In the Land of Armadillos by Helen Maryles Shankman

friends’ and neighbors’ bodies. Gathering her close to its tufted breast, it sprang out of the pit with as much effort as it would have taken to skip over a crack in the sidewalk.
    The wolf laid her down on the dead and yellowed savannah grass, her nightdress billowing like a parachute in the November wind. With remarkable gentleness, it put its arm under her shoulders and pulled her against its chest.
    The clearing in the forest had become a battlefield filled with fairy-tale beasts, the stuff of nightmares. A gargoyle with the gleaming feathered head of a falcon held one of the Gestapo men in its talons, its beak buried deep in his guts. A leviathan of a fish, armored with metallic scales and bristling with fangs, was attempting to swallow a struggling lieutenant whole. The earth shook as an ogre with the massive head of a bull pursued one of Hitler’s elite guard into the woods, wearing a bloodied butcher’s apron and wielding a meat cleaver in its fist. A mammoth red stag used a gargantuan rack of antlers to pinion a brace of SS men against a tree. A hideous, humpbacked behemoth with the bullet-shaped head of a wild boar hurtled through the clearing, an officer impaled on each tusk like a grisly ornament.
    The wolf that used to be Zev Heller rested his silky cheek against her forehead. She could feel the warmth of his tears on her face, her throat.
    â€œBaer,” the wolf called in an anguished cry, “Baer . . .”
    A colossal brown bear was lifting a thrashing storm trooper high into the air. At the sound of its commanding officer’s voice, the bear swung around, snuffling in fury. It dropped the storm trooper, snapping his spine over a hairy knee. In a blur of motion, it began to shrink, and suddenly, an officer of the Russian army was running toward them through the carnage, carrying a doctor’s black case.
    With practiced fingers Baer examined her, probed her wound. She felt light-headed now, the pain was receding. She wasn’t even cold anymore. He muttered something to Zev in a low voice, and the wolf nodded, made a choking sound, bowed his head.
    She didn’t see how it happened, but the man called Baer was growing higher again, as high as the trees, resuming the form of the towering monstrous ursine she had seen before.
    â€œYou rest now,” the bear said kindly, laying the leathery palm of a giant paw on the side of her face. With a roar of rage, he wheeled around and bounded away.
    The wolf who was Zev threw back his head and howled. His men joined him, a victorious cacophony of shrieks, roars, bleats, and grunts that filled the clearing and made the air ring around her.
    â€œShimmy,” she said. Her voice was raspy, guttural, but it worked. “We were running . . . I was holding his hand . . . ”
    The wolf bent closer to hear her words, his whiskers tickling her nose. “He’s fine,” he said hastily. “One of my men will lead him over the river to the Soviet side. Life is hard there, but he’ll be safe.”
    The battle was done. Creatures shoveled spadefuls of dirt over the poor souls they had been too late to save, muttering the prayer for the dead over and over.
    Zev caressed the hair from her forehead with fingers that were like claws, told her that his unit was expected near Wyryki at dawn. When she reached forward to touch his chest, his muscles twitched, and he sucked air between his sharp teeth with a hiss.
    Eyes wide open, she took in the wild beauty of his face, the tilted gray eyes she had always loved, the steep curve of his chest, the silvery pelt that covered his body, lightening across the belly.
    The fur fell between her fingertips in furrows, soft and thick. When she told him she wanted to stay with him forever, the wolfish eyes were calm and grateful and grieving all at the same time.
    â€œOf course, Zoshaleh,” he murmured, taking her hand. “Of