Rohan, to the south of West Emnet, February 27
Chapter 6: Into the storm
Fastred leaned against the wall while Brytta wrapped her arms around her knees once more. The warg had stationed herself by the mare's carcass while her pups gnawed at it with her. Though the children were still in her sight, she only looked at them occasionally to make sure they were still where she had left them. Fastred kept one eye on her and let his mind rest on the knife that still lay in the snow where it had fallen from Fyren's hand. The sunlight reflected off of it in blinding silver rays, tempting him to take it for his own. But he feared that the warg would see the move. Which would be worse, he reasoned with himself: to be trapped with or without a knife? He knew he could not win against the warg with it, but he would rather stand against her when the time came than to accept their fate meekly.
To be trapped here under the watch of a warg was to be awaiting their doom, he surmised. The orcs would come back to the scout warg (he had decided this is what the warg must be) and that would be the end of it all, unless they were taken as live prisoners. He did not think this would happen though unless the orcs had something worse in mind for them later – and what would warrant that? Nothing that he could think of. But if they were taken alive and he had the knife, he decided that it would be better to have than not to have. More than likely they would take it from him, but if they didn't, then they might have a chance, be it a small and unlikely one.
He decided to try and take the knife – it would be better to risk the warg mother's anger now than to be without the knife later when the situation was even more dire.
More dire – the thought that he could think of worse situations might have caused him to smile under different circumstances.
He knelt to the ground beside Brytta, who stirred slightly, yawned, but did not open her eyes. She must be tired, her brother realized. The warg looked over and then returned her attention to her pups, probably assuming that Fastred was only tired of standing, the boy hoped.
By scooting on the ground, he also hoped that the warg wouldn't notice him as much. With slow, careful movement, he slid his body across the ground towards the knife that lay several yards away in the snow, its hilt turned away from him. The snow beneath his body crunched and one of his hands thunked through the thin upper layer of ice to the powder below. Fastred cringed and looked to where the warg mother was, but after several seconds went by without her turning her head towards him, he moved another foot towards the knife. At last his fingers curled around the cold hilt, and as they did, Fastred realized he had no place to keep it. Fumbling wildly for anyplace to conceal his prize, he quickly settled on shoving the weapon deep into one side of his boot, where the cold steel rubbed against his bare skin uncomfortably. Still, he had the knife, and if being more uncomfortable was the only price he had to pay, Fastred was more than willing to bear it.
Looking up, the boy realized that the warg was ushering her pups back towards the shed, and it was all Fastred could do to scoot as fast as he could away from where the knife had fallen. The imprint it had made in the snow remained, and Fastred hoped the warg would not notice the weapon's absence. The pups stayed close to their mother's legs, winding around them as she walked. Occasionally one would sink through the top layer of snow and would flounder in the powder before eventually hopping back to the crust. Fastred almost smiled. They reminded him of the pups their dog had had two springs ago, all sloppy tongues and drooping ears. They reminded him of home.
Home.
And it was all gone, every bit of it, thanks to the orcs and their wargs. Wargs like this one. Like the pups would grow up to be.
The smoldering in his heart returned with burning heat, and he grabbed at Brytta's hand. It was cold, he realized, very cold. Brytta stirred, then shivered so that her whole small body shook. Fastred's heart nearly froze from looking at her pale face. Then his anger burned more fiercely. If they stayed outside the way they were, they would surely freeze to death before the warg gave them over to her masters, wherever they were. Brytta's teeth chattered and she shivered again.
"Cold, eh? It's like that out here, why ya need a fur coat to survive this season," the warg said, appearing from nowhere in front of the girl and her brother.
Brytta at first only nodded, but as the warg frowned, Brytta chattered, "Very cold. Didn't get warmer things from our house. All burned." The sentences were choppy and she blew into her hands in-between words, her breath showing in the cold air.
"Figures." The warg rolled her wild yellow firelight eyes and plopped herself down beside the girl, shielding her and Fastred from the wind. The pups at first stayed close to their mother, but she nudged them forward to snuggle close to the two children, their fur covering their exposed fingers. Fastred sent a questioning look to Brytta, and the girl tentatively asked,
"Why?"
"Because you're cold, that's why."
Fastred frowned as Brytta shrugged to him and shivered again. Still, he did not push the warg pup away, and it sent him pleading eyes and licked his palm. Despite himself he scratched behind its perked ears. It might grow to kill him, but it was endearing nonetheless, the boy realized.
The warg mother snuffed at the air, raising her nose to the greying sky.
"Snow's coming," she said, her voice devoid of emotion. As if on cue, the sky darkened more and small flakes began to appear. "Crows too." She pointed her nose northwards in the direction the children had come. Sure enough a darker patch of sky had appeared, and it was moving steadily towards the small company. Fastred's eyes centered on the crows and he took in a sharp breath. Brytta heard him and direction her gaze on what her older brother stared at.
"Come on," the warg said, jerking her head in the opposite direction.
"What?" Brytta asked.
"This way." The warg frowned when neither child moved. "If you stay there, they'll kill you, you know."
Still neither child moved, and Fastred gripped Brytta's hand tightly, then met her eyes. He shook his head. How could they trust this creature, this slave of the orcs? Surely she was only taking them someplace to hand them over to her masters, and there Fastred reasoned that they would suffer greatly. It would be better to die here than to prolong the inevitable. Better to get it over with. His body shook from the cold and at the memory of Master Leofwine's body that they had passed as they left their home. No matter his grit and reserve regarding the matter of staying, his body was repulsed by it.
The warg shook her head causing the thick fur to ripple in the cold wind. "Nope, don't think so. I don't care if you trust me, but I'm not letting two pups stay here for them." She spat the last word out as though it held a bitter taste. Brytta squeezed Fastred's hand and tugged on it, trying to guide him to the warg mother. She liked the creature, despite everything that screamed for her to run as fast as she could away from it as she had been instructed to do two nights before. "No," the warg said almost to herself. "Wouldn't do that to pups." A fey fire glowed in her eyes for a split second before it was replaced again with her grim expression.
Two nights – had it only been two nights since Master Leofwine had visited their home and they had offered him soup, and Fastred had been drawing her a picture? Only two nights? She shook her head – it seemed so far away, as if it had been a dream, as if it had been during a different lifetime, if that was possible.
Fastred remained seated and yanked Brytta back towards him. She wasn't going to go with the wolfish creature without him to protect her, and he was not yet convinced.
Brytta grabbed her hand away before her brother could pull her back again. She stationed herself beside the warg, a tentative stance of defiance. With one hand she beckoned to Fastred to join her, and although he bore a suspicious expression on his face, he followed and joined her. Brytta offered him a small smile in hopes of helping him to see that the warg wasn't going to hurt them, at least, the girl didn't think the warg was going to.
The snow had begun to fall thickly, already covering the tracks that had been made since the previous evening. Fastred and Brytta shoved their hands into their pockets, but still their skin was already turning a bright pink.
The warg stood to regard the approaching crows before looked ahead of her across the plain.
"Get on," she stated towards Brytta.
"What?" the girl asked, shaking her head in confusion.
"Do you ever hear anything the first time?" the warg replied in exasperation. "Get on my back, we have to go fast and your legs are too short."
"What?" Brytta repeated. Her eyes widened at the idea and she backed away several steps from the warg in disbelief.
"Get on." This time the warg was not merely offering them a ride, she was ordering, and as Brytta stared at the sharp white teeth of the beast, she took a step closer, then stopped again. "You are getting on now, or you are staying here," the warg warned, her eyes beginning to glow again and as Brytta still refused to grab hold of her fur to climb up, the warg snarled and her tone rose. "Do you think I'd leave my own pups for those crows? Well that's what's going to happen if you don't hurry up, they're going to get here, and then I can't protect you anymore. I can run but I can't fly. So get on now, and we might have a chance. Now."
The last word was more of a growl than a statement. Trembling, Brytta wrapped her fingers around a clump of damp fur. Fastred stood still, the wind whipping at his hair and stinging his eyes. He and the warg stared at each other, neither giving any ground. Brytta looked back and forth between the two, thinking that if they burned each other through their glares any more, sparks would fly up into the air.
With an abrupt whirl of her large body, the warg turned her back towards the boy and began moving at a fast clip so that the pups could keep up. Brytta dug her small hands into the warg's shaggy neck and leaned her head down.
"Please don't leave him," she whimpered into the beast's large pointed ear. "Go back, oh please, go back!"
The warg did not reply.
"Please! Warg, warg, please! Warg, WARG!" Brytta cried louder, but the wind grabbed her words from her mouth and threw them backwards. The warg picked up speed and the pups were running fast at their heels. Before them on the ground, shadows of several crows appeared, signaling that the birds were almost directly overhead.
Brytta clung to the warg mother's long fur, but did not turn her eyes away from her brother. As the shadows dipped down, she let her voice rise above the wind to the warg's pointed ears in as loud, shrill, desperate a cry as she could muster.
"Go back!" her voice beseeched, a plea that turned into a desperate wail. And that time, as if by magic, the beast turned on her heels, nearly jolting Brytta off of her back in the process. Padded paws thudded with a dull thumping against the cold ground, and for a moment Brytta felt as though she was flying above it all, would soon jump up and fly beyond the crows, beyond the clouds, to who knew where. She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut against the wind biting at them, that is, until they reached Fastred.
The boy had not moved from where he stood when they had left, but this time, Brytta clutched his pale hand, grabbing it tightly so that her brother was forced to climb upon the warg's back behind her. And just in time, for as he moved from his place, a black streak of feathers surged downward for them, aiming with deadly intent.
Brytta did not need to scream to the warg to fly, for flying they already were, barely making prints in the snow. The pups followed, surprising the children with their swiftness. Across the plains they dipped and rose, always a few breaths ahead of the crows, always a stumble away from defeat, but always ahead. At first, as the warg ran, she held herself back, but as they continued and their followers grew ever closer, she stretched herself, arching her neck further out, her paws reaching at longer distances.
A sharp shriek pieced the sky, and all thoughts of escape tumbled and blew away as if on the wind itself. Behind them, just a foot or two away where the pups had been following, a large crow could be seen, it sharp beak firmly clamped into the side of the warg pup who had been following furthest behind. A sharp, growling shudder ran through the warg mother's body as she leapt towards the crow and its fellows, her teeth bared and a howl bellowing at the birds as both children fell from her back to the snowy ground with a crunch.
Fastred and Brytta watched in horror, mouths partway open in shock. As soon as the mother warg had leapt into the gathering circle of birds, they had initially scattered in a dizzying array of black feathered bodies, going every which way. But it took only seconds – and not enough of them to give the warg any time to carry the injured pup away – before they had settled back down to surround their catch. They were large birds, bigger and more daunting than the children had imagined them to be when they had seen them far off in the sky.
Again the mother warg lunged for the crows, snapping and snarling and trying to bat them away with her teeth, her claws, her whole body; it was as if she had become possessed as she whirled around in the midst of them , and should have been enough to scare away anything. Except, as was becoming all too apparent, these servants of the enemy. She had ceased to be recognizable, instead had become a thrashing clawing biting storm of brown fur against white snow mingling with red.
Abruptly as they had descended, the crows flapped and cawed as they rose into the air, a mass of beating wings and throaty, raking laughter. Below them sounded a long, despairing howl which echoed and rolled along the plains, until it mingled only with silent snow and silent children. Yet neither child ventured near the creature, for her eyes were smoldering with a fey light when at last she lifted her massive head. Forward she strode, the cooling body of the fallen pup left behind her, and the children had to choice but to follow her with the remaining members of the litter. The crows had disappeared, but in their wake – though certainly not by their intentions – there lay above the group an urgency that had not been felt before. Onward they strode, the warg silent in the lead, Brytta and Fastred trailing at the rear. When the next day had in store for them, they did not venture to think much upon, and when they collapsed into sleep, the night sky held no stars.
