Haunted, Hunted by Rocky41_7

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Chapter II

On Elwing’s next trip to visit her aunt, she stashed in her basket a midsized kitchen knife, and began to choose high-necked dresses and tunics and shirts for her trips—things that hid her necklace entirely from view, cloak or no cloak. It was true the red wolf had insisted he meant her no harm, but to the point of both the wolf and Evranin—there were many things in the world which might harm a young Peredhil.

Before she had left with the knife in her basket, Evranin had reminded her yet again about running from wolves:

“Where there is one, there is a pack,” Evranin cautioned. “Even if you escape the one wolf, her sisters will catch you by surprise. Wolves do not travel alone.”

But the nearest Elwing came to seeing that wolf or any others was catching a flash of gray eyes watching her from the darkness, something that came and went so quickly she was sure she had imagined it each time. Her mind had never shown a limit of creativity on ways to torment her.

No, she didn’t see the red wolf again until several years after their first encounter.

By then, she had begun to think the whole thing had been but a dream, that there had never been any talking wolf, only a child frightened and alone and haunted by the ghosts of her past. It made sense, she decided from the lofty reason of adolescence, looking back on her childhood, that she had been so frightened about the woods her imagination had created something more tangible to fear. Evranin had become less tense about Elwing’s trips as several had come and gone with no excitement (to her knowledge), and Elwing had stopped carrying the knife.

This time, Elwing sang quietly to herself on her way through the woods, and the basket was full of things she herself had made. There was a fall chill in the air and she had tied her red cloak tightly around her neck, but it only reached the tops of her thighs now, and Evranin despaired of how quickly she grew. The forest was slightly less green, as some of the trees yellowed and then went orange and dropped their leaves, leaving the remaining evergreens standing proud. The fog which had blanketed the seashore that morning had also stretched its fingers into the woods, carpeting the forest in a low-lying mist.

As Elwing picked her way along the overgrown path—it was really becoming less clear by the year where the path was and was not—she was considering what to do for Eärendil’s birthday later that month, and these two considerations so absorbed her that she was caught by surprise when the red wolf sprang out of the ferns, blocking her way. In that moment, she became aware at once of how quiet the woods had gone.

Elwing jerked back with a gasp and the jewel about her throat felt hot against her skin.

“Elwing,” the wolf growled lowly, its tail lashing from side to side through the mist. “It has been quite a while, hasn’t it?” He was both every bit as large and also larger than she imagined. He had loomed so massive in her memory she had thought her childish mind must have exaggerated—but no. Seated, he would have been as tall as she was; his ears, taller; his head wider than hers; his paws as broad as the hand of a grown man.

“I began to think I had dreamed you,” she admitted.

“You did not,” said the wolf, in a tone that sent a chill down Elwing’s back.

“Have you been well?” she asked politely, because it seemed proper to speak politely to a beast that could tear her throat out, and because she did not think she done anything to warrant the wolf’s testy manner.

“I have not,” he barked and for the first time, he flashed his teeth at her. His canine teeth looked as big as her finger. “I have yet to recover my family’s treasure. The one which you promised to bring me.”

I did not promise you, Elwing thought.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Elwing.

“Are you?” The wolf began to pace back and forth, but such was his size that he could only manage two steps before he reached the width of the path and had to turn around. The muscles in his shoulders rippled thickly with the movement.

“Indeed I am,” she said. “I would know of lost family—”

“Then why have you not brought it to me!” the wolf snarled. Elwing quailed inwardly, flinching at the noise.

“Because I do not have it,” she said. “And still I do not know what this jewel looks like.”

“You would know it,” the wolf insisted. He stared up at her, his eyes boring into hers. “It is very valuable,” he said softly. “Beyond measure, in fact. It comes from a land you have never seen, presided over by the divine powers. Many have coveted it, and many have died for it. Do you know what I think?”

Elwing could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. Silently she begged the necklace to protect her as it had done before.

“What?” she asked.

“That you are lying to me!” The wolf lunged at her and Elwing screamed, throwing herself backwards. The wolf’s paws hit the ground where she had been, but he made no further advances, though she must have made an easy target sitting in the dirt. She realized she had wet herself, but this humiliation only girded her anger.

“I am not lying!” she said.

“I think you have what I want,” the wolf said quietly, lowering his head, his stiff ears angling back. “Do you know why? Because your father had it. In fact, he stole it from me.”

“That’s not true!” Elwing shouted immediately. “My father was not a thief!”

“Oh, your father was a thief and your grandmother was a thief and your great-grandfather too! A whole line eager to grasp what they could never make themselves!” The wolf’s hackles were rising, the coarse fur bristling along his spine. Elwing found she could not look away from his eyes; she was pulled to them, as if there was something her mind was trying to tell her, something that drew her thoughts back to her muddled nightmares.

“No one in my family is a thief,” Elwing insisted, pushing herself up to her feet. She wished she had done as her younger self had done and brought a knife. Perhaps it wouldn’t have helped her at all—but she might’ve felt braver with it. “My—perhaps you lost this jewel on your own!”

The wolf paused, his tail flicking, and then a terrible look that vaguely resembled amusement crossed onto his face.

“Things do tend to become lost in these woods,” he agreed, and those eyes that had decorated her worst dreams pinned her to the ground. “Many and valuable things. Hasn’t your nurse warned you of that? And hasn’t she told you,” he went on, flexing his claws against the earth, “that wolves do not travel alone?”

Evranin’s warnings echoed in Elwing’s head. Her alarmed gaze snapped up to the woods, away from the red wolf, and peering at the scene from the gloom beyond the path behind him were three more sets of eyes, alike to those of the red wolf.

The pack, she thought, swallowing a whimper. There was a rustling and a slightly smaller, russet-colored wolf began to emerge, but the red wolf gave one lash of his tail and the russet beast subsided back among the leaves.

“I do not have what you are looking for,” she asserted, her voice trembling despite her best efforts. “If you have lost something here, you should look in the Thousan—”

“Ah! As if we have not already delved Thingol’s warrens for our treasure!” snapped the wolf. “Many years has it been since it was lost to us—if it were here, we would know it.” He sat down, still unnervingly large, and relaxed his shoulders. “You must forgive my temper,” he said mildly, in a jarring shift of tone. “It is a terrible stress, you know, trying to maintain the legacy of your family. You must be familiar with the feeling.”

There were certainly those who expected a great deal from her, but Evranin made sure that too much pressure was not placed on her, and she had the council to rely on also, who still took care of most practical things, given her age. It was her duty, and most days she was content to do it. She and Eärendil spoke of this at times, though he had Lady Idril still to carry the mantle of Gondolin and the line of Fingolfin and Anairë.

“It can be hard,” she allowed, wanting to cultivate this calmer avenue of conversation and hopefully win her escape.

“This jewel was made at my father’s own forge, by his hand,” said the wolf. “He is lost to us now, but this was his greatest achievement. So you must understand how it pains me not to have it in our possession.” When Elwing hesitated to respond, the wolf went on: “Truthfully, your father was likely not aware of its true value. And of course, what it means to me and my family.”

Elwing wanted to agree, because agreeing with the wolf seemed her best chance to not die, but she could not bring herself to even imply her father was any kind of thief.

“But you do understand, don’t you?” the wolf said, curling his tail around his paws as if he were one of the fluffy sheep hounds back in town. Elwing’s eyes darted back to the bushes behind him, but if the other three wolves were still there, they had retreated so she saw not even their eyes—or they had moved around behind her. “You see how easy it would be to fix my problem, and how much it would mean to me. You’re a clever girl, aren’t you, Elwing?”

Perhaps it was being spoken to as if she were a child still learning her alphabet that steeled her spine.

“I understand,” she said, wishing she could speak aloud as angrily as she did in her head.

“Good,” said the red wolf, inclining his head briefly. Elwing exhaled silently, thinking their encounter at an end; soon she would be on her way, and indeed the red wolf moved aside, so that he was no longer blocking the path forward. “And of course you of all people appreciate the danger of these woods for children,” he added as Elwing began to move past him. She halted, hearing the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. “You must have been very fortunate not to meet the same fate as your brothers. Your nurse must be very brave.” Elwing’s tongue tasted of iron.

“She is,” she whispered. “She protected me.” The jewel felt like it was humming against her breast; she would not have been surprised to feel it vibrate.

            Elwing did not remember the fall of the kingdom of Doriath, but she knew that it had come about in the darkness around the winter solstice, and she knew herself how far temperatures plummeted after dark that time of year, even in the woods. Far too cold for children.

            “As any noble nurse would,” said the wolf most graciously. “And look how you have grown under her care! Old enough to look after yourself now, aren’t you?”

            “I still have much to learn,” Elwing demurred, as Evranin would have appreciated.

            “Clever and wise, then,” said the wolf. Elwing remained tense, but he allowed a lengthy pause before speaking again. “I can see that you have kept our meetings to yourself. This too, is wise. You and I, as scions of royalty, understand these complicated situations, where others may not grasp them. And your nurse surely has enough on her mind without my problems adding to her woes. I would not wish to trouble her.”

            Elwing was not sure what to say to that, except that she was not certain this praise was a good thing, so she said nothing, merely nodded and carried on her way. She did not ask what he meant about his being a “scion of royalty.”

“You will remember our bargain?” he called when she was a yard or so from him.

            “I remember,” Elwing replied.

            When she arrived at her aunt’s house, she felt so exhausted she nearly collapsed the moment she crossed the threshold. Blessedly, when she made noise to her aunt about laundry, the woman assumed it was her menses—which came horribly irregularly for Elwing, which Evranin (who was an Elf, and knew nothing about menstruating) said tentatively must be her strange blood, and on which the Men in the village generally agreed—and asked no questions. She also respected Elwing’s privacy enough to let the girl wash her things herself, rather than insisting on doing it for her, for which Elwing was intensely grateful.

            As she scrubbed, she replayed again and again her conversation with the red wolf. How had he known about the deaths of Eluréd and Elurín? Why pick her to ask about this mystical jewel of his? There was a simple explanation, but it seemed too coincidental to believe. Could they be the same wolf pack who had slain her family? And if so, she wondered with alarm, was it true that he knew she had the necklace (for she was by then nearly certain that her own magic jewel was the one sought by the red wolf)? Yet it was so that the necklace itself had been made by the Dwarvish allies of Finrod Felagund of Nargothrond, and the jewel rescued at great risk by Elwing’s own grandmother, a tale she had been told countless times and could now recite herself with considerable accuracy.

            Turning these thoughts in her mind, she spoke little for the rest of the night.

            When she went to bed, she expected to dream of the wolf and his terrible teeth, but instead, she found herself lost in Menegroth, running through the winding tunnels, calling out for her mother and father, for Eluréd and Elurín, but all she heard was the thin echo of her voice and her own footsteps around the empty halls. Eventually she came to the throne room and here dread pooled in her stomach—for when she opened the door, surely she would see the bodies of her parents, who had of course been killed in these halls, but her hand moved against her will and pushed open the door. When she entered the room, though, it was empty, as if no one had ever been there at all.

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