Jasper was surrounded on all sides. The invading wolf-pack had taken control of all the valley passes and had now resorted to running raids into the valley itself. These were usually only minor, with few if any casualties – Sweets had been killed in one the other day – and were easily repelled. But everybody knew this wouldn't last. The enemy was just trying to feel them out in order to figure out the best way to launch a full-scale attack. And no one in Jasper could predict when the attack would come.
Lilly watched from a hill as Kate returned with Hutch, Can-do, and the other Alphas of the West from their patrol. Apparently, they had met with trouble, for they were carrying the remains of a few other wolves – all enemies, thankfully – as trophies. They were all in high spirits below, since any sort of skirmish was preferable to them than the monotony of waiting through the siege.
But Lilly was not nearly so happy. She hated war and always had. She never liked killing. She remembered the elders telling of the old wars between the Western and Eastern packs, or of her own mother and father telling of how the East and West together had fought off an invader in their youth. Her parents had met in that war, when Winston made a foolish mistake and gotten himself surrounded, requiring Eve to battle through the whole enemy army to save him. After that, no one had dared invade Jasper again – until now.
Lilly knew that, in a sense, without war, she would not be here, but she still hated it all the same. She hated the killing and the death. It was all horrible. Currently, she was waiting alone for Garth's patrol to return. He and the Eastern Alphas had left early and had not returned around noon when they were supposed to return. Kate had led her patrol out in search of them and, whatever else they had brought back, it was clear that Garth was not there.
Lilly could wait no longer. She ran down the hill and stopped right in front of the patrol.
Kate was busy chatting away with Hutch, bragging about the skirmish they had just pulled through. "Did you see that big brown wolf try to jump me?" she said with a laugh. "Like he ever had a chance. I downed him in two seconds flat!"
But then Hutch gently elbowed her shoulder. Kate fell silent as he pointed to her white sister standing in their path.
"D-d-did you find G-g-garth?" Lilly asked, though she already realized they had not. She was trying desperately not to choke on her own words and repeatedly prayed that Kate would prove her wrong.
Kate's face suddenly grew sad and sympathetic. "I'm sorry, sis; no sign of him or the other Easterners. Maybe mom will lead another patrol after the sun goes down."
Lilly had been keeping herself together well enough until now, but suddenly the tears she had been holding back came welling down from her eyes. Immediately, Kate forgot about her patrol and ran up to comfort her sister.
Giving Lilly a giant hug, Kate said softly. "It's okay, Lilly, really. We didn't find any signs of a battle either. That means Garth probably just got lost. You'll see, he's going to be okay. He's the second-greatest Alpha in this valley, after all."
These words, though well-chosen, did not have the effect Kate had hoped. Instead of calming down, Lilly buried her lavender eyes in Kate's shoulder and began crying even more.
"Why do they have to do this to us?" she cried. "Why? Why do they have to fight this war?"
"You know why they're fighting us," Kate said as gently as she could.
Lilly practically screamed now. "But why? It's not our fault! It's not our fault!"
"I know," Kate whispered into Lilly's ear. "I know. It's not fair."
Once again, Hutch tapped Kate's shoulder. Kate's golden-brown eyes glanced at him from over her sister's white ears.
"Ma'am, we really should get back to the mountain," Hutch said. "It's going to be dark soon."
Kate's eyes darted around to see the sun disappearing behind the mountains. The orange twilight that surrounded them would soon be engulfed by the cool blue night. And it was no longer safe to be in the valley after nightfall.
"Come on, Lilly," she whispered. "Let's go see mom and dad. Maybe they'll have heard something."
Just as Kate and Lilly arrived at their parents' den, they heard tense words being exchanged. One of the voices was Winston's, another was one they did not recognize.
"You made your promise to our pack! All we wanted was for you to keep it!" said the stranger, contempt dripping from his words.
"Kate made her own choice in the matter. I cannot help that," Winston said calmly. As an afterthought, he added, "And besides, Lilly is an Omega."
"Humph! As if we cared about your silly laws! All we expected was that you would do right by us. You brought this war upon yourself. And now you could end it so easily. But you and your family are being selfish about this. Do you really expect your precious United Pack to follow you all the way to the Gates of Hell?"
Winston was about to respond in kind, but then noticed his two daughters standing between him and the stranger. Kate and Lilly now saw clearly what they had already guessed. It was an enemy wolf, yet another in a long line of messengers sent to try and conclude peace with the Jasper wolves. Not a day went by when one did not appear upon the cliff in front of Winston and Eve's den. All of them came for one thing – peace, but peace with a price.
It was a price that Jasper wolves would never pay.
"So Helen of Troy finally makes her appearance," the enemy wolf, a muscular yet surprisingly scrawny beige wolf, said in disgust.
"There is no need for that sort of thing," Winston said quietly. "We may be at war, but we can at least remain civil to one another."
"Oh, so this, of all things, falls under your concept of honor?" the enemy said. "O tempora, o mores."
"You're one to talk about honor!" Kate barked, now approaching the messenger. "I don't think that sneak attack in the Great Lesser Clearing was all that honorable!"
"Kate, please…." Winston said. He was afraid his firebrand daughter would make a bad situation worse. But he no longer had the strength to rein her in. This war had made him too tired. Maybe he was just jealous that she seemed to have maintained the fighting spirit which he and Eve had lost.
"That was just supposed to be a diplomatic meeting," Kate continued, ignoring her father's words, "but you had to turn it into an ambush. You couldn't even take down Tony honorably. You knew he couldn't fight back with his bad back and so you ambushed him. And you presume to lecture us about honor?"
Tony had been captured in the first act of the war, when the enemy had ambushed his party after proposing that they meet for a peaceful resolution of their issues. Tony had never stood a chance, but if the few survivors were any indication, he had fought hard before finally being taken captive. Ever since then, he had been the enemy's chief bargaining chip.
These words brought back a flood of painful memories for Lilly. She remembered how Garth had blamed himself for not accompanying his father. Lilly had wanted to see the new-bloom of her namesake flower in the valley that day, and Garth had chosen to accompany her rather than his father. Though he would never say a word blaming her for it, Lilly could not help but feel that she deserved more of the blame than Garth did.
And now, Garth had set out with the Eastern Alphas to rescue his father at last. He had become obsessed with the idea and had finally thought he had found where they were keeping Tony. That was where he had gone today. Last night, Lilly had tried to stop him, told him it was too dangerous, and for the first time in their short married life, they had argued.
"You just don't understand," Garth had said before going to sleep at the opposite side of the den. That hurt Lilly more than anything, the pain of those words burnt at her heart. They hurt so badly, she knew, because they were true.
"Oh, like you can claim to be so noble," the messenger fired back, "when your first war act was to slaughter so many of our innocents! You killed the pups too! What type of monsters do that?"
Lilly remembered that as well, and by the uncomfortable look on Kate's face, she knew Kate remembered it too. Claw and Scar, upon hearing that Tony had been captured, led a party to try and free him. They didn't manage to find him, but they did manage to come across a large number of Omega families belonging to the enemy pack but whose Alphas had somehow failed to guard them. All were killed as the Eastern wolves indulged in savage revenge.
Lilly had thrown up when she heard them boasting about it upon their return. Kate had felt just as nauseous, but in the end forced herself to commend Claw and Scar for "putting fear into the enemy." After that, it became clear that neither side would keep themselves from the killing of any enemy wolf – no matter how innocent – that got in their path.
"Oh, but that reminds me," the enemy messenger said with a grim smile. "I come bearing gifts!"
And then he reached behind him and threw something down at Kate's paws. Kate gasped as, for a brief moment, the wildest terror stained her whole face. Lilly instinctively tried to see what could make her resolute sister react like this. But Kate quickly grabbed Lilly and blocked those lavender eyes with her shoulder.
"Don't look, Lilly, don't look!" Kate said, almost sobbing. It was more concern for Lilly's reaction than her own that was making her so hysterical.
This had exactly the wrong effect, as now Lilly knew she'd have to look. Terrible thoughts, horrible fears filled her brain as tears already began to cloud her vision for a second time today. In one of those rare moments when she found herself stronger than she ever thought she could be, Lilly pushed Kate out of her line of vision and her beautiful eyes fell upon the rust-reddish head staring back up at her.
Lilly did not scream. Though she'd never admit it to herself, she even felt rather relieved. For a split-second, she thought it was Garth. But it wasn't; it was Tony's head now facing her. The tears came rolling down her furry cheeks and fell onto the cliff. Kate pulled her back away from the horrid sight.
Of course, Lilly was horrified to see what had happened to her father-in-law. She had never really gotten to know Tony and when they were together, he never made a secret of how much he continued to disapprove of his son's taste in she-wolves. But Garth loved him and Lilly knew that, if Garth returned to her, this would destroy him.
But her tears were not tears of grief. They were tears of relief. As she buried her head in Kate's cream-colored chest, Lilly whispered to herself repeatedly, "Not Garth…. It's not Garth…. It's not Garth…." There was still hope for her beloved yet.
Kate heard her whispering and smiled. She had feared that Lilly would take the death of her father-in-law much harder, but Kate knew now that she would be okay.
The messenger smiled – he wrongfully believed his gift had had the intended effect. "Did you really think we would just play nice forever?" he taunted. "Now you should know that we're serious about this."
Winston was stunned by his old friend's murder. When he spoke, it was little more than a whisper. "You monsters… you barbarians… it wasn't even his fault! If anybody was to blame, I was. He died for something he had no involvement in. I betrayed him – he shouldn't have died."
"As a great general once said, 'War is hell,'" the enemy responded.
That old fire, briefly doused by the disgusting revelation, suddenly reignited in Kate's heart. She was ready for round two. "But now without him," she taunted, "you've lost your bargaining chip!"
The messenger chuckled. "We don't need any more bargaining chips. Our assault begins tomorrow at daybreak. You either agree to peace now or you all die!"
Kate kicked Tony's head out of the way and approached the messenger. She smiled slyly, in a way which confused the enemy, who thought maybe she had misheard his threat. But what she said cleared up any such doubts, "Very well. If we die, we die. It comes to everybody sooner or later. But, know this, if you attack us we may die - but your whole freakishly large pack will die with us, and then who do you think will be remembered from the Siege of Jasper Park?"
The messenger stared into Kate's eyes, looking for any trace of fear. There was none. Lilly knew he would never find any. She knew that Kate had long ago reconciled herself to making a last stand, and had spent most of the past few months planning on how to take as many of the enemy with her as she could.
The tense standoff was interrupted by another voice from deep in the den. "Of course, our friend here won't have to wait until tomorrow to die." Eve, looking thin, ragged, and even more tired than Winston, came out of the den. She was not the wolf she used to be, she had lost most of the joys of life, but the joy of killing would never leave her.
The messenger faced her without any hint of fear. He knew what was coming, he had always known, and he planned to meet it bravely.
"Your words have insulted my husband, my daughters, my pack, and me," Eve said, "and for that, you will die. You will die painfully and we will send your head back as a message of warning to the enemy."
Kate turned away. This was how it always ended, and was a major reason why Kate tended to find excuses to not be around when the messengers came. It meant another dead body and another taunt to the enemy. No matter how many times it happened, Kate couldn't help feel disgusted. But she felt like she couldn't stop it either – the enemy only understood the language of force, after all and, besides, it seemed so cruel to deny her mother a pleasure she so obviously loved.
The messenger nodded. "I wouldn't expect anything less. But so be it; I have nothing left to live for. My life is expendable and has been ever since you wolves killed my family. I happily go to meet them now. The only thing I would ask is that I may die quickly, but I know that you are too savage and will never allow that."
"You're right there," Eve said as she revealed her razor-sharp teeth. That killing look was in her eyes. She was ready to pounce.
"No, don't kill him!" Lilly shouted. She ran to place herself in front of Eve and the messenger. As she ran, she tripped upon Tony's head and fell hard to the ground in front of her mother. This was enough to snap Eve out of her rage.
"Please, no, mom!" Lilly cried again as she forced herself up.
"Lilly, get out of mommy's way so that she can play with the nice hoodlum," Eve said, clearly annoyed that her fun was being interrupted. Children could be more trouble than they were worth sometimes.
"No, mom, don't do it!" Lilly continued, ready to block this stranger with her own body if necessary. "Please, there's been enough killing! This won't solve anything, it won't make anything better! It's just one more needless death!"
"Lilly, you just don't understand…." Kate said, hoping to get her sister to stop with this resistance.
Lilly looked to Kate with pain in her lavender eyes. She felt as though her sister had just betrayed her. Eve briefly considered pushing Lilly aside – undoubtedly, Lilly would not have the strength to stop her – but she felt she could not do that to her daughter. Lilly clearly wanted mercy to be shown here, and Eve, knowing the situation with Garth, decided not to cause her any more heartbreak. She nodded. "Fine, dear, we'll let him go…. This time."
"What?" the enemy barked. "No, no! Kill me now, I demand it! I have nothing to live for, I want to die! Just kill me!"
It clearly took much inner strength for Eve to keep herself from taking him up on the offer. Instead, she merely said, "Go. You won't die today. Tomorrow, hopefully, but not today."
The invader couldn't believe what he was hearing. He looked from wolf to wolf and saw in their faces that none would go against Eve's pronouncement. Then he looked to Lilly, who herself looked relieved that finally someone was spared from war's deadly grip.
He raised his paw and smacked her to the ground. "You rat!" he shouted at her. "Don't you know you've just cursed me with worse than death? I'll be called a coward and no one will believe that I was willing to die! How dare you!"
Lilly looked up apprehensively, expecting her mother to fly into another rage at her injury. But Eve just looked back down at her smugly. The enemy wolf now stormed down the pathway and was seen no longer.
"Maybe now you'll learn," Eve said to Lilly before sinking back into the darkness of the den. Winston disappeared with her.
Lilly did not cry. She was sick of crying. Besides, she did not feel sad. Instead, she felt an emotion she rarely ever did; anger. She began to pound the cliff with her fist. Why was even doing the right thing wrong in war? Why was everything so unfair?
"Come on, Lilly, I'll take you home," Kate said softly, picking Lilly up. "You've got to learn sometime…. You can't be all heart all the time. Sometimes, you have to be cruel."
Hearing this, Lilly swatted her paws away. She was used to Kate talking down to her like this, but she was not in the mood to put up with it now, "Is that what you tell yourself? Is that how you make yourself feel better? Because you don't have the courage to stop all this, so you just lie to yourself to make it seem all right!"
"Lilly, we can't be the good guys all the time," Kate said. "War isn't like that. You just don't understand."
Lilly's eyes narrowed as she looked into Kate's. "Maybe I don't want to."
She angrily pushed past Kate and hurried down the path. Kate knew she should follow her to protect her from any possible raids, but what Lilly had said struck a nerve. So Kate stood there, thinking, alone. And Kate these days knew no more painful feeling than to be left alone with her thoughts.
It was midnight. Garth had still not come home. Lilly sat there, on that hill, in the cold and dark, waiting. She would wait all night if she had to. She would wait all week, all month, all year, and all her lifetime if she had to. But she knew she would not be given the opportunity to wait that long. As she now knew, tomorrow was Armageddon, the great final battle when the whole world is consumed in fire. Or at least that is how it would appear when Kate let off her final surprise.
Lilly was not afraid. She had always been more afraid of death than her sister. But now, she was not afraid. She had, over the past several hours of sitting alone, reconciled herself to the fact that Garth probably was not going to come back. And there was no point in living without him. But still, something was gnawing at Lilly's stomach. She just couldn't say what.
"Lilly, you shouldn't be out here," a voice said behind her. She knew it was Kate. "You could be killed in a raid."
"There won't be any raids tonight," Lilly said. "They have no reason when the full-scale attack begins in the morning. Besides, we'll all be dead by then anyway."
Kate sat down next to her sister. "Shakey and Mooch have just finished installing the last of the dynamite we found in that old mine," she said. "When they attack us, we'll blow this whole valley sky-high."
Lilly shook her head. "There has to be another way…."
"No," Kate said firmly. "We have to do this. We don't have the numbers to hold them off for long. And then we'll either all be dead anyway or at their mercy. It's better to just go out like this."
"Is it?" Lilly said. "Is it better to be the one actually pushing the button that ends all our lives?'
Kate sighed. She was going to get nowhere. "You don't want to die, do you, Lilly?' she asked.
"I don't care," Lilly answered nonchalantly. "If Garth doesn't come back, I don't care what happens to me. But to take the lives of our pack-members just because we couldn't defend them just doesn't seem right. It will make us as bad as our enemies…."
"But just think of it," Kate said, the look in her eyes becoming frenzied like flame, "just think of what happens when they all pour into the valley. We all retreat to the central mountain and hold it until every last invader is in the valley and then – kaboom! They whole valley explodes into flames, creating an inferno so huge that it reaches up even to the clouds, engulfs the stars themselves, burns away the sun and moon and everything under Heaven. Now won't that be something they'll tell stories about forever?"
"Is that all you care about?" Lilly asked. "How you'll be remembered for this?"
"What else is there anymore?" Kate responded. "If we have to die, we might as well die in the most spectacular and sublime way possible."
"If we have to die, it should be trying to save our people, not killing them," Lilly retorted.
Kate closed her eyes and shook her head. "Lilly, you just don't understand!"
"No, I don't understand!" Lilly yelped. "I don't understand why this has to happen to us!"
"You know why," Kate said.
"But why?" Lilly said. "Why couldn't mom and dad just promise that you'd marry Garth and that be it? Why'd they have to promise you to every pack in existence?"
Lilly was exaggerating, but not by much. It was only about a week or so after their weddings to Humphrey and Garth that Kate and Lilly learned that Winston and Eve had apparently been shopping around, offering various packs they're daughter's paw in marriage in case Tony backed out and they needed allies for a war with the East.
Everything went fine until one pack – a very large pack – grew upset that Winston and Eve did not maintain the bargain and decided to come get what was owed them. Thus, the war.
"It was just what mom and dad thought was right at the time," Kate responded. "You can't blame them. I don't."
Lilly was silent for a few moments. Then she spoke again, slowly and quietly. "Do you ever think it might have been better… if one of us had just agreed to marry the invader in the first place?"
Lilly saw Kate turn to her with a mixture of shock and anger in her eyes.
"That would mean betraying Humphrey and Garth!" Kate barked. "We could never have done that!"
"It would have stopped them from dying," Lilly said, barely more than a whisper. "And now Garth's probably dead and Humphrey will be by morning with the rest of us."
"I'm sorry, Lilly," Kate said. "It's not fair. It's not fair that Garth wasn't able to come back. You should have been together on our last night alive, like me and Humphrey are. It was just cruel that you weren't."
Lilly felt hot tears beginning to form in her eyes again. She had kept them back all night, but discussing Garth and his failure to return with Kate was bringing up all the old emotions she thought she had under control.
Kate sensed something was very wrong with her sister. "Lilly, look at me," she said as she grabbed her sister's shoulders. "Look at me, Lilly."
Lilly peered at her sister through watery tears.
"I'm sorry it had to be like this," Kate said, "but you have to be strong. You have to be strong for all of us, Lilly, just like I am. Tomorrow, we all meet our Maker, and you can't avoid that, no matter how much you want to. To do anything else now would just be giving into the invaders. It would just be treason. And you wouldn't commit treason, would you?"
Lilly shook her head as she sobbed. She would not commit treason.
Kate nodded. "Good. I knew you'd understand."
But Lilly didn't understand.
But just as Lilly was about to break down completely, she noticed something coming toward them. A large mass of wolves had appeared from around a nearby ridge and was approaching their position.
"Lilly, run!" Kate ordered.
Lilly did not run.
"Lilly, we have to get out of here!" Kate said. "We have to warn the others!"
Lilly would not go. She had seen something that Kate had missed completely. In a split second as she was staring at the wolves, she noticed the light of the full moon hitting the eyes of a large red wolf. His green eyes shimmered in the moonlight.
"Garth!" Lilly called out as she sped down the hill.
"No, Lilly!" Kate called after her as she too broke into a run.
But for once in her life, Lilly was determined to outrun her sister. She was not going to let Kate stop her now. She was going to be reunited with Garth.
Quickly, quickly, her legs burning under her, she closed the distance between them and the approaching wolves. Kate was quick at her heels, but found herself unable to overtake the white Omega. She thought she had her sister at one point and dived to pin her down, but Lilly managed to just leap out of her range and straight for the red wolf leading the incoming group. She threw her forelegs around him and shouted, "Garth, you're home!"
He closed his around her. "Yeah, Lilly, I'm finally home."
Kate came up beside them, smiling bashfully now that she realized that Lilly had been completely right and she had been completely wrong.
"Garth," Lilly said, "we were so worried that… that…."
"I know, Lilly, I know," Garth said, "but I'm alright. We're all alright."
"Scar's not alright," Claw barked beside him. "He's not alright at all!"
Lilly looked over Garth's shoulder to see that only about half of the Eastern patrol had made it back.
"What happened?" Kate asked, recognizing the same thing.
Garth let Lilly go so that he could explain. "We were wrong about dad. Turns out it was a trap. They were waiting for us. We managed to fight our way out of the ambush, but we couldn't make it back into the valley until they let their guard down one of the passes. That's what took us so long."
"The trap was set for you, Garth," Kate observed.
Garth nodded. "Probably. I bet it made them furious that they didn't catch me, though!"
Garth laughed at the thought, but both Lilly and Kate knew he wouldn't be laughing if he knew what they knew. It was not hard to imagine that, enraged by Garth's escape, the enemy had killed his father in revenge. Both sisters knew their mother would have done the same thing had the tables been turned.
"Garth, we need to brief you on the situation," Kate said. "Things are–"
"Later, Kate, later," Garth said. "It can wait till morning. As for now, I'm beat. I think I'm going to crash as soon as we get back to our den."
Lilly saw Kate bite her lip. Both could see how tired Garth was and recognized now was probably not the best time to break the horrible news to him. But if not now, then when? They only had a few hours until sunrise – and then there would be no more time left.
Both sisters were silent as they traveled home, listening to Garth narrate the story of his daring escape through enemy lines. It was evident from the occasional moments when Claw spoke up to correct him that he was already embellishing the story. Lilly couldn't help but smile while listening to him; it almost made her forget the horrors of war.
Almost.
Garth had indeed crashed, nearly literally, when they arrived at his and Lilly's den. He had fallen to the ground and was asleep before either sister could say or do anything. They both knew it would be pointless to try and wake him in order to explain things now.
However, Kate took Lilly aside. "You're going to have to wake him and explain things eventually," she said. "He can't die in his sleep. You have to explain everything to him."
"He won't like it," Lilly said.
Kate rolled her eyes. "Of course he won't like it! His own father was–"
"No, I mean he won't like your plan," Lilly interrupted. "He won't want me to be killed like that."
Kate sighed. She knew Lilly was right. While Garth had known about her plan for some time, he had accepted it merely because he never thought things would actually come to that. Kate hated to think about what would happen when he woke up and heard that it was being put into action. She trusted Garth to make the right choices for the pack in everything except where Lilly was concerned.
"Then you have to make him accept it," Kate said forcefully. "You have to get him to go along with it. There's no escaping now for any of us; you have to make him see that. You both have to stay here with the rest of us, understand. It's your duty."
Lilly did not answer. Kate didn't think anything more needed to be said. She turned and walked out. "It's your duty," she repeated just as she disappeared around the mountain bend.
Lilly looked out of her den as the first purple rays of dawn spread over the far mountains. It was not much longer now, she knew. Death, in the form of fire and enemy armies, would soon consume them all. It was inevitable, it was inexorable, it was fate.
Lilly did not understand. Why did it have to be this way? So many friends had died already; Sweets, Salty, Scar and many others. Why did any more have to die? Wasn't there a better way to solve this? Wouldn't any way be better than warfare?
Lilly looked over to Garth and smiled wistfully. He was still slumbering peacefully; in all the hours Lilly had been sitting there, thinking things over, she had never found the heart to awaken him. She just could not tell him that he and she were going to die and that they were not supposed to do anything to stop it. She knew that that was something he would understand just as little as she did.
To think, they had such big plans! The first family of the United Pack, their children would grow to rule a valley that did not know war and bloodshed. Their children would know peace. But not anymore. It was vain to dream about such things now.
Garth looked so sweet as he slept there. Lilly knew she could never tell him to stay here and die. Maybe, she thought, she should wake him and they could run away from here, to some place far away where wars were unknown.
But that would mean leaving Kate and Humphrey and Winston and Eve and all the others she loved to die. Lilly couldn't do that, either. She could never let anyone else die. She'd do whatever she had to just to stop a single wolf more from being killed.
Whatever it took.
"Never again," she whispered in the gloom. And never again meant never again.
"Nobody ever said it had to be Kate," she continued. "Nobody ever said that. It could just as easily be me. It should be me. That way, nobody dies. Everybody lives. Just this once, everybody lives."
Lilly stood up and walked over to Garth. She knew what she had to do. No more thinking, no more worrying. She just knew. And now it was time to say her last farewell.
She kissed Garth on the cheek as he lay there slumbering. A smile came to his face as she did so, though he did not wake up.
"Goodbye forever, Garth," she said. "Remember that I'll always love you."
Lilly stole across the plains as the sun began to peek more and more over the mountains. She knew that she did not have much more time. Any moment now, the enemy horde would come bursting like the flood through the mountain-passes and then it would be seen if that flood could withstand Kate's fire. What was possibly worse was that Kate would be around to collect her and Garth at any moment and would sound the alarm when she found Lilly missing. Things had to be done quickly.
Lilly knew just where to go, because she had overheard Kate and Garth discussing once where the enemy's main camp was. She knew just what pass to take. Luckily, it was unguarded and Lilly found her way easily to enemy camp. There, more wolves than she had ever seen were gathered, all making their final preparations for war. Despite her gleaming white fur, Lilly was able to lose herself in the massive crowd and so was not spotted by the sentries. Soon, she had worked her way to where the enemy chief, a large grey and black creature, sat with his war council, discussing the final battle.
Lilly watched them all, all these big hulking warriors, and she was so small. For a moment, she had doubts. She thought about running away. But she knew she could not. That would mean the death of everyone she cared about. And no matter how scared she was, she would not allow that. She had to make a stand.
"Alright, guys and gals, let us annihilate those Jasper freaks!" the leader shouted, to resounding cheers.
"N-n-no!" Lilly yelled in her small, trembling voice. Yet, somehow – the urgency giving her strength, perhaps – her voice carried over that whole entire crowd. And everyone fell silent, turning to look at her.
Lilly stepped out of the crowd and slowly, nervously, proceeded toward the chief and his warriors. Now everybody recognized that she was not one of their own. But no one dared to stop her. They simply did not know what to make of this strange she-wolf who gleamed white like the moon.
"That's enough," the chief said when Lilly had made it about half-way toward him, causing her to freeze immediately. "And what do you want?"
"I-I-I…." she began.
"Three 'I's in one sentence," the chief mocked to general laughter. "Somebody thinks highly of themselves."
Lilly felt a strange mixture of both fear and embarrassment coursing through her body. It took much less at home to cause her to scurry off to some hiding place where she would not feel like a complete fool. But she was not at home anymore nor would she ever be again. So she had to try.
"I'm here to open up… open up… negotiations on behalf of the J-Jasper Unified Wolfpack," she said as boldly as she could. She did not think she sounded very bold at all, but it seemed to make an impression among the other wolves.
"Ha," the chief responded, "so the haughty wolves of Jasper, who have thus far killed all my peace messengers without mercy, now expect me to be more generous to their terms? It is only because death is now so near to them, I'm sure, that they would even think of this."
"It's not like that!" Lilly began, but she would not be allowed to finish that statement
"Did you want peace when we asked that Winston uphold his bargain?" asked the chief. "No. Did you want peace when we asked to share the valley with you, since the dogs were trying to exterminate us? No. Did you ever want peace in all the moments of bloodshed when we begged it of you? No. But when you have all been promised death, you greedy swine, then you want peace! Well, there shall be no peace!"
"It's really not like that!" Lilly tried again. "It's not!"
"Kill her," the chief said. Immediately, two large wolves began to approach Lilly.
"No, no!" Lilly pleaded. "Please no!"
The wolves came closer and closer. As they were just upon her, Lilly thought of the one thing, the last thing, which she could use to save herself and the wolves of Jasper.
"We're ready to give you what you want!" Lilly shouted.
There was a general hush through the crowd. No one could believe that the hated Jasper wolves would actually agree to anything like that. It must be a trick, most said.
But the chief was intrigued. He ordered his wolves back. "Go on," he said.
"Well, you want one of Winston and Eve's daughters for your mate, right?" Lilly said. "We're, um… we're willing to give… to give you one of their daughters for… for your mate."
Lilly almost choked on the words. She could not believe what she was saying. But she knew she had to say it. It was the only way. She knew that these enemy invaders, who had caused her people so much pain and torment, who had tried to kill all those she loved most, would only accept one thing. And that was the one thing only she and Kate could give. And Kate was not going to give anything but the crackling sparks of flame.
"I thought both daughters were happily mated already," said the chief rudely. "Is one of them having 'marital problems' that they're suddenly willing to accept my offer? I'm sure they'd be happier with me than with those two buffoons they have now."
"It isn't like that," Lilly said quietly, fighting to keep tears out of her eyes. Her whole world was collapsing, but she was not about to let the enemy see that. "It's just that, they realize the safety of the pack, of their family, and the end of this war is more important. They just don't want anyone else to die."
"Smart girls," the chief remarked. "At least somebody in that pack has some brains. It's a rare thing with them. So which girl am I going to get?"
Lilly closed her eyes to keep the tears in. She had to use all of her will-power to force out what came next. "Her name is Lilly."
"Lilly, hm," the chief responded, thinking for a moment. "It's a decent name, I suppose. I just hope she's better-looking than the name implies."
Then Lilly noticed someone else. Besides the chief sat the messenger whose life she had saved the day before. Lilly's heart leapt into her chest as she realized that he recognized her and was just waiting for the right moment to pay her back.
And now he had found it. "Well, you're in luck, sir," he said, "because I've seen Lilly before and I can tell you that she's standing right there."
There was another hush as he pointed to her. Instinctively, Lilly began to back away, but there was nowhere to go. Wolves were closing in on her from all sides.
"So, you are Lilly," the chief said with a wicked grin. "It is not hard to say big words when you're pretending that they refer to someone else. But it's a lot harder when you have to stand by them yourself. So, what do you say, do you still stand by what you said before?"
Lilly's heart was pounding now and she could not keep a few tear-drops from rolling down her snout. Her flight response was kicking in, but there was nowhere to flee to. And besides, no matter how scared she was, that would never do her people and her family any good.
With a force greater than lupine, Lilly forced herself to say, "I do."
There was a great uproar as everybody realized what was happening. Immediately, all the wolves charged on Lilly and began pulling her toward their chief. She felt what seemed like a hundred claws dig through her fur and into her flesh and she thought briefly that her white fur would be stained with blood. However, the chief set out his paw in order to get them to stop.
"Enough of that," he said, "she's one of us now. Now, let's just send a delegation into the valley to here this from Winston's own mouth and then we shall be done and depart."
"No!" Lilly yelped, knowing full-well that her ruse would fall apart if the enemy where to enter the valley. "I mean, can't we just go now…. You know, just in case… some fighting breaks out in the meantime?"
While said as innocently and with as good intentions as possible, this only served to make the enemy wolves more suspicious and, once more, murmurs that this was a trap set up by the perfidious Jasper wolves spread around the room. Lilly realized that it once again looked bad. It looked very bad. But she had to see this through to the end.
"But you've got what you wanted!" Lilly screamed. "You don't need to do this anymore! Just let it stop! Just let the killing stop!"
Something in the last moment, the last desperate moment, occurred to her. She tried to pick herself up and deliver her next few words with all the poise and dignity she could muster. "A-a-as a g-g-great general once said, 'Let us have peace.'"
The chief considered this. He nodded his assent. The killing would stop. The war was over.
"We depart immediately," he announced. He then pointed to Lilly. "You, come with me!" he ordered. "Listen up now, or else!"
Lilly, determined to hold onto as much inner strength and dignity as she could, allowed herself a moment to glare at her new mate before stepping to and following him as the pack began its long march.
Images flashed through Lilly's mind about how bad life would be for her hereafter. She would just have to learn to bear it without it getting into her soul. Then, maybe, there might still be hope for her.
But at least her family was safe. At least Jasper was safe. At least Garth was safe.
But what would her family think when they discovered that she was gone? Garth would be heartbroken, Lilly knew that; she just hoped he would understand. She hoped that Kate would understand as well. She feared that Kate might think of her has some type of traitor or be upset that Lilly had ruined her big exit. But Lilly reflected that she knew Kate better than that, that Kate still had a good heart underneath. Her parents may or may not understand, but she was never their favorite daughter anyway. Lilly was never anyone's favorite – except Garth – but she had just saved all their lives. And they may never know.
And then a terrible thought struck Lilly's mind like lightning striking a too-high tower. She realized all in a single moment something which she had never fully appreciated before – she was the link that held the Eastern and Western Packs together. Now, with her gone, there was no hope that the packs could stay united. Not unless Kate and Garth chose to marry each other, which she knew they'd never do. What if, after all this, she had failed to save her pack after all?
No, she had not failed. She had done the one thing which Kate was never willing to do; give her people a fighting chance at survival. If they now failed to take the chance and instead killed each other, that was not her fault. She did everything one wolf could possibly do. If her pack destroyed itself, then it was not she who had failed them, it was they who had failed her. The story of her life.
The enemy pack was making its way home. In the train, in the chief's entourage, but not at his side, was Lilly. The humiliation had already begun, as Lilly was jostled and dragged along by the enemy wolves, each wanting to pay back the one wolf for everything that they had suffered at Jasper's hands.
But she did not lose her calm. She did not give in to despair. Even as they hurled foul insults at her, taunted and threatened her, hit and clawed at her, she would not give in. This is life, she thought, and it is bad. But she will not give in.
Risking her new pack's further torments, Lilly turned around to look at her former home in the distance one last time. She would never return there now, she knew, not in this life. She would never see her friends and family again, never seen her one true love again. Hopefully, they'd survive and prosper. Kate had not yet blown up the valley, so that must be a good omen of something. In time, she knew, they would move on and they would forget her. If they managed to survive, that is. And since Kate had not yet blown up the valley, maybe there was hope for them yet.
But for her, there was no moving on and no forgetting.
She had made her choice.
Ignoring the threats of the other wolves and the small red specks of blood which were staining her white fur, Lilly stood for several seconds taking in the final view of her homeland that she would ever know. As she turned away, turned toward an unknown destination and a life full of suffering and hardship, Lilly smiled.
Now she understood.