by Kyle Tolle
There was no way he could adequately describe it. “Come see for yourself,” he said.
She scooted to the end of the bed and craned her neck, but came no further.
The guards jabbed the rods up and down the barrel a hundred times to pack shot and powder, and this provoked a deep growl from the wolf. The sound squeezed Hantle’s gut and riveted his feet to the floorboards. The growl persisted as it stepped backward, and Hantle hoped the weapons would again be what kept the creature at bay. Shec and Crahul came into view, making it four to one. When it turned and ran, he laughed with relief. Instead of rushing back into the trees, the wolf continued along the forest’s perimeter. The guards chased after it, two of them struggling to pour powder into the flashpans as they moved.
Hantle’s excitement morphed into a groan when the wolf, without breaking its stride, swallowed one of the lanterns, whole and burning. How . . .? Within seconds, it had taken a second and third lantern. The grounds were significantly darkened, and Hantle temporarily lost view of the creature.
Shec slammed into the ground as the wolf bit at her shoulder. Her scream pulled Lorenca to the window just as the canine tore off a leg. The guards fell back several steps and Hantle realized the wolf’s size: its raised hackles reached higher than any of them stood. Panic spread from Shec to the guards as her cry reached a new pitch; one dropped his weapon and fled. In an instant, the wolf drowned the sound, its punishing teeth ripping away her rib cage and extracting the lungs themselves.
When Crahul’s musket failed to fire, he tossed it away, looking betrayed, and pulled a pistol from his waist. A yelp went up as his shot hit the beast’s withers. The wolf reared and pounced on Crahul, whose body shattered under its impact. It clawed across the throat of the petrified guard standing beside, and before she hit the ground, had her in its jaws.
Lorenca sucked in air, trembling, and without looking away from the creature, said, “Why aren’t you moving? Go. Help them!” Hantle sidestepped to the door, uncertain of whether she meant it. He was afraid of destroying their marriage by leaving the bedroom. She must have noticed his hesitation because she looked at him, eyes wide, and shouted, “Go!”
Hantle raced downstairs, grabbed his musket, and stepped out into the drizzle. In the brief interim, the creature had abandoned the bodies and ripped apart the last guard, who had tried to flee. Before Hantle could take aim, it moved off and blended into the gloom. Rounfil ran to his side, with Eayol just behind.
“Shit,” Rounfil said.
Hantle moved to Crahul’s side and felt for a pulse. “He got a shot in,” he said.
“What?”
“Crahul,” Hantle said. “He hit the wolf in the back, believe it or not. So the wolf is mortal, but only just.” He closed his eyes and moved his fingers around, hoping to find the heartbeat. When certain there was none, he wiped a bloodied hand on his pants and stood.
Screams. Screams from the west edge of Founsel.
The three of them ran toward it. Who had it gotten now?
Hantle stopped and gasped for air, stunned to find that one of the homes had a hole where the front door ought to have been. The wolf had burst its way inside, and Hantle heard it clawing its way up to the sleeping loft. He saw two figures run at the window, but the canine dragged them away before they could undo the lock. Silence wrenched its way back into the village.
Hantle stumbled backward as the window exploded outward and glass clattered to the street. The creature dropped from the house to the street, stomach bulging. A group just down the street shouted and began to flee. He couldn’t make out a single word, but the commotion drew the wolf’s gaze. It would have to cross the village square to reach them. Just enough time to get a shot off. Hantle heaved up his musket and Rounfil did the same. The wolf sprinted and Hantle led it several feet. As flint struck frizzen, both muskets rang out in opposition. The demon’s head jerked and it veered off course. Hantle’s heart thumped. Please let them have hit.
Rounfil lowered his musket and pointed. “We got one of its ears.”
Indeed, Hantle saw the remains of an ear hanging from the beast’s head. Blood streamed from the wound and stained the fur on the side of its head. But the thing did not topple over. It closed in on the terrified souls. Eayol fired and a puff of dirt at the wolf’s foot indicated the miss.
Others nearby poured out of their homes. Hantle dropped his firearm and drew a long knife. There was not enough time to reload before it attacked again. The sight of the villagers filled him with hope. He bellowed into the night and charged the wolf.
By the time Hantle reached it, the beast had swallowed two others and scooped up a third. It jerked its head side to side and pieces of the man came apart, hitting the ground like wet rags. Hantle raced in, blade raised high, and the wolf squared up. Aiming for the eyes, he brought the knife down. The canine read his move, backed out of the way, and lunged forward. Hantle missed, reeled his arm back, and arced the knife out wide, toward the wolf’s flank. In mid-air, the animal lurched in an attempt to lessen the blow, but there was no avoiding it.
The knife sank into the matted fur near the shoulder just as the wolf’s teeth sank into Hantle’s arm. When its paws landed on the ground again, it sidestepped, drawing the blade along bone and muscle, and released its bite. With a yowl, it ducked away from the knife and retreated a few feet. Hantle saw the long, channeled tear in the flesh just below the destroyed ear. Pain flared through his mind and he crumpled to the ground, clutching his arm to his stomach. The bastard thing had bitten him!
A strange thunk sounded and the wolf staggered sideways. Rounfil gripped under Hantle’s armpits and dragged him back. That’s when Hantle saw the source of the sound: a hand axe stuck out of the wolf’s ribcage. Eayol gripped a second axe in her hand and screamed, daring the fiend to approach.
With a final, sweeping look around the growing crowd, the creature thought twice. It contorted and, using its teeth, plucked the axe from its side. Then it scrambled back, turned, and sprinted off. They had scared it! Except . . . it was headed right for the guards they had left behind. Crahul and Shec! Hantle had scarcely finished the thought and already the creature loped toward the forest with three mangled bodies dangling from its maw.
Hantle staggered to his feet, grimacing at the agony stabbing up his arm, and watched the wolf dissolve into darkness. He reluctantly accepted that there was no way he could give chase. “Will someone get Yilrouth?” he said.
Without a word, Rounfil ran off.
Hantle’s energy left him and he slumped down. How bad was it? He eased the arm out and saw a row of puncture wounds oozing blood. He had expected worse. Gore covered his shirt. Drenched it, really. They had gotten it pretty good too, but had it been enough? The pain swelled; he shut his eyes and focused on the sound of water dripping from rooftop to puddle.
CHAPTER TEN
HANTLE SAT in Yilrouth’s office, his right arm extended on the table. The bleeding of the wounds had slowed, but that was about to change. Yilrouth set a bowl of water on the table and adjusted the dial on a lantern for more light.
“I’m going to flush out and clean the bite wounds,” Yilrouth said. “We want to avoid infection.” He set a long, flat pan under Hantle’s arm. “This will catch the runoff.” He leaned over the arm, then looked at Hantle out of the corner of his eye. “Ready?”
Hantle turned away from the doctor’s implements and focused on the lantern. “I guess.” The initial wave of cold water wasn’t bad. Sort of soothing. It was the prying, probing, and flushing Yilrouth did next that caused Hantle to clench his teeth. “Will it need stitches?” he asked.
Yilrouth set aside a bloody cloth and reached for a clean one. “I try not to with these sort of bites, but we’ll see how deep they go.”
Hantle watched the movement of the flame and lost track of the time until he heard a voice.
“Hantle?” Lorenca’s face peeked into the doorway. “Hantle!” She hurried into the room.
Seeing her surprised him. �
��What’s wrong?” he said. “Why are you here? Are you hurt?”
Lorenca’s eyes grew wide. “Me?” Her tired laugh matched the circles under her eyes. “I was looking for you. You’re the one who’s hurt. I’m fine.”
He shrugged with his free arm. “Yilrouth’s taking care of it,” he said. “The wolf bit my arm but I got it better.”
Lorenca stepped forward, looked at his arm, then away again. She was strong in a lot of ways but not when it came to the sight of blood. “It looks horrible! How bad is it, Yilrouth? Is it horrible?”
“No.” Yilrouth gave a small headshake. “It is not horrible.” He stopped his work and took a breath. “Would you please wait outside so I can properly focus?”
“Sorry, sorry,” Lorenca whispered and backed out of the room.
Within a few minutes, Yilrouth had moved on to swabbing the wounds with alcohol-dipped gauze. He became talkative. “Which house did the wolf get into?”
“The Gulfich’s.” Hantle flinched at the burn.
“Ah. They had two young ones. Has anyone looked in there yet?”
“I plan to do that next but don’t expect to find anything.”
Yilrouth nodded and pulled out a jar of ointment. “Shouldn’t need stitches,” he said. He spread the salve with a single finger. “I was surprised, but it doesn’t look to have bitten you all that badly.”
“That’s a relief,” Hantle said. “It let go after I got my blade in its shoulder.”
“That said, it will still take some time to heal.” Yilrouth unwound a roll of gauze and wrapped Hantle’s forearm. “Try to be careful with it, especially the first few days.” He finished off the bandage with a knot. “You’re all set.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hantle said.
“You’re welcome.” Yilrouth moved to a bowl of clean water and scrubbed his hands. “I’ll be out momentarily to gather the dead.”
Hantle found Lorenca leaning against the side of the house and raised the bandaged arm for her to see. “All taken care of.”
Her face eased as she inspected the doctor’s handiwork. “Okay, good. That wasn’t all too long.”
“Didn’t even need stitches.”
“How’s the pain?” She took his good hand into hers. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Pain’s manageable. Why don’t you head home, dear? The wolf attacked the Gulfich’s house and I want to check that out.”
“Okay,” she replied, to his surprise. “You do what you have to do.” Maybe seeing the wolf herself had caused the change in her attitude.
He kissed her forehead and said, “Thank you, Lorenca. I’ll be home shortly.”
Hantle and Rounfil approached the Gulfich’s house. Rounfil lifted a lantern high, illuminating the fractured doorway and window above. Both holes in the dwelling were ragged with splinters and gaped black. Creaks from the floor followed Hantle into the building and a chill slid down his spine. The only light was from Rounfil’s lantern, but it was enough for the small space. A mess of broken belongings lay scattered about.
“Hello?” Rounfil called. “Anyone here?”
Claw marks had gouged through the floorboards of the loft, allowing blood to drip through and pool on the ground. That seemed answer enough, but Hantle turned over the furniture, hoping that one of the children might have hidden and gone unnoticed. No one was hidden, though. They climbed the staircase, hardly recognizable now, and found the loft even worse off. Blood coated the floor and splattered the walls. Where the window and its wall had been broken through, the roof buckled and sagged. A jutting nail impaled a bit of fabric, which fluttered in a breeze. The bed and every other piece of furniture had been reduced to wreckage, and they found no person or any bodies. The family was a complete loss to the glutton.
Hantle staggered against a wall and felt the reality of the night settling over him. “The wolf took my sons, and every night since, it’s killed more and more.” He pointed to where the bed had been. “They were asleep, I’m sure, when it came in. Why does it—I mean, look at this. How does an animal do this?”
“I have no idea why this beast is after us”—Rounfil shook his head and set the lantern down—“I do know, however, we’re giving it one hell of a time. One of us took off its ear, and there’s a good chance our other shot landed.” He became more animated with every word. “You sliced its side open, I know that for damn certain. Maybe got an artery. And Eayol landed a good blow with the axe. It was scared as shit when it turned tail and ran. I saw the fear in its eyes. You know what I think? I think it’s bleeding out in the forest as we speak.”
Rounfil made a lot of sense. “You might be right,” Hantle said. Something still felt problematic, and it took him a moment to identify it. “But we wouldn’t know for sure that it died. It could just as likely be off raiding some other group, like it did with Weith.” Hantle pushed off the wall and moved to the hole on the other side of the room. The view looked out to the meadow in which his sons had played countless times. He imagined them there now, running and throwing handfuls of grass at each other. “The uncertainty would be terrible.” His thoughts shifted and produced a broken coop in the air before him, topped with pale heads. “I’ll only believe it dead when it’s under my boot, with a shot in the head.”
Rounfil put a hand on Hantle’s good shoulder. “If it comes back tomorrow,” he said, “I think we can manage that.”
“Oh, it will be back tomorrow,” Hantle said. “Larger and hungrier than before, which is what worries me most.”
“We’ll do what we can, Hantle.” Rounfil took another look around. “Think anyone will live here again?”
Hantle shook his head. “The damage could be fixed but the horror won’t wash out.”
“Ready to get out of here?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SUN HAD BARELY RISEN and already Hantle took a seat beside Lorenca in the village square. He placed a hand on her lap. She was not crying and looked stronger than she had on prior days; her eyes glowed green in the sun. Sure, he still had a pit inside, but it had not consumed him entirely. It was good to see hers had not swallowed her up either.
Liova shuffled down the aisle to the front of the square. Her shoulders slumped forward with exhaustion. There again sat bales of hay streaming ribbons. Since no remains had been found of the guards slain in duty or the family killed, there were no coffins. Pirram had instead constructed small boxes. “Would any friend or family,” Liova said, “who has a memento to place, please step forward?”
Hantle reached under his seat and grabbed an item. He approached the box marked “Crahul” and laid it within: the pistol with which Crahul shot the wolf. The man was certainly braver than Hantle had given him credit for. Not only had he volunteered for the guard, he was the first to injure the wolf. He returned to his seat while others placed their trinkets and tributes.
Liova went down the line of boxes and closed their lids. Each sat at an angle to display the name carved thereon. She took a seat on a hay bale, cleared her throat, and spoke. “I feel today as if my heart has been plunged into the midst of a ravaging storm. Nine people were taken from us last night: Shec, Crahul, Feiss, Nolent, Beyoleth, and the four Gulfichs. Never before have we suffered so bitter a loss. We gather to remember each of them: beloved family, dear friends, and members of Founsel. The first five we owe a special debt for their service in the night watch. They sacrificed their lives. To protect us. To protect Founsel. They were a shelter against the storm and lessened its blows.”
Hantle looked to his bandaged arm and felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t right. He deserved more than the bite, far more. He should have been out there with them. Instead, he had been in bed, resting while they faced the wolf. First, he failed to save his boys, and now he couldn’t even be vigilant in their honor? Lorenca squeezed his hand and brought his thoughts back to the funeral.
“We must weather the tempest,” Liova said, “just as the trees and mountains do. Even the winds do not last forever. They wi
ll spend themselves, and the branches will settle.” She stood to lay lilies, a faint yellow, along the boxes. In nearby seats, the surviving family members clutched mourning wreaths whose tiny bells rang as they stood. “Let us lay these brave comrades to rest and take rest ourselves. This day is hard won. The Void is not everlasting, though it may seem so. We will cry and rage and be sick with grief. But at least we have that honor. This day is hard won.” She invited up the bearers, who each took a box and led the procession.
Hantle fell in line and sweat raced down the back of his knees. Humid air seemed to buoy up the layer of clouds overhead. No gruesome findings today had been a respite, but it was marred by the fact that the wolf no longer needed those heads or spines to inspire fear. Anticipation of the coming night was dread enough. What hope did they have of preventing a recurrence tonight?
People milled about in the village square after the mourning meal and the lull brought out nervous chatter and speculation about Founsel’s predicament. Rounfil ran a hand through his hair and huffed. “We had run it off two nights ago, but last night it killed every guard out there. What changed? Why weren’t we able to run it off again?”
“It didn’t just lurk on the fringe of the village, like before,” Hantle said. “It came right in and attacked straight away. It’s growing fearless.”
“Eh,” Douth grumbled. “If I had any sense, I would have packed up and left yesterday, like the shepherd had been smart to do.”
The thought shocked Hantle. “Could you honestly leave Founsel?”
“Yes!” Douth said. “Why in the hell would anyone stay? That’s what I want to know.”
“Running would never come into my mind. Founsel’s always been my home. Nothing—especially no animal—is going to change that.”
“Suit yourself,” Douth said, “but I don’t want to die here.”
“Dying in a strange land seems preferable, then?”
Douth opened his mouth to reply but Liova cut him off.
