Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 171 by Contrast

Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 171

Contrast, Ander, Clean, Fox, Novel, Serial, Story, Wolf

171

Denko looked straight up at the jet black sky, at the lonely flakes of snow drifting down from above. One there... Two there... materializing out of the dark, flowing with the wind in lazy, serpentine coils.

He could hardly believe it, but the blizzard was finally dying down, had been dying down for some time, actually. It was just, while everything was going on - the fires, the fighting - there hadn't been any time to think. And now that it was over, there was nothing to do _but_think. Mostly about things he really, really didn't want to think about, though.

He sighed and rubbed his knee. The damn thing was throbbing like a second heartbeat, but he knew better than to bitch and moan. In the grand scheme of things, he got off remarkably light.

The Wolves (funny how he could hardly think of them as 'his people' anymore) were huddled together in little clusters against the cold. Five here, ten there. All of them wrapped in blankets and tarps and animal skins while the snow gradually drifted against their shivering bodies, carried by the dying wind.

There were pairs of Foxes going around from group to group, armed with bows (both the regular kind and the weird mechanical ones with the metallic bits), casting weary glances at all the mutilated faces, the hunched shoulders, the flattened ears, and the tired eyes, staring down at the ground. These weren't wild animals that might jump up and bite at a moment's notice. These weren't monsters out of the dark.

Well, not anymore. Denko's been thinking that phrase a lot over the past half hour or so. 'Not anymore'. That could go for so many things, both good and bad.

There was no fighting anymore. All the fight had simply bled away with the last of the flames. There was no point to it anymore. Vengeance? Hunger? Fun? None of those reasons made sense anymore. The Wolves had experienced both sides, just like Dorin had tried to explain to them before this awful night began, just like Ander had tried to explain to them before even that, and now they finally understood.

It was pain. Just pain. And everything they did to try and cover it up, to make themselves feel better, every bite, every scratch, every mouthful of blood, just made the pain worse. It just spiralled out of control, spinning around and around until everything eventually drained into itself, leaving this behind...

Wolves, sitting on the cold, hard ground with their legs crossed and their heads lowered in shame. A kind of poisonous lethargy had descended over them. They barely glanced up at the Foxes making their rounds. They barely even looked at each other. If it wasn't for those misty ghosts leaping from their mouths every few seconds, they could have been frozen corpses. Denko didn't need to be a mind reader to know what was going through their heads. They were thinking back, trying to peel away the red haze covering their memories, trying to remember who they had fought in their frenzied bloodlust, who they had bitten, who they had clawed...

Who they had killed.

Denko didn't want to, but his gaze shifted to the east by itself, and he was powerless to stop it.

There were bodies there, just like the ones in the pass, except these didn't have a tarp covering them up (all of those had gone to the living). They were lying on their backs with their arms at their sides, slowly being covered in a fine smattering of snow. There were Foxes in there, spots of orange and red among the white, but the overwhelming majority of the bodies belonged to Wolves.

Denko couldn't be completely sure about this, but he believed the reason there were so few Foxes among the dead was because of the Wolves lying next to them. The ones who had given up their lives trying to protect those who had saved them from the snow, who had given them a second chance to live a different kind of life, even if only for a few hours.

Denko plucked a frozen tear from the corner of his eye and tried not to think about the future, something he knew they would all have to face at some point, probably sooner than any of them wanted to. Sitting around staring at nothing wasn't very good if you were trying to avoid a wandering mind, though, so he allowed his eyes to wander in its stead for a little while longer.

There was a shabby little tent to the west, its mouth flapping in the wind. Bethany-Kai and Rufio-Sai were in there, tending to Layla and Danado. The poor girl was lying on her stomach, and her dress was cut open at the back, revealing layers of multi-coloured strips of cloth (donated from various shirts and dresses) tied around her body.

Rufio-Sai was gently stroking her head, occasionally picking broken twigs and slivers of glass out of her hair. He looked oddly naked without that contraption in his mouth, the absolute picture of worry, but Denko thought she'd be okay. The vixens of this valley were so small and fragile, but there was a certain toughness to them he greatly admired. The metal tray next to her shoulder, filled with jagged spikes of bloody wood, was testament to that.

Slowly, even though she didn't have enough strength to open her eyes, Layla somehow reached out, in the dark, and took hold of Danado's hand, weakly folding her fingers over his.

But Danado did not squeeze back, no matter how hard Denko hoped and prayed, staring at those two overlapping hands, waiting for something to happen. Bethany had stitched him up as well as she could, working her fingers down to the bone, but it was no use. His whole body already looked like it was covered in a spider web of black threads and, to be perfectly honest, Denko did not know if that Wolf would make it through the night.

That's the price you pay for keeping too many promises at once, he thought, not sure if it was something to be admired or derided. What was the point of going through all that for a smile? Didn't he realise she would just cry if she saw him like that? If the act of keeping a promise pushes you to the point where you end up breaking it anyway, then what was the point?

"By the Cora..." Denko plucked another frozen tear from underneath his eye, wondering if this night would ever truly be over.

Bethany-Kai stepped outside, carefully tied the mouth of the tent to keep out the cold, then went up to the first Wolf she saw, her black doctoring bag in hand.

"You're next." Her voice was flat and emotionless, an echo of the shadows underneath her bloodshot eyes. This was a woman beyond exhausted, and still she was trying her best to do whatever she could.

The Wolf (Shizaya was his name) looked up at her, temporarily pulled from his listless stupor, and vehemently shook his head. "N-No... Kai... I just... No."

Bethany grabbed him anyway and began to inspect the gash in his temple, turning his head this way and that.

"Kai, NO!!" Shizaya slapped her hands away and covered his face, shaking his head in outright denial. "Please... please, no..."

It reminded Denko of the way they had refused her treatment before the flames, but this wasn't entirely the same. Back then, they had refused out of pride. But now... now they refused out of shame. They felt guilty for what they had done. Unworthy of kindness. And perhaps they were right to feel that way. Maybe they should just suffer in absolute silence and perish in the snow, one by one. Perhaps that was the only way to return what the Foxes had so naively given to them. One last way to apologise for spitting in their faces. One last way to balance out the scales.

Bethany sighed, packed up her bag, and went to the next Wolf down the line. Denko did not fully understand why she was still trying to help these creatures after all they had done, but he did know that he used to be one of them, not so long ago, and so he couldn't help but rejoice on the inside whenever he saw a Wolf accept her help, quite often with silent tears running down their bloody cheeks.

Not everywhere was a picture of hope, though.

Renna had cried herself out long ago. Or maybe she passed out from exhaustion and grief, Denko wasn't sure. Aisa and Mellah had found a bedroll just big enough for her, and were taking care of her in one of the storage tents just down the path, one of the few remaining that weren't completely shredded and/or burnt to a crisp. Denko prayed that the child could just keep sleeping forever, and dream of the time she had spent with her friends. But maybe such a wish was born out of selfishness rather than compassion.

He dreaded the moment she would wake up and start screaming again...

Denko took a long, slow breath and blew it out in a shuddering sigh, watching his own little ghost of vapour break apart in the cold, night air. And beyond that plume of mist, the proof that he was still alive and breathing, was something wholly different. A testament to everything lost; a place of healing transformed into a site of death.

The medical tent was little more than a carpet of ash and snow by this point, with a burnt out husk of a tree going right through the middle. Lazy tendrils of smoke were still rising up like vaporous snakes, hundreds of them, flowing with the wind. The sounds coming from that place... He could hear the soft crackle of dying embers. Snowmelt dripping from blackened branches. The flutter of charred blankets and animal hides. But more than any of that, what he heard - what _everyone_heard - was the screaming.

"No! Don't touch me! I swear to all the gods!"

"Sarah, please -"

"Nooo!! I have to find him! I have to see!"

"Don't do this, Sarah!"

The Fox named 'Michael' was reaching out to his mate, but it was as if he dared not touch her, and not just because she had commanded him not to. There was something wrong with her. Something dreadfully, irreparably wrong. Denko did not know her, but even he could tell that much.

Instead of weeping in a corner, she was desperately searching through the smoking remains, clambering over smouldering bedframes, lifting scorched blankets and tossing them aside, all while muttering the name of her lost son underneath her breath.

It was as if she was trying to lose her mind.

"Sarah, please..." Her mate tentatively put a hand on her shoulder. "You mustn't. I... I will find him. You can't -"

"I have to see him, Michael! I have to find him! Why can't you understand I have to -"

He spun her around, and for a moment Denko was sure he was about to slap her (was hoping he would, actually), but in the end, all he could do was say, "Not like this, Sarah... Please... Please don't do this to yourself."

She tried to pull away, but couldn't quite break free of Michael's grip. She was so tired. So worn out. She had spent the better part of an hour kneeling in the snow, watching the fire burn itself out, and she just couldn't keep going any longer. She collapsed into his arms and screamed into his chest, screamed while innumerable eyes watched her pain, her sorrow, and, one by one, turned away in shame, knowing that they were the ones responsible for her screams, knowing that they were the ones who had brought the fire just as surely as the Foxes had brought the snow, knowing that they could never, ever make this right.

Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. And this was the aftermath.

Slowly, her screams faded, turning into sobs, turning into the name of her lost son, whispered over and over again.

Denko couldn't stand to watch a second longer. He averted his eyes, wiped his forearm across his face, and when he lowered it again, when he blinked and the world came back into focus, he saw -

Wait...

Something itched inside his brain. He was seeing something, but he didn't know what it was. He knew this feeling, though. Before his little run-in with Nilia's arrow, he was one of the best trackers of the tribe. Maybe not quite as good as Wardo, but he was no slouch. He knew the difference between deer and elk tracks. He could tell if the droppings by the side of the road were made by a squirrel or a chipmunk. He could track an injured animal for hours, sometimes even days if need be, so he was well acquainted with this kind of feeling, the feeling that your eyes had noticed something before your mind could grasp it. A feeling that something was off. A little voice in the back of your head telling you to stop for a moment, look around, take it in, find that thing, that something wrong, that something that didn't fit, didn't make sense, didn't belong. Usually it turned out to be a spot of blood, or a broken spider web, or a snapped twig, or maybe something as subtle as a blade of grass in the underbrush devoid of morning dew. That itch... that maddening itch...

He needed a closer look.

He took his 'cane' (for lack of a better word) and pushed himself upright, wincing against the pain.

Please let me be right... he prayed, crossing the remnants of the battlefield one careful, stiff-legged step at a time. Please oh please let me be right, otherwise this is going to be sooo bad...

Trudging through the remains of the tent was a wholly unpleasant experience, filled with all manner of sensory contradictions. At the bottom, everything was covered in a thick layer of grey ashes (still warm). But on top of that was a layer of snow. It created a stinking grey mess that was just awful to walk through, sending shivers up his spine with every step.

There were others in here, too. Wandering around, digging through the rubble, the lower halves of their faces covered in scarves and strips of cloth to keep the sickly sweet stench of charbroiled flesh at bay. Denko passed them by just as they uncovered yet another body from beneath the wreckage, a she-wolf with all the fur seared off her body and her face -

She was wearing the chieftain's necklace. Denko stared at the array of talons and claws for what felt like an eternity before finally wrenching his eyes away, taking long, slow breaths so as not to dry heave into the snow. He didn't want to look at that thing a second longer than he had to, that blackened lump of scorched flesh and teeth. All that remained of their former witchdoctor. The Empty One.

Shekka.

By the Cora... I can't keep going like this...

But he _did_keep going. He kept going for the same reason Bethany kept trying to help those in need, for the same reason Sarah was so desperately searching through the carcass of this drab and dreary place for her lost son. Because to stand still, for even a moment, was to let the weight of reality descend upon your shoulders. To do nothing was to invite the surprisingly warm and welcoming embrace of madness.

So Denko kept moving, just as much for the sake of his own sanity as for the maddening itch in the back of his head. He skirted around the fallen tree (still smoking and crackling in places) and made a beeline for what used to be the far eastern corner, pushing off with his cane, easing forward, pushing off again. He hadn't paid much attention when he was last in here, but he remembered the Fox with the broken rib and the bleeding head, the one who had gotten a kiss from Nilia (of all people) and that had been more than weird enough for Denko to sit up and take notice, even though it had felt like his knee was about ready to pop out at that point.

Denko came to a stop at the foot of the bed, or rather, the smoking framework that used to be a bed.

Come on, Denko. What is wrong with this picture? What do you see? There's something off. Something that's here that shouldn't be, or something that's not here that should be. What is it?

What do you see?

Ashes. Smoke. A smattering of snow. Smouldering framework. Four legs, connected by four thick planks of wood, partially collapsed. A mishmash of footprints, made by those going back and forth to remove the bodies.

And yet they haven't found Mateo yet. Why is that? He was unconscious, wasn't he? He should be right here.

But he wasn't, that was the thing. So where was he? What was wrong with this picture? Where was the broken twig, the spot of blood, the clue his eyes could see, but his head could not?

What was wrong?

Denko stood still and allowed his eyes to wander wherever they pleased, letting them rove around until...

Wait...

He reached out, scratched one of the legs at the foot of the bed, and watched the fine black powder sift down, revealing a layer of mostly alright wood underneath. Well it made sense, if the fire started with the tree - in the middle, more or less - then it stood to reason that the farthest points from there would be the last to burn. In other words, the front and the back. That's why the bedframes over here were still mostly intact, while the ones near the tree were burnt to cinders.

Yes, but what does that mean? How is that important?

Because, dummy, if the bedframe is still mostly okay, then where's the mechanical bow that used to hang here?

It was like a signal fire went off in Denko's head.

He crouched down -

Ow! Ow! Ow! Son of a bitch! Ooooww!!

and poked his cane underneath the bed, digging through layers of ash and detritus. Even if that thing's base (the grip, the stock, whatever the hell they called it) did somehow burn all the way up, the bow itself was metal, wasn't it? It should still be here somewhere, but...

It wasn't.

The urge to call the parents was almost overwhelming, but somehow he kept his tongue under lock and key. And they were standing so close, too. The father was holding his mate so tenderly, one hand pressed against the back of her head, but her eyes were bloodshot through and through, staring, yet not seeing, like she wasn't truly awake. Snot dribbled from her nose.

No. He couldn't intrude upon that. Their son's bow could be missing for any of a hundred different reasons. If he called them over with nothing but an empty bed post, he would be the biggest ass in the world. Also...

It was scary, the desperation in those tear-streaked eyes. If at all possible, he didn't want to see them up close unless he was absolutely certain.

So Denko turned back and ran his hand along the ruined bedframe, feeling the gritty black ash between his fingers and trying to imagine what it must have been like to lie here, completely dead to the world, caught in the dreamless sleep of unconsciousness, only to awaken to blazing heat and -

thick, black smoke, scratching his lungs, burning his nose. Coughing and spluttering, Mateo finally opened his watery eyes, squinting at the glowing tongues of orange light flowing across the ceiling and dripping onto his blankets like molten metal, wondering just how badly all those blows to the head must have scrambled his noggin. And that's when he realized.

Oh. Every single thing is on fire. Okay, then.

With a yelp of pain and surprise, he flung his blanket aside and -

Denko stuck his cane into a conspicuous pile of ash on the left-hand side of the bed, dug around a little, and dragged a blanket out into the open, black and charred and crumbling to pieces. If Mateo had tossed this aside in one motion (like the image in his head was insisting) then he must have -

leapt into the little gap between the beds, something he really, really shouldn't have done with such gusto. The stabbing pain in his side served as a quick reminder of his run-in with Banno and he dropped down to his knees, clutching at his ribs and gasping for air that simply wasn't there - just more clouds of smoke. He doubled over and clapped both hands over his mouth, each supressed cough poking at his insides. He opened his eyes, trying to see through the tears and the smoke.

There was fire, he could tell that much. A lot of fire. The beds were on fire. The ceiling was on fire. The walls were on fire. The floor was one fire. Even the air was on fire. Everything was on fire. It felt like he was trapped inside the devil's gullet.

"Mother!" he called, covering his mouth and nose. "Where are you!?"

If only he could see, but there was so much smoke trapped inside this narrow tunnel, and then this blinding miasma of orange light on top of that, he could barely make out his own hands in front of his face. "Mother!"

Was she outside? And what of everyone else? Wasn't Nilia around here someplace, too?

Mateo stopped dead. He thought... He thought he remembered hearing her voice at some point, but was that real, or just a dream? There was something about their hunting trip... and... and something else? Something about...

All I can do is ask forgiveness...

The ceiling ripped and Mateo jumped back on pure reflex just as a flaming tongue of canvass came swiping through the air exactly where his nose had been mere moments before. He stood there, breathing heavily against his palms, bright orange embers floating about his head, thinking that this entire place could collapse at any second, and what then?

It wouldn't be a tent any more. It would be a net. A net on fire. That's what then.

Oh crap oh crap oh crap!!

He hurried to the foot of the bed, grabbed Mother's cloak, slipped it on (wincing at the pain in his rib), reached for -

the weird mechanical bow, grabbed it by its imaginary strap, and slung it over his shoulder.

Alright, Denko, think! He grabbed his bow, his quiver, and what then? He turned around like this...

Denko turned, imitating Mateo's movements exactly as he saw them in his mind's eye, even clutching at his side, and ended up facing the bed opposite.

Wait a minute...

"Who was lying in this one?" he muttered to himself, trying to remember. "Wasn't it -"

"Hezzi! Hezzi, wake up, you stupid greyfur son of a bitch! Do you have any idea how many Wolves will be pissed at me if I let you burn!?"

Mateo shook the little bastard back and forth, trying to get some kind of reaction, but he just lay there like a ragdoll, not moving at all. For a second he seriously considered giving him a proper smack in the face, but if Bethany ever heard he actually slapped one of her patients, a horde of angry Wolves would be the _least_of his concerns.

"Come on dammit Hezzi please wake up!"

Mateo looked towards the front of the tent (well, as far as he could), and it wasn't good. The flames had formed an impassable wall. He could see something huge and black just beyond, but he had no idea what it was. His mind kept insisting it was a gigantic dead centipede with hundreds of creepy-crawly legs curling up into the air, but that was absurd and why was he thinking about something so stupid when they were about to burn to death!?

"Gods damn it!!" Mateo seized the boy and lifted him onto his shoulders, grunting and snorting and gritting his teeth against the pain. He knew it was a bad idea to move him, but what else was he supposed to do? Let him burn? Nilia would give him such a bitch-slap for even thinking -

All I can do is ask forgiveness...

There it was again. That thought kept popping into his head for no reason. Forgiveness for what? What could she possibly do that would have her begging for forgiveness? Was he just imagining it? Was he going crazy? Did he have smoke on the brain or what?

Much like the giant centipede going through the centre of the tent, it felt like he was misinterpreting something obvious. But he had heard her, hadn't he? He'd been lying in that bed, and she had... she had what? Whispered something? Something about...

NOT! NOW!!

Mateo shook his head and readjusted Hezzi's limp form into a more comfortable position, hoping that his knees would stop shaking once he got going. He could think about that stuff later, when they weren't literally in imminent danger of immolation. Better yet, he could just ask Nilia himself.

I hope she's okay...

"Come on, Hezzi! Let's get the hell out of here!"

Denko's mind was reeling.

This was Hezzi's bed, he was sure of it, but, just like the phantom bow, the lad simply wasn't here. For Mateo to get up and stroll around was one thing, but Hezzi? No. That didn't mesh at all. This wasn't just some broken twig, this was a ten-stride sign smack dab in the middle of the road, with the words: 'Hey, dummy! This is WRONG!' emblazoned on its face in glowing symbols.

There were only two logical places Hezzi could possibly be right now. One was right here, as a blackened corpse atop this charred bedframe, and the other was out there, with the rest of the bodies.

Denko craned his neck, trying to get a better view of the dead, all lined up in neat little rows, but none of the burnt ones matched up with Hezzi's height.

If both of them were gone, and their bodies were nowhere to be found, then that left only one possibility...

Mateo supposed he could wade through a veritable sea of fire and brimstone in the hopes of finding an exit on blind luck, OR he could not be a total idiot for once. That might work, too.

He fished a bolt from the quiver at his hip (no easy task with an unconscious Wolf draped across his shoulders like the world's ugliest shawl) and stuck it into the wall. It was a broad tip bolt, made especially for hunting large game (the only bolts he figured would be any good against Wolves), and it punched through easily enough. Getting it to slice downwards, however...

"Come on come on come on..." Mateo muttered under his breath while the flames encroached from all sides. He could feel the hairs on the tip of his tail singeing in the heat. "Oh come on!" The canvass was bunching up around the bolt, making it nearly impossible to get a clean cut. "Oh you stupid piece of -" Mateo withdrew the bolt, unbunched the canvass and stuck it back into the slit with shaking fingers. With his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, he pushed downwards, gently increasing the pressure until the head slid straight down like a hot knife through cheese and a freezing cold blast of wind and snow slapped him right in the face, the most wonderful sensation in the entire world.

"Yes! Yes, you beautiful bitch, yes!" The bolt fumbled out of his hands and fell to the floor, but Mat didn't even notice. He wrenched the hole as wide as he could and -

Denko hobbled towards the edge of this pile of ashes, poking his cane as deep as it would go and sweeping the tip from side to side in wide arcs, not sure what he was looking for exactly

(Broken spider web. Snapped twig. Spot of blood.)

but he was certain he would know it if he found it. And lo, on the fifth pass, his cane hit something beneath the powdery layers of ash and snow. It was an arrow head, warped and distorted by the heat, but clearly much too big and fat for a normal bow.

"Well hello there, lonely arrow," Denko whispered with a smile. "Where is the rest of your kin, I wonder?" He stuck his cane underneath a crumpled sheet of canvas and lifted it up. Snow and ash rolled off the blackened edges in a grey cascade, revealing a long, vertical slit cut into the fabric, just tall enough for one determined Fox (and perhaps one Wolven passenger) to -

burst outside as if all the demons of hell were right on their tails, which, as it turned out, wasn't all that far from the truth. The only thing Mateo didn't reckon on was that there would be even more demons outside than in.

"What in the name of...?" He stared, open-mouthed. It was as if he had stepped into a different world entirely: great, towering walls of flame rising to the sky, clouds of smoke, pulsating bursts of orange light, steaming pools of blood mixing with snowmelt in dark, hazy tendrils.

And the bodies. By the gods, they were everywhere. Wolves and Foxes both, lying face down in the snow, battered and broken, not moving.

Mateo did not stand frozen for long, only as long as it took him to sweep his eyes across the remnants of the basecamp, probably no more than five or six seconds. But in that short amount of time, he saw things he had hoped to never see again. For those five or six seconds, it was like he was back inside the mouth of the pass, watching his friends get torn apart before his very eyes, powerless to do anything.

Mary, lying in a pool of her own blood, her face caked in mud and snow. Joshua, propped up against a snowdrift with his neck cleaved wide open. Reed, flat on his back with a sharp wooden spear sticking through his chest. All of them staring straight ahead with wide open eyes, but not seeing anything.

They were dead. So many of them, and they were all dead. Foxes he had grown up with. Foxes he had argued with, joked with, laughed with. Foxes he had known his entire life.

Their faces leapt out at him, their blank, expressionless eyes, their mouths frozen in screams that no living soul could ever hear.

Mateo opened his mouth, but no real words came out, only a strangled cry. He could feel it rushing up inside of him; anger, fear and grief, swirling together just like the blood, snow, and ash beneath his feet, clouding everything in a dull, red haze, numbing all thought, all sensation, turning him into a gutted creature that couldn't do anything but stare in disbelief at the horror unfolding all around him.

There were Wolves trudging through the battlefield. Wolves with blood flowing down their fronts. Wolves with broken bones protruding from shattered limbs. Wolves crawling along on all fours. Wolves with the same, dead eyes as the corpses littering the ground. Wolves who should have perished long ago.

A sudden crack from behind. Mateo turned around just in time to see the medical tent collapse in on itself in an uprush of flame. A surge of heat flared into his face, roaring like a dying animal, blinding in its intensity. He -

stumbled right here," Denko muttered, tracing the tracks with his cane: a few short steps, followed by two longer indentations. Ordinarily such a tumble would have been cause for concern, but Denko couldn't help but feel hopeful. The fact that these tracks were still visible, despite the wind and the snow, meant that they must have been made by something unusually heavy pressing down on a disproportionately small surface. Something with, say, the weight of a Wolf, but the feet of a Fox?

Denko grinned. That crazy son of a bitch actually did it. He actually pulled Hezzi out of the fire. All that remained now was to find the little bastards, and maybe they could salvage a bit of joy out of all this despair. A promise of something good among all the death and destruction, something to temper the pain.

A ray of hope in this cold, black aftermath.

Denko went back to work. Hunched over as far as his bum knee allowed, he focussed completely and wholly on nothing but the fading tracks, piecing together the story in his head.

A long indentation on the left, a shorter one on the right. Mateo had dropped down to one knee and -

carefully set Hezzi down, wheezing through clenched teeth, breathing in the inescapable stench of blood and smoke, slowly losing himself to this familiar demon of rage, a demon he's been fighting with (and mostly losing against) his entire life.

_But we saved them. We saved them!_That was the thought that kept repeating itself in his mind, or at least, the throbbing ball of anger his mind had become.

Perhaps Nilia had been right all along. Perhaps they should have left these monsters to drown in the snow. Every last -

"You stay away from them!"

There was a Wolf, a big shaggy one, standing with his back to a pair of Foxes, his arms held out to either side in a warding off gesture, screaming at a second Wolf who was -

By the gods, were they fighting each other?

They were. The second Wolf, a scrawny fellow with long, gangly limbs, jumped forward, aiming to bite down on the big guy's arm, but only got a fist to the face for all his trouble. He staggered back, snorting the blood from his nose in crimson jets while the Foxes cowered behind their protector's back, holding onto each other like a pair of rats drowning in a well, both of them so battered and bruised it was a wonder they were even conscious.

The gangly Wolf weighed his options and, evidently finding them not quite as much in his favour as he had thought, switched his attention to Mateo. Small and vulnerable, practically locked in place by the giant bleeding ball and chain that was Hezzi, Mateo realized he must make for one hell of a scrumptious-looking target.

"Oh, crap..."

The big guy noticed the direction of Mr. Gangly's gaze. "Wait, no!" he yelled, but he was a second too late. Mr Gangly ducked underneath the big guy's reaching arm and took off at a sprint, teeth bared and blood spewing from his nostrils.

"Oh, crap!" Mateo planted Agatha into the snow, stuck his foot in the stirrup, grabbed hold of the string, and pul-

It felt like a very long, very thin needle was pushing its way through his side, piercing flesh and muscle, freezing him in place. Mateo's eyes went wide, but he couldn't even muster enough energy to scream. Every heartbeat only added to the pain, punching him from the inside.

"Reeeeeeeeaaagh!!" Mr. Gangly was only a few strides away, reaching out with claws like garden shears.

This is it. I survived getting strangled by Nilia, I survived getting my head bashed in by Banno, I survived getting roasted in my sleep, just to get my throat ripped out by some jerk because I'm too much of a pansy to nock one stupid bolt!?

Just as Mr. Gangly started to pounce, a third Wolf, tan of fur, came barrelling in from out of nowhere, crashing into the bastard head-on. Blood and fur went flying as they rolled along the ground, biting and clawing at each other like wild animals.

"Go!" the newcomer screamed, pinning Mr. Gangly to the ground. "Get out of here!"

For a moment Mateo couldn't move at all, he was that flabbergasted. There were too many things happening all at once, too many contradicting pieces of information flying in from every direction. Wolves attacking Foxes, Wolves protecting Foxes, Wolves attacking other Wolves. He didn't know what the hell to think anymore. What on earth happened while he was out?

"Is that Hezzi!?" the tan Wolf shouted over his shoulder, leaning back as far as he could to avoid Mr. Gangly's gnashing jaws. "You have to get him out of here! Get him someplace safe! Please, you have to go!"

It was true Mateo did not understand what was going on, why it was going on, or how it started, but getting an injured kid someplace safe was something he could get behind. It was something solid to focus on. If nothing else, it could keep the blinding anger at bay long enough for him to actually do something other than chase his tail.

With sweat pouring down his face and a stabbing pain racing through his chest, Mateo gritted his teeth and pulled back on Agatha's string, one excruciating inch at a time, fighting the odd darkness creeping into the periphery of his vision, fighting the urge to black out, fighting the cold, the hunger, the shaking in his arms. He pulled back, holding his breath, doing something he must have done thousands of times before, until he finally heard the catch grab hold of the string with that familiar little click. He grabbed a bolt, slammed it into the groove, and raised her up to eye level, centring his aim directly over the thrashing creature's head.

"Chew on this, you sick bastard!" His fingers slid down Agatha's stock and curled around the tickler...

"Nooo!! Don't shoot!"

Before he could apply that final bit of pressure to let loose the bolt, the tan Wolf did something Mateo simply could not understand. He threw himself down upon the gangly Wolf, shielding him with his own body even as the one he was trying to save bit down on his forearm, wrenching his jaws from side to side in a spray of blood, worrying the flesh down to the bone.

"What are you doing!?" Mateo screeched, nearly hysterical.

"Don't kill him, I beg of you!" the tan Wolf screamed, his face contorted into a look of pure agony.

"He's killing you!"

"He's my nephew!"

Mateo lowered his crossbow, unfired. He just...

He didn't know what to do anymore.

"Gooo!" the tan Wolf pleaded, his own blood splattering up and hitting him in the face. "Get Hezzi out of here! Anywhere!"

Mateo glanced back at the blazing wall of light that had nearly claimed their lives. There were shapes on the other side, barely visible through thick plumes of burning smoke and embers, shadows distorted by the rising heat into capering demons. Shouts and screams, broken by the crackling of the flames. There'd be no getting through there any time soon, which meant...

"Oh damn everything!" Mateo slung Agatha across his back, grabbed Hezzi by the wrist and slowly dragged him up onto his shoulders again, feeling all that weight settle right into the crack in his rib, turning every breath into a kind of torture.

Gritting his teeth and saying a silent prayer to the gods, he stood up and -

walked," Denko said, dragging a line through the snow, connecting all the tracks that were almost invisible by this point. "Still walking, still walking..." He made a large detour around a big splash of red snow, now mostly covered up by fresh powder, and kept going, winding left and right like a snake's trail. "Still walking... still walking... still -

panting for every breath, his lungs screaming, pain flaring in his chest, a dull, throbbing ache building up in his back and shoulders. Hezzi's arm kept flapping against his side, slapping him right in the injured rib. He was sure he would collapse every time that happened, but somehow he kept going, knowing that Nilia would never, ever forgive him if he wussed out now.

This whole place really was like a freak show straight out of hell, a haunted house with a fresh new horror lurking around every corner. Mateo weaved through the battlefield as fast as he could, trying to avoid the dead gazes of these impossible creatures, but it was next to impossible. They reached for him with long, spindly arms, their bony fingers tipped with claws that could slice his neck open with a single tug, but what disturbed him most of all was how he couldn't tell what they wanted anymore. The world used to be so simple, an easy line between black and white at all times, but there were no lines here, no black and white. Not even any grey. This was red. All red. Just red...

A Wolfess reached out to him, babbling something in that incomprehensible gibberish they sometimes switched to, her eyes practically popping right out of their sockets.

Mateo swerved out of the way, panting for breath, desperate to put as much distance between them and that thing as possible, those crazy eyes -

followed Denko as he walked by, tears streaming down her face. She was reciting something in Old Wolven, and although Denko's grasp of those dusty old words wasn't very good (it was a dying tongue even among the greyfurs) he could pick out enough to tell it was a prayer for forgiveness.

Leaving her to it, Denko continued along the zigzag path Mateo had carved through the battlefield, dodging and weaving -

between battles that simply didn't make any sense. At first glance, he had thought this was a war between Fox and Wolf, but now that he was actually in the thick of it, part of it, breathing it, he understood that that wasn't the case at all. This was almost completely Wolf vs Wolf. Brother vs brother. All this bloodshed, all these dead and dying bodies.

They were tearing themselves apart.

Mateo skirted around a pair of Wolves down on the ground, biting and scratching, dyeing the snow with streaks of red. He tried to focus solely on the path ahead, but their fearsome growls kept grabbing his attention, and he simply couldn't keep from watching as they tore into each other with no regard for their own personal safety, fighting in ways no Fox could ever hope to imitate. He watched them rake their claws across each other's chests, flaying skin from bone. He watched them bite down on arms and legs, snapping bones between jaws, and continue fighting as if they couldn't feel any pain.

No, that wasn't right. The pain was all too evident in their screams. What really kept them going... what forced their teeth to come together again and again was the overwhelming hatred in their hearts, an unquenchable bloodlust unlike anything Mateo had ever seen.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally tore his eyes away, feeling sick to his stomach, unable to watch them brutalize each other a second longer, unable to watch them rip and tear and shred and -

embrace each other, crying onto each other's shoulders like children. Denko really didn't want to intrude on their grief, but he couldn't afford to lose Mateo's rapidly vanishing trail, so he kept his head down and gave them as much privacy as he could, pretending not to see, pretending not to hear.

"I'm sorry, Daz... I'm so sorry!"

"Shut up, okay? You just shut up about that."

"I couldn't stop! I just couldn't stop!"

"Shut up! I told you to shut up! Just... just shut up about that, okay? It's over now, so please... just shut up, okay?"

They held each other tight, both of them too weak, too hurt to get up, each of them trying to make amends in their own way, and coming up short. There was nothing left to do but try and make up the difference with tears. But Denko knew, just as well as they did, that it would be impossible to shed enough on this night alone. No, it would take many nights, many years, and even then, perhaps it would never be enough.

Denko didn't believe in 'eye for an eye' anymore, but he did believe there was a certain balance to the world, and that if you inflicted enough pain, then eventually all that pain would return to you. But maybe that was all right. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.

Paying back this much pain shouldn't be an easy thing.

By the time their voices faded, Mateo's tracks had all but disappeared into the shifting snow. Denko looked up and -

saw so many eyes staring back at him, red and flaming, bordered by rings of fresh blood. Teeth and claws shining in the firelight.

"Fooooox!!" One of them came crawling towards him, blood dripping down his face in rivulets. "Why did you kill her!? She was mine! MINE!"

"Back off!" Mateo pointed his crossbow at the cretin's head, not sure if he even knew what a crossbow was. "You just back off right now!"

"She was my mate! My mate! And you killed her! You took her away from me!" He reached out with broken fingers, the knuckles scraped down to the bone.

"Back off!" Mateo fired a warning shot -

into the snow, sticking almost straight up. Denko tapped it with his cane, amazed that such a short, fat, stubby little arrow could actually fly. Even the fletchings were made of wood.

The trail was almost completely gone now, but that was okay. Denko had a feeling they didn't have far left to -

"Go, go, go!" Mateo muttered between laboured gasps for breath. He couldn't afford to stop, not even to reload Agatha. Stopping now, in this place, would be tantamount to slitting his own throat. There were so many Wolves here, all of them staring after him, reaching for him, lunging at him, making mad grabs for his clothes, madness dancing in their eyes, so much hatred pouring out of them, so much -

sadness and regret. Denko moved between the huddled groups as they sat in absolute silence, shielding each other from the cold. The sound of weeping was small, but everywhere, coming from many different directions, just like the voice of the blizzard, finally dying down after all this time.

So many Wolves. So much sadness. So much regret.

The sound of Denko's footfalls became whisper-soft as he stepped onto the ring of ash going through the centre of the basecamp. This was once a ring of fire, and before that, a curving wall. Now it was just a dead remnant. A temporary scar upon the land. Grey powder. Flecks of dying embers. Sharp spikes of charred wood. Tendrils of smoke.

It was only a few strides wide, but as Denko crossed over this quiet border, staring down at the way the ash grabbed hold of his cane, it was so easy to imagine that it would go on forever, that if he raised his head, he would see that the entire world had turned grey.

But the ring did end. Grey eventually turned back to white. Pure white. Unscarred.

Denko looked around, but Mateo's tracks were gone, completely swallowed by the snow. But if they kept going in this direction, then they must be -

at the outskirts of the basecamp by now, he was pretty sure. His sense of direction was all messed up, but most of the tents out here were still intact.

Mateo pressed on, practically dead on his feet. The sounds of snarling and growling were rapidly disappearing behind him, but he was too afraid to stop and take a breath. Heck, he was too afraid to even glance back, certain that he would see a pair of blood red eyes emerging from the darkness, sparking with madness and yet somehow dead on the inside, just like -

Just like Banno.

Now that was something Mateo didn't even want to think about, that there was somehow a tiny piece of Banno inside every one of these Wolves, creeping over their features like some nasty mould growing in the corner of a room, slowly eating its way through the woodwork.

"Come on, Hezzi... Just a little bit further, and we can rest, okay? Just a little... bit..."

They had reached the maze-like grid of tents surrounding the outskirts of the camp. There were signs of trouble everywhere (splashes of blood, scratch marks, broken barrels) but no Wolves. All the action was concentrated near the centre, where the medical tent was. This far out should be safe. Maybe not ideal, but once again, it was a matter of beggars not being choosers, and even if there was a choice to be made, it was either one of these tents, the fiery hellhole of teeth and claws at his back, or the frozen darkness of the woods up ahead.

Wow, tough choice.

Mateo approached one of the tents. It was a small one, but at least it was tucked away from the main path and didn't have any flapping gashes in the side. He was just about to reach for the flap when -

"STOOOOP!!"

Mateo jerked his hand back like a pup caught stealing sugar cookies. That voice was pretty far away, but even so, it was loud enough to completely overpower the roaring wind.

What the hell?

As much as he would have liked to turn back and investigate the source of that voice, he was pretty sure his legs were about to give way, so he slipped inside, managed to take a few staggering steps, and then crumbled down to his knees like a lump of clay that had been left in the blazing sun for too long.

"Ahhhgh... aaahhg..." He carefully tilted his body to the side, slid Hezzi off his shoulders, and waited for the pain to come. Oh, he knew it was coming alright, and coming fast. Once the immediate threat of decapitation passes, all the crazy energy that comes with it tends to wither away, leaving you to pay the price for your exertion. With interest.

So Mateo stopped for a moment and leaned forward, resting his hands on his shaking knees, pulling breath after breath into his burning lungs. His throat was on fire. His rib was like a knife in his chest. Every muscle ached. He couldn't stop shivering.

But still, his work wasn't done. Not yet. Not by a long shot.

"Hezzi, you okay?"

The kid didn't answer. He just lay there, crumpled in an oddly small-looking heap, his eyes still closed and his scarf tightly wrapped around his neck.

"Hezzi? How you doing, buddy?"

He was stabbed. In the neck. By his own mother. That's how he's doing, you freaking genius!

Mateo sat back and wondered what to do next. There was still a fight going on out there, Foxes in trouble, and he was one of the few with any real combat experience -

Combat experience? Banno kicking your ass suddenly qualifies as 'combat experience'?

"Oh shut up, you jackass," Mateo muttered to himself. He got up with a grunt and, clutching at his side, dragged his sorry self over to the far corner, where some Fox had seen fit to stack a precarious amount of supplies in a rather haphazard configuration of crates, boxes, and burlap bags. After a bit of rummaging, he found three dusty old blankets. Kind of ugly and moth-eaten, but at least they looked warm.

"Sorry you have to go from a nice soft bed to the floor like this, but, well..." Mateo draped two of them over the kid's body, feeling absurdly like a mother hen (gods help us all). The last one he slid underneath the kid's head.

"Hezzi? Hey, can you hear me?" Mateo reached out, but hesitated. Something about this was just too weird. It was hard to imagine that this Wolf, who he barely even knew, was sort-of-but-not-really-but-kind-of family in a roundabout way. Not by blood, no, but they had the same half-brother. That was weird, wasn't it? Did that even make them anything to each other? Half-brothers by proxy, or something? No, Mateo didn't think so. But still, there's been this connection between them their whole lives, a connection they never even knew existed until a few short weeks ago. That was just... that was weird, wasn't it?

Mateo flopped down on the floor, rested his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee, and wondered if it was okay to leave the kid here like this, all alone, when any random crazy Wolf monster could come traipsing in at any moment. But conversely, was it really okay to just sit here and do nothing when people were right outside fighting, dying, this very moment? Also...

All I can do is ask forgiveness...

Those words. Those damnable words. They were even worse than his broken rib, constantly poking at his brain.

"Grargh..." He ground the heel of his hand against his forehead in an attempt to quell the headache forming there. If only he could be certain that those words were real, and not just a half-remembered snippet from some delirium-induced dream, maybe he'd know what the hell he should be doing.

He pulled Hezzi's blankets back a little and inspected his neck. The scarf seemed relatively okay (apart from the nasty-looking scissor-holes and the drying splotches of blood), and the same could be said for the bandages beneath. Just a small spot of red on the right side. Bethany must have done a really, _really_good job of patching him up.

"Okay." Mateo put the blankets back the way they were, but before he stood up, he felt compelled to lean in and press his ear against the kid's mouth. There was a steady rhythm of warm air issuing from his nostrils. Not a lot, and not very quick, but it was there. "Okay," he repeated, satisfied that the kid wouldn't just spontaneously stop living the moment he turned his back.

But still, what was he supposed to do? He was worried about his mother, his father. He was worried about Kiana, Nilia -

All I can do is ask forgiveness...

he was worried about all of them. Hell, he was even worried about Ander a little bit.

"Alright, that does it!" Mateo stood up, ignoring the aches and pains racing through his tired muscles, and went straight for the mouth of the tent. Before he stepped outside, however, he couldn't help but look back at Hezzi. From this angle he was just a bundle of blankets. He was a dirty great big Wolf, all muscle and claws, literally named for his unprecedented speed even among his own kind, a creature capable of tearing his head off in one quick bite, and yet he looked so small lying there. Just a kid with a tacky old scarf, all curled up in a corner.

His half-brother's half-brother.

Two halves make a whole, don't they?

"Please stay alive, kid," Mateo whispered. "Please just stay alive..."

Denko was flying blind without any tracks to follow, but they were so close now, he could feel it. Somewhere, inside one of these tents, he would find them. Safe and sound. Just two lives weighed against hundreds lost, true, but that didn't matter. To those two Foxes, Sarah and Michael, it would make a difference. To Renna and Ander, it would make a difference. To everyone who knew them and loved them, it would make all the difference in the world.

Please, please just let them be alive when I find them, he prayed, approaching the first tent in a long line of tents. He reached out, grabbed the flap, pulled it aside and -

stepped outside into the freezing wind once again.

Mateo started back the way he came, pulling his mother's cloak tightly around his body to cut away the worst of the cold.

He didn't know what to expect when he got back there, what it would be like, or if he could be of any use. He didn't know how to tell the good Wolves from the bad, or if that kind of distinction was even valid. He didn't know if he would fire off one shot and then immediately get swamped by a hundred angry sets of teeth. He didn't know if he would end up choking to death on a river of his own blood. But what he did know... What he did know was... was...

Why the hell was it so quiet out here?

Squeezing down on Agatha's stock (perhaps a bit too tightly for her virginal disposition - he'd have to apologise later), Mateo crouched down behind one of the tents and peeked around the corner.

"What in the name of sweet savoury bacon muffins is this?"

All the fighting had stopped. There was still a veritable sea of Wolves out there, some groups so thick they were practically shoulder to shoulder, but none of them were fighting, or even moving. Hell, he wasn't sure they were still breathing. All of them were just... standing there, completely motionless, like statues. It was kind of creepy, to be honest. Especially once you realized they were all facing inward, towards the centre of the basecamp, where the medical tent was still burning out of control. But what was so interesting over there? What had captivated them so fully? Even the idiot with the drums had ceased his infernal banging, so what the hell...?

Mateo stood up on tippy-toes to try and get a better view of what was going on, peeking out from underneath his hood.

He never did piece together what was happening, though, because his eye stopped dead mere seconds later. After that, he barely took notice of anything at all.

It was Mother and Father. Both of them, kneeling right in front of the blazing fire, holding each other in their arms, hugging each other so tightly. Were they talking? Crying? He couldn't tell from here.

"Mother? Father?" he breathed, happiness swelling inside him for the first time since he opened his eyes to the stinging smoke and glowing flames.

He had to get to them. He didn't care if there were fifty murderous Wolves between them and him. He'd wade through them if he had to. He'd use up every bolt in his quiver if he had to. He'd beat them aside with sticks if he had to. He had to make sure they were okay. And even more importantly, he had to let them know that _he_was okay.

He took one step, and then -

Nilia's in danger.

something happened.

Mateo stopped. He could feel a shiver passing through his spine, a deep tingle that had absolutely nothing to do with the cold.

Where had that voice come from? That wasn't anything like his usual internal voice. That guy was loud, obnoxious, always screaming, always badgering him to do this and that in the haughtiest of ways. But this voice... It was so quiet he wasn't even sure if he had really heard it or not.

Mateo looked around, suddenly conscious of just how many shadows there were in this place, how many gaps between the tents, how many hiding places more than large enough to accommodate a sneaky Wolf, perhaps a pitch black Wolf with one murderous red eye...

Don't be stupid, you jackass.

(Now _that_was his internal voice.)

Banno is probably dead by now. That's why Father's back. They either killed him in the woods or they tracked him to the farmhouse and ended him there. You've got nothing to worry ab-

She's going to die.

There it was again. That oddly quiet little voice in the back of his head. Was he going crazy? Did he inhale too much smoke?

Mateo began to turn around in a slow circle, a vague feeling of dread building deep down in the pit of his stomach. Maybe, if it was just the voice by itself he would have been able to ignore it, but there was that memory, too. That ethereal memory, caught somewhere between waking and dreaming, of Nilia's voice, asking for forgiveness...

Forgiveness for breaking her promise.

Mateo couldn't breathe. He clutched at his chest, feeling like he was about to suffocate. There was something wrong. He didn't know how, but he knew it in his heart of hearts. Something terribly, dangerously wrong. The need to find her, to hold her, to make sure she was okay, was overwhelming. But where was she? She had gone with Sorrin and the others, so logically she should still be with them, right?

Mateo leaned out of cover as far as he dared, scanning the remnants of the battlefield. Sorrin was indeed back, as was Old Jon and a hundred others, but Nilia was nowhere among them, and with her emerald eyes and that rat's nest she called a hairstyle, she wasn't exactly one to blend into a crowd.

This feeling... this desperate, uncontrollable feeling...

He slowly turned his head, but it was the strangest thing. It didn't feel like he was the one turning his head, but rather like his head was being nudged. There was something down the path, something hidden in the shadows, drawing his gaze. He didn't know if that something was good or bad, but his feet were moving all on their own, like in a dream, taking him closer, and with every unconscious step he took, the more the heavy feeling in his heart grew, the certainty that something was wrong, and that the amount of time he had left to do something about it was rapidly shrinking away.

The promise we made. The promise not to die...

All I can do is ask forgiveness...

NO!

There was a tree right at the edge of the forest, beyond the stumps. Just a single tree among many, except...

He rubbed his eyes, thinking that maybe he really had gone crazy after all. But when he lowered his hands, it was still there; an arrow carved into the bark of the tree, clear as day, pointing roughly north east.

Speechless, Mateo reached out and touched it, running his fingers along the cuts. They hadn't been carved so much as slashed. Three heavy blows guided by a furious hand.

Mateo peeked around the edge of the tree, following where the arrow was pointing, and saw another one farther in, also pointing north east.

The heavy, uneasy feeling in his stomach was getting worse and worse. Nilia's face kept flashing before his eyes; the hard, stony exterior belying the gentle soul beneath. The slight frown. The crossed arms. The messy, unkempt hair...

Mateo looked back over his shoulder, at the blazing light of the bonfire the medical tent had become, at all the shadows before it. Grim silhouettes brought down to their knees. He could hear the soft sounds of weeping. Or maybe it was just a trick of the wind?

"Damn it..." Mateo dragged his claws across the bark, cutting four shallow scratches across the arrow. His heart had already made the decision for him. Now all that remained was for his feet to follow.

She needs you. We need you. Please... hurry...

That voice. That soft, gentle voice... A voice that was not his own.

The saddest, loneliest voice he had ever heard.

"I'm coming, Nilia." Mateo unslung his crossbow and charged into the forest, following the arrows as they came sliding out of the shadows, one by one. "And by the gods, if you've broken your promise..."

I will never forgive you.

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