The Rise of the Fire Moon

The pack was swarming around the boulder in the redoubt main. Palva could feel their restlessness in the air as she padded across to sit at the very edge of the crowd. They were pacing to and fro, bristling and baring their fangs at each other.

  “As you all know, the chief Sentinel, Sirle, was murdered today.”

  Alpha Liyra was speaking from her place atop the boulder, shouting over the scattered growls of the pack. At her words, the growls only increased, and a few wolves snapped the empty air. Palva saw Xelind pacing nearby, as silent as the others were snarling. He met her gaze across the crowd of bristling wolves.

  “And you also know the ancient tradition of the Fang night, perhaps the only tradition we have all shared as separate packs, and now are fully prepared to take up as one, unified pack. One among us is gone, and his space must be filled by the strongest of those who remain. And in a normal situation, I would allow the fighting to begin as routine. But tonight, it is different.”

  The growling stopped, and the pack was silent. Palva felt their confusion rattling through the air like a rising swarm of flies. A hundred gleaming eyes turned to look up at Liyra.

  “Yes,” she was saying, raising her head. “Yes. It is different—Sirle, the chief Sentinel, did not die of quiet causes. He was murdered by the ruthless anger of the white renegade—yes, what you have been told is true! And because of that, I am changing the usual tradition.”

  Liyra’s eyes were glinting in the dark, and her voice had grown tense with excitement. In the shadow of the boulder, Palva could see the dark outline of Captain Leron hunched against the stone. She almost shuddered when she felt the dark, cold energy that was radiating off of him as well. Palva growled deep in her throat. She did not turn around, but she knew that Xelind was still watching her.

  “Tonight!” Liyra barked in a sudden rush of energy, rising to her paws. Her dark gold eyes flashed in the darkness, and the packwolves below took up this fire eagerly, as though she were scattering coals in the audience. They, too, flew to their paws, growls rolling from their bristling throats. “Tonight we all go to hunt the renegade!” Liyra cried. “She has slipped from us too many times. The entire pack will go! She will not escape us again!”

  The wolves had all risen to their feet, sensing the Alpha’s fervent emotion. They snarled their appreciation.

  “YES!” Liyra howled, raising her head. “Tonight is the end of the renegade! Tonight we will get our revenge! All of us! We will hunt and destroy her as a pack—as one unit, as a unified body! No more are we a loosely-bound horde of strangers! We shall take this opportunity as a gift from Rya—that we may face and destroy the enemy as an undivided pack!”

  The sound of the pack’s excitement was deafening. Many were jumping up, snapping at those around them in the frenzy, and a few had even raised their heads to the night sky to howl.

  “AND TONIGHT,” Liyra continued, shrieking over the noise. “Whoever kills the renegade shall be the new Chief Sentinel!”

  The alpha lifted her silver head to the sky and howled; the hunting cry spiraling up to the cold stars. The other packwolves took up her cry, their howls mingling with Liyra’s into one sound that raised the hairs along Palva’s neck.

  With that final cry, Liyra turned and dashed out of the redoubt. The rest of the pack followed behind, still howling and crying to the skies as they thundered out of the redoubt on their way to the renegade’s forest.