A/N: Hey again, everybody. Sorry this is going so slow, but when I try to cut things out, it makes the story sound stupider (is that a word?). I promise, promise, promise that the WR guys will be in by Chapter 6 at least. Please have patience with me, I am but a lowly neophyte. R&R, puh-leeze!

Moon's Herald

Chapter 4: Summer's End

Months passed before anything else happened to disrupt my tranquil life, but all summer, I stuck to my vow and watched over the farm like a hawk. I checked the forest for wolves every day and often went back to the holding pen and the pasture several times a day to make sure the sheep were okay, or to have another look among the trees at the pasture's edge. Nothing was ever there, but I would rather be safe than sorry. At one point, the farmer got worried about me staring at nothing so much and almost called up the vet from town. The baby had begun crawling by then and was close to learning to walk, so whenever the humans brought her outside, I hovered over her like a nervous mother hen. It happened several times that summer that I was doing something and had my mind mostly occupied, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow swiftly disappear behind a building. Whenever I checked, it turned out to have been my imagination, but it always made me remember the black wolf. I didn't even feel that the yard of the house was safe anymore.

After a while, though, I did manage to get back to doing some of the things I enjoyed, even with the nagging fear always in the back of my mind. It was autumn, after all, my favorite time of the year. There were crops to harvest; a celebratory dinner (in honor of the fact that we still had crops to harvest after that weird heat wave, which suddenly ended a few days after the wolf's appearance) to look forward to; leaves to jump in with Michiru when he was supposed to be raking them. There was so much to think of, so much to do, that I probably could have forgotten the wolves once and for all if it hadn't been for the shadows and the dream, which I still had very often. It was always pretty much the same, though the shapes of a few green leaves had begun to appear at the edges of the vision and I had started to see the dream-wolf as being a bit shorter than before. The dream scared me awake every night I had it and I always walked a few laps around the house to calm myself. It did get exhausting, but I was dealing with it fine. Things were basically okay.

But disaster has the horrible habit of striking when you're busy looking the other way. I was being vigilant, but not enough so. Come to think of it now, there was probably nothing I could've done about anything that happened, except maybe mentally prepared myself for it better. Because I had never thought of anything beyond the farm, beyond my own little, happy life that was joyous and warm as a summer day. I never considered the fact that every summer has a cold, cruel winter that comes after it.


The night it happened started just like every other brisk autumn night we'd had that year. A chilly wind was blowing, laden with that distinctive but almost indescribable fall smell, the one that makes you think of pumpkins and hayrides and colorful leaves crunching underfoot. I could hear it rattling the window glass as I rested lazily on my pillow, the fire crackling merrily in the hearth on one side of me and the little calico kitten, a new daughter of the ginger cat who lived in the barn, playing noisily with a ball of yarn on the other. Honestly, I have no idea why the humans took her into the house instead of leaving her in the hayloft with the rest of her brothers and sisters – I mean, I don't think we had any mice – but, like it or not, I was now a "big sister."

At the moment, I was trying to ignore everything and concentrate on the approaching dinner and who I should try to beg table scraps from, but suddenly a particularly loud THUD from under the coffee table chased all thoughts of food from my mind.

"What are you DOING under there!" I growled at the kitten in annoyance without opening my eyes. There was a bit of frantic scrambling, a moment of silence, and then a high, lisping voice said, "Uh, . . . none of your business."

With a sigh, I opened my eyes and turned around to see an absolutely hilarious sight. The kitten had gotten herself completely wound up in the bright blue yarn; it went around her legs, stomach, and head so many times that she looked like a tiny Egyptian mummy. And on top of that, the yarn was also wrapped around two of the table's legs, pulling the poor little furball in two opposite directions so she balanced precariously on the tips of her toes. She wasn't just a mummy; she was a mummy caught in a spider's web! I really tried not to laugh, but after only a moment I broke down in a fit of hysterical giggles while the kitten narrowed her green eyes and cried, "Hey, it's not funny!"

When I finally regained my composure, I gasped, "Geez, how'd you manage that one, Tsuta?"

"I dunno," she replied sullenly, "I didn't mean to. But now I can't get out, and it's squeezin' me!" Tsuta wiggled around a bit, trying to free herself. Knowing how her wild imagination worked, I guessed that she meant the yarn was a constrictor snake trying to crush her. She could get so into her make-believe, and now she was starting to look panicked. I sighed and went up to the table to help my little charge. As I gnawed at the yarn around the table legs, the kitten squeaked, "Hurry up! I can't breathe!"

"Come on, you're not wrapped that tight," I mumbled around the yarn. "Quit being such a drama queen and hold still." After freeing her from the table, I picked Tsuta up by the yarn around her back and worried at the strands till they snapped one by one. The kitten tumbled to the floor just as the front door banged open and Michiru came into the house, cheeks red from the cold.

"And where have you been?" his mom yelled from the kitchen. "Dinner's been ready for ten minutes. You'd better hope it's still warm."

"Sorry, mom," he replied. "I was out riding and I lost track of time." Michiru stayed out late riding a lot now, since the dappled horse had finally gotten used to his new home and was getting along so well with the boy. The farmer sometimes joked that they'd be a first-class show jumping team by next spring, but Michiru was content with a gallop around the corral for the time being.

"Yes, yes, I know," said the farmer's wife, "but that's no excuse for not eating. Now hurry and get washed up for dinner." Michiru left his dirty boots by the door and went into the kitchen, ruffling my fur as he passed. I looked down at Tsuta and said, "Dinner time, let's go," but the kitten was still mad at me for dropping her, so she just stuck out her little pink tongue and blew a raspberry at me before sauntering off toward the kitchen.

Dinner was pretty normal that night, too. Tsuta had canned cat food and I had dry dog food, which Tsuta tried to steal from under my nose after she had inhaled her own meal like a vacuum cleaner. After I pushed her away a few times, ignoring her pathetic mewing and the way she rolled onto her back and pretended to be weak with hunger, she ignored me in favor of sliding repeatedly across the linoleum floor. The baby thought this extremely exciting and started to bounce and giggle in her high chair and bang her little spoon against her bowl, making mashed peas fly everywhere. The humans didn't freak out since this was more or less routine now, and the farmer's wife just wiped her daughter's face and calmly returned to her own meal. After dinner, everyone went to do their own thing for a few hours till bedtime, when the farmer's wife blew out the candles she lit at night to save on electricity and I settled on my pillow, Tsuta in her wicker basket, and the humans in their beds, and then we all went to sleep.

All that happened as usual, and also typical was the nightmare that greeted me when I slipped into slumber. I don't know how long I cowered before the crazy, green-eyed wolf that night, but just when I thought I couldn't stand it anymore, I was awoken by something very unfamiliar – namely, about a thousand razor-sharp knives being driven into my spine. Or at least that's what it felt like. The violently snapping jaws disappeared as I jolted awake with a strangled yelp of pain, casting my eyes anxiously around the dark room. Nothing seemed amiss, except that Tsuta wasn't in her basket. Now where . . .? Then I happened to look at my back, which still hurt, and there was the kitten, eyes wild and fearful, calico fur standing on end, and every one of her claws embedded in my flesh.

"What the hell! Get off!" I cried, rolling over without thinking, just wanting those claws gone. Tsuta squeaked when she realized what I was doing and jumped up in the air so that she came down on my belly, though this time she kept her claws sheathed. "What are you doing?" I whispered angrily at the kitten. I didn't want to wake the humans, so I kept my voice down.

"Listen," the wide-eyed calico said softly, a quaver of fear in her tiny voice. "Hear that noise?"

I listened. Yes, there it was. A kind of distant rumble, probably not loud enough for a human to hear, but just the kind of thing a cat would pick up on. "Thunderstorm?" I offered.

Tsuta shook her head. "I don't think so. It sounds too close to the ground. Listen again." I did, and in the meantime the kitten trembled against me as she waited. I knew she was letting her imagination start to get away with her when she said breathlessly, "Oh no! What if it's an elephant, or a rhinocelot, or . . . or a dinosaur?"

"It's rhinoceros," I said, "and I can assure you, it's none of those. Now shut up and let me think. It sounds a bit to me like somebody yelling or something." After another silent moment, Tsuta added, "Yeah, lots of somebodies." Suddenly, I rolled back over and stood up, dumping the kitten onto the rug. I was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and I didn't know why. Maybe it was because I'd never seen Tsuta so scared before. But didn't little kids like her always get themselves worked up over nothing?

"It's probably nothing, Tsuta," I said as I started for the kitchen, "but I'm gonna check it out anyway."

Tsuta trotted at my heels right up to the door. "I'm comin', too," she said, though she still looked upset.

"No, you're not. Stay here and, uh . . . protect the house."

"But I - "

"But nothing! Just do what I say this once, okay?"

"But I don't want the dragon to eat you!"

"Dragon? Tsuta, dragons aren't real and you're getting very hysterical right now. I think you should go back to bed. I'm just gonna see what that sound is, and then I'll be right back, okay?" As I spoke, I gently nudged the kitten back from the door and took the scruff of her neck gently in my teeth as if to say, Stay here and don't be afraid. That's something dogs do, but I hoped it would also calm down a frightened cat. We had only been living together for a few weeks, but I guess the little furball had really grown on me. Sometimes her annoyingly dramatic and confident personality made me forget she was still just a baby and needed reassuring. Though she still trembled, Tsuta finally did calm down enough to say shakily, "O-okay." Her voice was soft and she stared at the ground dejectedly. "But couldn't you take the farmer and his shotgun along, just in case?"

"Tsuta," I said in a warning tone. Damn, she was scared. Why did she want me to have a gun along because of a simple noise? Did she know something I didn't? I mean, I had heard cats had some kind of weird sixth sense apart from anything dogs have, but still . . . . I didn't let the kitten's misgivings shake my resolve, however. I gave her one last nudge toward the living room, then turned and headed for the door without hesitation. "Go back to bed," I said over my shoulder. "I'll be back before you know it."

As I pushed through the swinging flap of the dog door, I heard the little calico's lisping voice call after me in a loud, ragged whisper, "Be careful, big sister. Please."


It was the sheep who were crying out. I knew it the moment I got outside; I could smell their fear on the wind, hear their frantic bleating, feel the tremble of the earth beneath their stampeding hooves. My body's response to the distress of my flock was instantaneous – anger rose in my chest in the form of a low growl, my hackles raised and my lips curled back to reveal sharp fangs. I was flying across the farmyard almost before I knew what was happening, claws digging into the dirt and tail whipping back and forth to act as a rudder. I dodged around crates and barrels, fences and rusty machinery without a thought in my head except to reach the pen before any harm could befall the sheep.

The full moon lit my path, and bathed in its light, I almost felt like it gave me speed. In mere seconds, I had reached a point where I could see the pen, away beyond the sleeping buildings. The moonlight let me see the white forms of the sheep moving back and forth behind the fence, trying to stay in a tight group but being forced again and again to scatter, and also another shape, this one no more than a vague shadow, darting among the white shapes. My enemy. I pressed on with renewed purpose, spurred on by the cries of the flock. The ram was bleating the loudest, trying to intimidate the attacker, but even he sounded scared.

Knowing that the gate was locked and there was no way I could ever jump the fence – it was three logs high with tough wire mesh between the logs and a coil of barbed wire on top – I knocked over an empty barrel I passed and pushed it along before me as I ran. When I got close enough, I gave a harder push so the barrel went on ahead and struck the fence, and then I jumped onto it to give myself a boost. The barrel almost rolled out from beneath my paws as I leaped off of it, but I managed to clear the fence and land on all four paws on the other side. Though the panicked sheep were running about all around me and the air was thick with dust, I looked around for that dark shape and found it on one side of the pen, hiding in the shadows under the tree. The sheep fled from it, bunching up against the opposite fence and looking like they'd run right through it if they could. The dust cleared a little and I could see the dark shape put itself low to the ground and stalk slowly toward the flock. Not wanting to give it a chance to get them stampeding again, I seized my chance and ran at it full-tilt, jaws parting in readiness to bite.

But the creature heard my movement, froze, turned toward me just in time to make me skid to a stop and stumble face-first to the ground. I struggled up immediately, choking on dirt and spitting it out of my dry mouth, to stare in terror at the creature that had just revealed itself to the moonlight. The black wolf. Back from wherever he'd been these many months, probably just waiting for this chance. How had he gotten back in when I'd watched so hard? Now I could see the wolf better that I had before, and if I was scared last time, I didn't know the half of it.

The white eyes glinted in the moonlight, as did the white tail, which I now realized was the flash I had seen as the wolf ran off the first time. It looked like he'd dipped his tail in a can of luminous white paint. The rest of him was blacker than the darkest night. It was weird that such extreme light and darkness should exist in one creature. If wasn't so terrible and otherworldly, and if he hadn't been threatening my sheep, I might even have thought he was beautiful. But "might" is the operative word here. As it was, I felt nothing but fear and disbelief, and I thought nothing, period. I was frozen. He was so big, bigger than I remembered him and much bigger than me. How could I fight something like that? This was no wildcat, but something beyond all nature. As I stood there staring, the wolf fixed his eyes on mine and slowly, slowly drew back his lips in a mocking grin, smelling my fear. His tongue lolled out as he stood up tall to make himself look even bigger. I still couldn't move, not even to put my tail between my legs and tremble.

Then, quick as the wind, he whirled back toward the sheep and ran at them, jumping just a few feet shy of them and soaring over the remaining distance to land smack in the middle of the flock. The relative quiet of the past few moments was broken as a ewe suddenly cried out in an ear-wrenching bleat that was almost a shriek. It all happened so fast that even the other sheep were a few nanoseconds slow to react, but once they realized what was going on, the stampede began all over again. With the wolf's paralyzing stare gone (he used my own trick against me, dammit!) that cry was all I needed to shock my body back into action. I shot forward after the wolf, shouldering my way through the crush of animals and leaping over the wooly backs of those who wouldn't move.

Up against the fence, a horrible sight met my eyes. The ram was limping toward me on three legs, favoring his left hind which had a huge, bleeding gash in it, and just beyond him the torn body of the ewe lay in the dust with the black wolf standing over it. Blood was everywhere, staining the fence, the ground, the white wool. It dripped from the grinning jaws of the wolf, who only stared at me as I approached. I dodged around the poor ram; he had failed to protect his ewe and I knew he was disgraced. I fully intended to get revenge for him and for myself. This was the first time a sheep had died on my watch and I was raging mad now. Anger drove the fear to a distant corner of my heart so that even the wolf's white stare didn't stop me now.

He didn't move till I was almost on top of him. Then he darted around me and I whirled, slipping in the slick sheep's blood, to follow him. Back across the pen he led me, not bothering with the sheep now but casting a glance back now and then. I barked and snarled madly, like the wolf in my dream. I was sure I would have that beast when he reached the tall fence. I wasn't sure how he'd gotten in, but there would be no way out from here. So imagine my surprise when he jumped the fence – actually jumped it! He even cleared it with inches to spare. I almost stumbled and got trampled by stampeding sheep, but I caught myself just in time and kept running. I didn't understand; that fence was made so nothing could get over it, it was taller than any human or horse, and yet the wolf had sailed over as if it were nothing, while I had to use a barrel. Maybe wolf magic was real.

Just then a though occurred to me – how was I going to get out? I came upon the fence without having found an answer, so in my desperation I acted on a whim and began biting at the wire below the bottom log on the fence. There was no time to dig out and this was my only chance to take care of this wolf. My lips and gums were quickly bloodied, but the mesh began to give. Looking up quickly, I saw the wolf a few feet away on the other side, standing calmly and watching me chew my own mouth to shreds. Hatred suddenly burned in my belly and I chewed harder till the wires finally snapped. The wolf took a few steps back as I thrust my nose and then my whole head through the hole I'd made. It wasn't very big, but I thought it would be enough. Apparently, the wolf knew otherwise, as he seemed completely unconcerned and just continued watching me with that maddening, mocking smile.

Sure enough, I only got half my body through the fence before I got stuck. I tore at the ground with my front paws, my claws making furrows in the dirt as I struggled to pull the rest of my body through. The cut edges of the wire ripped at my flesh, pulling out tufts of red fur and opening up cuts on my face, back, shoulders, legs, everything I managed to get through. I could feel the stinging of the wounds on my skin and in my mouth, see the dark blood coating the ground. I kept struggling for a few more minutes, still growing and snarling and drooling bloody saliva, but little by little I lost the strength lent to me by adrenaline. My struggles grew steadily weaker until I finally gave up and lay flat on the ground with half my body on each side of the fence, panting and trembling in exhaustion.

I glanced up as the black paws of the wolf appeared in my line of vision. He had waited patiently, and I saw that he was standing over me now. His grin was gone but the white fire in his eyes showed his contempt plainly enough. I glared back with my own yellow fire, willing strength to return to my bleeding limbs so I could get out of here and kill that monster. But I was just too weak. I could only watch as the wolf suddenly threw back his head and voiced a bone-chilling, triumphant howl into the night sky. I shivered.

I barely thought about what I did next. The wolf's gaze was off me now and I was angry and embarrassed, longing for revenge. So the moment the shiver caused by his howl released me, I called up my remaining strength and shot my head forward, latching onto the wolf's right foreleg with my aching, bleeding teeth and biting down as hard as I could. The wolf broke off his howling with a yelp, jerking his leg out of my jaws and retreating a few steps. He glared at me with even more hatred than before, but I didn't care. Now it was my turn to grin.

"Fool," growled the wolf. It was the first time I had heard him speak. His voice was deep and smooth, reminding me a bit of thunder or a rushing river. It was a nice voice, but the anger in it and my hatred of its owner sort of ruined its beauty.

"You're the fool," I retorted in a voice shaky from exhaustion. "Making all that noise will bring the humans. The farmer will kill you with his gun, and then they'll burn your carcass in the fields. You shouldn't have come back." I tried to sound braver than I felt. In reality, I was just trying to steel myself for the death blow I was sure was coming.

"Don't count too much on your precious humans," he said as he licked his wound, not letting any blood fall on the ground. "They're stirring even now, but I'll be long gone before they get here. The question is whether or not you will be here. Things will be much easier if you come with me now of your own free will."

This was too much. "You think I'm going somewhere with you? Quit fooling around and just kill me already, if you're going to." I growled harshly at the wolf. He just looked at me disgustedly and said, "I'm not going to kill you . . . . You really don't remember a thing, do you? It never occurred to me that these humans would possess you so completely; you're even willing to die for them now. I wonder if you'd do as much for your own kin."

"They are my kin, you bastard," I said, "and I would do anything for them."

"So I've seen," he answered dryly. "It's been absolute torture watching you these past few months. You're more of a dog than that dog, for the love of the Moon! But that will soon be remedied. Maybe you insist on doing this the hard way, but I've already set the wheels in motion and I have only to sit back and wait." As he spoke, the wolf edged toward the shadows by the nearest building, and with one last glare and a swish of his white tail, he melted into the shadows and was gone.

I stared in bewilderment. He had just disappeared, there one moment and gone the next! I felt a sudden wave of nausea sweep over me and I rested my head on the ground for a minute to wait for it to pass. That wolf had been watching me! But why? And he talked weird, almost like he knew me, like he was disappointed in me. He expected me to go somewhere. No, I must've heard wrong; none of that made sense. I had nothing to do with wolves unless they came onto my turf, and they had nothing to do with me. He had wanted my sheep, that's all, same as the lynxes and foxes, only this wolf had managed to get one. Oh, the guilt!

At that moment, shouts and loud, resounding barks met my ears. They were coming – the farmer, Michiru, a couple of farmhands, and even old Thorny. The wolf's howl had brought them. Relief that help was coming and exhaustion from physical activity and blood loss finally overwhelmed my troubled mind, so that as I watched my family approach, everything began to spin, get blurry, and then fade completely as I fainted dead away.