King of Wolves

by B. Kristin McMichael

  Micco sounded serious, but what he was saying was impossible. The forest was large enough to support his wolves and the two smaller villages north of it. There was no way they could kill everything. I’d have sensed that on my runs. The forest still had enough animals. Maybe the sickness was more of the brain and not the moon, as Micco suggested.

  “You don’t believe me,” Micco said as he watched me in the dim light of his hut. All the shutters were closed, and there were only a few candles burning. The drink of water seemed to bring a little more life back into him.

  “Wolves don’t get sick,” I told him back, not agreeing or disagreeing with his statement. I didn’t want to have to deal with a mad alpha wolf if I called him a liar.

  “I wouldn’t believe me either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Micco replied. “Just over ten moons ago, I followed one of the men that had been complaining since the beginning. I figured I could find the truth, but it wasn’t what I thought I’d find. He changed and then hunted. I had to change into my own wolf and could barely keep up with him. His wolf was stronger and faster than he ever was before. He killed and ate any prey he could find. You’d expect after a night like that he’d wake up at home, satisfied, but he wasn’t. He was actually sicker than when he left his house. I had to carry him back. He’s been in bed ever since, but each night he feels the moon and changes again. It’s killing him.”

  Micco was so sure of his words, and I wanted to believe him, but it still seemed impossible. Wolves couldn’t catch a cold or get a sickness. Part of the wolf gene was the ability to change, but the other part, their human side, was beyond healthy.

  “I’ve been working day and night to help the infected men. I don’t know how or why they’ve gotten sick, but they can’t function as a human now. They are bedridden, and their homes are falling into disrepair.” That explained the sweating, at least. “I’d ask if you could stay to help, but I have no idea how everyone got sick. I wouldn’t ask for you to stay around when they could possibly get you sick or worse when night comes. They are hungry enough; you smell too human. You could be viewed as friend or prey.”

  There hadn’t been a wolf attack on a human in over eighteen winters, but I didn’t want to be the first. I actually wasn’t afraid of the wolves as most. I didn’t fear being bitten or even killed. Red had trained me in all forms of hunting, combat, and fighting. She didn’t go light on me, and I knew I was strong enough to withstand a wolf attack. What I feared was having to kill one of them. The wolves didn’t trust me just like the tree people, but something about them or the way they lived felt like home to me. If I killed a wolf, I’d never be allowed to come back again.

  After mopping his brow for about the dozenth time, Micco finally stood.

  “What brought you this way?”

  I had completely forgotten about that.

  “Red asked me to come and invite the wolves to a festival she’s having in Azren in five moons time,” I explained.

  “A festival? Right now?”

  “She wants more cooperation between the tree people and wolves. You know. Her normal stuff.”

  I didn’t need to explain more to Micco. He knew my mother very well and knew that it was her quest to unite the two sides of Elder. She had lectured the older wolf many times before in my presence, and I doubt she stopped when I left the room. She was quite persistent.

  “And she’ll be disappointed if I don’t send anyone?” Micco guessed. I thought the same thing. “I’ll have to think about this. Right now, the women and children don’t seem to be affected, but I can’t send people off if I think they might have a sickness they can spread. I’ll wait until closer to the festival to decide what to do. Right now, I have to find a solution for the wolves. I have to protect those that are still healthy. I can’t afford for anyone else to get sick, or we could become a problem.”

  “Have you asked Red for help?”

  Micco looked sheepishly across the room to the door and shook his head. There was a faint scratching noise.

  “I didn’t want to bother her,” Micco admitted. “She’s so busy, and I thought it was just men being lazy wolves. I didn’t know it would get worse. Now it’s so bad I can’t leave my people alone.”

  Micco opened the door, and Nikkan came into the room still in his wolf form.

  “Your father okay?” I asked him. The golden wolf nodded. Nikkan turned his head to Micco and nodded to him too. I looked at the old man that was wearing himself thin, trying to keep people safe from something that could all be in their heads.

  “You don’t think I’m telling the truth, but see for yourself. I’m not making this up,” Micco said as he reached down to grab a bag before walking to the open doorway and out into the village.

  I followed behind as he made his way through the closest huts. They were all mostly in working condition, but as we moved further away from Micco’s hut, they were a bit more in disrepair. We finally stopped at a shelter that was on the very edge of the village. Large pieces of the roof were missing, and some of the mud for the walls had crumbled enough that there was candlelight shining through it.

  “Stay out here, Nikkan,” Micco ordered the wolf.

  Nikkan sat down to wait.

  “Nathan?” Micco called as he knocked on the door. He opened it up, and I stayed outside as the stench blew past me. Fresh air was defiantly needed inside that place.

  “Micco?” a small voice rasped. “I told you to stay away.”

  There wasn’t much force behind the voice, and I could see why. A man lay on what must have at one time been a bed. His eyes were sunk into his face like he hadn’t eaten in a moon cycle, and his hair was in clumps. A threadbare blanket covered part of him, but he still shivered at the open door.

  “What will the village do if you get sick?” the man whispered, not opening his eyes as he talked.

  “As they always do, friend, choose a new leader,” Micco replied kindly. He sat the bag down that he brought from his house. Carefully he opened the bag to pull out a small loaf of bread. Micco broke it in half and handed both halves to the sick man.

  “You don’t need to bring me that,” Nathan told Micco. “This would be over a lot quicker if you’d just let me die.”

  “Not today, old friend. Not today.” Micco pushed the man’s hands to his mouth. The withered old man, Nathan, took a small bite.

  “What brings you here today?”

  “I brought a friend,” Micco explained, and the man turned to face me. I realized that I’d thought his eyes were closed, but he was actually squinting to see me. A wolf squinting was a new one. Wolves had perfect vision in wolf or human form. “Can you tell him about your night?”

  Nathan nodded as he swallowed his meager bite of bread.

  “Last night was the same as the night before and the night before that. It has been over a moon cycle of the same thing. My only reprieve was the night the moon was gone. I’d give anything to have more black nights like that one.” The man nibbled on the bread again. He took his time chewing before he swallowed again. “I can feel the change coming, but I can’t stop it. The moon calls to me too strongly. The first few times, I was able to fight it, but not now. I change at its call, and I lose me. In the morning, I wake with blood on me but no idea where it’s from or what I killed. My wolf has complete control. And then, I’m weak. My human body is shutting down. The only thing keeping me alive is Micco.”

  “Get some rest, old friend,” Micco said as he ushered me out of the hut. “As you can see, we aren’t pretending about this. I thought he was and regret not helping him sooner. Something is going on with the wolves, and I think we need help.”

  I nodded.

  “You need to talk to Red for us,” Micco continued. “I can’t keep patrolling the border at night time. I have to find a permanent solution for keeping the rest of the wolves safe. When these wolves run out food, I fear they might attack the humans next, whether is it a wolf or a tree human.”

  I still didn�
��t understand what it meant, but the wolves were sick. Micco needed help, and Red needed to know what was going on. As much as I didn’t want to, I needed to head back to the tree village that hadn’t wanted me there since I was a kid. It was time to head home.

  28th February

  I headed into Azren on my own. The run would take most of the morning. It was strange to run through the woods without my wolf companion, but Nikkan hated the tree villages. They looked at me as an outsider and suspicious, but him, he was the enemy. He promised to be at my place when I returned, which probably meant he was going to be off causing trouble. I hated being in debt to Red as she paid off the farmers that Nikkan upset, but there wasn’t much I could do. The wolf wanted to hunt, and unless I was there to stop him, he would be out hunting anything he could find.

  The tree villages of Elder were a sight to behold. While we didn’t trade with neighboring kingdoms and did everything on our own, but that didn’t mean we were backward, as many travelers had told us they thought we would be. They pictured a rustic uncivilized place with no cities or technology. We had technology, just not the same as other places. Our technology involved pulling people into trees, getting running water into a village many oak saplings off the ground, and heating a place made entirely out of wood. Trust me, the people of Elder knew how to create.

  The ingenuity of the tree people of Elder amazed me as a kid, and it still did. Until Red broke the curse eighteen winters ago, most people in the woods lived where the wolves couldn’t get them up in the trees, rarely if ever setting foot on the ground. It sounded impossible to believe, but whole generations had grown up without once touching the ground. People would be assigned to do the running to the farms in the southern half of the kingdom, but only those people ever came down. The rest of them stayed where no wolves could eat or infect them.

  Elder tree people had built whole cities in the trees. Their wooden homes ranged from mostly two to four levels, which connected to the homes and trees around them. Bridges connected trees and homes, and platforms were common meeting places between dwellings. With an abundance of wood, there was plenty to build with. Every house had an emergency escape route, but to go up and into the city, you had to go to specific points of entry. Until Red defeated the curse, the ways up and down were guarded, but now the guard points weren’t manned. People were free to come and go as they pleased, which meant the tree village of Azren prospered all the more.

  Most tree people of Elder chose to remain in the trees even without the threat of wolves. They found comfort in the trees, and it was all they really needed. Red had a tree residence, and her office was in the trees, but she also had a small home on the ground. The cottage she owned was within sight of the tree city, strategically placed there eighteen winters ago. She wanted them to see her live freely on the ground, unafraid of the world in the woods. While some people were encouraged to join her, most people did not. Change was hard.

  As I drew closer to the magnificent sight of hundreds of homes in trees all strung together, I heard the clack of wooden staffs hitting against each other. I slowed my pace.

  “Again,” Red growled. I didn’t need to see her to know what she was up to. That sound was one from my childhood, including the clacking noise and the grumpy Red.

  The clacking started again. One, two, three, and a thump. A pause and then, it repeated. One, two, three, and a thump.

  “Again,” Red said the same thing. Whoever was with her was holding their own if it took Red three tries to get them off their feet. “Castiel could take more hits than that before his twelfth winter.”

  She was using me as motivation. How nice. With her super senses, I was more than sure she knew I was close enough to hear her.

  Clack one, clack two, clack three, clack four, and an oomph this time.

  Whoever she was training, they must be learning. Red was a hard teacher, but not impossible. She expected you to try your best and nothing less. I remember those days, not always fondly, but at the same time, I have to give her credit. I never once feared living on my own in the woods, and that had to be in part due to her. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.

  I stepped out into the clearing in front of Red’s house. This was going to be convenient. I thought I’d have to go up to her office in the trees and hunt her down, but she was waiting for me on the ground.

  “Did you want to join in?” Red asked me, though her back was to me.

  Nothing got past Red. That was part of the problem when being raised with her. Children needed to explore and make mistakes. They also needed freedom to do things without their parents knowing every last little detail. I never had that. Even if it wasn’t a villager tattling on me, somehow she always knew. Red had a sixth sense I’d never understand.

  “Not today,” I replied as Red offered the girl on the ground a hand to stand back up. The girl shook her chin-length dark hair.

  “Go clean up. I’ll meet you back at my office to go over the charts on the new land divisions,” Red told the girl. She didn’t look at me as she turned and went inside the cottage where she lived with Red.

  I knew who that girl was and that she was holding her own pretty well against Red. I was the only person that could spar evenly with Red. Just another reason the tree people were scared of me.

  “I see Sera is getting strong enough to take a couple blows,” I told Red as she took both staffs and leaned them against her cottage. She didn’t need to go clean up. I doubt she broke a sweat. Red turned and left the open space in front of her cottage to head toward the trees.

  Red didn’t reply or look back to see if I was following her. I was, of course, but she already knew that. She was walking toward the trees and her office. I walked up behind her as she tugged on the rope to get the platform down that would take us up to her office. Once we both stood on it, she gave a second tug, and the whole thing rose quite quickly. As I was used to it, I didn’t wobble, but I had seen more than one newcomer fall off the lifts. It was better for them to use a ladder or the new stairs that had been installed this past summer, but that was too slow for Red.

  We walked over the dozen walkways that led to her office. I followed her in silence and did my best to ignore the looks I received from the tree-dwellers we passed. Of course, they all nodded and raised a hand of respect to my mother, but when their eyes fell on me, they barely hid their looks of disgust. I tried to get over it as a kid, but I was more than happy I had moved out several winters ago. Beyond never feeling the dirt on your feet, the tree-dwellers had a bad attitude if you asked me. The city was amazing. The people, not so much.

  Red opened the door to her office and finally turned around to motion me inside. I walked over and took the seat across from hers at the large desk she used for everything, and I mean everything. The wooden desk was longer than she was tall and filled with piles of paper and objects she was working on, collecting, or needed to oversee. There was a piece of wood carved to look like a horse. Even more wooden pieces dotted her desk, holding down papers. Red always kept busy.

  “I take it you went to Micco and invited the wolves?”

  She knew I’d never show my face so soon in Azren if I hadn’t.

  “Micco asked me to ask you for help,” I started.

  “Help? What in the world would he need help with?” Red replied, interrupting me.

  It was better to start at the beginning. “The wolves are sick. Micco thought it was just some wolves drinking and forgetting when they turned, but it isn’t. They are withering away in their human form, but their wolves are eating everything they can find. The wolves who aren’t sick are finding it hard to find enough food. He doesn’t know why they are sick, but they need help. Micco and I can’t protect the safe zone between the wolves and the tree people on our own. He needs help figuring out how to get them better, and even more, he needs help keeping them from doing something that will start the wars all over again.”

  Red placed her fingers together and tapped them on her lips as
she stared at me. Her eyes assessed me before she spoke again.

  “Wolves can’t get sick. It’s part of the whole transformation thing. Their human bodies are close to invincible.”

  I had heard that growing up also, but I had seen it with my own eyes. That friend of Micco’s wasn’t faking it. He was wasting away.

  “They are sick. I’ve seen it.” I tried to plead with her but knew it was impossible. I didn’t believe it when Micco told me, and I was in the wolf village with him. How was I supposed to convince her?

  “The only time the wolves ever got sick was when the curse hit them. And I took care of that. The curse is gone. I broke it,” Red replied. “I saw Micco a moon cycle ago. He was fine, and the village was fine. I don’t know what you’re playing at now, but I assure you, the curse is gone, and the wolves are fine. I bet Nikkan put them up to it. This is probably his way to get back at you.”

  While Nikkan did like to play jokes on me, I knew this one wasn’t a joke. The wolves needed help. They needed Red’s help.

  “Micco asked me to ask you for help. Does that sound like a joke? I saw that they are sick, but it is him that is asking.” She had to believe that.

  “Micco has a soft spot for Nikkan.”

  That he did, but this wasn’t Micco helping with a joke. Nikkan had always been a wild spirit and drove most people nuts, but Micco let him get away with it as a child growing up. In fact, most of the time, Micco was laughing along with Nikkan. If Nikkan didn’t have a father that looked just like him, one might have thought Micco was his dad.

  “This isn’t a prank. I promise you that much.”

  Red still wasn’t convinced.

  “Go check it out,” I begged. “See for yourself.” If she saw it, she would be convinced. I was sure of that.

  “I don’t have time to run off to the wolf village. Not right now. I have Sera to train and a festival to plan. I’m a busy person. I can’t go around checking on people playing jokes on others.”