Syahavik. Noble creatures of legend. The black wolves symbolized courage in battle and strength against opposition and fierce loyalty to kin and clan, but they were territorial. And once someone who didn’t belong to their pack entered their territory, nothing could stop them.
Well, almost nothing.
An arrow through the eye usually did the job, or so Yaasha had claimed when she’d first told Jenny about the majestic black wolves of the Dark Forest.
Jenny dashed the stray tears away and approached the shaggy black coat of the fallen wolf.
Good thing Yaasha had told her about them. Yaasha’s old war stories had undoubtedly saved their lives, but it still wasn’t fair.
Wasn’t the poor wolf’s fault she and Barb had come into its territory. It was just doing what it was born to do, protect what belonged to it.
Jenny knelt and ran her fingers over the thick coat of fur, heavy and bulky, feeling the twist of sinewy muscle beneath it.
He was probably beautiful when he ran.
Tears threatened again.
She swallowed hard and stood, scanning the area around them for any more signs of motion. Barb had fallen silent, but Jenny could feel her eyes.
Jenny turned back to her and set her homemade bow and arrow down next to where Barb lay.
“What was that?” Barb asked softly.
“Syahavik.” Jenny stood again. “A black wolf. Like I said.”
“Where did you get a bow?” Barb nodded at the crooked, awkward, pieced-together weapon laying between them.
“I made it.”
“You made it.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You made it?” Barb’s eyebrows climbed into her hairline. “And the arrow too?”
Jenny forced a smile. “No, Barb, the nymph living in that tree over there magicked them up for me in exchange for my soul.”
Barb huffed and held her side, poorly concealing a wince of pain. “Where did you learn how to make a bow and arrow?”
It was Jenny’s turn to arch her eyebrows. “You don’t know how?”
Barb glared at her.
“I mean, it’s not great quality. And it’s certainly not pretty.” Jenny nudged the bow with her big toe. “But it does the job.”
“I’d say so.”
Jenny sighed. “We need to get moving again.”
“Why?”
“Because others will be drawn to its scent.” Jenny nodded at the carcass. “Syahavik are really protective, so when one of them falls, others come to battle over the dead one’s territory.”
Jenny looked around the small clearing again.
“I need to cover it up before we go.”
Barb’s scowl was audible. “Why? Out of respect?”
Jenny bit her tongue. Barb didn’t understand. She didn’t know the stories. And she was hurt.
Jenny smiled cheerfully again as she stopped at a large spruce tree and began gathering branches from under its wide-spreading limbs.
“Respect plays a part,” she said. “But mostly it’s to mask the smell as much as possible.” Jenny chucked the spruce limbs over the wolf carcass. “Evergreen resin blocks the scent for a little while. It should give us enough time to put some distance between us and the others.”
Jenny grabbed another large branch and threw it over the wolf.
When she’d seen the first paw prints in the forest loam shortly after she and Barb made it into the woods, she’d been excited. Syahavik left distinctive tracks, and picking their prints off the ground wasn’t hard to do.
But when she’d seen more tracks—recent ones—she’d known immediately that they were in trouble.
The bow had been the first thing she did when she’d stepped away to forage for herbs to treat Barb’s injuries. The arrows had been next. She’d rambled on about something inconsequential so Barb wouldn’t worry. That had worked, at least as far as she could tell, but now Barb was acting stranger than before.
She looked worried, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed. Not unusual for their current situation. But she also looked—what was that expression? Impressed?
Could it be she had impressed Barb Taylor?
Granted, shooting a charging feral wolf through the eyeball was a pretty big deal, but surely everyone in Terran could do something similar. Surely driving one of those car machines had to be at least as difficult as shooting a wolf intent on tearing out your throat.
But she might be misreading Barb’s face.
Barb had a confusing face. If she had a snout and pointed ears it would be easier to understand what she was thinking, but most human faces were simply a mystery.
Jenny paused before she tossed the final branch over the wolf’s carcass and knelt.
Technically she was entitled to one of the wolf’s fangs. A warrior who killed a syahavik on quest could wear the fang with pride. But—that was only for yodha. The yodha were the ones who coexisted with the syahavik, their symbolic presence a huge influence on their culture.
And, sure, she’d killed the wolf. But she wasn’t yodha. She wasn’t even Josharon. So claiming a fang just didn’t seem right. And it wasn’t like she’d been on a warrior quest. That would have been different.
She laid the branch over the wolf’s face.
Jenny heard Velanna’s practical voice in her mind, telling her to take the arrow that had slain the wolf, that she might need it later. But Jenny tuned the voice out.
The arrow would stay.
Not only to prove that she had killed the wolf, but to show anyone who found it that the wolf hadn’t run away from death. Jenny wrapped her hand around Yaasha’s arrowhead, dangling from the cord around her neck, and stood.
She made her way back to Barb and pressed her hand against her friend’s brow.
“What are you doing?” Barb swatted at her.
“Making sure your head doesn’t fall off.” The lighter she could keep the conversation, the better. Barb’s fever had continued to climb.
But why? The herbs should have stopped the infection. It didn’t make sense.
Unless it wasn’t just infection.
Either way, they wouldn’t make it to Atama Village.
It had been an unlikely goal to start with, but she was more certain than ever now that it couldn’t happen. If Barb’s fever continued to rise and the infection continued to spread, soon she wouldn’t be able to move.
“So.” Barb broke into her thoughts.
Jenny turned to her. “So?”
“Is the plan still the same?” Barb grimaced and climbed slowly, unsteadily to her feet.
Jenny pressed her lips together. “Yes.”
Jenny knelt again and gathered up the moss and leaves and roots she had picked earlier, tying them in the last strip of her kurti she could spare.
She wracked her brain for anything Yaasha had told her about the Dark Forest, anything she could remember about the herbs and plants growing there that she could use to help Barb. Beard moss was the best option, and it hadn’t done anything.
Jenny tied the length of skirt fabric in a bundle and slung it over her back, tying it in the front. She grabbed Barb around the waist and helped her limp forward.
North, north, ever northward. They wouldn’t make it to Atama Village before Barb collapsed, but they could make it as far as they could. Then they’d do whatever came next.
Meg faced situations like this before, and she always knew what to do. She always had an answer. She made it look easy.
Typical Meg. She made everything look easy.
“Hey, chatterbox.” Barb interrupted Jenny’s thinking again. “Why so glum?”
“I’m not glum.”
“You’re not talking.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to talk.”
“You’re more annoying when you’re not talking.”
Jenny couldn’t stop a laugh. “You need to make up your mind. You’re confusing.”
“I’m confusing?” Barb barked. “Right.”
Jenny led them around a large root system and deeper into the Dark Forest, craning her head upward to check the position of the moon and stars overhead.
“We should walk as far as we can,” Jenny said. “And then we’ll stop for the night.”
“It’s pretty dark in here now.”
Jenny chewed her lip. “We need to make it as far as we can.”
Barb’s gaze burned like acid. “When we stop, I’m not getting up again, Jenny.”
Tears stung in Jenny’s eyes. “I know.”
Barb clutched her shoulder, and they stepped forward together.
“But I’m a little less worried about you going on without me since I know you can shoot an arrow like that.”
Jenny smiled through the tears that kept dripping down her face. Why try to stop them? Her face was a mess. Maybe a few tears would clean it off.
“I thought you looked impressed,” Jenny said.
“I am.”
“Human faces are hard to read. You don’t have enough teeth.”
Barb chuckled.
“Technically, I could have claimed a fang from the wolf.”
Barb made a choking sound. “You what?”
Jenny giggled. “It’s a yodha thing. They send out young warriors as part of their training, and they have to hunt a black wolf and return to the village with its carcass.”
“For what? Mounting?”
Jenny shook her head. “No, they use it for meat and clothing and its bones for weapons. I think some of their organs are valuable for medicine too.”
“Huh.”
“Syahavik aren’t allowed to be hunted any other time, except on quest.” Jenny dashed a tear away. “It would have killed us, I know. But it still makes me sad.”
Barb panted. “You’re tougher than you look, Jenny.”
Jenny scoffed. “Tell Meg, would you?”
Barb smiled crookedly. “Meg may have mentioned you wanting to go to school.”
They hobbled together around another giant tree with roots as tall as they were.
Jenny set her jaw. “It’s not an outrageous thing to ask, is it? I want to go to school, Barb. I want to meet people. I want to see Terran. Meg won’t tell me anything.”
“Yeah, Meg isn’t too big on conversation, I noticed.”
Jenny groaned. “She’s terrible.”
“I don’t think anyone is good at conversation by your standards, Jenny.”
Jenny wrinkled her nose. “You were just complaining that I wasn’t talking enough, and now you’re going to say I talk to much again? Like I said, Barb, you’re confusing.”
“And I need more teeth. Yeah, I got that.”
Jenny huffed. “I suppose you think I should stay here too, right?” She guided them around a fallen log in the path. “That I’m better off just being here.”
“No, actually.” Barb took a shaking breath. “Hey, could we—I’m getting kind of dizzy.”
Jenny froze and looked up at Barb.
She was pale, the color in her cheeks high and red. It could have been burns from the volcano. It might have been the fever. But as Jenny watched, Barb swayed.
Jenny scrambled to brace herself, keeping Barb as upright as she could and getting them both the fallen log.
Barb sank against the rough bark, gasping in pain, trying to get a good breath. Jenny pressed her hand into the wound and frowned at the heat coming off of it.
This was looking less and less like merely an infection. It was behaving more like some type of poison or venom.
“Sorry.” Barb squeezed her eyes shut.
“No.” Jenny knelt next to her. “I’m—I’m tired too.”
“I’m not done yet,” Barb said. “I just—need to rest a moment.”
Jenny took her hand and held it. “You’re going to be okay, Barb.”
“I’m glad you’re an optimist.”
Jenny smiled. “What do you mean—about what you said? You don’t think I’m better just staying here?”
Barb sighed and leaned her head back. “This place is great,” Barb said, “but I think you need to make some friends who don’t have tails and fangs. That’s what I think.”
“And you told Meg that?” Jenny’s eyes burned again.
For Barb to believe that filled her with warmth.
“Well, yeah.” Barb frowned. “Jenny, I hadn’t known you two days before I watched you loading shotgun shells in the middle of a firefight. And all this mess? You can totally take care of yourself.”
Jenny beamed.
Finally.
Finally, someone understood.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear someone say that,” Jenny whispered. “Tolan knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I could take care of myself.” Jenny shrugged. “He knew that I was stronger than I looked. But ever since he died, Meg has just been so paranoid and scared of everything, and she won’t let me do—”
“Hey.” Barb set a hand on her shoulder.
Jenny fell silent in the force of Barb’s stare.
“I don’t have a big sister,” Barb said. “But I am one. So maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be the youngest, but I can tell you for sure what it’s like to be the oldest.”
Jenny bit her lip.
“If anything happened to Jim, I’d lose my mind, Jenny.” Barb’s green eyes shimmered in the darkness of the forest. “And if it was something I could have prevented? I’d never forgive myself.”
Jenny sighed and looked down.
Oh well.
So much for Barb actually understanding.
She pasted a smile on her face. “Maybe I can come live with you and Jim.”
Barb’s face turned to stone.
“Yeah!” Jenny sat up, grinning. “I’d move in and cook for you and do your laundry, and I could go to school that way. Meg wouldn’t have to worry about me that way!”
“No.” Barb shook her head.
Jenny giggled. “Oh, come on, Barb. I’ll talk to you all day long and wake you up when you don’t want to wake up.”
“Sounds delightful. No.”
Jenny smiled again and checked the area for motion. So far, they hadn’t been followed, and there were no more wolf-shadows creeping around them. She checked her bow and the remaining arrow and touched Barb’s arm.
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yeah.” Barb nodded, lips white and pressed together in a fierce line.
“Is that a lie?”
“Yes. But we have to keep going anyway.”
Jenny blinked back tears and nodded. Barb grit her teeth as they stood up together, and Jenny pointedly ignored the tears that formed in the older girl’s eyes at the effort it took.
Jenny’s mind listed all the different herbal remedies she could think of for poison. Poison was tricky, if that’s even what it was. She had to know what kind of poison to find the best antidote. And if it weren’t poison, she didn’t even know where to start.
The best strategy was to get to Atama Village. If they couldn’t get there together, she’d find a safe place to leave Barb and she’d go on alone.
Barb clutched her shoulder as they stepped over a large rock.
It was good to know that Barb had her back, that Barb believed in her enough to stand up to Meg. Not that it had done any good, but hey—progress was progress.
“So,” Jenny started.
“So?”
“We never finished our conversation.”
“About?”
“Boys.”
Barb muttered under her breath. “I don’t want to talk about boys with you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to talk about boys at all. It’s nothing personal.”
“But boys are cool.”
“Boys are dumb.”
“Jim’s not dumb.”
Barb snickered. “Depends on the situation. He’s brilliant with computers and chemicals and abstract concept, but he forgets how to talk around your sister.”
Jenny giggled. “I noticed that. I think it’s sweet.”
“It’s annoying.”
“You really are grumpy all the time, aren’t you?”
Barb sighed. “Are we there yet?”