Storm Wolf (8 page)

Alexei drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs, beginning to rock and wail. “I… I only wanted to drive away the storm,” he managed to say between sobs. “How… how many did I kill?” In some corner of his mind he wondered who he was speaking with and how this man had escaped Alexei in his rampaging wolf form. “But the storm...” He wanted to know. “Are the crops safe?”

“Yes.” The voice paused. “You drove away the storm,
vilkatis
. The crops are safe and no one will starve this winter. You fought bravely and slew many of the thunder dragons. It will be many seasons before such an assembly of thunder dragons and storm goblins think to attack this region again. Many would thank you if they knew you were the one who had done that.”

That was some consolation. “You saw that? You know what I am?”

“Yes, I know that you are
vilkatis
, one of the old order of the wolf-men who drive the storms away that would devastate the farms and destroy the harvests,” the man he could not see explained. “It has been many long years since one of your kind has fought in the skies here. I saw your battle with the storm and I saw you come down from the torn clouds as the storm goblins who still lived ran from your terrible jaws. I saw you, wounded and exhausted, tumble from the skies and then stumble here into the forest and I saw what you did then. I know what you ate here among the trees.”

Alexei waited for the man to continue speaking but he heard nothing. The man had not answered Alexei’s other question. “But how many did I kill here in the forest?” He wondered who had even been in the forest. Had some of the farmhands run into the trees to escape the storm?

“On the earth? How many? You can see the carcasses around you, can you not?” sneered the voice, and Alexei realized the man must be standing behind him. He craned his neck to look behind him but could see no one in the dark between the trees. He heard steps trudging through the mud towards him but their rhythm was off, somehow. “But you did not have my permission to eat any of them.”

“Your… your permission?” Alexei paused his rocking in the mud and twisted himself to peer around the other side of the tree. “Who… who are you to give permission?” Alexei demanded. “How would your permission have made such slaughter right, in any case? No one can give such permission!”

The out-of-rhythm steps kept coming, slowly and steadily through the mud, branches snapping under the man’s feet. Alexei thought he could hear the rustle of a cloak around the man’s shoulders. And maybe… maybe a sniffle and a small whimper, as if the man were trying to stop himself from crying? Or was trying to keep his crying silent so as not to give away his location in the darkness because he was afraid that Alexei would turn and attack him now, even though Alexei had regained his human form?

Alexei struggled onto his knees, clutching the tree behind him for support. The snapping branches, the darkness and the grief confused him, so that the sounds seemed to come from all around him. Was the man limping? Was that why the steps seemed off-kilter? He heard the whimpering, also in the air all around him, but he could also hear the man’s gruff breathing and realized that someone else was whimpering in the forest. Maybe someone he had attacked but not slain? Someone he had wounded while he had worn the great wolf pelt? Was the man limping because Alexei had attacked him as well?

He stood, gathering the pelt around his hips for modesty’s sake and to have the pelt ready to drape over his shoulders and change back into the werewolf if he needed to protect himself. Whoever this limping man was, Alexei did not trust anyone who thought he could give a werewolf permission to slaughter and eat people hiding in the forest. The strange man could be as much a danger to Alexei as Alexei had been to whoever had been hiding from the storm in the forest.

“You fear me,
vilkatis
?” Alexei spun around. How had the man gotten behind him?

But that’s where the man was now, standing directly behind Alexei. The man did have a heavy woolen cloak draped over his shoulders, but as it was pulled back behind his arm on the left side, Alexei could see that under the cloak, the man was dressed in the simple garments of a peasant woodsman or hunter, though he did have a pair of worn leather boots on his feet. The man was leaning on a rough-hewn wooden crutch wedged under his left arm, and his left foot was twisted slightly behind his right foot. A large leather wallet bag hung over the man’s other shoulder, its bulging sides half-hidden beneath the cloak. A wide-brimmed hat sat at an angle on his head, hiding half his face in shadow. One eye glittered out of that shadow at Alexei, but the one eye that Alexei could see clearly was covered with the milky sheen of a cataract. The man was clean-shaven, and though his face was worn and creased, he did not strike Alexei as nearly old enough to have lost the sight of one eye to such a cataract. Greasy iron-colored locks of hair hung down over his shoulders and now, this close, Alexei could also detect a trace of the scent of wolf about the man. Who was this stranger?

“You fear me,
vilkatis
,” the man repeated, but this time it was a simple statement of fact rather than a question. “You fear me and it is right that you should fear me. Here, in this region, I am called the Master—or sometimes, the Herdsman—of Wolves, and it is my decision to allot what each wolf shall eat each season. I am the one who chooses which animals or humans are to be eaten by which wolf, and it has been many long years, as I said, since a
vilkatis
has walked under my dominion.” He gestured towards Alexei’s feet with the tip of his crutch. “But no wolf in this region,
vilkatis
or not, can eat anything unless it has been allotted him by the Master of Wolves.”

Alexei began to protest and the man struck his thigh with the crutch, the crack of the wood against his thigh sounding like thunder in the quiet night. “Do you understand,
vilkatis
? No wolf—no matter where he comes from, if he finds himself in this region—can eat anything that I have not given him permission to eat. No man. No cattle. No swine. No deer or boar or elk or rabbit. Nothing. Unless I have given permission and allotted it from my food wallet. Now, look around you.” The Master of Wolves swept the tip of the crutch around him, pointing at the remains of bone and flesh, and then touched the tip to Alexei’s blood-streaked chin. “You have eaten here without my permission. You owe me restitution,
vilkatis
. Do you understand? Restitution!” The crutch struck Alexei in his stomach, just below his ribs.

“Restitution? You’re mad!” gasped Alexei, doubling over in pain. “I was fighting the storm clouds and then I must have fallen on those men….”

“Men? You think you ate men here?” The Master of Wolves laughed, again sweeping his crutch about him to gesture at the bloody remains on the forest floor. “Those are not the remains of men! You slaughtered and devoured one of the forest deer and a rabbit or two. When was the last time you fought the storm clouds? You looked exhausted and famished when you tumbled from the skies. I can understand why the wolf form needed to eat so badly when you descended back to the earth. But that still does not give you leave to eat in this region without the permission of the Master of Wolves!” Again the crutch cracked against Alexei, bruising his shin.

“No men?” Alexei, still doubled over, peered up into the Master of Wolves’ face. “Only a deer and some rabbits?” Did he dare to trust the Master of Wolves? He hadn’t killed any people this time? He lost his breath again, not because the crutch struck him in the gullet, but this time in relief; he had not slaughtered any of the innocent farmhands, so all the blood and gore he found himself stained with was not human, but that of the deer and rabbits he had seized as a hungry werewolf. He nearly burst out crying.

“No, you did not eat any men who might have strayed into the forest hoping to save themselves from the worst of the storm,” the Master of Wolves sneered.

Alexei was finally able to pull himself upright and face the Master of Wolves. “I have no coins to pay you restitution,” he told the Master proudly. “I am simply passing through this region. You have no real power or authority over me. I will be on my way again tomorrow and not bother you—or the people of this region—any further.”

“I have no need of your petty little coins for restitution!” snarled the Master of Wolves. He swung his crutch, striking Alexei again in the shin, and Alexei snarled, his lip pulling back to reveal teeth that were half-transformed into the sharp fangs of a wolf.

“Think I have no power or authority over you, do you?” the Master went on, raising the crutch as if it were a cudgel. “Every wolf of whatever sort—earthly wolf or
vilkatis
—that passes through this territory is under my dominion, fool. If you did not know that, so much the worse for you. You are mine until restitution is made—and if you truly think I have no authority over you because you are only here for today, you are in for a rude awakening,
muļķis
!” The crutch came sweeping down and struck Alexei’s ear, blinding him with pain and driving him down onto his hands and knees, and as he fell he felt the familiar stretching and pulling of his muscles, the snapping and popping of sinews and cartilage, saw the heavy fur spring up through his skin as the pelt melted into his body and he became the great wolf. Confused and bewildered by the sudden and unexpected transformation, Alexei’s snarl died in his throat.

“You will remain in your wolf form for as long as it pleases me to hold you in it,” the Master of Wolves taunted him, resting the tip of the crutch back on the earth and leaning on it with his full weight. “Until I am pleased by the service that you owe me in restitution for eating here without my permission. Until then, you are mine to command,
vilkatis
. And do not think to disobey me or you will yearn for the gentle admonitions of my crutch!” He shook the crutch in Alexei’s face.

Alexei did not understand what had happened. Would he perhaps lose control of himself in the wolf shape as he had before and slay the Master of Wolves? He snarled again at the Master and took a step closer. He did not need to lose control of himself if he wished to slay the Master. He pulled himself back onto his haunches, preparing to leap forward and tear out the Master’s throat.

But in the moment of tensing his haunches and preparing to leap forward, his throat constricted and cut off his breath. He felt as if great hands were clutched around his throat, throttling him and shutting off the supply of air to his lungs, which began to burn for lack of air. He tried to throw himself at the Master but only collapsed onto the ground before him, writhing and twisting as the constriction of his throat grew tighter and tighter and his lungs burned more and more painfully within his breast.

“Do you understand me now?” The Master leaned over Alexei, who continued to choke and cough and struggle to breathe as he thrashed on the ground at the Master’s feet.

“You will serve me until restitution is made,” the Master repeated. “Do you agree?”

Alexei half-heard what the Master was saying as thunder roared in his ears and his sight faded, but he managed to whimper slightly and rapidly nodded his head to indicate his agreement. The choking sensation ceased at once. Alexei gasped, his chest heaving. Eventually the gasping and heaving subsided and he was able to struggle onto his feet.

“I come into this forest twice each year,” the Master told him, as if nothing had just happened. “On St. George’s Eve and again at Michaelmas Eve, when the cows are first led out to pasture each season and again when they are brought back from pasture at the end of the season. On those nights I apportion to each of my wolf children, my forest sons and daughters—your forest brothers and sisters,
vilkatis
—what they will slaughter and eat during the summer and then again what they will each slaughter and eat during the winter. You shall eat nothing while you serve me,
vilkatis
, because all the food for this summer has been allotted. I can give you nothing to eat because there is nothing to give. Perhaps, if you live so long and are still serving me come Michaelmas Eve, I will include you in the allotment of food for the winter. But until then you will have only stream water to slake your thirst and the grasses or berries you can scavenge to fill your stomach.”

Alexei hung his head. Would he live until winter as he served the Master of Wolves? Would he ever be free of either the Master or the wolf magic that drove him to be a killer? He whimpered in despair and the Master chuckled.

“Of course, there is one thing to eat that was not allotted to any of my wolf children when they came to me on St. George’s Eve,” he mocked Alexei. “Since you are the last to come to me this season, I can give you leave to eat that one last thing I have to allot.” He lifted his crutch and pointed to the branches above Alexei’s head.

“If you wish, you can eat the woman hiding in the branches of the tree.”

Woman? In the branches? Alexei sprang back and pulled himself onto his hind legs, his front paws digging into the tree’s bark to support himself. He peered and squinted, struggling to make out anything in the heavy shadows that draped the upper reaches of the forest. He held his breath and then could hear it again in the quiet, someone sniffling and trying not to cry so as to avoid discovery. He sniffed the air and caught the scent of a woman somewhere above him. The scent of a frightened woman. But not just a woman. There was another fragrance mingled with the woman’s. What was it? He recognized it somewhat, it was similar to something he knew well… It was the fragrance of something related to the thunder dragons and storm goblins that he fought in the skies. It was the fetid, sickly sweet smell of corrupt magic. The woman in the branches must be a witch.