Chapter 5

Alix marched in silence beside the older woman. She was still clad in armour, and seemed to carry little else aside from the bags and skins that hung from her belt. It was as if that was her only attire, yet in spite of that there was none of the smell that came from clothing when it was used without much washing. Whenever a branch or a rock brought them close, Alix only caught a glimpse of a smell from her, one that seemed out of place and which confused her greatly: it was the smell of the promise of wet soil right before a thunderstorm.

Her attire and smell wasn't the only thing that confused the younger girl's senses: despite her gray hair there was a strange youthful air to her features, so she seemed to elude the mundane quantifications of her age. The wrinkles that had creased her mother's brow were absent from her companion's face; there were some soft lines to her face, but they were not enough to break the spell of that incredibly ageless face. If anything, her story should've helped Alix gauge how long she'd lived in the forest for, but in spite of, or perhaps because of, her modest education, she'd never heard of a city called Angieus or a family called Ingelger. It was impossible for her to decide, then, if it was simply the particulars of record keepers or the age of the tale that was the cause of her ignorance. She simply had to trust that the ruin of Angieus had happened within a single woman's lifespan, whatever that may be at present.

Lastly, the most striking feature that stood out about the strange knightly woman was her eyes. Alix had avoided her gaze for the most part, not wanting to get caught in its intensity. Several people in the village had boasted of having clear blue eyes, sometimes as azure as a midday summer sky, but never she had seen someone with steely silver eyes, with iris devoid of all colours, and possessing a strange luminescence to them that made them stand out even in darkness. They were unnerving, and she felt like she could be devoured if she gazed into them for too long.

"This place that we're going to, this garden," Alix asked, hoping to break the silence between the two of them. "How many days is it from here?"

"Three times nine days. We must get there before the start of summer, as there will no way to cross the northern seas once the ice bridge is gone."

"What is it like?"

"It is a place where the sun never sets and food is plentiful, and flowers bloom all year round."

There was a similar place that Alix had heard much of, one that she'd been taught all mankind had been expelled from. "Is it like the garden of Eden?"

The swordswoman shook her head. "No man or woman has ever seen this garden."

"How do you know about it, then?"

"It is an old tale amongst wolves."

Alix wasn't satisfied by her answer, but the chance of questioning the older woman further was thwarted by the old wolf who seemed to be her companion, Father. The beast came up to her side, and barked out what seemed to be some curt words. Far from taking it as sign of an animal's whim, the woman seemed to understand what was said as if it had been uttered by another human, and responded with her own chattering. The young girl, unnerved by the exchange, kept her silence for a while after that.

That evening, as the pack settled to rest for the night, Mountain-stream and Magpie came up to Alix: they seemed to be distressed, whining and yelping to get her attention. Their muzzles seemed dirty, and their fangs were covered in blood; Alix had seen some of the older wolves break away to go hunting, and assumed the two pups had had their share of the meal. Nevertheless, their rattled appearance worried her, and she stood up, hands reaching out to calm them:

"What's going on you two?"

Magpie yelped at her, and Alix understood then that they were somehow worried for her. Mountain-stream lightly bit onto her shirt, and began pulling her. She let herself be led to the side of a big, gnarly yew tree, some yards away from where the rest of the pack was already settled. Despite the time of the day, there was still enough light coming through the trees that she was able to see some sort of bird lying at the feet of the tree. As they grew closer to it, the more she could see and the less she understood.

When the purest blue sky of a summer afternoon was reflected onto the surface of the river that ran near her village, its colour darkened into a similar hue as what adorned the body of the strange bird. There were long, green feathers scattered around, and even in the haziness of the poor evening light she was able to discern what had once been its tail, still partly covering the body. Each feather seemed to be host to a number of faces, giving her the uncanny impression that even in death the being was staring at her from its hundred or so eyes. Aware that she was accompanied by two wolves, she wasn't intimidated, and she crouched next to the bird, unsure of what the two pups wanted her to do.

"You haven't had anything to eat the whole day," said a voice from behind. Alix realized it was true, that she'd walking all day without eating much more than what she was given at breakfast, and as if on cue her belly started to ache. And it wasn't the small ache followed by dizziness as was usual when she was hungry; it was an overpowering ache, almost as if her insides were trying to physically move her to eat something.

Magpie licked her face, encouraging her to move. His brother, Mountain-stream, walked to the other side of the bird's body and pushed it towards her. He turned it around carefully, and revealed the gash where the wolf's teeth had closed in on the bird's neck. He started biting it carefully, trying to expose the flesh for the young girl's sake.

Alix reached out for the meal. A man's preoccupation at that point would've been to quickly butcher it, and then set out to light a fire that would cook the bird's flesh. The girl certainly didn't lack the tools, as she carried a small knife with her at all times to help with her household chores, and knew extremely well how to find the right things to start a fire in the woods. But in that moment, she didn't feel like she had to do any of it; her teeth were enough to tear into the bird, separating flesh from skin and feathers, only stopping to toss away that which she couldn't eat.

When she was done, the pain in her belly was gone. Once again exhaustion overcame her, and she fell asleep nestled between her two wolves. That night, in her dreams, her parents were absent: in fact, there was a noticeable absence of anything. Upon waking up, only the feeling of sinking down into nothingness was left. Its echo burnt into her mind, she opened her eyes bathed in a feeling of warmth, as if she'd fallen into a familiar embrace. The two young pups were gone, having left to play with each other as the rest of the pack prepared to leave for the day.

"Yew-child, come here."

As she scrambled to her feet, Alix noticed that her hands were still covered in patches of dry blood. She tried rubbing them against the woollen fabric of her braccae without much success. As she looked around for something that could help her get cleaned, she noticed that there were no traces of the bird she'd eaten the night before. None of the strange green feathers, or even the skin she'd tossed aside. The ground as well looked impeccable: the patch underneath the tree, where the strange meal had been presented, had no traces of blood.

The mystery had to be tossed aside, however, as Wolf-mother was waiting. The older woman saw her approaching with a smile, pointing to her dishevelled face and hands as the source of her amusement.

"I'm not used to eating raw birds," Alix defended herself. That only made the woman laugh harder.

"Those younglings should've taken better care of you," she explained, and then barked the names of the two pups. Mountain-stream came running immediately, in high spirits. Magpie emerged from a nearby bush, looking for all intent and purposes sheepish, as if caught after playing a trick. "You two, how can you let your sister go to sleep like that?"

Alix was caught up trying to fend off the over-enthusiastic Mountain-stream, who didn't seem to have listened to the other woman at all, when she heard another voice, a male one, say "sorry, I was sleepy".

Looking for the origin of the noise, Alix looked back. Expecting to find a young man, perhaps someone her age, she was puzzled to note it was only Magpie behind her. The wolf came up to her and started licking her face, while his brother did the same to her hands. The blood washed off, but the animals' spit did little to refresh her. "I hope there's a stream nearby", she said.

"We'll come across another one before lunch," the older woman reassured her. "Now, come, let us be off."

Wolf-mother's eyes settled on Father, whose enormous body could be seen in the distance. He was alert, looking back at the pack. She barked at him, and her words washed over the unruly group of animals, who immediately quieted. To Alix ears, it sounded like a strange distortion of human language, and it took her a second to make out the words time to go.

Magpie and Mountain-stream walked beside her. Nestled in the safety of the top of the trees, nightingales and woodpeckers watched their march in expectant silence, every so often gifting them with a cautious song. The wind began to pick up as the morning matured, and amidst the dance of the leaves and the chattering of the wolves Alix began to pick up the ghosts of some words. It was as if behind all that dense foliage there was a village, but regardless of how quick their pace was, they were never able to outrun it. The voices, some of them male, some of them female, followed Alix as they went deeper and deeper into the mountains, never fading.

As it had often been reminded to her and her fellow pupils during catechism, an idle mind was the devil's playground. She began to search for the origin of that familiar chatter, trying to pick the sound apart from within its shell of wind howls, footsteps and growls. It was like a finger reaching out to thread a needle, trying hard to pluck it from within the air. The elusive words escaped her, vanished into smoke the moment their meaning registered in her mind.

The day waned. She had become so absorbed in her task that she didn't notice when the Wolf-mother walked up to her. A hand was laid on her shoulder, and she trembled, caught by surprise. "Your thoughts must be as far from us as your village is by now."

A light blush covered the younger girl's face, embarrassment showering her as she came to the realization she'd not spared a single thought for her family since the night before. "I..." she tried to answer, but her words came sluggishly, as if her mouth had been glued shut. She'd strained her ears all day, trying to find the origin of those elusive, quiet conversations she could hear in the wind, and she felt that as a consequence she could barely utter her language any more, used as she'd grown to the howling leaves.

Her answer ended up coming out in a strange, distorted growl. "I think I'm hearing voices," she said, surprised by her honesty.

The hand on her shoulder tightened ever so slightly. A rough bark came from a few feet to their right; it was all the warning she had before a large wolf came up to her. Large paws came up to her shoulders, and her weight buckled as the old beast tackled her to the ground, jaws larger than her head opening up to deliver some friendly nipping and licking.

Alix heard some chuckling from the woman towering above them. She craned her neck to catch her eye, hoping to hear some sort of explanation; all she got was a sharp, silvery stare that made her stomach knot. Something had happened, something she wasn't fully aware of, and for the first time since she'd been taken in by that woman and her wolves, she was seen.

When her small hands went up to the wolf's fur to try to contain its enthusiasm, she had the notion, for a split second, that her village had never been; that its destruction had been a fancy of a dream, her human brothers and parents fleeting images drawn up by her human brain in search of some familiarity. In the obsidian green of the deep forest, where civilization was thought of as an echo of some far away place, the trees cast mirages in the form of shadows. When they moved, they disguised themselves as animals – predators for the prey, prey for the predators. As if enchanted by the same illusion, her mind replicated the workings of the magic, turning animal into human, human into animal.

So when she said, "Father," in that distorted growl once again, she wasn't sure if she was a foolish wolf who'd forgot her nature or a mad human who'd been conquered by the forest.

"Leave her be, old wolf," the swordswoman sighed, running a hand over the animal's fur. "You're making a mess out of her."

Father stopped, turning his head slightly towards the woman. He whined loudly, tail flickering in annoyance. Alix froze when she realized that she could understand what he had replied. "The yew-child is ours, let us celebrate".

"We'll have plenty of time to do so when we reach the Garden."

"If we reach it."

The Wolf-mother helped Alix to her feet. With her newfound understanding of the wolf language, even as imperfect as it still was, the chattering around her arose and conformed into orderly conversation. Her ear found the rhythm amidst the chaos, turning growls and noise first into words, then broken sentences. She looked dazedly around her, her mind picking up threads ready to weave them into bigger narratives. The older woman stood close to her enough so that her armour grazed her back. The metal was icy cold to the touch, and when it came into contact with her, it yanked her out of her thoughts and back into the present.

"It's time for me to teach you the way," the swordswoman said. "Our way. Stay close to me and pay attention."