Fear the Wolf

by S. J. Sparrows

  I couldn’t see what Hogslayer or Treeclimb were doing, but I recognized the sounds from the times I’d watched Illus preparing meals over the last couple of weeks. I heard joints popping, bones splitting, and flesh tearing. There were no sounds of sizzling, though, nor any scents of spices or hot food. Whatever meat they were eating, they were eating it cold and raw, ripped straight from whatever animal they must have hunted earlier today.

  Taker moved out of sight again. Sloppy, slobbering sounds followed as he joined the others in eating.

  I sighed in relief. At least for this short while, I didn’t have to worry about my facial expressions betraying me. The nomads could only see my back from where they were. I wriggled my nose, bounced my eyebrows, and bunched up my cheeks just to test if everything was working. My face tingled and felt odd, but it was back to normal.

  I considered making my move while the nomads were distracted by their food. It was too risky, though. Yes, my face and fingers and toes were working again, but I hadn’t waited long enough to be sure my larger limbs were. If I pushed to my feet only to collapse instantly, then it would all be over.

  When Taker finished eating, he came back to the log and dropped onto it with his hand stroking his bloated stomach. He watched me keenly as the time passed.

  Just as Taker had predicted, darkness quickly deepened all around us.

  In the distance, the treetops began to shake. The branches creaked. Through the black masses of branches and leaves shone the starry eyes of night-apes, coming to inspect the little camp. With the spiky perimeter and the fire’s glow, the night-apes kept their distance. But it didn’t stop them from watching and waiting, just as Taker watched and waited over me now.

  All throughout the afternoon, I had hoped the paralysis would pass before full dark. Now that it hadn’t, there was little point in me resenting what I couldn’t change. I had to adapt. Escaping into a black forest infested by night-apes would not be ideal, but then again, the nomads would be less likely to risk chasing me. I’d survived night-apes before; I would have to do it again.

  Taker pulled a knife from his belt. The blade was long and thick. He lifted it close to his face. Tilting the weapon back and forth, he admired the sharpened edges.

  Then he looked at me. “Come on, girlie,” he moaned, his eyes roving over my body. “I’m getting impatient now.”

  My skin prickled at the sight of Taker with the knife in his hand. Sweat followed, coating my body, turning colder by the second. Had I waited too long? Should I have risked getting up while they were eating?

  Now or never. It was now or never.

  But Taker sat on the log—between me and my weapon.

  He stiffened suddenly, straightening his back. Had my thoughts shown on my face?

  A curious look in his eyes, Taker tilted his head very, very slightly. His eyebrows pinched together.

  He was on to me.

  He seemed about to rise from the log. Then Hogslayer’s voice distracted him. “Oi, Taker, this idiot’s fire’s getting low already. How many times have I shown him how to build a proper one? He’s useless. Can you tell him?”

  Taker stood. With plain effort, he pulled his gaze from me and walked away from the log toward the other two.

  It was just the distraction I needed. I flew to my feet, dived behind the log with a roll, slipped one arm under the strap of my shield, and then rose with my sword in the other hand. Getting up so quickly dizzied me for a second. I blinked hard and rattled my body, willing myself to stay focused.

  Already on edge from his recent suspicions, Taker was so startled by my sudden movement that he tried to twist around but tripped. He went sprawling face-first into the dirt, much like he had sent Treeclimb sprawling onto the ground earlier.

  Instead of running into the forest and taking my chances against the night-apes, I moved toward Taker. If I could get him while he was down—

  But he was quick to recover. He sprung to his feet with a huff, angered and embarrassed. He scowled, then ran his fat wet tongue across his lips until they glistened in the firelight. He eased closer. “Ooo, she’s a feisty one. Come ’ere, girlie-girlie! Come to Taker.”

  Snickering came at my back. I looked over my shoulder and saw Treeclimb and Hogslayer sidling, their arms outstretched and feet wide apart to block my escape. Treeclimb held a plain sword, while in each hand Hogslayer brandished a long, thin dagger. Her calm, steady smile had turned vicious.

  “No point running, girlie,” Hogslayer taunted. “Taker takes whatever he wants.”

  Taker’s dry laugh drew my attention back to him. “Oh, you’d better at least try running,” he said. “Victory tastes much sweeter when I earn it. You’ll taste much sweeter too.”

  Behind me, Treeclimb sang in a low voice, “Run, run, run, ’cause he’ll take what he can.” Then he giggled hysterically.

  The way they surrounded me reminded me of my training with Illus, of defending myself against her four-armed attack. I tried to recall her words now. Yes, just like wolflings, these nomads fought as a pack. I couldn’t afford to focus on only one of them at a time. I had to place myself inside all their heads.

  If they were a pack, then Taker was their leader. Treeclimb and Hogslayer wouldn’t attack me while Taker lived. To them, I was Taker’s prize. If they didn’t let Taker conquer me by himself, they would face his wrath.

  I considered my options. Should I attack the duo who were too afraid to fight back without their leader’s permission? Or take out their leader to unnerve them?

  I ducked and lunged to one side, slipping through Taker’s grasping hands as he tried to catch me. After stabbing the end of my sword into the earth, I went for the nearest spiked post and yanked it free from the ground. Luckily, it came loose.

  Taker, too eager for the chase, had pursued me before he realized my plan. He tried to stop in time but failed. I swung the post. The spiked end smashed into Taker’s face, embedding three thick black needles in his ravaged cheek.

  One eye closed and bloody, Taker stared at me with a blend of confusion and horror. He lurched toward me, one hand out, limply holding his knife. Then the paralysis took him. He staggered forward and slammed to the ground.

  A moment of shocked silence, and then Hogslayer released a furious shriek. When she stopped screaming, she panted. She paced. I pulled my sword free from the earth as she came at me in a frenzy. Again she shrieked, unleashing the real feelings I had sensed beneath her unnaturally calm demeanor.

  Compared to defending against Illus’s four arms, blocking Hogslayer’s two daggers was easy—even in the low light. With Hogslayer moving about so much, I caught a waft of her. She reeked of old urine. The sharp odor threatened to break my focus as I resisted breathing it in. I blocked Hogslayer’s attack a few times, and then parried, shoving her back with my shield. She stumbled and nearly fell, but regained her footing.

  By now, Treeclimb had circled around the back of me. I realized the dangerous position I was in, and I turned to face him.

  Focus not only on the one before me but also on the one behind me.

  Treeclimb looked afraid to attack. For a second, we just faced each other and waited in a stand-off. Waiting, patiently waiting, I twisted my neck to listen over my shoulder. Hogslayer seemed the sneaky sort to me; now Taker was out of the fight, she wouldn’t miss this chance to attack me from behind.

  The sound I was waiting for came: shuffling feet, sweeping closer.

  I feinted an attack on Treeclimb, lunging at him with a horizontal swipe of my sword. Treeclimb was so cowardly he gasped and shied away, dropping his weapon. That didn’t matter. Continuing the horizontal swipe, I spun around to hit my true target.

  My blade slashed clean across Hogslayer’s throat.

  As expected, she had sprung after me with her daggers. Now, stopped by my sword, she dropped her weapons and gripped at her open throat. Eyes wide in shock, she slipped to the ground, gurgling, blood sputtering from her mouth.

  Nausea and disbelie
f unbalanced me as I realized I had killed a person. A human. But there was no time to think it over. Not now.

  I strained to see Treeclimb in the dim light of the waning fire, but his sniveling and whimpering drew me to him. I found him trying desperately to yank one of the spiked posts out of the ground. It seemed he wanted to use my own trick against me, but the stake wouldn’t budge.

  He saw me coming. When I rushed at him, sword raised, he finally gave up on trying to free the post and pelted into the forest.

  My tense shoulders fell. Lowering my sword and shield, I took a deep breath in, and let it gush out. It was over. The nomads were no threat to me anymore. Unless Treeclimb returned. But that possibility was soon silenced.

  A chorus of sounds came from the forest—snapping branches, rustling leaves, shrill cries. A dozen or more stars sped through the treetops before descending, all converging on one point. Treeclimb’s agonized screams filled the dark. They too were soon silenced, replaced by the repetitive thuds of the night-apes pummeling Treeclimb to death. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard flesh being ripped apart and bones crunching—the gruesome, wet sounds of the night-apes’ bloody feast.

  I stood entirely still for a minute or more, trying to gather myself. Then the stillness turned to shaking. All the fear that had been trapped inside me while I was unable to move came trembling to the surface. It wasn’t just fear, but anger. I had never felt so vulnerable. So powerless. And it was only Taker’s twisted preferences—his craving for the chase and the struggle—that had stopped him from attacking me while I was unable to defend myself. Sickened, I wondered how many boys and girls he had taken before—and what he had done with them afterward.

  I turned toward him now, his body motionless on the ground. His one open eye stared at me. His bloody face, with the snapped-off spikes sticking out of it, was too still for me to tell what he was thinking or feeling. Rage, I guessed. A seething rage.

  Who was powerless now?

  For a moment, I considered slitting his throat. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to make him feel the terror I had felt. But then I remembered the sickening sensation of slashing my sword across Hogslayer’s neck. I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t kill Taker while he stared me in the eye, unable to defend himself.

  I had decisions to make. I would not risk staying at the nomads’ camp overnight, even with the fire and the perimeter to protect me from night-apes. For all I knew, Taker’s paralysis would wear off faster than mine had. He was a big man, after all. I didn’t know enough about the poison, or Taker’s tolerance to it.

  And what if other nomads knew of this camp and had heard Treeclimb’s screams? What if they knew safe ways of traveling at night?

  They could be on their way.

  So I prepared to leave. After looking around the camp, I spotted a wooden chest. I stepped over Hogslayer to get to it. The woman had stopped twitching and sputtering blood a while ago. Now her body was still.

  The chest contained mostly dried foods, battered tools, and extra clothing—none of which I wanted. I was about to slam the lid shut when I noticed a few clubs of wood tucked away at the bottom, each club about the length of my forearm. Their tips were wrapped with fabric covered in a sour-smelling, yellowy-orange substance. Some kind of oil?

  I took one out and carefully pressed the doused end against the campfire. It caught with a loud puff. A small amount of relief tingled across my skin. A torch would serve me well in the dark forest, but would it be enough to ward off the night-apes?

  I searched some more, afraid the whole time that Taker might somehow shake off his paralysis, rise, and attack me. I found nothing else of use. It was only when I accidentally glanced at Taker’s devastated face again that I thought of the obvious.

  More cautiously than I’d done anything in my life, I pushed one of the spiked posts of the perimeter back and forth until it came loose. Accidentally paralyzing myself now would guarantee my death. So, just as carefully, I laid the long post against the log before stomping on the middle of it, snapping it in half.

  I picked up the half with the spiked end, smiling at the mace-like weapon it had become.

  This would do.

  It took longer than I had hoped, but I followed the perimeter and pulled out every post. I put the spiked head of each pole into the fire, burning away the nomads’ main defense against the glittery-eyed monsters in the treetops.

  Afterward, I tucked my sword into my belt and strapped my shield to my back. With one hand, I picked up the lit torch. With the other, the paralyzing mace.

  I was ready.

  Frantically, I circled the campfire, kicking dirt onto the flames until they were but dying embers. Then I dashed into the forest. I flailed my arms about, waving the torch and mace to frighten off the night-apes.

  I soon realized I was wasting my energy.

  The starry eyes hadn’t come any closer to me; they’d crept into the treetops closest to the camp, waiting patiently, watching the only thing keeping them back from their feast. The dwindling fire.

  With a sorry hiss, the embers went out.

  This time when the stars descended on their victim, there were no human screams—at least not any that could be heard outside of Taker’s mind. Instead, the forest rang with the ravenous shrieks of the night-apes and the sounds of Taker and Hogslayer being torn apart.

  It felt wrong, but a smile pulled at my lips as I ran farther away. No, I couldn’t have killed a defenseless man with my own hands. But that didn’t mean I wanted Taker to live—not after what he’d tried to do to me.

  Without a direction, I ran until my running turned into plodding and my breaths were never enough to fill my lungs. I settled beneath an overhang of rock and sat upright against its wall. To one side of me, I drove the bottom of my improvised mace into the ground; to the other, I did the same with the torch.

  When my breathing returned to normal, I got up and began snapping branches from a large bush nearby. I broke them down further, laboring away in the scant light of my torch. After a while, I had a decent mound of firewood, and all that remained of the bush was a pathetic black stump.

  I sat under the shelter again and lit a small fire in front of me. If the paralyzing mace to my right, the flaming torch to my left, and the fire in front of me weren’t enough to keep the night-apes away, then nothing would be.

  My sword lay beside me, parallel to my legs. I rested a hand on the hilt. Ready. Ready to defend myself. Then I yawned, my jaw creaking as it opened wide. My eyes watered. And my limbs doubled in weight.

  No. I jumped. I blinked with effort. I had to stay awake. If I fell asleep, the fire would go out, and … and …

  Darkness took me.

  And in the darkness of sleep, it happened all again. His big face loomed over me. His fat tongue slithered along his lips in anticipation. His sunken eyes shimmered with violent lust. Those hands. Those quivering hands. Reaching for me. Trying to touch me. About to touch me—

  I woke with a gasp, throwing out my arms and kicking. Morning light pained my eyes as I struggled to regain consciousness. I thought I’d heard something, but I wasn’t aware of much—just the brightness of day turning my vision white, and the irrelevant thought that, luckily, I hadn’t struck the mace when I jolted awake.

  Sounds reached me again. Footsteps. And a voice I recognized. “Ah, so you survived alone. Perhaps there are many other things you can achieve by yourself.”

  The Fox’s Den

  33

  Still struggling to fully awaken, I repeated Illus’s words in my mind until they held some meaning. When I truly heard what she had said, a furious energy roused in me. It forced me to my feet and dispelled all tiredness.

  I pointed at Illus—not just in accusation, but also to keep her back from me. Trying to find the words, I opened my mouth and shook my head. Nothing came out, I was so rigid in anger. My body had turned to stone.

  I became vaguely aware of Aldan, who was off to one side. He rambled, “We’re with
Senla now, aren’t we? Senla’s my friend. I’m not allowed to hurt her no more, am I, Illus?”

  Illus and I ignored Aldan, simply staring at each other in a standoff. I glared at her, and she watched me impassively, as though she hadn’t just put me through a nightmare brought to life.

  When Illus eventually tried to approach me, fear overpowered the tension in my body. I threw myself backward, screaming, “Get away from me!”

  Illus stopped. She was so calm, so oblivious to my pain.

  Finally able to move, I paced. I kept my eyes on Illus the whole time, but I paced and paced. I felt like I was in danger. I was back in the nomads’ camp, about to be attacked, about to be grabbed by Taker. That’s what my body thought. That’s what the tangle of rage and terror and powerlessness coursing through my bones told me. Run, my body said. Run and run and keep on running.

  It was only my mind that stopped me. I told myself that whatever Illus had done, I wasn’t in danger here now. The Tenniac wouldn’t purposely harm me.

  Taking deep, controlled breaths as I marched from side to side, I began to calm my senses. Not enough to stop screaming at Illus, though.

  “How could you do that to me? How could you let those nomads nearly—”

  “You were never in any danger.”

  I stopped pacing, momentarily speechless. “What! They nearly … they were going to—”

  “But they never. You outsmarted them. You defeated them. Alone.”

  “I know what you want me to feel, Illus! Oh, praise me, I’m stronger than I thought! But I don’t feel that way. When I was paralyzed, I hadn’t known you were watching over me the whole time. I hadn’t known for sure that if that monster had forced himself upon me, you would come to my rescue.” My voice broke as I choked back a sob. A flash of Taker’s trembling, sweaty face filled my vision again. His hovering hands reached for me. I began to shout, “You—”

  “I have made you stronger,” Illus interrupted. She strode closer to me, the same as when she grabbed me by the throat and pinned me to a tree. The Tenniac wouldn’t harm me on purpose, no, but the white sickness in her would. I jumped back again and gripped the hilt of my sword tighter.