Page 9 of The Wolf and the Woodsman

I see the white knob of bone jutting from his shoulder, and the jewel-hued mangle of flesh, red as overripe berries. I see the ragged flaps of skin draped over the sudden termination of his arm, fluttering limply in the scant breeze.

The knife falls out of Peti’s mouth. He screams, louder than anything I have heard before. My stomach clenches like a fist and I double over, palms pressed against the damp earth, retching.

Chapter Three

Peti weeps through the night, without ceasing. After Ferkó takes a heated blade to his shoulder, Imre packs his wound with strips of burlap and leather, and fistfuls of dry leaves webbed together by sap. I watch them, huddled by the vanishing fire, my mouth still tasting of bile. The captain stands over Peti’s lost limb and clasps his hands, whispers his deferent prayer. Blue-white flame streaks across the length of his severed arm, bright as the tail of a comet. Peti’s fingers melt like nubs of candle wax. His knucklebones puddle in the dirt, some strange white flora. I think I might be sick again.

A pitiful dawn creeps over the forest, the pinks and golds of sunrise strained through the dark latticework of tree branches and bracken, squeezing out their color. All that reaches me is a bleached yellow light. It falls on my shaking hands, nicked with tiny scratches from palm to fingernail, and the splatter of dried bloodstains on my wolf cloak. It falls on the captain, turning his black suba silvery with dust motes. It falls on Peti, his chest rising in fits and starts, every breath a violence. His white lips part with a guttering moan.

“You’re going to bring every godforsaken monster in Ezer Szem right to us,” Ferkó growls. He nudges Imre’s knife toward Peti with the toe of his boot. “Bite down on this, if you must.”

Peti doesn’t reply. His eyelashes give a limp, moth-wing flutter.

Neither the Woodsmen nor I have slept. The wound on my throat is still wet, and it opens whenever I try to speak, so I keep my lips pressed firm. I am focusing on quelling the roil of my stomach when the captain stalks toward me, dead leaves crunching with every step.

“Stand up,” he says.

My heart stutters as I rise to my feet. Now that I know the king wants me delivered to the capital unharmed, I ought to feel emboldened. But the memory of his blade swinging through Peti’s arm ebbs some of that nascent bluster. A vow to the king still seems a flimsy shield to put between the captain’s ax and me.

“I suppose I should thank you,” I say, throat dry. “For saving my life.”

Without meeting my gaze, the captain says, “I find no glory in saving wolf-girls, and I don’t uphold my oath for your gratitude.”

Anger burns in my chest. The Woodsmen are as pious as they are cruel, and any vengeance they may want to have upon me is tempered by their stupid devotion. “You must regret it, then.”

“I didn’t say that.” He gives me one swift, probing glare. “And you may very well have managed without my help. You bit off Peti’s ear.”

I feel a little flush of shame, only because I have confirmed Woodsman stories about pagan barbarity. But then I remember the arc of the captain’s ax, the patch over his missing eye, and the shame dies as quickly as a snuffed candle.

“I thought that missing body parts make the Woodsmen more powerful,” I say. “Perhaps he should have thanked me.”

“There is no such thing as the power of the Woodsmen,” says the captain. “There is only the power of the Prinkepatrios as it flows through us, and we are His humble servants.”

“We in Keszi don’t fear servants. We fear brutes with axes.”

I wait to see if my needling has stuck him. But the captain just arches a brow. He doesn’t speak like a brute with an ax. His voice is measured, and his words have an easy eloquence. A particularly clever soldier, I decide. But a soldier all the same.

“You must also fear the wrath of your gods,” he says finally, “if you dare to stray from their righteous path.”

“No,” I reply, taken aback. “Our gods don’t ask us for perfection.”

Just as we don’t expect rhyme or reason from our gods. They’re fickle and stubborn and heedless and indulgent, like us. The only difference is that they burn whole forests to the ground in their rage, and drink entire rivers dry in their thirst. In their joy, flowers bloom; in their grief, early winter frost edges in. The gods have gifted us a small fragment of that power, and in turn we inherited their vices.

From what I understand, the Prinkepatrios has no vices, and it would be blasphemy to even suggest such a thing. But how did a perfect being create something as imperfect as humans, so prone to caprice and cruelty? And why does a perfect being demand blood from little boys?

I look at the captain—really look at him—for the first time. He has the olive skin of a Southerner and a long nose with a harsh break at its bridge. But there’s nothing harsh about the rest of his face. It’s shockingly youthful, smooth except for the faint stubble bruising his throat and chin. When he turns and I see only the untarnished half of his face, it’s almost regal, the kind of profile you might find on a minted coin. I imagine that if he lived in Keszi, Írisz or Zsófia might drag him down for some furtive coupling by the riverside, and he’d come back with a sheepish, knowing smile on his swollen lips. But I can’t see the left half of his face without wondering morbidly what lies beneath the black patch, and how he ever summoned the strength to pluck out his own eye like a crow picking over a corpse. Or wondering if that sort of dedication disgusts or impresses me.

What would I have plucked out, to be able to call fire?

“That’s just as well.” The captain seems to notice how intently I am staring at him, and he lowers his gaze. There’s even the barest flush on his cheeks. “Your gods may be mere illusions crafted by the demon Thanatos, but they do grant you potent magic. Why didn’t you use your magic against Peti?”

I detect no trace of suspicion in his voice, but my skin prickles all the same. “I—my hands were bound. I couldn’t summon it.”

The captain nods slowly, lips pressed together. For a moment I can’t tell whether he believes me or not. And then he says, “Give me your hands.”

Instinctively, my fingers curl into my palms. The rope is still chafing against the tender skin on the insides of my wrists, leaving a rash of red.

Behind us, Peti moans. Very carefully, the captain looses the rope, giving it just enough slack for me to wriggle my hands free. Before the prospect of escape even flits through my mind, the captain’s fingers close around my wrist. The pressure of his grip fills me with a mute, terrible fear, freezing me in place.