Under the Wolf's Shadow

by A. Katie Rose

  The Guardian, on its knees and me on three legs, met in the middle.

  It rushed me into its lethal embrace. It enfolded me, captured me. Its hands, one healthy, the other broken, closed themselves around my vulnerable neck.

  My fangs snapped down on its throat.

  My rage grew. Doubling in size, my daemon cried aloud, his fury lending much needed strength and aid to my powerful jaws. Biting, chewing, ripping away the thick protective hide, I sought for and found its jugular, pulsing beneath my tongue.

  At the same instant, my breath cut off. Hands of incredible strength made a jest of mine.

  Unable to breathe, my neck bones yielding under the pressure, I knew I’d be dead within moments. All I needed was a few more seconds–

  I found it. My fangs pierced it. I released it.

  Like a plunging river, the Guardian’s precious life opened under my biting teeth, spilled into my mouth. I tasted its sweet, coppery flavor, scented its rich, mouth-watering odor. Like the bull I killed so long ago, I felt the Guardian’s life bleed away, ebbing slowly, drying up like a dammed river.

  With it came its revenge.

  Gasping for precious air, my breath gone, I struggled. My paws scraped, and caught, scraped and caught on the hard stone. I couldn’t break free.

  Where were the others? Beyond the beast’s broad shoulder, Ly’Tana lay against the wall, silent, blood blackening her hair. She was gone, departed ahead of me, yet alive within the presence of Nephrotiti. The others . . . as dead as she. My heart died within my chest.

  The Guardian’s grip never wavered, its immense hands bending my bones like so many straws. I felt my neck bending, yielding, crushing beneath that horrible, monstrous grip. Ly’Tana’s body dimmed in my sight as my brain, starved for air, shut down. Into my jaws I sent all my will, every ounce of strength left to me. I tore its jugular open wide. The river became a raging torrent. Hang in there. Whatever the cost.

  If I didn’t outlive its death, I’d die without accomplishing my mission. I’d die–

  And so would the wolf race.

  I ground my jaws together. The Guardian’s neck exploded.

  I felt its body expire, its soul set free, rising up and away, free and light.

  In its death throes, its grip grew tighter–impossibly tighter.

  Snap–

  I blinked.

  Where am I?

  I stood in near darkness, alone, confused. Nothing stirred around me, not the air, not my breath. I glanced around, seeing only emptiness and heard only silence. I felt not the stone under my feet, nor the sensation of standing. I tried touching my hands together and still felt nothing at all.

  Am I dead?

  Wait.

  I saw something ahead of me. Without legs, I drifted forward. I peered through a heavy mist, like a mesh between me and the outside. I saw myself, my immense wolf body, broken, and still entwined with that of the dead Guardian. That wolf’s jaws clenched hard around the beast’s ravaged throat, its heavy head canted at an impossible angle. The Guardian’s dead fingers were buried so deeply into its thick ruff they vanished.

  That’s me. I am dead.

  I felt little emotion. No happiness, no sorrow, no joy, no anger. I felt only a vague emptiness, a separation from that wolf body that used to be mine. I knew I should feel something, if only surprise that death wasn’t so fearsome.

  On the far side of the heavy veil, Ly’Tana crawled toward the black wolf’s corpse, bleeding, her mouth wide in screams I couldn’t hear. Tears flooded her face, blending with the blood that still seeped from the wound on her scalp. Flinging the dead beast’s hands from the wolf’s throat, she struggled, still screaming, to lift its head.

  Rygel joined her, limping, unheard sobs breaking from his chest as he helped her lift the dead wolf’s head to her lap. Bent over it, she wept, racked by sobs as Rygel collapsed, his arm over the wolf’s corpse with his shoulders heaving.

  I watched with a vague regret at their grief, but felt little else. If the gods were merciful, perhaps one day they might join me here in this place. I frowned.

  Aren’t the others dead, too?

  I was alone, yet surely Silverruff, Thunder and Little Bull should be here with me, awaiting our judgment.

  Kel’Ratan staggered into my view, followed by a lurching Silverruff. Tears cascaded down his face, yet he didn’t join Ly’Tana in her grief. Instead, he yanked on the beast’s hind legs, and freed Little Bull. The big wolf struggled out from under its heavy weight, yet didn’t rise. He flopped onto his side, his lips puckered in a long, drawn-out howl.

  Thunder crawled to Little Bull and joined his brothers in their wild lament, howling their grief as Kel’Ratan limped to Ly’Tana’s side. He dropped to his knees beside her and put his arm over her shaking shoulders. He spoke, but I heard not his words.

  I might have stood there for all eternity watching the grief of those who had loved me. While that black wolf they mourned over was once me, it was no longer. That had ended and a new journey stood at my feet.

  Behind me, a light shone past, illuminating the barrier before my eyes.

  I turned.

  Like a lit lamp, the light started as a single white flame, then grew and swelled. Larger and larger, it lit the entire place with its radiance. Brighter, then brighter still, it filled my vision until I saw nothing but sheer silvery brilliance. ‘Twas though I stared into the noonday sun, yet my eyes felt no pain.

  Within that incandescence, a shadow moved.

  Like the white light, it began small and loomed larger. Fuzzy and indistinct at first, it moved, walking toward me. Like a ship on the distant horizon, it grew in size and shape and drew closer, the light behind it casting it into a dark silhouette. Slowly, it filled my sight, gaining in both shape and distinction.

  It strode on four legs, ears perked upright on its head. Huge shoulders rolled forward with each stride, and a long tail swung from side to side behind it. Its eyes, luminescent and glowing softly, captured mine.

  I couldn’t look away. Nor did I want to.

  The shadow grew closer. It was a wolf, but a wolf like none other. Beautiful beyond belief, as kind as the new spring dawn, its silver-grey fur shone brighter than the Bountiful Star. It moved with the grace of a hunting panther, yet its full body and broad shoulders spoke of a strength that outstripped mine in my day.

  Pinned beneath that stare, those luminescent eyes I wriggled like a worm on bare stone. I wanted to cringe, to crawl, beg for mercy. Every bad, evil or hate-filled thought or act I had committed in life flashed before me. Surely I would be consigned to hell for the blood upon my hands, the evil I have done. Fear filled my soul.

  The great silver wolf stepped out from the light, no longer a shadow but real in body and form. Fully as large as I had been while alive, he was refined and elegant, whereas I was bulky and clumsy. His silver fur, like the softest of silks, moved fluidly and shone with its own inner light. His paws tread the ground with a lightness and grace only a god might achieve.

  For now I recognized in whose presence I stood.

  The light behind him faded and vanished. I turned my face away, trembling, terrified, unable to look him in the face. Beside his greatness, I was but one insignificant dust mote drifting on the wind.

  “Look at me.”

  I dared not. I am afraid.

  “You have nothing to fear.”

  I dared to glance up, into his shining face, into the face of my father, my god.

  His angular, golden eyes smiled down on me.

  “My son,” Darius said. “I am most pleased with thee.”

  My fear fell away. My lord, I am yours.

  “That you are, my son,” Darius replied, humor in his luminescent eyes, his tongue lolling in a wolf grin. “Your strength, your courage, and your undying devotion to a cause greater than yourself has freed me. My wolves, our wolves, shall not now perish from this earth.”

  Joy soared in me. Despite the evil I’d done, the blood I’d spill
ed, Darius forgave me. I’d remain with him throughout the ages, at his side, under his great light, and be happy.

  Darius laughed, his great eyes shining. “Yes, well, that isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  Confusion roiled through my mind, my heart. I’m here, lord of lords. Command me.

  His pink tongue lolled in an easy grin. “Oh, I intend to, dear boy. As much as I’d want you by my side for eternity, your time has not yet come.”

  What?

  “Oh, before the Lords took me, I asked a favor from a friend of mine,” Darius replied, walking toward the barrier between life and death. I walked beside him, dwarfed by his immense presence. “It’s a huge favor, but don’t ask the details, I’ll never divulge them. She agreed in the end. Now that I’m free, I’ll be at her beck and call for a space. But that’s fine. I owe her.”

  I’m confused.

  “Of course you are,” Darius laughed. “Come, she’s here. Right on schedule.”

  Together, we gazed past the great barrier.

  Lit by a radiance unequalled save by Darius himself, the unicorn walked toward my corpse, unnoticed by the mourners gathered around it. Her tiny foal, a trifle larger than when I first saw her, tripped happily at her side.

  “You see,” Darius said conversationally, his head tipping toward me. “I couldn’t foresee your fate, yet I didn’t want you to pay the ultimate price in rescuing my miserable hide. In case things went amiss for you, I made a bargain with the unicorn goddess.”

  You what?

  “Unicorns are very special,” he went on, watching the scene before him. “Pay attention. This part concerns you.”

  I watched, astonishment replacing my joy.

  Kel’Ratan jerked back from Ly’Tana as the unicorn stepped silently on golden hooves behind her. Rygel, too, raised his tear-stained face, his jaws slack, shocked. Sluggish, blinded by tears, Ly’Tana raised her swollen face from the black wolf’s cheek. Starting to turn, she felt the single tap of the unicorn’s horn.

  Ly’Tana, jolted, staggered to her feet. Her hands went to her battered and injured head. Her fingers groped for the wound that was no longer there. Her hair fell like burnished silk past her shoulders. Her skin, only a moment before bruised and torn in many places, regained the almond shade of her race. Examining herself, she found her wounds had vanished, healed in less than an instant. Upright, clear of injuries and pain and grief, she stumbled as the unicorn shouldered her aside.

  Tears glimmered in the faint light, dripping from the unicorn’s beautiful garnet eyes. Down her white cheeks they flowed unchecked from her tiny muzzle.

  Those tears struck the black wolf’s corpse.

  I gasped, struck by lightning from heaven.

  Lying on the cold floor of the cave, I drew in another ragged breath. The nasty monster’s blood in my mouth choked me, making me hurl it up and out. Its flavor that of death, of rot, of the grave, I shook my head violently as I tried to rid my mouth of its stench. I coughed, snorted, spewing gore everywhere.

  I struggled, blind, deaf, my paws thrashing. I scrambled to my feet. Those paws and legs had forgotten how to move during their brief visit in death, and sent me crashing to the stone. Panting in terror, my lips skinned back from my fangs, I tore loose from the hands that gripped me.

  “Raine!” Ly’Tana screamed.

  With her voice in my ear, I came to myself, shaking, trembling all over. At last standing on shaking legs, I blinked as Ly’Tana cannoned into me, still screaming, her arms unable to encompass my entire neck.

  Kel’Ratan fell back from me, landing hard on his butt, his mouth working soundlessly. His blue eyes bulged in their sockets. “Gods above,” Kel’Ratan gasped, making the sign against evil. “You’re dead. I swear you were dead.”

  Tears still flowed from Rygel’s eyes as he smiled. Gripping his injured chest with his arms, sweat and blood still streaming down from his brow, he managed to stand. “Unicorn tears.”

  “Gods–”

  “Step aside, young wizard,” the unicorn said firmly. “He goes first.”

  Her multi-colored horn gravely tapped Kel’Ratan’s broad shoulder as his mustache bristled in shock and fear. Like Ly’Tana, he jolted as the unicorn’s power hit him broadside. Instantly, his wounds closed. Congealed, the dark blood staining his face, clothes, and body vanished. New, raw energy filled his face and his eyes as his pain trickled away like water from a broken skin.

  The young daughter tapped each of the wolves with her tiny bud as her mother finally offered Rygel her healing magic. Unlike his own power, which took time and energy, Rygel gaped down at himself as his broken ribs and crushed chest were built anew within him. Little Bull, Thunder and lastly Silverruff rose to their paws, fully healed of their grievous injuries. They sniffed the unicorn child in confusion, whispering together. She endured their curiosity with no small amusement before she trotted back to her mother’s side.

  “I don’t understand,” Silverruff said, bewildered, unable to stop glancing from himself to me to Ly’Tana and back again. “You were dead–now you’re alive. That’s impossible. How can this be?”

  “I hedge my bets.”

  Darius emerged, still resplendent and glowing like a star brought to earth, from the deep shadows. His eyes gleamed iridescent, kind, his divinity dropping over us like a winter blanket. As one, Ly’Tana, Kel’Ratan, and Rygel knelt. I bowed low before him, my right foreleg extended and my brow brushing the stone.

  “Darius?” Silverruff asked, his jaws wide.

  “Indeed, Silverruff son of Tuatha.”

  Silverruff dropped to the ground, Thunder and Little Bull beside him, groveling. Fear-etched grins widened their jaws. Their tails swept under their bellies as their muzzles swept the bloody stone.

  Only the unicorn and her tiny daughter regarded Darius with dispassionate courtesy.

  “Greetings to you, Wolf Lord Darius,” the unicorn said politely.

  “Greetings to you, fair mother,” Darius replied, inclining his muzzle. “I thank you for your service this day.”

  “My mistress sends her affections,” the unicorn said, her tone grave. “She awaits you at the place previously agreed.”

  “I will be there,” Darius replied. “As promised.”

  “Good.”

  The unicorn glanced at me, her garnet eyes amused. “I like this one, Darius,” she said. “I think I will keep my eye on him.”

  “He is at your service, gentle lady,” Darius replied. “If you should ever have need of him, you have but to call.”

  “One never knows,” she said quietly, her eyes still on me. “Does one?”

  “Indeed, my beautiful friend.”

  “Don’t be late,” the unicorn advised, turning away. Her daughter flanked her, watching me. “You know my mistress expects punctuality.”

  “Should you see her before I do,” Darius called after her. “Remind her she still owes me for that wager we had.”

  “I will, Darius,” the unicorn’s faint voice replied.

  Though her mother walked toward the tunnel we arrived through, the little foal stood still, regarding me with a solemn expression that appeared older than her age. “Where is Darkhan?” she asked.

  “He stayed behind, little one.”

  She glanced at her mother briefly, then back at me. “Tell him I love him.”

  I bent my foreleg, and bowed low. “Your will is my command, sweet child.”

  With a sound suspiciously like a giggle, the foal galloped away and caught up with her dam.

  Though there was no snow to conceal them, mother and daughter vanished into the darkness of the cave. I glanced around, using scent, hearing and taste to determine they had even existed at all. I found nothing, not even tiny hoof prints in the churned dust covering the stone floor.

  Darius gazed down at me, grinning. “Where would we be without those lovely unicorns.”

  Changing into my human clothes, I ran my hand through my hair. “In a world of hurt, I reckon,
” I replied, confused. “I’m not understanding this.”

  “Me either,” Kel’Ratan muttered.

  “Among all creatures in the world: the gods, daemons, etcetera,” Darius said, “only the unicorn can bridge the barrier between life and death. I made a very tempting offer to the unicorn goddess and she accepted. If you died, she would send one of her children to toss you back among the living. Had to be done quickly though. Difficult to bring back a corpse that’s been dead for more than a few minutes.”

  “I see,” I said, the light finally dawning in my thick pate. “She marked me, so she could find me again.”

  “Exactly,” Darius answered. “I wanted you to survive this debacle for various reasons.”

  “What might those be?” I asked.

  He laughed. “It crossed my mind to simply let matters be, and keep you at my side should you and the Guardian kill each other.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Someday you’ll know.”

  “It never crossed your mind that I’d die while failing to kill the Guardian?”

  “Not once.”

  I rubbed my hand over my face. “That’s a great deal of faith in one gai-tan.”

  “Ah, but you are not just gai-tan,” Darius said. “You are from my blood.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “I think I did.”

  “You merely said I’d live.”

  “I couldn’t tell you I planned ahead. Such might have tilted the balance in the wrong direction.”

  “I see,” I replied slowly. “I think.”

  “I have my own agenda, you understand,” Darius said, his tone somber. “You still have tasks I need you to perform. My wolves need their Chosen One. You are gai-tan. I have need of both.”

  Darius spoke to me, yet his luminescent eyes rested on Ly’Tana.

  “From you will come the scions I will need in the generations to come. They, like you, will have the blood of both wolves and men. One day you will walk at my side.”

  He sat down and scraped his paw over his ear. His jaws widened in a lupine grin. “That time isn’t now.”

  “My father will never permit us to marry, great lord,” Ly’Tana said, understanding what lay within those eyes.