. It was dark, yet Mika persisted and found the wolf at last.

  Tam was still lying down, his muzzle on his paws and his hind legs and tail stretched out behind him. And he still looked like an enormous, very long, hedgehog.

  “Tam!” Mika cried in alarm, rushing to the wolf’s side. He placed a trembling hand on Tam’s ribs and felt the great heart beating, albeit erratically, against his palm. Mika was weak with relief. Tam was alive, but stiff as a board.

  Stroking Tam, trying to smooth the bristling fur down, Mika talked to the great wolf, knowing from his own experience that the wolf could probably hear him.

  “You were far enough away from the lightning that it didn’t kill you. Probably just gave you one hell of a good, stiff jolt. Stiff enough to stand your fur on end. Then he must have tossed in a stun spell for good measure. My spell of invulnerability protected me, but you, my poor TamTur, were too far away, so you caught that one, too. And you were probably as confused as I was.

  “Don’t worry, Tam. I’m here now.”

  Muttering soothing comments, Mika tipped the wolf gently over onto his side, slipped an arm under and around his body, and then lifted him off the ground.

  Tam was nearly as tall as Mika from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, and he was now as hard as a rock and equally as heavy. He was hard to hold on to, and he kept slipping out of Mika’s arms. Once he fell to the ground and lay there on his back until Mika was able to heave him onto his shoulder and balance him there, teetering, with one hand on the stiffened tip of his tail, the animal’s snout sticking out on the opposite side. He carried him like a furry log for the fire.

  Mika had almost reached his own campfire when he startled a sleepy driver relieving himself in the shadow of his wagon. The trickle faltered and then stopped completely as the man stared at him with eyes and mouth agape.

  Mika glared at him, daring the driver to speak as he strode past. “What’s the matter?” he snarled. “Haven’t you ever seen anyone walking a wolf before?”

  Chapter 8

  FALLING INTO A DEEP SLEEP after tucking his cloak around the stricken wolf, Mika had wakened to chaos and Hornsbuck’s rough hand on his shoulder.

  “Wake up! Mischiefs afoot,” he said gruffly.

  Mika leaped to his feet, sword in his hand, ready for anything from bandits to kobolds. But all he saw was sand.

  He blinked his eyes, hoping, wondering if it were some lingering affect of the spell. But when he opened his eyes the view was the same.

  The pool of water was gone, as was the lush carpet of grass. In their place was a barren hill sprinkled with a thin covering of grease bushes and rocks. The men were staring about them with wide, frightened eyes, swords drawn uselessly against an unseen enemy.

  “Magic. Illusion,” Mika said. Thirst already clawed at his throat even though he had drunk his fill of the sweet water only a few short hours before.
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br />   “Oh, no,” he groaned as a thought hit him and he ran to the nearest pile of harnesses and packs and stared in dismay at the withered and empty waterskins.

  “Gone. All gone,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, remembering that it was by his order that the men had emptied the skins and filled them with water from the illusionary pool. It was some kind of magic delaying tactic, nothing more, he told himself. Or was it the prelude to something worse? Who was putting obstacles in their path?

  The sun was rising fast over the edge of the horizon and already the mules were bawling for their morning drink. The horses, while quieter, were restless and shaking their heads from side to side.

  The drivers huddled together, muttering in low tones and casting black glances at Mika.

  The nomads were breaking camp and saddling their horses. Their years of training and self-discipline enabled them to exhibit a calm front, but Mika knew that they were surely filled with the same feelings of fear and uncertainty.

  “We must turn back to the forest,” Mika decided, drawing Hornsbuck to the far edge of the wagons. “No matter what the Guildsman says, we cannot continue without water. Even he will be forced to agree.”

  “I do agree,” said the Guildsman, popping up at Mika’s back. “But look yonder—storm clouds, coming this way fast. I warrant they will be here no later than midday. I say that we continue on. We should be able to fill our waterskins with ease, and the rain will bring on the grass. The horses and mules will feed well, and we will make good time.”

  “What do you think, Hornsbuck?” asked Mika, unwilling to do the man’s bidding.

  “He’s right,” growled Hornsbuck as he stroked his beard and squinted at the rapidly approaching front. “Black, heavy. Full of rain, no doubt. Be hell to pay if they catch us in the open. Never get back to the forest before they hit. Lose time. Might as well stay here.”

  Mika was forced to agree. Though he was anxious to have the trip over and done with, it made no sense to get caught up in a foul storm. So they saddled the horses, loaded the pack animals, and led the mules to harness, working quickly against the advance of the ominous curtain of billowing black clouds that stretched across the entire northern horizon.