The Wolf's Hour Part 26

2.

This was a golden time. As autumn pa.s.sed into winter, Mikhail's continued dalliances with Alekza resulted in the swelling of her belly. Wiktor demanded more and more of Mikhail's time as the days shortened and the frost bloomed; the lessons had advanced, and now involved higher mathematics, theories of civilization, religion, and philosophy. But Mikhail, amazingly even to himself, found his mind craving knowledge just as his body craved Alekza. A double doorway had been opened: one to the mysteries of s.e.x, one to the questions of life. Mikhail sat without fidgeting as Wiktor pushed him to think; and not only to think, but to make up his own mind about things. In their discussion of religion, Wiktor raised a question that had no answer: "What is the lycanthrope, in the eye of G.o.d? A cursed beast, or a child of miracle?"

The winter was a rare animal: a comparatively mild few months in which there were only three blizzards and hunting was almost always easy. It pa.s.sed, and spring came again, and the pack counted itself blessed. Renati came with news one morning in May: two travelers-a man and a woman-in a wagon on the forest road. Their horse would be good meat, and they might bring the travelers into the fold. Wiktor agreed; the pack, now numbering only five members, could stand some new blood.

It was done with military precision. Nikita and Mikhail stalked the wagon on either side of the road while Renati followed behind and Wiktor went ahead to choose the place of ambush. The signal was given: Wiktor's strong voice, calling out as the wagon rumbled along beneath the dense pines. At once Nikita and Mikhail struck from both sides, leaping from the underbrush, and Renati bounded in from the rear. Wiktor jumped out of his hiding place, making the horse scream and leap in its traces. Mikhail saw the panic-stricken faces of the travelers; the man was bearded and thin, the woman dressed in a peasant's sackcloth. Nikita went for the man, biting into the forearm and dragging him off the wagon. Mikhail started to strike for the woman's shoulder, as Wiktor had instructed him, but he paused with his fangs bared and the saliva drooling. He remembered his own agony, and he couldn't bear to put another human being through that torment. The woman screamed, her hands up before her face. And then Renati leaped up onto the wagon, sank her fangs into the woman's shoulder, and knocked her to the ground. Wiktor sprang for the horse's throat, hanging on as the horse began to run. The animal didn't get very far before Wiktor brought it down, but Wiktor came out of the encounter covered with sc.r.a.pes and ugly blue bruises.

In the depths of the white palace, the man died during his rite of pa.s.sage. The woman survived, at least in body. Her mind, however, did not. She spent all her time huddled up in a corner, her back against the wall, sobbing and praying. No one could get her to speak anything but gibberish, not even to say her name or where she was from. She prayed night and day for death, until finally Wiktor gave her what she asked for, and put her out of her misery. On that day the pack hardly spoke to each other; Mikhail went running far away and back, and one word kept repeating itself over and over in his mind: monster.

Alekza gave birth, at the zenith of summer. Mikhail watched the infant emerge, and when Alekza asked eagerly, "Is it a boy? Is it a boy?" Renati mopped her brow and answered, "Yes. A fine, healthy son."

The infant lived through its first week. Alekza named him Petyr, after an uncle she remembered from her childhood. Petyr had strong lungs, and Mikhail liked to sing along with him. Even Franco-whose heart had been softened as he learned to get about on three legs-was entranced by the child, but it was Wiktor who spent the most time near the newborn, watching with his amber eyes as Petyr suckled. Alekza giggled like a schoolgirl as she held the infant, but everyone knew what Wiktor was looking for: the first signs of the war between wolf and human in the child's body. Either it would survive that war, and the body would make a truce between its natures, or it would not. Another week pa.s.sed, then a month; Petyr still survived, still squalled and suckled.

Winds lashed the forest. A rainstorm was coming; the pack could smell its sweetness. But this was the night of the summer's last train, on its way east to be caged until next season. Both Nikita and Mikhail had come to see the train as a living thing, as night after night they raced it along the tracks, beginning in human form and trying to cross in front of it as wolves before it roared into the eastern tunnel. They both were getting faster, but it seemed that the train was getting faster, too. Possibly a new engineer, Nikita had said. This man doesn't know the meaning of brakes. Mikhail agreed; the train had begun to come out of the western tunnel like a h.e.l.l-bent demon, racing to reach home before the dawn light turned its heart to iron. Twice Nikita had completed the change and almost made the leap that would carry him through the beam of the train's cyclopean eye, but the train had picked up speed with a gout of black smoke and a rain of cinders and at the last second Nikita's nerve had faltered. The red lamp on the train's last car swung as if in mockery, and the light glowed in Nikita's eyes until it faded away in the long tunnel.

As the pines and oaks swayed on either side of the ravine and all the world seemed in tumultuous motion, Mikhail and Nikita waited in the dark for the summer's last train. Both of them were naked, having run from the white palace as wolves. They sat on the edge of the tracks, near the western tunnel's opening, and every so often Nikita would reach out and touch the rails, expecting to feel a trembling. "He's late," Nikita said. "He'll be going faster than ever, trying to make up the time."

Mikhail nodded thoughtfully and chewed on a weed. He looked up, watching the clouds move like plates of metal in the sky. Then he touched the rails; they were silent. "Maybe he broke down."

"Maybe he did," Nikita agreed. Then, frowning: "No, no! It's the final run! They'll get that train home tonight if they have to push it!" He tore up a clump of gra.s.s and, getting impatient, watched it fly before the wind. "The train will be here," he said.

They were silent for a few moments, listening to the noise of the trees. Mikhail asked, "Do you think he'll live?"

That question had never been very far from all their minds. Nikita shrugged. "I don't know. He seems healthy enough, but... it's hard to tell." He felt the rail again; no train. "You must have something strong inside you. Something very special."

"Like what?" That puzzled Mikhail, because he'd never thought of himself as any different from the rest of the pack.

"Well, look how many times I've tried to father a child. Or Franco. Or even Wiktor. My G.o.d, you'd think Wiktor could pop them out right and left. But the babies usually died within a few days, and those that lasted any longer were in such pain it was a horror to behold. Now here you are-fifteen years old-and you father a child who's lasted a month and seems all right. And the way you endured your own change, too; you just held on, long after the rest of us had given you up. Oh, Renati says she always knew you'd live, but she thought of the Garden every time she looked at you. Franco was betting sc.r.a.ps of food that you'd die within a week-and now he thanks G.o.d every day that you didn't!" He tilted his head slightly, listening for the sound of wheels. "Wiktor knows," he said.

"Knows what?"

"He knows what I do. What we all do. You're different, somehow. Stronger. Smarter. Why do you think Wiktor spends so much time going through those books with you?"

"He enjoys teaching."

"Oh, is that what he's told you?" Nikita grunted. "Well, why didn't he want to teach me? Or Franco, or Alekza? Or any of the others? Did he think we had rocks in our heads?" He answered his question himself: "No. He spends his time teaching you because he thinks you're worth the effort. And why is that? Because you want to know." He nodded when Mikhail scoffed. "It's true! I've heard Wiktor say it: he believes there's a future for you."

"A future? There's a future for all of us, isn't there?"

"That's not what I mean. A future beyond this." He made an expansive gesture that enfolded the forest. "Where we are now."

"You mean..." Mikhail leaned forward. "Leave here?"

"That's right. Or, at least, that's what Wiktor believes. He thinks that someday you might leave the forest, and that you could even take care of yourself out there."

"Alone? Without the pack?"

Nikita nodded. "Yes. Alone."

It was too incredible to consider. How could any member of the pack survive, alone? No, no; it was unthinkable! Mikhail was going to stay here forever, with the pack. There would always be a pack. Wouldn't there? "If I left the forest, who would take care of Alekza and Petyr?"

"That I don't know. But Alekza has what she's been living for: a boy child. The way she smiles... well, she doesn't even look like the same person anymore. Alekza wouldn't survive out there"-he jerked a finger toward the west-"and Wiktor knows it. Alekza knows it, too. She'll live out the rest of her life here. And so will I, Wiktor, Franco, and Renati. We're old, hairy relics, aren't we?" He grinned broadly, but there was a little sadness in his smile. His grin faded. "Who knows about Petyr? Who knows if he'll even live another week, or what his mind will be like when he gets older? He might be like that woman who cried in the corner all day long. Or..." He glanced at Mikhail. "Or he might be like you. Who knows?" Nikita c.o.c.ked his head again, listening. His eyes narrowed. He put a finger on the rail, and Mikhail saw him smile faintly. "The train's coming. Fast, too. He's running late!"

Mikhail touched the rail and felt the distant train's power vibrating in it. Drops of rain began to fall, pocking up little puffs of dust from along the tracks. Nikita stood up and moved into the shelter of some trees next to the tunnel opening. Mikhail went with him, and they crouched down like sprinters ready for bursts of speed. The rain was falling harder. In another moment it was coming down in sheets, and the rails were drenched. Also, the ground was rapidly turning to mud. Mikhail didn't like this; their footing would be unstable. He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. Now they could hear the thunder of the train, fast approaching. Mikhail said, "I don't think we should go tonight."

"Why not? Because of a little rain?" Nikita shook his head, his body tensed for the race. "I've run in rain worse than this!"

"The ground... there's too much mud."

"I'm not afraid!" Nikita snapped. "Oh, I've had dreams about that red lamp on the last car! Winking at me like Satan's eye! I'm going to beat the train tonight! I feel it, Mikhail! I can do it if I run just a little faster! Just a little bit-"

The train's headlamp exploded from the tunnel, the long black engine and the boxcars following. The new engineer had no fear of wet tracks. Rain and wind gusted into Mikhail's face, and he yelled, "No!" and reached for Nikita but Nikita was already gone, a white blur running alongside the rails. Mikhail sprinted after him, trying to stop him; the rain and wind were too strong, the train going too fast. His feet slid in the mud, and he almost fell against the speeding train. He could hear the rain hissing off the hot engine like a chorus of snakes. He kept going, trying to run Nikita down, and he saw that Nikita's footprints in the mud were changing to the paws of a wolf.

Nikita was contorted forward, almost running on all fours. His body was no longer white. Rain whirled around him-and then Mikhail lost his balance, falling forward and sliding in the mud. Rain crashed down on his shoulders and mud blinded him. He tried to scramble up, fell again, and lay there as the train roared along its track and into the eastern tunnel. It vanished, leaving a scrawl of red light on the tunnel's rock; then that, too, was gone.

Mikhail sat up in the downpour, rain streaming over his face. "Nikita!" he shouted. Neither human nor wolf replied. Mikhail stood up and began walking through the mud toward the eastern tunnel. "Nikita! Where are you?"

He couldn't see Nikita. The rain was still slamming down. Whirling cinders hissed out long before they touched the ground. The air smelled of scorched iron and wet heat.

"Nikita?" There was no sign of him on this side of the tracks. He made it! Mikhail thought, and felt a burst of joy. He made it! He made- Something lay over on the other side of the tracks. A shapeless, trembling form.

Steam rose from the rails. On the tunnel's floor, cinders still glowed. And about eight feet from its entrance, lying sprawled in the weeds, was Nikita.

The wolf had leaped in front of the train, but the train had won. Its cowcatcher had torn Nikita's hindquarters away. His back legs were gone, and what remained of Nikita made Mikhail gasp and fall to his knees. He couldn't help it; he was sick, and that mingled with the blood washing along the railroad tracks.

Nikita made a noise: a soft, terrible moan.

Mikhail lifted his face to the sky, and let the rain beat it. He heard Nikita's moan again, ending in a whimper. He forced himself to look at his friend, and saw Nikita's eyes staring back at him, the n.o.ble head twisted like a frail flower on a dark stalk. The mouth opened, and emitted that awful noise again. The eyes were dimmed, but they fixed on Mikhail and held him, and he read their message.

Kill me.

Nikita's body trembled in agony. The front legs tried to pull the rest of the ruined body away from the tracks, but there was no power left in them. The head thrashed, then fell back into the mud. With a mighty effort, Nikita lifted his head and stared once more, imploringly, at the boy who sat on his knees in the downpour.

Nikita was dying, of course. But not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough.

Mikhail lowered his face and stared into the mud. Pieces of Nikita's body, stippled with wolf hair and human flesh, lay around him like tattered pieces of a magnificent puzzle. Mikhail heard Nikita groan and closed his eyes; in his mind he saw a dying deer beside the tracks, and Nikita's hands gripping the animal's skull. He remembered the sharp twist Nikita had given the deer's neck, followed by a noise of cracking bones. It had been an act of mercy, pure and simple. And it was no less than what Nikita now asked for.

Mikhail stood up, staggered and almost went down again. He felt dreamlike, floating; in this sea of rain there were no edges. Nikita shivered and stared at him and waited. At last Mikhail moved. The mud caught his feet, but he pulled free and he knelt down beside his friend.

Nikita lifted his head, offering his neck.

Mikhail grasped the sides of the wolf's skull. Nikita's eyes closed, and the low moan continued in his throat.

We could fix him, Mikhail thought. I don't have to kill him. We could fix him. Wiktor would know how. We fixed Franco, didn't we?

But in his heart he knew this was far worse than Franco's mangled leg. Nikita was near death, and he was only asking for deliverance from pain. It had all happened so quickly: the downpour, the train, the steaming tracks... so quickly, so quickly.

Mikhail's hands gripped tighter. He was shaking as hard as Nikita. He would have to do this right the first time. A dark haze was falling over his vision, and his eyes were filling up with rain. It would have to be done mercifully. Mikhail braced himself. One of Nikita's forelegs lifted up, and the paw rested against Mikhail's arm.

"I'm sorry," Mikhail whispered. He took a breath, and twisted as sharply as he could. He heard the cracking noise, and Nikita's body twitched. Then Mikhail crawled frantically away through the rain and mud. He burrowed into the weeds and high gra.s.s, and curled up there as the torrent continued to beat down on him. When he dared to look at Nikita again, he saw the motionless, cleaved torso of a wolf with one human arm and hand. Mikhail sat on his haunches, his knees pulled up to his chin, and rocked himself. He stared at the carca.s.s with its white-fleshed arm. It would have to be moved off the tracks, before the vultures found it in the morning. It would have to be buried deep.

Nikita was gone. To where? Mikhail wondered. And Wiktor's question came to him: what is the lycanthrope, in the eye of G.o.d?

He felt something fall away from him. Perhaps it was youth's last flower. What lay beneath it felt hard-edged and raw, like a seething wound. To get through this life, he thought, a man needed a heart that was plated with metal and pumped cinders. He would have to grow one, if he was going to survive.

He stayed beside Nikita's body until the rain ceased. The wind had gone, and the woods were peaceful. Then Mikhail ran home, through the dripping dark, to take Wiktor the news.

3.

Petyr was crying. It was the dead of winter, the wind howled outside the white palace, and Wiktor crouched over the child, now seven months old, as Petyr lay on a bed of dried gra.s.s. A small fire flickered nearby; the child was swaddled in deerskin and a blanket Renati had made from the travelers' clothes. Petyr's crying was a shrill quaver, but cold was not the child's complaint. Wiktor, whose beard had started to show streaks of white amid the gray, touched Petyr's forehead. The child's skin was burning. Wiktor looked up at the others. "It's begun," he said, his voice grim.

Alekza, too, started to cry. Wiktor snapped, "Hush that!" and Alekza crawled away to be by herself.

"What can we do?" Mikhail asked, but he already knew the answer: nothing. Petyr was about to go through the trial of agony, and no one could help the child through that pa.s.sage. Mikhail leaned over Petyr, his fingers busy at the blanket, folding it closer simply because his fingers wanted something to do. Petyr's face was flushed, the ice-blue eyes rimmed with red. A small amount of dark hair was scattered over the child's scalp. Alekza's eyes, Mikhail thought. My hair. And within that frail body, the first battle of a long war was beginning.

"He's strong," Franco said. "He'll make it." But his voice had no conviction. How could an infant survive such pain? Franco stood up, on his single leg, and used his pinewood staff to guide himself to his sleeping pallet.

Wiktor, Renati, and Mikhail slept in a circle around the child. Alekza came back, and slept touching Mikhail. Petyr's crying swelled and ebbed, became hoa.r.s.e and still continued. So did the wail of the wind, beyond the walls.

As the days went on, Petyr's pain increased. They could tell, by the way he shivered and writhed, by the way he clenched his fists and seemed to be striking the air. They huddled around him; Petyr was hotter than the fire. Sometimes he screamed with silence, his mouth open and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Other times his voice filled the chamber, and it was a sound that ripped Mikhail's heart and made Alekza weep. In periods when the worst of the pain seemed to ebb, Alekza tried to feed Petyr b.l.o.o.d.y meat she'd already chewed into a soft paste; he accepted most of it, but he was getting weaker, shriveling up like an old man before their eyes. Still, Petyr clung to life. When the child's crying would become so terrible that Mikhail thought G.o.d must surely end this suffering, the pain would break for perhaps three or four hours. Then it would come back, and the screaming would start again. Mikhail knew Alekza was nearing a crisis as well; her eyes looked like hollowed-out holes, and her hands trembled so much she could hardly guide food into her own mouth. She, too, was becoming older by the day.

After a long and exhausting hunt, Mikhail was awakened one night by a hideous gasping sound. He sat up, started to move toward Petyr, but Wiktor pushed him aside in his haste to get to the baby. Renati said, "What is it? What's wrong?" and Franco hobbled on his stick into the light. Alekza just stared, her eyes blank pools of shock. Wiktor knelt beside the child, and his face was ashen. The baby was silent. "He's swallowed his tongue," Wiktor said. "Mikhail, hold him from thrashing!"

Mikhail gripped Petyr's body; it was like touching a hot coal. "Hold him steady!" Wiktor shouted as he forced open the mouth and tried to hook the tongue with his finger. He couldn't get it out. Petyr's face had taken on a tinge of blue, and the lungs were heaving. The little hands clutched at the air. Wiktor's finger explored the child's mouth, found the tongue, and then he got a second finger clamped around it. He pulled; the tongue was caught in Petyr's throat. "Get it out!" Renati yelled. "Wiktor, get it out!"

Wiktor pulled again, harder. There was a popping noise as the tongue unjammed, but Petyr's face was still turning blue. The lungs. .h.i.tched, couldn't draw in air. Sweat sparkled on Wiktor's face, though his breath came out in a gray plume. He lifted Petyr up, held the baby by the heels, and whacked him on the back with the flat of his hand. Mikhail winced at the sound of the blow. Petyr still made no noise. Again Wiktor struck him on the back, harder. And a third time. There was a whoosh of rushing air, and a plume of it exploded from the child's mouth. It was followed by a wail of pain and fury that made the storm's voice sound feeble. Alekza held her arms out to take the baby. Wiktor gave him to her. She rocked the child, grateful tears creeping down her cheeks, and she lifted one of his little hands and pressed it against her lips.

She pulled her head back, her eyes wide.

Dark hairs had risen from the white infant flesh. The body in her arms was already contorting, and Petyr opened his mouth to make a mewling noise. Alekza looked up at Mikhail, then at Wiktor; he sat on his haunches, his chin resting on his clasped hands, and his amber eyes glinted in the firelight as he watched.

Petyr's face was changing, the muzzle beginning to form, the eyes sinking back into the dark-haired skull. Mikhail heard Renati gasp beside him, a sound of wonder. Petyr's ears lengthened, edged with soft white hairs. The fingers of both hands and the toes of both feet were retracting, becoming claws with small hooked nails. Little popping noises chimed the shifting of bones and joints, and Petyr made grunting noises, but his crying seemed to be done. The change took perhaps a minute. Wiktor said quietly, "Put him down."

Alekza obeyed. The blue-eyed wolf pup, its sinewy body covered with fine black hairs, struggled to stand on all fours. Petyr made it up, fell, struggled to stand, and then fell again. Mikhail started to help him, but Wiktor said, "No. Let him do it on his own."

Petyr found his legs and was able to stand, the little body shivering, the blue eyes blinking with amazement. The stub of a tall wriggled, and the wolfen ears twitched. He took one step, then a second; his hind legs tangled and he went down once more. Petyr gave a short whuff of frustration, steam curling from his nostrils. Wiktor leaned forward, held out a finger, and ticked it back and forth in front of Petyr's muzzle. The blue eyes followed it-and then Petyr's head lunged out, the jaws opened, and clamped down on Wiktor's finger.

Wiktor worked his finger out of the pup's jaws and held it up. A little drop of blood had appeared. "Congratulations," he said to Mikhail and Alekza. "Your son has a new tooth."

Petyr, at least for the time being, had given up the battle with gravity. He squirmed across the floor, sniffing at the stones. A roach burst from a crack under Petyr's nose and ran for its life, and Petyr gave a high yip of surprise, then continued his explorations.

"He'll turn back, won't he?" Alekza asked Wiktor. "Won't he?"

"We'll see," Wiktor told her, and that was all he could offer.

About halfway across the chamber Petyr stubbed his nose on a stone's edge. He began yelping with pain, and as he rolled on the floor his body started changing back to human form again. The fine dark hair retreated into the flesh, the muzzle flattened into a nose-one of the nostrils b.l.o.o.d.y-and the paws became hands and feet. The yelping was now a steady, full-throated cry, and Alekza rushed to the baby and picked him up. She rocked him and cooed to him, and finally Petyr hiccuped a few times and ceased crying. He remained a human infant.

"Well," Wiktor said after a pause, "if our new addition survives the winter, he should be very interesting to watch."

"He'll survive," Alekza promised. The glint of life had returned to her eyes. "I'll make him survive."

Wiktor admired his bitten finger. "My dear, I doubt if you'll ever be able to make him do anything." He glanced at Mikhail, and smiled slightly. "You've done well, son," he said, and motioned Alekza and the baby back into the fire's warmth.

Son, Mikhail realized he'd said. Son. No man had ever called him son before, and something about that sounded like music. He would sleep that night, listening to Alekza crooning to Petyr, and he would dream of a tall, lean man in a military uniform who stood with a woman Mikhail had all but forgotten, and that man would have Wiktor's face.

4.

At winter's end Petyr was still alive. He accepted whatever food Alekza gave him, and though he had the habit of changing to a wolf pup without warning and driving the rest of the pack crazy with his constant yapping, he stayed mostly within human bounds. By summer he had all his teeth, and Wiktor kept his fingers away from the baby's mouth.

Some nights, Mikhail sat on the ravine's edge and watched the train go past. He began counting the seconds off as it roared from the western tunnel into the eastern. Last year, he'd run the race halfheartedly with Nikita. It had never really mattered to him how fast he could change. He knew he was fairly quick about it, but he'd always lagged behind Nikita. Now, though, Nikita's bones lay in the Garden, and the train-an invincible thing-breathed its black breath and shone its gleaming eye through the night. Mikhail had often wondered what the crew had thought when they'd found blood and bits of black-haired flesh on the cowcatcher. We hit an animal, they'd probably thought if they considered it at all. An animal. Something that shouldn't have been in our way.

Toward the middle of summer, Mikhail began to lope along with the train as it burst from the tunnel. He wasn't racing it, just stretching his legs. The engine always left him in a whirl of sour black smoke, and cinders scorched his skin. And on those nights, after the train had disappeared into the tunnel, Mikhail crossed the tracks to where Nikita had died, and he sat in the weeds and thought, I could do it, if I wanted to. I could.

Maybe.

He would have to get a fast start. The tricky part was staying on your feet as your arms and legs changed. The way the backbone bowed your body over ruined your balance. And all the time your nerves and joints were shrieking, and if you tripped over your own paws, you could go into the side of the train, and a hundred other terrible things could happen. No, it wasn't worth the risk.

Mikhail always left telling himself he wouldn't come back. But he knew it was a lie. The idea of speed, of testing himself against the beast that had killed Nikita, lured him. He began to run faster, alongside the train; but still not racing it, not yet. His balance still wasn't good enough, and he fell every time he tried to change from human to wolf while running. It was a problem of timing, of keeping your footing until the front legs could come down and match the speed of the hind legs. Mikhail kept trying, and kept falling.

Renati returned from a hunt one afternoon with startling news: to the northwest, less than five miles from the white palace, men had started cutting down trees. They'd already made a clearing, and were building shacks out of raw timbers. A road was being plowed through the brush. The men had many wagons, saws, and axes. Renati said she'd crept in close, in her wolf form, to watch them working; one of the men had seen her, she said, and pointed her out to the others before she could get back into the woods. What did it mean? she asked Wiktor.

The beginning of a logging camp, he thought. Under no circ.u.mstances, he told the pack, were any of them to go near the place again, in either human or wolf form. The men would probably work through the summer and leave. It was best to let them alone.

But from that point on, Mikhail noted that Wiktor became silent and brooding. He forbade anyone to hunt except at night. He was nervous, and paced back and forth in the chamber long after everyone else had settled down to rest. Soon, when the wind was right, Mikhail and the others could recline in the sun outside the white palace and hear the distant sound of axes and saws at work, gnawing the forest away.

And the day came.

Franco and Renati went out to hunt, as a crescent moon hung in the sky and the woods thrummed with the sound of crickets. Little more than an hour had pa.s.sed before the noise of distant gunshots silenced the insects and echoed through the corridors of the white palace.

Mikhail counted four shots as he stood up from Alekza's side. Petyr played with a rabbit bone on the floor. Wiktor dropped the book of Latin he'd been reading to Mikhail and rose to his feet. Two more shots were fired, and the sounds made Mikhail flinch; he remembered very well the noise of gunfire, and what a bullet could do.

As the last shot faded a howling began: Franco's hoa.r.s.e voice, panicked and calling for help.

"Stay with Petyr," Wiktor told Alekza, and as he strode toward the stone stairway he was already changing. Mikhail followed, and the two wolves left the white palace streaking through the darkness toward Franco's wall. They had gone not quite a mile when they smelled the gunsmoke and the odor of men: a bitter, frightened sweat smell. Lanterns glowed in the woods, and the men were calling to each other. Franco had begun making a high, frantic yipping noise, an aural beacon that led Wiktor and Mikhail directly to him. They found him crouched on a bluff, amid dense underbrush, and before them lay a circle of tents around a campfire. Wiktor rammed his shoulder into Franco's ribs to shut him up, and Franco lay on his belly in a submissive posture, his eyes glittering with terror-not of Wiktor, but of what now occurred in the firelit clearing.