Free Wolfweir by A. G. Hardy

a thousand enemies to protect the little wolf-girl.
     
    Bit by bit, the puppet boy stops cursing himself for his trance-state that allowed the two poachers to creep up to the fire unseen and unheard. Done is done. You can't take anything back from the past, so look only to what's coming at you from the future.
     
    He spares little thought for Jarvis and Gund , those bloody frozen corpses now stretched out in the snow like herrings packed in the ice hold of a fishing trawler.
     
    Serves them both right, the swine. Even if Alphonse could weep tears, he wouldn't. Not for that vile, murderous scum.
     
    And in time, he vows to the starry night, the loathsome Vampyres Lord and Lady Blackgore will get just what the poachers got.
     
    **
     
    Dawn. Ringing silence. Unbearable splendor. Wind blowing ghost-eddies of powder snow from the stark mountain peaks.
     
    The sun breaks over the cloud-banked horizon and rises with slowness and majesty -- brilliant red then luminous orange.
     
    Ah! cries Lucia, sitting up crusted with snow to gaze into the light, tears shining in her blue eyes.
     
    **
     
    They clamp on the wooden skis and set out again, sking over the high mountain pass then down a glacier, trailing black shadows across the blazing snow, leaving behind only the coals of their dying fire and the stiff corpses of two unlucky and unwashed psychopaths.
     
    Lucia skis easily, golden hair tucked under her cap, smiling at the brilliant mountains all around. Alphonse, because of his clacking marionette limbs, is a little clumsy.
     
    As they ski, the sun warms them. There are no sounds but the soft hissing of the polished hardwood skis in deep snow, the wind rushing in tall pine trees, and icemelt water dripping into the deep crevasses.
     
    Ecstasy. This is the life, thinks Alphonse. As long as they can avoid starting an avalanche --
     
    **
     
    They cross another deep mountain pass, going above the treeline into a stark and glacial cold that turns Lucia's lips blue, and there is a brief snowstorm that threatens to bury the intrepid pair -- then they are out of the black clouds again and on a downhill run that Lucia takes with brio, glissing through the snow so fast that she creates her own mini-blizzard.
     
    Alphonse follows, flailing his sticks, squinting against Lucia's snow-dust. The sword cane, tied by a length of string he'd found in one of his coat pockets, clicking on his pinewood shoulders.
     
    This little wolf girl with the golden hair whips along as if she knows exactly where she's going. Maybe she knows more about everything than Alphonse thinks.
     
    **
     
    They'd left the glacier and ski- ed down through the pines in soft snow and chattering birdsong. Abruptly, Lucia stopped and bent to take off her skis. Alphonse stopped behind her, breathing hard, in a cloud of snow dust. He snapped off his skis also. There was a meadow below them, dazzling green and in it were many small blue flowers the color of Lucia di Fermonti's eyes.
     
    They left the skis leaning against a pine and walked down through the meadow, Lucia peeling off her scarf. It was getting hot. Alphonse wished he'd brought the Bavarian hurdy gurdy . He took out his tin whistle to toot as they hiked down the mountain toward a great valley filled with haze -- but then, realizing he didn't have the breath in his puppet body to make a note, put it back.
     
    **
     
    It took them all day to reach the valley. They stopped to rest at a pyramid-like cairn of stones. Lucia was sweating but happy. She did a little turning dance and laughed at the quizzical look on Alphonse's fire-smudged face.
     
    The sun was setting. They walked to the banks of a clear, broad fast running river and Lucia crouched and drank and splashed water on her face and arms. Then they crossed the river into a deep, clean, quiet woods .
     
    It was a forest, rich and soil-fragrant.
     
    Alphonse had never seen such a forest. The tree trunks were as big around as circus drums. Fat black