The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
When she sat up, the shivering had passed, and she saw Ilya leaning against a tree, a sack on his back, a wary expression on his face.
“You!” Feo jumped to her feet. “Ilya! How did you find me?” That sounded accusatory, so she stumbled forward in an awkward hug. He winced, and stood stiffly with his arms by his sides until she let go.
“I followed the wolf prints,” said Ilya. “Your mother told me weeks ago what to do if anything went wrong.” He wore Marina’s green cloak. “She said I should take it, while you were dressing,” he said, seeing Feo’s face, “to cover my uniform.”
“The plan didn’t work,” said Feo. “It broke.”
“No,” he said heavily. “I know. I saw.”
“Mama swore it would be all right! We were going to run—”
“It would have worked, I think. I think she would have got away if they hadn’t set fire to . . .” He seemed not to want to say “your home.” He grimaced. “It was the fire, Feo. It blocked her way out.”
“Is the whole house gone?” Feo tried to sound offhand. She tried not to think of the stars she had painted on the ceiling, or the marks that generations of wolves had made on the door. She failed on both counts.
He nodded. “You should go. There’s no point waiting here; they’ll come back for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes, you. Because of what you did to Rakov.”
Feo tried to make her voice sound innocent. “What about him?” It didn’t work. The vowel sounds were those of a person who has shed blood. “It wasn’t deliberate! Or, at least, not totally deliberate.”
“I went back, to bury Tenderfoot, before I came here. The sergeants were whispering. They’re saying you’re some kind of witch child.”
“Because I hit someone with a ski? Witches don’t use skis!”
Ilya shrugged. “Rakov’s looking for you. He’s angry. And embarrassed. I think that’s even more dangerous than angry.”
“I’ve got the wolves. I’m not afraid of that,” lied Feo.
“You are, Feo! Or you should be!”
Feo made her best hideous face at him: She stretched her tongue to touch her nose and turned her eyelids inside out. It made her feel very slightly better, although the pup did try to bite her tongue.
“None of this should have happened,” she said. “All we wanted was our own lives: nothing else. Just the wolves, and the snow, and Mama. And books, and hot blackberry mulch to drink. We were happy, just us.” Her body gave another great shiver, and she sat down among the wolves.
Ilya pulled at her, tugging under her armpits. “Get up! You haven’t seen what Rakov does to people. The other boys say if you cut Rakov, he bleeds snow.”
“No, he doesn’t. I saw.” She tried to smile.
“You’re not taking this seriously! Look, he’s . . . he wakes up in the night sometimes and orders us boys to light the fires—there are twenty-four of them—or he’ll set us alight.”
Feo tried to shrug.
“And then he orders the oldest of the soldiers, the ones with no teeth and arthritis, to fight each other—to the death, Feo. And the other men put bets on the winner.”
Feo laid a hand on Black’s head for comfort.
“And he barricades people inside their houses and sets fire to them. He wanted you to burn to death.”
“Well, everyone has to learn to live with disappointment.” Her smile was stiff as rock now.
“Feo, this isn’t a joke.”
Feo stopped smiling: It had been a grim one, anyway, not worth keeping. “I know that! They have my mother!”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Ilya tugged at her sleeve. “That’s why you need to go.”
“I know,” said Feo. She wiped the ice from her eyebrows and jumped up and down. Some of the fuzziness in her head cleared. “I’m ready now.”
“So . . . which way are you going?”
“I don’t know!” said Feo. “That’s the point! I don’t know how we’re going to find her. I don’t even know where they’ve taken her!”
Ilya was staring. “What? Yes, you do!”
“I don’t! They didn’t give me a map!”
“But you must know! They’ve taken her to Kresty Prison, in Saint Petersburg, to stand trial.”
“Trial for what?”
He looked uncomfortable. “You heard what General Rakov said. He said she was in defiance of the tsar. That’s treason, technically. Your mother will be sent to a camp.”
“Camping?” Feo drew her eyebrows together. Camping was not something you did in the winter, unless you enjoyed watching your toes shrivel up and fall off.
“A labor camp.” Ilya was turning red. “You know. In Siberia. Like the tsar has.”
“I don’t think she’d want that.”
“No,” said Ilya. He looked at her oddly. “No. But she’ll be held in prison first, before trial.”
“How long for?”
“They can’t try her before Friday; that’s when the judge comes down from the Transcaspian Oblast. Today’s Saturday.”
Feo bit her lip. Six days. “And the prison? You know where it is?”
“Everyone does! It’s guarded by imperial soldiers like me. I mean, not exactly like me. Bigger.”
“Then it’s easy! I’ll go and get her!” A trickle of warmth ran through Feo’s insides. “And you know the way?”
“Of course I do.”
“So you could get us there!”
“I . . . I could. But . . . nobody ever said anything about me coming. . . .”
“You’re scared!”
She expected him to deny it: Any normal person would. But he nodded, as matter of fact as the weather. “Of course I’m scared. I know Rakov.”
“So you’re not coming with me?”
“I didn’t say that. I just . . . Do you want me to come?”
“What?” It should have been obvious. Feo glared around the snow. Wolves are much easier to understand than people, she thought. Wolves, and stars, and snow: Those things made sense. “Yes, of course, you idiot!” She realized it was still not coming out as friendly as she’d hoped. She tried again.
“Please. Do come.” Her eyes refused to meet his, so she spoke to his gold buttons. “I don’t want it to be just me. I’ve got the wolves, but I’d like . . . someone who speaks Russian.” Someone, she didn’t say, with a kind of bravery she’d not encountered before. A softer, unobtrusive, halting kind.
“But it sounded like you were angry at me.”
“No! Not angry. Just . . . scared.” Feo firmly believed that if ever you told someone you were scared, sooner or later you’d have to kill him. But Ilya was different.
“Then I’ll come. Obviously.”
“Ypa!” Feo clapped her hands, and he lunged sideways.
“Please don’t hug me again, if that’s what you’re planning! You hug hard.”
“Quick, then!” Feo covered her blush by turning to gesture at the woods. “Which way? Let’s go!”
He stared around at the snow. “Well, but . . . I only know when we get inside Saint Petersburg.”
Feo stared at him. Truly, she thought, boys were not as good as wolves.
He said, “We could ask for directions. If we see anyone.”
“No, we can’t! Don’t you dare! We can’t draw attention to ourselves now. And wolves are quite attention seeking.”
“But,” he said, “Saint Petersburg is due north from Rakov’s outpost; and we’re close to there now. Except, we don’t know which way is north.”
Feo laughed: The warmth came flooding back. “Yes, we do! With a compass!”
“I don’t have a compass. Do you?”
“We can make one. At least, I can. Mama showed me once. Quick!”
She took one of the pins out of the bottom of her cloak. “Do you have a can or a cup?”
“I’ve got a bowl. A wooden one.”
“That’s perfect. And I need some water.”
Ilya looked around.
“The snow, Ilya!”
He looked helplessly around him. “How do I make it into water?”
“Warm it in your mouth, silly. Like this.” She pushed a lump of snow the size of the wolf pup into her mouth, pushing down on the bridge of her nose to stop the cold from shooting to her head.
Ilya copied her, packing his cheeks, then choked and spat out the ice, clutching at the sides of his head. “My brain!”
Despite everything, Feo grinned. “I’ll do the water if you can find us a piece of bark. Here, take my knife.”
Feo unplaited her hair. Her hands felt warmer: Hope, she knew, can control body temperature as much as weather. She rubbed the pin, bottom to top, bottom to top, counting under her breath. Fifty, Mama had said. She pictured herself and the wolves bursting into the jail, her mother’s arms sweeping her up. Her hands moved faster.
Ilya came running through the woods carrying a lump of bark carefully in both hands, as if it might escape. Feo sliced off a piece the size of a postage stamp and slid the needle through it. She dropped the needle and bark into the bowl. It spun in the water—first clockwise, than counterclockwise; then it came to a halt.
“There!” said Feo. “The sharp end points north. Saint Petersburg, Ilya! Let’s go. Do you know, I’ve never even smelled a city.”
“Would it be best to take it in turns on my skis? Or one ski each?”
“No. I don’t know if he’ll let me—but if he will, I’m going to ride Black.”
“Ch-yort!” There was awe in his voice.
Feo approached Black carefully. It had been one thing, in the blur of last night, to make a wolf into a horse—but a very different thing in the sharp light of a winter morning.
How do you ask a wolf if you may ride on his back? She licked her fingers and rubbed the fur behind his ears (she had discovered years ago that actually licking the wolves led to fur balls) and whispered calming words into his ear.
Very slowly, she stretched her leg over Black until she was standing astride his back. She lowered herself to sit. She held her breath and lifted her feet off the ground. Black barely seemed to feel her weight: He twitched his ears and ran a few steps, circling Ilya.
It felt very strange to ride a wolf: not blunt, like a horse, but angular. It was like riding on leather and springs. There was immense power under the skin and fur. She had always known Black was strong, but she had never felt it so vividly.
She leaned over his neck and stroked his nose. Black licked her knuckles.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Feo was working out where best to put her feet when she saw that Ilya was hovering awkwardly, apparently trying to attract her attention. To hover in the snow is different from hovering on summer earth—it requires more movement around the feet and knees. Ilya looked like he was line dancing on the spot.
“What is it?”
“Can I ride one of the wolves? We’d be so much faster.”
Feo looked at White, at Gray. “I don’t know. You could, physically. Gray’s almost as strong as Black. But I don’t know if she’ll let you.”
“Right.” Ilya approached Gray. “Here, wolf. Here, wolfie, wolfie. Nice wolf.”
“Don’t do that!” said Feo sharply.
“What?”
“If you talk to her like she’s an idiot, she’ll definitely eat you. Just hold out your hand, and if she doesn’t snap it, you could try touching her back.”
Gray, always the most snappish of the wolves, watched with stern eyes. She ignored the outstretched hand; but, equally, when Ilya swung his leg with surprising grace over her back, she did not flinch. Instead, she took off, barely giving time for Ilya to snatch up his skis under one arm. They heard a whoop and then a yelp and the sound of a snowy branch hitting an unprepared face.
Feo grinned. She should have told him to duck. She leaned, wobbling, across Black’s head to kiss White’s nose. She settled the pup between her legs and pointed out north to her best friend. “That way, cherniy, toward Mama.”
To the three men in gray coats and golden buttons just cresting the hill, the pantomime was a strange one. The speck of green merged with the gray, and the black with the flash of red, as they shot off toward the north.
SEVEN
They wove through the forest for half an hour before they came out onto a road heading north. It was thin and winding, flanked either side by trees arching above their heads. Their branches sparkled with frost.
“If I wasn’t so sure that they’ll shoot me if they catch me,” said Ilya, “this would be very beautiful.” His tone was unnaturally bright.
Feo was about to tell him to keep his voice down, but as she turned she caught sight of his face. It was bluish, except his eyes, which were rimmed with the pink of sleeplessness. Already his lips were chapping in the wind, but he hadn’t once complained. She forced a wide smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll shoot them first.”
“We don’t have a gun.”
“You know, meta . . . metaphorically. Metaphorically, we’ll shoot them first.”
“I think I’d prefer to shoot people literally if I’m going to shoot them at all.”
Feo made a face at him and checked the compass balanced on Black’s head. “Keep an ear out for carts.”
The road was deserted, but Feo guided Black close to the edge so they could leap into the ditch if they heard anything coming. The going was much faster here on the road—though the snow came halfway up the wolves’ legs—because there were no stones or fallen logs to navigate.
The wolves had been running fast for more than an hour when Feo first heard the noise. “What’s that?”
“The wind?”
Feo looked up at the branches overhead. “They’re not moving.”
The noise came again. Feo let out a hiss of fear, and she bit a chunk of hair to keep her teeth from rattling together: because it was the sound a horse makes when it is anxious. Nobody she knew could afford a horse. Nobody except the Imperial Army.
She looked back, but the road twisted out of view.
“I think he’s somewhere near,” she whispered.
Black growled. Perhaps her knees had contracted too tightly and she’d hurt him, or perhaps he’d smelled something.
Ilya was chewing on his glove, his eyes wide. “Where?”
“I think behind us,” she said. “We need to get off the road.” She slid off Black’s back. “Into the woods—we’ll have to jump the ditch. Come on.”
But wolves do not obey orders unless it suits them. Before Feo could catch her, White turned and ran back along the road the way they’d come.
“No! Come back!” shouted Ilya.
Feo didn’t bother to shout. She slipped the pup into her pack, lifted her cloak in both hands, and ran. As she rounded the bend in the road, Ilya came alongside, panting hard. “Run . . . slower,” he gasped.
Black and Gray followed, running on each side of Feo, their rib cages bumping against her knees.
As she turned the corner Feo halted. Terror swept through her and she stepped back, trying to push the two wolves out of sight, behind her. Her arms closed more tightly around the pup, wriggling in his sack.
Standing in the middle of the road was a sled carved with the imperial crest. It shone with fresh gold paint, and set under the blue, frost-clad trees, it was as if the world had been dipped in fairy-tale colors. A horse, harnessed in silver and leather, was frantically pawing at the snow, barely held steady by a soldier. The horse’s eyes were fixed on White, who stood, growling, her hackles pointing to the sky.
And in the back of the sled, wrapped in blankets, sat General Rakov.
“Wild?” he was saying. “Or one of hers?”
Then he looked up and saw her; and Feo saw his face.
The skin on one side was puckered, swollen yellow and purple and green. A bandage was wrapped over one eye, and he wore a fur hat low over his forehead. His expression, as he recognized Feo, was one of raw surprise
“The little wolf girl,” he said. “I had forgotten you were so small.”
And he pulled a pistol from his belt, saluted at Feo, and shot White in the side.
Feo screamed and Ilya dropped to the ground as White stumbled, rolling backward in the snow. But before Feo could move, the wolf was scrabbling to her feet and staggering through the ditch and into the woods, a trail of red behind her.
Panic gave wings to Feo’s feet. She bolted, dropping straight into the ditch. The snow closed up to her neck and she gasped for air, scrabbling for footholds, crawling up the other side and into the woods. She heard Ilya panting, calling her name behind her; she reached back a hand without looking, seized him, and dragged him farther into the woods, beating back low snowy branches with her free fist. Black blurred past her, following White’s bloody trail, but Gray followed more slowly, walking backward, her gums and teeth bared to whatever might be following.
Once only, Feo turned: just in time to see Rakov mounted bareback on the black horse, urging it into the ditch. Its hooves scrambled for purchase to mount the bank, and the younger soldier pushed its rump, forcing the horse up and into the woods. Rakov barked an order, and two more shots rang out.
Terror made the world turn broken and disjointed, and Feo saw only the trees ahead of her. She retched. Snow grabbed at her boots, and she concentrated only on running, dragging Ilya by the wrist, dodging around great white humps of bushes and beating the snowy world out of her way. Ilya was saying something—shouting something—but the bellow of terror in her ears blocked out all sound and logic, and all she could do was run.
It was the sight of White, as they caught up with her, that brought Feo to her senses. The wolf was staggering now, her hind feet dragging, and as Feo reached her, the wolf’s legs gave way. Blood had stained her fur pure satin red. Feo had not known, until then, that wolves can moan like humans.
Feo took White’s head in her arms and eased the wolf to lie on her side. Black ran on, then stopped too, looking back like an anxious father. Feo shook her head at him. She hunkered down in the snow, and spat, and dug her fists into the stitch at her side. Ilya hovered uneasily, his eyes staring.