The Rise of the Fire Moon

  ***

  Tir shifted before the entrance to the redoubt, the wind cutting through his fur and making his eyes water. He wished Xelind would hurry; he needed a bit of fighting to warm himself up. The day had only grown colder since his hunt with Seilo, and Tir was feeling numb. What was Xelind doing? He had never been late before.

  Tir spied the skinny white wolf slipping out of one of the Sentinels’ dens on the other end of the redoubt main. From a distance, he looked eerily like the renegade. Tir shuddered.

  “Fine, then, let’s go,” Xelind said, bustling up to Tir. He looked edgy about something. Had Tir imagined the slight tremor in his voice as he spoke?

  “Are you all right?” Tir said, peering up at him. “You sound strange.”

  “I’m fine,” Xelind snapped. “Let’s go.”

  Yes, there was definitely a small waver in his voice, as though he was bothered about something. Tir was baffled. Xelind had never been shaken by anything—what could be wrong?

  “A—are you sure you’re fine?” Tir asked. “You seem upset about something. Do you want to skip the lesson for today?”

  “No! We can’t miss today’s lesson. And stop bothering me, you idiot. For the last time, nothing is wrong.”

  They glared at each other for a while. To Tir’s shock, there was something like fear deep in his icy blue eyes. Xelind must have realized this, because he jerked his head away, facing the bitter wind.

  “Come along,” he said. “Let’s go—”

  “Wait just a minute!”

  They both swung around. Palva was running towards them, at a lopsided sort of gallop on her three legs. She skidded to a halt in front of Xelind, panting, and dropped something from her jaws. Tir stared at the scarlet berries as they rolled onto the grey dirt. They looked familiar.

  “You don’t look well,” Palva said, her voice hard. Xelind blinked.

  “I don’t look well,” he repeated, sounding irritated. “But I just told the outsider here that I’m—”

  “Not well at all,” Palva cut in. “It may be an autumn fever.”

  Tir stared at her. She looked even worse than Xelind; her eyes were wide and glazed and her ears were flat against her skull. Tir watched, dumbfounded, as the fur along her neck rose like a hedgehog’s spines.

  “An autumn fever?” Xelind said. “No, I think not, Gatherer. I feel perfectly fine, I really do—”

  “No, you don’t. Alpha Liyra’s ordered me to examine everyone so we have our full strength against the renegade. Here, I brought you some herbs.”

  She nudged forward the shiny red berries with a trembling paw. Xelind stared down at them, and Tir followed his gaze. There was something familiar about them, something entrancingly terrifying, though he couldn’t imagine where he had seen them before. They were small and gleaming like little droplets of blood on the ground.

  “Eat them,” Palva said. “Eat them, and they will help you. It’s the best I can do.”

  Tir was transported back to a dry, sunny day, over a year ago. Arwena, her fur soiled and unkempt, was standing at the foot of a scrubby coniferous tree that was sprinkled with gleaming red berries. She turned to him, eyes dull and hollow.

  “This is yew,” she said, her voice a dreamlike whisper of a memory. “All parts of it wish to do you harm. Should the black seed of a single berry so much as touch your tongue, you will die.”

  You will die…

  “Stop!” Tir shouted at Xelind, who had just lowered his head to lick up the red berries. “Stop; don’t—don’t eat those! It’s yew, and it’s poisonous.”

  Slowly, Xelind raised his head. He stared at Tir with his deadened eyes, unchanged; he stared at Tir for a very long time. Tir swallowed, his heart pounding.

  “It’s poison,” he said weakly. “Yew. You’d die.”

  Silence.

  “You are an idiot, Tir,” Palva said. “An idiot.”

  “But it’s—it’s poison, Palva. Poison. W—what were you—”

  “It wasn’t an accident! I know what I’m doing, Tir. And so does Xelind. But you don’t—you never knew what you were doing.”

  Tir stared at her, unable to comprehend what she was saying. He couldn’t believe that Palva—Palva, of all the wolves in the pack, would do something so terrible, so characteristic of Leron.

  Xelind had not moved. His head was still inches away from the berries, which twinkled sinisterly on the ground. Frosty blue eyes stared straight through Tir, and for once the usual blankness had gained a calculating edge. Palva was glowering at the Sentinel with such hatred and disgust that Tir would have flinched, but Xelind did not appear affected at all.

  “I wasn’t going to do it, you know,” he said, not taking his eyes off of Tir. “I didn’t intend to.”

  “Don’t lie,” hissed Palva. “I heard everything, you filthy, despicable mur—”

  “I’m not a murderer.”

  “He trusted you! I would never trust you, but he at least gave you a chance. You disgust me.”

  “Tir should not trust me; he should never have trusted me,” Xelind said, still staring at Tir as though reading his mind. “But I’m not a murderer.”

  “Then what did you intend? I heard everything—you were going to come back and disappoint your captain, were you? Let him see that there’s no more use for you? Oh, I heard what he told you—as if you would throw away your own life!”

  “I didn’t intend to do that, either.”

  “Then what were you going to do? I heard what Leron said.”

  “I would have thought of something.”

  “What’s going on?” Tir said, his eyes darting from Xelind to Palva, his heart beginning to pound harder. “W—why are you calling Xelind a murderer, Palva?”

  “Take a guess, Tir.”

  “That’s enough.”

  Xelind had risen to his paws, dead eyes glittering. His shaggy white fur was bristling, but his face had not changed. Almost experimentally, he took a threatening step towards Palva, but she did not flinch, glowering straight back with double the ferocity.

  “I am not a murderer, Gatherer,” he said tonelessly, raising his head. “I’ve never been a murderer, and you have no evidence to prove me otherwise.”

  “Oh, do I not?” Palva said. “I’ll admit I didn’t believe everything said about you. Rumors, I called them. Well, I was wrong. You consider yourself lucky I’m only the poor three-legged Gatherer, or I swear I would kill you on the spot.”

  “I didn’t do it. How many times must I tell you wolves? It was—”

  “It was not a fox! There were wolf footprints around her body, or do you have an explanation for those, too?”

  Xelind’s blue eyes were stony and blank.

  “You must be mistaken,” he said.

  “Oh, say I am then! But tell me, who did kill her if it wasn’t you? I suppose you’re going to suggest it was Kesol?”

  “It was a fox. The dark fur in her claws was fox fur.”

  “What fur? There was no fur in her claws when we found her.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Why bother denying it now?” Palva said. “You know very well the stories everyone tells. And now I know it’s the truth. You conniving, bloodthirsty stoat. You killed a pup in cold blood—your sister—and today you were—”

  “I DIDN’T KILL HER!” Xelind roared. Palva took a step back, surprised by his explosion. Xelind was panting, his blue eyes narrowed.

  “P—Palva,” Tir said. “I don’t think this—”

  “Be quiet, Tir!” Palva barked. “Oh, don’t you dare defend this—this—”

  “This what, Gatherer?” Xelind said through clenched teeth, bearing down over Palva. “This liar? This hypocrite? This stoat? Call me what you like, but I won’t listen to you calling me a murderer.”

  “But if you’re a liar, then it doesn’t make any difference whether you say you are or not, does it? I know the truth, and Rya save you if you ever come to me with any sort of wound or affliction,
because I swear I’ll poison you into insanity.”

  “Palva?” Tir asked, frightened by the murderous look on her face. “What happened? What did you—”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Palva said, turning on him. “What have I ever told you? Didn’t I say not to trust him? Does no one listen to me around here? Didn’t I say? Didn’t I?”

  “I wasn’t going to do it!” Xelind snarled. “I had another—”

  “I heard what Leron told you, Xelind,” said Palva, her face an inch away from his. “And I know what you were going to do the moment the pair of you got far away enough from the redoubt.”

  “What?” Tir asked, his voice shaking. “What were you going to do?”

  But before she could answer, the realization broke over him like a cold wave. “No. No, Palva, he wasn’t—”

  “He was,” she growled. “I told you never to trust this clod of filth. I told you!”

  “I wasn’t going to do it!” Xelind said, for once looking a bit uncomfortable, his eyes darting towards Tir.

  “Oh, really?” Palva’s voice had dropped to a deadly whisper. “You spineless coward—you’d do whatever the Captain told you to do, wouldn’t you?”

  But to Tir’s surprise, Xelind closed his eyes and turned around.

  “I told you, didn’t I?” he said. “I wasn’t going to do it. What must I do to make you believe me?”

  “Eat these,” Palva said, shoving the yew berries back under his muzzle. “Eat them now, before they freeze, and then I’ll believe you. And a good riddance, I’ll say as well. The rest of the pack will thank me tomorrow.”

  Xelind blinked.

  “Is that all?” he said, a trace of sarcasm creeping into his tone. “Well, then. If that’s what you want, then I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  Tir’s jaw dropped. Was Xelind out of his mind? He stared, amazed, as the white Sentinel turned over one of the berries with his paw, the blood-red reflecting in his eyes. Palva looked just as startled as Xelind opened his mouth just the slightest, showing rows of sharp white fangs.

  Tir was shocked and horrified by what he had just learned. Palva had been right all along, and even Xelind himself had admitted that Tir should not have trusted him. Xelind had always hated Tir, and Tir hated him in return—for all the cruel comments and beatings he had to endure during their fighting lessons. But no matter how much he detested the haughty white wolf, whatever he may have done in the past, did Tir want to see Xelind die at his feet? Would that give him any sort of satisfaction?

  “No, wait,” Tir said hoarsely. “Stop it, Xelind.”

  Xelind stopped.

  “Tir.” Palva whipped around. “What are you doing? This stoat would kill you for nothing. If he wants to die, then let him. For Rya’s sake, stop trying to be noble.”

  “But Palva, I—”

  “Oh, no, what’s going on here?”

  Captain Leron had strode up to the group, towering over them as he surveyed the scene. Palva swung around, her eyes flaming and her teeth bared in a snarl.

  “Oh, hello, Captain,” she hissed. “We were just having a pleasant philosophical conversation. Xelind here brought up the topic of murder, a very interesting thing indeed. Do you know anything about it?”

  “Murder?” Leron rolled the word over on his tongue as though he had never heard it before. “Well, no, Gatherer, I don’t think I do.”

  “That is very well,” Palva said. “Because, as you so aptly put it at the last Council meeting, ‘murderers must die’. True, yes?”

  “Very true,” Leron said with an agreeable smile. “And the sooner we catch that murderous renegade, the better,” he added. “I have come to inform you that there will be another renegade hunt this afternoon. Tir, you shall be coming along with several other wolves. Do not forget.”

  Tir did not reply, but Leron made no objection. He wheeled around and padded away, not sparing them a backwards glance.

  “Murderers must die,” Palva muttered to herself. She glared at Xelind, and then met Tir’s eye. Still growling, she ground the yew berries into the dirt with her paw and walked away.