Chapter 26

"Fortitude"

I will stay with the pack.

I will go until the end.

One by one, the pack passed ahead of me. Some close by. Others at a distance. We traveled as we normally did. Only now, the shadow of death that followed us found its place in my paws. I fell to the back of the pack. Omega was the last and longest to pass by. His grief was great, but silent. I felt it grow as the weight of the poison filled my heart and slowed my paws. I had been poisoned a great many times in my life, but never as overwhelmingly potent as this.

Yet on we went into the vast span of darkness and snow that was the grasslands in winter. Day came and went with little change in light. The storm we'd been racing finally caught up to us. Snow fell wherever we went. It grew heavier and heavier, building speed until it finally started howling at us in challenge. We trudged through the thickening snow, deafened by the wind. Blinded by a blizzard. It bent our heads and whipped our manes, chilling us to the bone. We slowly drifted apart, trying to follow one another's path, but the storm filled our steps just as quickly as we made them. It stole our voices and our senses without remorse or regret. Even Omega found himself lost and far from my side. A single moment's pause was enough to bury us. I could neither see nor hear nor smell nor feel any other.

I am grateful because I could go no more.

The fight finally fled from me, taking what remained of my health. My legs buckled. I collapsed. The ice crystals in my fur quickly stuck to the snow as if to fasten me there. I rested, only to realize I had been resting the moment I first struck the Hooded Back. It was not enough. Down in the snow, it was much warmer without the wind. And the more snow that piled on top me, the more inclined I was to stay there. I would pretend it was a snow hold, the little holes and tunnels we dug to sleep in at night. I would get warm if I rested just a little bit more. Yet my breath was cold when it bounced back against the snow and onto my face. I stopped shivering. My body went numb. From the cold or poison, I could not tell. Every breath I took drew longer and softer. Every snowflake caught in my lashes weighed down my eyes.

Just a moment's rest. That's all I needed to get back on my paws.

I closed my eyes. No longer able to feel the cold. At least, if I were to die this way, I could leave the pack like a true shadow. Vanishing without a trace. Slowly, they had separated themselves from me. If Omega had remained, he would have tried to rest with me, but this was no longer the type of rest he could help me with nor what he was meant for. Not yet. He still had much to do for the pack. Maybe for the entire grasslands. His gifts were great. It made me think of all the creatures we had come across that proved as much. All of the things he did that defied the laws of the wild. I thought of all the times we spent together. Even the moment he became my apprentice. A moment I did not even recognize at the time.

"But he is Omega?" Alpha had questioned from the top of the hills around the den.

But like the blizzard, my memory rushed ahead in a blur.

"And what of Omega?" Alpha asked again. This time, after the Bone Taker's burrow was crushed between my jaws.

"How he thinks and sees and hears is not of Omega," I told him.

And in another rush, I saw the hooves of Storm Runner, the mighty Stantler, barreling through the blizzard toward me. He vanished after bounding over me, leaving me with the vision of Omega standing in the woods on the mountain of Castle Rock, longing for his purpose. I never did give him a name. Not that I did not have one prepared, but because I was holding back, waiting for the right moment when it would be the most important to him. Maybe I was never meant to name him. The pack had already accepted him. Alpha and Prima were more than capable of deciding. His new name must give him new life. New purpose. One that no longer tied him to me. He must let me go. I must let him go.

And then I heard Omega's voice carried by the wind, coming from far below and far away. A place where the rivers in the mountains came low into the grasslands, spreading and slowing so that even grieving Striking Beasts could drink from their waters.

"Do not leave yet," he had said to me outside of the Iron Mouth's trap.

But I was so tired. Even without the poison, my burdens grew heavier every season. But the river of memories continued to carry me to where the waters branched far and wide. Where it was warm and wet and dangerous from the enemies we faced.

"Follow the Great Star and we will cross paths again," he told me.

Yes, we would. Up in the stars where Mighty Hena howls echoed without end. But a voice, sharp and dangerous, cut through the howl I wished to give. It laughed at me, swinging a club in its hand.

"You have no power here," the Shaman told me from the steps of her temple.

And she was right.

"Not in this place."

Not in the heart of a wild winter.

"Not in this life."

Not anymore.

And the wind howled, long and foreboding and so very proud.

"A new age dawns!" Ezekiel Doom Seer cried from the darkness of my mind. From the darkness he tried to harness in the shadow of Council. "Your time has finally come, Matriarch!"

Matriarch. The Doom Seers had such fancy words to explain things they knew nothing about. Even Mountain Cats, scarred and ruined and treacherous knew enough to recognize me.

"This must be Mother," the cat with the scar spat from within the prison the pack created around him near the river. His contempt traced back to that which most reflected it. I saw Exile standing before me at Castle Rock. All shadow and no light.

"Hello, Mother," he grinned, so full of wickedness.

He could take the name in vein, but even on his wicked tongue my name carried power. It summoned all the times it had been used before. The most recent came first.

"Mother," Alpha said, heavy with dread and understanding and awe at the sight of me spiked by cobra fangs.

"Mother," Omega said, much softer than before.

"Mother!" Jumper called, so happy to be found.

"Mother," Ume and Watepei greeted simultaneously as they pranced up from whatever debate they were having amongst themselves.

"Mother," Scout laughed, nuzzling me for more stories.

"Mother," said Keen Eye and Maw Mouth and all the rest, flipping faster and faster through the years.

"Mother!"

"Mother."

"Mother."

That's right. I am Mother. And a Mother never gives up. Especially not in the face of death. Who but the Mighty Hena were capable of taming death with its bite?

I opened my dark eyes slowly, heavily. Just enough to remember where I was. I used every ounce of stubbornness within me to get up. The snow that had piled on top of me shifted as I winced up onto my chest. My frozen blood scratched the walls of my veins as it began to break apart and flow again. But what was coldness against the thick manes and hot blood of the Mighty Hena?

I braced my paws, bared my teeth and shimmied up to stand. So little strength I had. But what was fatigue compared to the endless hunt all Mighty Hena must follow?

The wind pushed at me, threatening my balance, but I held my ground. I was alone. The wild, vast and frightening around me. My cloak of shadow gripped my shoulders tightly with clawed hands, refusing to let go. It would have me. One day for certain. But what was death but a familiar burden Mighty Hena must carry on their backs?

I lifted my head to look out in front of me, red eyes narrow against the stinging wind. It was about time someone taught it how to howl properly. I sucked in a breath, the very life of the wild, silencing all sound as I took it in, so that when I did speak, the whole world heard me. I howled, piercing the night with my voice. It blew back the storm so that the High Spirit of the Mighty Hena could reach the heavens. The winds swirled around its power, tossing snow about me faster than the blizzard could manage. The air shuddered with increasing speed until it vibrated so fast that time and space suddenly flattened and blew out around me. Everything froze.

For a moment, everything stopped.

My howl ended. The world quieted. Slowly, the emptiness of the grasslands in winter returned, lonesome without my voice. The wind was gone. Tamed by the power of the Spirit within me. The storm settled, letting the last of the snow I had frozen in the sky fall back to the ground. It would eventually pick up again, but winter without its windy bite was a crippled beast. It was enough to be able to pick up my paws again. I walked, limping. No longer numb, but aching and sore and shaking. One step after another, I tried to follow after my pack even though I could not find the trail. I could not see nor hear nor smell nor feel more than my own weakness.

But what were such things to Mother, mightiest of Hena?