wolf as it reared up and tried to throw Franco off its back. “Run!” Franco shouted, hanging on by his bloody fingernails.
Mikhail got up, snow all over him. He began running, the last few inches of the broken stick falling from his hand. Snowflakes whirled around him, like dancing angels. His shoulder throbbed, the muscles deeply bruised. He looked back, saw the berserker shake itself in a violent frenzy. Franco lost his grip and was flung off. The berserker tensed to leap on Franco’s body and finish him, but Mikhail stopped. “Hey!” he shouted, and the berserker’s head angled toward him, its single eye blazing.
Something blazed within Mikhail as well. He felt it, like a fire that had opened at his center, and to save Franco’s life-and his own-he would have to reach into those white-hot flames, and grasp what had been forged.
I want it, he thought, and he fixed on the image of his hand twisting into a claw, the picture of it radiant in his mind. He thought he heard an inner wall, like wild winds unleashed. Pinpricks of pain swept up his spine. I want it. Steam drifted from his pores. He shivered, pressure squeezing his organs. His heart pounded. He felt pain in the muscles of his arms and legs, a terrible clenching pain around his skull. Something cracked in his jaw, and he heard himself moan.
The berserker watched him, transfixed by the sight, its jaws still open and ready to break Franco’s neck.
Mikhail lifted his right hand. It was covered with sleek black hair, and the fingers had retracted into white claws. I want it. The black hair raced up his arm. His left hand was changing. His head felt as if it were caught in an iron vise, and his jaw was lengthening with brittle cracking sounds. I want it. There was no turning back now, no denying the change. Mikhail threw his deerskin cloak off, and it slithered to the snow. He fumbled with his sandals, barely got them off before his feet began to contort. He fell, off balance, and went down on his rump.
The berserker sniffed the air. It made a grunting noise, and watched the thing take shape.
Black hair scurried over Mikhail’s chest and shoulders. It entwined his throat and covered his face. His jaw and nose were lengthening into a muzzle, and his fangs burst free with such force they slashed the inside of his mouth and made blood and saliva drool. His backbone bent, with stunning pain. His legs and arms shortened, grew thick with muscle. Sinews and cartilage popped and cracked. Mikhail shuddered, his body thrashing as if getting rid of the last human elements. His tail, slick with fluids, had thrust from the dark growth at the base of his spine, and now it twitched in the air as Mikhail got on all fours. His muscles continued to quiver like harp strings, his nerves aflame. Musky-smelling fluids oozed over his pelt. His testicles had drawn up like hard stones, and were covered with coarse hair. His right ear rippled with hair and began to change into a triangular cup, but the left ear malfunctioned; it simply remained the ear of a human boy. The pain intensified, bordering on the edge of pleasure, and then rapidly subsided. Mikhail started to call to Franco, to tell him to crawl away; he opened his mouth, and the high yip that came out scared him.
He thanked God he couldn’t see himself, but the shock in the berserker’s eye told him enough. He had willed the change, and it was on him.
Mikhail’s bladder let go, streaking yellow across the white. He saw the berserker dismiss him, and start to lean over Franco again. Franco had passed out, was unable to defend himself. Mikhail bounded forward, got his forelegs and hind legs tangled up, and he went down on his belly. He got up once more, shaky as a newborn. He shouted at the berserker; it emerged as a thin growl that didn’t even snag the red wolf’s attention. Mikhail leaped clumsily over the snow, lost his footing, and fell again, but then he was right beside the wolf and he did it without thinking: he opened his jaws, and sank his fangs into the berserker’s ear. As the animal roared and twisted away, Mikhail tore the ear off to its fleshy roots.
The berserker staggered, stunned by the fresh pain. Mikhail had the ear between his teeth; his throat convulsed, blood in his mouth, and he swallowed the wolf’s ear. The berserker spun in a mad circle, snapping at the air. Mikhail turned, the twitching of his tail almost throwing him off his paws again, and he ran.
His legs betrayed him. The ground was right in his face, and all perspective was bizarre. He stumbled, slid over the snow on his stomach, scrambled up, and tried to flee, but matching the movement of four legs was a mystery. He heard the berserker’s rumbled breath right behind him, and he knew it was about to leap; he feinted to the left and swerved to the right, skidding off balance once more. The berserker jumped past him, digging up a flurry of snow as it fought to change direction. Mikhail struggled up, the hair bristling along his back; he swerved violently again, his spine amazingly supple. He heard the click of fangs as the berserker’s jaws narrowly missed his flank. And then Mikhail, his legs trembling, turned to face the red beast, snow whirling into the air between them. The berserker rushed at him, snorting steam and blood. Mikhail planted his paws, his legs splayed and his heart seemingly about to explode. The berserker, expecting his enemy to dodge to either side, suddenly checked his speed and dug his paws into the snow, and Mikhail reared up on his hind legs like a human being and lunged forward.
His jaws opened, an instinctual movement that Mikhail couldn’t remember triggering. He clamped them on the berserker’s muzzle and crunched his fangs down through hair and flesh into cartilage and bone. As he bit deeply, he brought his left claw up in a savage arc and raked the talons across the berserker’s remaining eye.
The beast howled, blinded, and twisted his body to throw the small wolf off, but Mikhail held tight. The berserker lifted up, hesitated for only an instant, and then smashed down on Mikhail. He felt a rib snap, a crushing pain jabbing through him, but the snow again saved his spine. The berserker lifted up again, and as the beast rose to his full height Mikhail released his grip on the bleeding muzzle and scrambled away, the pain of his broken rib almost stealing his breath.
The berserker clawed the air with blind fury. He raced in a circle, trying to find Mikhail, and slammed his red skull against the trunk of an oak tree. Dazed, the beast whirled around, fangs snapping at nothing. Mikhail backed away from him, to give the thing plenty of room, and he stood near Franco, his shoulders slumped to ease the pain in his rib cage. The berserker gave an enraged series of grunts, snorting blood, and then he spun to right and left, the crushed nose seeking a scent.
A russet shape shot across the snow and crashed headlong into the berserker’s side. Renati’s claws flailed ribbons of red hair and flesh, and the berserker was thrown into a tangle of thorns. Before the berserker could grasp her, Renati darted away again and circled warily. Another wolf-this one blond, with ice-blue eyes-leaped in from the berserker’s other side, and Alekza raked a claw along the berserker’s flank. As he turned to snap at her, Alekza bounded away and Renati darted in to seize one of the berserker’s hind legs between her teeth. Her head twisted, and the berserker’s leg snapped. Then Renati scrambled away as the red wolf staggered on three legs. Alekza lunged forward, grasped the beast’s remaining ear, and ripped it away. She danced back as the berserker clawed at her, but his movements were getting sluggish. He went a few paces in one direction, stopped and turned in another, and behind him he left bright splotches of crimson on the snow.
But he was strong. Mikhail stood back and watched as Renati and Alekza wore him down, the death of a thousand bites and scratches. The berserker at last tried to run, dragging the broken leg behind him. Renati slammed into his side, knocking him to the ground, and crushed a foreleg between her jaws as Alekza gripped his tail. The berserker struggled to rise, and Renati drove her talons into his belly and ripped him open with a grace that was almost beautiful. The berserker shivered, and lay writhing on the bloody white. Renati leaned forward, seizing the red wolf’s unprotected throat between her fangs. The berserker made no effort to fight back. Mikhail saw Renati’s sleek muscles tense-and then she released the throat and stepped away. She and Alekza both looked at Mikhail.
He didn’t understand at first. Why hadn’t Renati torn the throat out? But then it dawned on him as the two wolves stared impassively: they were offering the kill to him.
“Go on,” Franco said, a raspy whisper. He was sitting up, his torn hands clenched to his shoulder. Mikhail was amazed on a new level; he’d understood the human voice as clearly as ever. “Take the kill,” Franco told him. “It’s yours.”
Renati and Alekza waited as the snowflakes drifted to earth. Mikhail saw it in their eyes: this was expected of him. He walked forward, his legs slipping and ungainly, and he stood over the conquered red wolf.
The berserker was more than twice his size. He was an old wolf, some of his hair gone gray. His muscles were thick, carved from struggle. The red skull lifted, as if listening to Mikhail’s heartbeat. Blood oozed from the holes where the eyes had been, and a crushed paw feebly scarred the snow.
He’s asking for death, Mikhail realized. He’s lying there, pleading for it.
The berserker made a deep groaning noise, the sound of a caged soul. Mikhail felt it leap within him: not savagery, but mercy.
