Hans looked at the human/Olde Wolf, and then at the dagger. There was something about the two of them. Something about them together.
“Go, I said.” The human/Olde Wolf flicked his fingers at Hans. But he did not use his other language, the one that spoke to Hans’s heart and soul, rather than to his mind.
There was a flood of memory. Of Sieg, and the Order. The smell of the tiny room he had spent most of his life in: moldy and important. The feeling of the sun in his eyes. The feel of the dagger in his hand as he stood in front of the tapir and killed it.
Hans flung himself at the Olde Wolf.
He caught him from behind, for he had turned away, sure of his safety.
Hans felt the moment the dagger touched the creature’s human neck and spilt blood, and with it, darkness that reeked like the noxious smoke of poisonous weeds.
Then it was no longer a human he faced, but the Olde Wolf in his true form.
It snarled at him, its head turned to try to use teeth against the dagger, which was lodged there.
Hans wrenched the dagger out and whirled it at the wolf, exhilarated that he was free again, and that he was himself. He had faced the Olde Wolf and he had not lost all memory of the past. He was one of the ones who would die, but that seemed a triumph compared to the other. The Olde Wolf could not turn aside and ignore him. It had to face him and battle him.
Now it seemed larger than it had before, when Hans was close enough to see that his whole head could fit inside the wolf’s mouth.
The Olde Wolf began to make shushing sounds, somewhere in between human words and wolf ones.
Hans acted quickly, and kicked at the wolf’s mouth. He saw a rush of blood and then the wolf spat out a tooth or two.
The Olde Wolf let Hans lunge forward. Then it swerved to the side and caught him in the stomach. Hans felt warmth first, and then pain, as blood dripped out.
He did not try to stop it from flowing. He grinned and turned back, catching the wolf in the flank with his dagger.
The Olde Wolf let out a sound like a hiss, licked once at the wound, and then circled Hans. Hans had time enough then to get out his scythe. Its blade gleamed in the afternoon light.
The Olde Wolf jumped toward Hans.
Hans raised the scythe and pressed through with all his might. He felt the shudder of blade meeting flesh, and then it was ripped from his hands.
For a moment he thought that he had succeeded, that he had killed the Olde Wolf, as no one else had been able to do.
He saw the wolf fall to the ground, and the scythe seemed embedded in its head.
The Olde Wolf was still and there was no sound of breathing except for Hans’s own.
But there was still the distinctly rotten, fetid smell of darkness. If it were dead, Hans thought, surely the smell of the darkness would have dissipated.
Hans moved forward, leaning over the wolf’s body.
The scythe was only caught in its teeth. It had been feinting, as no animal could feint.
The Olde Wolf leaped up and threw the scythe back at Hans.
Hans had only enough time to fling his hands in front of his face, and then the scythe cut lodged into the flesh of both together.
The Olde Wolf, bloodied as it was, grinned at Hans and licked its lips. It was ready for his death. It lifted its head and howled to the moon, no wolf language, no language at all in his noise, just the sound of its pleasure in death.
Hans felt pain in his wounded hands and in other scratches and cuts on his body, but his sense of failure was worse than any physical pain. All his life, all the years that Sieg had spent teaching him, his parents’ sacrifices, and it was all to end like this? With the Olde Wolf looking as if it has triumphed?
“Father!” a voice called out in the language of wolves.
The Olde Wolf and Hans turned together to see the golden she-wolf coming out of the forest.
“Who is that?” she barked, nodding to Hans.
“No one for you to worry about,” said the Olde Wolf, his way of speaking the language of wolves strange and less distinct than any wolf Hans had ever heard.
“As you say, Father. I did not expect you back or I would have been here, waiting for you.”
The Olde Wolf turned away from Hans. It was a moment before Hans realized that he had this one chance for life. And so he ran, without thought of the Olde Wolf’s reprisals if he was caught or the pain all over, and the throbbing in his head from loss of blood.
Somehow, he made it to a tree stump just past the stones, and he pulled himself inside of it, breathing heavily. He closed his eyes and took out the scythe. When it was on the ground, he breathed deeply and got to his feet. He ran again. He did not know where he was going, but all that mattered was that he get anywhere that was away from the stones, away from the Olde Wolf.
When he came out of the forest and found a village before him, it was night and he did not trust the villagers to take him in and care for him. What if they were allies of the Olde Wolf, whether they knew it or not? He held back from the village and found a ditch to lie flat in until morning.
He examined his hands. They were no longer bleeding profusely, but they ached, and it seemed worse now that he had stopped moving. Would he go back to the Order? Would they take him, knowing he had failed? Or would they think he had been corrupted by the Olde Wolf.
Am I corrupted? Hans asked himself.
He did not see any proof of it, but he could not prove he was not, either. If the Olde Wolf came again and spoke to him in that strange voice, either in human form or wolf form, Hans did not know what he would do.
He slept at last and woke in a fever, to the sound of a wolf’s howl inside the forest.
Chapter Eleven: True
When he arrived in the early light or morning, the she-wolf was awake, and she seemed to have been waiting for him. He walked up to her, let her sniff at him as was only polite, and then knelt down to show his acceptance of her authority over him.
She told him then that her name was Golda and said that he was welcome, as a friend, to join her and her family. What her family was, True had yet to learn.
For the next several hours, she showed him through the warrens of the stone edifice, where there were many animals held, most of them stolen from humans. Animals that had once been tame, but were in some sort of inbetween state now, not quite wild again, but no longer smelling or sounding like humans.
They seemed ill to True. He could see it in their eyes, how they were sick. They did not seem able to sleep or to stop pacing in their cells. They attacked their own kind. True could see the patches of fur on the other animals that had been rubbed raw, the knuckles and hooves that had been chewed on. There were worse injuries, as well, bleeding bruises and horns cut off.
“Why do you not stop them from fighting amongst themselves?” asked True.
“Because they need to learn about battle,” said Golda. “They have spent far too long being calmed by humans. Now they must return to the wildness that is their own. They must be ready to stand up to the humans who once ruled over them.
“But wouldn’t they naturally wish to return to the humans they once served? This is not their home. They are not happy here.”
“I think they cannot be happy anywhere, not now,” said Golda sadly. “Certainly not back with the humans. They would be killed there, seen as untameable and mad.”
True was not sure that was the wrong assessment to make of these animals. They seemed of little use to anyone, even themselves. “What did your father do to them?” For True did not believe they could have all turned out this way on their own.
“He says he only returned them to what they should have been, if humans had remained what they once were.”
True shook his head. “None of us are what we once were.” If by that, she meant animals that constantly fought with each other and with humans, who had no purpose but blood lust and death and dominance. All animals had been changed by
Golda looked him up and
down, a hint of pity in her eyes. “My father could change you, if you asked him. He could turn you back into the wolf you might have been.”
“Like them?” If so, True was not interested. As a hound, he had been tamed by humans to some degree, but he had never lived with humans. He had no wish to go back to a past that was so far gone that neither he nor any hounds alive remembered it.
But perhaps Golda wished he was more like a wolf than a hound? She had not said that, but next to her, he felt rather small and smooth. Should he be rougher to get her attention? Was she only speaking to him now because she thought he would change?
“I will ask him not to do it, if you are unsure. My father listens to me,” said Golda.
True took in a cold breath of relief. “Not yet,” he said. Perhaps he would change his mind after he had been here for a while. Perhaps he would decide that nothing else mattered but impressing Golda with his strength.
Golda nodded. “You are my friend,” she said. “I have not had a friend before. My father says that it is a human thing to have a friend, that animals have family or pack and herd, but nothing more than that.”
True had never had a friend, either, though he was not sure that was the right word for what he wanted with Golda. He thought of his mother’s stories of humans. They had friends, and the word Golda used was of human origin. Did she realize that? Did she not want to be all animal herself?
“Who is he, your father?” asked True.
“He is an olde wolf,” said Golda. “You can see it in the way he stands under the moon. You can hear it in his howl. He has lived through thousands of years of human time, and it is all as nothing to him. He still sees the past as if it were the present.”
“But—how can he have lived that long? Even humans die after a few score years, and animals usually die much sooner than that.”
“His magic,” said Golda. “And his will. He has a very strong will.”
“What magic does he have?” This was not the magic True had heard his mother speak of.
“He has the magic of the old times, when all animals spoke the same language. Thus he can speak to any animal he wishes. And he can take any shape he chooses, for then we were free to be what we wished to be.”
So now True knew how it was that Golda could change shape so easily. She had a portion of her father’s magic.
“He was born a wolf, and that is the form he loves the best. He says that animals have forgotten what they once could do with magic and that humans have taken the power all to themselves. But he intends to give back to them, and more, what they lost, and to take from humans until there is nothing left for them to give.”
“He wants to kill humans?” asked True. He imagined a war between animals and humans. Humans had many weapons, but animals were far larger in number.
“To kill them? Some will die, I am sure. But that is not his goal. He wants to make them animals once more. True animals, as they were from the first. The humans are too far gone, and so they must die. Perhaps some of the animals, as well. But the rest will simply be changed—and made free.”
“But how? And why not simply do it? Why keep them here in bonds?” asked True. The thought made him uncomfortable. He had never thought of humans as enemies. Yes, they came to the forest to hunt, but he thought of them as more like hounds than as different from them. Perhaps this was because of his mother’s experiences, but that did not make it less real.
“He cannot do it all himself, not now. He has only enough magic to change a few, and then he would be used up, and would soon die. What good would that do?” said Golda.
True thought that it was very convenient for the Olde Wolf not to have to give up his own life for his goal.
“He must take magic from humans first. All the magic he can get. Then he can begin to change them,” said Golda.
“And you agree with your father’s plan? You think humans are so evil as that?” asked True. How could she, if she took human form herself?
It was not her human form that he had been attracted to from the first. It was her wolf form. The shape of her, the smell of her, the tilt of her head, and the swift flick of her tail. He had been mesmerized by her running speed and her strength and the sharp whiteness of her teeth. But this was something he had not seen before. He did not know what he felt for her now.
“Perhaps they were once different than they are. But they have become so degraded, so distant from their roots in the trees,” said Golda. “I have seen so many of them hurting their own children for pleasure. Killing those who are closest to them. Fighting for no reason but a banner above their heads. They don’t care for food or shelter. Only for power and magic.”
True stared into Golda’s eyes and felt her pain. She had seen all of these things. Her father must have shown her such horrors, not just here near the forest, but for miles around, perhaps even past the great waters of the ocean.
But what kind of father did that to a child? Made her face such terrible realities, when she might have lived a little longer without them? Did she not see that her father was hurting her as much as these terrible human parents did to their children?
“Some animals do terrible things, as well,” said True, trying to point gently to the truth.
“Yes,” said Golda. “They do now. Because they are infected by the humans. We need only be rid of them and begin again, and there will be a paradise again. So it was in the past, millennia ago, when he was first born.”
“If we were so happy then, why did we ever move forward? Why did we change?” True was thinking that if the animals had all been like the Olde Wolf, it might not have been as much a paradise as he claimed. At least for those who were not like him.
“We were tricked,” said Golda simply. “By humans. They did not know what they were doing, and they led us forward with them.”
“All except your father,” said True.
“Yes.” Golda’s eyes shone with admiration. “He knows the truth.”
“And your mother? Does she agree, as well?” True winced as he saw Golda’s reaction to the bald question. She twitched, then moved as if she had forgotten what animal she was, and had to figure it out with each new step.
“My mother is dead,” said Golda. “Humans killed her.”
“But your hatred for them is not revenge? Just like the humans who you despise and want to stop?”
“No.” She swallowed. “Not now, not anymore.”
True wanted to ask more about her mother, if she had lived thousands of years as the Olde Wolf had, or if she was a wolf like any other, from the forest, corrupt by humans, bereft of magic that should have been her birthright.
“When you meet my father, you will understand,” said Golda confidently. “You will believe everything he says. As I do. No one disagrees with my father once they have spoken to him.”
At that declaration, True felt a shiver passing through him.
“He is the wisest creature I have ever known,” said Golda.
“Or the most dangerous,” said True in a whisper.
“What do you mean?” asked Golda.
True shook his head. “Is it not magic he speaks with?” he asked.
“No, not magic. It is the original language, which both animals and humans remember without thinking. True, if you heard it, you would never want to hear anything else. It is like music, like the sound of water rushing in the river, like the sound of a new birth, like the sound of the first frost, like the sound of fire raging and the sound of rain falling to quench it,” said Golda.
“But he has never taught you that language?” said True. It seemed odd, if the Olde Wolf loved Golda as a daughter that he would keep this secret from her.
“No.” Golda shook her head. “I did not inherit that part of him, though he says that I might one day acquire it, if I study hard enough.”
True had no such belief, nor did he think that the power of the Olde Wolf was such a marvelous thing. If he accomplished what he wished, how would True himsel
f or his pack or any of the animals he knew in the forest be better than they were with humans still alive? How would the Olde Wolf be a kinder master?
“When will your father return?” asked True.
“It may be several days yet. He is with humans right now, working out the last stage of his plan.”
“I see,” said True. That meant he had to work quickly, if he was to stop the Olde Wolf. “He is at the castle, then? The one nearest us, in the forest.”
“Yes,” said Golda. “That one.”
True had to go to his mother and tell her what he had learned about the Olde Wolf and his plans against the humans. She would know what to do next, to help the humans in the castle. As for True’s feelings for Golda, he did not know what he felt anymore. He had not known her when he saw her first. But now that he did, he felt both more and less for her. She was so earnest, so pure in her belief of her father. She wanted to do good. True admired that about her. But she could not see truly, and that was dangerous.
“Would you like me to use my magic to change you?” asked Golda. “You could choose to be whatever you like. A bear. A mouse. An owl. I could do just for a little while, until my father returned.”
“I thought the magic only worked on yourself,” said True.
“No,” said Golda. “So it was when I was a baby, but I have practiced since then and learned how to change others. Some changes are easier than others, for I think each of us has one or two animals that are most like us.”
“I will think about it,” said True, who was not sure that he wanted such magic as that, nor that he wanted to be trapped in another form when the Olde Wolf returned.
“I could change you into a human, as well,” said Golda. “Or at least, I think I could.” She looked up and down at True.
“Perhaps later,” said True. “Though I would think human would be the last thing anyone who believed in your father would choose.”
He caught a glimpse of a strained look on her face, and then she turned away from him. “I must go now. I will be back in a few hours,” she said.
The Princess and the Wolf (The Princess and the Hound) Page 9
