Little Red Riding Hood

This one got a little darker than I was expecting it to. Just be warned.

Rachel awoke to a crack, and the sound of bleating sheep. It had been a loud splintery crack, and it wasn’t the normal sound sheep make, not the bleating of hunger or cold, not the discontent jostling of being stuck in a pen together all night. This was fearful bleating. The sound of a sheep that knows that it is about to die.

If she had been a woman she might have responded differently, wondering what predator smelling her and her kin would dare to attack their sheep. Wild things know better than that, and that left goblins, or any of the other rabble that raided from time to time. A woman would have looked before acting, thought before leaping, but Rachel was not a woman. In a moment she was up, howling the alarm, leaping the gate. Rachel was a wolf.

Nensalit was a bear. He was larger than anything she had ever seen before. Lean sides that belied the fact that bears should be asleep for another month at least. Paws as big as her head, jaws that could crush her in one ferocious bite. He stood in the remnants of the gate, splintered maple at his feet. Sheep bleating around him.

Her hackles went up, and she growled low and menacing. Holding her ground. Not showing fear. All she had to do was hold on until her pack arrived. They’d heard. Bears aren’t supposed to eat sheep. Not around here. This bear wasn’t from around here though. He was too big. Too big.

She heard answering howls as the giant bear lashed out with a single paw and decapitated a sheep. She had never seen a head come off a body like that, ripped by the shere focussed force of it. He didn’t even pause to feed. Only stalked forward another step, lashed out, another sheep fell. She backed up now. He wasn’t focussed on the sheep, only her. His eyes were crazy, red rimmed, and he smelled like rage. The sheep smelled the blood now and were milling wildly. Trying to get away. Rachel turned into a woman.

Human mind was different from wolf mind. She still had the sense of where everything had been, the smell of blood was still there but it didn’t fill her nostrils now making it harder to think. She unlatched the gate with her fingers, fumbling in the cold, and pushed it open getting out of the way as the sheep stampeded. The bear seemed unhurried, focussed on her. She grabbed a bucket and threw it at his face. It hit, clattered off, he gave her a token roar, but it didn’t slow him. She was backing up, grabbing a pitchfork.

Tell me, he said big bear mouth opening and closing, When you die will you become a wolf or a woman?
“Whatever I die as,” she said through gritted teeth.
I like eating humans, he said, but I also like killing wolves. What a treat either way.

A flash of grey came at his back leg, it was Reece, he had his jaws sunk into the great bear’s leg, locked tight so he would stay even in death. The bear turned. Rachel hurled her pitchfork at his eye, it struck - and now he really roared. His paw lashed out and he struck a support beam tumbling the barn down on them. He swung around to lash at Reece and Mary who had been crouching on one side sprang at his throat, sinking her jaws into his jugular. Rachel, struggling free of hay and lumber could almost taste the blood, the sweetness of the kill. She heard her sisters and brothers howling around her in victory.

But too soon. The bear reared up he swatted Mary, and Rachel saw her body go limp, and felt her presence leave the pack. Reece took a sideswipe and his teeth shattered in his jaw as he flew unconscious to the side. Blood ran down the bear’s face. He growled loud, challenging, the six or so living wolves backed off, circling warily. Rachel howled a call in case the others hadn’t felt the death. Come. This is a threat that will take all our strength.

They came. Father and mother. Her aunts and uncles, all of her cousins, they came. The bear turned slowly surveying them all. As he did, he began laughing, high and maniacal, a sound that seemed wrong coming from a bear’s mouth. A gunshot rang out. He jerked to one side, as the bullet penetrated, then another from the other side, and a third. The pack had not fallen behind the times, and Winter’s Soldiers had the best weaponry they could get their hands on. Men and women rose in the Kevlar harnesses that switched easily from form to form, pulling out the guns they stowed there, and firing.

Still the bear stood. Held alive by ancient magics or unflinching malice Rachel couldn’t tell. He charged one side of the line, killing Henry with a crunching bite, scattering his kin. Rachel turned wolf again, dove, just a nip at his leg, just enough to get his attention, but faster than lightning there was his paw, clipping her shoulder, dislocating the bone and sending her tumbling with the brutish strength of him.

It was just then that they felt Mav die. She had been left behind to guard the main house. The pack felt the trap to late, and Nensalit charged at Father, taking him up in his huge jaws as if he were a feather. A volley of bullets followed him, but he shook them off, charging faster than the wolves could follow up the hill. At the top he paused. The pack watched in horror as an orc came up behind him holding a box the pack all knew.

Terry had already unstrung his rifle and fitted the scope, swearing, he took aim and fired, the orc fell, taken in the throat, but Nensalit grabbed the box and splintered it open, pulling the collar, the leash, the magic that would bind them all to his command, the magic they had gotten back when the winter queen fell, the magic they had sworn to never let fall into another’s hands again - he forced father’s limp neck through the band, and growled Enough!

The pack of dogs put down their guns and awaited the next order. As the rest of the Orcs came out of the house with their plunder - food from the cellar, the big screen TV. There had been a Warden in the room where the leash had been held, sleeping off her last great battle of two hundred years before, and Rachel saw a small Orc awkwardly wearing her armor and carrying her sword. Rachel wondered if they had killed her too.

Nensalit passed the leash to the largest Orc and beckoned with a sideways lean of his head. They came down the hill together to the waiting dogs.

You there, young one - He said, beckoning to Ann. She was in wolf form and came up to him slinking, tail between her legs like a whipped pup. I want you on two legs. She changed at once, posture still subservient.

Die. He told her. She pulled her gun from its kevlar case, put it to her head, and fired. Crumpling as the shot was still ringing in all their ears. Nensalit bent and began eating as the rest stood in obedience. Rachel passed out in pain.

When she awoke, she found that it was dusk, and the others were gone. She listened for orders and found there were none. They had gone beyond the pack’s hunting grounds - beyond the pull of the alpha wolf. She blinked. She wasn’t bound by any orders. She wasn’t held by the bear’s will until they came back. Reece was still lying unconscious to one side. The orcs must have taken the sheep but they’d left the dead and dying wolves.

She changed into a woman, wolf, woman, wolf, woman, in a flicker so fast that an untrained eye wouldn’t have been able to follow. Each transformation healed a little, skin and bone forgetting where it had been before and aligning instead to its proper place. A single transformation took something out of you, leaving you vaguely hungry and a little tired, but the exhaustion this brought was worth it. For the good of her pack she needed to leave. Now.

She ran up to the homestead. The orcs had trashed the place, taking everything they could immediately see of value, but they had missed a lot. She quickly found one of the wolf harnesses, packed with emergency food and supplies, and put it on. Then she searched out the red cloak - the orcs had left it of course - they wouldn’t know its value, and packed it away. She grabbed and ate a handful of chips, turned back into a wolf, and made for the forest. The scent trail was west, hopefully they wouldn’t have doubled around. By the time she smelled them she would be in range and have no chance but to obey. Her best bet was distance.

Yet she went South knowing the risks. After she crossed Landes she awkwardly put the cloak on over her shaggy grey coat, announcing herself to the watchers, and showing herself to be a friend, and not someone trying to sneak onto the land. She hoped that once she got into the heart of Grandmother’s land she would be safe.

The first watcher saw her about a minute after she entered the woods. The owl swooped low over her head, inspecting her and her gear.

“Who?” it asked.
I’m Rachel, she sent. Great ill has befallen my pack and I need to talk to Grandmother.

The owl swooped off on silent wings.

She saw others and knew there were still more she did not see. The branches were full of glowing eyes. The roots skittering with the tiny voices. She smelled a fox once, but he avoided her. Grandmother had had other visitors tonight it seemed.

It was about an hour into the great forest, through the winding corridors of trees, before she came on the house. A tree that towered above the others, carved into a tower with winding staircases leading up to the top. From the top she could see strange green light spilling across the branches, and reflecting across the silvery leaves of the great tree. Mist poured out of the windows and down the trunk to pool ominously around the base. Owls swooped and dove in a mad but silent dance. Rachel braced herself and continued forward.

She changed into a woman to climb the steps. Taking it slow to notice what was here with her human mind. She couldn’t see as well in the dark but she could see the pawprints, wing smears, noses dipped in ink and drawn across the bark, the oaths of thousands of animals to obey. She saw the faintly glowing glyphs of more potent promises higher up, elementals offering some piece of their power.

A magical script wound its way across the wood, and she could almost make out some of the words - old salish borrowing a dozen alphabets. She saw the flowing script of the fair folk mixed with clunky english letters and old norse runes. It seemed indiscriminate, chaotic, arbitrary, but she felt the power of this place and the promises it held. Grandmother was not to be trifled with.

It was with this sense that she knocked on the door. Once, twice, three times, and waited.

“Come in Rachel,” Grandmother said after a pause. It was not that she would not have known Rachel was coming. Her spies would have told her the moment Rachel was spotted, and they both knew this. It was just that Grandmother had an instinct to remind everyone around her of her power. Rachel opened the door, feeling the thrill of ancient magics beneath her fingers as she turned the knob. “Hello Grandmother.”

The giant owl looked down at her from where she roosted on a great beam, set across the room for that purpose. Size often equated with power among the ancient races, and this one was certainly old. Like the rest of her pack, Rachel had been brought here many times as a pup to hear her talk about the times before they were all hidden away. She was that old.

“I’m told that great ill has befallen your pack?” The huge bird ruffled her feathers, cocking her head to one side.
Rachel bowed her head. “We are leashed again.”
Grandmother’s head snapped up in alarm, her drooping eyes open and alert at once.
“By whose order do you come to me?!”
“By my own, Grandmother. I was injured in the fight and left behind when the pack traveled west with their new master.”
“Who?” Asked the owl again.
“I do not know his name. A huge bear with immense strength who did not die to our bullets or our fangs.”
The great owl considered for a moment. “Too many creatures could match that description. There are many ancient bears, and many more who could set a glamor in that form.”
“We sank enough teeth into him that I think I can safely say he was all flesh and blood. It was a shapeshifter if that wasn’t his true form.”
“It could be Raven weaving a disguise for all we know. He has always coveted that leash,” Grandmother mused.
“I don’t think it was Raven,” Rachel said. “He made Ann . . . kill herself and . . . ate -” She wasn’t used to crying. She was a warrior, a soldier, tough in the face of calamity. She should be able to talk rationally about their deaths, reason out the perpetrator and the best way to wreak vengeance. Her kind got angry, not sad.

Still the tears came. She tried to choke the words through. “This . . . not a trickster . . . a monster.” The great owl blinked down at her as if, perhaps, being unaccustomed to young women coming and crying on her rune wrought floor, but then she leaned forward and spread out her wings to make a protective tent around Rachel as she bawled. The wings pulled her close and she buried her head in her teacher’s soft belly feathers. Grandmother made a soft sound, almost a purr, almost a cluck - deep in her beak as Rachel continued to cry. She didn’t know how long she cried, but she was still buried in feathers when she caught her breath and the sobs trailed out. Grandmother was still making that sound, as if soothing a little owl chicklet. Rachel smelled the scent of the feathers, felt the warmth of the skin beneath, took a deep breath, and extricated herself.

“Reece is still unconscious at the farm. I didn’t dare stay, and I don’t dare go back. If I come in thought range of that leash . . . “
“I will send someone to go fetch him,” Grandmother promised, her voice still soft, with a hint of trill. “I think we should talk on this more after you have eaten and gotten some rest.”
“I can stay?” Rachel enquired, eyes wide, with almost the beginning of a smile.
“This is the safest place for you child. You can stay as long as you need.”
“Thank you!” She had hoped for, but not counted on this kindness.
“Grandmother gave her best impression of a smile with a beak, “Now, I must send out scouts and see if I can gather up the souls of your fallen comrades to see if they have anything to tell me before they depart.”

A squirrel came in and beckoned Rachel to another room in the great complex of the tower. It silently showed her a pile of leaves she could curl up in, and offered her some nuts to regain her strength. She thanked it, and thought to herself that tomorrow she would have to ask permission to hunt. Grandmother was picky about who lived and who died on her land, since so many animals here were hers by the promises she’d extracted from them. After eating the nuts, and a little meat from her rations, she made her way outside to relieve herself, and looked up at the waning moon. A howl wrenched from her, sad and mournful, answered by barking dogs, and some distant coyotes, but blessedly no wolves.

She wondered where they were, her pack. She wondered if she had ever been alone like this before. She wondered if she were the only remaining wolf, the last free member of her kind - and with that thought she howled again.