“It’s going to be all right,” Storm said, and pulled back out of the den in time to see Breeze let the fox up, blood still streaming from its neck as it turned tail and streaked out of camp.
All at once, as if the wounded fox had given a signal, its Packmates stopped fighting and tried to retreat. Some of them vanished into the undergrowth as suddenly as they had appeared. Others had to dart and weave past the dogs’ snapping jaws.
“After them!” Lucky howled. “We won’t let them get away with this!”
Moon, Bella, and Alpha were the quickest to respond. They twisted and sprang after the foxes, barking insults and threats. A few more followed them, but the rest of the dogs simply stumbled back and lay panting on the grass, scratched and bruised.
Alpha skidded to Storm’s side, kicking up a shower of dirt. She looked into the den, and her whole body seemed to sag. “Oh, thank the Earth-Dog and all the Wind-Dogs . . . oh, my poor pup, let me look at that leg. . . .”
Storm let herself sink down onto her belly, tiredness hitting her like a sudden rockfall. She stared at the camp, a cold shiver of dismay creeping over the back of her neck. The hunt and Patrol Dog dens were both torn apart, moss and leaves and twigs strewn across the camp, splintered branches hanging loose and twisting.
“Oh no,” Twitch barked suddenly. “The prey pile! It’s gone.”
“Those . . . those . . .” Snap limped across the clearing to the place where the prey pile should have been, apparently unable to find a word bad enough for the foxes. “They took it all.”
“Is any dog badly hurt?” Mickey yapped, and Storm held her breath. There was a chorus of disgruntled whining and barking, but no dog cried for help.
“Come on, you have to come out so I can help you . . .” Alpha said gently, her head still inside the den, and a moment later there was a yelp of pain and she emerged with Tumble held carefully by his scruff. She laid him on the ground outside the den, and he gave another tiny howl as his wounded leg rested on the grass.
Lucky was at their side at once, staring down in horror at the blood that still oozed from what Storm could see now were tooth marks in Tumble’s hind leg.
“It’s a bad bite,” Alpha said, between licks, keeping her tone light as Tumble looked at her with his tiny ears drooping. “You won’t be able to run around for a little while, but we’ll take care of you, and you’ll be just fine. He’ll be all right,” she repeated, looking at Lucky. Lucky nodded.
“The others—?” he whined.
“They’re fine,” Alpha reassured him. “Thanks to Breeze!”
Alpha lay down with Tumble held closely between her front paws and began to wash him, and Lucky turned to Breeze with his ears flat against his skull. Breeze’s muzzle was still stained with the fox’s blood, but when she saw her Beta’s expression of fear and gratitude, she dipped her head meekly.
“Breeze!” Lucky said. “I don’t know how to thank you enough.”
The other dogs gathered around, each of them barking their thanks to Breeze, and Breeze was quiet for a while, accepting their praise with a pleased expression.
“I didn’t do anything special,” she said. “No dog in the Pack would have let those horrible foxes harm the precious pups. I’m only sorry I wasn’t quicker.” She glanced down at Tumble, who quieted his whining and blinked up at her in wonder.
No dog in the Pack would have let them harm the pups. . . .
But I almost did.
Storm got unsteadily to her feet and padded over to Alpha. She stared down at Tumble’s wound—as Alpha cleaned it, she could see the shape of the tear in his skin, the little chunk of golden fluff that was flapping loose. . . .
She looked away, feeling dizzy with shame.
“Alpha, I’m sorry,” she whined under her breath, hoping the others would be too busy congratulating Breeze to hear her. “I was closest to the den. I should have protected the pups. . . .”
“Storm, you can’t be everywhere at once,” Alpha said impatiently, in between licks. “I know that you tried. Fortunately Breeze was here.”
Storm backed off, feeling uneasy. Alpha was right; no dog could fight off a Pack of foxes alone, and she didn’t mean to suggest that she could, but . . .
I should have done better. If it hadn’t been for Breeze, Tumble could have died, and it would have been my fault, no matter what Alpha says.
“We’ll need to send out another hunting party,” Twitch was saying. “And do something about the dens. We can gather new bedding, and perhaps some of these branches can be propped up. Come on, all unwounded dogs, to me—the sooner we make a start, the sooner we can eat and rest.”
Storm completely agreed, it all had to be done, and they should do it soon . . . but she just couldn’t.
I’m so tired. I’m not wounded, but I’m just so tired. I need to sit down, just for a little while, and then I’ll help. . . .
She staggered to the edge of the camp, away from the bustle of activity that Twitch was building up. Her eyes were closed before she even lay down.
Just let me rest for a moment, and then . . .
A volley of loud barking woke her with a dizzying start, and she raised her head to stare blearily down the slope toward the pond. Colored blurs moved across the grass—one was dark, one white, one golden, and the last one was a struggling ball of fiery red.
“Look what we caught,” Bella’s voice called out, and Storm’s bleary vision shuddered and pulled into focus three dogs: Moon, Bella, and Arrow, coming up the hill, triumph and anger in their faces. In Arrow’s jaws, a small fox writhed and yelped, held tight by the scruff.
Dread and exhaustion mingled in Storm’s heart as her eyes slid closed once more, and darkness closed over the camp.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Are you sick?”
Storm woke slowly, as if surfacing from beneath the lapping waves of the Endless Lake. Some dog was speaking to her, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. She wasn’t sick. In fact, she felt much better than she had in days. When she opened her eyes, the world seemed clear and bright. More important, it seemed real. She wasn’t sure how long she had slept, but it seemed to be early morning, and she was still curled up in the same spot on the grass as she had been when she’d gone to sleep.
There was a distinct, pleasant absence of pain. She hadn’t realized that her heart had been beating irregularly, or that there had been a burning sensation in the back of her throat, until now, once those feelings had gone.
“Storm! Is there something wrong with you?”
All sorts of things, possibly. Or nothing. I can’t be sure.
The thought finally prodded her into proper consciousness, and she sat up and stretched out, and then looked around to find Lucky sitting beside her.
“I’m fine,” she said instinctively, feeling pleased that at the moment she actually felt that it was true.
“We need to talk,” Lucky said. He sounded serious. Storm’s ears pricked up, and she looked at him curiously.
“Is something wrong?”
“That’s what I want to know. You’ve been fast asleep since the fight—you slept through sharing prey, even though Bella came and tried to wake you. Did something happen? Are you hurt?”
“I was just tired.” Storm tried to reassure him. “I hadn’t slept . . . last night. Before the foxes came,” she finished, stumbling over the half-truth. She felt a prickle of anxiety as she looked into Lucky’s eyes. There was concern there, but it was cold, somehow—his tail swished behind him in frustration.
“Why didn’t you sleep?” Lucky demanded.
Storm hesitated, thrown by the directness of his question.
“I—I just . . .” she tried, but the words stuck in her throat. I can’t tell him why I kept myself awake so long. He might just tell me I’m imagining things, that I couldn’t hurt any dog in my sleep . . . or maybe he’ll tell me he agrees, and that I’m too dangerous to keep in the Pack. . . .
“Storm, I’m just reall
y disappointed,” Lucky said. “Whatever your reasons for staying up all night, it was a foolish thing to do—a puppyish thing! You need to act like a grown dog if you want the Pack to treat you like one.”
Storm bowed her head. At first, his words rolled off her back—she knew she had good reasons, and they were about as far from puppyish as she could imagine. I’m doing this for you—for all of you!
But the more Lucky went on, the more his telling-off started to sting. “You were slow and sleepy in the fight, and that put all of us in danger,” he said. “It put the pups in danger!”
Just then, there was a pained whine from the direction of Alpha’s den. Storm looked over and saw that Alpha and Moon were sitting with Tumble, who kept trying to walk on his bad leg and letting out little yelps. Moon fussed over him, telling him to stay still, but he kept straining to reach the spot of sunlight where his litter-sisters were playing, and then looking up at Alpha with sad, questioning eyes.
Storm’s heart twisted with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Lu—”
Lucky cut her off. “I think you mean Beta.”
Storm stopped, staring at Lucky. It was a slip, she thought. I didn’t do it on purpose! Why can’t you give me even a little bit of a break?
“Of course, Beta. I’m sorry,” she said.
She certainly wasn’t going to try explaining herself to Lucky when he was in this mood.
Tumble whimpered again, and Lucky’s ears flattened for a minute.
“Good,” he said. “Don’t forget it again.”
Storm looked around the camp, partly so that she didn’t have to meet Lucky’s eyes. It was amazing how much of the foxes’ damage the dogs had fixed while she was asleep. Branches had been pulled and twisted around so that the hunters’ den wasn’t open to the sky anymore. The patrol den was almost completely destroyed, and it didn’t look like they had tried to fix it—instead, the dogs had hollowed out another space beneath a different bush, biting off twigs and branches and moving rocks.
She felt another tremor of guilt in her paws at the fact that she hadn’t helped them. The debris from the new patrol den seemed to be piled up in one corner of the clearing, at the foot of one of the large tree trunks, and she wondered if she could volunteer to help move it away later.
“Good morning, Beta,” said a voice, and Storm looked around to see Rake and Ruff coming up the slope.
“Report, Rake? What did you see on the night patrol?”
“There’s no sign of the foxes,” Rake said. “Either they’ve run far away, or they’re very well hidden, but we didn’t scent them nearby.”
Lucky frowned at the Patrol Dogs. “I don’t like this. But at least we have our prisoner.”
The prisoner! Storm couldn’t believe she had almost forgotten—the last thing she’d seen had been Arrow returning with a wriggling fox held in his jaws.
She glanced back at the corner of the camp she’d thought was simply a pile of broken wood and rocks, and realized that the debris was very carefully positioned between the roots of a tree. There was a small gap between the pile of wood and stone and the tree trunk, just large enough to hold a small fox. Bruno, Mickey, and Bella were sitting around it, ears pricked and alert. Guarding it.
The sight reminded Storm again of just how much activity she’d slept through. She told herself she didn’t care if Lucky thought she was being puppyish—she just wanted to do something to help out the Pack.
“What can I do, Beta?” she asked. “I could join a hunting party, or swap with one of the guards if you wanted. . . .”
“There’s a hunting party out already,” Lucky said. He was about to go on, when Tumble gave a yip of frustration. Lucky’s expression froze. Then he met Storm’s expectant eyes and bristled slightly. “They went out while you were asleep,” he added, with a trace of spite that had Storm biting her tongue to stop herself from snapping at him.
I know you’re worried about your pup, but I didn’t bring those foxes here. . . .
“In any case, I have a different job for you,” Lucky said. He turned and barked across the camp, “Sunshine, are you ready?”
He enjoyed that a little too much, Storm thought gloomily, as she stuck her muzzle into a springy patch of moss, trying to sniff and poke just like Sunshine had showed her, to make sure she was picking only the best bedding material.
It was Omega work, tedious and arduous at the same time, and she didn’t know how Sunshine could be so happy about it. The little white dog was snuffling through the undergrowth nearby, occasionally popping up with a mouthful of moss or soft leaves and dropping them into a pile.
“I’m so glad you’re helping me, Storm,” she’d said. “You’ve got such big, strong jaws, you can carry much more than me, so we’ll only have to make a couple of trips! Isn’t Beta clever?”
He certainly is.
Storm picked at the moss without much enthusiasm. She supposed this would be good enough. She had tried to listen to Sunshine’s instructions—despite her lowly rank, it was hard not to get swept up in her enthusiasm for even very, very boring things. But Sunshine talked so fast, and it had actually been quite complicated. . . .
Lucky is very clever. He knows just how to punish me without making it look like I’m being officially punished.
It would be fair enough—if I had done anything wrong.
Yes, she was pretty sure this patch of moss would be good enough. She leaned in and took a big mouthful in her jaws, ready to rip it up from the earth. . . .
“Yeowch!” Storm leaped back as a sharp pain stabbed into the top of her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Sunshine gasped, jumping out from behind a tree, her voice muffled by a huge mouthful of moss.
“Something sharp . . .” Storm dropped the moss and stared at it, dejected. Couldn’t she even do a simple Omega task properly? “I thought I’d checked it!”
“Are you all right?” Sunshine said. “Open up.”
Storm obediently opened her jaws wide and let the little dog peer inside.
“Oh, that must have hurt—it’s just a tiny scratch, though.You’ll be fine.” Sunshine turned to the hunk of moss and delicately picked through it. “Ah, do you see your problem? Look, here it is.”
Storm looked, but for a moment she still couldn’t see what had bitten her. Then Sunshine pulled the moss apart more, and she saw it—a twig with a sharp thorn growing through the middle of the soft, spongy plant.
“Let me show you how to check for thorns again,” Sunshine began. “Though it’ll be a bit harder with your great big paws . . .”
“I think maybe you should do the looking and I should just do the carrying,” Storm said quickly. “No offense, Sunshine, but I really hope I don’t need to learn too much about how to be a good Omega.”
“Oh, none taken!” Sunshine said cheerfully. “Omega work’s not for every dog.”
Storm started collecting up the piles of moss, her heart warmed despite herself—only Sunshine could make the lowest, most unappreciated rank in the Pack sound like a job that only really clever dogs were suited for.
If only we could all find our places like she has, maybe we wouldn’t fight so much. . . .
When Storm returned to camp with their last pile of bedding clutched in her jaws, the Sun-Dog was at his highest point overhead, and she was actually starting to feel a little too warm. New Leaf had been very welcome after the bitter chill and white storms of Ice Wind, but this was something different—it made her want to run down to the beach and splash in the Endless Lake. Perhaps she could, when she and Sunshine had finished putting the new bedding down. . . .
“Storm, there you are,” said Lucky’s voice from behind her. Storm tried to make sure that her cringing annoyance didn’t show on her face when she turned to him.
“Yes, Beta?” she said.
“I have another job for you.” Lucky came up to her, and she noticed that his ears were pricked up a bit more, and his tail held higher—he seemed to have lost some of the guarded anger
from earlier, when he’d sent her off on her Omega errand. She wondered if Tumble was feeling better. “It’s time for another dog to take over guarding our fox prisoner.”
Storm felt herself stand up a little straighter. A flicker of hope stirred in her—this was an important job. Lucky wouldn’t give this job to a dog he didn’t think he could rely on.
“You need to stay alert,” Lucky told her. “Listen for the fox trying to dig its way out. Don’t let it distract you with talk. We must get this creature to tell us what the foxes’ plans are.”
“I’ll be careful,” Storm promised him, even though his words gave her an uneasy feeling. Just what were the foxes’ plans—and what would the Pack do if those plans turned out not to be what Lucky was expecting?
The other two dogs on guard were Arrow and Woody.
“I’m glad you’re here, Storm,” Woody said, and Storm tried not to look surprised. “This . . . creature has been howling all morning, trying to get us to let it out.”
“It’s gone quiet now,” Arrow added. He was looking thoughtful. “I wonder what it’s thinking?”
“Perhaps it just knows that we aren’t going to believe any of its foul not-dog lies.” Woody sniffed. “We’ll make an example of this fox, so the others will think twice before attacking our Pack again.” He raised his head in determination. “We will finally get justice for Whisper.”
Storm let her gaze stray to Arrow and found him looking back at her.
What can we say? We’re sure the foxes didn’t kill him, but no Pack Dog wants to hear it. This attack has just given them an excuse to go back to thinking the foxes are responsible after all.