My tail twitches as blood soaks my brindle fur and weeps into the gaps between the oaken deck planks. Fortunately, the battle worn steel plates of my armor conceal my wound from the others. But even lying here, full length on the ship’s deck, as the last strands of summer sun dapple the rolling forests on either side of this river, I cannot get warm. Behind us, the crackle of the city burning taunts me.

My failure.

Choking, charred particles of smoke irritate my snout, and the creak of wood on swollen river vibrates through this old barge we are fleeing on, as if it is about to split in two. I recite the first stanza of our creed.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

It gives me focus. Reminds me how to survive.

Safety. This barge is not fit to transport my masters. It’s crude and smells of tar and fish guts and lacks any defensive capability. If we don’t get off this boat, we’re all dead.

I look toward the stern. My wolfpack huddle together in solidarity. But they are not doing much better than me. The fighting was so intense, we all were injured one way or another. Velva, my mate, has a thick once-white bandage around her thigh, but she is not concerned with herself. She licks the blood from Berhand’s fur. He’s the youngest. His neck is bloodied and his head lolls to one side. For a moment, her eyes lock with mine. Normally burning red, her pupils barely flicker. I know that look. She can’t save him.

I should go to him. He’s like a son to me. But I daren’t. They will see that I too am injured, and it does not do well for morale if the packleader is hurt. So I sit here alone. Quietly bleeding. Waiting for my master to summon me.

#

“Lupen, come here.” It is the king. Though his voice is hoarse from the battle, my heart leaps at his words, and I have to suppress the wag of my tail. There is something exciting when your master calls, no matter how old you are, or what it is for.

I pull myself up to stand on my two hind legs and swing my axe into its holster on my back. The oak deck creaks with my weight, twice that of a human, as I pad across to where the king, his generals, and advisers are standing, and I try not to limp in case anyone is watching.

They’re arguing, and I stand and wait obediently, as I must, until asked for my opinion. My blood puddles on the floor beneath me. I’m beginning to feel lightheaded.

“So, how do you think the mages got inside the city walls?” the king finally asks.

I’m confused by the question at first. I had expected us to discuss what to do now.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

But the humans don’t operate by the creed, no matter how many times I cite it. They are too smart for it. And they do not listen to a wolf. They think because they freed us from the mage’s slave mines generations ago, they are somehow better than us. Or maybe it is the loyalty we give them for that kindness that makes them think that. But humans are imperfect. They always are more concerned with yesterday, or tomorrow. Never today. It is a hard concept for me. Yesterday is now fixed, tomorrow cannot be known. Today is all that matters.

“Someone opened the gates,” I say, in human-tongue. It is self-evident. No need to discuss. We should discuss today.

“Yes, but who?”

I start to raise a claw, to point him out, but the king stops me with a glare. He knows what I am going to say. I’ve already said it, and he wouldn’t listen then.

“No one in my council, obviously.” The rebuke is evident in his tone. “But is yesterday’s traitor elsewhere on this boat?”

The king still focuses on yesterday. And as he will not listen, what more is there to say? So I wait for us to discuss today. The only thing we can change. But he misinterprets my silence for confusion.

“If we have a traitor amongst us, we need to know who it is before they do us more harm.” The king shakes his head. He looks tired, a slight hunch to his normally erect frame, his skin hanging looser. “You must learn to think more like a human, Lupen, if you are ever to fulfill your potential as a wolfguard.” The king turns away and for now I am forgotten. They return to their bickering.

But I am certain who the traitor is, as sure as if I’d seen him do it. I can smell him. I smelled the anxious sweat under his perfumes the moment he arrived in court. And I whispered it to the king, even then. And the king laughed and said I was too suspicious of strangers. So I know I need more than just this man’s bad smell to point my claw at if I am to have the accusation believed. Even as he stands there, by the king’s side, advising him.

But, for now, I have more urgent things to figure out.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

Someone has to attend to the real needs. To focus on today. I survey who is left, trying to assess our chances and who might be most useful. The royal family, the king and his son, still a pup, of course, though they are not of much practical use. The generals, who are similar. Timmons, the visiting diplomat, who somehow got himself swept up in our escape. His eyes dart everywhere. Some knights, who spend more time polishing their weapons than using them. A few sailors to steer the barge but who have never seen battle. The quartermaster and some servants, all of whom would die first in any attack. And my wolfpack, the only fighters in the group. Or what’s left of them.

And then there is death. It’s normal to see one or two specters as I make my way through the city. Following an old woman, or hovering over a beggar. But here, on this barge, the deathspecters walk behind almost every human. All the more indication we need to get off. For the younger and uninjured, the deathspecters are but wisps. Mere suggestions of smoke, trailing behind the mortal. But for the king, his generals, and the knights that saw battle—them being the ones that are old, or weak, or injured—the specters are taking more and more solid form. Not that the humans can ever see them. Until the ghouls greet them as their last breath fades.

“What is it, wolf?” I’ve stared at one of them so long that it’s noticed me. Its face is woven into human features, but there is something off. Like dead skin has been stretched over a squirming mass of maggots and cockroaches that struggle to escape. I look away, hoping the deathspecter will forget me, return to following the knight he was so interested in. After all, deathspecters don’t normally bother us and we don’t bother them. But it’s not to be. It stares at me, its hollow eyes.

“This one’s almost ours,” it informs me, its voice the scrape of dead leaves across a tomb. I nod. Sir Giore took an incendiary-spell direct to the chest. His armor is caved in and scorched. His skin desiccated and brittle. I can hear his heart thudding. Languishing. The dry vessel trying to keep beating though half the blood’s been boiled out of him by the mage’s magic.

“Don’t fear, no reason for me to follow you. There is no afterlife for magic-borne beings, you’re not human enough. And yet…” It comes near, as if sniffing me. As if detecting something unusual.

“What is it?” I ask, backing up.

But the deathspecter doesn’t answer, it just smiles wickedly and returns to following Sir Giore. It’s then that my hackles lower. I hadn’t even noticed they were up. Instinct. But the deathspecter never quite takes its eyes off me again. Clearly it knows something, and I do not wish to think about what it could be.

“Who are you talking to?” It’s one of the king’s knights. Sir something. He’s too young for me to remember his name. Never seen a day of service before today. His sword remains unbloodied, his armor untarnished. I saw him quivering in the rear.

“He’s hallucinating,” the royal physician states with certainty and a dismissive wave of his pudgy fingers, though I have no idea why. He knows nothing of wolfguard.

And I’m not. But there’s no point correcting him. He’ll only get upset. And they won’t believe me if I tell them about the deathspecters. Another human foible. They are so dependent on their eyes, they only believe what they can see. They do not believe what others can sense, hear, or smell.

“Lupen.” My attention snaps back to the king. “We plan to stay on the barge another three days. That should take us far enough from the castle that we should be safe. Somewhere here.” The king gestures vaguely at an area of the map unfolded in front of them. But I don’t understand maps. Squiggles on paper. How can this represent land? Nevertheless, I do understand this much. That everywhere he is pointing are parts of the map beyond where there are detailed squiggles, and if that is where we are, then we must already have travelled far enough downriver to be inside the enemy’s territory. To lands we have not mapped. And we are sailing blind.

“We will then land,” the king continues, “on the south bank and head to Hinderoth, to seek refuge in my brother’s court.”

It’s a mistake. South bank is where the enemy is. South to Hinderoth is where they will expect us to go. It’s too obvious. They’ll be waiting for us. And we’re already too far into their lands. Three days will only take us farther in.

The wolf creed runs through my head like a spinning top. Except instead of slowing, it’s spinning faster and faster as we delay.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

Safety first. It’s how we keep the pack alive.

“We should disembark now. Go north into the mountains,” I tell them.

There is silence.

I know I am right. We should get off this boat today as quickly as possible. We do not even know where it is taking us. We should go north into the mountains where there is shelter.

“Incredible,” Timmons says, finally. “I had heard that they could speak, but I did not know that you allowed them to opine. Do you also let these creatures dine at the same table as you?”

The king coughs. “We do not.” The king turns to me looking me straight in the eye. Instinctively I hang my head and tuck my tail between my hind legs. “Lupen, it is not your place. We do not need an opinion. I am telling you the plan so the pack is ready, that is all.”

I know he is right. It is not my place to offer advice, but I dislike this plan. It is the wrong plan. Though I admit part of the reason I dislike it is because I heard Timmons suggest it. He still smells strange. But there’s also something intangible about him that I do not trust. I look from the king to the generals. The specters of death hovering behind them laugh hyenalike as they each nod their heads in agreement with the plan.

“Do you think the mages are following us?” the king asks, to no one in particular.

I open my mouth to say something.

“Not a chance,” a general to my left says. “We slipped away unseen.” And Timmons fervently agrees.

But they are following us. I can hear them running through the woods and along the banks, magic crackling and it’s not getting farther away. If anything, it’s getting closer.

But beyond that, I can hear something else. A distant roar. Unlike the magic users, whom I fear because I know them, this makes me even more nervous. I can’t tell what it is.

But this time I stay silent. I have already spoken out of turn once, and for now, the king favors Timmons’ opinion. Now is not the time to raise something I am not even certain of. But I will watch Timmons. That much I am certain of.

#

When the king’s council finally tires of talking and disperses, Timmons tries to slip away. But I follow. Not that there are many places to hide on a barge, but I know he is up to something, and I swear I will not let him out of my sight. He pauses by some whale-oil barrels and I pause by the main mast. He ventures onto the prow, and I follow him up the steps, as if enjoying the breeze ruffling my fur. He circles back to the main deck, stopping unexpectedly midship.

I hesitate.

There is nothing for me to pretend to do. In his hand he holds a mirror. I doubt he is here to fix his hair, and so I can only assume he plans to use it to communicate with someone on the shore. But I still can’t prove it.

He turns. He has that upturned twist to his lip. He knows I’m following. “You there, cur. Tell one of the servants to bring me water.”

It’s just an excuse to get rid of me. To send me on an errand and give me no reason to return.

I have little choice but to comply. And so I turn, but I do not seek out a serving boy as he requested. Instead, I head for the quartermaster myself. This way I will have a reason to return. I will take Timmons the water myself and stand by his side.

When I request the water from the quartermaster, he eyes me suspiciously, sticking his fat, greasy thumbs in his rope belt.

“No water for your kind,” he replies.

The river’s water is undrinkable. It has the Eyre in it. So we only have what we brought. And this voyage was unplanned and we are unprepared. The supplies that were already aboard the barge constituted only enough food and water for one day feeding everyone. The king of course must eat and drink. His son too. But before a cup would be passed to us, not much better than dogs in their eyes, they will quench the thirst of every general, advisor, knight and sailor first. Even Timmons. After all, he is our guest.

And even now, even having seen how we fought for them, some of the younger knights eye me fearfully. They think I will go mad and take the water. And they’re not wrong. I could overpower them. I want to. Though wolfguard can go without water for weeks, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it. Every natural inborn instinct tells me to snatch it from them. But I would never do that. The loyalty, or love, or whatever you want to call it, that binds me to the king is too strong. I must obey. I must think of the whole pack, humans too, before my individual needs.

“It’s for Master Timmons.”

“I’ll be watching,” is all that the quartermaster says, as he ladles a bowl of water and hands it to me.

Careful not to spill a drop of my precious cargo, I hurry up the boat’s length back to Timmons before he can do too much of whatever mischief he has planned. As I hold out the bowl toward him, Timmons’ face flushes red, his eyes narrow. My breath catches, shocked by the force of his glare and I look away, unable, nay, unwilling for now, to meet such a challenge.

He snatches the bowl of water from my grasp. “I said to send the serving boy with it.” His voice scrapes, high, thin and reedy. Spittle flies from his lips. “Do you expect me to drink from a dog bowl? Something that has been in your filthy claws?”

I watch, unable to stop him, as he tosses the entire bowl of precious water on the deck. I could have drunk it. My wolfpack could have. My cracked tongue burns. For a moment, I consider getting down on all fours and licking it up. But it seeps into the cracks between the planks. It is gone. Wasted. And in its place fire fills my chest. I can feel the pinch of my own claws digging into the pads of my front paws. My right hind leg goes back, ready for the pounce. People are staring. At both of us. And I struggle to get back in control.

“I am sorry, Master Timmons,” I manage, though the tension in my jaw threatens to snap my own teeth to their roots as they press against each other.

“Master Timmons? Master Timmons?” He thinks I have insulted him. It is not an insult. I address all humans with the honorary title of Master. Even though the king is my only true master. “I am the Grand Emissary, dog,” he says, smacking his hand on the barge’s edge rail to punctuate each word.

Humans always worry about names, words, titles. Pointless things. You can see it in their language. It emphasizes naming things. But a slipper can warm your feet, or it can be thrown at your head. Same object, same human-name. “Slipper.” Different actions. In our tongue we would name it Footwarmer-thing or Throw-thing, depending how it was being used. Wolfguard only care about action. Intent. Not title.

The king asked who betrayed us. But I know. The man is standing in front of me. And I want to rip his throat out. But I must not disobey the king. I will not betray his trust.

One thing I do know, though, is that the more a human focuses on words and titles, the more I find they lie. The less trustworthy they tend to be. Timmons focuses greatly on titles and things and time that is “not-today.” And that is the other reason I do not trust him. The “thing” that he is may be “Grand Emissary,” but what is his value? What is his action? What is his intent? We have a word for his kind in wolf’s-tongue but there is no direct translation.

“I will have the serving boy bring you fresh water,” I say, but I cannot keep the growl out of my voice. And I slink away. I have lost. For now.

#

I return to the wolfguard. Head hung. Defeated. And trying my best to hide it.

“We wait,” I say, as they look to me for news. I don’t know what else to tell them. It is not a lie, but I cannot tell them the whole truth. Not yet. First, I need to solve this. The plan is a bad one. They will know it is a bad plan. And I need my wolfguard content and ready. Not scared or angry. But Velva eyes me. She’s been my mate for all of my adult life and she knows when I am unhappy. When I am hiding things. And then I also remember the wound hidden under my armor and try to stand up straighter so she will not notice how I favor my left.

“I do not like this boat,” she growls finally, in wolf’s-tongue. I wish she would not express such feelings of dissent, but she’s only expressing what I feel. What all of us wolfguard are feeling. We wolfguards don’t travel by boat. I’m as uncomfortable on this wallowing raft on the water as any of them. I want my hind paws planted firmly on ground, ready to fight. But I also do what I am told. So, here I am.

When the mages attacked, using magic to animate the very trees and mountain rocks to fight against us, we scrambled here, escaping on the only ship we could find. It went against everything. Wolfguards don’t run. Don’t hide. Not when there is battle still to fight, still life in our bones. We are raised to fight. Nothing else.

But that is not the human way.

They have us to fight for them when they want to make a stand. But sometimes they choose not to fight at all. Sometimes their pack masters even abandon the pack. That is what we did. We couldn’t take everyone. Only the members of the royal household. But that doesn’t sit well with me. And as we slipped from the city in the darkness, leaving the citizens to their fate, I could hear the screams of the human pack members we left behind as the mages used magic to melt their minds and their homes. Turning our human brothers into monsters, dark creatures to serve them. Perhaps it is because the humans cannot hear as well as we can, that my masters could do this. But I still hear the screams.

“Will we be all right, Lupen?” It is the young prince. He has a sweet nature, but pale, blonde and stick-thin; he is a sickly-looking child under the best of circumstances. He is followed everywhere by fussing nursemaids. He has come to stand by us, for reasons known only to him, followed by one such nursemaid who gently pats his shoulder trying to reassure his concern.

I wrinkle my nose. I’ve never understood the humans’ fascination with the future or their belief that we can predict it. If he were a wolfguard cub I would tell him to let tomorrow take care of itself.

But this prince is a human cub, and he is looking for more reassurance than his nursemaid can supply. Unfortunately, he’s looking in the wrong place. Wolfguard don’t lie.

Velva surprises me by stepping forward and saving me. “We follow the king. The king knows what he is doing.”

“She speaks truth,” I tell him, relieved. These words feel right, though I still have a nagging doubt. Not about the king, but about his advisors.

Velva is a wise mate. Her words are what this man-cub needed to hear. He even smiles. She would make a wonderful mother. And my chest tightens, as I know that is what she wants. She told me she wanted a cub the night before all this. And I promised her I would give her one. And then the mages arrived and disrupted all our plans. It was from tumbling in sweat-soaked sheets we had both arisen when the city’s attack alarm rang out.

And I notice her paw held protectively over her abdomen. It is too early to know if the seed caught, but I wonder. Has it already happened? Is there something she has not yet told me? Something good in all of this darkness?

“I trust you, Lupen,” the prince tells me, forcing me to re-focus on him. “I know that, with you and your wolfpack to protect us, we will be safe.”

I feel the weight of this responsibility too settle on my shoulders. I only hope he is right. We may not be enough. But the boy is young and uninjured and not even the wisp of a specter follows him about this barge. Death is not looking over his shoulder. And that is a relief. Maybe that is also the hope in all this darkness.

#

The days pass and, though I repeatedly raise my concerns to the king—much to my increasing frustration—we do as Timmons suggested. We stay on this death boat. The distant roar that I have been hearing for days is no longer distant. But how to get the humans, who still cannot hear the roar, to heed a warning about a threat I do not recognize or even understand? They just don’t listen. And as we float helpless down this river we only seem to be getting slowly, ever closer.

It is dawn on the third day when Velva shakes me early from sleep. It is Berhand. I kneel by his side. Flies buzz around his wound, drawn to it by the smell. He’s alive, but he’s rotting. Velva looks at me. She knows what must be done. This is no way to go. Better that he be put out of his misery. Under normal circumstances, at the barracks, we would have had a more humane way to end it for him. A last meal. Whatever was his favorite. Or a quaff of ale. Laced with strychnine. No pain. A nice meal, then, nothing. Quick. Eternal sleep.

“We don’t even have water. Much less ale,” I mutter. I don’t mention the poison, but of course we lack that too. And so we must end this in some other way. And as packleader that unfortunate duty falls to me. His eyes flutter and he looks up at me. He’s fading.

“Make it quick,” he growls. It’s all he asks. Unlike a human who would see the deathspecter and try to bargain with them. Pray. Beg. Try to delay death. A wolfguard would never do such a thing. Life is life. Death is death. One continuum. There is no point bargaining. One may as well ask for the sun not to rise tomorrow. Perhaps that’s why the deathspecters don’t follow wolfguard. No deals to make. Or perhaps it’s because, just as in life, we don’t possess anything of value to offer.

Velva turns away as I lean in, ready to snap his neck with a quick powerful twist of my jaws.

“Would this help?” I freeze. The prince has appeared as if from nowhere. He’s slipped the company of his nursemaid. He holds out his own canteen of water towards me. He must have heard me muttering about water. His eyes are sunken in their sockets. He’s getting dehydrated on the rations. Behind him a deathspecter is starting to take shape, grey wisps of smoke curling around his 9-year-old neck. He must feel the thirst. He should drink the water himself.

I shake my head. “It is too late for that.” And without the poison to add, it would just cruelly prolong the inevitable, though I don’t think the prince realizes that’s what we needed it for.

But he continues to stand there, watching.

“Look away, young master. This is no moment for you to watch.” And as he turns, I bend and swiftly lock my jaws around Berhand’s neck. My friend. My battle ally. But the debt goes even deeper than that. His father died taking an arrow for me. When he died, I promised him I would look after Berhand, his only son. And now look at me. I feel the crunch and I give a quick twist. The air whistles fetid from his nostrils. It is over.

As one, my wolfguard and I throw back our heads in the death howl, but mine is cut short by a hard kick to my haunch that knocks me to the ground.

“Shut up, stupid mangey dogs!” The face of the human nightwatch to whom the foot belongs is puffed and red in anger. “The last thing we need is you giving our location away.” He glances at Berhand. “Now throw that dirty carcass overboard before the flies get any worse.”

“They’re honoring their dead,” the prince says. Which is fortunate for the nightwatch, as the prince’s words cool my anger just enough that I stop myself from rearing back and ripping the nightwatch’s head from his shoulders.

“Well, your highness,” the nightwatch says, with only a trace of reticence, “they should do it quietly.”

“That is not their way,” the prince replies. “I wonder, will you act so brazen if it were me?”

And with that, he throws his head back and howls. His howl is unintelligible, of course, not knowing our tongue. Almost comical. But my heart still swells and we join him in the death cry. He has found a way for us, even in the face of ignorance. I have never known a human to give us such respect.

However, the moment is shattered as a shout goes up. I turn. The boat has rounded a bend and I see at last what the roar I have been hearing for days is from. A great cliff of water. And we are going to sail right over it.

There are no side tributaries we can turn towards and escape through. And finally I understand. This is the trap. This is where they will spring it. The moment they have been waiting for. Now we have to land. And though, when I look out to the south bank I can no longer hear the scurrying of the mages or the crackle of magic as they animate rock and forest, above the roar of the churning waters, I know they are there. It is battle instinct. Even if I hadn’t been able to smell them. The odd mixture of smoke and curdled milk that betrays the working of magic, I would have bet my firstborn that they were there hiding. Waiting for us to land. Because that’s what I would have done.

#

“I am the high knight of the royal house!” Sir Giore’s face is almost purple. The idea that a mere wolfguard would question his orders is preposterous to him.

Why are humans so focused on titles and their place in the hierarchy? The only point to a leader is the survival and success of the pack. What difference who leads if all dead?

Safety, water, shelter, food.

“We should land on the north bank,” I repeat, the immediacy of our danger lending power to my stubbornness.

“It is the king’s orders,” he snaps, before turning and stalking away. No doubt he has armor to polish. He’ll need it.

The barge is now swarming with deathspecters, most almost fully formed. There are so many of them, it is surprising they do not spill over the sides and fall into the water. But they scurry along the ballast, their hooklike hands hanging from the mast and clinging to every crack or space on the sides. I can hardly see the deck for the crush of them as I wade through them towards my wolfpack, the deathspecter’s cold wet skin and the stench of rot and death soaking from them into my fur.

From the far end of the boat, the wolfpack await me, all eyes turned toward me. But they know from the way that I slink that I do not bring good news.

“We are to land on the south bank and head for Hilderoth,” I inform the pack.

There is howling and yipping.

“It is the wrong decision.” Velva bites off each word with the snap of her jaws.

I turn to her in shock. She has never questioned one of my orders before. Not in front of the wolfpack. “It is the king’s command.”

“It is still wrong,” she repeats, though with less conviction. And now all wolfpack eyes are upon us. Waiting. To see what I or she will do.

The last time a wolfguard broke the creed and disobeyed the wolfleader I was only a cub myself. My father was wolfleader then. It had been a minor infraction, but an infraction nonetheless. My Uncle Kyrin, a regular wolfguard, had dared to question a command from a human packleader three times. Refused to follow it. My father’s face had been grim and in a flurry of fur and teeth he had leapt, and, as per the code, the entire pack followed him as they had ripped the fur and teeth from the oathbreaker’s body. My father’s snout was still soaked in his brother’s blood when he emerged and stood in front of me. “Never question a human packleader,” he had told me. I knew he had not wanted to kill his brother. But there had been no choice. And Kyrin knew what the consequences would be when he broke the code.

“It is the king’s command!” my voice, normally strong, deep, is barely a hiss.

I look at Velva, begging her not to force me to make the terrible choice my father had faced. Her paw moves protectively over her abdomen, and I catch her scent. She smells different. Suddenly, I understand. It is instinct that is driving her. She is not thinking of her own life. She speaks for two. The sound of the barge’s bottom grating on the stones of the bank interrupts us, and the barge rocks as it comes suddenly to a stop. I struggle to keep my footing. For a moment, Velva locks eyes with me. A direct challenge. But she is a true wolfguard, a loyal mate, and she knows our code as well as I do. The moment passes and she bows her head in submission.

“See you on the other side of the battle,” is all she says, and then she is gone, leaping through the spray and onto the bank, her injured leg, slowing her, and I realize, with such a wound, with the battle to come, this is likely the last time I will see her. And I did not say goodbye. Or that I am sorry. Or that I wish she’d chosen a better mate. Or that she would have been a fearsome mother. Or any of the other things I should have.

And that is the moment they attack.

#

We have driven the first wave back, and I am making slow progress inland. Methodically, inexorably, I stride forward, swinging my axe in great arcs, reaping my way through the enemy and they fall like so much harvested corn. Mages, Fyrfew tree-creatures and rock-monsters all tumble before me. The forest fills with the stench of mage’s blood, fresh split wood and the sounds of the mage’s screams and the clatter of shattering rock. I am hopeful. We can do this. We are breaking through. And then a mage-horn sounds on the crest of the hill east of us. Reinforcements. Our only hope is that in the chaos of battle the new arrivals do not know where to focus their attack. Where our king is.

But that’s not to be.

“Over here! They’re over here!” Timmons stands tall atop a rock, staff in hand, blazing a golden light. That’s why I had smelled traitor on him. The lingering smoke of magic. He was a mage this whole time. It is for this moment, the final moment of his betrayal, that I have kept him close. Within reach. I just hope that I am quick enough. I leap atop of the rock beside him and with one sharp snap I lock my powerful jaws around his neck. He struggles, of course. Squealing. A quick jerk, and a satisfying crunch as I snap the vertebrae and his body goes limp. I toss his dead carcass aside, turning to the king who, finally, nods in acknowledgement at what I’ve said all along. I’m unable to contain a roar of satisfaction. Of victory. And then an arrow thuds straight into the king’s eye. Slowly, he sinks, folding unceremoniously into an awkward heap, face down in the mud. There is no doubt. He is gone. My victory roar turns to a death howl. The other wolfguard echo. And then there is chaos.

The humans on our side. The knights, the servants. Break. Flee. Abandon us. Some of the knights flounder back into the water, swimming away from the banks and sinking, drowning as their armor weighs them down and drags them under. Those few servants or sailors that try to swim and can stay afloat are carried rapidly by the current and flung, screaming, over the waterfall. The rest of our contingent scatter, scrambling along the bank and running east or west or into the forest, but all are rapidly picked off by arrows or Fyrfew tree roots magically animated, darting out and impaling them. Only the king’s boy sits huddled in the mud, clutching his father’s dead body. A deathspecter gleefully clings to the young boy’s back, licking his neck.

A mage barrels towards him. Five great oaks, freshly animated, sprint at his side. One mage I might have handled, but with an animated forest? And if I am honest, in my current state, even one mage may have been too much for me. My side throbs. With the physical effort of the battle my earlier wound has re-opened and blood now freely flows down my flank.

All is lost.

And then I see Velva. Leaping up from the underbrush she thrusts her spear deep into the mage’s entrails, lifting him up clear from the earth. His death scream seems to shudder through the trees as his magic fails and they fall, like so much dead lumber, at his side. My Velva. My chest warms with pride. And then with one last thrust of his mage’s staff the mage impales her on a column of flame.

It’s like the world stops.

Suddenly, I understand the human obsession with yesterday. If only so that I do not have to live this moment. If I could just turn back time and make this untrue.

Velva sinks to the forest floor, a strange squelching gurgle dripping from her jaws. Futilely she paws at her abdomen, as if there is anything she can do to protect it. Her eyes are glassy as she looks back towards me and I see the hope perish, leaving behind only a twisted visage of bitter regret.

“Run,” she mouths across the distance between us. The hellfire in her eyes burns out. She falls. There is nothing for me to do, but to howl to acknowledge my loss. Her death. The howl has never hurt so much.

From the surrounding hills I hear my lower-species brethren echo it back to me.

I’m in a daze. Everywhere there is death.

And then I hear the hopeless, broken-hearted sobbing of the boy.

I feel so heavy inside. I don’t want to live. To go on. But perhaps I can save him at least. That is my duty. But the forest is alive with mages and rock-monsters and Fyrfew. I recite the mantra. It has always guided me.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

Safety yes, but I feel like I am being torn in two. After all, wolfguard do not run. There is more battle to fight.

But Velva was right. Much as I want to stay. Wreak vengeance for her. Running is my only option, if I am to save the boy. And I know she would want me to try. Futile as it may be. I will listen to Velva. It is time to run.

I turn and with a single bound land in the dirt beside the boy. I pick him up with my jaws, by the collar of his shirt, keeping my arms free for battle. Looking south, east, and west, there are only bodies of already fallen knights and wolfguard. My family. My comrades.

And live enemies. Who are getting closer by the second.

No. Though it goes against even more instincts than running, there is only one choice. I turn and run at full speed back into the icy river water, the boy swinging from my jaws.

The water is deep. Far deeper than it looks. And my hind paws are quickly swept off the bottom. I must swim. I reach far with my front paws and pull hard with every fiber of my battle-trained muscles, trying to make for the far shore. North. It is our only sanctuary.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

My biceps burn as stroke after stroke I pull as hard as I can, thighs kicking. But it is no good. The farther I get from the bank, the harder and swifter the current, and soon it drags us both under and westward toward the falls. Every time I surface, gasping for breath, the boy still clutched in my jaws, I can hear the roar of the churning water as it flies over the edge, ever closer. Though I have never thought of deathspecters as corporeal, the boy’s deathspecter seems to be doing everything it can to drag us under. It clings to him like so much extra dead-weight, and I can feel its icy fingers scratch across my eyes, it yanks and pulls at the boy trying to wrest him from my jawgrip.

And then we are airborne. Ourselves thrown out and over the waterfall. The deathspecter’s laugh, cackles in my ears, even above the roar of the water. Instinctively, I curl myself into a ball around the boy. If the landing is onto rocks I will surely die, every bone in my body shattered, but maybe I can yet save the boy. Use my body as a cushion for him. If he can even swim, he may stand a chance. A slim one. The air whistles by for what seems like an eternity, and then, just as my mind begins to believe the lie that maybe we will fall forever, I hit the water.

The pain is everywhere at once. I feel as if I have been struck by the enemy’s battering ram. All breath is driven from my body. And then I am tumbling, choking on water.

Miraculously, still alive.

The boy has slipped free from my jaws and I flail about blindly, trying to find him, to grab him with my paws. My arm connects with something soft and I drag him back in towards me as I right my body and force my legs beneath me. Stumbling, blinded by the weight of water cascading down onto us, I drag us both back through the wall of falling water, until we emerge on the other side. Here, there is a small overhang and a rock bowl carved out by the falling water. Hidden by the curtain of the water, it offers us a temporary refuge.

We lie there recovering our breath. My axe, his pack, temporarily cast aside. I can still smell the mages. Hear wisps of shouts, and splashes, the splitting of wood as they reanimate the forest to help them in their search. I try to think what to do now.

Safety, water, shelter, food.

We cannot stay here long. There is no food, and no real shelter from the continuous water spray. But I know they cannot see us here. For now at least we are safe.

My left paw throbs. It hangs useless. Broken. I hadn’t even noticed. The rush of battle, survival, is a powerful thing. I turn to check the boy for injuries. Standing him up, he shivers, soaked to the skin, but there are no broken bones, not even a cut, or a bruise. I protected him well.

He hugs me, his chest shuddering, but I do not think it is just the cold, though his clothes are soaked through. Trying to remember how the nursemaids did it I place my right paw on his back and pat, but it feels odd, and so I settle for licking his hair as I would with a frightened cub. It seems to soothe him as the chattering of his teeth slowly stops.

And then, to my surprise, he steps back, saying, “We’ll travel south to my uncle.” The deathspecter behind him throws back its head, the corners of its mouth tearing, so wide is its grin. It shimmers as it takes even more corporeal form, its long bony fingers wrapping around the boy’s throat.

It is the wrong plan. But I turn to pick up our things. To comply. Even though I know it is wrong. After all, he is the human. A master. But this does not feel right. It is open fields all the way to Hilderoth and the mages will be looking for any survivors headed there. There will be rock-monsters on the road and Fyrfew by the sideways.

And more than that, something has changed within me.

“We should look for cover,” I begin, but he cuts me off, exactly as his father would have.

“We will go to my uncle’s,” he repeats the stupidity, and this time anger swells my chest.

It is absurd. This runt is not ready to be packleader.

Has he not seen they anticipated this and that is why all his kinfolk, our entire pack, are now slaughtered? I think of Velva. She sacrificed everything. Her life. And more. So we could survive. I will not let that be wasted.

I pull myself up to my full seven foot. I tower over his four-foot frame. “No. You are a cub, unready to lead. We will head north into the mountains.”

Every fiber of my soul screams against this.

What am I doing?

To question a human’s command is blasphemy enough. But no wolfguard has ever spoken back to a human like this, let alone tried to assert dominance. But he is young enough he does not yet know that what I am doing goes against every element of the code we have. That I am now the outcast. The wolf creed breaker. Traitor.

His eyes glisten and his lip trembles and I meet the challenge of his eyes with my own. I am determined. I will not look away. I will not submit.

Eventually, his eyes turn to the side, his shoulders slump. He submits.

With a silent scream, the deathspecter hanging over him seems to melt, wither, and disappear in a curling of smoke, and I know I have done the right thing.

But I can tell by the scent of the boy’s breath that he is unhappy. And I cannot completely let go of my old training. To please these humans. So I try to think what a human would like. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Guessing, I say:

“Maybe to—” the unfamiliar concept is still hard for me, so I sound it out, “—to-mo-rrow you will be ready.” At this, he brightens. I hear his heartbeat slow, calm. Strange, that something that is not now, that may never come, makes humans so happy. But if it does, who am I to complain? My job is the now. To lead this small pack and keep it safe. And maybe if he listens, one day he will be ready to lead and bring our pack back to victory. I look him in the eye once again. “First things first. Safety, water, shelter, food.”

THE END

Copyright © 2025 by Gideon P. Smith

Gideon P. Smith's short fiction appears in Apparition Lit, Stupefying Stories, Wyldblood, 100-Foot Crow, Troopers Quarterly, and in anthologies from Black Hare Press, Shacklebound, and Fairfield Scribes. He was a finalist for the 2023 NESFA Short Story Contest and the 2024 Writers of the Future Award. His nonfiction on the craft of writing has appeared through SFWA, Focus Magazine (BSFA), and Dan Koboldt’s Science in Sci-Fi, Fact in Fantasy. He currently serves as a slush reader for Diabolical Plots and Flash Fiction Online. More about his work can be found at gideonpsmith.com.