by Asher North
"We have to do something, we can't leave them. Please, Damon. Please," Rhys begged. It was the most desperate that Damon had ever heard him sound and it broke his heart but still he held Rhys close. Rhys began to cry against Damon’s shoulder and though it pained Damon to hear, he was glad that at least Rhys had looked away. It would save him the pain of watching what might come next.
Damon’s eyes went back to the beach and found that, miraculously, all three of their companions had reached the sand. The Black Claw wolves tailing them, however, were not far behind.
"Run! Run!" Damon shouted, hoping it might encourage them. Magnus stood knee-deep in the frigid water, his hands placed against the side of the boat, ready and waiting to push them away. He waded out until he was waist deep, showing no signs of being disturbed by the cold of the water, and Damon knew that it was too late. He locked eyes with Magnus and gave him a nod, approving what he knew that Magnus had to do.
"No," Rhys groaned, weak and distant. "Kaster…" But then the splashing of water reached Damon's ears and he whipped around to find all three of their friends wading through the surf toward the boat. Somehow, they managed to load in without tipping the craft and sending them all into the water.
"Thank you," Damon said to Magnus as he gave them one hard shove and sent them out to sea. Without a moment’s hesitation, he whirled and shifted back into his wolf form to meet the wolves now bounding down the beach toward him. Damon watched, listening to the snap of fangs and the slash of claws, which lasted only a few seconds before Magnus was claimed by the battle. As large and powerful as he was, not even he could withstand the combined force of three Black Claw wolves, all of them trained to kill from a very young age.
When the fight was over, two of the three wolves began to howl, the slow and haunting sound carrying across the open ocean like a dirge. It puzzled him why they might be howling since they hadn’t lost anything. His blood turned to ice, however, when he realized that the third wolf on the shore was his half-brother, Thane.
It had been that close, Damon thought with a chill. It was the first time that Damon had seen him since Thane tried to murder him at Aurora Falls and now the only thing keeping them apart was the water and the threat that it posed to those without a craft. It was true that wolves could withstand temperatures that humans never could, but not even the wolves could have swum in these waters for long.
Now, as Damon listened to the howling of his ex-pack mates, he realized what they were lamenting. They had come here to finish them off, once and for all, and failed again. It was not a cry of mourning for the wolves, dozens of them, who had no doubt been killed in the assault on the White Tail den; it was a cry of mourning for failing their mission.
With a chill, Damon turned to the horizon, and held Rhys closer and tighter than he had before. When the boat had drifted far enough away from the shore to allow the sounds of the wolves’ howling to fade, other sounds filled Damon's ear. Namely, the panting of his friends, and the ragged breath of Knox in particular. Looking down at the bottom of the small craft, Damon found a pool of blood around Knox.
"You're hurt," Damon stated the obvious, almost to make it real for himself rather than to ask the question. They might all die out on the icy ocean as they sailed to a destination unknown to meet a pack of wolves who would almost certainly kill them on arrival for nothing more than what remained of their supplies, but Knox would be gone long before then.
Kaster began to cry himself, a cry that turned into a howl and carried out across the sea, seeming to reach the horizon bounce back to their little ship, their little slice of hope. Eleo moved closer to his son and nuzzled him in an attempt at comfort but still Kaster’s howl continued and high in the sky, the Blood Eye’s previously stunningly bright light shimmered as if its price had been paid.
Rhys
Day turned to night and night to day, over and over, until the difference ceased to be noticeable. Rhys stared up at the sky, which was gray and bleak, devoid even of the burning red Blood Eye, and wondered if and when they would ever reach the Forsaken Isles or wherever the boat made landfall because not even that was a guarantee.
He'd lost track of the number of days they’d been at sea, particularly after their food supplies ran out. Out on the ocean, which was thankfully calm for the journey thus far, it was much more difficult to keep track of time than it had been on the shore. Worse, there was nothing to occupy his mind other than the thoughts of those he lost, the wolves that he knew and the ones that he didn't.
This is all because of me, he thought as he stared down at his infant son. If the Gold Eye pack had never delivered its prophecy, had never proclaimed me, my mate, and our child some great heroes in the waiting, none of this would've happened. All of those wolves would still be alive. He couldn't help wondering if his life was really worth more than any of theirs. In the moment, while he shivered among his friends and family, attempting to keep everyone warm, he didn't have a clear answer.
"Knox?" Rhys whispered, attempting not to wake the baby, who had graciously fallen asleep after hours and hours of wailing, despite Rhys's attempts to calm him. It was almost as if the baby knew what had been lost as well and was expressing its remorse. Knox, who laid on the floor of the ship and hadn't moved much in the last stretch of time that Rhys could recall, did not respond. "Knox?" Rhys called again, louder this time. The wolf's eyes cracked open, his eyelids crusted with sleep and confusion.
"Are you well?" Rhys asked, already knowing the answer. He'd seen that look on other wolves before, and he knew well what it meant. Still, he refused to acknowledge the reality and pushed himself to believe that Knox would be okay. He would have to be. They could not make it through this without him.
"No," Knox croaked, his voice like sand against stone. The pain he felt was evident in the sound, though it seemed to have lessened since the last time they spoke. That was not a good sign, however. The Light was approaching for Knox, getting ever closer, a fact that Rhys was not yet ready to accept.
"We're lost," Rhys said, looking around him and finding nothing but the same sight he'd seen for days: endless ocean from east to west and an unmarked sky from north to south. At the start, Knox had given them directions, using his knowledge of the stars and skies to guide them while he was still lucid. Now they had no such resource.
"I'm sorry," Knox said, and his eyes fluttered closed again. It was all that he could muster. Rhys choked back the burning in his throat and eyes and sent out a prayer to whoever had provided for them so far. Please, let us arrive safely. And let there be healers to see to Knox and his wounds when we do, he prayed. The only sound he got in response was the lapping of the waves against the boat and the whistle of the wind in his ears. It was enough to drive him mad. In fact, more than once he wondered if he had already started the process.
"I’m sorry as well," Rhys whispered, though he doubted that Knox was conscious to hear it. Still, it was true. Knox and his brother had seen something great in Rhys and Damon both and they had paid dearly to protect it. Rhys wished that he had never dragged these great wolves into this conflict, had never led them into harm’s way, though he knew that it was not his choice to do so. His path been decided for him long ago, perhaps even before he'd been born, by wolves and prophecies living and dead. Knox stirred again, as if by a wave of a pain.
"The Packless," he grunted, his eyes barely more than slits now. "You must convince them."
"Convince them of what?" Rhys asked. It seemed as if the delusion that sat in just before returning to the Light had set upon Knox already because the words he’d uttered made little sense. What was there to convince the Packless of, other than to spare their lives? The Packless had nothing to do with their current predicament and didn’t care at all for the conflicts of the major packs of Moonvalley. In fact, the Packless would probably have been thrilled to hear that they had torn each other apart.
"To fight for you. To fight with you," Knox said and in that moment Rhys was convinced that Knox was lost, his mind a
ddled beyond repair.
"The Packless fight for no one but themselves. Even if I was able to convince them, what would they fight for? It certainly wouldn't be for my benefit or for any other wolves. They would return to Moonvalley as brigands, taking the meat off of the bone of whatever was left," Rhys said.
It was his own pack, the Silver Fangs, who had banished the Packless wolves to the Forsaken Isles far off to the frigid northwest in the first place. After the conflict with the Black Claws more than one hundred years ago, in which Oberon Mooneye had been killed, the wolves who were not associated with the pack thought it a good time to make use of chaos.
All around Moonvalley they attacked, seemingly unorganized, until the Silver Fangs came together and abolished them. It was highly unlikely that they would fight for anyone they considered an outsider, but Rhys knew that they would never fight for a Silver Fang. And besides all of that, Rhys had no idea what it was that they would be fighting against. The Black Claws were clearly much larger than they had ever been before, their ranks bolstered by wolves unknown. It was impossible for them to have numbers such as they did without recruiting wolves beyond their own pack, but the Black Claws had a history of doing that. No doubt they would have offered the White Tails some sort of peace deal in exchange for Rhys, Damon, and their baby, if they had been given the opportunity to do so.
"They have as much grievance with our world as you do," Knox said.
"For what?"
"They were banished much the same way as you are now," Knox said. "They long to retake what they feel is rightfully theirs, but they have neither the numbers nor the strength for it."
"The strength of five famished and wounded wolves will not add much to their cause," Rhys said.
"They are larger than any of you know," Knox said. Much larger than the Silver Fangs and Black Claws combined. They are unorganized, untrained, and unskilled, but that can be changed with time."
"They are also wild and uncivilized and they will kill us as soon as they lay eyes on us," Damon said, speaking up for the first time in what felt to Rhys like months.
"Damon is right. They can't be trusted, much less worked with. My father told me many stories of them over the years, stories that still haunt my dreams from time to time," Rhys said, and a shiver went down his spine as he thought of some of those very stories.
It was rumored that the Packless would murder their own young if they were smaller in size or otherwise disabled at birth. As if that weren't horrific enough, it was also rumored that the way that they did so was barbaric; they were said to toss the pups in the frigid sea that surrounded their islands.
"When silver and black mate and an alliance create, no wolf or man alive will fail to see it thrive," Knox said and once more a chill rippled through Rhys's body. It was the same words that his brother, now deceased, had said to Rhys in his dream. "When land and sea once more agree, an age golden shall quell the world's rage." Damon's eyes found Rhys's, and the look there suggested that he was concerned that Knox was out of his senses.
But Rhys knew better. Knox's body may have been debilitated but his mind was as sharp as it had ever been, though Rhys could never have explained how he knew that. It struck him then that Knox and Lux were never wolves of the body; they had always been much more wolves of the mind, space, and time. The abilities that they possessed, and the prophecies that they delivered, had been carried throughout their family and their pack for generations.
More often than not, when they had thought it a good idea to share their premonitions with the other packs, their predictions had been proven correct. As questionable as it sounded, Rhys knew that he had to take the suggestion seriously. He had no idea how he would treaty with the Packless wolves, or if they would even be open to such a thing, but he had to try. He owed it to Knox and Lux both and to their legacy. Though it carried the risk of getting him killed, it might also save all of Moonvalley if he was successful.
As if it were all that he had left within him, Knox fell silent again, and his head rested against the floor of the ship. When they had asked Knox about what had happened, Knox refused to share, likely to keep them from feeling concerned or wasting their energy on something that was a foregone conclusion. Rhys had known from the second that Knox climbed into the boat that he would not see the other end of this journey but seeing Knox in his current state was much harder to take than Rhys would have guessed it would be. He had lost several lives close and important to him in the last stretch of time, but no matter how many times it happened, it never seem to get any easier.
"He doesn't have much time left," Rhys whispered to Damon, and Damon nodded in silent, mournful agreement.
"I have heard that there are worse ways to meet the Light," Damon said. Rhys knew that to be true; he had seen many wolves go to the Light in much more violent fashion than this. He hoped that, when his own time came, it would be as peaceful and painless as Knox's transition seemed to have been.
Once more, he searched the horizon ahead, hoping against all hope that he might find some sort of sign of land. On more than one occasion, his mind played tricks on him, convincing him that a cloud, however rare, was in fact the peak of a mountain growing out of an island. Rhys had no idea what the Forsaken Isles looked like, he'd only ever heard them described as horrible places in stories, but somehow he knew that the terrain would be mountainous and harsh.
Unfortunately, there were no such tricks nor signs of life waiting for him on the horizon this time. He nestled his son against his chest and stroked his tangled hair. The child's movements had grown sluggish and infrequent, which gave Rhys more than one occasion of panic, but each time Rhys held his ear down to the baby's chest, he heard his heart beating study and sure.
You are stronger than the rest of us combined, Rhys thought. He hoped it was true. He didn't have much left in his body to give to his son because their food supplies had run out more than a day ago and his body was no longer able to produce the nutrition that the baby needed.
To calm himself and remove the worry that never seemed to leave him, Rhys laid back against Damon's chest, taking solace in Damon’s scent, and praying that they would all be safe if and when they did arrive. He stayed that way until once more day turned to night and the stars spackled the sky, a welcome change from the endless, bleak gray that the sky wore during the day.
More than anything, he wished that he had paid attention to his lessons as a young wolf, when they had instructed all of the pups in the ways of celestial navigation. To Rhys now, the stars looked like nothing more than random blips, offering no direction nor comfort. They stretched across the sky, like a vast blanket, and Rhys followed them from west to east. They looked almost the same as they had since their journey had begun, but this time Rhys noticed something different.
Several new stars had appeared, which he didn't recognize. As little attention as he paid in his lessons, he at least knew some of the positions of the stars. The stars he saw now, however, looked completely out of place. They seemed to bob along the horizon and flash in a way that the others didn't. He narrowed his eyes, trying to take in more of their detail, and his heart caught in his throat when he realized that they weren’t stars at all.
They were eyes, watching him and the boat from the shore of an island. Those eyes were unlike any that he had ever seen before, white and silver alternating in the light from the moon, and many other shades as well. The colors escaped him before, because they were too far away to register, but as their boat drew nearer to the landmass before them, Rhys saw many different colors twinkling: red, blue, yellow, green, and many mixes of each among them.
"Damon," Rhys whispered, hoping that his voice didn't carry across the ocean. They were still quite far away from the shore but he couldn't be too careful. The eyes on the shore belonged to wolves without a doubt, and the only wolves who lived this this far out to sea were Packless.
Damon didn't respond so Rhys gently nudged him with his elbow and Damon jolted up. Without a wo
rd, he took a passing glance around and Rhys watched the horror of comprehension appear on his face. Strangely, though, Rhys didn't share his fear. They had been sailing for longer than Rhys could remember, and this is what they had been sailing toward, so come whatever may, they had arrived.
"Is it…?" Damon asked, his voice so low that even Rhys struggled to hear it.
"I think so," Rhys answered.
"Should we wake the others?" Damon asked.
"No, I don't want to alarm whoever is waiting for us," Rhys said. They fell silent again, each of them watching the shore as it approached. Rhys hadn’t felt nervous before but as the wolves came into focus and grew larger with their approach, he found himself holding his son closer. Having been born premature, Rhys's child was exactly the type that the Packless were rumored to throw into the ocean. I will never let that happen, Rhys thought with a fire, the same fire that had almost been lost.
The wolves on the shore were so still that they seemed like statues. The only hint that they were alive was the motion of their eyes, which sparkled and flitted about in the darkness. Still, among all the pairs watching Rhys and his companions, none of them seemed friendly. How am I going to talk to these wolves? Rhys wondered. What could I possibly say to convince them not to attack us as soon as we make landfall?
"It will be fine," Damon said, as if he had read Rhys's mind. "I have faith in you. Have faith in yourself, as every other wolf you've ever met has, and everything will fall into place."
"I wish I were half as confident in my abilities as you seem to be," Rhys said.
"I will help you wherever I can," Damon said, and Rhys was beyond grateful for the offer. Perhaps now more than at any point in their relatively short history together, Rhys needed Damon. This truly was their last hope, and no matter how it came about, they could only leave in one of two ways: alive or dead.
Rhys moved to the front of the boat, which carved through the still water as if it were air. His movement triggered anxiety on the shore, and the wolves that stood watching them shuffled about, their eyes floating like coals from a stoked fire. He felt Damon's hand on the small of his back, holding him steady, and the gentle breath of his son against his chest. Each gave him the strength he knew he would need for what was to come. Matching their rate of approach, the sun had begun to rise over the horizon, casting a dim light over the wolves who waited for Rhys and his friends. Not surprisingly, they were unkempt, their fur matted and knotted, and many of them were missing pieces of themselves, pieces that they had likely left behind in battle. Rhys knew he would find little companionship among these wolves, but they were all he had left. If he were to take on the Black Claws and the Silver Fangs, he needed their help. He couldn't judge them on the surface; it wasn’t their looks he had need of. Their unpredictability and wildness in battle might be a good thing in the war to come.