__The Bird Bone Flute__part 12
By Blackmare



When Giles came over the rise above the cottage he saw the wolf stretched out on the porch in front of the door, dozing in a pool of afternoon sun. He stopped for moment just to look at her there. The light tipped her silver hackles with iridescence, framing her head and shoulders with brightness. Tentatively he reached into himself to greet her, channeling the surge of delight he felt at finding her here into a delicate golden-green tendril that reached toward her glow like a seedling toward sunlight. When they connected her head shot up and she launched herself off the porch, bounding up the hill toward him where he'd sunk down to the grass, his knees suddenly uncertain in the answering wash of her light in him.

Grinning, she barreled into him, pulling her punch just a bit before her shoulder connected with his so he was only smashed sideways instead of being flipped down the slope. Giles grabbed for her and got a handful of hind leg before she eeled away, leapt over him, and nipped him lightly on the butt. Yelping indignantly, he rolled, snapped up and lunged for her, sweeping his long arms around her ribs in a full body tackle. She made a very satisfying squeak of surprise as Giles' momentum bowled them both over and they started down the hill in a tangle of limbs and goofy animal noises. Neither of them tried very hard to stop their tumbling descent so they made it all the way down to the shallower slope at the base of the hill before breaking into two breathless, lumpy piles, one furred and one denimed, both disheveled and deeply happy.

Giles pulled her over against his chest for a proper hug, gulping the delicious scent of her sunwarmed coat as his laughter spun itself down. She twisted in his arms so she could reach his face with her tongue while his large hands massaged her chest and shoulders. They regarded one another for a very long moment, gold into green, and Giles saw her acknowledge his new understanding of what he carried inside himself. He laid his face against her cheek. Never in his life had anyone known him so well and accepted him anyway. That simple fact lay clear and immutable in his mind, but his heart was not confident enough to absorb it yet. With a habitual shrug of his emotional posture he shied away from that challenge, retreating instead to the safety of just loving her.

They sat together on the grass for several minutes before Giles' belly remarked in loud, cranky gurgles that lunch was several hours overdue. The wolf leaned back, looked pointedly at his abdomen, and when it complained again she reached down and poked his navel sharply with her nose. Chuckling, Giles got to his feet and brushed the botanical debris off his clothing and her fur.

"Let's go see what's in the fridge, shall we?" he said. She yawned, shook herself, and trotted toward the cottage ahead of him. He'd left the door pulled-to but unlatched in case she came by, so she nosed it open and ambled in, heading for her usual spot on the rug. Giles turned to close the lower half of the door and the wolf stopped abruptly, looking back over her shoulder at him, tension in the curve of her spine.

"Oh, right. Sorry, darling-," he apologized, opening the door entirely and toeing an antique iron doorstop into position. She relaxed immediately and made herself comfortable. Giles opened a beer and started rummaging in the cupboards. He was definitely hungry enough for a proper meal. He set a pot of water with a half dozen eggs in it on the back burner to boil while he opened and trimmed a packet of lamb shoulder chops.

There was a strange lightness in the region of his heart, an easing, as if some deep and loyal muscle was unclenching now that the siege had broken and the ramparts were no longer threatened. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, settling himself. It was not a giddy relief, but a calm one, the sense of having arrived at a safe plateau after a taxing climb during which his ability to reach any destination had been severely tested. Giles knew he wasn't where he needed to be yet, but for now he could perch here, gather himself, rest and reassess. It was the resting part that felt so peculiar, he decided. During the course of this day he had set down things he'd been carrying for so long he'd forgotten what it was like to move unencumbered. In time he would examine each of those burdens closely, decide which to abandon and which to take up again. But for now he stood at the stove breathing in, breathing out, basking in the novelty of this release.

He looked up from his preparations at the stove to find the wolf watching him, lying in her elegant Anubis position with her head slightly cocked and lovely ears attentive. Giles smiled at her and began to sing softly.

Oh, I'm bein' followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow


Her tail thumped once and he grinned at her, singing a bit louder.

Leapin and hoppin' on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow


He set the big iron skillet on the stove to heat, and started chopping onions.

And if I ever lose my hands,
lose my plough, lose my land,
Oh if I ever lose my hands,
I won't have to work no more.


The onions teased his tear ducts and sinuses and he laughed at the irony of the next phrases while he sang and sniffled.

And if I ever lose my eyes,
if my colors all run dry,
Yes if I ever lose my eyes,
I won't have to cry no more.


Scraping the onions into the pan with a generous knob of butter, he peeled and chopped carrots and mushrooms and slipped them into the pan with the onions. Rummaging in his box of traveling culinary supplies, he pulled out packets of sea salt, rosemary, thyme, bay, and his favorite feisty Tellicherry black peppercorns. The vegetables were hissing merrily away now, so he tossed them around a bit and reached down the bottle of cream sherry from his liquor stash above the sink. The aroma when it hit the hot pan and caramelized brought the wolf to her feet. She stepped up to the backside of the stove and peered over it, her dark, moist nose triangulating on the exact location of this amazing scent. Giles sang and stirred and enjoyed that fact that she was tall enough to watch his hands preparing their dinner.

And if I ever lose my legs,
I won't moan, and I won't beg,
Yes if I ever lose my legs,
I won't have to walk no more.

And if I ever lose my mouth,
all my teeth, north and south,
Yes if I ever lose my mouth,
I won't have to talk...


He tossed the mixed herbs into the vegetables, gave them one more splash of sherry to deglaze the pan, then carefully scraped them into a waiting bowl. He plopped another bit of butter into the pan and arranged the six shoulder chops on the searing iron. As the meat started to sizzle, the wolf made a small, unmistakably plaintive noise. Not a whimper, exactly, but a kind of fervent observation. Giles looked into her eyes and sang:

Did it take long to find me?
I asked the faithful light.
Did it take long to find me?
And are you gonna stay the night?


Quickly he flipped the chops, not wanting them to do much more than brown. He grabbed the big loaf of bread, the butter, and two plates; he moved the boiling eggs aside to cool, and picked up the bowl of vegetables. Her eyes never left his hands.

"Do you eat this sort of thing?" he asked her. He scooped up a spoonful and dumped it into the palm of his hand, blowing on it a bit to cool it. She came scooting around the stove even before he'd bent down to offer it to her. A sniff, a swipe, and his hand was clean. He grinned and divided the vegetables into two portions.

Oh I'm bein' followed by a moon shadow,
moonshadow, moonshadow.
Leapin' and hoppin' on a moonshadow,
moonshadow, moonshadow.....


He hummed as he put three chops on her plate and three on his own. Trapping his beer bottle with two fingers, he carried their dinner around the stove and settled down beside her on the rug. She reached over and kissed him under his left ear.

"Whoa, onion breath. That'll stop the baddies, won't it?" he chuckled at her, salting his meat. She lay down in that regal position again, the plate between her forelegs. He'd never seen her nose so busy.

As he recalled from their teatime picnic at the abbey, she was a very dainty eater. She started by sniffing everything, then licking the length of each chop several times. Carefully she lifted the round slabs of meat and chewed each one as a single mouthful, spacing them out with bites of vegetables. She didn't hurry; he could sense her savoring all aspects of the meal and it pleased him immensely. Although he was ravenous himself, the irony of finishing his plateful faster than the wolf didn't escape him so he ate as she did, enjoying the quality of the locally raised meat and the complex sweetness of the carrots.

She had meticulously stroked her plate clean and he was mopping up the last juicy pools with a heel of bread before it occurred to him that, other than his recent breakfast with Amos, he hadn't shared a meal with anyone in a very long time. Good food was definitely something he appreciated, and he was a passable cook when he gave himself the opportunity. But it was the primal connection of breaking bread with a companion, the gentle intimacy of it, that he had boxed away somewhere inside himself. It had been locked away in the same small, dark room as his happy childhood memories, his love of horses, and his passion for music.

Now and then he did fetch those precious, fragile things out and commune with them, but always cautiously, always alone. He did not want anyone else to even know they were there. He'd sensed that his private, harmless pleasures were in terrible danger from the Council's predatory discipline simply because they pleased him, and they were not relevant to the Council's obsessive mission. For the first time Giles also realized how much he'd believed his instructors when they'd told him he was polluted, dangerous, and undeserving. Accepting that evaluation, he'd hidden even these mild joys from himself as if he would soil them, damage them with his clumsiness and anger. And, with a sudden pang, he realized he had also locked them away as a penance for his wickedness. The Council had trained him to punish himself just as thoroughly as they did.

Giles certainly never expected to find his own banished pleasures waiting for him in this small stone house, hosted by these kind people, in the company of fine horses, at the invitation of this astonishing, wild heart studying him now through golden eyes. Such a simple thing, to offer him another view of himself, untainted by exploitive agendas though thoroughly informed by his history. The man they saw was not a man he knew. But could he trust their opinions if they liked him-loved him, even, he thought as he stroked her-when he did not like himself?

For the first time the enormity of Joseph's revelations opened completely before him and he realized that his terrible, destructive choices had been entangled and amplified by an element over which he had had no control. This didn't diminish his responsibility for his actions, but it did temper it somehow, and it fundamentally changed the way he understood his own motivations during that time. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't the man the Council said he was. Maybe he was someone else entirely.

The earlier ease of his heart flared brightly into sorrow. He set down his plate and clutched himself together, resting his forehead on his knees, working hard to breathe in the harsh, rising wind of grief. The wolf sat up and leaned into him, sighing as he draped an arm around her, holding her close.

"The stolen child who became the heartlame warrior," he whispered to her, his voice breaking before it abandoned him entirely. I don't know why you wanted me, he thought, curling around her, but thank you, thank you. Here I am. They sat that way until his breathing steadied, though occasionally it still caught on the serrated edge of this new knowledge.

Who would've thought that it would be so hard to let go of such pain? It didn't just flow away: it tore loose, its complex, barbed roots snapping and twisting everything they had grown around all these years. The broken ground ached, the ragged edges of the new empty place ached, and even though he knew the pain would ease with time, he also knew he could never reclaim those years or the peace that had been stolen from him. At some point he would rage at those losses, but right now he was weak, raw, and disoriented. He'd lived so long in deep shadow he had forgotten how much he longed for and loved the light. And suddenly here it was, brightness blessing him where he trembled in the new clearing created by the crashing fall of that enormous, poisonous grief. For the first time in his adult life, Giles sensed the strange, rich possibility of self-respect. He was too shaken to pursue it just now, but it was truly there, translucent and shy, yet willing now to be seen once he was brave enough to look up and find it there.

The wolf never shifted, her weight steady against him, her fur warm against his arms and face. When his breath finally eased completely and his shoulders unclenched, he started sliding his hand down her body in long, slow strokes, his fingers working deeply into her fur. He did not know what else he could do or say to convey the depth of his gratitude and trust. She licked the dried tears from his cheeks. Giles kept his eyes closed so he could concentrate on her blue light, larger now and more diffuse in him, calming and reinforcing the transformed pulse of his own magic.

The wolf tucked her moist nose under his chin. Giles cupped her head in his hands and kissed her forehead, noticing that evening had arrived and it was time for her to go patrol her marches. She nudged him upward, looking pointedly at the bed, then back at him. She was right; he was utterly drained. He wondered if battling inner demons was as demanding as battling the more corporeal kind, flesh wounds aside. Or perhaps not: three years pickling in a stew of alcohol, hallucinogens, uppers, downers, and perverted magic probably did count as a flesh wound. A big one. The wolf butted him firmly toward the bed again.

"Okay, okay," he croaked, "I'm going." He picked up the dinner dishes and set them on the counter, slightly amused to find that his usual compulsion to wash up had vanished. Closely supervised by his furry minder he performed his bedtime ablutions in a cursory way even though it was very early. Twelve solid hours of sleep seemed so appealing, and given his bone-deep fatigue, actually possible. Shucking down to his boxers he slid into bed, reached over to stroke her face where she stood watching him settle.

"Thanks." She cocked her head a bit, waved her tail, then turned and trotted from the room out into the evening light. He did not last long enough to see her off the porch.

* * * * *

The waning moon's light seems too bright to him, glinting off the grass blades and flickering on the leaves that stir softly in the night breeze. So many shades of gray, so much nuance; there are few shadows in the silvery landscape so dark that he cannot see right into them. But the world looks oddly flattened, and he cannot focus well on what is still, yet anything moving draws his vision into stark and astonishing clarity.

Suddenly an avalanche of scent and sound rolls over him and he is horribly disoriented, dizzy and nauseous. He has so few words for what he's sensing, and even the elements he recognizes in the local landscape are skewed, as if he perceives them in more than three dimensions.. The force of it, the intensity, the intricacy - it is all too much, too fast. He cannot catch this torrent in his teaspoon; he can barely catch his breath. Panicking, he struggles to escape this dream and wake to his own, known world.

Then his vision blurs blue for a moment and he feels her love steady him within this huge, alien current. Ah: he is inside her mind again, more deeply and completely than he was in the snatch of memory she'd offered him before. She is introducing him to this place the way she knows it, the way she loves and guards it.

Her familiar light soothes him, helps him settle into the swift, exquisitely detailed flow of her sensations. She does not rush him; he feels her ancient patience and kindness coaxing him to relax and enjoy this experience. As he tentatively opens to her, he senses her skill with this hosting the way he would recognize experience in a sexual or sparring partner. She asks only that he trust her and accept her invitation. His birthright flares golden-green as he drops all his defenses and dissolves into the rich wonder of her life.

It takes time for him to adjust to being carried by her, completely aware of her physical form yet unable to touch or control it. He wears her body, feels its shape, its strength, and its talents, but they are not his to use. The tireless cadence of her jog-trot soothes him, the simple repetition of this task anchors him while he absorbs the novelty of moving as a quadruped. Balance seems so effortless, her stride's tempo stays steady over any terrain. He learns that hills are easy for the four-footed ones; they don't have to lift and balance a vertical load going up or down, they just glide along, power flowing from the haunches forward along the spine to the shoulders and balancing neck. She offers a little leaping dance to answer his delight in this new understanding.

He spooks briefly when she crests a steep, rock-strewn slope and bounds down it, leaping from boulder to boulder - this business of leading with one's head makes him feel very vulnerable, even with the support of those powerful shoulders. And not just the head, but the most sensitive part of her entire being--her soft, intelligent nose--is the first thing forward, always. It makes him cringe and she is amused by his discomfort.

Gently, she coaxes him to focus on what her nose is telling her, and he realizes that the wash of information is so comprehensive, so exquisitely detailed, that it protects her. Her nose does for her what his eyes do for him, but so much better: all the air stirring around her brings information, and her exquisite hearing enhances much of it further. As his mind meets the world primarily through his eyes, so hers meets it through her nose. There are moments of rising and falling intensity as breezes shift around her. It reminds him of the play of sunlight and shadow on a partly cloudy day - he can always see, but sometimes the colors are brighter, the details crisper, and at other times things are muted, softer, and diffuse. He is amazed at how her awareness completely surrounds her; in this sphere of scent and sound there are no blind spots. She is truly immersed in the world to a degree that makes him realize how much humans are merely spectators.

The order her mind brings to this complex rush astonishes him. It is entirely wordless and wonderfully interwoven, like the network of living energy he'd sensed that afternoon when she woke his wildfire to burn away the malteryx's irritating spell. He can feel her deep recognition of each element, and a whole catalog of relationships between them. She knows not only how things are at this moment, but how they have been in the past, and much of her patrol consists in comparing then and now to assess the health of the pattern.

It is this steady interplay of the past with the present that makes the landscape seem to have a fourth dimension. As she floats along he glimpses shades cast up by her memories of various places. The borders of woodlands expand and contract, stone walls rise and shift in the fields, hedgerows thicken through centuries from scrawny new plantings to robust, arboreal walls of slender-stemmed trees, brambles, vining fruits, honeysuckle, bird nests, fox lairs, and tiny furred lives so short they flash like sparks across her awareness. Paralleling the river she shows him where a cluster of turf houses once huddled beside a pool rich with trout; there is no evidence of those dwellings under her dancing feet now. Along the edge of a well-tended lambing field he sees a dark blur under the bright moon where no shadow should be. Focusing on it he finds a kind of scar, a place where the fabric of the world thickened over an old wound but never quite managed to match the pattern of the original weave.

She takes him around the abbey, slowing to a walk and stopping often so he can watch the compound grow through time. It starts as a huddle of hide tents that solidifies into turf hutches roofed with reeds. A long dry-mortar stone house phases into view then collapses, the stones carefully salvaged and stacked into exquisite beehive cloisters to house the first monks here. These, too, are dismantled and consumed by another, larger architecture. Foundations for the chapel cut the central clearing, then the dressed stone columns rise under the moon. Before the building is completed fire washes over it, two of the outer walls fall and he sees the buildings shudder under the impact of repeated attacks. Then stillness; the walls heal, enclosing more land now, the chapel grows again, and this time he sees the roof appear. The main house enlarges, the gardens, barn, and fields expand toward their familiar outlines.

She takes him across the river in a delicious leap over the dark, living water. They amble uphill away from the abbey and he sees a series of low mounds ahead of them. The earth opens as each cairn is dug, the interior walls and roof rise stone on stone, then turf flows up over the whole and the barrow becomes as it stands before them. He senses a melancholy in her here, a momentary catch in her recall as she lingers for a moment. His light swells gently to acknowledge this thing that might be pain. In answer to his unasked question, she takes them to a particular barrow, bounds up onto it and settles down to face the abbey in the valley below. The buildings blur, the moon shifts in the sky, and the wind is abruptly from the west, bearing the reek of smoke and the screams of errified people. This is something she saw a very long time ago.

The raiders are the first Vikings to come so far inland and by now they are drunk on slaughter and stolen mead and the vile drug of rape. Churches are always such promising targets, with their sacramental plate and storerooms of tithed goods. This abbey is still new, its chapel unfinished and only a few fields under the plow. Mostly they have sheep, bleating in panic when the raiding band comes thundering down the hill, joyfully picking off the rams with arrows shot from the backs of their small, fiery horses. They set fire to the abbey gate and the band divides, one group sweeping around the abbey to the village beyond where they ignite the roofs and take down anyone who bolts from the inferno. Women are spared the arrows, and children, but all the men and infants are killed out of hand. Soon the survivors stand in a piss-soaked clutch surrounded by riders while a few warriors move among them, knocking them down and binding them. Fourteen in all, to be sold as slaves in the northern markets. They are roped together and two horsemen drag them away in a slow, shocky line; he can hear the older children scream; the mothers sob and cling to their toddlers.

The main band has breached the abbey walls and they surge inward. The monks stand fast against them, armed only with staves and psalms. One by one they fall, the last dying on the stoop of the chapel. It is all for nothing: there is no treasure in this young house, so far from any wealthy landholders or market towns. Furious, the northmen jerk the brothers' lungs from their ribs and spread them across their backs as blood eagle offerings to their hungry gods. Then the raiders set the abbey rooftops alight and whirl back the way they came, crashing across the river, tossing mead skins from hand to hand and singing with fierce joy.

This memory makes her shake with fury. She grieves for the waste, for the loss of peace and simple order, for the deaths of the children and the gentle gardeners who sing the offices of the day and lay stone on stone, building for their god. Frustration rises with her anger, and he knows she could not defend these people against the predations of their own kind: she may not act beyond the bounds of the law that made her. Her anguish tears out of her in a sharp, rising howl of grief under the midsummer moon. She cries until the river rings with it, the hills beyond these hills send back echoes though only the smoke dissipating in the night's last wind is there to hear this.

Oh my darling, he says to her, oh my very dear.

Her eyes close and he feels the return of their own present night. For a time her mind is quite still and he holds himself quietly within her. Then he feels her memory shift again and she opens her senses onto a different scene. It is past midnight, the moon is almost down. The constellations and the nip in the air tell him it is nearly autumn. Mist hides the river and pools in every low place. He feels a fierce hunger in the night, something approaching with terrible, predatory intent. The weave of the world shifts uneasily under it and she stands on the highest barrow sifting the wind, trying desperately to determine the nature of this threat. There: the wind from the northwest arrives tainted with human blood, bitter herbs, and rank bearskins.

She turns her attention to the abbey and he sees it has been restored and enlarged since the first attack. Higher walls, a heavier gate, several new buildings. The livestock sleeps protected in paddocks now. Downstream, the village has finally appeared on its present location, though the scattered buildings are small and few are stone yet. He suspects at least a generation has passed, perhaps two, since the first attack.

Looking down along the river he senses something odd, like a ripple or a spreading stain. Whatever is coming from the northwest will meet an equal and kindred hunger right here. The gate resonates, answering the dark magic approaching on the forest road. There is no mistaking her surge of elation at this, or the keen edge of her power glinting with readiness for battle.

A barn owl wafts silently down beside her and shows her what it holds in its mind: a column of mounted men, Vikings again, huge and heavily armed and stinking of spells. She flows down off the barrow and races for the village (he sees her go, a ghost below them where they lie on the grass here and now). She moves quietly from house to house, stirring the families. It is clear they all know her, and understand her warning. A runner heads for the abbey, parents gather the few children, whispering instructions. Two lanky girls pick up infants, and four smaller children take hold of the wolf's thick hackles. She turns and leads them out of the village and up to the barrows, walking as quickly as the little ones can go. Carefully the older girls peel back a cut turf to reveal the opening of a cairn. One by one the children duck inside, still silent. The turf falls back into place and they are hidden. He realizes that four of them have a particular quality, more complex than a distinctive scent; he suspects they have green eyes.

The monks usher the remaining villagers inside the walls where the men arrange themselves, longbows strung and quivers to hand. The women draw water and place it in readiness near the buildings. Over everything he detects the unexpected but distinctive scent of prayer. Leaving them to their preparations she runs toward the approaching hunger, halting for a brief consultation with a dog fox. She circles the area, finds the place where the weave is thinning in the fallow field north of the abbey, and there she takes her stand against whatever rides toward them and whatever waits to meet it.

The moon shifts, the wind dies down leaving her bereft of new information. In the faint light he sees ravens come to her where she paces; they take off toward the northwest road. In a few moments one returns to her, shares what it has seen, then heads for the abbey, flying fast. In a few more minutes she can hear the thump of hooves, the faint rattle of harness. Then the stink of bear musk hits her, and the chanting, and suddenly the dark seethes with magic. These are berserk Viking warriors who have come to strike their hideous bargain: each man hosting a demon in exchange for enormous strength, protection from pain, and unimaginable lust for battle. She senses the demons stirring along the threshold now, summoned to this meeting by the shaman riding with the party. She cannot prevent this ritual since she may not touch the humans until they contain a demon. Likewise, she can only kill the demons when they have taken on their new corporeal forms. She fades into the shadows just before the riders break cover. The men dismount, tie the horses along the edge of the forest, then stride forward to arrange themselves around the darkening ground of the meadow. The faint moonlight cannot penetrate that place at all, though it touches everything else.

The shaman calls the men forward one at a time, opens their heavy bearskin vests and carves runes into their chests until their blood flows freely. An acolyte follows him with a smoldering pot of herbs, each man inhaling the sluggish smoke deeply as the chant grows louder. He feels the fabric of the world tear, sees tendrils of darkness coil across the grass to enfold each warrior, twining up their legs and entering the body through the mouth and eyes. One by one the men scream in anguish that suddenly twists into sick and joyful rage as the possession takes hold. In a few minutes it is done, and twenty new berserkers surge together in violent jubilation. They turn toward the abbey, ready now to begin the blood feast that will seal their demonic alliance.

She glides in among them so quickly he almost misses her; she's taken down the last man in the column and moved onto the next and the next before the others even know she's there. Then the fourth man crashes into his comrade when her teeth tear out his throat, and the whole troop rallies around the whirling melee. The shaman barks out a line of coarse words; when nothing happens, he hurls a bolt of red light at her and as it shatters over her she blooms into extraordinary flame as her own magic erupts to answer his. Every berserker she rips open ignites with her blue fire. Eight down, the ninth falling, and finally the others realize they are in serious trouble. Howling in fury they try to surround her but she flickers between their legs, spinning them hard into one another, keeping them swirling too close to each other for effective sword fighting.

They draw daggers just as the first set of arrows thump into them. Four men have crept out of the shelter of the abbey to support their guardian. To the archers' horror, the berserkers ignore any arrow that doesn't strike them in the heart or head; several warriors simply snap off the shafts protruding from their backs and bellies and turn their attention back to the swift, savage opponent who has taken down three more of their number. One lunges forward and manages to sink his blade into her ribs, too far back to threaten her heart but it throws her onto the defensive. She scoots out of the tightening ring and circles behind them, forcing them to turn outward and face her. She's put them back on the defensive but now she faces a wall of blades and a stalemate. From his protected position at the center, the shaman starts another spell. An arrow abruptly ends his keening intonation, but his death unleashes truly vile rage in the warriors.

The band splits, half bolting toward the archers while the others surge toward the wolf. She leaps sideways and races to intercept the berserkers intent on killing the archers. She darts in and hamstrings one, then another, opening their throats when they crash down in front of her. She sees two women running from the abbey bearing a bucket of flaming pitch on a pole between them. Two of the archers tear strips from their tunics and wrap their arrowheads while the other two keep shooting. Dipping their wrapped arrows into the pitch the men fire point blank at the two leading warriors who ignite instantly, their demonic partners exploding out of them in foul, burning spray. The two remaining assailants are moving too fast to pull up and meet the same fiery end. The wolf takes full advantage of the distraction to bring down two of the five pursuing her, and the remaining three band together, swords outward, chanting a curse down on her as she keeps them contained so the flaming arrows can finish the fight.

When the flames, blue and yellow, flicker and subside, there are only scattered patches of scorched grass to mark the battle site. Her blue flame has erased all evidence of what did not belong here. The meadow glows cleanly again under the setting moon. Panting but happy, she flops down on the grass to rest. The two women who brought the pitch come up and crouch beside her, speaking soft words of gratitude and stroking her fur apart to check her wounds. The villagers stream out of the abbey, one woman heading to the barrow to release the children and the others walking into the trees to gather up the unexpected spoils of this conflict: two dozen fine dun horses, short and solid and brave, with all their tack and gear. Unimaginable wealth for them all. Inside the chapel the monks start singing the first office of the new day.

The scene fades gradually and Giles senses her awareness returning to this late summer night. She nudges him a bit when she feels his awe, reminding him that it is her task, no more and no less. The night around them seems settled, the pattern serene and all lives secure. She stands, stretches deliciously, and sets out for the cottage at an easy lope. When she tops the hill and sees the open door he is shaken by her rising joy, by her anticipation of seeing him again. As she reaches the porch, he feels something like a shrug, and finds himself abruptly back inside his own head.

* * * * *

Giles woke the moment she crossed the threshold. Still very disoriented, he had no words so he extended a hand to welcome her. When she reached the bed, he shifted back and invited her to join him. In the dark he couldn't read her expression, but she cocked her head as if considering his offer, then bounded up onto the duvet. She was momentarily thrown by the springy surface, but he steadied her and soon she started the universal circling dance of sleepy canines, treading a hollow beside him and curling herself into it, her head toward the door and her shoulders tucked firmly against his belly. Giles draped his arm over her, breathed deeply to take in her sweet scent, and slid back into sleep.

* * *