Leave them be, Adel tried to convey with a shake of her head. There is no need. But she may as well have been attempting to reason with the kind of beast her father now resembled. He tore through the grass in the direction of the Sun People, his warriors joining in his howls as they put the terror of the night into their quarry.
Even though they had attempted to kill her, Adel was not comfortable with the thought of what would happen next. She had seen the consequences of enough violence in her life to know where it led, and she would rather both bands of hunters went home to their people unscathed. But it was too late to stop it now, and the realisation turned her fear into frustration. Beset with concern for her packmates and the futile desire to intervene, she limped after them back in the direction she had come. Over the howls of the wolves she could already hear the Sun People yelling in their own language, and a moment later the thin silhouettes of several darts whipped through the air up ahead.
She ran all the way back to the edge of the overhang before she saw her father's warriors catching up with the group of men, all of whom were now attempting to flee. They were waist-deep in the grass on the far side, outnumbered ten to six, and fear appeared to have stolen away their will to fight. One of those trailing behind the others screamed in pain as Ulric lunged out of the grass with a roar, claws gouging thick red gashes down the man's back and bringing him to the ground. The pair disappeared in the undergrowth, but the screams ended abruptly as a wet gurgle silenced them a moment later.
The rest of the Sun People were surrounded, Ulric's warriors taking advantage of the long grass and their superior speed to encircle them. Darts flew, spears tipped with copper and flint were raised, and one man even drew up a stone-weighted net in his hands. A sickening lurch hit Adel's stomach as the net carrier cast his snare and brought one of Ulric's charging warriors to the ground. Then the Sun People were on top of him, jabbing down with their spears until the wolf's strangled yelps were silenced. For a moment it seemed as though they were about to rally against their attackers, but Ulric bulled into the side of the hunting group while their attention was divided, clawing one and bringing down another.
Any semblance of fighting skill devolved into the chaos of panicked brawling, each man fighting for his life as wolves bore down upon them from all sides. The group scattered as individuals tried to flee, only for Adel's packmates to maul their legs out from under them and silence their cries one at a time.
It was over within moments, the swift brutality of the wolves overwhelming the small band of men. Adel stared across the stretch of trampled, blood-spattered grass, tasting the scent of death on the air. She had never witnessed the work of warriors in such close proximity before, and it sickened her just as much as her imagination had led her to believe. Part of her wanted to weep, another wanted to scream, but most of all she felt a deep, crushing sadness pouring into the hollow within her chest. Had it really been just a short while ago that she was laughing with Jarek in the grove beside the pool?
She swallowed her sadness, resisting its hold over her. What good was there in crying over the deaths of Sun People? One of her own had died, but that was something she expected every day now. Warriors went out to war with her father, and their bodies returned to be burnt upon pyres. It was part of the reason Adel had never grown close with any of them.
Before long her packmates began reverting from the shapes of their wolves one by one, some nursing minor wounds while others gathered solemnly around the corpse of their fallen brother. Ulric joined them, kneeling down and speaking a few words that Adel could not hear, before going to speak with two of the others who were checking the bodies of the Sun People. She saw one of the warriors hold up the baldrick adorned with wolf tails, and her father seemed to tremble with anger before snatching it away and tossing it to the ground. He turned back to the north then, scanning the area until he caught sight of his daughter crouched at the edge of the overhang.
Adel had no desire to subject her wounds to another painful shift, but it would have to happen sooner or later. She struggled to hide her pain as she changed shape and fell to one knee, clutching her side as a stabbing sensation shot deep into her stomach. Though her injuries did not seem severe, she knew she would need someone to dress and perhaps stitch the cut running along her temple.
“Are you badly hurt?” her father asked as he drew close, and for a moment Adel almost thought she heard a pinch of guilt in his voice.
“I am fine. Worry over the warrior you just led to his death.”
Ulric drew in a heavy breath, then placed a hand upon his daughter's shoulder. “Reiak's spirit will leave this world with all the glory of a warrior felled in battle. We will mourn him, but for his death we have claimed six of our enemies.”
“Were they your enemies?” Adel retorted, struggling to breathe through the ache in her chest. “Or did you make them your enemies by killing them here today?”
“They did that themselves when they harmed you,” he said, pointing to the gash on Adel's head. “I would do the same to any man who harmed my daughter.”
“You could not have known I was hurt when you came out here to hunt them.”
“No, but it gave me reason enough to end their lives. They carry trophies of our people, Adel, pieces taken from the desecrated bodies of our kind. The Sun People are more beasts than we are, and they deserve none of your sympathy.” The alpha paused as his daughter slumped into a sitting position on the edge of the overhang, weariness delaying her response. “Why were you out here, Adel?”
“I always run out this way, you know that,” she said after catching her breath.
“To the river, not beyond it. This is too close to the edge of our territory.”
“Where I go is none of your concern.”
“It is now that the Sun People walk in our lands,” Ulric growled. “You will not come out this far again. In fact, you will not stray near the edge of the river at all. Alpha Neman warned us of this, and now it seems he has been proven right.”
“I cannot go north, I cannot go east,” Adel muttered, “would you rather I never leave the den at all?”
“Enough of your tongue. One of our brothers lies dead, and still you bicker with me like a child. I have not the patience for this, Adel.”
She bit her tongue, ashamed that he was at least partially right. This was no time to be arguing with her father. It would do little good, anyway. The more she protested, the more likely he would be to punish her, perhaps even by forbidding her from leaving the den as she feared. She refused to let her father get in the way of her secret meetings with Jarek, but she would not argue the matter any further.
Ulric turned away and said, “I will send someone to carry you back to the den in a moment. Then go straight to your mother and have her tend you.” The alpha seemed to take his daughter's silence as a sign of agreement, heading back across the small depression to join his warriors when she did not respond. Along the way he paused by the side of a small red shape half hidden in a tuft of grass. He rolled it over with his foot, and Adel saw the body of the fox with one of the Sun People's darts protruding from it.
Thank you, Mother Fox, she thought with a twinge of sadness. Giving your life saved my own.
A spark of commotion among the warriors drew her eyes upward, where she saw three of them attempting to restrain Carim as the young man, still in the shape of his wolf, growled and barked viciously, frothing at the mouth as he attempted to get at one of the fallen hunters.
“Put your teeth away!” Ulric snapped, hauling himself up the overhang and hurrying toward the others. “Carim! The time for fighting is over!”
“This one still lives, Alpha,” one of the warriors said. “Carim wants to finish him.”
Ulric considered for a moment, then grabbed Carim by the scruff and shook him violently, before pulling back as the wolf's jaws snapped at him. Audible noises of shock followed, and this time Adel's father clenched his fist and struck the disobedient warrior across the
muzzle.
Carim reeled, blinked, then reverted from the shape of his wolf, slumping back into the arms of his brothers in a daze.
“Let this one keep breathing,” Ulric growled, eyeing Carim for a moment before turning his attention back to the fallen hunter. “We take him back to the den and have the seers tend him. If his wounds do not kill him, he can tell us of his clan and why they hunt us. Then, if he desires his freedom, he may challenge me for it.” The alpha snorted, nudging the man with his foot.
When he has told you all he can, you kill him, Adel thought bitterly. No man of the Sun People could win a challenge against a wolf without the aid of his weapons, and Adel doubted her father would grant his captive that privilege.
Turning her thoughts away from the unsettling scene, she looked again to the body of the dead fox lying a few paces distant. Jarek would be sad. He had seemed fond of her. Poor Mother Fox. If not for her, perhaps none of the morning's violence would have come to pass. Adel would not have followed her, and her father would not have charged so ruthlessly into the fight. Perhaps he would even have crossed paths with Adel as she returned to the den, and the distraction would have kept him from following whatever scent or hunting call had led him after the Sun People in the first place. How strong the fox's spirit must have been, to twine itself around the threads of fate in such a way.
Easing herself down off the edge of the overhang, Adel limped over to the animal's body and knelt down beside it. One of her father's warriors came forward as he noticed her moving, gripping her by the arm in an effort to help her back up.
“Come, Adel, your father says I am to take you back to the den.”
“In a moment,” she replied, resisting his grip as she tugged the arrow free of the fox's body and picked the creature up to cradle it in her arms.
“Seer?” the warrior asked in confusion.
“Mother Fox comes with us,” Adel said. “She was brave. I think her spirit will be brave, too.”
—9—
New Enemies
Upon Adel's return to the den she found herself beset by questions. Word spread quickly that a band of Sun People had clashed with the pack's warriors, and that the alpha's daughter had borne witness to it. Under Freia's watchful eye, another apprentice seer stitched Adel's head wound closed as several of the other young men and women gathered around her, anxious to hear what she had to say. The warrior she had returned with faced a similar interrogation on the other side of the camp, though he had attracted the attention of the elders and senior members of the pack instead. Adel did not envy him, for even the pestering of her own group was enough to turn the sting in her temple into a throbbing headache.
“What matters is that your father's warriors were there to protect you,” Adel's mother said. “You are safe, and our enemies have fallen.”
“Reiak fell too. The Sun People brought him down with a net and killed him.”
A pained look pinched the corners of Freia's eyes as she glanced in the direction of Reiak's hut, where his mate no doubt awaited his return. Then, much to Adel's surprise, she saw something else cross her mother's face. Something she had felt in her own heart for many years now. For the first time since the fighting with Alpha Kotal's pack had begun, Freia looked doubtful.
“Another warrior lost,” she murmured, her voice soft enough that only those nearby could hear.
“We do not need to fight the Sun People too,” Adel said, emboldened by her mother's unease. “One enemy is enough.”
“Perhaps it is. Or perhaps the Sun People will come into our lands regardless.”
“Then let them! What does it matter, so long as they avoid our den?”
The girl stitching Adel's wound shifted uncomfortably, and a ripple of dissent ran through the group surrounding them. Adel ignored it. What she was saying might be improprietous, but her mother was the most senior female in the pack, and no one would question her if she voiced the same thoughts.
“This is not something we should be speaking of now, nor is it your place to make such decisions,” Freia said, her expression hardening again. When the den mother's mind was set, there was little use arguing with her. She and her mother were alike in that way, Adel reflected, as she clenched her teeth through the pain of the final stitch. Still, she knew what she had seen. Even if she would not admit it in front of the pack, Freia was beginning to ask the same questions as her daughter. Was their alpha right in doing what he did? Was the protection of their pack's territory and honour worth the loss of so many lives?
Ulric and his warriors did not return to the den all day, and it was well into the night before a howl in the distance heralded their arrival. They had spent the time following the Sun People's tracks, Adel suspected, trying to find where they had come from and whether there were more of them.
Though she was weary from not having slept, the throb of her wounds kept her from growing drowsy, and she refused any of her mother's remedies that might have dulled the pain. The memories of her happy night with Jarek jarred against those of the tense fight for survival that had followed, culminating in so much blood and death. It was not the fear that stayed with her, nor the unsettling sights and sounds of the fight. Those things were not so different from what she had witnessed dozens of times already when she tended the wounds of her father's warriors. Rather, it was the frustration at being unable to intervene that lingered. Anger and sadness, and a strange tugging sensation that seemed to pull her soul in two opposite directions. Part of her longed to have been able to take charge and stop the fighting, while the other wished she could have stayed blissfully unaware and remained by the pool with Jarek, laughing and smiling as her father fought his battles out of sight and out of mind.
The happier choice soothed her anger when she dwelt on it, only to bring on more frustration and guilt shortly thereafter. What was she, a coward, wanting to hide and ignore such things? But if she was powerless to stop them, what point was there in even trying? Would she not be happier simply forgetting she was an alpha's daughter?
She longed for power, but she could not have it. She longed for happiness, but it felt like a betrayal of everything she had ever aspired to.
The endless circle of her thoughts was maddening, and she was unused to questioning herself so much. Searching for a distraction, she retreated into the seers' den and brought the body of the fox with her. To her relief she was alone, the other seers having gathered with the rest of the pack outside.
Once the fox was laid out on a stone slab, the surface of which bore the stains of many years of rituals, Adel dropped a smouldering coal into a bowl of spirit herbs and breathed deeply once they began to smoke. Before long she was drifting into the spirit world, the strange realm of twilight that most only ever glimpsed within dreams. The air seemed to shimmer and hum around her, growing thick like water. When she laid her hands on the body of the fox it felt warm again, still glowing with a spark of life even after the flesh had grown cold. The smoke continued to fill her lungs, drawing her deeper and deeper until everything in the den seemed to pulse with new life. The spirits that made the fire dance hopped playfully among the flames. The colour of Adel's fingers bled into everything she touched, painting her surroundings a strange pink until she closed her eyes, and the fire phantoms dancing behind her eyelids became strange new laughing shapes.
“Mother Fox,” she said, hearing her voice echo across from the waking world. “Your spirit is strong. Join with me. Become my power in this realm, and guide me when I am lost.” A ripple of life seemed to stir beneath the creature's fur. Adel kept her eyes shut and ran her hands over the fox's body, touching its ears, its teeth, its paws, until they felt like they were moving in response. The calm of the spirit world soothed Adel's inner turmoil, drawing her into a place of solitude where only her and the essence of Mother Fox dwelt. Sensing that the time was right, she felt for the knife she had laid out in preparation for her ritual. Her fingers closed around the dull holding edge, and a gasp of pain left her lips a
s she slipped it through the fox's fur. The blood on her fingers stung with the pain of her own wounds, but she embraced it, making each methodical cut as steadily as she could until her work was done. It was a lengthy and tiring process, but once the animal's pelt lay upon the slab in front of her an immense feeling of calm washed over Adel. She burned the body in the fire, freeing the fox's spirit to linger in its fur only. Once she had scraped the hide clean, she carried it out of the den and sat alone on the rocks outside, taking deep breaths until some of the fog of the spirit world had cleared from her mind. Then she went to the craftspeople, instructing them to take great care in tanning the pelt and preserving its fur. Since she rarely asked anything of them, they were happy to oblige a request from the alpha's daughter, reassuring her that she would have a fine fox pelt within a few days' time.
It was as she walked back to her hut that Adel heard the howl announcing her father's return. Much like her, the rest of the pack had remained anxious and alert as they waited for the alpha and his warriors. Clusters of men and women huddled around their fires, speaking softly of what might happen should more of the Sun People come into their territory. Old warriors shared battle stories of the days in which they had last faced the sun's children, and the seers made preparations to receive any more wounded that might return. A long procession, Reiak's mate at their lead, stacked wood and kindling a short distance outside the den, building a pyre for the body they would soon have to burn.
Adel winced at the sight, the last clutches of the spirit world receding as her frustration returned. When her father strode back into the camp she kept her distance, allowing him to see that she was well before slipping back into the shadows. She had not the strength to argue with him again, but this time she believed she would not have to. The look of doubt she had seen on her mother's face was still fresh in her mind, and Freia was the first to hurry to her mate's side when he returned.
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