Tales of the Old World (85 page)

I have some skill in reading prints in the ground and what I saw surprised
me. In the mud near the stream where the flock drank I found signs of the
abduction: here were drag marks to indicate the demise of the lambs, here a
little wool caught on a thorn, here the prints of the shepherds arriving late on
the scene—and everywhere were the indentations of a large wolf. The wind,
already cold along the stream bed developed a cutting chill. I followed the
prints until they crossed and re-crossed the stream; a smart wolf, this killer I
had supposedly created. A smart wolf manifested from thin air and imagination. I
could do little but wait for the night which is usually my friend.

I am not a man who frightens easily, nor one who is used to fear. As the
night settled over me, as it fell gently to earth and blanketed the greens in a
cobweb shroud, a bead of sweat found the scar at the base of my neck and settled
there. Most foolish of all, this man, this killer who is scared of nothing, was
frightened of a beast of his own creation. After a brief discussion with the
shepherds, who informed me they had had this wolf problem for some months, and
who, gratifyingly, were more scared than I was, I positioned myself in the low
branches of a large oak which spread itself over the flock like a priest
blessing the multitudes.

There was no question of my falling asleep. Such vigils are common in my
profession and besides, the perch was religiously uncomfortable. I watched as
the moon traversed the sky, describing a pearly slice through the low western
horizon. Morning was only a few hours hence and I had long ceased jumping at the
shadows of the dogs, shaggy brown brutes from kennels in Averheim. It was one of
these mutts who saw her first, however, or more likely smelt her. Even though
she came from downwind, we could all smell her stench. It was a smell I have
smelled before, many times. When a man is about to die, when he knows he stares
death in the face, he has a certain smell. It is in his breath, or comes from
his skin, I don’t know, I am no physician. I smelt that smell that night on the
wind. When I looked down from my perch she was there.

I have seen wolves before, but only in cages, rolling, barred wagons in the
streets or in fairgrounds: “Come bait the ferocious wolf, feed a mad killer with
yer own hand!” She was a killer all right, but far from being mad. She moved
with determination and poise. I slithered lower in the tree, silent as she,
hunters both. Her approach put me downwind of her and I was almost overpowered
by the stench of death which was her musk. As in an old Kislev folk tale, I had
made a lariat from heavy twine and I balanced on the low bough, watching her.
She was fascinating, huge certainly, but agile and sure-footed. I imagined her
yellow eyes as I watched the muscles shift beneath her flanks.

She moved quietly towards the flock. One of the dogs found the source of the
smell and loped over. The well-trained mongrel bared its teeth and crouched on
its forequarters, a language that the she-wolf would surely understand. As soon
as she turned I was ready to spring my trap. She did not sway from her purpose,
however, ignoring the dog’s threat, and I detected something strange in her
gait. She was hungry like a wolf, certainly, but she did not crouch low as a
hunter would, walking rather at her full height past the snarling dog.

This was too much for the mongrel which threw itself at her throat, a studded
collar wrapped about his own. She turned, acknowledging the brutal assault. With
a flick of her neck, which might equally have been contemptuous or desperate,
she flipped the attacking dog and snapped its spine against the hard ground. Her
unfortunate assailant yelped and rolled away trying to straighten a body which
would never be right. I say “contemptuous or desperate” because I could not
read this strange creature, I had not the language. I should have sprung then
and there but I waited, crouching in the darkness, in what could equally have
been curiosity or fear.

The shepherds came then, with the other dogs. No doubt they wondered why I
had done nothing, had not sprung my trap. Three young, strong men of Averland,
armed with stout staves picked clean of bark during long, all-night vigils. Two
more dogs, angry and frightened after the scream of their pack-mate. They would
drive her off, perhaps before she took a lamb; anything else was unthinkable.

At the last minute I knew it would not be so, something in the way she moved,
something in the unreadable curve of her ribs. I almost shouted a warning, but
then I am no stranger to death, and these men were nothing to me. Besides, they
outnumbered her. I have, I must confess, a sentimental attachment to the
underdog, the lone wolf.

What followed was a lesson for a killer in killing. Again she waited until
the last instant, turning as the two dogs came crashing in with their heavy
skulls set in a charge. She rolled to the side and opened a gash on the flanks
of the closest one with her bottom jaw, sending her victim in a scything skid
down the stream bank. Before the other dog could recover she was on her feet and
charging herself. She ducked under its guard and clamped her maw about its neck,
spinning the animal in the air and crashing it sideways into a rock. The dog
coughed once and lay still. The shepherds paused, fear and anger competing for
their countenances. Anger won, as it so often does with younger men. They
gripped their sticks tightly and strode in. The lariat hung loose in my hand.

She turned to look at the men and to my surprise she cowed. She looked away
and lowered her tail, which flickered like a flame above her hind legs. The men
rushed her and I read the signs an only instant before her ruse was revealed.
The first shepherd was on his back with her paws on his chest before the second
caught his brother’s hand with a wild blow of his stick. The brother screamed
and dropped his weapon. He brought his hand to his mouth as if the benediction
of his lips might heal the shattered bones. The second shepherd turned in time
to see their companion’s throat rent by the wolf.

She was magnificent. I stood as I might in a theatre, watching the players
enact a drama of such intensity that I dared not shift lest I disturb their
concentration. The other two stood together, defensive now, not believing what
they knew to be true. She circled them once, slowly, and then rushed in, felling
them with an axe-like blow of her head. The three rolled on the ground and
wrestled but there could be only one outcome. Eventually she shook herself free
of the corpses and spun her coat like a hound who has come in from the rain. I
watched, knowing somehow that there was more to see.

The wolf had hurt her hind left paw and she limped to the base of my tree. My
breath was caged in my chest and I strained to keep it there. She sat against
the roots and shook her coat again. The moon passed for a moment behind a cloud,
or so it seemed, and suddenly I was looking at a woman, or perhaps a girl. A
naked girl at the base of the tree, her shoulders slick with blood, her left
foot stretched up to her face where she licked a cut on the soft skin beneath. I
had stayed silent thus far but on this transformation I let the night air escape
from my lungs in a rush and gasped for some to replace it. The girl’s head
snapped up and our eyes met, as they had met before. I understood her gaze then,
as I had not before. A killer looked at a killer. Like knew like.

In an instant she rolled and before I could say anything, least of all that I
intended no violence to one so magnificent, she was gone. She sped across the
field, once again lupine, once again perfect. I crept back to the manor slowly,
avoiding the blackest shadows, shaking my head as if to dislodge the images of
the night from my memory. When I awoke late the next morning, however, they
remained as clear as the day which greeted me.

After that my elegant plan had to be postponed and the count’s security was
doubled. They found the bodies of the three shepherds and the prints in the
ground were clear enough that even fat Hugo could read them.

“Werewolf,” he said, grimacing as if he had put his toe into a bath too cold
to sit in.

What angered me as I stood there, not far from the tree in which I had
perched the night before, was the man’s demeanour. An assumption of superiority
over something he could never hope to understand. From that moment I decided I
was on her side: wild, frightened, perfect killer over fat, tame gamekeeper.
After we held a solemn meeting about the best way in which to trap the ferocious
beast—my contributions were fatuous and deliberately impractical—I went to
seek her.

The farmers and workers on the count’s estate lived in a village outside of
the walled manor, a collection of huts and thatched cottages huddled around the
mill as if they wanted to take up as small an amount of the count’s fertile
fields as was possible. I felt eyes regard me from dark windows as I walked up,
stopping periodically to beat the sticking mud from my boots with a switch of
hedgerow. She was not hard to find. I asked a few questions, not to be denied,
this man from the manor. The answers I got were not co-operative but the
villagers said more than they meant.

I found her drawing water from the well. She saw me and dropped her bucket,
ducking behind the barn. I followed as quickly as I could and this time managed
to say that I meant her no harm. She knew what I knew from the way I looked at
her; it is always in the eyes. She went inside the barn and I stepped in after
her, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, divided by slices of light
between the planks. I smelt hay and her.

The wolf’s attack took me by surprise and I was lucky to have straw to fall
on. She was on me and I remembered clearly enough the fate of an exposed neck to
those jaws. But I am not a gormless shepherd boy. I brought my knee up into the
creature’s chest and gained my feet in time to meet another leaping assault.
This time I pivoted on one foot and lashed out with the other. The manoeuvre
cost me my balance and I once again tasted the hay but my boot connected with
the wolf’s ear and sent it sprawling. I leapt up, spitting dust and faced her
again. She shook her muzzle, trying to dislodge the straw and a burr which had
stuck there and I laughed.

“It seems we both have reason to regret this battle already.” I sounded more
confident than I felt but such deceptions are my meat and drink. While we
studied each other I was unclasping my cloak and searching the room for a
weapon. “Must we fight until one of us, most likely my good self, is cold meat?”
There was a pitchfork holding up the thatch, wedged between two beams above my
head. My pleading was having little effect and she lowered her head and crept
forward into optimal pouncing range.

I watched her eyes; it is always in the eyes. Hers were yellow and savage,
pools of amber malice, but there was a softness as well. I looked harder and
almost fell into her trap. There was no softness, a sham designed to distract
her sentimental opponent, accurately assessed by her predator’s gaze. I
recovered as she sprang. She was nearly quick enough, nearly, but I have been a
killer longer than her.

I leapt upward, throwing my cloak in front of me and reaching for the
pitchfork above my head. She flew head-first into the billowing wool and hit the
ground awkwardly. As she skidded across the straw, I yanked down on the
pitchfork and it came free. I crashed to the floor in a hail of straw and roof
beams. The bundle of cloak and wolf thrashed about and I dealt it a heavy
stabbing blow with the butt of the pitchfork. I stepped to the side as a section
of the roof sagged dangerously and reversed the pitchfork, pointing the four
tines accusingly at my cloak. The bundle therein was now a lot smaller and I
released a breath which I did not know I had been holding in when I saw the
girl’s head emerge from one of the arm-holes. I made sure she remained covered
in the cloak. My taste is usually restricted to women of more years and greater
curves but I could not deny a certain attraction in this case. Nevertheless, I
am nothing if not a gentleman killer. We crouched together in a shaft of
sunlight in the corner of the barn, she rubbing a bruise on her shoulder and me
working the straw from between my teeth.

Our conversation was short but enough to satisfy me that she was more afraid
of her condition than any number of shepherds or farmers. I suggested she might
wander farther afield on her night-inspired rampages, or perhaps wreak havoc
among the deer of the forest. It seemed she had little control and I vowed to
help her. We decided to make it possible for her to leave the village behind,
and live somewhere a little more remote. Why? I left the village asking myself
this question, suddenly unhappy, uneasy even, with the glib phrases I had made
to myself about a killer knowing a killer. Certainly there was that. Perhaps I
saw a little of my younger self in her savagery and I wished to help her over
the hurdle from random savage into refined artist of death. Perhaps I loved her,
though I doubt that. I am not so deeply sentimental.

Whatever the reason, I had determined to help her and would have proceeded
along the simple course we had devised, returning then to my employer’s task.
Except that things did not happen that way, holy father. Another character
enters on the scene of this little tale of mine, revered Kaslain, and writes a
chapter whose authorship I will rue until my death.

That character and that author is
you.

Kaslain stood quickly, his heavy robe dropping from his knees to brush the
flagstones. The killer on the divan looked at him.

“I have watched you as I told the tale and you knew from the beginning that
it was your story, yet you listened. I had counted on your vanity, as sure a
thing as any.” He smiled, mouth like a wolfs.

The arch-lector began a brisk walk towards the chamber door, the walk of a
man who craves haste but dares not reveal his need. He stopped in response to a
noise from behind him and whipped his head around. The man was no longer on the
couch. In fact, the priest could not see him at all. A large stain of blood
marked that he had lain there and a soft red pillow of flesh, a kidney!