Chapter Ten

"Do we have an agreement?" The Lady's rich voice asked. "I'll give you one for free. When I first came to this town the ore was gone from under the mountain and I knew that more lie in the forest. I took the people of this little town and made them warriors. They fought Gods and Demons so that the town could have the iron it needed."

All the pieces began to fit together in Jon's mind: the demon that attacked the Emishi, the hate in the Wolves eyes. This woman destroyed the forest!

"Why destroy the forest? There is a way for the forest and the humans to live in peace!"

"I grow tired of this circling talk. Do you agree to my terms?"

Jon opened his mouth to answer but words never found their way out of his throat. Gonza burst into the room and locked eyes with the Lady.

"The Wolf Princess is here, my Lady," Gonza said as he bowed.

"Get the rifles ready." Neither the Lady nor Gonza speared Jon a look. It may have been a good thing that neither of them could see his face. His eyes and cheeks burned read with rage.

"She's carrying a knife – if that! You can't just shoot her!" Jon could not stop the words from leaving his mouth in a yell.

"You think that makes her weak but she has killed husbands and villagers when they tried to protect me."

"Shooting her is the cowards' way out. There is no honor in killing anyone without a fair fight."

"Gonza, make sure that our guest is unable to interfere until the two of us can finish our little chat."

"He was not just a man! He is practically one of us," San continued to argue with her brothers hours after the strange man had left them. "Even you admit he smelled strange, mother."

"The boy smells like us but he feels… wrong. There is darkness in him."

"We all have darkness in us. But there is good too.

"You wish to help the boy?" Morro asked her daughter even though she already knew the answer. "You know where he has gone."

"I have been to Irontown before. Getting in is not hard when my brothers distract the humans on the roofs. I can talk to him at least or maybe help him."

"You will do more than that – Release the boy from the prison and bring him into the forest. He is unpredictable but he will become one of us if we can teach him. Bring the boy here and we will show him the way of the forest."

San and her brothers ran to carry out her mother's orders.

Shouts rose up from all corners of Irontown as the wolves and their princess crashed through the town. They ran on roofs and scattered through alleyways to get to the boy – the boy that the wolf pack now saw as one of their own. The wolves all knew the unique smell of the boy but it was hard to since it beyond all the fire and smoke.

San saw one of her brothers jerk his head, leading her to follow. "You smell him?" She asked with excitement.

"I smell the damn woman. He must be with her."

San nodded and ran as fast as she could to keep up with her brothers. They had a targeted goal and San sprinted towards it. San ran until her legs began to hurt – and then she ran some more! But her brothers still surged ahead or her and towards the Gun Woman, and hopefully towards the boy too.

"Can you hear me, Princess of Beasts?" The woman's voice called out. "If you want me, here I am. You want vengeance for wolves killed. Well, I have women here who want vengeance for husbands killed by your wolves."

"Come out and fight, witch!" One woman's voice called.

"My husband is dead because of you!" Shouted another woman.

San motioned her brothers to stay to the shadows. She knew that even a giant white wolf could hide in the smallest shadow if the wolf was really trying. She also knew that her brothers would try their hardest if her life, and the life of their almost pack-mate, were on the line.

The giant wolves stood in the shadows and moved in quick, almost useable motions but San moved forward in fast steps that dared anyone to ignore her. San's short knife was drawn and slashing wildly. She moved towards Lady Eboshi but her eyes searched this way and that for the boy she knew was in the town somewhere.

While she ran and jumped over roofs in an attempted to get to Lady Eboshi, a familiar smell hit her nose. It was the boy she saw by the water what seemed like so long ago. She would know his scent anywhere! San stopped midstep to find the smell's origin. A gunshot went off and the bullet went into the ground inches from San's still-raised foot. If San had not stopped so suddenly, she was sure that the bullet would have been in her and not in the ground.

She knew that standing still was no longer an option. Adrenaline worked through her body in her excitement. She could not have stood still if she tried. Of course, that might be a good thing – bullets would have rained down on San if she even slowed.

San knew that she could not get to the basement where Jon was being held so she motioned to her brothers, who were still sticking to the shadows. They would be able to get the boy out of here while she distracted the town.

There were shouts behind San and the clank of swords coming from all directions. "These humans are fighting each other," San thought drearily. "This whole distraction is hardly needed if they are going to create one for me."

Still, San moved forward to the building where Jon was being held. The smell of him filled her and distracted her. She tried to keep her mother's orders clear and foremost in her head. At the first sight of the strange boy she had felt something she had never felt before. San had heard her brothers talk about longing for someone but she had never experienced it before. This boy was different.

San was different too though… San was a daughter of the forest. She could not love or even care for a human. They were the enemy as far as she and her family were concerned. Still, what she felt for him was already more than simple curiosity. She felt too much already.

She had to concentrate hard to keep herself from thinking of the boy. San was so concentrated on her inner self that she did not even see movement in the shadows.

Everything seemed to happen with lightning speed. A brother yelped out in pain and seconds later the boy she had been thinking of was at her side. He moved like a true warrior with his knife sweeping in arches one way and then another. Still, San's testing eye could see that Jon was not moving as he normally did.

San could see a lump on Jon's head and a sway to his movement that said he had been hit in the head with a force that could knock a full grown man out cold. San could also see that Gonza knew about Jon's injuries too. He continually tried to hit Jon in the side of the head where the lump was. Still, Gonza did not succeed in knocking Jon to his back.

Jon fought with San at his side. He pushed his way through the crowd, only injuring those he had to. San could tell that Jon was going out of his way to avoid killing people, even if the people were samurai thugs. So, it took quite awhile for the two of them to make it through the crowd to the center of the town where the Lady Eboshi stood.

At the center, Jon let his black eyes show. "Do you see this? This is what hate does when it gets a hold of you!" Jon screamed so that everyone in the town could hear.

"You are brave and strong to face the curse," the Lady praised. "Stay here in Irontown and work for me. Help me kill the Forest Spirit and I will give you its head. That is the only thing that can cure you."

Jon shook his head. "Hatred is in you too. It's in me and it will eventually eat me alive. Let go of hate before it does the same to you. Killing life itself will only make hate grow."

After his little speech, Jon gripped San's arm and gently pulled her towards the gate. The two of them did not make it far when a gun went off.