Blood for Wolves

chapter 7

I didn’t know how long I flew. It felt so glorious to have the wind on my face and the clouds through my fingertips. Was I supposed to be looking for something? I let the thought go. Being in the sky was so amazing. Peaceful. No one for miles upon miles.

Suddenly I dropped several feet. Panic erupted in my chest. I looked to my wings. They were losing feathers. Fast. I aimed for the ground. I had to land or at least get low enough that by the time the feathers were gone, I wouldn’t be hurt. I wanted to cry. Why were my wings falling apart? I wanted to have them forever.

The patch of forest below was dark; much too dark during the middle of the day. The trees looked like their leaves were black, and a dark mist rolled along the ground where bare bracken tumbled. I tried to bank right, aiming for a greener, sunnier part of the forest, when a screech shattered the air around me. Above me, three creatures with black wings circled, and then dove.

I tried to flap my beautiful wings, but they were too weak, too featherless to do anything more. One of the creatures struck me hard from behind, sharp talons clawing at my pack, trying to find flesh. I tried to struggle out of the pack, but my wings were in the way. A second creature struck at me. It snatched up my arm and I screamed as its claws bit deep. The third screeched and flew around me, under me. It looked up and for a moment I was able to clearly see what had attacked.

Harpies.

Ugly women with sagging breasts, wings for arms and powerful bird-like claws for feet. I kicked out at her, but she easily flew out of reach, shrieking at me with a mouth full of pointed teeth. Feathers drifted down in a shower of white now. The two harpies holding me flew toward a dead tree, black and gnarled, reaching toward the sky in its last throes of death. I jerked and shouted in their grasp. I didn’t care how far the ground was now. I didn’t want to end up on that tree. My wings were gone and my daypack was being shredded to pieces.

I twisted around to the harpy holding my arm and managed to get my mouth around her leg. I bit down as hard as I could. She shrieked and jerked. A dark liquid seeped into my mouth, the smell of rot invaded my nostrils. I gagged and spat it out. She only dug in her talons deeper, drawing another scream from me, and then they dumped me onto the tree.

The branch was wide enough for me to lie on, but I clung to it anyway. My arm dripped blood to the ground far below me. Too far. At least thirty feet. Far enough that jumping could mean a broken leg. The punctures in my upper arm throbbed, pain radiating from my shoulder to my elbow. The harpies landed around me, grinning around their ugly beak noses and hunching their heads down like vultures.

“We have not had a pretty one in a while,” said one. Her voice rasped like gravel on gravel, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She had blood on her talons; she’d been the one to grab my arm.

“Certainly we have not,” said the one behind me. “What shall we do to her, my sisters?”

“Eat her!” screeched the third.

“No,” cried the first. She lifted her talon and licked my blood from it. She spat and made a face which made her even uglier like a shrunken head. “She is much too sweet yet. She will have to stay here for a time until properly ripened.”

What the hell did that mean? My head felt fuzzy. I wanted to fly, but couldn’t. I wanted to get out of here, but had no idea how. Climbing down the tree could be possible, but not with the harpies around. I winced and pressed my forehead against the blackened bark. One of the harpies cackled.

“See? Look at her. Already despair is setting in. I say she has a day or two before she submits, and then we can pick her apart, piece by piece.”

Why did everything around here want to eat me? First Wolf, then the giants, and now harpies. Except Wolf hadn’t really wanted to eat me at all. Why had I left Wolf? Why did I think I could survive in this place on my own? I wanted to fly again. I touched the wings on the necklace, but nothing happened. Would I die here, eaten by harpies?

No. I lifted my head to glare at the one with my blood on her talons. I was not going to be eaten alive by harpies. At least, not without a fight. I’d go down breaking wings, tearing out feathers, and gouging eyes. I abruptly pushed myself up and spit into her face.

I went down again immediately as she screeched in surprise and anger, flapping her wings and flinging her head back and forth. I cried out almost as loudly, digging my fingernails into the tree branch out of pain. My arm was slick with blood. I prayed she hadn’t punctured anything vital, or I wouldn’t have to worry about being eaten alive. I’d die of blood loss first. The idea made me even angrier, and I kicked out at the harpy behind me. Bad idea. I missed, and she shrieked and scratched at my legs. Her talons sank into my calf, pushing me over the branch. I screamed again and hung on for dear life, dangling over the dark ground far below. Then I heard a low growl and glanced down. Something on all fours, black, with a long tail paced beneath me. A pair of vibrant green eyes looked up.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, fear spiking through me. I strained to pull myself back up, but my injured arm hurt too much, the wounds too deep. I started to slip.

“No, no,” said the harpy behind me. She fluttered over and hauled me back up by my backpack. I secretly thanked the powers that be that she hadn’t done it by some other body part. She plunked me down on the branch again.

“You are staying right here until you are ready,” she said.

The three of them cackled again and flew off to parts unknown. The clouds overhead seemed tainted by an inky blackness, making them look smoky and evil. The creature pacing below stopped to lap up something from the ground. My blood. It dripped from my fingertips and slowly soaked into my hiking sock from my leg. I closed my eyes. I never wanted to be here. I just wanted to help a little girl get back home. Not even Wolf could find me now. I didn’t know how far I’d gone, but I’d traveled by air. But what did that matter? He knew Marianne’s scent. He’d go after her instead. He was bound to.

With the harpies gone, I’d dragged myself over to sit against the tree’s trunk. I rummaged through my daypack to find the first-aid kit. Luckily the harpy’s talons hadn’t ripped the pack too deeply, only tearing out the outer pocket where I kept small things like sunglasses, my compass, and pocketknife. The first-aid kit was hardly what I needed for my wounds, but I did what I could with the antibacterial ointment and small role of gauze. Duct tape held everything in place. Fortunately my leg wound wasn’t too bad and after a while it finally stopped bleeding. On an afterthought, I kept the scissors from the kit and slipped them into my pocket. Then I closed my eyes and tried to rest.

I didn’t know how long I sat in the tree. Occasionally the harpies returned, snuffled around me, and then flew off again, dissatisfied. I guessed I wasn’t ripe yet. The thing below had lain down against the trunk, its tail occasionally twitching back and forth. It reminded me of a panther, but it was bigger, much more sinister, and way too eager to get whatever leftovers the harpies dropped. I kept touching the wings on the necklace, wishing I could fly again, but nothing happened.

Somehow I managed to doze. What little light broke through the polluted clouds eventually faded and the entire forest went black. Normal forests had ribbiting frogs and singing insects at night. This place had things that screamed. A creature squealed, something snapped, and then whatever it was ate its prey, little bones crunching in its teeth. Big snakes—or other horrors—slithered through the underbrush. Suddenly, I was six again, in the woods, in the dark, all alone. I curled my fingers around my skull. Then somewhere, far off in the distance, a wolf howled, and I wanted to cry.

In the desperate hope that maybe I hadn’t screwed up too much, that maybe the wolf was my Wolf, I howled back.

“She is stagnating.”

The rough snarl woke me from what little sleep I’d managed to catch. The harpies were back, staring at me with black, beady eyes.

“She was too blissful when we caught her,” said the one who’d caught my arm. My blood had dried on her talons. “We will have to wait longer.”

“But I am hungry,” shrieked the third.

“Too bad,” the second snapped. “We have gone for twenty years without any, what are a few more days? She will give in eventually. They all do. Hunger and thirst are the best and simplest instruments of despair. Once she lays here wailing and begging, then it will be time for a feast.”

The other two harrumphed. My throat was dry, though I dared not reach for the bottled water in my pack lest they take it away from me so I’d cave faster. They hung around for a while, watching me. I watched them right back. I hated feeling sad and alone. Pathetic and waiting for rescue that would never come. I didn’t have my pocketknife, but I did have the scissors. I slid my hand into my pocket. The harpies hopped from branch to branch, wrinkling their ugly faces at me. If I was going down, it wouldn’t be without a fight.

The second one of them jumped near, I lunged forward and jabbed the scissor point into her neck. She shrieked and leaped back, flapping her wings as she tried to get away. I held on, letting her jerking motion do even more damage. Dark blood spurted from the growing wound. The other harpies screamed and darted at me. I ducked away, hoping they wouldn’t use their claws, but knowing they wouldn’t risk knocking me off the branch to feed the dark creature below. The harpy in front of me jumped and tried to scratch at me with her talons, but the angle wasn’t right and she missed. I grabbed at one of her legs and dragged her closer, taking out the scissors and jabbing down again into her chest. The instrument was small but sharp and dug a few inches into her flesh.

She kicked out with her other leg, the other two harpies yelling and flapping around my head. One of them kicked at my wounded arm. I cried out, and the distraction almost allowed the injured harpy to slash into my face. I released her and she flapped awkwardly back. Watery black blood covered my hand, smelling like rotted meat. I gagged and backed up to the trunk of the tree. The other two hovered nearby, watching as their comrade flopped and stumbled on the branch. Blood dripped over the bark and fell to the ground. I’d punctured something vital in her neck. She coughed and sputtered, finally collapsing on the limb with one last gurgling breath.

My stomach lurched from the smell of her blood, but I managed to steel myself against the desire to retch. Instead I watched the other two for their retribution. It didn’t come. They landed, looking deeply thoughtful about what they’d witnessed. I guessed they’d never experienced such an event before.

“Hmm,” one of them said. “I suppose…I suppose that just means that there’s more for the two of us.”

They cackled as though they’d just heard the funniest thing in the world. Then they left their perches. One snatched up the carcass and they flew off, probably to eat their so-called friend and then find some other poor creature to torment. I pulled out my water and drank down half the bottle.

Around mid-day, the evil panther below me got up and trotted into the forest. I laughed to myself. I’d beaten the evil panther. Then I froze. With it gone, I could try to climb down the tree.

I shifted around to hug the wide expanse of trunk. The bark split apart into thick pieces I could grab and was surprisingly stable for a dead tree. Slowly, methodically, I wrapped my legs around it and inched my way down, sliding a few heart-stopping inches from time to time. I’d been rock climbing before, but hiking boots were far from ideal, and my wounds throbbed painfully. I’d only made it six-inches below the main tree branch when vicious snarls emitted from the spot where the evil panther had exited. I froze in place, muscles slowly cramping as I stared at the spot. Whatever had attacked the panther sure as hell was giving it a run for its money. I moved down a few more inches, deciding that if the two things were fighting, it made for a good distraction and a potentially safer getaway.

The fight lasted a few more minutes, time enough for me to manage several more feet. Then the forest went quiet. I stopped again, gauged the distance. Still too far to jump. The brush where the evil panther left rustled. Panic gripped me. I couldn’t climb back up, my arm was bleeding through the gauze, I had new scratches from the tree, and if I jumped I’d survive but probably break something. Just go. Go, go, go. I kept my downward strategy, scraping my bare legs and hands raw, and made it several more feet before the thing behind the bushes emerged.

“Wolf!”

He staggered into the dank clearing, one hand held to his abdomen. He looked up at the tree, a grimace on his face.

“You, my heart, are such a heap of trouble.”

“Wolf, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened—”

“Later. For now you need to come down.”

I nodded and kept moving. Maybe twenty feet to go.

A pair of shrieks tore through the air. I peeked around the tree. The harpies were quickly closing the distance between us.

“Let go, Caroline!” Wolf shouted.

“It’s too far!”

“I’ll catch you.”

I slipped a few inches and squealed. “That is a bad idea!” My muscles shook from the effort of holding onto the tree.

“Do it, woman!”

I shut my eyes and let go of the tree. Miraculously, Wolf caught me. It almost knocked him over, but he managed to keep me from slamming into the ground at least. The harpies went ballistic, their screams filling the air. They raised their talons and dove at us.

“Run,” Wolf yelled. “I’ll be right behind you!”

I darted into the dark forest the way I’d seen him arrive. Behind me, Wolf snarled amidst the wild flapping of wings. The harpies shrieked and cried, and then one of them screamed louder than the other. I kept my eyes at the ground as I ran, trying to see in the dark forest. I spotted a black mass to my left, realizing as I passed that it was the evil panther beast, a pike jutting through its neck.

I ran until all I could do was jog, and I jogged until all I could do was walk as fast as my aching legs allowed. But finally, finally, I saw sunlight ahead. Sunlight on green ferns and yellow wildflowers and trees that actually swayed in the wind. And then I was out. Out in the clean air and clear sky and trees full of life. I shuddered violently for a moment before recovering enough to turn, expecting Wolf to be right behind me.

Nothing but sinister forest.

My heart dropped. “Wolf? Wolf?”

Suddenly he swung around the side of a black tree, gasping for breath, a dark liquid running down the side of his face.

“Go, keep going. They might follow us and sometimes things like to reach out. They don’t last long in the sunlight though.”

We staggered on through the forest until we’d gone a good fifty feet. Looking back, the dark part was like a decayed piece of forest, an infection that had dug deep roots. Its outline was as clear as day. No wonder the harpies hadn’t eaten anyone in twenty years.

Wolf flopped onto his back on the leaves, groaning in pain.

“Oh my God!” I cried, getting my first look at him.

Four long claw marks marred his torso, neatly slicing through his clothing to the soft flesh underneath. His hands were covered with blood, smudges of it on his face. A few dark feathers clung to the wet places. I dropped to my knees beside him, uncertain what to do first.

“Such a heap of trouble,” he grunted.

“Be quiet and take off your shirt, I need to see how bad this is.”

“It shouldn’t be that bad.” I helped him sit up to remove his coat, vest, and shirt. “Kehmet claws just burn, that’s all.”

He fell back again, wincing. I used the back of his torn shirt to dab away at the blood. I let out a shaky breath when I discovered he was right. The gashes were bad, but they weren’t life-threatening. At least, not yet. I folded his shirt and vest as best I could and laid them over the marks, gently pressing down. Wolf howled.

“Shh.” I wiped at his face with the edge of my shirt, clearing it of harpy blood and feathers. “Wolf, can I put lavawort on this? What do lavawort and gum leaf look like?”

He sucked in air through his teeth. “Lavawort looks like a wolf’s paw. It’s a ground plant. Gum leaf looks like a seven-point star. It’s a tree.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m going to go find some. Breathe deep. Keep pressure on this and try not to move around too much.”

I stood up way too fast. I wobbled for a bit before running off to search for leaves that looked like wolf paws and stars. I’d had plenty of food and water while being stuck with the harpies but sleep was another matter entirely. My adrenaline would only be able to push me so far. It felt like forever to find the two, and I picked every leaf I saw before rushing back to where Wolf lay. He’d gone relatively quiet, groaning softly as he breathed. His vest was already red, so I couldn’t tell how much blood it had absorbed, but the shirt on underneath was almost completely soaked through.

I gently ran my hand over his forehead. “All right, I’ve got it. Now what do I do?”

“You have to chew the lavawort to make it soft. Then just put it on and cover it with the gum leaf.” He paused for a moment, his brow knitted together in pain. “Make sure the furry side of the gum leaf is down.”

“Okay.”

I was not excited about the idea of chewing on a medicinal plant, but I shoved a bunch of leaves in my mouth anyway, fully expecting them to taste awful. Instead, I now understood Wolf’s secret to minty breath. Chewing lavawort tasted like wintergreen gum.

I ground them in my teeth just long enough for them to get pulpy and then spat them into my hand and removed the shirt from Wolf’s injuries. Ignoring the part of my brain shouting that this was so far from sanitary, I spread the lavawort on one of the slash marks. Wolf let out a sigh. I wasn’t sure if it was a relaxed one or a pained one. I kept working anyway, chewing up lavawort, putting it on the wounds, and then covering both with gum leaves, fuzzy side down.

Finally, the whole area was covered in gum leaves, and Wolf appeared to be resting more comfortably. I chewed up a few more leaves and spread them over the cut on my leg before covering it with gum leaves as well. I used the only unbloodied side of his once impeccable vest to clean away the rest of the blood—Wolf and harpy alike—from his face, body, and hands. I smoothed back his hair and examined him. He had done so much for me in such a short span of time—far more than anyone ever had in my lifetime. He had injured himself twice in coming to my aid, and what had I done in return? Nothing worthwhile so far.

I bent over, intending to tell him how sorry I was, but instead I kissed him. It was an I’m sorry and thank you and more. He took hold of my arms and held me there as his surprise gave way to desire. Like before, he tasted delicious—like berries and mint—and he knew how to kiss. Except that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t just know how to kiss—he knew how to kiss me.

When we broke apart we were both breathless. Wolf smiled and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

“Apology accepted,” he said.

I smiled in return and sat back. I felt a little giddy and lightheaded from our kiss. Still, with the adrenaline gone, as much as I wanted to slather on some lavawort to the scrapes on my hands and thighs from climbing down the tree, I really just wanted sleep. A yawn escaped me. I started to drift off, and then forced my eyes open again. We were both injured outside of a wicked patch of forest. What if something crawled out of it when the sun went down? What if thieves came by while we were asleep? What if some other creature hungry for a snack smelled all the blood and came running?

“Caroline.”

I looked, bleary-eyed, down at Wolf. He stretched out one arm.

“Rest.”

I managed to shake my head twice. “What if something tries to eat us? One of us has to stand guard…”

He actually chuckled a little. “I hate to offend you my lovely, but you wouldn’t be my first pick. Lie down. Sleep. It’s the middle of the day. No one will bother us here.”

After a few more moments I gave in and lay down, careful of my injured arm. I rested my head on his shoulder. His arm went around me and I was dead to the world.