As the Crow Flies

Chapter 4: Wolves

Alina heard sniffing and snarling and more crashing and thrashing around the walls of the building. She opened her eyes and waited a moment while things came into focus. The fire had died down low, but the sky was beginning to lighten into the gray of predawn. Alina managed to pull herself up into a sitting position. She felt around and found her pocket knife under her left leg, the good leg, hidden previously because it was beneath her. She put the knife on her lap and opened the bandana on her right leg to have a look at her snakebite. It was still swollen and discolored, but she could tell that her fever was gone. She wondered how long she had been lying around. She felt very stiff, and her back was hurting from lying on the hard ground for so long.

The strange man appeared in the doorway, and Alina could hear the raucous beasts panting and snapping behind him. He stepped inside and spoke to them the way he had before, causing them to stay out. Then he turned around and saw Alina. "You're awake," he said. "I'm glad. For a while there, I wasn't sure you were going to come back."

"For a while, neither was I," Alina answered, her voice raspy and unrecognizable to her as her own. "Do you have wolves with you?" she asked.

"Wolves?" the man said. "What makes you think I have wolves?"

"I heard howling a few times," Alina said. "It sounded like wolf howling."

"I have dogs," the man told her. "Three of them."

"Show me," Alina said, remembering that the bird had called them wolves. It may have just been a feverish hallucination while she was suffering through the worst part of her snakebite, but she couldn't help being suspicious. "Will they bite? Let them come inside so I can see these... 'dogs.'"

The man hesitated, but then he turned slowly to the door. "Maisie, Buck, Jack," he said. "Come." Three tall, lean canines bounded through the doorway and pawed against their master, hopping and slobbering against him before they turned their attention toward Alina. "No," the man said firmly. "Down. Sit." The animals all lay down, halfway to Alina, but the one nearest her whined and continued to stretch its nose toward her, sniffing the air and trying to investigate her.

"Those look an awful lot like wolves," Alina said. She studied their tall lanky bodies, long thin legs, large pointed ears, and gray fur with tan legs and snouts. They were each almost identical to the wolf she had seen while she was unconscious, when the bird had finally spoken to her.

"They're dogs," the man said again. "Actually, they're wolfdogs. But that just means that they look like wolves and have a wolfish howl, which you heard already, I guess. But they're as sweet as any dog, and they wouldn't hurt anyone. People who think any differently are idiots."

"I'm guessing that's a sore subject with you," Alina said.

"Yeah, I guess so," the man replied. "I had a big pointed-eared dog with shaggy fur that would wander off into the woods and be gone for days sometimes. One day he came home with a she-wolf mate that came and went as she pleased. The wolf eventually got shot by a neighbor who claimed it was killing his livestock at night. But by then, she had a litter of pups. I raised them myself, and now they're my hunting team. Meet Maisie, the leader..." he pointed at the smallest of the wolfdogs, a female. "Jack, the smart brother..." he indicated the one closest to him. "And that one closest to you is Buck, the brute strength." The nearest canine was indeed bulkier than the others. "And my name's Luke Brightwood," the man said.

Alina finally turned her attention from the dogs to the man and really studied him for the first time. He was fairly young, probably not too far above her own age. He had short, sandy to light brown hair, depending on how the firelight reflected on it. He was moderately tall and dressed in tan leather with short fringing at the edges. His eyes looked gray from the distance he stood from her, but Alina suspected they were blue in better lighting. She noticed he seemed to be waiting for something, so she said, "I'm Alina Glenoak, and I like animals. So release the hounds and allow them to come over here and keep me warm."