“Brann, what are you doing?” gasped Coll.
“What?” Brann asked. “That’s Wolf.”
“No it’s not!”
Brann seemed genuinely confused. “Yes it is. That’s what Wolf is.”
Coll drew a long breath. He resisted the urge to rub his face again. “That’s… OK, maybe that’s what it seemed like when you were fighting her. But that’s not Wolf.” She stared at him. “Here, look at mine,” he said. She closed her eyes to listen to the song, and then opened them again immediately.
“That?” she snorted. “That’s what you think Wolf is? The shadow of evening? Hahaha!”
Coll clamped his lips together. “That,” he said carefully, “is what you need to think. And if you don’t, then we will never leave here, and we will never catch Dragon, and you will never see your crew ever again.”
She stopped laughing. When she spoke again, her voice was subdued.
“OK,” she muttered.
Coll felt bad. That had been cruel, hadn’t it? He coughed and shook his head. “OK, well, we’ll try again,” he said gruffly. “Fillan, good work – but remember: Wolf not Boar.”
“Yes, Coll.”
Coll nodded to Rieka. She tapped the device and the horrible creature dissolved back to the ground.
“Go,” she muttered.
I am Wolf, thought Coll. I am the hunter of the high plains, the shadow of evening – he cursed as he remembered Brann’s laughter – the ghost in the night. I am strong, and fast…
And this time he felt the others singing the same words now, even the same tune… It was like sharing strength, being with a group who all believed the same thing, all thought the same thing, acted with one mind…
“Not bad,” said Rieka.
Coll opened his eyes and saw Wolf.
It was still tiny, and its fur was still bristly and dark – the burnished black metal of Raven’s wings now woven into a pelt. But the eyes were blue, and the gaze was intelligent, its teeth razor sharp. It was almost Wolf.
“That’s it locked,” muttered Rieka. “So long as we stay in the field for most of the time, and keep mentally topping it up, it’ll stay in place.”
“So now what?” asked Coll.
Rieka smiled. “Let’s go and see.”
The new Construct kneeled down, and Coll and the others clambered on to its tiny deck.
“I configured it smaller,” explained Rieka. “So we can maintain it with just the four of us. One room inside, a bit of storage space. We’ll sleep on deck.” She looked around. “What do you want to call it?”
“Wolf,” said Coll.
Rieka shook her head. “No, a different name.”
“Kevin,” said Fillan.
Rieka rolled her eyes.
Brann was holding the deck rail. It occurred to Coll that all the parts of this new Construct must have been Raven before. How much of this was familiar to her?
“Cub,” she said at last. “It’s a small Wolf. So Cub.”
“Cub,” said Rieka. “Hmm.”
“Cub!” said Fillan.
Coll nodded. “OK. Cub.”
“It’s been a long day,” said Rieka. “Let’s get something to eat and start out tomorrow.”
Later, they lay on Cub’s deck and looked up at the clear night sky.
“You know,” said Coll, “this might actually work.” He turned to Rieka. “Thank you.”
She shrugged.
Coll hesitated. “The other day, you said you were looking for something that made sense. What did you mean?”
Rieka didn’t answer for a while, but at last she sighed. “The Constructs aren’t right, Coll. Anthryl is technology. Unbelievable, incredible technology. But we use it to make big animals and then fight other big animals. We’ve got zappers and computer servers and bows and arrows. How did we get like this? Why do we fight all the time?”
