Wolven

----------------------------------------~*~-----------------------------------------------

The king of the tundra found refuge in the cold solitude of his open kingdom. The below-freezing breezes of the arctic north bathed his soul with a calm that he could find nowhere else, and he sought this relief at the mouth of his clan’s cave. Before him the plains of tundra, rock, and ice expanded far and wide, the crags and peaks of distant hills poking at the horizon. The sun was on its slow climb up to midday, dazzling the areas of ice and snow in a blinding light.

Closing his bright eyes, he breathed the ice in, breathed the smells of summer on the tundra. Life filled his senses, of grass and plants growing off on the plains, of the small animals and rodents that feasted on them in these short months of plenty. He felt his heart slow its pace with relaxation as he focused on the wind that danced with his clothes and his long hair.

His thick brow darkened as he opened his icy eyes, lifting them toward the Screaming Peaks far off to the north, where many of his enemies lay. Turning on his heel, the king of his lands stepped down into the mouth of the caverns to rouse the rest of his pack in preparation for departure. It was only a matter of time before the Tornuaq Clan also became aware of another budding Highbourne among the people of the northern village, and once they did, they would be out to spill that blood.

----------------------------------------~*~-----------------------------------------------

I avoid Halin as much as I can the next day, knowing he would have heard of the incident last night and would be absolutely petrified, then livid with the situation I had been in. I spend my time glowering and brooding with a rifle on the edges of the small town, my mind lost in the grand mystery of the wolf pack, the Inuit woman, and her claim. I was also pretty moody about my poor shot. With a gun I was... decent, at best, and worse under pressure, like last night. I was better off with more natural weapons, like a knife. I didn’t want to waste ammo or draw attention by practicing, though, so I reside to sarcastically convincing myself that my skill would grow by sending the firearm gloomy stares.

Returning to the cabin that evening, I slip in quietly through the back to avoid notice from my worrisome neighbor. I shed my outerwear the moment I’m in, as I start to break into a sweat from the change in temperature. After beginning to feed the wood stove, I pause as a sound from the back rooms alert me.

“Halin?” I call, hearing movement in the bedroom adjacent to my own. I approach the door, a sliver of light shining through the crack at the bottom. It whips open, causing me to jump, and then gasp.

“Rowan!” I grin at him as I go in for a bear hug, but my older brother halts me with a hand, leaning against the doorframe.

“Hold up, Rhea.”

“What’s wrong with you, stupid, I missed you! Where’s dad?” My voice floats off into silence as I notice his haggard features, the way he practically hangs on the frame of the door. The flannel button-up he’s wearing is open, and bandages stretch across his torso, binding his shoulder. “What happened?”

He shakes his head, his thick, dark hair falling into his clear eyes. I send him a pointed glare. “Rowan.” He tosses the look right back with a snort.

“I’m home a little early ‘cause of this, I guess,” he growls with a throaty, bitter chuckle. I ask him where he got it. “Hunting accident.” He mutters before pivoting to return to his bed. I narrow my eyes as I lean my shoulder against the frame of the door, watching my brother lower himself carefully down onto the mattress.

“A hunting accident?”

An affirmative grunt.

“Details?”

He shoots me a look that would silence most, before snuggling down into a ball of self-pity and comfort in preparation for sleep. I inhale deeply through my nose as I pinch the bridge and screw my eyes shut.

“Alright, so when are the rest of the hunters coming home?”

“In a few days, perhaps. I think we have some vicodin in the cupboard above the sink, Rhea.”

I turn on my heal, heading toward my room.

“Get your own damn vicodin.”

As I pull the door to his bedroom closed shut in my wake, the gust of wind from inside carries a smell that causes me to falter, causes the hair on the back of my neck to rise. As my nose picks up the scent of him, I can almost hear his howl and feel the pressure of his cold gaze. Stricken straight to the core, I try snapping myself out of it. The scent of the giant alpha-male wolf is suddenly gone, and my heart pounds as my strange instincts stir to be awakened. I grind my teeth together and shake my head, kicking the door to my room open to flop down on my bed and wonder if I’m going batty.

~*~

One minute I’m lying with my face in a pillow, wondering if this arctic night holds any sleep for me, and the next I’m waking up drowsily to a silent cabin. The next moment I’m out again, relieved that I can finally sleep. But what seems like the following moment, I’m roused by gunshots.

At first, it doesn’t occur to me that I’m not still in the world of dreams, and once another shot sounds from outside, followed by screams and animal noises, adrenaline hits me like a freight train. Leaping from my mattress, I let the momentum carry me out of my room. I catch myself on the frame of Rowan’s door, eyes wide as I take in his empty bed, his flannel shirt on the floor and his blankets a mess. Rushing to the door, I drag my boots onto my feet in haste before I barely take the time to throw on my coat. Swiping my hunting knife off of the kitchen counter, I don’t bother searching for my gun.

Once outside, I can barely believe the sight my eyes take in. Wolves are dashing through the village, taking down those who run, those who try to fight. Never in my years of living have I ever known wolves to be so bold as to enter a town like this. I’ve never even heard of an occurrence like this happening. I pray quickly that the hunters and whalers return in time to help us against this attack, before I join the wild, bloody fray between a large wolf and a townsperson.

Enraged as I watch the beast tear at the man pinned underneath it, its muzzle bathed in the blood that spurts from the man’s neck, time slows to a crawl as I can’t get my legs to transport me fast enough. Frantically, I grasp the scruff of the animal’s neck in my left hand as I fall onto it, plunging my knife into its chest between two ribs.

It throws it’s head back in a yelp as its lung is punctured, and I hang on tight to go for another quick thrust, landing fatal access to the wolf’s heart. Its snarl cuts off into silence as it pitches to the ground, and I shake as I free my knife from its body. I barely have time to identify the still, lost villager before another snarling, frenzied wolf is charging me from down the road.

With a flash of fear interrupting the potent waves of adrenaline at the size and breakneck speed of the advancing wolf, I stumble to try and prepare myself in defense somehow. I give a jolt as a shadow flies over my head, and I instinctively duck low with a shuddering gasp as another large wolf intercepts the advancing one. The new arrival connects with my assailant, and the two beasts writhe and rip at each other in the snowy road. I watch in shock.

The wolf that saved me is large, white. My initial racing heart calms when I realize it’s not the alpha from the last instance. The scent it carried over me is different... yet familiar. I regain my bearings suddenly as I straighten to notice more wolves appearing from behind houses, over rises, to roughly encircle myself and the scrapping wolves. I brandish my blade at them as I turn, stumbling over my own feet, to survey the growing number. This is not the pack from last night. The wolves are all... different. I give a shiver at the sudden death cry behind me, and I whip around to watch the shaggy grey wolf get its throat torn apart by the white defender. I raise my knife with a jolt as it springs away from the fallen beast, toward me. It limps as it trots around me, issuing ferocious warnings to the seven or so wolves that yip and snarl at us, not a single hackle around me flattened. I keep my eye on the giant beast with suspicious caution, trying to quell the great fear in my gut for my life, and the lives of the entire village.

The sounds of the beasts all around me intensifies suddenly as barks and howls sound from down the road. The rough circular formation around us breaks as some of the wolves move to face the incoming beasts.

My legs shake underneath me as my mind spins with confusion and an overdrive of fear and adrenaline as I watch the two groups of wolves clash, my white defender from earlier remaining close. I rack my brain, forcing it to form a plan of action. I couldn’t stay here, among all of these creatures. I had to find the rest of the village, regroup with the others. There was strength in numbers.

With the two groups of beasts caught up in a vicious brawl, I force my jelly legs into action as I lurch toward the rise that stood between this street and the one beyond, the one that led the to the fastest route to the middle of town. I frightfully ignore the low barks of the arctic wolf behind me, taking fearful glances back to make sure it wasn’t going to attack. As I near the top of the rise, as I turn to face it after checking on the arctic wolf once more, I come face to face with a set of massive golden eyes. Choking on a startled gasp, I almost lose my balance and my footing on the rocky slope with the sudden appearance of a colossal black wolf. The beast holds the top of the rise in front of me, its lowered head at eye level. Its large black ears swivel to face me, and the thick waves of charcoal fur covering its enormous chest billow in the arctic breeze, bathing me in its potent scent. I am stricken before it; overwhelmed by its musk, diminished by its sheer size, and pinned by its stare.

Drawing its dark lips back, my blood runs as cold as it ever has in the face of its massive jaws, convinced that the snarl resembles a grin of sick intention. The fear in my heart rises with the sound of a rumbling growl from the gargantuan beast.

As the wind shifts, the dark wolf raises its head, its black nose twitching as it catches a scent from below. Just as the terrifying creature snarls, an instinctive control over my fear reigns it in check as my own nose picks up the smell on the frigid breeze. My heart gives a shudder as I risk a glance over my shoulder, clutching my hunting knife. In the street below stands the magnificent alpha wolf from the other night, dwarfing the smaller wolves that collide and tear at each other around it. The slightly smaller arctic wolf, with equally piercing eyes flanks it, as well as a smaller grey wolf.

My defender from earlier issues a sharp bark, and I sense movement from the black wolf. Ducking away from it down the hill, I suppress a shriek as it’s terrible muzzle lashes out to take my head off. In slow motion, I smell the rancid scent of the beast’s breath, laced with the smell of blood as its jaws snap shut in a deep, resounding sound just above my head. I lose my footing on the rocks and ice, tumbling down the rise with a massive black shadow in my wake. I land and roll, then skid as the hill levels out. Soundlessly, the white alpha male from the street launches over me, its muscles corded and stretched as it sails to connect with the great black wolf. In awe of the two giant beasts, I stare as they roll and mingle and snarl down the rise close to me. One as black and foreboding as a stormy, moonless night, the other as pure and swift as a frigid wraith.

Before I have time to register more fear or the right mind to defend myself, the arctic wolf limps to my fallen form and grasps the hood of my coat in its jaws. I cringe in preparation for death as my body is lifted from the ground, the coat cutting off my breathing as it presses painfully across my trachea. I struggle to breath as I’m dragged across the street, behind a cabin. Concealed between the house and a shed, the wolf drops me and disappears around the corner of the cabin.

Where is Halin? Rowan? Are they unharmed, or have they been caught in the attack?

Could my brother and my dear friend be dead?

These thought and more rush through my mind as I sit up, coughing. My arms and my legs burn from my fall down the rise, and I can feel the bruises starting to form on my knee where it knocked against a rock. My head pounds from the fall, pounds from the sensory overload of all the smells of blood and numerous wolves. All this time, I’ve felt on the verge... Felt myself and my instincts walking along the razor edge between the control I’ve always had over what resides within my gut, and the release of the plunge into the unknown. The unknown of what happens when I don’t.

A clarity falls over my mind, over my gut as a catch that distinctive scent of the arctic alpha, and I twist from where I sit to spot the giant beast stalking around the corner of the cabin. Its ivory fur is stained red in various places over its body, and I have a feeling not much of that blood is its own. I give a jolt when Rowan appears from behind it, splattered with blood himself.

I cry his name, thanking the gods that he is safe, before a sudden fear for him and his proximity to the alpha. He goes to me, hoisting me to my feet.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he insists with command, supporting me when my legs give out.

“Where? What about the village? Where is Halin?” He ignores my questions as he maneuvers me onto his back. “Rowan!” I shout in despair, before sending a nervous glare towards the still and watchful alpha behind us. The ground rushes from beneath me, and I tense up as I clutch onto my brother.

Onto his massive, snowy shoulders, his fur tickling my face as I lie across his back with my legs dangling from either side, in complete disbelief of what just happened.

My brother shifted into the white defender, right beneath me. The alpha’s bone-chilling howl pierces the air, causing a wave of frigid... relief... to wash over me. My brother’s snowy chest cavity rumbles as his own howl mingles at a lower pitch with the alpha’s, and my throat tingles. The call brings the wolves from the great alpha’s pack to appear from the street, sprinting off over the rise that separated us from the vast tundra. In their wake canters the gnashing wolves that had been attacking the village, and I clutch onto Rowan as he’s off at an impossibly fast run, his limp suppressed. The alpha brings up the rear, its glacial gaze fixated on me as I peered back at it.

A different stirring sensation rises in the pit of my stomach, in the bowels of my heart, as I cling to the wolven form of my brother. A tickling, a fissure that I’ve never felt before since I began feeling strange instincts, not-natural feelings within my stomach.

The cage is splintering.