The Master pulled a loaf and a piece of cheese from his satchel and threw them into the loose straw scattered across the floor of the barn. “Eat, child,” he told Spīdala. “Then we shall be on our way.” Spīdala stooped and caught up the bread and cheese before the Master could change his mind and rescind his offer.
“Shall I save the first bites to feed the pūķis?” she asked, settling onto a milking stool. Saving the first bites of her meals had become expected, as the pūķis had to be fed now each time she created it from the Master’s pipe smoke.
“No, child,” the Master told her. “Tonight we do not need to feed the pūķis. You may eat it all, even the first bites.”
Spīdala began to chew on the cheese she had been given. Alexei settled down beside her, one eye on the Master. Still full from the milk that Spīdala had managed to conjure for him that afternoon, he did not trust the Master to not know of it somehow and punish either himself or Spīdala because of it. But the Master just settled himself against the wall of the barn, as he usually did, to wait for Spīdala to finish her meal.
Spīdala stood finally, brushing the crumbs of bread and cheese from her lap.
“Come, vilkatis,” the Master crooned.
The hair on Alexei’s neck stood erect, the syrupy tone in the Master’s voice raising alarms. What could the Master be wanting? He never pretended to be kind. The sweetness dripping from the Master’s words had to be a trick or a trap. Alexei stood and growled quietly, the deep rumble in his throat an odd contrast with his emaciated frame.
“Come, vilkatis,” the Master repeated, gesturing with his crutch toward the barn doors. “Do not be so suspicious of me. Tonight you might just find me in a kindly mood to set either you or the girl free and let you go your own way. Maybe the both of you. Or neither. We shall see how kindly I might be disposed to you after our errand is completed.”
Alexei felt his hackles still rising and the rumble in his throat grew stronger. The Master certainly had some trap in store for them, dangling their freedom like that. The Master would never allow them to go so easily, so simply. Whatever the errand he had in mind this evening, Alexei was certain it must be especially horrid if the Master felt inclined to lure him into it with such saccharine blandishments.
Still growling, Alexei circled around the Master and then darted out the doors of the barn. Outside, in the night, he heard an owl hoot somewhere and the flutter of its wings. Spīdala came to stand beside him and she mounted his shoulders as she had so often these past weeks. The Master climbed astride his haunches as well. Without waiting for instructions, Alexei trotted into the sky and then, directed by the Master’s much more gentle than usual instructions, carried them away to a small farm far to the east across the forests and swamps of the countryside. Dropping down into the farmyard, Alexei could see at once that this secluded farm, surrounded by dense woods, was much more humble than most of the farms and manors or estates that the Master had brought them to over these past weeks. This farm was not simply humble, it was poor.
Spīdala climbed down from Alexei’s back and the Master clambered off as well. They all stood in the dark, listening to the sounds of the night. Owls hooted. A bat flitted out from the open hatch above the barn doors. Small rodents scurried through the underbrush of the woods.
“Why have you brought us here?” Spīdala asked at last, breaking the silence. “What is this errand, these ‘great doings’ that you promised?”
“Come with me,” the Master urged, the syrupy-sweet tone again making Alexei’s hackles rise. The Master limped into the barn and Alexei was sure he heard a whimper deep in the recesses of the rough-hewn structure. Spīdala grasped one of his ears as if acknowledging the danger of the Master’s tone and his promise to possibly free them if he was pleased with the results of this errand.
“I do not trust him, vilkatis,” whispered Spīdala into his ear. “There is something afoot here that is more wicked than anything he has asked for yet.” She lifted her head and set her shoulders back to face whatever it was the Master was leading them to. Together they walked into the barn.
In the dark of the barn, it took Alexei a moment to see that the Master was standing near one of the empty cattle stalls. With trepidation, Alexei and Spīdala made their way as quietly as they could across the barn until they stood alongside the Master at the stall’s gate. The Master leaned on the closed gate of the stall and it creaked open in the dark. At the sound of the creaking stall gate, something large scrambled through the loose straw strewn about the stall and pressed itself against the back wall. The Master pulled out his pipe and struck his flint to light it. In the quick light of the sparks from the flint and the flicker of flame as the tobacco caught fire, Alexei saw that it was a man.
The man had straw in his hair and caught in his shirt and trousers as well. He was blinking in the small but sudden light of the tiny fire in the bowl of the Master’s pipe, attempting to rub his eyes as if he had just been awakened by the noise. Alexei saw that the man’s hands were tightly bound with the rough rope typically used on farms. Glancing down, he saw the man was barefoot and his ankles roughly bound together as well.
Spīdala gasped and the man looked up at her, trying to see past the glare of the burning tobacco. The Master puffed quietly away, the white smoke beginning to curl up from the pipe, and the fire subsided, the tobacco becoming a glowing coal in the dark.
“Please, mistress!” the man pleaded, looking at Spīdala. “I have done no harm! I was only trying to protect my family! I meant no harm!” Weeping wracked his frame and he collapsed in a huddle into a corner of the stall.
“What—?” the question caught in Spīdala’s throat. Alexei stood beside her and the three of them—Alexei, Spīdala, and the Master of Wolves—blocked the gate to the stall, making impossible any hope the man might have had of escape.
The Master continued to puff away before finally pulling the pipe from his teeth. “This farmer has killed one of my wolf children. Last spring, when I apportioned all the food for my forest sons and daughters for this season on St. George’s Day, I gave one wolf permission to eat this farmer. But when the wolf came to eat him, the farmer dared to fight back and slew the wolf instead. Such insubordination cannot be tolerated.” The Master spat out the words as if they were food that had spoiled.
“It cannot be tolerated. Can it, vilkatis?” The Master leaned down to whisper in Alexei’s ear. “I gave one of my wolves permission to eat this man and this man killed the wolf. So now you will eat him, vilkatis.”
Alexei reared up and pulled away in disgust from the Master, his cries of dismay sounding like the yowling of a sick or injured wolf. The man cowered in the corner of the stall, gibbering in fear.
“No!” shouted Spīdala, stumbling back from the Master. “You cannot think—”
“Oh, but I do, my child.” the Master stood again and resumed puffing on his pipe. “The werewolf is hungry, so very hungry now. Are you not, vilkatis? So very hungry. And this man has dared to lift his hand against one of my forest children. So now, I give the vilkatis permission to eat the farmer. Nay, not simply my permission. I order the werewolf to eat this man.”
“Even you would not be so cruel!” Spīdala covered her mouth with her palm, choking on the thought of what the Master wanted of Alexei. Then farmer continued to weep, struggling to press himself even further away from them into the corner of the stall. Alexei stood rooted to the floor, his yowls of dismay gradually becoming growls of anger.
“Cruel?” mocked the Master. “Not cruel. Just. It is justice for the wolf this man slew.” The Master puffed on the pipe and then stepped away from the stall, turning his back to them. “If the vilkatis does as I say, I will allow you both to go free. If he does not, then you can expect to remain with me for another several seasons. At least. Maybe more. But this man will die, in any case. Our friend vilkatis may at least be the one to do it and win you both the freedom that you have seemed so hungry for these past weeks.”
“I did nothing but try to protect my family!” cried the farmer.
“No freedom is worth that price!” insisted Spīdala, still aghast with her palm covering her mouth.
Snarling, Alexi leaped through the air at the Master of Wolves, landing on the Master’s shoulders and knocking the Master to the ground as he sank his fangs into the Master’s throat. Blood spurted and splattered. The pipe flew through the air, scattering the burning tobacco like fiery snowflakes atop the hay strewn about the barn floor and causing a dozen small fires to erupt in the dry stalks. The Master roared and turned, sweeping his crutch and throwing Alexei against the wall of the stall. Bones? Wood? Something crunched as the werewolf struck the wall and slid to the floor, dazed by the impact. Then he was up and attacking the Master again, lunging and snapping his great teeth as the Master cracked his crutch over Alexei’s shoulders again and again and again.
Alexei caught the straps of the Master’s satchel in his teeth and shredded the leather as he tore it from the Master and threw it to one side. The Master roared again in fury in words Alexei did not understand. The farmer was screaming in terror, sure that the snarling, snapping werewolf would turn to devour him next.
As Alexei and the Master rolled about on the floor, the Master’s cloak flapping in the air, a shocked Spīdala, coughing from the smoke from the burning straw, took advantage of the opportunity. She caught hold of the Master’s cloak and tugged it aside as she pulled out the frothy-budded fennel that she had found in the forest so many weeks ago and drove the crumpled stalk into the side of the Master of Wolves. He howled in agony.
“Run, vilkatis! Go! Escape!” she cried to Alexei. She pulled the fennel back and drove into the Master again, provoking another howl. Alexei, only aware that Spīdala was thrusting something at the Master, knew he could not abandon her. He lunged again at the Master’s throat and felt his teeth sink into flesh once more. Again blood spurted and splashed around them. The Master swung his arm and knocked Alexei across the barn. Alexei hit the far wall and slumped to the floor, dazed and confused.
But suddenly there was a pack of wolves howling and running in through the barn door, coming to the defense of the Master. They came leaping through the flames, barking and roaring as teeth snapped. One caught Spīdala’s arm in its teeth and pulled her from the Master as others swarmed atop her, howling and barking. Others wrapped their jaws around the Master’s arms to pull him to his feet. One more jumped into the stall and the farmer’s wails were silenced as the wolf tore the man’s throat out.
Smoke and fire made it difficult for Alexei to see and breathe. He felt as if his head were swimming in the flames and smoke. He coughed and retched. Was that the Master he saw stumbling out the barn door, assisted by the pack of wolves who were half-pulling and half-pushing him? Sparks and smoke swirled about, flickering shadows obscuring his vision.
He heard a creak and a rumble as a support for the hayloft gave way. The hayloft shuddered, dropping more fuel into the flames. The barn shuddered again and another support gave away, crashing into the wall beside Alexei and knocking open a large gash in the wood. Air rushed in and the flames danced higher.
Half-aware that Spīdala was dead and there was nothing he could do for her now, Alexei felt the air tumble past him through the opening in the wall. He pulled himself up from the floor and shook his head, gagging on the smoke. Was he about to die? Maybe. But in one last attempt to escape the misery inflicted by the Master of Wolves, he threw himself at the open gash in the burning wall and the beams gave way beneath him. He fell out into the farmyard.
Tumbling head over heels away from the burning barn, he gasped and choked and, as he did so, felt the familiar tremors of the wolf magic retreating from his body. A moment later he was sitting naked in the farmyard, clutching the great wolf pelt, his chest heaving as he panted and gulped great lungfuls of air and cried for joy at having finally escaped from, having been forgotten by, the Master of Wolves.
And he wept for his friend Spīdala.
Chapter 4: Vilkolakis
Alexei
(Lithuania, Christmas 1889 to Epiphany 1890)
Alexei stood shivering in the snow, blowing on his fists as he peered at the weathered cross behind the hanging lantern.
The cross had been beautiful once, he could tell that much. It had been painted with an image of Christ crucified beneath the placard that read “INRI,” with a halo of gold leaf. But the waist-high wooden image had been standing in the weather for years—decades, most likely. It was weathered and worn, the paint peeling and all but a few flakes of gold long gone. The lantern hung before it, suspended from a slender rod of twisted iron that extended from above the INRI placard. The lantern hung so that the light from the oil lamp within the shelter of its smoky panes illuminated the worn and weather-beaten face of Christ, slumped down so the divine cheek rested against his left shoulder.
But now Alexei stood peering at this cross in the dusk, his feet in deep drifts. New flakes gently shivered in the air as they descended from the clouds. He had come to a crossroads, marked by this cross and its lantern, and he was unsure which way to go. Fields stretched out along one of the roads, empty now, but they would be full of grain during the growing season. The other road was hemmed in by woods, the trees a mix of evergreens and linden as well as birch trees, their branches naked in the winter cold. The wind tugged at Alexei’s scarf and he shivered again.
“Which way to go? Which way to go?” he asked himself in the deepening gloom. He stamped his feet and turned about, crossing his arms across his chest and wedging his hands into his armpits for warmth.
“I can’t sleep outside again tonight,” he muttered. “I’ll freeze by morning! There must be a village—or at least a farmhouse—somewhere nearby! But where?” He peered into the snowy gloom.
There! A flicker of light across one of the fields. Then another, not far from it. And a third. “A village!” He sighed with relief. “I will surely be able to get out of the cold there! One of the households will surely take pity on me and give me shelter!” He shook himself, stamping his feet again, and turned to follow the road toward the homes he had glimpsed in the distance.
But as he turned, he knocked his hip into one of the arms of the cross and set the lantern swinging. The oil lamp winked out.
“Will anyone miss the crossroads in the dark if the lamp is not lit?” Alexei wondered. But he had no way to light the wick again, even if the oil was not all splattered on the inside of the lantern’s glass panes. The snow began to come down more thickly, and by the time he reached the first houses along the edge of the village, his beard was crusted with icicles.
After Spīdala’s death and his own escape from the Master of Wolves, Alexei had been discovered by a farmer who had taken the naked man clutching the great wolf skin and able to speak little Latvian for a simpleton. The farmer had given him clothes and work in his fields for the remainder of the harvest season. Alexei had remained there and worked diligently, happy to be taken for a simpleton if he could earn food and shelter as he mourned the death of Spīdala, his only friend since he had killed his wife and children. But the farmer had no work for him once the harvest was done, and so, after the last of the harvest celebrations on St. Martin’s Day in November, Alexei had set out on the road again. He walked south and west, always south and west, as his grandfather’s ghost had suggested. He had a few coins in his pocket and a coat he had been given as well as a leather satchel he had purchased to carry the wolf pelt in. He would stop each evening to beg for a few scraps to eat and a warm place in a barn to sleep.
But the farms and estates had become more and more isolated as he made his way south and west. He knew that he must have crossed into Lithuania at some point but was unsure of exactly when that might have happened. As a result, his meals had become irregular and he sometimes had to sleep outdoors in the cold. But the winter was growing steadily more bitter and the snowdrifts were growing deeper. He needed to find someone that would take h
im in and give him shelter and maybe some work until the spring. He had found a few farmers willing to take him in for a night or two, but none who had a place or work for him until the spring.
But he had hopes as he approached this village in the early night that he might find a place here until the spring.
“Come in! Come in!” exclaimed the elderly grandmother of the first household he had come across. She had opened to the door to his knocking and spoken a few words to him that he did not understand, but had then spoken to him in Russian, and he was glad to obey her exclamations.
“Thank you!” he answered in his faulty Russian. He shook the snow from his shoulders and stepped into the warm and colorful household as the stooped grandmother took his coat and satchel and pushed him towards the hearth, where a cheerful fire was burning.
“Amalija! Dovydas! Edita!” she called into the back of the house. “We have a guest! A guest that walks in our door when it’s almost Christmas! Such a blessing is that!” Three children came tumbling out into the parlor. The eldest, a girl, was nearly as tall as her grandmother. The next eldest, a boy, also nearly as tall as the old woman, had cheeks of peach fuzz, while the youngest, another girl, was clearly much younger and was clutching a worn doll to her chest.
“Come! Come! Sit!” the old woman cajoled Alexei, a twinkle in her eye as she ushered him to a chair before the fire. “We will shortly be having our Kūčios supper for Christmas and are honored that you will be our guest, sir…?”
“Alexei,” he answered, bashful at the lavish attention she was giving him. “Truly, a place in the barn for the night and some food,” he began.
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