Mike the White's Arc

Chapter 8 of 10

The cub cried by the stream. Then Luna's ears turned north. She stood, knife out. "They're behind us," she said. "They crossed at the water." Mike listened. He heard it too. Paws in the brush. Many. The northern pack had found their trail. His shoulder still bled from the arrow. In his cloak, the pup shook. Mike looked at the ground. Flat. Open. No wall. No high rock. Nothing to put at his back. He counted his fighters. Three tired women and himself. Against a pack that hunted them in the dark. "We run," Dara said. Flat. She already had the horses. "They'll run us down," Mike said. "We're carrying a cub. We're bleeding." He turned in a slow circle. Trees. Water. Then he saw the stream cut into a bank downhill. The water ran fast between two dirt walls, narrow as a hall. One way in. "There." Sela grabbed the pup. Luna and Dara pulled the horses down into the cut. Mike waded in last, shield up, filling the gap with his body. The dirt walls rose past his head. The pack could only come at him one at a time here. They came. A gray shape leaped from the bank. Mike caught it on his shield and buried the axe in its ribs. A second came. He took it the same way. His shoulder screamed. He did not step back. Behind him, Sela sang low to the pup and it went quiet at last. Dara fought at the water's edge, knife flashing. Luna threw stones, hard and true, and one dropped a wolf mid-leap. Mike held the mouth of the cut. Body after body. The stream ran red past his boots. Then the pack stopped. Beyond the bank, Mike saw them pace and watch. Their leader stood among them, a big male with a scarred jaw. It stared at Mike. It stared at the pup in Sela's arms. It did not charge. "Why does it stop?" Sela whispered. "It won't lose the whole pack for one cub," Luna said. Flat. Mike lifted his axe. He met the leader's eyes and held them. He did not blink. A long moment passed. Then the big male turned. The pack melted back into the trees. Gone. Mike sank against the dirt wall. His legs shook. Dara pressed a cloth to his shoulder without a word. Sela set the pup down on the bank, and the cub sniffed the air and whined north. "It still wants its mother," Sela said. "The other pup." Dara looked at Mike. "The second one's still in there. And now they know we came. They'll guard it close." Mike stared at the trees where the pack had vanished. He had won this ground. But he had a wound that would not close, one cub safe and one still caged, and a stronghold that now waited for him.