The Rise of the Fire Moon

  28.

  Storm Clouds

  “All right!” Alanki roared, bursting into the makeshift settlement. “I lied! I lied to you!”

  Misari glanced up from where he was lying beneath a snow-laden bush. Avrok was sitting nearby, his eyes narrowed. A hundred pairs of dull eyes turned over to where Alanki was standing.

  “I lied,” she repeated. “Can you hear me? I lied! And I’m sorry, I promise, really I am. But I—I…there’s something you need to know.”

  A soft buzzing rose as the pack murmured amongst themselves. Alanki, whose sides were heaving with the exhaustion of shame, noticed that the old green-eyed she-wolf was nowhere in sight. The pack’s murmurs silenced as Misari rose. He padded over to Alanki and tilted his head politely, indicating that they should move somewhere away from the pack’s stares. Legs trembling, Alanki followed him.

  “I see that the messenger has returned.” He lowered his head in a gesture of respect, and Alanki bristled. “What are you shouting about? Is there trouble?”

  “Of course there’s trouble,” she said, and hesitated. The pack was staring at her with curious, hunger-dulled eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I lied to you.”

  “Did you?”

  “I don’t really have a pack at all. I’m a renegade.”

  “Ah.” Misari nodded as though he had known all along.

  “That pack you heard—they weren’t my pack.” Alanki avoided Misari’s piercing golden-orange gaze. “They were a different pack. They were chasing me; they sought to kill me. And so I told—”

  “Why?”

  Alanki stopped. “Why?”

  “Why did they want to kill you?” Misari’s eyes were sharp and suddenly fiery. Alanki stared at him for a moment before replying.

  “They harmed my family,” she said, lowering her eyes. Her pelt still smoldered at the memory. “They killed them—two of them—so I did the same, in vengeance. ‘Twas only right.”

  “They attacked your family?”

  “Yes.” Alanki glanced up. Misari was wearing a strange expression. He looked surprised, more so than Alanki had expected, and his head was tilted to one side as though he did not believe her. But the fur around his neck was bristling.

  “Whom do you call your family?” he asked, curious, and Alanki averted her eyes again. As mild as he seemed, she could not hold this wolf’s burning gaze. There was a sudden intentness in him that made her uneasy; she was waiting for his rage to flare up, to burn her to ash, but he maintained an external appearance of maddening calm.

  “The deer.” Her voice was quiet. “The deer on the fields. I know ‘tis not what you would expect, but here I am telling the truth. I owe them a life debt. I’ve betrayed them once before, and I shall flay my own pelt before I do it again.”

  She could feel the alpha watching her. She could hear him breathing in an even, but hoarse, rhythm. “Your family,” he repeated. “You have...you have a past betrayal? You have failed them once before?”

  “I murdered one of them.” Alanki’s voice was a whisper now. “When I was younger. I lost control. I am not one of them. But I—I shan’t ever forget it. And I owe it to them to protect them from what hunts them now.”

  “The other pack.”

  “Yes.”

  “And so now they hunt you.”

  “Y—Yes. And ‘tis my fault that they are coming here, for you. I led them here. I told them lies as I told you, and now they are going to attack. Tomorrow, they will come. I told them you were my pack, and you had come to fight them, but ‘twas a mistake, a terrible thing.” Alanki looked up, shaking. Misari’s expression had not changed. “But ‘tis not too late,” she said, her voice breaking. “And that is why I’ve come here today, to warn you. You have time. You can flee the forest and follow the river with the deer. I will show you the way.”

  “No,” Misari said, and Alanki’s breath caught in her throat. “We have wandered enough. We will stay here.”

  “But they’re coming—”

  “If I lead my pack to fight them, will we have earned the right to live in this territory? As a permanent home?”

  “Yes! But you can’t—”

  “Then it is decided.” Misari’s voice was firm. Alanki didn’t dare to look at his eyes now; she could hear the stern power in his voice. She wondered if this was some trick, some way to punish her for what she had done to his pack, but he did not seem angry at her, not directly. He hadn’t burst out at her in rage when she confessed what she did; rather, it seemed his intensity had been building steadily since the start of their conversation. It showed in the bristling of his fur, the stiffness of his legs, the occasional flash in his eye. “We will fight these wolves tomorrow, when they come for us.”

  “There is no us,” Alanki said. Her voice was beginning to shake in panic. “You don’t have to do this; they needn’t come for anyone but me. You have no quarrel with them.”

  “Not yesterday, perhaps. But today I do.”

  “You do not! You don’t—”

  “Enough,” Misari said, and Alanki immediately fell silent. She was afraid. She was afraid of this wolf, now, more so than she had ever feared any of the packwolves or their silver alpha. He was old, but he had an air of ancient, immovable strength, and his eyes burned with the hot orange light of live coals, a hunter’s excitement, fury and wild happiness roiling about in equal amounts. He was no longer examining Alanki. Rather, he was looking past her, over her shoulders, as though watching some distant scene unfold. “I have made my decision. Do not make the mistake of thinking that I don’t understand what is happening, what I am choosing. Like you, I have my own past betrayals; I have my own old debts to pay.”

  “But your pack! They’ll be slaughtered.”

  “I would not command them to be a part of this fight. I will give them the option to flee. But they will follow me into battle whether I ask them or not. We are tired from the journey, and I am not as strong as I once was, but we have faced fiercer things than wolves and I am wise enough to recognize what is being granted to me. A rare opportunity,” he said, lifting his chin. “This time, I will take it in my teeth and not let go.”

  Alanki didn’t know what he was talking about any more. It didn’t matter; all she knew was that her attempts to mend what she had done had failed. In the darkness behind her eyes she saw the scenes from her dream, the ashen-furred wolves falling to pieces beneath the rush of fangs and shadows. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I—I am sorry.”

  “No. You owe me nothing.”

  “I am sorry,” she insisted. “That’s all I came to say. To warn you, and to say that I’m sorry for what I have brought upon you and your pack.”

  Misari did not respond. He lowered his head and appeared to be deep in thought, his brow furrowing and his ears swiveling forward. There were a few beats of silence. At last, he raised his head and looked Alanki in the eye. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, but this time she held his gaze. She did not blink or look away. She knew that Misari noticed. His face did not change, but he seemed to stand a bit taller, and Alanki identified with the fierce, stubborn pride in his eyes. “What is your name?” he said, finally. His voice was milder now, more calm than before, but the strength was still there. “I don’t recall ever asking.”

  “My name is Alanki.”

  “Alanki,” Misari repeated, and then his face softened into a rather tired smile. “Alanki, it is good to know you.”