Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 12

Captain Yaska started with a formal greeting, gesturing at the river and the buildings and the escarpment, and encompassing the whole community.

Gove had to admit, she didn’t seem like your usual guardsen. She was shorter than most of them, though probably not as short as Gove; she wore her long hair loose under the official fur hat, and she spoke like she was hawking wares at the market, not showing up to presumably collect taxes to take south.

“You have heard the rumours, and I am here to tell you that they are true. We have been crusading against the cruel northern wolves for two years now!” She pulled up one of the wolf pelt banners and hammered the staff loudly on the wagon bed. “They will take no more of your livestock, they will take no more of your lives!”

Gove snuck a look back at Miter; he was smoothing his beard, and half-smiling. He caught her looking, and shrugged. “Yaska loves a dramatic entrance.”

For a bit, Gove thought the townsfolk had actually bought this transparent excuse to bring a whole team of guardsen, all well armed, into their midst; but finally an older woman interrupted the captain’s claims.

“But what about Mabek? Did their curse get him?”

Mabek. Cold lightning ran up Gove’s spine.

Immediately, Yaska’s broad-armed, friendly posture closed back up into a frustrated glower. She turned her gaze on the woman, but before she could respond, the crowd began to join in.

“Was it the wolves? Didn’t they curse Lorel?”

“Mabek wasn’t the first! What about Derva?”

“Are we all cursed by the wolves?”

Yaska hammered her staff on the wagon bed until the crowd went silent.

“Mabek!” She paused to stare at the sky and take a deep breath. “Mabek was my trusted second in command, gone over two months now, and I will not have his memory sullied with superstitious talk of curses.”

Gove felt suddenly very aware of the cool touch of the gathering fog on her skin. Two months didn’t make sense. From behind her in the crowd, someone called out;

“But what could have killed a young man like Mabek!”

Gove twitched as Miter’s hand fell on her shoulder again. “Gove, just wait —“

But Yaska turned their direction and, seemingly staring directly into Gove’s eyes, pronounced with unsettling finality;

“You can rest easy, I know exactly what killed him—“

And that was enough for Gove. She turned and fled; away from Miter, away from the crowd, away from the captain of the guard who very clearly knew more than she should, into the fog.

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