In the light of the afternoon sun, I set about disassembling the borrowed crossbow. The essentials of such tools had been explained to me in combat training, and I had, on occasion, followed the Imperial Guard’s practice sessions, but the bow was still awkwardly new and strange to me. I had to put special attention into the work and infer by logic and imagination what experience failed to tell.

I removed the cut string that had been haphazardly wrapped around the bow arc, as though there could still be some later use for it. There would be none, that much came clear at a glance. The string had been thick and strong once, but now old, loose, and embrittled by the endless alterations of winter dryness and summer humidity. The thing was beyond use, even if I could somehow parse the cut halves back together. It had to be discarded, but how to replace it?

I had a roll of black twine for fixing my dress, maybe that would do?

The Tatarian thread was certainly durable enough, but it was also spun regrettably thin and tight. The smaller the area of contact with the bolt head, the more it would introduce inaccuracies to the trajectory upon launch. But I didn’t want to waste the expensive string by looping it multiple times. You would have to place the shaft with utmost care and get fairly close to the target to be sure of the hit. The bolt clip was also missing, so misfire had to be watched out for, especially when arming the tool.

Before getting started with the string, I had to verify the tiller’s condition. Was the release mechanism any good? I turned the wooden frame around on my lap to examine it from every angle, and as far as I could tell, there was nothing wrong with the trigger itself. It was a simple lever system fitted into the hollow of the tiller, to hold and release the catch on top. The metal parts needed simple oiling, and there were many ways to obtain temporary grease for that.

The main problem lay elsewhere.

There was an archaic, heavy and stiff cranequin affixed to help draw the string, and it was badly rusted and stuck and prevented the string from releasing. I had to remove the wheel and its handle and the puller by very barbarously hammering them off with a rock. There was now nothing to obstruct shooting, but as a downside, the bow could only be armed manually. I tied the string and gave it a try.

The pull of it was heavy. Much heavier than I imagined.

I had to plant both my feet firmly against the lath and pull the string with both hands and the full strength of my upper body to bring it anywhere near the nut and the notch where it could be secured. The sharp, taut string dug painfully into my hands barely halfway up to the point. There was a real danger of losing your fingers with this thing. I began to regret taking it in earnest.

Nevertheless, if push came to shove, the crossbow could still be put to the task, at least one time.

I left it be for now, wiped my brow, and looked up at the child, who sat atop a tall, cylindrical rock further across the hill. He kicked his legs idly up and down over the edge, the long crook across his lap, and watched the flock of sheep, and it seemed all was right with the world.

It was a view from beyond the shackles of time. A scene human beings had beheld in the misty dawn of history, and which they might behold again at the far end of it all, when civilization had explored every branch of its possibilities and left them behind. In front of that view, I felt strangely detached from everything, like I had for a beat ceased to be an individual and become but an observer meant to witness and affirm this solitary instance in time. Another link in the immeasurably long, many times rewound chain neither the tail nor the head of which could be seen, feeling exceedingly small and insignificant and without substance.

Then the moment passed and I was a fleshly mortal again, strictly confined in my shape, hot in the sun, and world-weary.

I stood and raised my voice,

“Could you show me to the place now?”

Towards the east side of the hills fanned out a wide, peculiarly curved slope of green, steeper than it seemed. Norn led me to the brink of the descent, and we peered together down and across towards where grew a mixed, furtive copse of thin trees winding around the ridge. The boy pointed at the border of the trees and said,

“It was right there.”

The wood was at least five hundred yards away on the far side of the slope, maybe six, the front side adorned with high grass and wild raspberry bushes.He had good eyes, or maybe only strong faith that he did. I might have been less sure of what I saw, if I’d been the one to see it.

“I was standing here, where we are now,” Norn recounted. “Just about to leave back home. The sun was low and red. That’s when I saw it, standing there on the edge of the trees! It stared straight back at me, the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life, with a huge, long head and maw! When it saw that I was looking at it, it turned and skipped between the trees. That’s the last I saw of it. Do you know what it was? Was it a real wolf?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I will go have a closer look.”

“Oi, are you sure? What if it’s still there?”

“The probability of that is very low.”

“What’s that supposed to mean…?”

“At any rate, stay here. I will be back shortly.”

“C'mon. That thing was much bigger than you are, I’ll come with you!”

“Then who will watch the sheep? That is your job. You should leave me to mine.”

“Tch, fine! Do whatever you want!” Norn scoffed and there I could see the obviousness of the blood relation between the youth and Ms Vera.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The crossbow over my shoulder, I set out to climb across the slope, past the fat bees chasing the nectar of flowers that poked up from the knee-high grass, past the buzz of the dragonflies, and the split-tailed sparrows chasing them, my gaze firmly on the shadowy treeline.

It took a while to reach over, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Staying out of the town while the royal retinue was there had been the point of taking this quest to begin with, more so than upping my rank. I stopped in the shadow of the birches to have a drink from my water bottle, behaving deliberately carelessly, but my ears open, my senses alert. I waited and listened, and then had a closer look at the ground.

It didn’t take long to find the spot.

Towards the corner of the wood, the grass had been trampled by the passage of something heavy, and there was a clear indentation left where that something had lain on the previous day. Where the shadows fell too deep for grass to prosper was a stretch of barren earth, and in the dirt was impressed what was unquestionably a wolf’s footprint.

I crouched to look closer and frowned at the size of it. That print was nearly two inches wider than the span of my hand. Just how enormous was the beast that had left it? Considering the soil's hardness and the depth of the mark, I estimated it was around four hundred pounds. Maybe even five. A direwolf. A damned warg. It could kill the whole flock and the boy and me. Could and would, if we let it.

Reluctant to linger any longer, I returned to where Norn was waiting. “Well?”

“How long can you keep the sheep here?” I asked.

“Huh? I usually try to be back by sunset,” he answered. “But it’s not that tight. The old guy goes to bed early and won’t stay up waiting these days. As long as all the sheep are back in the corral by morning, it doesn’t matter when I bring them in. Why?”

“Direwolves don’t like to move around in bright daylight. I doubt it will come out while the sun is still high. We have to wait here till dusk if we want to catch it.”

The kid shrugged. “Then what’s the problem? Can’t we just leave it? We won’t need to worry about the thing as long as we get out before dark, right?”

“No. It followed your scent to the town last night and knows the path you use. Tomorrow morning, it will ambush you already on the way. It might have done so today if I wasn’t with you. The smell of an unfamiliar person made it hold off.”

Norn’s face fell pale. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Someone is certain to die unless the beast is disposed of. Yourself, Mr Kynes, or the sheep. Or someone else. Now that I’m here, it falls upon myself to do it. I’m sorry, but I need the flock to bait it out. If you leave before me, it will follow you instead and I will lose it.”

“O-oh. Okay. Then what should I do?”

“I need you to promise me one thing, first of all.”

“What’s that?”

“If anything goes wrong, you must run. Do I have your understanding? Without delay. Forsake me and the sheep if you must, but see that you get back to the town and your sister in one piece, by the swiftest path. The warg is unlikely to give chase if it already has food. You should be safe.”

The youth stepped closer in outrage.

“You can’t be serious! I can’t run away and save only myself! The Jarl will have my hide if I lose the sheep! This is just as much my fight as it’s yours! No, more than that!”

“Your spirit is most admirable. However, I doubt even the Jarl is unreasonable enough to expect a twelve-year-old to fend off a grown direwolf. At least then you’ll have the necessary proof that you were telling the truth. That is the best you can do. This is simply beyond a child’s caliber.”

“And you’re fine with that? Me running off, leaving you behind? Dying alone, abandoned! Dying like—dying like my old man, damn it! Didn’t you come here to kill that thing? Then just do it, and we’ll go back together!”

“Of course, I have every intention to,” I said. “But I am not god. Far from invincible. Anything can go wrong in life, as you should well know. It is necessary to plan for such occasions also, and not avert your eyes from the obvious.”

“Why!?” the boy shouted at me. “Why do you have to think about stuff like that, before anything bad has even happened!? Are we all here just to die, or what!?”

“Such is life. That is the destination, in any event. But there is no evil in dying. I believe the fortunate ones are those, who can choose when and how they must go, for what they feel is right. Do not grieve for such people, Norn. You ought to be glad for them instead. Blessed are they who know the full, undiluted measure of their purpose. I personally envy such people most.”

Norn stared at me, his blue eyes round and aghast.

“You envy the dead…? What are you even talking about? How can you say something so awful…?”

I got carried away and said many things I never intended to. These weren’t matters to discuss with a twelve-year-old. Getting any deeper into it was likely to only make matters worse, so I retreated into silence and left to look for a better vantage point.

“Remember what I told you. And be ready.”

It was easy to envy those dead, who had fallen fulfilled, their task finished. But, if I went down here today, I would have been the furthest from their ilk, all my goals unreached, yet dead all the same. The poor, whilst they lived, always had hope of joining the rich. But those poor in death stayed impoverished for all time.

Out of view, I set down the crossbow and armed it now. The thin Tatarian thread cut through to the bone of my fingers when I pulled it, but sparing no pity for my body, disregarding the blood running watery in the grass, I wrestled the string all the way up to the catch and secured it there, and then fixed a bolt in its place. Done, I traced the faint-glowing pattern in the air.

Elemental Gate: Sanatio.

“Heal.”

Magic stanched the bleeding and closed the thin cuts, but now the smell of my blood was smeared on the weapon, the string, and the bolt. By that smell, the wolf would find its way to me from thirty miles away. No, it already knew where we were. It could be watching us right now without either of us knowing. Observing. Looking for the optimal window to strike. With its appetite thus roused by the smell of blood, it would bide its time no longer, but make its move today. And then be undone by its haste and hunger. Defeated by its instincts, the same instincts that had kept it alive to this day, that cruel, double-edged blade.

I went circling around the hills, looking for the best possible place to fight an impossible battle. I walked and stopped and listened and sought with my senses for the presence of death between the cliffs and walked on. I returned to the shadow of the thin trees and deeper into their midst, trying to guess which way it would come. The sun cast sparkling lances through the riddled canopies. A faint burble of water reached my ears. Half-blinded by the light, I followed the sound to a solitary rivulet that sprinted across the sloped land, clear and bright. I set down the crossbow and washed my hands and face and tasted the water. It had no taste and was freezing cold, and purged from me the disease of cowardice.

Her highness had not given me permission to retire.

Death wouldn’t be allowed.

I drew a breath and reassured myself once more.

Yes. By nightfall, the beast will be dead.