Something passed between them: Mikhail could feel it, as strongly as the pounding of his heart and the blood rushing through his veins. Maybe it was a communion of hatred, of a primal recognition of impending violence; whatever it was Mikhail understood it fully, and he gripped the sharp stick like a spear as the berserker hurtled toward him across the snow.
The red wolf’s jaws gaped open for him, its powerful legs preparing to leap. Mikhail stood his ground, his nerves tingling, every human instinct urging him to run but the wolf inside him waiting with cold judgment. The berserker made a feinting move to the left that Mikhail instantly saw was false, and then it left the ground and came at him.
Mikhail fell to his knees, under the big body and the flailing claws, and he drove the stick upward. It pierced the berserker’s white-haired stomach as the beast went over him; the stick cracked in two, its point deep in the berserker’s belly, and the wolf contorted in midair, one of its forelegs slamming across Mikhail’s back and two talons ripping through the deerskin cloak. Mikhail felt as if a hammer had struck him; he was knocked onto his face in the snow, and he heard the berserker grunt as it landed on its stomach a few yards away. Mikhail twisted his body, his lungs seizing cold air, and he faced the berserker before it could leap onto his back. The one-eyed beast was on its feet, the spear driven so deep in its gut that it had almost disappeared. Mikhail stood up, his chest heaving, and he felt hot blood trickling down his back. The berserker danced to the right, positioning himself between Mikhail and the white palace. The stick clenched in Mikhail’s right fist was about seven inches long, the length of a kitchen knife. The berserker snorted steam, feinted in and then out again, blocking Mikhail from fleeing home. “Help us!” he shouted toward the white palace. His voice was muffled by the snowfall. “Renati! Help-”
The beast lunged forward, and Mikhail stabbed at its other eye with the stick. But the berserker stopped and whirled aside, spraying snow up from under its paws, and the stick jabbed empty air. The berserker twisted its body, darting around to Mikhail’s unprotected side, and it leaped at him before he could stab with the stick again.
The berserker hit him. Mikhail had the image of the freight train, one eye blazing, as it roared on the downhill tracks. He was knocked off his feet like a rag doll, and would have broken his back if not for the snow. His breath whooshed out of him, and his brain was stunned by the impact. He smelled blood and animal saliva. A brutal weight crushed down on his shoulder, pinning his hand and the stick. He blinked, and in the haze of pain saw the berserker’s maw above him, its fangs opening to seize his face and strip it away from the skull like flimsy cloth. His shoulder was trapped, the bones about to burst from their sockets. The berserker leaned forward, the muscles bunching along its flanks, and Mikhail smelled Franco’s blood on its breath. The jaws stretched open to crush his skull.
Two human hands, streaked with brown hair, caught the berserker’s jaws. Franco had roused himself and leaped atop the red beast. His brown-stubbled face a rictus of pain, Franco gasped, “Run,” as he twisted the berserker’s head with all his strength.
The berserker thrashed against him, but Franco held tight. The jaws snapped together, and teeth pierced Franco’s palms. The weight was off Mikhail’s shoulder; he lifted his arm, the bones throbbing, and drove the sharp stick up into the berserker’s throat. It plunged in three inches before it met an obstruction and broke again. The berserker howled and shivered with agony, snorting a crimson mist, and Mikhail pushed himself out from under the 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.