Of Wolves and Wardens by Sylvia Mercedes

Time passes.

Slowly, but it passes.

Days turn into weeks, weeks into months. And somehow, I wake up one morning to discover that I’ve been in Granny’s service a full three months.

I lie there in my rose-colored, glamourized room, staring up at the ceiling, and sigh. When all is said and done, I suppose it hasn’t been too bad. A few quests to fetch more rare ingredients from strange parts of the Wood. A handful of hunts—first a stray cockatrice, followed by a grindylow in a nearby river, then a serpentine thing that shot burning balls of goo from its nostrils. Fair game as far as I’m concerned. I was more than happy to put an end to each of them with a well-placed arrow.

No more werebeast hunts. Not yet anyway.

Lately, Granny has put me on patrol, marching the boundaries of her ward day after day, searching for signs of spying. I’m not certain who she thinks is spying on her, but she’s grown a little paranoid in the last few months. I don’t mind, though. Patrol marching is simple enough, and it keeps me away from Granny for the majority of each day.

With a little grunt and a growl, I sit up in bed, push back the counterpane, and rub my sleep-heavy eyes with the heels of my hands. Today is another patrol, this time across the northernmost borders of Granny’s territory. I’ll be gone most of the day, might not even make it back to Granny’s house before sunset.

I climb from bed, pull on trousers, shirt, outer tunic, boots. First knotting my hair at the nape of my neck, I cover my head with my green hood. Then it’s time to don my assortment of pouches, blades, buckles, quiver, and bow. Now I’m ready for anything.

Stamping my boots three times each to adjust the tightness, I move to my bedroom door and step out into the passage. There will be breakfast waiting for me in the dining room, but I don’t head that way. Granny will be there by this time, sitting down to a steaming, glamorized coffee from an equally glamorized porcelain cup. She’ll ask me about the previous day, smile sweetly, pretend to make conversation as though we are just any grandmother and granddaughter, not mistress and slave. I won’t play that game.

Instead, I grab of bite of deer jerky from my travel pouch and gnaw on it as I step through the front door and out into the indistinct garden-scape, making my way to the iron gate. The gate opens at my approach, used to my comings and goings by now. As always, it’s a relief to pass from Granny’s innermost domain into the unglamorized world beyond the walls. Though I’ve adjusted somewhat to all the glamours over these last few months, that doesn’t mean I like them.

I stride into the forest and slip into the greenery and shadows as easily as a duck gliding into water. This is my natural element, after all. This is where I belong.

I don’t bother opening a Hinter Path; I don’t need one for where I’m going. Instead, I set an easy, loose gait, swinging my arms, breathing deep, and letting my mind fall into that perfect equilibrium of thoughtless alertness. It doesn’t pay to let one’s guard down in Whispering Wood, either by sinking into a stupor or by allowing one’s thoughts to wander. Best to stay present, focused, in the moment. Like a creature of the Wood myself.

It’s not long before I become aware of the shadow trailing in my wake. My mouth hardens into a grimace.

Dire.

He’s always there these days, dogging my footsteps. I’m not sure if Granny sends him to watch me because she mistrusts me or because she’s concerned for my safety. Neither of those scenarios appeals, truth be told. More than once I’ve considered telling her to call off her watchdog, to let me do my job without his unseen eyes following my every move. It’s irritating. Unnerving. Not that Granny cares.

Oh well. At least I rarely find it necessary to interact with the beast-man. In fact, since our tense conversation under the oak tree all those months ago, we’ve exchanged maybe ten words altogether. He does his job, lurking in my shadow. I do mine. Thus far, our paths have not crossed again.

I shake thoughts of him away so hard, my hood slips from my head and falls back over my shoulders. I don’t bother to pull it back into place but quicken my pace through the forest. It takes a good two hours of steady tramping to reach the northernmost boundary of Granny’s territory. It doesn’t look like a boundary, if I’m honest. There’s forest on this side and forest on that side, and only the very faintest shimmer in the air to indicate any sort of a boundary line. Every now and then, Granny sends a little pot of sticky, tar-like substance along with me, and has me smear dabs on the trees along the boundary edges. I’m not sure why, but I’m guessing it somehow regenerates the rune spells she’s planted here.

Today, however, I’m merely to walk the boundary and check for any signs of disturbance. Simple enough. I continue my easy pace, keeping the boundary edge on my left and skirting round thicker clumps of undergrowth and fallen tree limbs as necessary. Here and there I pause to pull out my knife and clear the path for future use. For the most part I leave the forest untouched.

All the while, Dire haunts me. Just out of sight. Just out of hearing. Just beyond range of true perception. But I know he’s there. The prickling up the back of my neck does not lie.

After several hours of marching, finding nothing interesting along the way, I decide to take a break. There are no oak trees near at hand, but I find a mossy knoll that looks comfortable enough and sit. It’s more dried venison for lunch, washed down by mouthfuls from my waterskin. I don’t really mind. I’ve lived on worse. And at least I know it’s not glamorized.

While I eat, I take special care not to twist in place and try to peer into the greenery behind me. Not to search for a glimpse of gray fur or flashing yellow eyes. As always, I maintain a demeanor of firm disinterest. I don’t know if it fools the werewolf or not. Gods know, he can probably smell my awareness of him from a good half-mile off! But it makes me feel better.

No matter what, I won’t let myself think about that last moment under the oak tree. That moment when his eyes had gazed into mine with such human desperation . . .

A growl rumbles in my throat, as savage as any werebeast. I shove a hunk of jerky into my mouth and tear at it, trying to force my teeth through the tough, smoky meat. I’ve no sooner torn free a long strip when I become suddenly aware that I’m not alone. Someone else is here. Someone besides me and the unseen werebeast.

I pause, lift my head, the strip of meat still dangling from my lips. A figure stands just on the other side of Granny Dorrel’s border. A figure who seems to manifest out of thin air. She’s little more than a shadowy outline, but I can still discern the faded, patchwork gown, the broadbrimmed hat, and the gnarled staff on which she leans heavily.

I break off my bite and swallow it unchewed. Choking a little, I stand up, brace my feet, and lift my chin.

“Hullo, Mother Ulla.”

When I speak her name, she comes more completely into view, all her faded, blurry edges hardening until I can see her plain as day: the old ward witch of Ellee County—the county where Valera and I grew up.

“Well now, fancy meeting you here,” she says, giving me a once-over. “I’ve heard tell of something like this. There’s rumors all over of Granny Dorrel’s new huntress. The description sounded just a bit too familiar for my liking.”

“What?” I ask warily. “Scrawny and flame-haired with a face full of freckles?”

“Nah.” Mother Ulla sucks on a tooth, her expression sour. “Hard-headed. Reckless. The kind of fool creature who’d jump into the Quisandoral’s domain without a second thought and steal a golden apple.” She rolls her lips around, then spits. “Sounded ’bout right.”

I adjust my stance slightly. “What do you want? I know, sure as sin, you haven’t come to help.”

“Do you need help?”

“Not anymore.” Bitterness roils in my gut. How many times had I gone pleading to Mother Ulla to help me in those early weeks right after Valera was stolen? Valera went to her as well, trying to find a way back to her lost fae husband. Mother Ulla refused her same as she’d refused me. As a result, the two of us went to Granny instead. And the rest is history. Bad, bad history.

“Never did need your help,” I persist stubbornly. “Not really. I had everything I needed to get what I wanted.”

“And this?” Mother Ulla lifts a hand from her staff and waves vaguely at me then around at the forest looming over us. “This is what you wanted? To be Granny’s little runner-around girl?”

“I wanted to help Valera. And I did.”

She grunts and sucks her tooth again, thoughtfully. “Where is that lovestruck sister of yours then?” she asks at last. “She hereabouts as well?”

I don’t answer. Slowly, my hand moves to the knife at my belt. A stupid gesture, and well I know it. What am I going to do, threaten the old witch? But my fingers play along the hilt, nonetheless.

Mother Ulla snorts and twists her staff around in her nimble little fingers. “It don’t take special sight to see that you’ve gots yourself in a bad way, girl. Maybe we can help one another.”

“I don’t need your help,” I answer sharply.

“That’s as may be. Hear me out, even so.” Mother Ulla narrows her old eyes so that I can scarcely see them glittering between wrinkles. “It’s in my mind that your Granny is up to something not quite right deep down in that wardship of hers. Something by way of Black Magic. Runes is one thing. Even some potions; I ain’t against a good potion now and again. That’s a natural outflow of magic and can generally be controlled without taking control in turn. And I ain’t never seen a one like your Granny for a glamour, I’ll grant you that.

“But . . . it’s my belief she’s gone and dabbled in the Deep Secrets. Things what ain’t safe for mortal minds. Things what require bargains and pain and the taking of things what don’t belong. Things what warp the shapes of souls. And, over time, the shape of wardships as well.

“There’s warping in the air here.” She reaches out and just barely touches her staff to that empty space in the air, that invisible boundary line between her wardship and Granny’s. “I can’t quite see it. I can’t quite sense it. But I know it. I know it deep down in my bones. And the longer you stay in there, girl, the more you’re at risk being caught up in the worst of it.”

A shudder runs down my spine. The truth is, I don’t doubt what she’s saying. The wrongness in this wardship . . . I felt it the very first time I set foot here. These last few months have only intensified that feeling. But what can I do? I still have most of seven years of service ahead of me.

I meet Mother Ulla’s knowing gaze. Should I tell her? Should I tell her about the agreement Valera made with Granny to spare my life? Tell her what Granny expects of me, what she has already made me do?

There’s no point to it. Mother Ulla isn’t my friend. She never was. And unlike Granny, she doesn’t even pretend to be sympathetic. All too vividly, I remember that little eleven-year-old girl I once was, standing outside the cottage door, pounding and weeping and begging the old witch to come out. To help find Valera.

Nothing but silence answered.

“Have you said your piece?” I demand, setting my chin in a hard line.

Mother Ulla’s eyes flash through the wrinkles. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I have.”

“Then I bid you good day, Mother Ulla.” I pull up my hood to shadow my face, turn to go, but pause. Looking round, I fix the witch with a studying look. Then I step up to the invisible boundary and the young poplar tree growing right on the line. I look it up and down, uncertain what it is I’m sensing. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe . . .

I whip out my knife and plunge it into the trunk. Immediately, there’s a flare of green light, and just for an instant I see the shape of a rune. A rune that is just on Granny’s side of the boundary but is definitely not Granny’s magic.

Ruthlessly, I dig my blade into the trunk, peeling back bits of bark and layers of wood, ignoring the shudder in the branches overhead. I tear a long strip of bark and toss it to Mother Ulla’s side of the property line, then meet the old witch’s eye.

She stares back at me. Slowly, deliberately, she grinds the end of her staff into the bark. There’s another flash of green magic as the rune disappears.

Without a word, I turn and march on my way, following the line of the wardship. I feel Mother Ulla’s eyes on me as I go . . . and from the deeper shadows on this side of the boundary, another pair of eyes, even more intense, even more deadly.

I glimpse two other werebeasts when I return to Granny’s house a few hours after sundown.

I don’t often see those two, though I know they’re always nearby. One is a shaggy gray-and-black creature, the other red like Dreg but smaller and lither. I’ve never seen them in their human state, though I think one is female, the other male. For the most part they keep to themselves and avoid me like I’m plague-ridden.

They seem to be patrolling close to Granny’s house tonight. I don’t know why. Perhaps she sensed some extra threat in the air and called in her security. Now that Dire seems to spend most of his time tailing me, these other two are probably kept much busier fulfilling Granny’s various tasks. And they don’t have Dreg to help them anymore.

Dreg . . .

Even as I reach Granny’s gate, I pause, a sudden shiver of sickness rippling through me. One hand gripping an iron bar, I close my eyes, bow my head, waiting for the sensation to pass. But that’s a mistake—for now, in the darkness behind my eyelids, I see again that horrible moment when Conrad pulled back the red werebeast’s head and ran his knife along her exposed throat. I see the blood gush; it seems to overwhelm everything, drowning me from the inside out.

This is the image that haunts my dreams. Night after night after night.

And how much longer before I’m the one required to do that throat-slitting?

With a sharp creak, the gate begins to move, startling me. I take a step backwards, blinking into the darkness on the other side. The sun is down, and my eyes have only partially adjusted to the pale moonlight of the forest. The murk of Granny’s garden is almost impenetrable.

Drawing a long breath, I stride through the gate and make my way across the indistinct garden. Tonight I feel the undeveloped glamours like a thickness in the atmosphere, ready to choke me. I put my head down and hurry. Hopefully, I can get inside, make it to my room, eat whatever glamorized food I find there, and collapse on my bed fully clothed, all without encountering my grandmother.

The front door opens at my approach. Not a good sign. Usually if the house itself responds to me like this, it means Granny is aware of me as well. And if Granny is aware of me, it’s because she wants something.

“Oh gods, what now?” I mutter as I step inside.

To my surprise, I enter immediately into the hall of werebeast heads, without any of the regular twisting and turning passages. I stop in my tracks, my heart thudding, half-ready to retreat into the garden. But a door at the end of the hall opens, letting a square of warm light fall upon the floor. It’s as good as a summons.

Swallowing hard, I tuck my chin and move quickly to the door, avoiding the glassy stares of the werebeasts as I go. Only once do I glance up . . . as I pass beneath the poor little weredeer with her frightened, gentle eyes. But I only shoot her a swift glance, then focus on what lies ahead.

The open door leads into a pretty sitting room. I’ve been here before, of course. Valera and I both sat in this room with our grandmother months ago, when we came to her for help. There’s a big fire on the hearth and a lovely, tall-backed chair pulled up close to it. Granny sits there, splendid as always, in a golden gown of crushed velvet. She’s got a little bit of embroidery in her hands and is delicately stitching bloodred petals against fine white muslin.

“Good evening, Brielle,” she says in her softest, most welcoming voice. It makes my skin crawl. “Leave your weapons outside.”

I obey, propping my bow and quiver against the wall of the passage. I remember to slip off my knife belt as well and leave it with the rest. Only then do I step into the room and take a position just outside of the firelight, my hands clasped at the small of my back, my gaze staring into the space above Granny’s head.

Granny looks up from her embroidery. “Sit, if you please.”

There’s just enough suggestion in her words to not quite count as a command. So I remain standing, silent. Granny’s eyebrow rises slightly. We both know she could force the issue if she wished. My heart thuds in my throat as I wait for her decision.

But Granny merely sets aside her needlework and picks up a little cup of aromatic herbal tea sitting on the table at her elbow. She takes a sip . . . and for a split second, I see her wince. What is she actually drinking beneath the intense glamour of herbs and sweetness?

Granny puts the cup down in its saucer and turns her gaze back to me. “You’ve done well in your service thus far, child.” Her voice is kindly, like she expects me to flush with delight at the compliment.

My stomach hardens in a knot. I say nothing.

“You’ve managed to survive three months, which is rather more than I initially anticipated. My borders have never been so secure, my supplies so well stocked. I am pleased with our bargain.”

Something bitter builds up on my tongue. I swallow it back with an effort.

“But,” Granny continues, then takes another delicate sip from her cup, swallowing slowly, “there is one task you have not accomplished for me. The primary purpose of your service to me as huntress.” She lifts her gaze, meeting my eyes. “So far, you’ve managed to bring down a cockatrice, a grindylow, and a yelric wyrm that have strayed into my wardship. And yet, the disaster of that first hunt stains your reputation. But rest assured! You will now have the opportunity to prove your true worth to me.”

The room around me seems suddenly to pitch. It’s all I can do to stand upright, to not sway or betray myself in any way. I know what’s coming. I’ve known it was coming all along. But now it’s here. And there’s no escape.

Which of the three werebeasts will it be? The big gray-and-black fellow? The delicate red female? Or . . . or . . .

Granny sets her cup on the table, props her elbows on the arms of her chair, and loosely interlaces her fingers in front of her chest. “Dire’s term of service is coming to an end. At dawn tomorrow, he will be free.”

Free like Dreg.

Free to run.

Free to die.

“Once the bonds that kept him loyal to me are severed,” Granny continues, “he may go where he wills and do as he chooses. Unfortunately, that rarely bodes well for me.” She smiles again, her lips pretty, her expression harsh. “I expect he will try to kill me. I need you to settle the matter. Before it gets out of hand.”

She tilts her head slightly to one side, the firelight catching in her curls just so and heightening the warmth of her complexion. She looks so lovely, innocent even. One could almost miss the viper in her eye. The compulsion of her power settles around me, like chains binding me body and soul. There’s nothing I can do. And only one thing I can say.

“Yes, Granny.”

I turn and start for the door.

“A moment.”

I freeze in place, my hand on the doorknob, unable to draw a complete breath.

“Given the results of your last werebeast hunt, I’ve decided to take no chances.” Her words cut into the back of my skull like so many razor blades. “Conrad Torosson will be joining you. Just to make certain all is done right.”

I’m trembling like a frightened child. But I can’t let her see. I can’t let her know. I summon every ounce of strength I have left in me, and say, “Of course, Granny.”

“You may go now. Rest well tonight, my darling. Tomorrow will be . . . important.”

With that, her hold on me loosens. I escape through the door and shut it fast behind me. Pausing only long enough to snatch up my weapons, I stumble down the hall of trophy heads, feeling their gazes on me as I go. I reach the end and turn into an indistinct corridor before I fall to my knees, holding my stomach and trying desperately not to be sick. For some while, I can do nothing but kneel there, eyes closed, rocking slowly back and forth. Eventually, however, the churning in my stomach calms. A dullness settles over my spirit.

After all, this is what I am now.

Granny’s huntress.

Granny’s executioner.