Royal Assassin

We go, trotting through the gathering darkness. A rabbit sits up suddenly, scampers away across the snow. Shall we? No. Belly is full. Trot on. Cross a man’s path, an open empty strip under the night sky. We fade across it swiftly, trot on through the woods that border it.

Come to me. Come. Nighteyes, Changer, I summon you. Come to me.

The forest ends. There is a cleared hillside below us, and beyond that a flat bare place, shelterless under the night sky. Too open. The crusted snow is untracked, but at the bottom of the hill, there are humans. Two. Heart of the Pack digs while another watches. Heart of the Pack digs fast and hard. His breath smokes in the night. The other has a light, a too bright light that shrinks the eye to behold. Heart of the Pack stops his digging. He looks up at us.

Come, he says. Come.

He jumps into the hole he has dug. There is black earth, frozen chunks of it, atop the clean snow. He lands with a thud like deer antlers on a tree. He crouches and there is a tearing sound. He uses a tool that thuds and tears. We settle down to watch him, wrapping tail around to warm front feet. What has this to do with us? We are full, we could go to sleep now. He looks up at us suddenly through the night.

Wait. A moment longer. Wait.

He growls to the other, and that one holds the light to the hole. Heart of the Pack bends his back and the other reaches to help him. They drag something from the hole. The smell of it sets our hackles ajar. We turn, we leap to run, we circle, we cannot leave. There is a fear here, there is a danger, a threat of pain, of loneliness, of endings.

Come. Come down to us here, come down. We need you now. It is time.

This is not time. Time is always, is everywhere. You need us, but perhaps we do not want to be needed. We have meat, and a warm place to sleep, and even more meat for another time. With a full belly and a warm den, what else is to be needed? Yet. We will go closer. We will snuff it, we will see what it is that threatens and beckons. Belly to snow, tail low, we slink down the hill.

Heart of the Pack sits in the snow holding it. He motions the other away, and that one steps back, back, back taking his painful light with him. Closer. The hill is behind us now, bare, shelterless. It is a far run back to hiding if we are threatened. But nothing moves. There is only Heart of the Pack and that which he holds. It smells of old blood. He shakes it, as if to worry off apiece of meat. Then he rubs at it, moving his hands like a bitch’s teeth go over a cub to rid it of fleas. We know the smell of it. Closer we come. Closer. It is but a leap away.

What do you want? We demand of him.

Come back.

We have come.

Come back here. Changer. He is insistent. Come back to this. He lifts an arm, holds up a hand. He shows us a head lolling on his shoulder. He turns its head to show us its face. We do not know it.

That?

This. This is yours, Changer.

It smells bad. It is spoiled meat, we do not want it. There is better meat by the pond than that.

Come here. Come closer.

This is not a good idea. We will come no closer. He looks at us and grips us with his eyes. He edges closer to us, bringing it with him. It flops in his arms.

Easy. Easy. This is yours, Changer. Come closer.

We snarl, but he does not look away. We cower, tail to belly, wanting to leave, but he is strong. He takes its hand and puts it on our head. He holds the scruff of our neck to still us.

Come back. You must come back. He is so insistent.

We cower down, digging claws into the snowy earth. Humping our back, we try to pull away, struggle to take one step backward. He still holds on to the scruff of our neck. We gather strength to wheel and break away.

Let him go, Nighteyes. He is not yours. A hint of teeth in those words, his eyes stare at us too hard.

He is not yours, either, Nighteyes says.

Whose am I, then?

A moment of teetering, of balancing between two worlds, two realities, two fleshes. Then a wolf wheels and flees, tail tucked, over the snow, running away alone, fleeing from too much strangeness. Atop a hill he stops, to point his nose at the sky and howl. Howl for the unfairness of it all.