Among the Wolves

When the first assault ended, fresh gouges in the earth marked the places where the wolves had struck. Kael made no attempt to pursue the animals into the trees. He stood with his sword held across the road, keeping Seren and Elowen where they could see the ground he meant to defend. His old injury had not fully healed, and the sharp turns of the fight had awakened a dull pain in his right shoulder. The wolves, meanwhile, seemed prepared to wait. Their eyes appeared and vanished among the bushes, as though they were studying the result of their first attempt. Kael knew he could not hold off attacks from every direction indefinitely.

“Don't watch only the wolf in front of you,” he told Seren. “Watch the shadows beside it. The one that attacks may not be the one you're looking at.” She nodded and forced herself to scan the trees instead of staring at the largest animal. Elowen set her pack down where it would not catch her feet. Her arm still hurt, but her fingers closed firmly around the stone she had picked up. At the Order, she had never imagined standing on a wilderness road waiting to stop a wolf with a rock.

One wolf suddenly rushed along the outer edge of Kael's reach, trying to draw his blade away. He held his position. Another circled from the left and closed on Seren's flank. She heard claws scrape over loose stones and turned, already too late to retreat safely. Kael's warning reached her almost with the animal itself. “Don't fall back. Hold your ground!” Her heel was close to Elowen's pack. If she stumbled, both women would be exposed. She gritted her teeth, gripped the staff with both hands, and faced the oncoming gray shape.

The wolf leaped high, its forepaws aimed at her shoulder. At the same instant another animal moved against Kael from the left, forcing him to choose which danger to meet. He stepped half a pace toward the nearer wolf and drove it away with the edge of his sword, then used the momentum of his turn to face Seren. The leaping animal was already too close for a sweeping cut; such a blow might strike her as easily as the wolf. Kael lowered his center of gravity and thrust his sword straight ahead. The wolf's own momentum carried it onto the point. The force traveled through his arms, but he held fast until the animal's weight dropped, then drew the blade free.

The wolf rolled across the roadside, struggled briefly to rise, and fell still with a short, broken whine. Seren could scarcely breathe. Never before had she seen a living creature die so close to her. Yet there was no time to dwell on it. Another wolf launched itself at Kael's unguarded right side as he recovered his sword. Seren cried out his name. Before her warning had faded, a stone the size of a fist flew past her and struck the wolf across the muzzle.

Elowen had thrown it. She could not later have said precisely how she had judged the angle. She remembered only Kael's warning to save the stone until there was no other choice. The wolf flinched, its leap faltering for the smallest fraction of a moment. That was enough for Kael to turn aside. He escaped the worst of the attack, though the claws tore through his cloak and opened three bleeding lines across his shoulder. He did not look down. Instead, he raised his sword and forced the animal back into the undergrowth. Elowen picked up another stone, her arm trembling from the effort of the throw.

“Well done,” Kael told her. There was no time for a longer acknowledgment. He shifted his stance to cover the bushes on her side. Seren saw the blood darkening his cloak and felt an urgent need to go to him, but she stayed where she was. The best help she could give him now was to keep another wolf from reaching him while his attention was elsewhere. She struck the earth with the end of her staff as one of the animals tested her position. It hesitated and drew back.

Then the attack stopped. Kael looked toward the deepest part of the wood as the largest wolf stepped out from behind the rock. It was broad-backed and heavy-coated, with golden eyes that rested first on its fallen companion and then on the man holding the sword. It did not bare its teeth or circle as the others had done. Instead, it stood a dozen paces away, facing Kael across the torn earth. Leaves drifted between them. The only sounds on the road were the three travelers' strained breathing and the wind moving through the branches.

Kael remained still. He watched the leader's gaze pass over Seren and Elowen before returning to the sword, almost as if it were deciding whether the hunt was worth continuing. There was a patch of unusually dark fur at the back of its neck, though from that distance he could not tell whether it concealed mud or a wound. At last the wolf raised its head and gave a long, low howl. The others stopped moving almost at once. One by one they withdrew, not fleeing in panic but backing toward the trees while keeping their faces turned toward the road. The last gray shape disappeared among the trunks.

Seren waited until she could bear the silence no longer. “Have they really gone?”

“For now,” Kael answered. He told both women to remain where they were while he checked the edges of the road. Only when he was satisfied that no wolf lay waiting nearby did he lower his sword. Elowen discovered that her legs had become unsteady and sat against a tree. She had always assumed that she would scream if faced with such danger. Instead, there had been no time to be frightened while she acted. Now the fear she had held at bay came over her in waves.

Kael approached the dead wolf and examined its teeth, claws, and belly. He had encountered wolves in many regions, including packs desperate enough to attack people during a famine. These animals were different. They had surrounded travelers on a road in broad daylight, coordinated their attacks, and retreated together at a signal. More troubling still, the dead wolf was not thin. Hunger had not driven it to the edge of starvation. When Seren asked why they had behaved so strangely, Kael refused to offer an answer he could not support.

Elowen noticed something beneath the fur at the back of the animal's neck. She parted the bloodied gray hair and exposed a patch of skin discolored from gray to black, its uneven edges suggesting that some change was spreading outward from within. She had tended the sick at the Order and seen sores on animals, but nothing with this color or texture. After touching it cautiously, she withdrew her hand and warned the others against further direct contact. Kael wrapped the fingers that had touched it in a piece of cloth and committed the mark's shape and position to memory. He suddenly remembered the alpha wolf standing beside the rock. There, too, the fur at the back of its neck had been unusually dark; at the time, he had taken it for mud. Now he understood that the dead wolf might not be the only one bearing such a mark. He thought of the rumors about unusual animals in the north. For the first time, the scattered reports seemed as though they might belong to the same story.

Seren noticed blood on his cloak and immediately brought clean cloth and a waterskin. Kael insisted that the scratches were shallow, but she made him sit while she washed and bound the wound. Elowen helped by pouring water and observed, with a small smile, that someone who spent so much time looking after others ought occasionally to obey instructions himself. Kael looked ready to argue, but the seriousness on Seren's face persuaded him otherwise. When his shoulder tightened with pain, she slowed her movements. The careful work steadied her, giving her something useful to do after the shock of the fight.

They did not depart at once. Kael made sure Elowen drank some water, cleaned his sword, and checked its edge for damage. Seren looked at the dead wolf with relief at having survived and sorrow she could not dismiss. She wondered whether it had once hunted ordinary prey among the trees, and what had driven it to attack travelers beneath the midday sun. Elowen said quietly that she hoped the creature had not become this way of its own choosing. Kael heard her but did not answer. All he knew was that the three of them had witnessed something they must not forget.

Before leaving, he placed a few stones near the carcass so that anyone investigating later might find it from the road. He would not cut away the damaged skin or ask his companions to carry material that might bear an unknown illness. As they shouldered their packs, birdsong returned to the trees. Seren glanced back and understood that quiet did not always mean safety, just as fear did not necessarily mean she had abandoned her faith. She still did not know where the road would lead, but she was beginning to understand that companionship sometimes meant holding a place for someone else when they could no longer hold it alone.