by K. Panikian
Finally, we reached the perimeter of the clearing and I dropped flat to peer over the edge of the crater. There was nobody there. I motioned for Theo and Julian to drop beside me and Owen to keep watching the sides and behind us.
I stared at the snow in the center of the crater and tried to make sense of the tracks. There were a lot of them. “Two different groups?” I whispered to Theo.
He closed his eyes and sat very still for several minutes. Then he stood and walked down the slope to the crater bowl. He gestured to the center of the clearing and said, “First, the gate opened. A cohort of besy came through.” He paused. “The survivors of the group we saw before, with the leader with the tall horns, plus a lot of bauks, psoglavs, and other creatures. It’s hard to determine exact species. My vision is dark. There was no moon last night in the heavy cloud cover. The bes leader did not carry the sword with the blue meteorite fragment.”
My heart sank.
“They left the clearing and went north again, like last time.
“Then,” Theo continued. “An hour later, a group of humans came through, Varangians. The older man carried a meteorite fragment that glowed blue. They stood for a long time talking. Then, they followed the bes cohort to the north.”
Theo stopped. “The Varangian party was tracking the besy in the portal world. They do not know where they are now, but they are determined to complete their mission.”
“Are they nearby still?” I asked.
“I don’t sense them.” Theo answered.
I turned to Owen.
He sniffed the air and several times circled the clearing. When he came back to the center he said, “There were definitely two groups – one human and one not. They both went north and they are both out of range of my scenting abilities now.
“But,” he continued. “I can easily follow their trails when I’m in this form.”
“Right,” I said, thinking and kicking myself for not anticipating that we’d need to track them.
“Theo and Julian, go back to the house and grab the camping gear Theo and I picked up in Chelyabinsk. Should be a few tents and more emergency blankets. Get the MREs too, and the water canteens. A couple of extra pairs of wool socks for each of us, if you can manage it. Get back to this clearing as fast as you can and start following us.
“Owen and I will start tracking the besy from here. We’ll mark the trail with tree etches, but you should be able to follow our tracks in the snow too.
“The priority is the bes cohort. Right now, the Varangians are heading in the same direction, but if they split off, we’re following the besy.”
Finally, I turned specifically to Theo. “Send an email to the family letting them know we’re going to be out of touch for a little while. Ask Uncle Alex to try and See us. I don’t know, once we’re away from the impact zone, if his vision will clear. But he knows how to reach you, if he can, if he has any information for us. The gate research is important; I can feel it.”
Theo nodded and gave me a quick hug. Julian hugged me too, and gave Owen a fist pump. They both headed back the way we came.
Owen and I were alone in the snowy clearing.
I said to him, “I think we can track them in the snow pretty easily, for now at least. It probably makes sense to change back and conserve your energy. But it’s your decision.
“I have your clothes if you turn back now, but if you shapeshift later in a hurry, they may get ripped apart. Just a couple of things to consider.”
Owen dropped his sword and the wolf vanished. I seized his shoulders as he dropped to the snow and then helped him get dressed again.
“Let’s rest a minute here before we start,” I said. I offered him a granola bar and sipped some water from my backpack. He slumped beside me for a few minutes, chewing slowly, before he straightened.
When he was on his feet again, I grabbed his hand. I told him seriously, “You have to tell me if you need a break, if something is too much, if you’re too tired, if you’re feeling homicidal… Whatever you’re thinking and feeling, I need to know. We’re total partners right now. I’m relying on you. I will share everything about me because I want us both to be safe. Please do the same?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Then, to start, you’re on guard duty because I’m going to duck behind that pine to pee.”
Owen smiled at me and I stepped away. When I got back, he had my pack on his shoulders. At my disapproving look he said, “It’s light. We’ll trade it back and forth.”
We started following the tracks north. Every time the trail changed angles, I marked a tree with a hash with my knife. The sun, which started on our right side, slowly rose to a bright ball overhead, and then started to drop to the west. Still, we headed north. My legs got tired and my feet got cold. We stopped periodically to drink water and eat energy bars. The forest around us was quiet and still. We climbed for a while and then went downhill again.
Finally, when the sun was almost gone over our left shoulders, I stopped.
“We’re not any closer than we started. They’re moving fast. We need to wait for Theo and Julian to catch up with the tents and the food. I think we should stop here for the night.”
Owen nodded. He looked exhausted. I’m sure I looked no better. My eyes felt permanently squinted after staring all day at the snowy trail. Our steps were dragging. I drew a hash mark on the tree closest to where we stepped off the trail.
I walked off the trail for a few yards in every direction before settling on the westward side. There was a circle of spruce trees that were tall enough that their lower boughs formed a sort of shelter over the ground. I picked one of the trees and pulled the folding shovel from my backpack. I dug for a few minutes and created a deep well at the base of the tree, all the way down to the bare earth. I left a sloping access point at one corner. I patted down the walls so they felt firm and left my backpack inside.
I climbed back out of the well and handed Owen the shovel. I showed him where to dig and left him making an indentation in the snow in the center of the small copse. I wandered for a few minutes around the area, gathering small fallen branches for kindling. There were some larger logs, and I dragged them to Owen’s fire pit. I made a teepee of the kindling and some of the smaller branches in the fire pit and then pulled Owen down to sit next to me on a log.
I lit the small stack with a spark from my fingertips and we huddled next to it, blowing the smoke away from our faces with long exhales. The smoke floated up, through the branches of the spruce trees, and drifted in the winter breeze. I felt exhilerated and exhausted at the same time. The stars were already out and bright in the clear sky. It was bitingly cold, but I told Owen my idea.
“You take off your boots and socks and lay the socks across this stick here,” I gestured to a pronged stick I’d stuck in the snow, angled over the fire. “You get 30 minutes to dry your socks while I hold your feet against my skin, under my coat. Then we switch.”
“Okay,” Owen said, “but we do your socks first.”
I bent and untied my frozen laces, my fingers fumbling in the cold. I pulled off my boots and angled their shafts toward the small fire. I stripped off my damp socks next and fought a full-body shiver. Oh man, it was cold. I draped them over my pronged stick, pushed it closer to the fire, and then turned my body to Owen’s. He picked up my legs and ran his hands down to my feet. He tucked them under his coat, under his shirt and against his skin, and sucked in a breath.
Ah, the prickles of warmth were immediate. I curled my toes into his stomach and exhaled. “Oh my god.”
Owen rubbed his hands up and down my legs, and then up and down my arms, as I curled into him. Our breath mingled as our faces bent toward each other.
“What’s the plan,” Owen asked.
“I think it will take a couple of hours, at least, before Theo and Julian catch us up, if they do at all tonight. They may stop on their own. I made us a shelter in that tree well. I have an emergency blanket in the backpack.
If we snuggle and pull the blanket over us, we should be pretty warm in the well.”
“That sounds amazing,” Owen answered. He kept rubbing my lower legs and my feet with his big, warm hands. The return of blood flow to my toes was exquisite.
We sat on the log for a little while. We talked about hobbies, family, and then we were quiet. Finally, I drew my feet back from his warm chest and pulled on my steamy socks. The wool was much dryer and I tucked them into my warm boots. Then I held my hands out to Owen.
“I’m ready,” I told him.
He stripped down to his bare feet and we did the same dance. When his icy cold feet hit my stomach, however, I gasped out an “Unhhhh.” I recovered my dignity and I silently tucked his legs close to my body and started rubbing his toes. Man, it was like hugging a block of ice.
I cleared my throat. “Tell me about accounting.” He huffed out a laugh.
Later, when his socks were dry too, we let the fire die down, kicked snow on top, and then crawled into the tree well. I set the emergency blanket out on the bare earth and we lay down on top. We took our boots off but kept them wrapped in the blanket with us, otherwise they’d be frozen in the morning.
I showed Owen how to zip our coats together and we snuggled close. I wrapped the other end of the blanket around us and we tangled our legs.
“Nice and toasty?” Owen asked and I nodded.
“You?”
“Actually, yes.”
I fell asleep with his arms around me, his hat itching my ear.
WHEN I woke up, I was a little disoriented. I couldn’t move because our coats were still zipped together, but I didn’t remember that in the moment. I struggled briefly and Owen woke up too, smacking his head into my chin and I bit my tongue. Oh yeah, that cleared away the fog. Tears smarted in my eyes.
“Very,” Owen asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I answered thickly. “Just give me a second.”
I carefully wriggled around and found the zipper to unstick us. I started to draw it down when Owen stopped my hand.
“Mmm,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “Wait a minute.” His morning whiskers tickled my skin and I giggled. Then I laughed out loud.
“I’ve never giggled before in my life!”
“Really?” was Owen’s muffled response. “That’s a shame.”
He sent his fingers dancing up my rib cage and I giggled again. Gah!
“Ho, the camp!” came a shout from outside.
Owen and I sat up and I hurriedly unzipped us.
“In here, Theo!” I called and pulled on my boots. Nice and warm.
A head poked over edge of the tree well, sending snow cascading inside.
“Well, how about that?” Theo said. “I get up at the crack of dawn for, I might add, the second day in a row, to hurry to find you, thinking you would need help, and here you are, canoodling under the trees!”
I smiled up at him. “My hero! You rescued us. You camped last night along the trail? How did the tents work?”
“Fine, we shared, though I do not recommend it, warmth aside. Dmitri snores.”
“Dmitri?!?” I exclaimed.
“Oh yeah, he came with us. He was at the house when we got back from separating with you. He said he was coming along for a little while and I didn’t know how to get rid of him. He seemed to know a lot about what’s going on.”
Owen climbed out of the well and I followed. Julian and Dmitri stood a few feet away, large packs on their back, smiling at us.
“Glad you’re safe, you guys,” Julian said.
Dmitri waved and shook his walking staff at us. “I know, I know. What am I doing here? Don’t worry. All will be revealed in good time. For now, I promise I won’t slow you down while you chase the besy.”
I cleared my throat. “The, ah, what?” I made big eyes at Julian. He shrugged back at me.
“The besy. Are you not calling them that? The bies. The chorti. The fiends.” He motioned to his head with his fingers in the shape of horns. “The bad guys that came through the meteor portal.”
“Ah,” I said weakly, “yes, those besy. Yes, we’re following them.”
“Good, good. I’m ready to go when you are,” Dmitri answered.
Theo handed me a slightly squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Eat up!”
Chapter 23
When we were on the trail a little bit later, I tried to talk to Dmitri again. He shushed me and waved at the trail we were following. “Now’s not the time,” he told me.
About mid-morning, when the sun was high overhead but the winter air was still briskly cold, we saw the trail split. It looked like, from the hoofprints and claw marks, among other prints, that the mass of besy continued north. However, a set of tracks split from the main group and headed west. I stared for a long moment, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
I waved Julian over. “I see one set of bear-looking prints, maybe a bauk, here. But here and here, look, are those boots?”
Julian started for a moment and then nodded. “Boots with no treads, I think. Definitely not machine-made.”
“I think a bauk, or maybe more than one, split off from the bes group. Maybe it was hungry? The Varangian unit split too. Two of them continued following the bes cohort, and two of them went after the bauk.”
Dmitri beamed at me from his side of the trail. “You are a very smart girl.”
I guess that meant he agreed with me. “Julian and Theo, you two keep following the besy. If you start to catch up to them too closely, fall back and wait for us. Owen and I will follow the bauk and kill it, then rejoin you. Remember, the besy are the prize, not the Varangians. Do not engage.”
I turned to Dmitri and he spoke before me, “I will go with you and Owen,” he said. I started to shake my head and he added, “You cannot stop me.”
Well, that was true enough. I pointed my finger at the snow and said, “If you go with us, you have to follow orders. If I say hide, you hide. If I say run, you—”
“Yes, yes, I will run. I will obey you.”
Theo passed over a handful of MREs and an extra water canteen and I put them in my backpack.
“I have a tent,” Dmitri said, patting his own backpack.
I sighed and Theo smirked at me.
THE bauk trail meandered through the trees, steadily heading west, and we followed it for what felt like hours. The human prints followed it too, until suddenly, they veered back to the north and I lost sight of them over the ridge.
I pointed out the diversion to Owen and Dmitri and then we continued on. Finally, we reached a rocky overhang and the tracks skirted around, heading down the slope to the ravine below. I crawled out onto the ledge and peered down the mountainside. Dmitri and Owen inched up next to me and we scanned the trees below for movement.
Owen saw it first, crouched by the edge of a frozen creek. It was digging through the ice and pulling things out of the dark water. Long grass? A vegetarian ogre? No, I decided, seeing the grass wriggle in the snow. Eels.
The bauk sucked down a few handfuls of the long, skinny fish and then sat back in the snow, resting on its haunches.
I turned to Owen and said, “What do you think? Want to try out your wolf form in an actual fight?”
He nodded, looking eager.
I turned to Dmitri on my other side and said, “You need to stay here.”
“Sure,” he answered. “No problem. Enjoy yourselves!”
I gave him a funny look and Owen and I crawled backward off the rock. He stripped and I put his clothes in my backpack once again. He seized the wolf pommel of his sword and transformed.
Berserker Owen led the way around the rock and we were soon under the cliff, following the bauk footprints down the slope to the creek. We moved as silently as we could, but the crunching snow soon gave us away. Owen’s form was huge, but he moved more gracefully than I did.
Beside the creek, the bauk looked up and its snout quivered. It lumbered to its feet and let go a sort of cough
ing bark. It focused its rage-filled eyes solely on Owen and started forward aggressively in the snow. Its long arms brushed the snow aside.
Owen started swinging his sword, back and forth, like a pendulum in front of his body. The bauk lowered its horns and charged. Owen waited until the bauk was almost on him and then stepped away. He spun and thrust his longsword in a sudden movement to the right and raked it along the bauk’s left flank.
The bauk let out a bellowing roar and stopped its charge. Blood dripped down the fur of its leg. It was now several steps past Owen and it turned its head to look at me. I drew my saber and bared my teeth at it. It took another step in my direction and then a frenzied whirlwind of gray energy tackled it.
His sword forgotten in one hand, Owen tore into the bauk with his teeth. The bauk bit back and clawed at Owen’s body, but it was no match for Owen’s rage. In a powerful move, he crushed its throat between his jaws and shook the bauk once, hard, audibly snapping its neck.
He dropped the bauk body into the bloody snow and started stabbing it, over and over again, with his sword. His growls were deep and aggressive.
“Owen,” I called out.
He stopped hacking at the body and looked up at me with unseeing eyes. His yellow gaze was menacing; he snarled at me and stook a step forward.
I whistled. I called to the gold spark of his spirit with a soft, soothing melody. “Peace,” I whistled, “Safe.” I took a couple of steps in his direction and kept my tune weaving through the air. I opened my hands in front of me so he could see I held no weapon. His gold spark throbbed for me and he whimpered, and then dropped his sword. He crumpled into the snow.
I let go of my whistle and ran to his side, running my eyes quickly up and down his body to make sure the bauk hadn’t hurt him. His skin was unmarked.
I turned my head up to the rocky outcrop above and waved my arms at Dmitri. He stood and disappeared from sight, heading around the outcropping.
The two of us got Owen dressed again and I laid him on the emergency blanket beside the stream so he was out of the snow. I thought hard; I wasn’t sure how long he would sleep. His total time as the wolf berserker hadn’t been that long, but he’d used up a lot of energy.
