The Wolf & The Witch

A young girl of eight, hidden in the darkness of the cave, watched as the man lifted the woman’s leg and blood ran out of her boot. He pulled her boot off slowly and pulled the pant leg up. The girl saw a wedge of skin the size of a spatula laid open off her calf and deep scrapes gouged across the front of her leg. Those would get infected.

The young girl continued watching as the man made the woman drink something, then he poured it on her leg and she screamed, and cried, and cussed. Then the man washed her leg with soap and water, and she screamed and cussed again. Then the man did something amazing, something only women should be able to do- he took a curved needle and thread and started stitching her leg. He was a weika? Then she remembered watching them fight, and looked at the blanket the woman had around her shoulders- wolf fur. She was a wear-wolf? She had stood strong beside the man, firing off arrows right into the wolf’s face. The girl had never seen a male weika, and she had never seen a female wear-wolf. “Amazing,” the girl said.

Claire jumped when the girl spoke and nearly kicked Lestat, then grimaced in pain. Walking would be very difficult for a little while.

“Who’s there,” Lestat called out.

The girl scooted forward, into the dim light of gray clouds and a gray sun as they bent around the crack in the rock. The wind howled at the mouth of the cave, and carried snow into her face. She had short brown hair and sparkling green eyes. “You’re a weika?” The girl came closer, holding her arm. Her brown coat sleeve was stained black with blood.

“Wicca? You mean a witch? You’re asking me that?” Lestat asked. Wasn’t that the old word for witch? He looked at Claire, and she shrugged. He couldn’t be further from a witch. He finished tying off the bandage and helped her sit up.

The girl nodded, and crept a little closer, and looked past them, at the wolves in the clearing. It was snowing hard, and there were lumps under the snow. “And you’re a wear-wolf? That’s amazing.” She looked at Claire and nodded. “I want to be a wear-wolf when I grow up, but my dad says it’s too dangerous for women.”

“I think you have it backwards, sweetie.”

Lestat helped Claire with her socks, which hurt, and her boot, which hurt. “What is a wicca?” Lestat asked, looking at the girl.

“Wiccas are women who heal people, and help them. They deliver babies, and take care of sick animals, and they know how to heal cuts, like you did, so they don’t turn red. Can you heal my cut?” She took her coat off and uncovered her arm, revealing a deep ugly gash. It was bright red on the edges, and dark red in the cut, and the faintest tendril of infection crept up her arm.

“No,” Lestat answered, and started packing their things.

Claire looked back at him. That was rude and hateful as hell. “Don’t be an ass. Yes, we can heal you, sweetie.”

“It has to be him- he’s a wicca. Wear-wolves can’t heal-”

Lestat interrupted her. “We don’t have the supplies, and healing you won’t make much of a difference if we have to go back past those wolves.” He looked over his shoulder- the wolves were sitting in the snow, waiting. One was asleep.

“I’ll take you to the exit,” the girl said. “Through the caves, if you do. As soon as grandpa gets here.”

The wolf and the witch looked at each other. There was an exit? She had a grandpa? An old man? Lestat cleared his throat, and looked down solemnly. “I regret I’m the one to tell you this, but… your grandpa died in my arms,” Lestat said, and sighed. “I gave him water, and I held him as he slipped away. He was… a brave man, and he asked me to help his granddaughter get home. I promised him I would on my life. Here, let me fix your poor arm.”

Claire slapped his hand down- how goddamn dare he take credit for giving that man water. And Lestat wouldn’t even let her give him water! “You son of a-“

“You wear-wolves are all the same,” Lestat interrupted, grinning, despite his aching back and burning ribs. “Scum of the earth. Watch your tongue- we have young ears listening.” He tried, but could not stop grinning at Claire. The more she glared the more he grinned.

*

It took five hours to slowly walk through the pitch-black cave, following eight-year old Suzu. Step by slow step, through freezing water, up ledges, ducking, always ducking. Lestat was in so much pain he struggled to breathe. His ribs weren’t broken, but another hard hit and they would be. Every muscle hurt; every time he twisted, or bent under a rock ledge, pain ran out across his back, and the accumulation of pain over the last five hours was wearing him out. He needed to smoke enough to dull the pain so he could sleep. He leaned carefully against the cave wall, holding Claire in his arms. His head was at an odd angle because of the rock. Claire had ahold of Suzu. “I can’t go…. much further tonight,” he said.

Claire reached up and felt his forehead- no fever. But she could hear it in his voice- exhaustion, and pain.

“We’re almost there,” Suzu said.

So Lestat continued forward another hundred steps and found roaring wind, and a black night, and driving snow at the mouth of the cave. And they found two cloaks made of dire wolf fur, with hoods, and an iron pike, six feet long, and heavy, and dull on one end and sharp on the other- an iron fence post honed to impale.

Lestat sat down, took his shirt off, and his cloak, and made a spot to lay down. Then he took the wine skin and finished it off, and collapsed. He hated alcohol, especially wine and whiskey, but he hated pain just as much.

Claire felt his forehead, checked his stitches, then saw the bruises, and swelling, even in the dark, and then remembered, and then felt bad- he had carried her that far on an injured back and never said a word. “Goddamnit, Lestat." She huffed, and frowned at him. "That’s not how we do this. This is not how we work together. You need to tell me when you’re hurt.”

“This is how… we do this. I take care of you, first.”

“No, it's not. We take care of each other first.” Claire looked down at him, in the dark. “Keep your eyes shut, and relax, ok?” She unlaced her shirt with her right hand and tossed it to Suzu. She didn’t cover her breasts. Her skin was cold, and chillbumps ran up her arms, across her chest. “Sweetie, can you do me a favor?” Suzu nodded. “Can you fill that with snow and bring it back to me?” Claire shivered and pulled the blanket around her shoulders.

Suzu did, and Claire rubbed snow on his ribs, and his bruises, cooling them. He was swollen, and groaned from the cold, and pulled away, but she held him, and forced him to stay still. She rubbed snow on him for an hour, rubbing the cold into his muscles, then another, her hands so cold they burned like fire. Once the swelling went down she warmed her hands under the cloak, then massaged him, which also hurt. Then she put more snow on his back, numbing the ache. She worked on his back for hours, and he eventually stopped groaning, and eventually fell asleep, and Claire laid down with him and fell asleep.

Then young Suzu crept over, cold, and laid down beside the wicca. But she wasn’t happy with that- the young girl crawled over Lestat and wedged herself between the wolf and the witch, warm and comfortable.

*

Lestat woke stiff, and in pain, but ready to go. And Claire stopped him. She rubbed more snow on him, and more, and he shivered, and his back went slowly numb. Then she made him drink water. More water, and more water, then she made him eat, then she sat down behind him and massaged him, which was difficult with one hand.

“Thank you,” Lestat groaned.

“You’re welcome, and thank you,” Claire answered, and put her arm around him and hugged him from behind. “I might’ve lost my leg without you, wicca.”

Lestat smiled, and held her arm. “And I might’ve lost my life without you, wear-wolf.”

They packed their belongings, and slipped the dire wolf cloaks on, which required cutting the sides because of the cuff, and they pulled their hoods up. They wrapped the blanket around the girl, and tied one end of a rope around her waist, and the other around Claire’s, and Lestat carried both their packs. He also strapped the iron pike to his back, and picked the witch up in his arms, and groaned from the effort. It was morning, and they had maybe seven hours of gray daylight left. In the best of conditions, it would take five hours to walk twenty miles to the ice, as Suzu called it. They would be home once they made it to the ice. Except these were not the best conditions- a blizzard, escorting a girl, Claire couldn’t walk, and Lestat was moving slow.

But at least those were their only problems. At least the dire wolves hadn’t followed them over the mountain.