Direwolves were smart beasts, the book of Esteban Vallerico said. They studied their prey the way we humans would, and didn’t make a move unless they were confident of having the upper hand. The beast had shown itself to Norn deliberately on the previous day, to gauge the town’s reaction. Would they send hunters? How many? How would they be armed? How far would they chase it? This was supposedly standard behavior for them, for those warg strays that, for one reason or another, found no better sustenance and fell to hunting man and the things of men.
If no harm came out of being exposed, the warg might settle permanently in the area. The longer it stayed, the more it would learn and thoroughly test the limits of how much it could eat, how many it could kill, without having to worry about consequences. And they could eat virtually anything. Sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, birds, adventurers, children, cows, frogs, carrions, yesterday’s garbage. Maids.
You are what you eat.
That wolf was me. I was that wolf. Trying to survive. Thinking of nothing but chasing tomorrow at all costs. Was the beast uncannily humanoid, or had I turned regrettably bestial in my bind? That was not well. It was not good at all. The Princess had no need for mindless animals in her service. I had to stay thoroughly human, inside and outside, at all times. A creature of culture that drew lines, that respected lines, and took no pleasure in the act of killing.
Towards the evening, the skies turned overcast and two hours from there it began to rain. The rain was not very heavy but it made the air seem that way and brought the dark early. The formerly vibrant mountain landscape turned into a washed-out canvas of blue and gray, though the actual sunset was still ways away. The apathetic flock of sheep stuck as though glued to the ragged hilltops, closely together to keep their heat, staring off with their splayed eyes, their jaws milling.
The beast came quietly trotting along the western side of the ridge, unseen.
It had gone all the way around the peaks, across from the copse where it had left its prints, and approached from the rocky rise where grass didn’t betray its footsteps and the wind bore away its smell. It was nearly three yards from head to the stump of a tail, front-heavy and hunchbacked. The head disproportionately large to the body, bringing to mind tales of the toxic Beast of Tarnish said to scour the plains of Hurt.
The warg’s long, dirty-brown fur was thickly matted, streaked with dark stains, marked with many a scar of past battles. It had been hunted before, despite being of the sort itself. Who knew how many times it had been hunted, and each time it had cheated pursuit and survived to this day. It came now almost cockily, making no effort to hide, a long tongue hanging past lines of cruel teeth, like an old dog returning home after a pleasant day of chasing hares. It had assessed the opposition in its peculiar beastly way that was a stranger to rankings and found no reason to be wary.
When the table was made, there was little more left but to dig in.
The distinct scent of human blood led it up towards the grassy peak, past which were the sheep, the muffled noises of the flock audible from afar. The smell told it the woman with the bow was there guarding the sheep and the child couldn’t be far either. The warg maneuvered around the sparse, broken fangs of rock that jutted up exposed from the ground. It jogged right past the flat-top boulder atop which I lay on my back above the wind. When it was right beside, I rose. Startled by the rustle of my clothes, it jumped with a start and stopped. I aimed my finger at it and drew in the air, preparing the casting.
“Water Sphere!”
Water pooled around the surprised direwolf’s head, sealing its wide maw and nose, eyes and ears, inside a firm, translucent bubble. It tried to inhale and the water invaded its throat and lungs, and the monster discovered itself unexpectedly suffocating.
If I set the sphere radius constant but kept adding in more water, the internal pressure would steadily build up.
The beast struggled to pull its trapped head out of the bubble, tossing its shoulders, shuddering, turning, but the spell held stubbornly on. But I felt Power drain rapidly from me and had to stop adding in more water. As much as I would have liked to finish off the monster here and now, it was unwise to commit too much into a singular attack. What if I gave it my all and it wasn’t enough? There would've been no options then.
The main goal here was to get its attention. And I certainly had that.
The warg was angry now. It reared and stabbed its great head down with the full might of its muscular neck and ripped out of the aerial pool. Water was still only water. The magical sphere was rooted to the point where it was conjured and couldn’t be moved freely to follow a target. The thing was free.
I let the magic collapse and hurried up to my feet, the very offended carnivore already approaching my post. It jumped against the high side of the rock, its fangs reaching for my legs over the edge. I retreated from the snapping maw, drew the dagger from my sash and smote across the muzzle. With a wince, the monster fell back to lick its bleeding lip, now resolved to make the jump.
I abandoned the boulder and leapt onto a smaller rock on the side of the higher ground, marked in advance as an escape route. Hardly was I out of the way when the wolf skipped over the slate nearly four yards high, hardly touching the hair of its belly on the summit, and was after me again with hardly any delay, growling with grim determination. You think this is a sport? You and me bleeding each other? You and me carving out the life of each other? Leave me out of your games, dog!
I leapt off the rock into the wet, lumpy grass, rolled to break my fall, and ran uphill.
I ran without looking back, not in a direct line, but from rock to rock, trying to make sure there was always an obstacle of sorts between me and the irate rumble behind me. But though I ran as fast as I possibly could, the snarling was fast drawing nearer. Only a short distance to the top now. If only I made it past the summit, I would have more cards to play. But not until the summit. But would I make it that far? The heat of the beast’s breath warmed my back and buttocks unpleasantly. Its glee and bloodlust wrapped around me like the Rower’s shadowy embrace. The damned thing was toying with me. It was wordlessly saying it could kill me whenever it pleased, but it wanted me to run more.
It was too soon, but I had to do something.
I flipped my dagger around in my grip, seizing the tip. Then I dove into a roll, turned over my knees, and cast the blade. I aimed past the fangs, into the side of the neck. The dagger sank into the fur but missed the carotid artery. The huge head was in the way, I couldn’t get a clear aim. Sheathed in the monster’s neck, my primary weapon was there lost.
But it felt it. The warg winced and stumbled. It threw its heavy head and instead of catching me between its deadly teeth it ended up knocking me off my feet and high into the air. It was but an indirect brush, yet next to the charging mass of the monster, I might as well have been made of feathers.
I was over the hilltop now, though not by my own merits. I landed thankfully on grass and not rock, and did not break every bone in my body.
The foe shrugged off the pain of a new wound and reclaimed its stalwart poise, and lumbered towards me. My body wholly stiffened and agonized from the landing, I couldn’t move so soon. Simply breathing was a process. The chase was over. Less than amused, the warg came to chew me up as an appetizer before the sheep. And right as it was about to start with my leg, a crossbow bolt sank into its neck with a dull whistle.
Precisely as instructed.
The timing was nothing short of perfect.
Why were crossbows invented? So that even those soldiers who weren’t particularly talented with common bows or experienced in the art of war could still with minimal training shoot far and accurately. So that the commonplace majority could become like the gifted minority, the dream of every military commander.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
There was no reason for me to hoard all the assets, seeing as it was physically unfeasible to put them all effectively to use too. So I gave the bow to Norn. The smell of my blood smeared on the weapon, the user hidden behind the hill, the monster would undoubtedly assume it was me operating the armament. Only one foe to watch out for.
But there had been two all along.
The only real issue was that the military-grade crossbow was too heavy for a child to carry around. We couldn’t proactively hunt down the creature, but could only assume defensive positions and wait for it to come to us. I had mounted the bow on top of a suitably high, suitably smooth rock near the summit, like a ballista, which allowed its operator a steady aim. But how to lure the beast into the firing sector, close enough to guarantee a hit, without it realizing who was the true threat? It fell on me to capture its attention and hold it long enough without dying.
Success was anything but certain—but it worked.
Because Norn did everything precisely as I told him to. Certainly, adventure was in his blood.
But the wolf wasn’t dead yet.
It had been struck hard. Whether an artery was hit or wasn’t, it would die sooner or later when the bolt lodged in its flesh would inflame. But there was still strength left in its massive body. It withstood the pain of the mortal injury, left me and sprinted for the boy with the crossbow. The tool couldn’t be armed again. He was defenseless.
“Wah—!” Startled by the abomination rushing at him, Norn fell back and tumbled down the grassy hillside.
I reached my hand after the beast and drew the pattern for Aqua once more.
“Whiplash—!”
The filaments of water lashed at the exposed rear of the running warg with desperate speed and pressure. The beast had a strong front side, but its behind was grotesquely less developed. One whip flew high over, but two hit home. A shinbone snapped in the left hind leg, whereas the right thigh was slashed open from the joint to the groin. Thus crippled, the wolf fell on its belly on the damp hill, yowling in agony. It struggled to claw itself back up, but the injured rear legs couldn’t support its weight, and, lacking the curved claws of felines, the front paws found no traction on the wet land.
Light-headed, I pushed up from the clumped heath.
My body cried for air and rest, but I had to finish it. Now. Now, now, now.
Not because I was afraid it could get away, or harm the boy anymore. For a far simpler reason. Because it was an animal that could feel pain. It was a living being in pain. It had never been my intention to inflict such suffering on it. It was because I was too weak and inexperienced, that the animal had to be tormented so. The measure of its pain was the distance of how far I fell short of the ideal. A disgrace.
This was never anything personal. Not a noble battle of good versus evil. We were here only because of our respective natures as humans and beasts. The warg had to eat, we had to eat, but there was no way to cater for both on this impoverished earth. What an unfortunate, unnecessary struggle. No, not unnecessary. There was no part in it that wasn’t deeply necessary, for both of us. And that was what made it unfortunate.
Most unfortunate indeed.
I climbed to straddle the thick neck, so it couldn’t bite me, seized the handle of the dagger in the beast’s neck from above and, in one fluid motion, cut the side of the throat from the stab point to the base of the jaw. The direwolf jolted and drew away from me. A river of dark blood began to run in the grass, mixing with the rain. A lifetime of dodging murder and distributing it, spilled away. Little by little the monster settled to rest, quietly whimpering and gasping and choking, then entirely still and then dead. Finally dead.
I followed its final moments and then fell to sit in the grass, and caught my breath, dazed and empty inside, the way you tended to feel after hunting down a giant monster and coming within an inch of a gory death while at it.
The shower stopped.
Dark clouds flew by overhead and it was so quiet you would’ve thought the world had ended.
Cautiously, Norn came over.
“Are…Are you all right?” he asked. “Did you get it?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “And yes, it is dead.”
He looked at the grand carcass, the warg’s withers nearly on level with the height of the boy, even at rest.
“I—I can’t believe it!” he uttered, a wide smile now brightening his face. “You really did it! You killed it!”
“Your shot saved my life,” I said. “The timing was flawless. Thank you.”
“My mind just went completely blank when I saw the thing! I didn’t even know what I was doing!”
“Still you did it. It was very well done.”
“So what are we going to do now?”
“Give me a minute.”
The smell of the direwolf unnerved the sheep greatly and they were about to head home downhill by themselves. I sent Norn ahead with the flock, while I had work of my own to tend to. That part of quests that books tended to omit entirely, but inescapable as fate itself.
Technically, only a fang or two would have served as the necessary proof of the kill, but many parts of the body had sale value. There was no way I could carry the whole thing back by myself, but if I left it behind, it could well vanish overnight. I wanted to bring at least the pelt and the head with me, as I heard they were priced highest.
Which meant I had to butcher the thing on-site.
I had disassembled various animals in the palace kitchen, but never canines, never mind a warg. But how hard could it be? On the outside, at least, it seemed to share the same characteristics as most other quadrupedal mammals.
No use overthinking it.
There were, however, other technical problems too.
For one, the beast stank like something unholy. I couldn’t get that smell or its blood and viscera onto my uniform. But butchering such a large body was a lot of dirty work, and avoiding stains was physically impossible. There was only one thing within my power to do. I had to remove the uniform and dissect the thing in my birthday suit. Now there was a scene that might give people strange ideas about my character. It was most definitely not conduct fit for an imperial maid, nor my personal preference. But there was no one there to see, and I’d sent Norn away, and needed the money. If the coin this thing got me brought me back home even a little sooner, shame and disgust were trivial things to cast away.
So I got to work.
I cut open the belly and scooped out the hot intestines that steamed in the cooling, humid air. Without their weight, the carcass was somewhat easier to handle. I parted the head as close to the skull as I could, and from the neck cut a line to the open belly and the groin, and thence began parting the hide from the flesh. You could think of it as a process not so different from cutting off a shirt and trousers glued onto the person wearing them.
Cut around the legs to leave the paws out, then make a seam on the side of the limbs, and peel the coat off from top to bottom, bit by bit, while assisting with the knife. The biggest challenge was how to pull the hide off from under the heavy corpse, but I sought a longer branch in the thicket and, using it as a lever, rolled the remains over onto the other side. O' the ingenuity of humankind and our tools.
The result wasn’t of the highest quality possible, but in a bit under an hour, I had one warg pelt and a big, grotesque head to take with me. In Vandalia, it was apparently customary for a hunter to eat the raw heart of whatever he had felled, but the direwolf’s heart was nearly as large as my head and took your appetite faster than Master Vivian’s potions. I would settle for a sandwich after reaching back home.
I rolled the head inside the hide, but found it far too heavy to carry in my arms. It was probably close to twice my own weight. I wasn’t going to haul it seven miles back to the town. Had I done all the work for nothing?
I thought a bit more.
Our combat instructor had drilled soldiers before servants, and had shared a few other tips and tricks that weren’t necessarily relevant to maids, but good to know all the same. One of those seemed to fit my purposes.
I looked for a couple of other thin trees, fixed them together with string, and tied the pelt to the sticks, and thus had something of an improvised stretcher that I could drag behind me and the loot upon it. I couldn’t have gone uphill with this cargo, but had quite a bit easier time going down, with the ground still slick for the rain.
“Well then…Let’s go home.”
Promptly dressed again, I did what I could to psyche myself up for the long march and moved my feet.