by Martha Woods
“I’m going out tonight, on that mission.” That simple statement sucked all the air out of the room, Jeremy’s eyes snapping to his calm form, hands clasped behind his back and his feet set apart. “I wanted to let you know before I did, so that you don’t get any unpleasant surprises.”
“Tonight? But… that’s so soon, I thought you would have more time…”
“They have a hunting party going out at three in the morning, like clockwork, this’ll be the best time to get them, and honestly I don’t want to just stand around thinking about walking to my death. I’d rather just go and get it over with if it’s all the same to you.”
“I…” No matter what, there was going to be a blood price to pay for this, it was just a matter of how much he was willing to pay. “Of course, I understand. Just please be sure to say your goodbyes to anyone that you want to talk to personally, I would hate to have them lose you without… being able to make peace with it.”
“I already did, I figured that I’d just get that out of the way too. Everyone else can find out from you later when we’ve already won, for now just get your people together and prepare for them to fight again, just in case the wolves aren’t satisfied with just me.” Hank snapped to attention, the wrinkles on his skin, the wear and tear on his body all seeming to vanish for just an instant, pushing him back into his younger days as the soldier that he once was. There was no doubt about it, this was the way that he wanted to go, and he was not going to accept any other outcome.
“I know it sounds stupid, given what you’re going out to do…” Hank paused at the door, looking back as Jeremy looked away. “But please be careful out there, it wouldn’t do for you to die for nothing.”
“Not nothing,” Hank whispered, shaking his head before he walked out into the cold, “Not nothing…”
Jeremy’s eyes lingered at the spot where he had been standing, still able to see his silhouette if he really thought about it. After a minute he could smell that he’d left the camp completely, walking out to do whatever ritual it was that he needed to do to make peace with everything, and it was then that Jeremy collapsed back into the seat, head in his hands and an anguished howl on his lips.
He’d sent a man knowingly to his death, and he still had no idea if it was going to be the last one.
“Ready?” Orson asked, tightening the laces on his boots and looking over at Jennifer, eyes lingering on the defined lines of her biceps in her tank top. “You look ready to kick some ass, but aren’t you cold?”
“Never really feel it,” She answered, stretching out her shoulders and feeling a satisfying pop, “Besides, they help me move the way I need to, I think that’s more important than being a little chilly.”
Nodding his agreement, he stood and waited for her to join him at his side before they stepped off, walking towards the wolf camp with determination in their every movement. They’d packed up their bags and were ready to collect them when the time was right, that time being when they were running for their lives from bear and wolf alike. They were definitely going to have one hell of a journey ahead of them no matter how this night worked out, and it was going to take all that they had to make sure they survived it.
Once they were within a few miles of the camp they crept low to the ground, resisting shifting just yet as they sat in wait for the hunting parties to move out, all of them to the east and downwind from any potential predators. Unless the wolves stumbled right into them there was really no chance of them being found, unless their luck was supremely bad.
“How long?” Orson said, eyes closed as he focused on feeling their presence in the camp.
Jennifer looked down at her watch, tapping her fingers along her wrist as she cracked her neck. “About forty-five minutes, but they might move out sooner. We just need to watch and make sure that we’re ready to move when they do.”
The time to move turned out to be twenty minutes later, at the ripe time of two thirty-five in the morning, dozens of wolves both young and old setting out to hopefully find some level of food when their stores were already dwindling so much. All of them knew that they wouldn’t find anything tonight, nor were they likely to find food any other night from now on, but they wouldn’t know unless they tried.
Unfortunately, as they were leaving none of them sensed the two shifters circling around their camp to the south, ready to rush in and take what little still remained keeping them here.
Jennifer held her hand up, gesturing for the both of them to be silent as they moved closer to the camp, footsteps silent on the underbrush and their bodies almost invisible in the pale moonlight, drifting in between bushes and shadows like they were nothing more than shadows themselves, eyes glowing in the dark the only thing you would see if you were really looking out for them.
The camp had almost emptied out completely, the situation with the food so much more dire than they could have anticipated, leaving behind only a dozen wolves who were more suited to attending to the general care of the campsite than actual guard duty. The plan was to get in and out with a minimum of violence, these were just innocent people trying to get by, there was nothing to be gained in dragging them any further into this as well.
“There it is…” Jennifer whispered, hissing the words into his ear as she pointed ahead, “We just need to get closer and…”
Orson glanced over at her, confused as to why she trailed off, but when he looked back he saw what she saw, and why it startled her so. Smoke was already starting to rise from the fields, none of the nearby wolves having noticed just yet, but all of them feeling like something was off. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what that was, not when they could both smell the burning on the air as the air shifted their way.
“Someone’s already burning it,” Orson said, eyes widening, “If it’s the bears then that’s just going to force the wolves to attack them in return, they could be angry enough to fight a war and shed the blood anyway!”
She nodded, already well aware of what the consequences could be here, but there wasn’t much that they could do other than push further and hope that they avoided detection for now, there was still a chance for them to take the blame for this like they had intended.
Walking into the fields, the heat already starting to rise as the fields to their west started to catch, it wasn’t hard for them to see the form of Hank with his torch, setting it to the base of every stalk that he passed by, already having walked through the majority of the field and planting the seeds of inferno. Enough was burning that it wasn’t going to take much more than a simple gust of wind to cover the rest in flame, and though that had indeed been the plan… they needed to make sure that he was not seen at all.
“Hank?” Orson asked, holding his arms out to the side as he stepped closer, making himself seem as non-threatening as possible as the old soldier turned and stared at him through the rapidly building smoke, eyes narrowed into fine points that stared into his very soul. “Hank, what are you doing here?”
“I’m making sure that we’ll have a future in this forest,” He answered, craning his arm back and tossing the torch into the storehouses, the dry wood walls catching easily and spreading quickly, “You would have done the same thing if you cares about our people, but instead you abandon us for the very people that tried to wipe us out in the first place.”
“What?” Orson said, taking a step closer and keeping his eyes on Hank’s hands, “Hank you know me, why would I do that? You knew my father, you saw me grow up, why would I betray all of you?”
“For her no doubt,” Hank said, flicking his head at Jennifer, not making any secret of the hatred in his heart, “Always over a woman, always over something stupid. As though you can’t just find another one.”
His body language wasn’t encouraging, clenched fists and braced feet against the dirt. A fight was getting closer and closer, and there was little that Orson could do to try and stop it other than walk forward and hope that he could break through. “Hank… let’s just get out o
f here ok? You can still leave, me and Jennifer will take the fall for all of this, you can trust me on that.”
Without another word Hank darted to the side, the smoke parting in his wake as he cut through the burning fields, the anger that had been burning in his eyes telling Orson that he was doing the exact opposite of running away. He’d known Hank growing up, had seen the way that he had fought in the war, the kinds of things that he was capable of… if he thought that Orson had switched sides, that now he was going to bat for the wolves, then it was clear what the next course of action was in his mind.
He was going to kill the Elder.
“No!” Orson shouted, pushing off so fast that the earth cracked under his foot, bashing burning crops out of the way as he followed in Hank’s footsteps, nose so clogged with smoke that he could barely even tell where he was going, but the roar and answering scream in front of him told him all he needed to know about where he had gone.
Hank was braced above Elder Sarah, fully shifted and preparing to swipe his aged, scarred claws into her unprotected side as she attempted to shift too, fighting against the broken shoulder that he’d so obviously just given her. The next swipe was coming right for her head, and it was with the barest amount of time left between sight and impact that Orson dove through the air, shifting part way as he slammed himself into Hank’s side and sent them both sailing across the thoroughfare, snarling viciously at the other as they pushed themselves up onto their feet.
“Don’t do this!” He shouted at Hank, placing himself between him and the Elder, “Whatever it is that you want to do, do it to me, they are not involved!”
“They’re all involved, and I’m not going to let them take away any more of us like they did last time! This ends tonight, no matter what!”
He sprinted forward, sinking his teeth into Orson’s shoulder and tugging roughly, grunting as a swipe opened up his leg and made him stumble momentarily, teeth still embedded in Orson’s skin. Orson kept hitting, not wanting to target anything vital just in case he misjudged and hit him too hard, his age very much a factor in how much he was willing to defend himself. But Hank was no fragile old man, he’d been training himself consistently for the years before and following the war, there was nothing but strength left in his body, and it was dying for an outlet.
“Hank… stop this!” Orson grunted, reaching up and raking his claws down Hank’s back, the pain finally freeing Hank’s jaws from around his shoulder, the two of them separating and taking stock of the other. Hank was bleeding copiously, but it was only surface wounds, his mobility wasn’t being greatly affected, nor was he in any real danger of bleeding to death.
Orson on the other hand wasn’t looking good, his shoulder all but useless after the assault it had been through, and somewhere in the scuffle Hank had dragged his claws across his stomach and come perilously close to gutting him completely. He shook his head to try and take his mind off the pain that was starting to flicker at the edges of his eyes, but it was only a matter of time before it became too much to handle.
“You die here, just like them, just like every other traitor that we’ve had over the years,” Hank growled, hackles rising and his claws digging into the ground in front of him, “Just like I should have done when your siblings left us.”
Orson saw red, and it was just enough of a moment of distraction for Hank to rush forward and take him down to the ground, a heavy blow bouncing off the side of his skull and rattling his brain. Orson lay dazed as Hank readied his claws for the final swipe, before he was suddenly tackled from the side, a black mass of claw and fang digging itself into the skin of his neck and forcing him off of Orson.
Jennifer bit and scraped at whatever piece of him that she could get, cutting deep gashes into his skin and through the muscle, furious, bloodthirsty grunts and growls slipping through with every movement. She’d been trying to see to Elder Sarah while she could, much to her surprise, but when she’d seen him about to kill Orson something in her had snapped, the same thing that was pushing her closer and closer to adding another notch on her belt after so many years of peace.
“You… don’t… touch him!” She screamed, readying her jaws to latch around his windpipe before he dug his claws into her stomach, cutting a deep track through her side and splashing blood across Orson’s face. Blood that only marked the ground deeper as she was thrown off to the side and impacted with a tree with enough impact to crack the air like a gunshot.
What happened next happened so quickly that even those who were watching carefully weren’t able to clearly remember it, Orson going from being on his back with blood across his face to on top of Hank, his previous requests for peace being exchanged for furious growls and snarls, claws and teeth slashing and pummeling into Hank’s chest until tough skin gave way to tight muscle gave way to something much more disgusting, only stopping when he realized that Hank had stopped fighting and was staring down at himself in disbelief.
“I’ll… be damned,” He said, voice shaking with how much pain he was in, “You actually… did it kid…”
He didn’t have enough energy to maintain his bear form, shifting back into his human form and immediately howling with pain, his body that had so barely been holding itself together suddenly giving up all together, bones turned to powder and organs almost pulped. He had precious little time left on this earth, and it was no secret to anyone, least of all to Orson.
“Oh God, oh no no no no!” He placed his hands on the hole that he’d dug in Hank’s chest, trying futilely to stop the bleeding from a hole bigger than both of his hands combined. “Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!”
Jennifer placed herself at his side, resting one hand on his shoulder and the other on the wound in her ribs. Hank looked up at them, through vision that was rapidly turning black, and couldn’t help but ask, “Was it really for her?”
Orson shook his head, seeing that there was nothing that he could do other than grab Hank’s hand and guide him along through the rest. “No… It wasn’t…”
“Were… did you even betray us at all?”
Orson thought about lying, to tell him the only truth that he’d wanted to believe, but he wouldn’t do him that indignity. This was a man that he’d known his whole life, he was going to give him the bitter truth. “I didn’t betray any of you Hank, I just… I wanted to make sure that we could survive. All of us, bear and wolf alike. And now look at what’s happened.”
“Just a misunderstanding…” Hank said to himself, before laughing as his mouth filled with blood, “I’m… sorry kid… I really… really am…”
His hand fell from Orson’s grip, and it didn’t take him a moment to consider why. All he could do was cross it over Hank’s chest and take a moment to bow his head, before he stood and held his hand out to Jennifer. “Are you ok?”
She took a second to answer, still staring down at the still body of Hank, until a few precious seconds ago so full of anger and hate, now… so devoid of everything that it was bringing her years back into the past. “Y-yeah… I think, I think I’m alright.”
“Oh my god…” Elder Sarah said, looking between them and his body, slowly dawning on her that everything around them was aflame, “What have I done… we’ve lost everything…”
Jennifer stood up, shaking Orson’s hand off of her and marching over angrily to the Elder, hauling her up to her feet and shaking her as she shouted, “I told you to just let everything go, that we could have moved on! But now… now look at what’s happening! A bear is dead in our camp, and your food is gone, what do you think is going to be the next step here?”
The Elder looked distraught, hand clamping over her mouth as she realized the full extent of the consequences that were coming their way. “We have no way to feed ourselves in the event of a fight, and now that they’ve lost one of their own… they’ll be out to kill us down to the last man, there’s no question about it.”
Something about that thought didn’t sit right with her, but before Jennifer cou
ld correct her Orson placed his hand on her forearm, shaking his head as he looked at her. She stepped back, allowing him to take her place in front of the shaking Elder. “That’s right, they’ll kill you, and with all of this there’s probably nothing that you can do about that. The fact that all the food is gone is probably enough to make your people want to fight anyway, but that’ll only end in their deaths, as well as a few of mine. So that’s why the bears didn’t burn down your fields, and that’s why you didn’t kill the man who came here.”
The confusion was shared by both Jennifer and the Elder, both of them staring at him with open mouths as he continued, “I came here, by myself, and I torched the fields. When my clan found out what was happening they sent someone to come and stop me, and I killed them in return. That’s what you say, to the wolves, to any bears that question you, and that’s what you keep saying even as they ask for my head, do you understand?”
“Orson…” Jennifer said, understanding fully what he was doing, the weight that he was shouldering. But she wasn’t going to let him carry it alone. “I helped him, we both wanted to end everything, so we torched it all, and we ran away before anyone could punish us for our actions. Whatever happens after this, however you feel about each other, both you and the bears need to put everything behind you, alright?”
The Elder could only stand there limply as the stepped back, gathering Hank in their arms and starting towards the outskirts of camp, only stopping when she called out for them to stop. Collapsing down to her knees, Elder Sarah looked both of them in the eye before she let her head drop, staring down at the dirt. “I’m so sorry, both of you. I… I’m sorry for what will have to come next.”
“I know,” Jennifer said, feeling all of her anger evaporate from such a pathetic sight, “So just… make the rest of it worth it, ok? Find a new life for all of you, away from here, this land has suffered enough.”