Quarter Square

by David Bridger

  “Yes.” Shad swung one arm around my shoulder and the other around Min’s and hugged us both tight. “We do not leave anyone behind.”

  “Surely you only need to send warriors to fight the battle. Why drag the whole tribe along?”

  Shad chuckled. “Trust me, Joe. I know what I am doing.”

  I shrugged off his heavy arm and faced him. “No, Shad. This is wrong. You’re putting everyone in danger, and there’s no need for it.”

  He raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t a friendly gesture.

  “Send a war party. You said yourself no one can beat you. Why take the whole tribe? What’s the point?”

  “My decision, Joe.” His tone carried a warning.

  “It’s the wrong decision. You’re going to remove all these people from the protection of the ward. Tyac is out there, for fuck’s sake. If Min and I stay here with your tribe, he’ll stay in this area. When your war party goes, he’ll let you go. It’s us he wants. But if you put your tribe between him and us outside the ward, you’ll be putting them all in danger. For nothing.”

  “My decision, Joe. My people, my decision.” Shad’s nostrils flared. He thrust his head forward and planted his massive fists on his hips.

  I hoped for support from Min, but she pulled a stressed face and said nothing.

  Shad raised his right arm towards me at shoulder height, parallel to the ground.

  I stared at his flattened hand. What?

  He jerked his hand imperiously and glared at me.

  He wanted me to submit to him? No way.

  He jerked his hand again and gave an ominous, low growl.

  “Joe, please…” Min said.

  Anya nodded her encouragement.

  I didn’t believe this.

  Shad tucked his chin in slightly and inclined his forehead away from his raised arm. His next movement would be to hammer me into the ground.

  With seething bad grace, I bowed my head.

  Shad placed his hand on my head for longer than I considered reasonable. When he removed it, he studied my burning eyes curiously, almost playfully, all his aggression gone. Satisfied, he and Anya turned and walked away.

  I trembled violently, filled with rage and nowhere to put it. Min made herself busy talking with two of the children, but I caught Ban’s eye, and we exchanged a nod of understanding.

  The Axe prepared to leave, planning to move out as soon as they changed into wolves when the sun set.

  Min and I dressed in our own clothes and joined the tribe in the compound. I counted forty-eight adults and nineteen children. Mothers fussed around their children as Ban gathered them together. Older boys and girls released the goats from their tethers and the cattle from the pen.

  “They don’t expect to come back,” I said to Min.

  “I was thinking the same thing.” She looked drawn, stressed beyond tears. “Look what they’re giving up for us.”

  “Come with me.” I took her arm and guided her into our hut.

  “This is wrong, Min. You know it is. There’s going to be a tragedy, and I can’t believe you won’t help me prevent it.”

  She cast her eyes down. “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. You’re their goddess. Order Shad to change his plan.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. They honour me as their goddess, but I don’t rule them. I doubt they’d take any notice if I tried.”

  “You’ll never know if you don’t bother.”

  She gripped my arms. “I do know. I’ve known the Axe for thousands of years. I know how they think and how they react to threats. This is typical of them. They’re going to put their lives on the line for me whether I want them to or not, because I’m their goddess and they’ll do whatever they deem necessary to ensure my safety.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You think I like this? You think I wanted to come here and put them all in danger? You were there. What other option did I have?” Her eyes filled with tears. “You saw how Shad responded when you challenged him. If I tried that, even if all I did was question whether they would succeed in a battle with Tyac, I wouldn’t only be questioning Shad’s authority as a leader. I’d also be suggesting the whole tribe is weak and not worthy of me. This is what they do for me, and it’s my duty to accept it.”

  “You won’t say anything because you don’t want to hurt their pride?”

  “Pride? How condescending are you? It isn’t pride. It’s their culture. It’s their identity. They’ve been headstrong, brave, fond of grand gestures, faithful and utterly fearless like this for six thousand years, and that was before they became fucking werewolves. All that is probably times ten now.”

  Her tears fell. “And there’s this too. I love these people, Joe, but you mean everything to me.”

  “Don’t put this on me.”

  “I can’t watch you die. Not so soon. I can’t do it.” Her face crumpled. Then she sank to the ground and hugged my legs. “I’ve seen it too many times, and we’ve been apart for so long, and I’ve only just found you again. I can’t bear it.” She clung to my legs and sobbed.

  I helped her to her feet and held her tenderly, pulled in two different directions at the same time and hating it.

  “I know I’m selfish.” She wiped her eyes. “But if others have to die, even people I love, so you can live, then so be it.”

  A distant howl came from far away in the east, and the skin crawled from the base of my spine to my scalp.

  “We will protect you.” Anya and her daughters appeared in the doorway of our hut. Anya beckoned us out, then placed a hand on each of our shoulders, and the warmth of her grip nearly reassured me. I wanted to believe her. Surely even the mad savagery of Tyac wouldn’t be enough to beat a whole pack of werewolves. Would it?

  Min turned her blotchy face to Anya. “I love your people, and I love you even more for wanting to help, but you know some are going to get hurt.”

  “We are ready to die for you.” Anya stared hard into Min’s eyes.

  Shad joined our group. “It is true,” he rumbled. “We would all die for you. Today I think some of us will die for you, and it will be our honour. You are our goddess.”

  Min shook her head and looked around the tribe, her tear-filled gaze pausing on each of the children.

  “We will protect the young ones,” Shad promised, squinting at the sky. “It is nearly our time. Will you sing for us?”

  Anya hugged first Ban and then Shad, kissing her husband tenderly.

  Min sang a sad song in an old language, while the tribe waited for the sun to go down.

  As had happened the previous night, the children changed first. Parents smoothed hair and murmured soothing words to their young ones as pain racked them briefly. In a short time Min and I stood tall in a moving sea of huge wolves.

  Of all the wolves there, the only ones I could identify for certain were Shad and Anya, but the two female wolves who shadowed Anya’s every move had to be their daughters, Vua and Tae. General Anya and her two lieutenants. Those three females were as magnificent in wolf form as they were in their human shapes. They herded the pack towards the main gateway and took the lead, while Shad tasted Min’s fingers and rubbed his flank against her hip.

  “Do you want me to ride you?”

  He pushed against her again.

  Min cocked her leg over his back, settled comfortably behind his shoulders and gripped his mane.

  Another wolf waited patiently beside me.

  “Karn?”

  He took my fingertips in his mouth and nibbled them delicately.

  I climbed onto his back. It was like mounting a small horse. I imagined so anyway, having never ridden a horse. He felt awesomely strong and powerful beneath me, and he smelled like a heavy dog on a hot afternoon. I took two fistfuls of coarse hair and used my inner thighs and knees to adjust my seat as he paced forwards.

  When we reached the head of the column, Anya barked once, and the pack moved through the main entrance as one, whil
e behind us the huge black wolf that had to be Ban quietly led nursing mothers and youngsters along a trail at the back of the village.

  The tribe wasn’t likely to see their home again, no matter what happened in the next twenty-four hours. King Owen would destroy their village in revenge when he found out they’d defied him. If Min and I thought that, the Axe must know it with even more certainty.

  We moved fast. Trees flashed by, and the ground disappeared underfoot, and it dawned on me what the timing of this meant. It was barely sunset, and the Hare attack on Quarter Square was due an hour before dawn. In order to arrive there in time to defend the place, we would have to cover in a few hours the same distance it’d taken Min and me three days to travel on the way here.

  Our progress was amazingly quiet, considering there were nearly fifty animals running at great speed through the woods. The loudest sound in my ears was my own panting, which was a mixture of fear and occasional jolts of pain.

  It took me some time to get used to the motion, and I kept adjusting my position, trying to find the most comfortable seat on Karn’s back. Eventually I discovered that by bending my knees and gripping his flanks with the insides of both knees and with my calves and insteps, I could get into the rhythm and move with him. My groin stopped taking a hammer blow every time he leapt over something, and I was able to settle down and enjoy the ride. In a manner of speaking.

  The village was half an hour behind us, and we’d covered tens of miles, when a distant crashing noise came from somewhere over to our right.

  Tyac was coming, and he was coming fast. I renewed my grip on Karn’s mane.

  The first attack happened so quickly that I almost missed it. There was a crash and clamour in the undergrowth as we swept past, a brief scuffle from somewhere near the back of the column, and it was over. I glanced back and caught sight of a wolf being dragged off the trail and into the bushes. Nobody stopped to help him. Our flight continued at the same intense pace.

  Tyac’s second attack took out another wolf.

  His third met with more resistance. Three wolves turned on him, snarling and snapping and tearing at every part of him their sharp teeth could reach. Their furious attack slowed his progress, but only slightly, and he left another dead wolf on the track behind us when he smashed back into the forest.

  “They’ll all be killed,” Min panted.

  I didn’t answer. I told you so would have been cruel and petty.

  Wolves mobbed and mauled Tyac every time he attacked, but he was bigger and stronger and faster than any individual member of the pack, and he just kept on coming. The pack’s numbers fell, one by one, and casualties were left behind.

  The eeriest part of this horrible experience was that the pauses between Tyac’s attacks were nearly silent, and nothing broke our breathtaking speed. Their plan was obviously to keep moving, no matter what happened, to keep Min and me out of Tyac’s reach at any cost.

  I caught glimpses of him through the flashing trees as we ran. He was twice Shad’s size, and he ran upright on two legs most of the time like the monster he was rather than on all fours like the wolves who carried us. He was mad and utterly terrifying.

  We thundered through the night, our progress marked by the dead bodies we abandoned and the bloody smears on trees and foliage. Our sound carried in heavy vibrations more than as noises in the air.

  Even in my fear I marvelled at the discipline of the pack. Anya remained calm while she marshalled her fighters. I guessed we were about halfway back to Quarter Square when she fell back in line, while Vua and Tae took her place at the head of the column.

  Min and I craned our necks to watch her filter back towards the middle of the column with several other fighters.

  “I don’t like this,” Min said through gritted teeth.

  Shad gave an angry huff beneath her. He didn’t like it either.

  I didn’t like any of it, but Anya’s revised plan made more sense to me than Shad’s original one. Why lose individual wolves to the monster if a pack of them could fight him off?

  And why had it taken them so long to figure that out? I suspected their famous success as mercenaries owed more to the fact that their adversaries were usually terrified humans pitted against huge wolves than from any sort of superior strategies or tactics.

  Tyac’s next attack met with such firm resistance that he failed to take out a wolf. Maybe this was going to work after all.

  After that failed attack, our progress continued unhindered for about an hour, although I caught sight of the monster flashing through the trees that flanked us. This wasn’t over by a long way. And I ached everywhere.

  I started to recognise features in the landscape from the first day of our flight into the Wild. The return journey had taken the pack only four or five hours, and I started to hope we might make it back to civilization in one piece.

  We were only a few miles from the square when Tyac attacked from above, running through the treetops and dropping directly into our path. We were on him instantly.

  He flashed his maw towards me, and I punched him on the snout as we flew past. Wolves dragged him down and mobbed him. Anya and her warriors hit him in a mass, and we left a screaming carnage in our wake. The remaining wolves closed around us, and we sprinted for the edge of the Wild.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The wolf pack limped into the square on bleeding pads and scared the hell out of a pair of youngsters who were necking by the campfire. Word spread quickly, and the insiders gathered in the garden. While Min explained the events to everyone, I sat with the twenty remaining wolves, who sprawled together in a panting heap.

  The dancers—Dish, Blue and Sab—crouched under the apple tree and glowered at us.

  “I don’t know what their problem is,” I told Shad. “They’ve never liked me since the moment I arrived here.”

  He butted the bony top of his head against my hand, and I realised I’d been stroking behind his ear as if he were a dog. He didn’t seem to mind, but he was far from relaxed. He and his wolves studied the dancers intently, and the air between the two groups quivered with hostility.

  Jimmy approached cautiously and sat next to me. “I’m glad you’re okay. We’ve been worried sick about you two.” He eyed Shad warily.

  “These guys saved Min and me from that bastard Tyac. Lots of them died on the way here to stop him from getting us.”

  “They’re werewolves too?”

  “Yes, but not like he is. These are the good guys. And if you think they look awesome now, wait until you see them as humans.”

  Raised voices came from elsewhere in the garden as insiders stood in pockets and tried to come to terms with the news.

  “This is crap,” Andrew insisted. “No way Queen Fiona would hurt anyone here.”

  Other conversations faded as people turned towards him, and Min’s question carried clearly.

  “What do you know about Fiona’s intentions, Andrew?”

  His eyes darted left and right. “Well, nothing. Obviously.”

  “Tell us.” There was no accusation in Min’s voice. She sounded like a Mother Confessor more than anything.

  Andrew closed his eyes. His breath trembled.

  Min took his hands and crooned a quiet tune to him.

  People stared at one another. Jimmy and I strolled over to the main group.

  Min stopped singing. “Tell us what we need to know.”

  Andrew’s tear-filled eyes implored Min to believe him. “She just wanted to know about the haven. She cares. No one cares anymore.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Min opened her arms and hugged him. Angry mutters broke out among the watching insiders, but she shook her head at them over his shoulder and held him while he sobbed.

  I cleared my throat. “They’ll be here in an hour. We’d better get ready.”

  Will and I patrolled the square together, checking that everyone was okay and searching for weak points.

  Holding hands and meditating, Fliss and Lind
a kneeled in the middle of the garden with a subdued Andrew. Their threading magic would be the backbone of our defence, and everyone knew to keep an eye out for their safety.

  Five teenagers stood nearby, ready to defend the threaders and armed with sheets of heavy timber I’d fashioned into full-length body shields. I’d also made dozens of heavy spears, and each teenager had one in hand and a few more on the ground.

  Will was still muttering in amazement at the magic he’d seen me perform with wood in the past hour.

  Making the weapons released some kind of muscle memory in me. When I hefted the first spear, its weight and balance were perfect, and I knew I’d done this before. Not only had I made them, I’d wielded them. Anticipating the battle to come invigorated me like the promise of sex. Energy powered my limbs and fired my senses. I wanted to run out there and find the enemy now.

  Tara sat cross-legged by the fire while she calmly briefed her four recruited medical assistants. She smiled as we passed by and mouthed oak to me.

  The remainder of the adult insiders were split into two main groups and armed with an assortment of weaponry from spears to juggling clubs, knives and swords and most of my woodworking tools from inside the theatre. Big Luke headed the group at the far end of the garden, while Cindy and Debs whirled their fire ropes slowly at the front of the group near the theatre door.

  Jimmy had shepherded the children into the front room of his house, where Min sang soothing songs to them. I gave him two spears.

  “I’ll stay here and protect the children,” he said.

  “Me too.” Delores joined us and accepted a spear.

  Min came out and hugged me hard. “Be careful. I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  I watched her until she disappeared back indoors. Then I stretched up on tiptoe to peer over the hedge into the garden. The dancers were no longer under the apple tree, and that was probably a good thing. I’d been concerned innocent blood might be spilled once the wolves got into a fighting fury.

  “They’re in our house,” Delores said. “Don’t know what’s got into those boys tonight. They’re in a horrible mood.”