Chapter 21
By the time Gunnar brought E up to speed at his forge and roused the vileblood brothers from their temporary housing at the station, Zhadan had returned with the available Clan members. Rina had spread a map over one of the long tables and stood at the bar talking in hushed tones with Aster, who looked unhappy. E joined them, the smith’s expression by contrast unconcerned.
“What now?” Mateo asked as they entered the tavern proper, and Gunnar waved him and his brother toward the Clan, where Frode discussed terrain with Zhadan. The chuchuna was all flailing arms and grunts, impatient now that things moved forward.
“That big man is Afi Frode, leader of the local berserker clan. He lays the groundwork for shit like this. Rina deals in the overhead. Introduce yourselves,” Gunnar said. When neither of them moved, he chuckled. “Everyone already knows about you.”
“This a test?” Mateo asked as Tomas trotted over to join the others without hesitation.
“Everything is for the next week,” Gunnar said with a shrug. “And the weeks after too. I won’t complain if you go ahead fuck things up before the next train.”
Mateo gave him a sideways look, his scent laced with apprehension as he inhaled Gunnar’s. He left the vileblood standing there. They tripped up and were gone in a week? It’d be no skin off his nose.
He picked up bits of conversations as he stepped over to Rina to check in, but her chat with Aster and E captured his attention. The cornflower wraith smelled absolutely furious, and while E smelled as he always did—like ash and molten steel and powerful magic, with no more tells than a brick wall—his posture read uncomfortable.
Rina scoffed. Aster held out an open palm, almost a peace offering, but Rina shook her head, her tone low. “No, we’re taking care of this now. My way. This is no different from what we’ve been doing since we broke ground here.”
Gunnar saddled up next to E, who ignored him. He’d sat in on conversations like this for months now, his insight as valued as any of Rina’s hunters.
Unless she disagreed, apparently.
“There are others,” Aster said. “Word will spread. You have the benefit of surprise this time.”
“And we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Rina insisted. “For all we know, the others are miles beyond concern.”
“You push when you should bend, Rina,” Aster hissed out, her gaze piercing. Made sense, being she was a steward of the land, not so unlike the leshy. Gunnar never got the full story about how Rina worked things out with Aster when they first came to Nizhny. He knew that if Aster didn’t want it happening, not a damn thing would grow on the fields they depended on come spring.
Rina stood up tall. “Noted.” And left them at the bar.
Aster tsked, then asked Gunnar, “Anything for the road?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he drawled, rubbing his chin. “Funny, Audrey said about the same thing to her earlier today.”
E snorted into his mug but added nothing else. Aster only sighed, wiping up the bar with her towel even though it was spotless, her frustration palpable.
Things moved along about how he expected. With everyone present, Rina gave a rundown of the leshy and its capabilities and what Gunnar already knew about the terrain they’d be hunting on.
The main doors swung open, Uffe running in breathless, the Clan boy stalling as he neared the main table.
Gunnar caught the scent of panic.
Rina straightened, Frode and Hertha both picking up on the boy’s hesitance as well. Gunnar leaned forward, but Frode was faster, calling out in Old Norse. “What, boy? Speak, before the flies take to roost in your mouth.>>”
Uffe swallowed a few times. “The wolf pack is gone.>>”
“What the hells are you on about?>>” Frode said, scoffing at the same time Gunnar’s stomach churned.
Rina glanced impatiently between them; she wasn’t fluent.
“They’re not at their den out back. I triple checked and ran around the station twice. Yuri and the pack are gone.>>”
“Fuck,” Gunnar muttered, heading for the doors as Frode translated and Rina about exploded. He knew she’d be hot on his heels. It was a short walk from the station’s main entrance to the pack’s dens. Gunnar moved quick, ignoring Rina calling after him because he needed answers before she drew her own conclusions.
The scent of wolf, heavy wet fur and musk, saturated the entire area, as well as blood, meat and marrow, fresh and old. The pups he’d fed a few days ago were barely old enough to hunt with the pack, but Uffe was right. Every one of them was gone, leaving a very obvious trail northward. No effort to sneak, they’d just all up and left.
Gunnar paused near the main den, inhaling deeper. Audrey had been here. Recently.
Recent as in as soon as she’d left the station for home.
“Fuck,” he snarled, running a hand through his hair. “Shit.”
“Gunnar! What the fuck is going on!” Rina was on him, heavy footfalls on the ice and snow, her voice damn near a roar over the cold air. She’d come alone, and Gunnar didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
He grunted out a strained laugh. “You can’t guess?”
Rina surveyed the empty dens, brow furrowed. She studied the snow, but it was so iced and packed down from the wolves. There wasn’t much to track, and she didn’t have his nose, but he saw the moment it clicked in place, the muscles in her jaw jumping.
“Did you know about this?”
“No,” Gunnar said. “Far as I knew, she headed home to wait this out with Lyubava.”
“She took my wolves.”
“They followed her, not sure she . . .” Gunnar cleared his throat under the death stare, Rina’s heaving chest and the white clouds puffing from between her grinding teeth. “Smells like it, yeah.”
Rina saddled right up on his ass, and she had him by half a foot flatfooted, a little more with her shit kicker boots. “Take care of this. Now. Or I swear on my mother’s name, I will see you both out of my town on the next train.”
Following a wolf pack as large as Yuri’s, with multiple dire wolves and hybrids in the mix, was easy as tracking a blazing forest fire. Besides that, Audrey’s scent was so ingrained in his nose, she may as well have been screaming at the top of her lungs for as hard as it was for Gunnar to follow. That was good, he supposed. She clearly had no qualms about getting caught.
He jogged up the rails, pausing between the homesteads to make sure Audrey hadn’t somehow made a sensible choice and gone to Lyubava, but no, her scent kept right on with the wolf pack’s. Past the staked borders of Nizhny and into the wilds he patrolled for dangerous creatures.
The taiga closed in around him, blotting out the early sunlight, the needles thick and the ground uneven, but he knew this landscape like the back of his hand. A few weeks into settling on their homestead, he’d mapped it all, including Zhadan’s neighboring patrol zone and the unmarked area toward the east. He liked knowing what he was dealing with, and it helped him root out monster dens and burrows. Gunnar knew exactly where the leshy’s borders started, and he’d avoided them with purpose.
Now he didn’t have a choice, because the wolves and Audrey were pacing a direct line to the leshy’s home.
“Fuck,” Gunnar grumbled. Not much longer now. He’d be on the pack soon, their scent heavy and scat fresh, paw marks clean in the otherwise undisturbed snow and needle fall. Fifteen minutes later, he saw the first wolf.
A dire hybrid, patrolling south of where the pack must have settled. She perked her ears at him, sniffed the air. The hybrids were smarter than a normal wolf by a mile, but nothing like a purebred dire wolf’s human—and sometimes greater—intelligence. The pack’s scout recognized him, raised her head to give a short yipping howl.
“Easy girl,” Gunnar mumbled as she brushed by him. She sniffed his hand, licked his fingers, and let him scratch behind her ears. A cursory tail wag, and the wolf settled in to shadow him.
She seemed relaxed, too much so for them easing up on a bigger predator’s territory, though a leshy coexisted peacefully with the animals in its habitat. The near forty strong wolf pack lead by an Aperien beast didn’t exactly scream hospitality, though.
His skin prickled. Not too far now. It was a feeling more than a smell, though the scent was there too. Old magic, an original Aperien they’d be dealing with, settled in like the roots of this forest. Very dangerous potential hidden somewhere between all the peaceful sounds of nature. Even the air felt still, like the snow only fell or the wind only blew here if the power at be decided it was alright. He crested a stout ridge, found the pack waiting about twenty to twenty-five feet back from the leshy’s line, utterly content.
The pups chased each other and wrestled while others napped about. The adults all lounged, as if this didn’t differ from being at their den in Nizhny. He didn’t count heads, but a quick scan showed Yuri missing and Audrey was nowhere in sight.
A demanding woof drew his attention, and Liral, Yuri’s mate and another full-blooded dire wolf, stretched and lumbered to her feet. A gorgeous beast, she had silver-white fur, unusual compared to the typical black of her kind, and a dark muzzle and paws. She shook out her fur and padded over to him, knocked at his hip.
“You guys are in deep shit with Rina,” Gunnar said. Liral gave him a yawn that ended in a whine, then turned toward the leshy’s border with a huff. He didn’t speak wolf, but he was fairly certain that was the sound of a disapproving mate. “Did Yuri go in there with Audrey?”
Another single woof, then a low growl.
“Don’t look at me, she thought this up all on her own.”
Liral sneezed a few times, then trotted off.
Gunnar drew himself up and headed toward the invisible border, noting how the scent changed as he stepped past the leshy’s threshold. Everything smelled richer and more alive than a deep winter forest, rich and heady. The greens were brighter, and despite the crisp snow and dangling icicles, the air felt warmer. A snowshoe hare darted through the underbrush, birds chattering, the wind more a caress than a bite.
Audrey’s scent was easy to follow, the dire wolf with her. Nothing else off, aside from the general oddness of a magically inhabited stretch of woodland. Gunnar’s skin still itched, that sensation of a big predator nearby under his skin, but nothing felt overtly threatening. He kept moving, not attempting to mask his approach, pretty sure the leshy knew as soon as he stepped a foot on its land.
It didn’t take long to find what he came for. Sooner than he expected, only two hundred yards in before the trees thinned, and Gunnar hit the clearing.
Audrey sat on a stump, talking with her hands in painfully slow Russian. The dire wolf lay beside her on a pine needle bed. The huge black wolf blinked lazily, thumped his tail once, and went right back to napping.
And there was the leshy, within arm’s reach of Audrey, attentive to her chatter. A tall, lean man in shape, he had a green beard of moss and pine reaching down to his spindly legs, which were crossed at the knee. Leaned forward on an elbow, fist propped under his chin, nodding casually as she spoke. No clothing, his skin ashen brown like the surrounding trees, so much so he almost blended in to the old growth he sat upon, which bent around him in a high-backed seat. His arms dangled like branches, his hair mottled lichen. In his lap, a plate of half-eaten cookies.
The Aperien could’ve been someone’s grandfather, the kind expression at odds with the danger radiating in the air now that Gunnar was closer. And damn, did that change when he looked toward Gunnar, the gaze so vast his hindbrain twitched. Everything about the leshy’s appearance was a carefully crafted lie.
Audrey followed the leshy’s gaze and leaped to her feet when she saw him. “Oh! Jonathan! Um . . . This Jonathan Gunnar. Very good friend. He worries.>>” She smiled, bright and wide, a damn ray of sunlight in the dark forest. “It’s alright. I think we have things worked out.”
“Worked out?” Gunnar didn’t dare move closer.
“Yes,” she insisted. The leshy hadn’t moved, stone still as the tree beside it now, eerie and ancient, almost as if all the time it had existed in mythos before it manifested into reality was accounted for in its presence. “His name is Aspen, after the tree that grows here.”
Gunnar inclined his head at the leshy, offered in Russian, “Good to meet you, Aspen.>>”
The leshy’s voice came from all around at once, the lips not moving. “That name is a blessing for the girl, not you.>>”
“Okay.>>”
“You seek what belongs to me.>>”
Gunnar crossed his arms. “That’d be Katerina Yaga, not me.>>”
Audrey shifted toward Gunnar, her hands placating. “I’ve negotiated terms with Aspen on behalf of Nizhny.”
Gunnar rubbed his forehead, then his mouth, fighting the urge to laugh. Given that Audrey was fine, the whole thing was a bit funny. The risk she’d taken still pissed him off, but Rina was going to shit herself—and maybe in a few weeks, come around and thank Audrey.
If it all worked out.
He side-eyed the leshy. “You’re willing to talk?>>”
“Not all savor violence.>>”
Gunnar inclined his head at that. Him and Zhadan had been slaughtering things at the leshy’s borders for months now. Rina was rallying the whole damn settlement to axes.
Audrey rested a palm on his forearm, her hand warm through her mittens. “This is going to work out, I promise. Aspen won’t attack Rina unprovoked, and there’s really nothing to argue over regarding what he wants in return.”
“You sure about that? Your Russian is shit.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m not that bad.”
“How bad is good enough for high-level negotiations?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” she hissed at him, fighting against a smile.
“What she lacks in words, she makes up for in intention.>>”
Ah, so the fucker spoke English. Gunnar cocked a brow at the half-tree, half-man, and motioned at the plate in the thing’s lap. “And cookies.>>”
The leshy didn’t reply, his attention back to Audrey as she bowed deeply. “Thank you greatly. I am appreciating your time. I return soon.>>”
Gunnar winced at her grammar, but the leshy only bowed his head in return as Audrey beamed at him and gathered papers into her overstuffed satchel. She patted Yuri, who got lazily to his feet, apparently unmoved by this entire outing. The dire wolf trotted by them both without so much as a backwards glance. Audrey took Gunnar’s arm and tugged him after her. He didn’t look at the leshy again, trusting Audrey to have done her research about proper behavior.
She didn’t say a thing as they fast walked to the leshy’s borders, Yuri already there with his mate. The rest of the pack watched on, at attention with their alpha back with them. Audrey didn’t hesitate, racing over to the dire wolf and throwing her hands around his thick neck.
“Thank you,” she mumbled into his fur. Yuri licked her face a few times, woofing softly as he looked south. Audrey let him go and nodded. “Jonathan will see me home.” She waved at the wolves they could see. “Thank you, everyone!”
Liral hip-checked her, almost knocking her over, and Audrey laughed. Then Yuri lifted his head in a long howl, answers sounding from all directions, and the wolf pack departed.
Audrey damn near glowed, cheeks flushed and grinning from ear to ear. She swung her arms a few times, breathless when she said, “We should get back, right? And tell Rina.” Audrey’s expression fell slightly. “How mad is she?”
Gunnar just stared at her.
She blew out a breath, hard enough to ruffle the hair poking out of her fur cap. “Right, really mad then.” She winced. “And how mad are you?”
He considered, then said, “Half.”
“I knew what I was doing,” Audrey said, glancing at him sideways as she adjusted her satchel and started walking. He caught her elbow and steered her in the correct direction. They walked for a few minutes before she spoke again. “I’ve studied the local mythos in depth. A leshy isn’t hostile, not if you have good intentions and harm nothing in their forests.”
“Mhm.” He wasn’t going to make this easy on her.
He didn’t miss her little huff. “And I took Yuri and the pack. I didn’t go alone. I’m not stupid.”
Gunnar chuckled. “How’d you manage that little trick, anyway?”
“Oh.” She grimaced. “I promised the pack zmei bones and meat.” A swallow. “Everything that’s left.”
“That including Zhadan’s half?”
Audrey lifted her chin. “He wanted the treeman taken care of, didn’t he?”
Gunnar laughed. “You’re telling him, not me.”
“I’m not afraid of Zhadan,” she said, but her scent reeked of nerves now that they headed back to Nizhny. Hells, she hadn’t smelled nervous at all sitting next to that Leshy, but now that she’d have to face the music, she was sweating.
He grinned at her back. Yeah, he was fucking pissed she’d run off on her own. If she’d talked to him first, which hadn’t been an option given Rina breathing down his neck, he’d have tried to talk her out of it. But she was better at talking him into things than he’d ever been at trying to change her mind once she’d set it on something she felt was important. Dog with a bone, his little human.
Not his, he reminded himself.
“Jonathan?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you really half as mad at me as Rina is?”
He sighed, knowing he’d probably regret admitting it. “No, not even close.”