Chapter 43

"Gratitude"

I was found by those who did not seek me.

I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.

To a land that did not want to call my name, I said

Here I am

By the time I caught up to the storm, it was self-sustaining. The sky roared with crashing blows of thunder and the clouds spat rain at those loitering along the edge of its shadow below. Mato and the pack were not far now. I spotted them shifting through the grass from a top a rolling hill. Frantic and uneasy, they kept their eyes on the land underneath the cloud. No doubt in the direction of the enemy. It was much too dangerous to go any further, so they spread themselves wide to cover more ground. I trotted down from the hill. About halfway there, a large figure slipped out of their formation to confront me. Compared to the Hena I was in the company of over the past season, Mato was a giant. An immoveable object coming teeth to teeth with a seemingly unstoppable force. The pack he championed was the only thing keeping the curses from overtaking the grasslands.

And it was growing weary.

Dust and grass and dirt stained his coat. Unwashed blood knotted his fur. His eyes focused on me yet every fiber of his body remained poised to leap and bound and bite at the enemy that prowled just out of sight and smell and sense.

"Mother," he said, yet I felt no pride in the greeting.

Neither did he find any relief in it. It was now a station. Not a name. A rank of decreasing value. The pack changed in my absence. It was to be expected. Whether I was dead or alive after the great winter blizzard did not matter because I was gone and the pack had to move on without me. Even now, the pack paid no attention. I arrived without welcome or howl. Each and every one of those marks navigating the borders of safety were consumed with survival. They perched on the tips of their paws, panting with the all-consuming threat of war. Pushed to the brink of their endurance, there was no room for the self. All they could do was focus on their purpose. Without the pack, they would have given up or perished long ago. Rank and file was all that remained in their fatigue.

Thus, it was as if I never left, yet never existed.

"You cannot be here."

Both thoughtful and demeaning, the statement was not merely a command. A story and a legacy and a culture lay beyond it. I was dead in their eyes. It was impossible for me to live after the poisoning they remembered. Even if it was, a Mother was meant to be with Prima and the pups at such times. Old Mighty Hena did not belong on the front lines. The fear of losing yet another weighted heavy upon an Alpha. A stranger who chose not to return while they still had the chance could not be so easily accepted back into the pack. So much said in so little words.

Oh, how I missed the voice of the Mighty Hena.

"I heard your howl," I replied, reaffirming the vows we made at Castle Rock and letting him know that I was all that remained to fulfill them.

Although the Spirit about me was different, the soul was still the same. I may not make a difference in the fight, as empty as I was, but I would fight nonetheless. But Mato was still Alpha, and I would fall as far as needed in rank if it would strengthen the pack's howl by numbers alone. If he chose to banish me for my transgressions or forbid my involvement, I would embrace my imbalance and run straight through the enemy to my fate, reaping chaos and souls until my shadow was satisfied. I knew he saw it's potential. The devastation that loomed in my wake. How very proud I was when he came forward wearing that same mantle with more grace and poise and control than I ever could. Such was the power of an Alpha. Making his decision, Mato glanced back at the storm, winking against its stinging currents.

"Exile and his pack hide behind the storm," Mato said, pinching his eyes at the clouds that flashed with bright strobing light. "The rain covers their scents and the wind masks their voices. Whenever we approach, a creature summons lightning to strike us down. We cannot go any further without losing more."

I did not want to think of who it was I would never see again. This was not the time for grief. The pack was growing desperate. Fights in the wild were not meant to last so long and I was the only veteran left to remember such tactics. The grasslands must strike hard and fast if they wanted to win, but the storm obstructed all manner of attack. Waiting for an opportunity would only provide Exile twice as many. He would send more scouts and assassins and hunting parties to pick us off one by one. I came up beside Mato and looked carefully into the storm. Its heavy rainfall tore the clouds from the sky to the ground in a hazy sheet. It peppered us with insults and threats.

"Have you danced for the Spirit?" I asked, for I knew there were some among us capable of dancing for the sun as much as the rain. Mighty Hena could drown just like any other in flood waters.

"We are too far to dispel a storm of such greatness," Mato explained.

And to go deeper risked a barrage of electricity. To defeat a storm would be to tame the wild itself. We creatures could manipulate its elements, channel its energy, endure its forces, and even overpower them, but never control the very wild itself. Such creatures no longer existed. They remained locked behind portals, etched into stone, painted on walls, and recalled in stories.

Still, I had to try.

I taught the wild a lesson once, but it was a rebellious student. I stepped forward, planted my paws, and closed my eyes, remembering what it was like to be berated by the wild's strongest fang. A blizzard full of snow and ice and razor sharp wind. I would never forget the way it screamed at me to die when I was poisoned by the Hooded Back. How I howled back to prove Mother was more than just a Mighty Hena. And the pack needed me now more than ever, even if they no longer recognized my name. Back then, I howled for my life. Now, I must preserve all life under my watch.

I took that heavy black shadow on my back and pulled it up, dragging its weight with every spiritual muscle I had, and tossed it ahead of me. My howl impaled the storm. Loud and clear and completely alone. Not a soul raised their voice with me. Then again, they were not really my pack anymore. My voice was now strange to them. It became stranger still when the wind subsided and the rumbling seized and the veil of rain pulled away. I could not control the wild, but I could convince it to behave for a while. Some of the pack came over, looking to Alpha for an explanation, and found me none too steady after. Wet and exhausted, I blended right in. The ghost that never left.

"Quickly," I rasped, dropping my head in a fit of coughing.

Alpha was already on the move. He whirled around to those closest to him.

"Ume! Watepei!" he summoned.

Two of our best dancers when it came to matters of the weather. They appeared beside him in a flash. The three dashed off with a flick of their tails. The rest hurried into formation as an escort. And not a moment too soon. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the grass. Its silky touch soothed my hoarse throat and helped me quiet down to wet rattling huffs. The lining and flesh was likely torn and ruptured as a result of my howl. First, I burned my bite away. Then, I blew out my light. Now, I hollowed out my howl. Little by little, I was losing what it meant to be Mighty.

I stared at the stain in the grass. It brought my gaze forward to my muzzle. The rain had washed the black paint away, leaving it grey and colorless like Ezekiel Doom Seer's coat. If I had to steal souls to live, I would only eat away at my own. I sank a little, but I felt someone watching so I raised my head. Omega stood before me. His shinning red eyes glowed unbelievably bright against that narrow black mask of his. Under their light, I did not feel so old and tired. For Omega did not see me as the pack, but as my self. And his way with words never failed to amaze me.

"Mother," he softly smiled, war worn but still as hopeful as his generation had proven themselves to be. "Did you follow the Great Star?"

I would have started laughing, but my throat hurt too much to breathe. He hurried over and immediately took to licking my lips and mouth and muzzle. He cleaned my face, yet I groomed him for so much more. Omega could not afford to waste time with such menial tasks anymore.

"You must go with the pack," I said.

If he danced with Ume and Watepei, the sun would surely evaporate the storm and Exile would lose his greatest advantage. The Spirit coiled about my apprentice, thickening and tightening even now. Omega cocked his head.

"That is why I am here," he answered, confused I would ask such a question.

I thought it yet another of his strange ways until I realized that my imbalance may no longer just be in the Spirit, but also my mind. The foxes played too many tricks on me. The Seers spoke too many prophecies. My tongue tasted too many corpses. My blood was contaminated with too many curses. I might be going mad, but for now, my body demanded the most attention. If Omega planned to stay, I would make good use of him.

"Help me rest," I said.

He looked down at the blood. Its smell told him many things about my health. None of which were good given the way matched his shoulders into mine and laid his head over me in a Hena's embrace. He rested and the doors to his heart swung apart so wide my entire being fell into him. They opened the way to the Spirit for me once again. That precious guiding light shined down on me like a spotlight in the void. It spread, softening the divisions between light and dark like the touch of a full moon. Beautiful and ever watchful. The intimacy of the connection revealed all between us. The season we spent apart, the love and loss and purpose that came with shifting rank. All of these things were so very complicated. Ever changing. Always living within us.

It was my first time connecting with the Pack of the Grasslands since my tipping point and it did not disappoint. No matter the size of the shadow prowling around us, we need not fear it because the Spirit always came before it. Omega and I separated at the screeching call of a Brown Owl. Without the raging storm, Aquino's voice carried much farther across the distance. I spotted him some ways away, sweeping about the sky to gather my attention. He meant to focus my gaze below him. Two creatures crested the hill, small and short in stature. Too far to identify. Aquino then flew in our direction. Omega's surprise passed over the bird and landed on the two newcomers behind him.

"Mother, what friends are these?" he asked.

I had not the slightest clue. Only when Aquino was halfway across did I get an inkling of their identity. The two sprinted so fast across the land that light sprang up faster than the following thunder crack. Every time the pair moved, my eardrums shuddered. Such were the sounds of Striking Beast steps. With Aquino signaling no ill will against us, Omega and I stood beside one another as a pair of electrically coated Hena dashed up in front of us. Their abrupt halt puffed up our coats with concussive force. The two Hena stared at us, wild and ready. I waited, but neither of them spoke right away. Instead, one looked at Omega and he at her, and at once, I remembered a similar occurrence down at the Yawning River. The Striker then and now was one and the same. Omega wagged his tail lightly.

"Forgive our disturbance," Omega suddenly spoke for her as easily as his own thoughts, "but we came as soon as we heard."

The storm's earlier raging had hidden their quick movements. The pair was likely attracted by its energy. Striking Beasts were the best storm chasers in the grasslands. Although, this one probably took them by surprise due to its unnatural origin. Striker's eyes darted down to the blood stains on my chest, back up to the heavy slant in my eyes, then the impassive look on my face. She approached me without question.

"We come to help."

Even without my throat in such a state, I would have been at a loss for words. These two Hena were not called by the storm at all, but rather, my howl.

"As you saved the soul of the one I held most dear, I will do the same for you," Striker explained, "but we must act quickly."

The slick green fur on her coat fluxed with a thin sheet of plasma. The pressure was changing and not for the better. Striker looked up beyond us. We tracked her gaze to what appeared to be the center of the storm. A globe of black dots shifted down out of the clouds. They were bigger and fuller bodied than bats, coordinating their movements as a flock rather than a swarm. Dark Crows. They did not take my interruption in their workings lightly. They gained speed and momentum and precision, spiraling together to form a ring.

The wind around us picked up. The storm was building momentum again. Rain and hail and lightning would soon follow. Alpha and the others would be caught within it. They would never reach the enemy's main forces in time. I did not expect Exile to gather aerial forces as well. The pack was headed straight into an ambush all because I foolishly thought Exile would dance and sing for the Spirit like Hena were supposed to do. I took off running after the pack. They were long gone by now, miles ahead with their blessings and youth and zeal. Omega quickly came up beside me although I knew he could easily outpace me. My run was a hobbling trot without the breath to fuel me, yet he did not dart off ahead.

We both glanced at one another, then at the Striking Beasts as they zoomed up beside either of us with another crack. It matched the rumbling echoes clapping with greater frequency up above. Light strobed in and out of the clouds. The entire storm system shifted closer, honing in to meet Mato before he came upon his mark. My skin tingled. The air cooled. Our hair stood on end. The wild was upon us. Energy crackled into jagged scratches across the sky. If the wave of lightning bolts did not electrocute us, they would paralyze, and it would be the end of the grasslands, the pack, and my family forever.

Did I race all the way from the north to cast the shadow of death over my own legacy?

More lightning strobed overhead. Any moment now, it would fall to the earth in a shower of overwhelming energy, a thunder wave of unprecedented nature. The two Striking Beasts glanced at Omega and I, then one another before dashing off ahead of us in a flash of hot white light framed in blue and yellow and orange. Their glow lingered in my eyes. They ran close together before suddenly turning in opposite directions so sharply they drew lines of light across the grass. They spread farther apart, becoming exponentially smaller in our eyes. The Dark Crows cawed, widening their ring to cover what could only be the pack further ahead. Strings of energy gathered within their aerial territory. My ears popped as the wrath of the heavens suddenly screamed forth, clawing for the lives down below. Multiple lightning bolts dropped down in an explosion of light, but those devilish hands were greedy. Unable to betray their nature, they diverted from the Crow's targets, seeking the polarities most suitable to them.

The bolts separated and collected at two points on the ground. One for each Striking Beast now positioned on opposite sides outside of the ring below. The attack abruptly ended with an ear splitting barrage. Then, in a reverse counter explosion, those same bolts suddenly shot back up into the sky. Manipulated by the Striking Beasts, the energy waved and buzzed and danced back into the clouds where they came from. Puffs of smoke trailed behind them whenever they whipped through the flock. Bodies dropped from the sky. Slow and limp and unlikely to survive the fall, especially for those struck more than once. What few crows remained took off to save their own feathers. Their work was done.

Reignited with energy, the storm regained its ferocity. Clouds swirled to a point and the winds tightened into a whistle. More lightning arose although it was swiftly redirected and grounded by the Striking Beasts. Still running with Omega towards the others, I glanced up at the sky through the gusts. The eye of the storm glared back at us. It pinched its gaze and sucked up the breath of the wild to spit out a twister from on high. The whirlwind gained shape, pulling down the clouds as it descended. Omega and I bounced to a stop as the whistling intensified. We laid on the ground to make ourselves small. Our manes billowed against the onslaught. Omega pressed up against me, shielding me enough so that I could sneak another glance at the storm. I should have kept my eyes on the ground because that swirling grey and black eye flattened into a window to the other side. Something laughed behind it because not even the mightiest of Hena could stop a twister once it was in motion.

Such feats belonged to Champions of the Sky.

All of us heard the whistle, we just failed to realize it came from a trio of Sky Tails instead of the storm. Without the lashing rain or streaks of dangerous electricity, the birds had nothing to fear but the limits of their own egos. Tails streaming straight behind them, the trio rocketed across the battlefield and cleaved the twister in two, blowing it apart in a concussion that snapped the sound barrier. Omega fell to the ground as the recoil pounded the land below. The earth bounced as if made of flesh. The three Sky Tails wove around one another before splitting apart.

Their wings cut through the unpredictable updrafts as easily as a still summer's day. Thrilling and screaming, the Sky Tails lifted up into the storm, cutting the clouds into smaller and smaller sections with each pass. Smokey entrails whisked along their wings, dissipating when they could no longer keep up. More crows fell from the sky. Other creatures hidden in the heights too. Cut down by the Sky Tails' wings, pummeled by their wake, thrown from the air by their talons, and pierced by their beaks, they dropped in a bloody precipitation. Banking in only the smoothest motions, following invisible paths, darting and dipping in an airy ocean of grace, their battle tactics hypnotized those below. One by one, we Mighty Hena came out of the grass, mesmerized by their acrobatics.

The three Sky Tails worked flawlessly with each other. One of them was missing half of their head tail. Another brandished a unique teal and blue feather arrangement that was as familiar as it was intimidating. The blue Sky Tail wheeled out from the others. He extended his wings to catch a current that brought him high and long in our direction. When the air and height and distance were ideal, he tucked in his wings and plummeted towards Omega and I. Just when it seemed he would strike the ground, the bird flared his wings and came up level, close to the grass. The Sky Tail brushed by me so quickly and so gently that the very tips of his feathers brushed the length of my neck and back in a down stroke of expert precision. All before I could blink against the gust that followed.

It was him. The Champion of the Sky and his flock.

The Sky Tail screamed a beautiful arrangement of notes as he passed. They came and went with the wind which made the song even more complex. Omega and I whirled around as the champion wheeled upwards into an arch that brought his shadow back over us.

"A Sky Tail never forgets!" Omega suddenly cried, shouting with laughter.

Spinning with a little show, the Champion of the Sky righted at the peak of his maneuver. His successor and mate rejoined him. They fell into formation on either side once more. A few adjustments synchronized their wings. They glided together a moment before the Champion called. The two answered accordingly, all three aligning with my howl. Gathering speed, they flew out into the distance. A few miles in, they angled themselves upward and impaled the storm so fast, another concussion followed. It blew an expanding hole in the clouds. Suddenly, there was the sky again. Rising stars and a breathtaking veil of purple hues only twilight could create.

The lightning stopped and the threat of rain ended as the storm broke apart, unable to hold itself together. But as I looked upon that clear yet darkening sky, I knew this was only a brief reprieve in the battle. The eye of the true storm. The real terror lay in wait behind the sun. Exile and his Shaman. Sky Tails and Striking Beasts were not equipped to fight without the light. They would not be able to help the Mighty Hena for much longer.

Now, we must go forward alone.