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fear of One Eye. The old wolf was
fearless, relentless, savage.
    Varamyr had lost control of his other beasts in the agony of
the eagle’s death. His shadowcat had raced into the woods, whilst his snow bear
turned her claws on those around her, ripping apart four men before falling to
a spear. She would have slain Varamyr had he come within her reach. The bear hated
him, had raged each time he wore her skin or climbed upon her back.
    His wolves, though …
    My brothers. My pack
. Many a cold night he
had slept with his wolves, their shaggy bodies piled up around him to help keep
him warm.
When I die they will feast upon my flesh and leave only bones
to greet the thaw come spring
. The thought was queerly comforting. His
wolves had often foraged for him as they roamed; it seemed only fitting that he
should feed them in the end. He might well begin his second life tearing at the
warm dead flesh of his own corpse.
    Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so
close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like
putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to
accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye
could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf,
but no man could truly
tame
a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for
life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of
you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
    Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared.
Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey;
wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears,
boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “Some skins
you never want to wear, boy. You won’t like what you’d become.” Birds were the
worst, to hear him tell it. “Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too
much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. I know
skinchangers who’ve tried hawks, owls, ravens. Even in their own skins, they
sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue.”
    Not all skinchangers felt the same, however. Once, when Lump
was ten, Haggon had taken him to a gathering of such. The wargs were the most
numerous in that company, the wolf-brothers, but the boy had found the others
stranger and more fascinating. Borroq looked so much like his boar that all he
lacked was tusks, Orell had his eagle, Briar her shadowcat (the moment he saw
them, Lump wanted a shadowcat of his own), the goat woman Grisella …
    None of them had been as strong as Varamyr Sixskins, though,
not even Haggon, tall and grim with his hands as hard as stone. The hunter died
weeping after Varamyr took Greyskin from him, driving him out to claim the
beast for his own.
No second life for you, old man
. Varamyr
Threeskins, he’d called himself back then. Greyskin made four, though the old
wolf was frail and almost toothless and soon followed Haggon into death.
    Varamyr could take any beast he wanted, bend them to his
will, make their flesh his own. Dog or wolf, bear or badger …
    Thistle
, he thought.
    Haggon would call it an abomination, the blackest sin of
all, but Haggon was dead, devoured, and burned. Mance would have cursed him as
well, but Mance was slain or captured.
No one will ever know. I will be
Thistle the spearwife, and Varamyr Sixskins will be dead
. His gift
would perish with his body, he expected. He would lose his wolves, and live out
the rest of his days as some scrawny, warty woman … but he would
live.
If she comes back. If I am still strong enough to take her
.
    A wave of dizziness washed over Varamyr. He found himself
upon his knees, his hands buried in a snowdrift. He scooped up a fistful of
snow and filled his mouth with it, rubbing it through his beard and against his
cracked lips, sucking down the moisture. The water was so cold that he could
barely