Other Titles in the Series:
Seeds of Autumn
Ghosts of Winter
Tides of Spring
The story continues in
Echoes of the Past:
Ghosts of Winter
Prologue
Fights-Eyes-Open
Eyes strode into the shop. Shadow's Step sat drumming his fingers behind one of the little glass windows, Lily pottered about behind him tidying the back of the shop in advance of closing time. A couple of punters stood transfixed by the noisy televisions.
Eyes passed through the shop and into the house behind it. He heard raised voices in the kitchen. Fortune, it was always Fortune.
'Why didn't she tell one of us before now?' the Alpha was bellowing, as Eyes entered.
'What's wrong?' Eyes asked.
'Where is Weaver now?' Fortune went on, apparently not noticing Eyes' arrival.
'The university,' Flames-First-Guardian responded. 'I told her to give us some space to handle this. I'm absolutely certain it is the Phoenix Guard and I don't know how long we have.'
Eyes looked from face to face, confusion and worry seeping into every pore of his body.
'Get back to the petrol station!' Fortune yelled at Flames. 'Do what you have to do.'
Flames nodded and left through the back door without a word. Wind Talker hesitated for a moment and then strode after his mentor. Speaks-With-Stone sat hunched at the table, her face and shoulders heavy with the gravity of the situation.
Fortune ran his hands through his thick hair and stared up at the ceiling. Eyes waited as patiently as he could bear it before he spoke again.
'Fortune?' he asked softly. Fortune's head whipped to him, his eyes wide with shock.
There was a moment of complete silence before the explosion. The sound of the shop window shattering splintered the air and Eyes leapt away from the door and slid across the kitchen table. Screams rang out and the room rapidly filled with fire and smoke. Fortune disappeared from view and Stone sprang from her chair, her body growing swiftly as she moved and sprouting thick fur all over. Her clothes disappeared, as if they had melted into her skin, and in place of her human face was the thick muzzle of a predator, the Agrius. She overturned the huge pine table with one clawed hand and bounded towards a shadowy figure moving into the kitchen through the thick smoke.
Howls and snarls ripped through the smoke and Eyes cursed his blindness. He shifted into his Agrius form, as Stone had, and raced forwards, desperate to find someone to rip apart. He managed two strides before he was roughly tackled from the side and forced to the ground. He started to fight back, but realised in the scramble that it was Fortune who held him and was trying to shield him as someone stepped closer through the smoke, an unknown scent.
'Get out,' Fortune snarled in his ear. 'Run. Find the others. Stay safe. Look after them.'
There was a thud nearby and Eyes gasped in horror as he saw Stone's lifeless eyes staring at him, blood spattered over her face and hair.
Fortune leapt up, dragging Eyes with him, and heaved him out through the back door. Eyes went skidding across the gravel in the yard and crashed against the wooden fence. He jumped to his feet, suppressing a roar of fury. He looked back at the building; it was engulfed in flames. Fortune filled the doorway and two huge pairs of bestial hands grabbed him and dragged him back inside. It would take at least two of them to take the Alpha down.
Eyes' body shook with rage, he wanted to run back into the fray and fight but the words of his Alpha echoed in his mind, and with a snarl of frustration he sprung across the narrow back street and crouched in the shadow of the building opposite. He huddled in the darkness, watching half of his pack burn and feeling every blow of the fight. The thoughts and feelings of his pack mates swirled inside his mind; pain, fear and blind rage. He knew he had to leave to find the others, but he was riveted to the spot.
Then there was nothing. They were all gone, the connection severed.
'No!' he yelled, though it came out as a distorted growl. He clamped his clawed hand across his muzzle and shrank down into the shadows. Grins-Too-Widely was dead. That was all he knew for certain, and he tried to convince himself that Fortune and Shadow were still fighting, but the cold, sick feeling in his gut lingered and some other sense told him that Stone and Grins-Too-Widely were not the only ones to perish.
He kept still, his mind working furiously to formulate a plan. He had to get clear of the area, whoever did this meant to destroy the whole pack, he needed to get somewhere safe and he needed to find the others.
With his mind made up he shifted from Agrius into his wolf form and set off at a sprint for the petrol station, to find Flames and Wind Talker. They couldn't have got far before the betting shop was attacked, but perhaps they had continued to the fallback position. He would start there and gather the rest as soon as he could. He was nearly there when a huge explosion rent the air, the shock wave knocked him to the ground. Hide, a voice inside screamed. Eyes found himself truly afraid for the first time in his life and he leapt over a wall to find cover. He looked into the darkening sky and saw the vast plume of smoke billowing into the air where the petrol station stood. No one could have survived that explosion and he felt the truth settle on him; his fellow youngsters may have survived, he would have to find them, just as Fortune instructed, but their elders were all gone. They were alone now, and all the odds were stacked against them.
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