Mike the White's Arc

Chapter 9 of 10

The cub would not stop crying. Sela held it close as they rode south, but it twisted toward the north and whined. Mike listened to that sound for three miles. Then he pulled his horse to a stop. His shoulder throbbed under the bandage. The stronghold lay behind them. The second cub was still in it. He could not ride home to Nia with the job half done. "We go back," Mike said. "Tonight. While they lick their wounds." Dara reined in beside him. She had fought all day and her knife was still red. "They'll expect it," she said. Flat. No softening. "Then we don't go the way they watch," Mike said. "Sela knows the drain." Sela looked up from the crying cub. She had crawled through that foul pipe once already. Her jaw tightened. She handed the pup to Luna and stood. "I go alone this time," she said. "You're too big for the drain, and you're bleeding." Mike wanted to argue. His body would not let him. He nodded once. They circled wide through the trees and left the horses in a gully. Night came. The log walls rose black against the stars. Mike crouched at the treeline with Dara and Luna, axe ready, watching the gate. Sela slipped down the bank and pushed into the drain. The dark swallowed her. Mike counted his own breaths. A wolf howled inside the walls. Then another. He gripped the axe and half rose. Dara caught his arm. "Wait," she said. The gate cracked open. Sela came through it at a run, a second cub clutched to her chest, mud to her shoulders. Behind her, torches moved. The scarred leader's voice rose in a bark. "Now," Mike said. He stepped from the trees and slammed his shield into the first wolf that cleared the gate. His axe took it down. Luna dropped a second with a stone. Dara covered Sela's back as she ran past. Mike held the gate a heartbeat longer, met the scarred leader's eyes across the yard, then turned and ran with the rest. They did not stop until the gully. Sela pressed the second cub into Luna's arms beside the first. The two pups found each other and went quiet at last. The crying stopped. Mike leaned on his horse and breathed. Dara wiped her knife on her thigh. "Both," she said. Just that. "Both," Mike agreed. He looked at the two cubs curled together in the dark. The job was whole now. He could ride home. He could stand before the queen and say he had gone north for a pack not his own, bled for cubs not his blood, and left nothing behind. But the scarred leader had seen his face twice now. And a pack that lost two cubs did not forget the man who took them.