Disclaimer: Wolf's Rain belongs to Bandai and Studio Bones and anyone else who's paid for the rights. I'm just borrowing this world for fun. No profit is being made from this story.

Flesh and Bone

Chapter 3

Morning Alarms

Quint awoke cold and sore, nose and ears numb from the icy wind blowing over his exposed face. He rolled over with a groan and pulled the rough wool blanket closer around him, not quite ready to face the morning sun that was just starting to peak over the mountains. He was getting too old for this roughing it bullshit.

A warm body shifted beside him and he snuck a hand out of his warm cocoon to ruffle dusty fur. Blue raised her head, ears pressed flat for warmth, and gave him a baleful glare. Her look of perturbed sleepiness made him chuckle and he scratched the scruff of her neck apologetically.

He lay for awhile between sleep and wakefulness, lazily watching the sun slowly climb its way into the sky. The valley warmed with the sun, coming to life around him until finally the aches and pains of lying on the ground offset his reluctance to face the chill air. He threw off the blanket and stumbled off behind a stubby tree for a piss. Blue was watching him closely when he came back to camp.

"Huh," he grunted at her as he knelt down to roll up his blanket. "What kind of lady are you, watching a man do his morning business?"

Blue just yawned at him and lay her head back down. He gave her another pat on the head and went to the remains of his campfire. A few embers still flickered weakly and he coaxed them back to life with some dry grass and a little bit of poking with a half-charred stick.

Breakfast was a simple affair; some instant coffee and grits he'd traded for a wolf pellet a few towns back. Blue disappeared for awhile and came back licking the blood of some unlucky creature off her muzzle. She sniffed disdainfully at the grits Quint offered her and slunk off to rest in the shade of a large boulder.

"That bad, huh?" Quint chuckled, scraping the remainder from the pot into the fire. The flames died out for a moment, smothered, before raging back to life with the scent of charred corn. Taking a handful of dirt, Quint scoured the pot and rinsed it out with a bit of water, then stuck it into his pack. With the ease of long practice, he cleaned up the rest of camp quickly. By the time he strapped his sleeping pad onto the outside of his pack, nothing remained of the grits and the fire was nearly embers again. Blue stood up as Quint kicked some dirt over the fire pit just to be safe, though he had a suspicion there wasn't anything that would burn in this godforsaken desert.

"Ready to go, then?" he asked her, shouldering his pack. Blue yipped and gave an excited sort of hop that reminded Quint of how she'd been as a puppy. She took off down the road, nose to the ground, following some convoluted path only she could sense.

Quint followed after at a more sedate pace, taking his time and letting his muscles warm up and his joints unfreeze. He gripped his gun tightly in hand; Blue's excitement made him nervous. He wasn't taking any chances, not after what he'd heard in the last town…

The men he'd talked to in the bar had been afraid of the desert road and, tongues loosened with liqueur, they weren't embarrassed to tell him their fears. Men disappearing, thought lost in the desert, their bodies never found, only to turn up months later in the same place dead but barely rotting. At least, this was the extent of what Quint managed to make out as truth from what the men said. When he mentioned he was heading for Anamath, their stories grew even wilder. Apparently these men believed the lords of Anamath had something to do with the deaths. He'd grudgingly parted with some precious coins to buy them all another round of beer, but then their words turned into tall tales. Some of the bodies weren't men, or may have been men once but were no longer recognizable as such. Some were twisted, horrible beasts with hair all over and three sets of eyes. One man claimed banshees, released from the towers of Anamath, lured men from their bedrolls and off the cliffs where they could feast on their souls and produce unnatural offspring.

Quint scoffed at that, and decided that man was cut off.

It was the mention of wolves that caught his attention. Or at least, of wolves corpses, showing up on occasion alongside the human ones. Strange that both would die the same way, since in Quint's experience wolves weren't half as foolish as humans. Even stranger since wolves had been gone from these parts for centuries. And likely no coincidence that Anamath had the highest bounty for wolves in the land.

The next morning Quint had awoken before dawn, paid his fare, and began walking the road to Anamath, Blue trotting along at his side.

It had been several days since then, and according to what he'd been told, Anamath was only a two day walk away. He still had to cross the cliffs above the Descut and cross the wide plain approaching Anamath, however. If his informants words could be trusted, that was where the majority of the dead had disappeared. Two days to go, and a lot could happen in a few days. He called Blue back to his side and they walked side by side, alert for anything out of the ordinary.

The city grew eerily quiet at night. As soon as the sun had set, Kiba and Toboe had found themselves wandering alone through abandoned streets. The hushed, nervous buzz of the midday crowd was replaced by empty silence; not even a stray piece of garbage showed that anyone had ever been here.

Kiba's fur bristled and he walked stiffly, alert for any sort of noise or sign of danger as he searched as inconspicuously as possible for any trace of a scent of Tsume or Hige. Toboe slunk along behind him, tail between his legs. The city had been transformed into a ghost town and it made them both nervous.

At last they gave up and headed back to the ruined building they were using as quarters while in the city. It was too difficult to keep an eye out for danger, keep out of the open, and try to pick up two scents among the myriad. Toboe's tail and ears were drooping as he led the way, as much from disappointment, Kiba guessed, as exhaustion. Kiba himself was tired; the constant strain of being surrounded by humans, of pretending to be human, took its toll on a body. He hadn't wanted to give up, had been tempted to send Toboe back on his own and keep searching the city himself for their missing comrades. In the end, however, he had given into his body's demand for rest, and his conscience's demand that he look after the young pup rather than chase after two full-grown wolves more than capable of taking care of themselves.

It was rather irking how his conscience oftentimes had Tsume's voice, especially when it spoke to him of matters concerning their youngest member.

Toboe led them through a maze of twists and turns that somehow, miraculously, brought them to their temporary shelter. Hige and Tsume were nowhere to be seen. Kiba bit back a growl of frustration; it had been a small hope, after all. Toboe flopped down immediately in the corner he and Tsume had shared the first and only night they'd bunked together in the building and was snoring softly within minutes.

Kiba stayed awake longer, pacing the narrow room in agitation despite his exhaustion. The dead quiet of the night drove him to distraction. He needed to hear life around him to know that his was not in danger. This city was like a deer frozen in the snow; it had the appearance of life but nothing moved inside. It would rot from the inside out as soon as it thawed.

He stared at the stars for awhile instead of sleeping, waiting until the moon rose over the mountains. It was bright and beautiful, nearly full. He could almost smell the luna flowers in the air, for all that they were really nothing more than a fragment of a memory. He resisted the urge to howl out to the moon, to call out to his missing pack mates and continue past the walls until they found the source of that imaginary scent. Resisted, because he remembered the soldier's gun decorated with wolves' teeth and he had no wish for himself or Toboe or Hige to be among them. Tsume he sometimes wished such a fate upon, but Tsume could take care of himself and the soldiers would pay with their own blood if they tried for Tsume's teeth. The thought of fangs warping the metal of those vile guns made Kiba smile at the justice. Perhaps paradise was a world rid of the abominable inventions of man.

Kiba didn't realized he'd fallen asleep with his thoughts until he was blinking his eyes open against bright morning light, body frozen halfway to awareness as he tried to take in what was going on around him. There was a horrible screeching noise filling the air and Kiba snarled as he came fully awake at last, jumping up into a fighting crouch to find…

Nothing.

Toboe crouched down low near where he'd fallen asleep against the last standing wall, tail tucked in close under his body as he looked around nervously. The sharp tang of human fear was strong in the air, and sounds of panic filtered up from the streets below. Cautiously, Kiba peaked his head over the edge of the low wall. People were running through the streets, ducking into some of the sturdier looking buildings, dropping their morning shopping and abandoning their livestock in their panic. A few loose pigs squealed as they darted through the crowd, just as frightened as the people around them.

"What's going on?" Toboe asked, crawling over to peak over the wall along side Kiba. "What's everyone running from?"

The horrible, blaring noise stopped suddenly, and it was only then that Kiba realized it had been a siren. The panic continued in the streets below, however. Kiba watched it silently, not bothering to reply to the younger wolf's questions. It was stupid of the pup to ask them when it was obvious Kiba couldn't answer.

"What should we do?" Toboe asked after a moment had passed. The streets were gradually getting emptier as people made their way inside. A few soldiers appeared from around the corner, shoving the few stragglers towards the narrow doorways of the still-standing buildings with the barrels of their guns. Kiba and Toboe quickly projected human and ducked down behind their own wall.

"We stay here," Kiba answered distractedly, listening intently for any calls of alarm from the soldiers. When there were none, he hoped it meant they hadn't been spotted.

"But there's no door on this building. What if all those people know something we don't?" Toboe barely managed to keep the whine out of his voice.

"We stay here," Kiba repeated gruffly.

This time, Toboe did whine. "But there might…"

"We stay here," Kiba growled a third time, standing up and taking a few steps away from the wall. Toboe flinched and sat down, burying his face in his knees as he huddled miserably against the wall. Kiba relented a little, giving into a small pang of guilt; no one should look that pathetic. "We can't go running around in the streets when all the humans are inside. It'll draw too much attention to us, if the soldiers don't shoot us first." He tried to keep his irritation with the situation out of his explanation. It was hardly the pup's fault half their group was missing when the city went on some sort of military lockdown, after all. Kiba suddenly wished Tsume were here, so he'd have someone he could pin the blame on, or at least take out his frustrations on. Not to mention, he would have welcomed an extra set of fangs to help in a fight. The thing that humans called a sixth sense, which Kiba preferred to just think of as his wolf sense, told him that he and Toboe wouldn't be getting out of the city without some sort of confrontation.

"Okay," Toboe agreed simply, still looking miserable. He didn't raise his head from his knees, just sat there as Kiba gave another growl of frustration and began to pace the roof, dividing his attention between the stairs that led down to the first level and Toboe's sulking figure. Toboe was right; this was hardly a defensible position. If anything decided to come up the stairs, whether it be armed soldiers or the reason for the morning alarms, they would have to fight their way out. Five stories was far too high a distance to jump, and the stairs were the only access.

There was a brief burst of gunfire and Toboe jumped visibly, eyes darting around in panic for a moment before he settled once again with his back against the wall. Kiba tensed as well, even as he called himself a fool for it. The gunfire had been at least a few city blocks away. He forced himself to relax and resumed his pacing, smirking slightly as his ears picked up the distant voice of an angry soldier berating another for his itchy trigger finger. Stupid humans.

Kiba paused in his pacing as the uniform footsteps of another squad of soldiers approached their building. There was an odd crackling noise that made Kiba jump before he realized it was the sound of a radio transmission coming in. He silently chided himself for letting Toboe's nervousness wear off on him even as he strained his ears to listen.

There was a sharp buzzing and then a deep male voice said, "This is Blue 5, over."

Kiba moved as silently as he could over to the edge of the building, pausing just out of sight to eavesdrop on the short one-sided conversation.

"Damn. Outside the walls. Acknowledged. Blue 5 en route to Gamma Division. Over and out."

There was a pause, and a few mechanical hisses that Kiba interpreted as the soldier putting the radio away. Daring to peak his head over the wall, Kiba was relieved to see the twenty or some troops below focusing their attention on their leader, a tall, dark skinned man who called out to them in a loud voice.

"Soldiers, into patrol formation! We've got a visual confirmation from HQ. At least one of them is outside the gates. We're covering the south wall. Nothing so much as moves in Gamma District without our knowledge. Head out on my command!"

Kiba sunk back down below the cover of the wall as the leader gave the command to march to his patrol. As the sounds of booted feet tromped off into the distance, he looked up and met Toboe's worried gaze.

"A visual…of what?" Toboe asked hesitantly.

Kiba shrugged.

"You don't think…?" Toboe trailed off, voice hopeful.

…they've got Hige and Tsume, Kiba finished in his head. He merely shrugged again, not willing to say what he really thought out loud.

Still, Toboe seemed to understand. "Come on, then," he yelled, jumping to his feet. "We've got to find them." His previous fear was gone, replaced by a steely determination.

"Yeah," Kiba agreed, rising a little slower. "Yeah, we do."

It was far, far too early for anyone to be awake.

At least, Hige's body was telling him a few more hours, or maybe even days, of sleep, wouldn't be such a bad thing. Judging from the constant shaking of his shoulder, however, not everyone was of the same opinion.

"Mmph, I'm awake," he finally managed, which stopped the shaking for a moment. Happy, Hige rolled over and prepared himself for a few more hours sleep, only to be rudely interrupted once again.

"Fine, fine. I'm awake." He reluctantly opened an eye, and nearly shut it again with a groan. Tsume stood over him, glaring down impatiently. Time to move on.

Hige risked enough rebellion to take the time to stretch luxuriously, wincing only slightly as the wound on his leg pulled. He inhaled deeply, smelling the wet grass and the nearby creek and little else. Safe, for awhile.

"Let's go," Tsume barked, breaking Hige's reverie. He pulled Hige bodily to his feet when the other wolf was slow to react and headed back into the forest at a quick pace.

"Where's the fire?" Hige grumbled, leaving the small clearing at a slightly saner pace. Tsume didn't bother with a reply.

"I looked around this morning," Tsume said after some time had passed. Hige was startled enough at the fact that Tsume had actually initiated a conversation that he forgot to answer, so Tsume continued. "There's nothing on this side of the city except the door we came through. We'll have to sneak around to where we came in."

Hige bit back an angry reply at the fact that Tsume had one, gone off alone in a dangerous area without even telling him; and two, gone off and left him alone, asleep no less, in a dangerous area. After all, Tsume was actually being nice this morning. Come to think of it, he'd been nice the night before, too. "So that means no more sewers, right?" he asked instead.

"Hn." Quite a bit of Hige's irritation returned with Tsume's rather vague answer.

They traveled in silence for awhile after that, Tsume weaving a crooked path through the trees while Hige trailed behind, still limping slightly from the gouge on his leg. The sun rose fully over the mountains without them catching sight or wind of an army patrol, and as the new day drove the away the few lingering vestiges of winter that hung in the early morning air. As the day warmed, they began to hear sounds of life coming from behind the city walls; everyday sounds of people yelling and laughing, of horse-carts and cars being driven through crowded streets mingled with the more ominous noises of gunfire and artillery shells as the troops made their presence known with their morning drills.

They made slow progress as they circled the walled city towards the main entrance. Hige had a suspicion Tsume was being overly-cautious, sticking to the dense undergrowth whenever possible and pausing often, waiting long minutes with ears cocked, listening for some imagined threat. Hige didn't dare say anything; he was a city wolf after all, and Tsume would just ignore him at best. Still, Hige could hear the birds singing and the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking, and even a city wolf like him knew that smart woodland creatures like those stopped their merry singing when gun-toting soldiers came around.

They stopped for a break around lunchtime, a real break and not one of the pausing momentarily mid-stride ones Tsume seemed so fond of. Hige knew it was lunch time by the way his stomach was growling, though he did his best to ignore it. Even he understood that a wolf-kill was too obvious a sign of their passage. Practically a sign reading "here there be wolves" to any soldier troop that happened to stumble across it. Instead he found a blackberry bush with a few ripe berries hanging from its branches and munched on a few, though really it just made his hunger worse.

While he was vainly searching for a few more berries, a loud wail broke through the quiet of the morning. Hige jumped, whirling, just in time to see Tsume do the same. Both wolves stood stiffly in the clearing, ready to run if need be, as the city siren went on and on.

It stopped as suddenly as it started, leaving behind a tense stillness in its wake. Nothing moved for several moments, until a distant scream split the air and the city erupted into a flurry of movement, pounding feet and the squeals of livestock.

Keeping low to the ground, Hige crawled over to Tsume's side. "What do you think that was?" he asked, not bothering to hide his nervousness.

Tsume's eyes darted back and forth, rapidly scanning their surroundings. He didn't bother to answer, lips drawn back in an unconscious snarl. Hige suddenly wished they were still in the city; even the crumbling stone walls of their temporary shelter would have given him some illusion of safety. Here, in the woods, legs aching and stomach growling, he only felt open and exposed.

Tsume nudged him then, none too gently, and Hige slunk silently after him through the forest. They headed deeper into the trees, slipping through undergrowth that snagged at Hige's fur and grabbed at his feet. Despite being in front, Tsume seemed to be having none of the same problems. Hige glared at his back, cursing the wolf for getting them into this in the first place. There were much better ways to spend a day, and that included napping it away in a decrepit old cement building.

Hige let his thoughts wander momentarily to Kiba and Toboe. He didn't worry too much; Kiba had proved himself time and time again a capable fighter and packmate, loath as the white wolf seemed to be to admit it. Hige only hoped they'd have enough sense to either hole up or flee the city. Kiba had a tendency to act first and think later, and no matter how well honed his other instincts might be, he had a decidedly underdeveloped instinct of self-preservation. Hopefully, Toboe would temper that tendency.

Meanwhile, Hige thought, it might be better for him to worry about his own hide. He could hear flares of gunfire and muffled shouting from somewhere to their right, and realized Tsume's path had twisted around back towards the city's main entrance. They weren't going to try sneaking back in now, were they?

"Where else should we go?" Tsume replied flatly when Hige voiced his concerns. His tone suggested Hige was nothing short of an idiot for asking.

"Um, hello," Hige said, waving his arms for emphasis. "Soldiers. Guns. A definite hatred of all things lupine. Remember?"

Tsume just stared at him coldly.

Hige sighed. Why was it being an alpha male came with a distinct lack of common sense? "Look," he began. "They've set off sirens. Maybe it has to do with us. Since we're outside of the city, it probably doesn't. Maybe it has to do with Kiba and Toboe. But since they didn't set off alarms when they saw us, it probably doesn't have anything to do with them either. We've hardly seen any soldiers out here. Whatever the siren is for, they're probably guarding the entrances even more closely now. We go back inside and we sign our death warrant."

Hige didn't like the stubborn set of Tsume's jaw. Liked his answer even less. "So we keep out of sight," he said, starting off in the direction of the front gate once again.

"Wait. Tsume, wait!" Hige grabbed the other wolf, snatching his hand back as Tsume snapped at him. "It's not—"

He fell silent at a nearby sound; heavy human footsteps falling loudly on the pineneedle carpet of the forest floor. He froze, feeling Tsume do the same beside him. As the footsteps grew closer, they could make out a human voice, thin and slightly out of breath.

"…absolutely makes no sense. It couldn't have possibly escaped from the city; once the alarm went off every entrance and exit was sealed. This is a complete waste of resources. We should be inside, not…"

"Doctor Franks, sir," a woman's voice interrupted. "We've been over this before. We can't take any chances. And personally, I don't have your infallible trust in science. No matter what your people say, the city walls are breachable. We'll patrol out here until we're ordered back in. And you'll stay with us until then." She sounded bored and a little weary, but definitely in charge.

"Besides," another soldier said, this one younger and softer sounding. "I'd rather be out here than in there with that thing loose."

The woman who seemed to be in charge muttered something unflattering about scientists and their creations and then they were moving on, skirting the wall just as Hige and Tsume had done earlier.

Tsume nudged Hige gently, and gestured in the opposite direction. Hige nodded his agreement and they started off once again.

It happened suddenly. There was a strange metallic sound, a loud snap, and then Tsume was down with a pained yelp. Hige stopped again, understanding dawning only when he registered Tsume's harsh whines and the glint of metal peaking through the groundcover. A trap.

Tsume snarled at him when he took a few steps forward to help, ears flat against his head and lower body held stiffly still so as not to jar his trapped leg. Hige could see it lay at an awkward angle, bent sideways just above where vicious metal teeth disappeared into flesh. Hige made an unhappy noise as Tsume snapped at him again, wishing he could get a better look. He could hear the soldier's footsteps rushing closer, obviously alerted by the noise they'd made. If Tsume had any hope of survival, Hige had to get him out of the trap and on his feet, fast.

Easier said than done.

Whispering rushed assurances, Hige inched towards the trapped wolf. A bit of sanity returned to Tsume's pain-clouded eyes as he sunk down to the ground with a low whine. Hige shushed him frantically, daring to take a closer look at the trap. Tsume growled low in his throat, but didn't attack.

Hige breathed a small sigh of relief, at least as much as the situation would allow. He knew this kind of trap, knew how to release it if he could get Tsume to cooperate. He leaned forward to put a hand on Tsume's shoulder, hoping to calm the wolf down enough to explain what he needed to do.

"Hold it right there." The same woman's voice from before halted him half way to Tsume. He looked up, thankful he had already gone human. A tall, scar-faced woman held a rifle pointed directly at his head, eyes hard as she stared at him. He stared back, waiting for her to speak again, and a dozen more soldiers stepped out from behind the trees.

All he could really think at the moment was "oh, shit."

TBC...

A/N: Whew. Finally finished that part!The characters just kept doing the same thing over and over. I was prodding them with a sharp stick shouting "Do something!" and they just kept sitting around listening to soldiers talk. Silly wolves.

Please let me know what you think! I'm a little unsure about my writing style this chapter—it feels too prose heavy. It's just so hard to figure out if the characters are wolves or human and how much of each form to carry over into the other. Oh no, I think I just confused myself. Again.

Thanks to:

lucky (glad you enjoyed it-I liked writing that part, too!) and

kristen89 (thanks! I hope Tsume isn't being too nice, though…)