The Pack Read Online Free PDF Page B

for them. So these settlers in the Land of Wolves who had sung their hunting songs as they roasted the stripped wolves over spits by the lakeside, by morning held their stomachs, as something inside them harried their own flesh, circling and stabbing. And at night they clutched at the howling in their heads that would only stop when they staggered out of their cabins and turned their worn faces to the moon.
    â€œSome tried to return to the city, but they were shunned for their babbled horror stories. Others accepted their curse and took to a life in the forest. Half man, half wolf, they are at home in the worlds of neither, yet the darkness of the forest can at least cloak their shame.”
    Beyond the brazier’s glow, Bradley saw the wolf men circling in the shadows. They were slim and sinewy, their movements graceful. What was human and what wolf was a blur to him, but when they turned to the light, Bradley saw their sharp ears twitch, as their human lips told him of a loneliness that made him shiver.
    The Old Woman was holding out her palms. “Now. What is the world made of?”
    â€œAshes. Dust.”
    And the first few flakes of snow fell, dampening what ashes and dust the breeze did not blow away. She wiped her hands on her skirts.
    â€œAshes and dust … All worlds … All worlds … But what cannot crumble, what cannot burn or be broken?”
    â€œStories.”
    â€œStories. Now be gone and let an old woman get some sleep.”

5
    THE ATTACK
    Floris’s cough was getting worse. An early winter had taken root in her chest and in the night she rasped herself awake. Victor was so used to it by now that he slept through it, though at times in his sleep, he cuddled himself against her when she coughed.
    Even in the darkness, Floris could see how Victor’s face changed in sleep, how the tension that kept his jaw tight all day left him—and the harsh years of experience fell from him. She slipped out of his arm and came over to where Bradley was lying. Hunger watched her. She stifled another cough and touched Bradley’s shoulder.
    â€œYou said you’d tell my story tonight,” she whispered.
    â€œWe had a story,” Bradley said.
    â€œYes, but you said my story. You said.” Tears stood in the rims of her eyes.
    â€œYes, all right. But there’s not much to tell.”
    â€œI know, but it’s mine.”
    â€œAll right.”
    Floris smiled and sat back on her heels.
    â€œYour name is Floris because you were born beside a florist’s shop.”
    â€œWhat is a florist’s shop?”
    Bradley knew all the questions Floris would ask, as she knew all his answers. It made no difference. There was not much to tell, but this was one way to make it more.
    â€œA shop where they sell flowers.”
    â€œTell me, what flowers did they sell in my shop?”
    â€œThere were huge vases of roses, the size of both my fists—yellow, red and pink—all the colours you could think of. And lilies—lilies white as snow, the size of trumpets.”
    Fearless had found Floris in the doorway of a shop with a missing T. It was long past the time when anyone in the Zones bought flowers—you couldn’t live on flowers, after all—and the shop now pretended to be a butcher’s. It sold the occasional pig’s trotter, a cow’s tail that could be boiled for soup. The butcher let Floris sit in the doorway during the day. “Brings in the custom,” he used to say. For a while, at any rate, beneath the grime, you could still tell she was a pretty child. “Though looks still need fed,” he’d said. It was a common expression of hard-nosed sympathy for those who had struggled to keep a child.
    Floris would find scraps of meat for Fearless and one day Fearless brought her to the basement. It was warmer than the butcher’s doorway and she had not wanted to leave. Bradley, seeing what she was like with