The Ice Storm
Chapter Nineteen
Wolf couldn't help the uncomfortable feeling of having deja vu all over again. It was illogical, of course, because he had indeed been here before. Climbed this mountain, scrambled over this very boulder in fact...
A quiet scraping and a mumbled curse that was quite unfit for royalty floated up on the cold air. Scarlett came into view beneath him. For a moment she wavered uncertainly, faced with a particularly deep drift, but then she set her teeth grimly, forging her way through towards him. Wolf couldn't help but smile at her efforts. Their days of rough living and hard travel had brought out the best in his old enemy, he knew. Of all the strange and weird things that had happened to him in the past few years, it was this discovery, his obvious delight in empowering the Red Queen that was probably the oddest. Who'd have thought it? He had to smile again at his own answer. Virginia. She had known it. His heart seemed to melt at the thought of his love, so far away in the Castle White, probably getting fat and cross and fidgety and wondering what was taking him so long to come home.
He reached down to give Scarlett his hand over the last part of the drift. She took it without comment or hesitation. Her cheeks were pink with exertion and her long gold hair tumbled down around her shoulders, coated with crusted snow and ice. Wolf watched as she gained her feet next to him. If the long climb up to Coven Lake was proving too hard for her she had never said so, and she likely would not, he realised. She was still a stubborn girl, headstrong and unwilling to admit defeat. Wolf found himself wondering whether those traits could be attributed to her wolf ancestry or her human one, but ultimately he realised that it didn't matter. Wolf blood, human blood, she was what she was.
But that didn't stop his own wolfish mind from assessing her as a strong, competent she-wolf, and a desirable asset for any pack. She would breed strong cubs for Wendell, he mused silently.
She was taking stock of their surroundings in the way he had taught her. Wind direction, arc of the sun, tracks, scents, number of steps taken since breaking camp this morning. She had learned it all quickly, and had remarked on more than one occasion that it more like 'remembering' than actually learning a new thing. She was surprised at herself, he knew.
A sudden new scent, at once alarming and welcoming, wafted in their direction, and Wolf waited to see if she would pick it up. For a long moment it seemed that she wouldn't, staring off in the other direction, but suddenly she pivoted, turning her head sharply to the east. Her delicate nose flared and her brow creased in thought. Then she smiled hesitantly.
"Is it...another one? One of...us?" she murmured softly under her breath. Wolf waited patiently. Almost she had it. "No, wait, it's more than one!"
"How many and what sort?" Wolf asked her. She was trying so hard to sort the scents it was almost comical, but of all the various scents a half-wolf had to learn, this was probably the most important of all; other wolf's, be they kin, strangers, friendly or hostile.
"I..I don't think I can tell" she said after another minute, her face falling in self doubt.
"It's alright Scarlett. No one expects you to learn it all in a few days, least of all me. But if you want to know, they are three males, younger than I, two females, one with a nursing cub, and an adolescent male with a sore foot". Wolf couldn't help but feel pleased that Scarlett was so obviously impressed by his skills.
"I'll never be any good at this" she muttered though. "Are they going to approach us then?"
"Yes. That is why they have allowed their scent to reach us. It's like a courtesy, you know?"
"Oh. Will they attack us, do you think?"
"I doubt it"
"I thought wolves attacked and killed others who came into their territory"
"It happens, especially between the full blooded packs in times of hardship, but we're not savages who kill just for the sport of it Scarlett" Wolf said in a gentle reproach. A part of her mind heard him and bowed it's head ever so slightly in submission, but the rest of her stood boldly in the knee high snow, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. Wolf smiled and cupped her chin lightly in one hand. "These folk will likely be travellers as we are. We have passed no wolf boundaries today" he reassured her.
"But when they find out who I am..."
"Yes, that might be interesting"
"Interesting!..."
"Hush, they come now" Wolf said and she cut off whatever scathing remark she'd been about to say. Within moments, the pack of half-wolf's came into view over the hill. Wolf saw at once that they were indeed travellers with no pack-lands of their own. All their possessions were piled high on their backs, and they all had a tough, lean look of wolf's on the road. It was not uncommon for families and packs to roam over quite a distance in their search for their own turf, and in fact many spent years that way by choice. In gender and type they were just as he had described them to Scarlett, and the youngster even limped.
Long before they were in proper greeting distance, the two sides were assessing each other. Do you come in the light of the moon? Wolf asked them silently, letting his body language adopt an unthreatening posture. Next to him, he could feel Scarlett's budding curiousity and her latent fear. She shifted uncomfortably and stared too openly at them. He hoped the other pack would not interpret her reaction as aggression. The lead male's eyes thinned in suspicion as he looked at Scarlett. Wolf, sensing a sudden danger, turned and grabbed Scarlett by the scruff of her robe at the back of her neck, forcing her head downwards gently. Surprised, she fought him momentarily, spitting angry words under her breath. Wolf knew she would be ropeable later, but glancing at the other pack, he knew he'd been right to enforce it on her. With his clearly defined domination over her, he affirmed to the strangers that his companion would not act of her own accord, no matter her fear.
One by one they relaxed and the leader smiled hesitantly.
"Young" he said, in a way that Wolf knew he wasn't just referring to her age. Wolf smiled back, knowing the truth of it. She had been slightly cubbish in her actions, but no one would blame her for that, not when they learned about her. He released Scarlett and she stayed where she was, head down in submission. Wolf wondered if she'd figured it out so quickly. The others came forward now, and he learnt their pack names and gave his own. They did not seem to recognise his name as being the 'wolf hero' of the Fourth Kingdom, but as they came to Scarlett now, he realised with a pang that he had no wolfish name for her, and she had none to give them.
It was a tense moment as the new pack waited for Scarlett to greet them. Wolf was on the verge of taking a risk and inventing a name for her when she suddenly took a deep breath and stepped forward. Her white hand tugged away the fabric at her throat, baring it in the way she had obviously just watched the others do.
"I am Scarlett, Red Queen of the Second Kingdom" she said. Her tone did not waver even for a second, and Wolf felt both proud and fearful for her. The leader of the pack came forward to stand so close and she didn't flinch as he reached for her throat. Wolf held his breath, poised to move the instant it turned ugly. But the alpha sniffed closely at Scarlett's skin before he unexpectedly reached to enclose her in a strong hug.
"Welcome back to your family, Scarlett Riding Hood. We have been waiting many, many moons for you" he said.
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Virginia shifted uncomfortably on the cool snow floor of the small cave, wondering what had awakened her. It was still night outside and she could see the faint glimmer of starlight coming in through the narrow opening. Across from her, Yacobe lay curled up nose to tail, seemingly asleep, although she knew better than to assume he was. He'd typically wake at the slightest movement from her. Her back ached terribly and she was momentarily overwhelmed with the memory of her feather bed in her little cottage, a warm and bare Wolf stretched out beside her, soft rain beating against the windows, the creak of the larder door being prised open by a hungry wolf cub. Virginia smiled in spite of her worries, manouvering herself into a sitting position to try and ease the discomfort. This wasn't an easy task nowadays, given that she was very nearly the size she had been when Caelum had been born. Her stomach felt hard and round, with a certain pressure against the floor of the uterus that let her know that the cub had settled head down already.
Wait, little daughter, just wait she pleaded silently. Not here, not now, not amongst strangers who will take you for their own...
The barest of sounds reached her ears. A soft crunch outside. Virginia was almost tempted to reach over and shake Yacobe awake, but she hestitated. Maybe it was rescue? Unlikely as it seemed, her heart lifted in sudden hope that perhaps someone, anyone, even Wendell himself maybe, had tracked her and found her finally. Two points of light appeared in the darkness of the cave, and she realised that she was staring directly into Yacobe's eyes. In the gloom, he raised his finger to his lips. Reminded suddenly of where she was and who would be her mostly likely 'rescuer', Virginia obeyed him, and stayed silent as he uncurled himself and put his nose to the crack.
More sounds, suspiciously just like booted feet tramping through snow, penetrated the air. Virginia fought to keep her breathing even and shallow, but fear gnawed at her now as Yacobe's hackles rose and his low range growl rumbled in his throat.
"Yacobe!" the man's voice cut through the night. "Yacobe come forth. You are discovered. Come forth and submit".
Virginia swallowed hard as he turned to face her. Despise and fear him as she had done until now, she now found herself in the uneviable position of being caught between two enemies, tussled over like two dogs on a bone. Unless...unless Yacobe was the type to destroy out of hand what everyone sought if he could not have it for himself. She pressed herself against the farthest wall. His smile was brittle, and with a fatalistic egde to it that she had seen often in wolfish expressions.
"I would never harm you, Virginia. I have given my life to Lucine should I do otherwise" he said, now tilting his head slightly to indicate the outside, "but we are discovered now, and outnumbered, and surrounded. If you wish it, I will fight for you now, but they will kill me eventually. What do you want to do, Virginia?"
Dumbfounded, Virginia could only stare back at him silently. What a choice? Why even ask, like she was the one in charge, the one who could send men, or wolf's to their deaths with only a nod?
"Are...are they from her?"
"Yes. Men I trained with, shared meat with. I do not think they will do you harm, Virginia. Rhoswen wants you unhurt, or more specifically she wants the babe unharmed".
"And you? What will she do to you?"
"My life is forfeit. It has been since I first saw you, and since I last left the Ice Palace with my Lady's orders. Rhoswen is my alpha leader, and I have disobeyed her will. It is her right to punish me for that, Virginia. My only regret is that I have failed your daughter. I tried to protect her, but I was up against a formidable woman who uses filthy magic as though it were as innocent as the sky. I don't doubt she has espied us from afar, and guided her men here"
Virginia found herself agreeing with his words, but at the same time she seethed with anger at the stupidity of the situation. They should have gone south, far away, anywhere but so close to the one who hunted them. But it was too late now. Like it or not, she was about to be captured all over again, and as dangerous and hostile as Yacobe had seemed to her, she feared he would be nothing compared to who awaited her now. She thought on Rhoswen, the Queen in waiting of this barren land. It had been Rhoswen who Virginia had seen in the mirror of Coventina, not the aged Neva, a face strange to her then but now oddly familiar.
There was a comforting pressure against her leg, and she reached absently to finger the smooth edges of the dragon-scale, the same that she had carried with her all the way from Castle White. The scale thrummmed slightly, at once calming and easing her worries.
One chance, two chances, to try and turn the tide of frozen death.
"Do not fight them. I will not be the one to order your death, Yacobe, no matter the wrong you have done me and mine"