Fear the Wolf

by S. J. Sparrows

  People or animals who lingered in infected areas too long would eventually catch the sickness. Nomads knew which parts of the forest were safe to remain in, but sometimes even they became infected. To avoid passing it on, sick travelers became lone wanderers.

  I thought of Illus briefly, and of her sudden rage. The uncontrollable violence was another reason infected nomads became solitary. The sickness subverted a thing’s very nature. People in the early stages suffered bouts of confusion and fury; in the later stages, they became murderous, turning on their nearest and dearest before succumbing to the disease. Infected plants began to poison the earth around them, emit noxious fumes, and strangle nearby flora and fauna before finally twisting in upon themselves and dying.

  Luckily—if having the sickness could be considered lucky at all—it took dozens of cycles to reach the final, self-destructive stages. At least, it did in most species; some plants and animals were highly susceptible.

  Sometimes Old Fendra had spoken almost wistfully about night-apes. She’d believed their entire species was infected, that the sickness gave the apes their glowing white eyes. Despite easily contracting the disease, night-apes could live their normal lifespan without reaching the final stages—without killing their own kind.

  They were, however, extremely violent toward everything else.

  Old Fendra had stressed that night-apes were once peaceful, daytime animals that fed mostly on plant-life. My mind ran wild with a fantasy of Old Fendra when she was young and lived in the forest. I imagined her befriending these gentle creatures she’d spoken so fondly of.

  Those peaceful apes were but a legend now, replaced by warped versions of themselves, which continually transmitted the white sickness to their offspring. The disease must have seemed like part of their nature now, like something that had always been there.

  I tried to imagine if, for generations, my people had lived their whole lives with a shared illness. How would, or could, any of us know that it wasn’t normal? Unless someone questioned the way things were, we’d all continue to accept our suffering as unavoidable, even though we might be able to change it.

  Was it the same for our beliefs? Were they simply passed down, unchecked, like the sickness through the night-apes?

  These thoughts plagued me for a while. They felt dangerous, but exciting, to ponder. They sent a chill and a thrill throughout my bones. But when I recalled my nightmare—the floating, chanting heads of my dead neighbors—I snapped out of my musings and focused on my plan.

  Find the tallest tree.

  I asked Aldan to wait where he was while I searched the area. If Illus hadn’t treated my wound, I would never have got onto the first branch of the tree. My left arm still hurt, but I’d recovered the use of my hand. Now I could grip the trunk for balance while pulling myself onto higher branches with my other arm. Gritting my teeth, I allowed a grain of appreciation toward Illus for the gift of healing.

  By the time I reached the treetop, my nose itched from the sour-smelling leaves, and my hands stung from rubbing against coarse bark. I closed my eyes to force my head through the thick canopy. Twigs and shoots and bugs fell inside my tunic, but I took a deep breath and ignored the itching.

  I opened my eyes.

  The sight stilled my heart and stole my breath. The treetops formed a seemingly endless field of glistening, undulating leaves. I felt like a bird above the clouds, staring down at them, if only the clouds were a thousand shades of green. When I was trapped below, in the shadowy forest, I never would have believed the weather was so glorious today—that a fiery orange globe sat proudly in an immaculate blue sky. My nose tingled already from the sun’s loving touch.

  I could have perched here and admired the view until sundown. But I needed to find a new path.

  Carefully, I twisted around on the branch, peering this way and that way, searching for a village. I was ashamed to admit it, but I hoped to find a place that would take Aldan in. I wanted him to be safe and happy—I truly did—but I couldn’t convince myself that Aldan was my priority.

  With any luck, I could rest in a village, get more food and water, and then sneak off to continue my search for the Wolf.

  But everywhere I looked now, I failed to see any large clearings. Panic jolted me. Even if I did spot a settlement, it would most likely be my own village. Surely we couldn’t have traveled that far from home. But apparently, we had.

  There were no villages in sight.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, before puffing out my lips with a sigh. Just look again, I forced myself to think. Turn more slowly this time, look more carefully.

  I opened my eyes and found a tall tree jutting out in the distance, its black trunk clearly visible above the puffy, green treetops surrounding it.

  “You,” I whispered toward the distant tree. “I’m going to slowly turn around until I’m facing you again. If I don’t spot anything worth heading toward before I get back to you, then I should consider taking the fast way down from this tree, instead of wandering aimlessly through the forest for days before dying of hunger or thirst.”

  After some hard squinting and slow turning, I saw something: a slightly darker patch on the horizon. I looked away and then back a few times to confirm I hadn’t imagined it. The land was mostly flat in all directions, which made it hard to tell what the patch might be. Perhaps a trick of the light, shade falling on a group of smaller trees? A lake, maybe? My old village? Or another village?

  Determined to find out, I took the slow and steady way down the tree. By the time I jumped from the lowest branch with a thud, I was panting, and my limbs ached.

  No matter what the dark patch in the distance turned out to be, I was just relieved to have a destination.

  Through my rasping breaths, I said, “Come on, Aldan. I know the way.”

  20

  As we traversed the forest, I saw more scenery than I could ever have dreamed of. Despite my fear and exhaustion, my surroundings continually awed me. I felt like a child again, remembering the wonder of when I first saw snow and caught the sharply cold white flakes as they tumbled from a dense sky.

  We climbed over moss-covered boulders, crouched under fallen trees, scrambled over tangled blankets of exposed roots, and tiptoed over rocky brooks. Some parts of the forest were so dense and intertwined we had to crawl through burrows in the thicket, channels created by animals that had forced their way through.

  The sounds and smells were just as thrilling to me. The many songs of many birds chorused above us. Insects buzzed. Small animals rustled the bushes, dashing off in fear at the noise of our passing. Branches crunched underfoot. Old rotten leaves squelched, wafting up misplaced scents of autumn in this early summer. Each flower and tree offered its own aroma, from sweet and sickly to bold and bitter. My senses sang as we marched on.

  Not all was pleasant, though. A few times, we took detours to avoid huge stinger-beetles nests, after a swarm had chased us for getting too close. I didn’t know which was worse: the flying stinger-beetles, or the creeping, crawling insects that were everywhere. Countless times I had slapped bugs off of my arms, or furiously brushed them from my legs. And that was when I wasn’t busy peeling broken webs from my face and body.

  Besides all the obstacles, I stopped regularly and climbed the tallest trees to ensure we were still heading the right way. My heart stirred with satisfaction every time I saw that the dark patch, which had been so far in the distance, had grown larger.

  That satisfaction was crushed when we finally arrived.

  Before us was a near wasteland, a circle glade deeply infected with the sickness. The trees had shriveled inward. The earth looked as though it had been scorched. White threads of the corruption ran under the cracked, blackened surface, searching out new hosts.

  I dropped to my knees and tried to ignore Aldan’s incessant commentary. “This isn’t a village, is it?” “It’s not what we was looking for.” “We must have come the wrong way, we must. Silly us. Silly Aldan.” �
��Nearly dinnertime now.”

  Before despair could set in, I decided to do something—anything. Staying in this heavily infected area would be foolish, and if I stopped to think for too long, grief would consume me.

  “Let’s keep going,” I said. A complaint began to form on Aldan’s lips, so I snapped, “Let’s go!”

  I led us a few hundred strides away before climbing the tallest neverbare in sight. The smell of its sweet sap filled my nostrils, but its sharp needle-like leaves pricked my hands and arms and legs. At the top, I saw nothing but trees, everywhere I looked. No wide clearings, no suspicious patches, nothing.

  I climbed back down.

  Plan One had failed, so I quickly formed Plan Two: walk in a straight path until we discover something.

  I didn’t know what else to do. If we kept going in the same direction, we would have to reach one of the chasms eventually. If we didn’t find a village before that, then I’d be tempted to leap off the edge into the dark abyss.

  That can be Plan Three. I curled my fists and swallowed hard to calm the rage inside of me. This anger would never allow me to waste my life like that. If I’m going to die, I’ll die in battle with the Wolf.

  We stumbled on. We passed more boulders and streams and flowerbeds, but it was all beginning to look the same. I walked faster. I urged Aldan to keep up, determined to go on but growing sick of my surroundings.

  After I ignored his whining for over an hour, Aldan told me he hated me, then instantly took it back and apologized. He repeated this five times before I agreed to stop and rest.

  We ate bread in silence. Aldan sulked, but I paid him no mind. I imagined us walking for eternity through the trees. Everything was starting to feel unreal, like a nightmare—except in dreams, I didn’t usually feel pain. As much as I wanted to believe I would wake up from this torment, that I would rise refreshed in my straw bed at home to find my mother weaving at the loom, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  I saw Aldan reaching into his satchel. “You’ve just eaten. Don’t have any more tonight, or you’ll run out.”

  “I’m not eating,” he grumbled. He pulled out a small pouch.

  Intrigued, I watched as he emptied some little rocks out of the pouch and into the palm of his hand. He stared at the stones with a small smile on his face. Then he poked them about, turned them over, and occasionally picked one out to inspect it.

  “What have you got there?” I asked, tinging my voice with gentle curiosity.

  Aldan closed his fingers around the rocks and drew them to his chest. He held them protectively until he noticed my face: my genuine interest.

  After some hesitation, he got up and rushed over to sit next to me. His face became lively and joyous. He opened his hand and thrust it toward me, under my nose, so the small stones were close to my face. He did it so enthusiastically he nearly threw them at me.

  I pulled back my head to look at the rocks without double vision. “They’re so pretty.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve got lots and lots of them at home. These ones are my favorites, my favorites of each color. Look at this one, Senla, look!” He pointed out a dark green lumpy stone. As he went on, his words started coming out faster and breathier. I didn’t understand everything he was saying.

  He rambled on about the rocks, devoting many sentences to each one, pointing out the most precise details—slight bumps and chips and grooves, different textures, different shapes and sizes, which ones were the heaviest or lightest—details I would never have noticed.

  His memory amazed me. He compared these rocks to the ones he’d left at home in the village. He described the absent ones so vividly that I saw them in my mind as clearly as I saw the rocks before me now.

  I felt worn down from our wasted day, but I let Aldan talk for as long as he wanted. I wasn’t sure why, at first. Being patient had always been difficult for me. But I realized I loved hearing the happiness in his voice, the intensity … the passion.

  It was how I felt about drawing. A pleasant tingle swept through me. I suddenly felt less lonely, less different. I considered taking out my drawing sticks and creating a picture in the ground for Aldan, sharing my passion with him the way he’d shared his with me.

  I froze, though. I remembered the image Illus had drawn of me standing victorious over a wolfling’s decapitated body. I thought about Reni, the times she had caught me scribbling in the sand and had warned me to fear the Wolf.

  Instantly, I went from feeling almost good and right and lovable to feeling just wrong.

  To keep my mind off of Reni, I listened to Aldan for longer. I wondered why his father had let him indulge in this hobby of collecting rocks; no other adult, or even child, would have been permitted to, for fear of presuming too much. I suspected that Markus Bennan had protected his son’s passion, that he had allowed Aldan to keep this simple pleasure by letting everyone else believe that Aldan wasn’t smart enough to know any better.

  Aldan might have been born addle-headed, but he was far from unintelligent. If I told him right now to throw his rocks in a bush and stop collecting them, he’d do it. He would resist, perhaps even lash out at me, but he was smart enough to follow instructions.

  Something had stopped Markus from giving those orders, something I’d never known the touch of …

  A father’s love.

  Slumping forward, I pressed my lips together and tried to shake that thought away. There were so many things I couldn’t bear to think about now, no matter how loudly they hammered in my head.

  When I looked at Aldan’s rock collection again, I noticed it was missing a color. That gave me an idea.

  “Hey, Aldan … If I chance upon any nice rocks in the forest, I’ll pick them up for you. All right?”

  He watched my face for a moment, his expression half slack, half suspicious. “Yes, please,” he chirped. “Thank you.”

  After putting away his pouch of rocks, Aldan seemed to lose most of his energy. The light breaking through the canopy had gradually weakened during our talk, leaving our surroundings much darker and chillier than before.

  “Let’s set up here for tonight,” I said.

  Aldan’s eyelids drooped, but he replied, “It’s not bedtime yet.”

  “It will be soon.”

  I dared not build a fire, for fear of attracting nomads or predators while we slept. Instead, I searched for bushes with leaf-laden branches and fronds, then snapped them off and piled them on top of Aldan and myself to trap in our body heat. We lay next to each other under the leafage, back to back and fully clothed.

  Aldan’s exhaustion overcame his routine. His soft snoring reached my ears only moments after he’d shut his eyes.

  I wasn’t so fortunate. Terrified by the forest, I lay awake thinking until full dark. I tried to silence my thoughts, but one roared louder than the rest. If only I had accepted Illus’s offer, we wouldn’t be lost and alone now.

  Yes, Illus had attacked me. And yes, she had spied on me before the Wolf’s attack. But perhaps Illus, infected by the white sickness, couldn’t control her outburst. And maybe she had skulked around the village border because she planned to warn us of the Wolf’s approach. Perhaps Reni had driven Illus away too soon.

  I couldn’t know, but what did it matter anymore? By spurning Illus’s offer, I’d thrown away my best chance of getting the revenge I so desperately needed.

  With her clawed fingers and toes, her extra hands and forearms, and her frightening mane of snake-like hair, Illus was more suited for the forest than any human. On top of all this, the Tenniac had hinted that she was a fierce warrior. Reni had taught me basic sword skills, but Illus could have taught me so much more.

  I sighed in the dark. As I lay here worrying, I wished more than ever that I had been born into a family of guardians, not weavers.

  Eventually, I found comfort in gazing at the stars. I hadn’t noticed them at first, but the stark white orbs peeked through the branches in places, sprinkled across the black mass o
f the canopy. Their beauty reassured me. It soothed me. And my vision slowly blurred with sleep.

  Then two of the stars winked out of existence.

  My eyelids slammed wide open.

  The duo of stars returned as swiftly as they had vanished. Other pairs disappeared and reappeared.

  I sat up. I peered up at them harder, my heart beating fast. Leaves began to rustle. Branches creaked. The stars flickered in and out of existence with more speed, and the sounds of movement in the trees grew louder. Nearer.

  “Aldan,” I whispered, shaking him awake. “Aldan, we’ve got to get up. Now!”

  Aldan whined loudly. “It’s still bedtime. I hate you.”

  “Get up!” I launched to my feet, throwing the blanket of bracken off of us. “Get up and get your things.”

  I gathered my sword and satchel and shield, nearly tripping in the dark as I rushed about. Then I grabbed Aldan’s belongings and ran to him. “We have to go now!”

  Aldan fumbled to his feet tiredly and snatched his things from me. “Why?”

  Fear gripped me. It tightened around my throat until I could barely breathe, let alone form a reply.

  All I managed to say was, “Night-apes.”

  Night-Apes, Neverdark, and Nosy

  21

  We dashed through the dark. Shrieking shadows followed us. I had no idea where we were going. But it didn’t matter, as long as it was away from the night-apes.

  My legs felt as if they were tearing. After walking all day, they’d stiffened when I’d finally rested. Now the muscles burned and spasmed as I demanded even more from them. I bolted onward, inhaling sharply through gritted teeth to control the pain.

  Behind me, Aldan wailed. I spun back. Every part of me hoped he was keeping up.

  He wasn’t.

  “Aldan, we have to keep running.”