The Mad Wolf's Daughter

by Diane Magras

  She faltered. “Because—because we’re on a journey.”

  Emerick raised a finger. “No, it’s because I need you. And you need me. And that’s all we must remember.”

  Drest dipped her cupped hands into the icy water. Flecks of bark and dirt floated between her fingers, but she drank fully.

  “It’s clean water,” she said, scooping a fresh cup. Tensing her fingers to leave as few gaps as possible, she carried it dripping to where the young knight sat.

  He leaned toward her, but stopped with a jerk. “God’s bones. I think my rib wound has opened.”

  “Have a drink before it all drips out and then I’ll fix you.”

  Drest knelt beside him and put her cupped hands to his mouth.

  Emerick gulped the water, then a second cup that Drest carried, then a third. When he had finished, she joined him on the ground to rest.

  He looked up into the trees. “I have never slept where I could see the sky. Even on battlefields, I had a tent.”

  All at once, Drest remembered: She had but four days.

  “I miss the castle,” Emerick was saying, “even though these woods are much less smelly.”

  “Is your castle prison smelly?”

  The knight looked at her. “Most prisons reek. Ours smells better than the rest of the castle; that’s a small courtesy we pay our prisoners.”

  “How are they keeping my family?” Drest asked in a small voice.

  “On iron rings fixed to the wall, of course.” He added quickly, “Don’t think your family will escape; no one has broken free from that prison, and no one who has tried has lived. I shan’t tell you more; you’d have nightmares.”

  Drest shuddered. “Do you think your Lord Faintree would trade my da for you?”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “What about this Sir Oswyn? Would he?”

  “Never.”

  “He’ll give me just one of my brothers, then? Will I really be able to choose which one?”

  Emerick sighed. “I can’t promise anything but the trade alone. If this lands on Oswyn’s miserable head, I don’t think you’ll have even one of your brothers, but that will be the least of our problems.”

  “It sounds like you wouldn’t mind something else landing on Oswyn’s head. Like a boulder.”

  A pained laugh escaped through Emerick’s lips. “For a bloodthirsty villain, you have a certain charm. Would you help me with my rib wound now?”

  Drest peeled the sodden dressing from each of Emerick’s wounds and washed her ripped-off tunic sleeves in the stream. She was feeling better already with the water in her belly. If they could walk quickly, they might be able to reach the castle soon. Her brothers could master any trap and her father knew a castle’s ways. With luck, she’d arrive at the prison and find them all waiting at the door.

  “Are you cold?” asked Emerick. “I am. Perhaps you could start a fire.”

  Tiny bumps had risen on Drest’s bare arms, but she shook her head. “Nay, we can’t. It’s not safe with the bandit still about. We’ve got to find our way out of the woods to be free of him—and to reach your castle in time.”

  “Oh, you’ll reach it in four days. Regardless, they won’t have a public execution without me.” But the wounded man’s face clouded. “At least they shouldn’t.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It was well past midday when they emerged from the woods upon a massive dirt path that extended in both directions.

  “Here’s the road,” Emerick said. He’d been quiet all that time and his voice was faded. “It shall lead to the castle, but it shall first lead to a village from whose good people we might beg a bite to eat.”

  “We can’t,” Drest said. “We don’t have time. Do you see where the sun is?”

  Emerick stopped and lifted his arm from her shoulder. “I do, but I also feel the state of my own strength. I haven’t eaten, Drest, in days.”

  Drest walked a few more paces. The wounded man didn’t move.

  Emerick’s silence increased Drest’s anger as tinder to a fire.

  She swung around and glared. “I wonder how old you are.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Have you lived for eleven years? Maybe twelve like me?”

  Emerick frowned. “I have seen my sixteenth year pass and during it I held more honors than you shall ever know in your lifetime.”

  “Are you that old? It’s funny, see, because Gobin’s that old, and he’s different.”

  “A knave rather than a knight, you mean?”

  Drest waited for her new spurt of fury to settle. “Nay, my brother is a man who can bide his time. You won’t hear him begging for food after a day when there’s no food about. I suppose that comes natural to castle folk—weakness, I mean. That’s what my da says.”

  “Your da can say that all he likes, but he’ll soon find himself at the wrong end of a rope with the rest of his brood, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  A bolt of fear shot through Drest. “You never meant to give me a trade,” she managed to get out, her face hot.

  Emerick said nothing.

  “It was just a trick.” Drest stood still. “Very well: You’re out of the water and out of the woods. I’ll let you go on your own now.”

  She turned and broke into a run.

  “Wait! You need me to find the castle!”

  “Nay, not anymore,” she called over her shoulder. “I know this road leads to it, as you just said. And I’ve four days to find it.”

  “But the trade? It wasn’t a trick; I don’t mean to refuse you that.”

  Drest stopped and faced him again, from a distance. “You just said that my father and brothers will hang and there’s nothing I can do about it. So I don’t need you. And I don’t want to talk to you.” She turned back to the road.

  “Drest? I take that back. I’ll do what I can to ensure the trade, as you wish. I’m sorry. Truly. I spoke in anger.”

  She walked on, swinging her arms.

  “Drest? Please come back.”

  She shook her head.

  “If you go, I shall die.”

  Every impulse told her to take to her heels and leave him to crumple in the road.

  But something stopped her.

  The memory of his weight on her shoulder in the ravine.

  And his face sinking under the water, stark with fear.

  And his helpless form twisted in pain by the fire.

  Once, Drest and Uwen had decided to battle the sea together. They had stood chest-deep in the stormy water, pounded by the swells, unmoving until a huge wave had knocked them both down. In the roiling water, they had torn each other from the sea’s grasp, and staggered together back to shore. Drest had never been so glad not to be alone.

  And that was how Emerick felt. She was sure of it.

  Drest walked back to the wounded man and took his arm over her shoulder.

  10

  THE FIGURE IN THE FIELD

  The road was easier to walk upon than the forest floor, and they moved swiftly. Soon the sun had lowered behind the trees. It was blinding Drest on a long stretch when another unfamiliar sight lay ahead just off the road: a meadow covered by empty strips of soil.

  “What’s happened to that patch of land?” Drest said. “Was there a fire?”

  “Have you never seen a field before?” Emerick had leaned on her more in the past few hours and straightened as they paused. “Farmers grow their crops in fields to feed themselves and their lord. But I don’t suppose you’d know about farmers and their crops, what with the living flesh your family eats.”

  Drest stared. The wounded man had a very faint smile on his lips.

  “Aye,” Drest managed to get out in her old insolent tone, “that explains how knights are so weak and m
y family is so strong. It’s the biting off live squirrels’ heads that does it.”

  Emerick lifted his arm to stretch. The removal of his weight made Drest stumble. As she rubbed her shoulder, a shrill, hoarse caw drew her glance back to the field. Something was moving there.

  A human shout—a boy’s—drew Drest’s attention closer. She drifted halfway down the rutted path.

  A crow was hovering over a dark mound on the soil. There were six boys circling the mound, their arms raised. At first Drest thought they were holding swords, but then she recognized their weapons as sticks. Except one that was shiny at its point.

  “Village boys having their fun,” Emerick said, disgust in his voice. “No doubt they’re hunting crows.”

  Drest couldn’t take her eyes off the field and the boys. And the shape on the soil. She could just make it out. It was a figure swathed in a black hood. “That’s a person on the ground.”

  Emerick stared. “God’s bones, you’re right. What are they doing to him? It looks—are they trying to stab him?”

  It could be a maiden helpless on that field, said Thorkill’s voice, thick with urgency. Drest, lass, you must do something. Ask your friend to help.

  Drest raced to Emerick’s side. “What if we went in together? I’ve my sword and you—we can find you a stick.”

  The young knight shook his head. “I can’t do much with a stick, not in this condition.”

  “Then I’ll give you my sword and I’ll take the stick and—”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t fight when I’m this injured, not even against village boys.”

  Drest cast a frantic look at the field. “Nay, but Emerick—”

  “Drest, it’s by the barest luck that I am standing now without your help.” He sighed. “Let’s go. I don’t want to watch.”

  A shudder passed through Drest. “It’s a person, Emerick. Trapped in a hood. My brothers say people get hooded only before they’re executed so they can’t see what’s about to happen.” Borawyn pressed against her leg.

  Emerick took a deep breath. “There are six boys with spears, and one of those weapons is real. I can barely move, and you carry a massive sword you can’t possibly expect to hold upright. Yes, someone must help, but we are not—Drest?”

  She had started running before he could finish. By the time she reached the field, she had drawn her brother’s sword.

  11

  VILLAGE BOYS

  Drest sprinted across the field, the soil crumbling like ash beneath her boots. Ahead of her, the boys swung at the diving crow, while the figure on the ground lay motionless.

  The boy with the real spear noticed Drest first. He shouted to his friends, pointing his weapon at her. The other boys stabbed one last time at the bird, then stepped back, uncertain of this advancing sword-wielding apparition.

  The boys were not as young up close as they had seemed in the distance. Smaller than her brothers, and thin, but all were Drest’s size or bigger.

  Drest dashed past the retreating crow, her sword lowered, and knelt by the hooded figure on the ground. It was a boy, bound by ropes on his wrists and ankles.

  “Don’t worry,” said Drest. “I’ve come to save you.”

  Then she stood as Gobin had taught her, her sword arm crooked at the level of her stomach, the blade steady and angled out, and rushed at the boys.

  They shouted and scattered. But within an instant it became clear that they had sized up the situation and decided that six against one gave them an advantage. Drest saw the calculation in their eyes.

  You know what they’re doing, don’t you? Gobin’s voice. Pretending to be calm. You can do it just as well. Your confidence, lass, will unnerve the enemy. So give them your most menacing grin.

  The boys were arranging themselves in a wide circle around her. It was like the old wolf-hunting technique the twins had once described. She tried to grin as if Wulfric were standing with her, his glare passing over each boy like a spreading fire, but her face remained rigid.

  The boy with the metal-tipped spear, a dirty lad her own size with blond hair even stringier than Emerick’s, hissed something, and the boys raised their weapons.

  You don’t feel like grinning? said Gobin. Very well. Let’s strike the boy with the real spear first. Feint to one side, as if you’re going at a smaller boy, then launch at him, sword low. Hold it steady, Drest, and you can complete a circle-lift.

  Gobin’s voice spoke as if they were on the headland and he was guiding her sword in practice. She could almost feel his warm hands over her own.

  Now!

  Drest swung her sword with a low arc at the boy closest to her. He stumbled out of her way, and her uninterrupted motion lifted Borawyn’s weight into the circle that started the move. She knew the technique, had practiced it so often that she needed only to guide and follow the mighty blade. As Borawyn rose, it splintered the leader’s spear just a finger’s length from his hand.

  Now shove him, said Uwen.

  Drest drove her elbow into the boy’s chest and sent him sprawling to a heap on the ground.

  The boy gasped, struggled, and then cried in a strangled voice, “Attack!”

  A tongue of fear curled down Drest’s neck.

  Didn’t that frighten him? murmured Gobin. It usually frightens villagers.

  The boys fell upon her.

  Drest swung madly. She chopped spear after spear, but the boys still attacked, using the sharp pieces. Drest’s motions turned desperate and clumsy. A broken spear scraped the side of her head. Another poked her back and ripped her tunic.

  “Are you a girl?”

  The stringy-haired boy broke into the knot of boys surrounding her.

  Drest’s stroke was weak; they were far too close to fight with a sword. The boy ducked, and then was beside her.

  “That’s a girl. A girl’s come to fight with us. Grab her!”

  Before Drest could move, they had pinned her arms to her body with practiced tight grips like Uwen’s.

  Panic seized Drest.

  What are you doing? Uwen’s voice whined. Why aren’t you even trying?

  She struggled, but couldn’t lift her sword.

  Frighten them. Gobin’s voice. Conserve your power and lash out like a snake. Blast it, Drest, why did you not give them a menacing grin?

  A sinking, bitter fear washed over her. She had been foolish to think she could fight without one of her brothers by her side. She had failed. She would die for it, and the boy who was trembling on the furrows would die as well.

  And her family. In four days.

  You can’t give up, lass. Nutkin’s voice rang in her mind. Remember Da’s code: Accept no defeat and always fight!

  The boys were trying to force her to her knees. Drest tensed her legs, wincing at their kicks.

  Why aren’t you kicking back? cried Uwen. Have you become weak and feeble like every other lass?

  A kick struck her knee, and Drest couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her lips.

  The stringy-haired boy smiled.

  That’s not the sound to make, lass. Cry out like a wolf instead. Wulfric’s deep voice. A battle cry to send their blood running. Reach deep down inside yourself and roar.

  A memory flashed to her mind: her eldest brother standing beside her at the headland’s lookout point, showing her how to breathe, how to bellow, how to terrify an enemy by sound alone.

  Drest closed her eyes and drew all her breath into her chest, then into her stomach, and then, with Wulfric’s voice still in her ears, let it out in a deep, wordless roar, a voice that hardly sounded like her own.

  The boys started. Three grips loosened just barely.

  Enough for Drest to free her sword arm.

  Lash out now, like a snake, hissed Gobin.

  She dug one heel into the soil and tore herself away, giving
herself enough distance to raise her sword, then swung around with Borawyn outstretched and steady.

  One boy screamed, cradling his arm.

  Another stumbled back, clutching his face.

  The boys who were closest and might have grabbed her sword arm fell away, shrieking.

  Drest put both hands over each other on Borawyn’s grip. Hardly breathing, she began a full sweep. The blade sang as it flew, slicing through the air, gaining speed.

  All the boys fell back, all but the stringy-haired leader, who was frozen, his stunned eyes locked upon the blade that was even with his throat.

  Drest ducked and tried to change the sword’s direction, but she lost her balance. The ground seemed to rise up around her.

  Borawyn caught.

  The stringy-haired boy cried out, then fell on his face in the soil.

  The other boys were running, some hobbling, but most in full sprints. Soon they had disappeared past the trees at the edge of the field, leaving Drest alone with the fallen boy and the hooded boy, both of whom were still.

  12

  THE LAD OF PHEARSHAM RIDGE

  A shiver shot through Drest, then a wash of cold, then the sense that she would faint. She crumpled to her knees, breathing hard, feeling only the warm soil through her hose and the biting wind on her bare arms.

  It had been too quick. She hadn’t been ready. She hadn’t known what it would be like to slay another person.

  Nay, but you had to; it’s what we must do in battle. Nutkin’s voice was gentle.

  Breathe, my lass. Wulfric’s voice.

  Come on, Drest, get up. What are you doing on the soil? Are you napping or just a coward? Uwen snickered.

  Shut it, snarled Gobin. Drest, lass, you’ll be all right. Take a good long breath.

  Of course she’ll be all right, said Thorkill soothingly. Breathe in, then out, then go see about that lad you saved.

  The bound figure lying in the furrows was trying to sit up.

  Drest rose and went to him. She set Borawyn aside and with shaking hands untied his ropes.