“Why do you serve the Spider?”

Roka glared at the man named Epp.  Green water continued to trickle down the moss-covered bricks behind the man, seeming to match his eyes both in color and behaviour.  Roka groaned.  “I do not.  And I have not.”

Epp didn’t blink, but his eyes continued to shimmer.  “You fought in the Battle of Braedegorn.  You joined your kin. You fought with the Lycan Lords.  You fought for the Spider.”

“How dare you!  The Pack serves none!”  Roka bellowed, all of his strength pulling on the shackles that bound each wrist, blood welling in the scars there.  The blade at Epp’s belt would have protected him anyway.  “This spider you speak of, this web – these are lies.”

“You know they are truth.”  Epp’s eyes didn’t see Roka’s rage.  They saw straight to his heart, to that wolf’s blood coursing through his veins.  The dank cell walls no longer existed.  Only Roka’s memories did.  And Epps’ eyes.

*

Long Barrow Den looked like a pebble from this high.  Across the valley was Barrow Peak, while these were the slopes of Durle Cap.  River Brae cut its course where the two mountains met, there in the valley where Long Barrow was built.

“Do you see the Den?” Roka asked.

The pup, standing on pale mud-crusted legs, looked like a four foot tall sapling.  Roka watched the youngling scan the valley.  Sasi laughed.  “It’s so small!”

Roka knelt, meeting Sasi’s steel grey eyes.  “Small?” he questioned.

Sasi cut short his laughter.  “It’s so far, I mean.”

“Very good.”  Roka let the pup run ahead.  They were tracking a mountain goat, but the air had lost its secrets.  Roka could only smell the river, traces of cooking meat from the Den, dung from the weakblood’s farmland downstream, and, of course, Sasi.  Roka ran fingers through his hair and ran after Sasi.  If the pup could catch up to the goat, the Alpha would be pleased.

*

“Why do you serve the Spider?” Epp asked.

Roka wasn’t in a cell now, but lying on a glowing grate, flames below heating it like a grill.  He looked up at Epp, craning his neck painfully to meet those pale eyes.  His strength had been sapped from him long ago.

“Sasi’s blood is on your hands, Lycan,” Epp told him.

Roka roared, and put his small drip of strength against the shackles.  He rose a hand’s width from the grate, those fingers of flame still licking at him like a pup at its mother.  He could only hold this attempt at sitting for a second before the steaming grill met his skin again.  He panted for a moment, then glared up at Epp again.  “Sasi is a useless word.  I know no Sasi.”

“Would you prefer I call him Gelden?” Epp’s emotionless gaze still ignored Roka’s anger.  “I have never understood your kind, nor needed to.  Tell me, why the Spider?”

“How long have you questioned me?  Surely there are other wolves to mock?  Perhaps some furless weakbloods will oblige your – rah!” The metal grate dropped an inch but felt like a foot.  Glowing specks of light settled on his arms as the hairs caught fire and burnt into steaming pores in his skin.  Roka yelped like a jackal, his shame hurting worse than the fire.

*

As suddenly as the air had lost it, the smell of goat was back in his nostrils.  Sasi smelled of excitement, leaping up the hill in bounds, hands and feet digging into the dirt.  Roka was at his side in only two strides, and they ran through the hills like brothers.

He let Sasi make the kill.  The pup’s claws knocked the fleeing mountain goat to its side and as it spun to flee again, Sasi hacked through a hamstring in a spray of blood.  Even as the goat fell to the humid mud, Sasi’s other claw cut the throat.  Roka barked at him to praise the efficiency, a disjointed chuckle reverberating on the stone ridge nearby.

Sasi stepped back to examine his kill, and then picked the goat up, two limbs on either side of his head.  As the excitement of the hunt exhaled from Roka’s nose, it left room for a new smell.  The reeking fear of weakbloods.

Sasi could smell it too, but he froze.  “What is that?”

Roka pointed downhill.  “Men,” he spat.  There were three of them hiding in the brush nearly a mile away.  Sasi was reared well, but not enough to quickly spot them at this distance.  Roka let out a howl, and the weakbloods ran in terror.  Their flight was louder than anything but war, branches breaking, boots stomping – it made Roka sick to the stomach.

“They are cowards.”

Roka shot a glance at Sasi.  “They are pups who think they need never become dogs.”

Sasi nodded.

It wasn’t a long journey back to Long Barrow Den, where the hollowed out crevice was teaming with the life of their Pack.  Pups ran alongside Roka and Sasi as they walked the trodden path into the large rock formation.  At the far end was the burrow where females were already gathering to see Sasi’s entrance.

Roka stayed behind, giving Sasi the moment he deserved.  The kill was his tenth.  He wouldn’t be Sasi much longer.  He paraded his kill through the Den to the mouth of the burrow.

Aekar came out to meet his son, shaking his mane as he felt the excitement in his Pack.  Sasi dropped the goat at the Alpha’s feet, and let out his first real howl.  The rest of the Pack howled with him, and Aekar silenced them with a bark.  “What is your name, wolf?” he asked the one who had been Sasi.

“I am Gelden,” he told them all.  Roka nodded and started the chant, “Gelden-wolf, Gelden-wolf”.  When it had died down, Aekar patted Gelden on his shoulder.  “You are one of the pack now, firstborn of my loin.  These are your brothers, these are your sons and your daughters, and these are your wives.”

Gelden replied with the tradition.  “Eat of my kill, Alpha.”

One of the lesser brothers took away the goat for the fires, as Gelden began to examine the females.  Aekar turned back into his burrow.

Roka followed closely.  “There were more weakbloods in the valley, Aekar.”

“As you tell me after every hunt,” the Alpha retorted.  “As all the hunters know, but do not complain about.”

“Then they are jackals who will not say truth when they know it.”  Roka met Aekar’s dark glare.  “The men venture closer and closer with each passing day.”

The Alpha sat at his fire.  “These crop-hunters are fools.  They are of no concern.”

“Aekar, there is no honour in losing land to their stench!”

Aekar barked loudly, and Roka dropped to his rump on the other side of the fire.  The Alpha curled his lips.  “Do not show your fangs to me, Roka-brother!  I do not hunt but it would be a waste for you to challenge me.”

Roka lowered his gaze. “It is not a challenge I desire.  You and I were Pack brothers when your father still sat at the head of the Den; I only seek to aid you – ”

“But it was I who slew the Alpha, and I who now sit at the head,” Aekar said.  “Leave me and do not speak of this more.”

Roka growled quietly but left the burrow.  Should he have challenged his Alpha?  Outside, the smell of cooking goat meat filled his nostrils.

*

“You killed Aekar too,” Epp said.  “Gelden, Aekar – their blood is on your hands along with your entire pack.”

“I killed none of them.  My claws are clean,” Roka told him steadily, concerned at the tremor in his voice.  I am not weak, he assured himself.  I am a hunter.

Epp didn’t see the pain in Roka’s heart.  He paced to the other side of the prison cell.  When had they returned here?  How long had he burned?  Epp returned.  “None of these other Lycans dropped the gate at Braedegorn.  Nor any of the men, nor the other Packs that came at your request.”

Roka met Epp’s steely gaze.  Inside was the turmoil of all these words, a storm that Epp couldn’t perceive.

“Gelden, Aekar – they didn’t drop the gate.”  Epp leaned closer.  “You did.”

“The weakbloods’ air-claws would have slain us all!”  Roka growled.  He licked his parched lips.  “We won the battle because we made it inside.”

“And you opened the gate.”  Epp paced again.  “Your Pack died because you won the battle.  Don’t you understand that?  You won the battle and it left you with three pups and no wolves.”

“Lies!” Roka spat.  “I’ll never admit otherwise.”

Epp didn’t hear Roka’s words.  “Now, do you know who planned for the both the Lycan Lords and Braedegorn to perish?  Do you know who wanted both gone?”

“Don’t speak to me, you weakblood pup, you hairless jackal!”

“The Spider planned it, Roka,” Epp said.  He smirked, the first emotion in hours.

“The Pack serves none!  Your carcass will be fed to the river!”  It was the lowest and gravest insult of Roka’s kind.  Epp didn’t see it.  He just looked deeper into the memories.

*

Roka strode into the Den, each foot grazing between fallen branches by instinct.  He bore a deer over each shoulder and two rabbits hung at his waist.  As he set them down near one of the fires, the Gelden’s scent announced his brother’s arrival.  Gelden already seemed a foot taller and his muscles were angled like stone.

“A scout came,” Gelden told him.

Roka stood from his kills.  “From Jiyak’s Pack?”  At Gelden’s nod, Roka strode past him towards Aekar’s burrow.  A female blocked his path.  It was Vex.  There were very few wolves like her – it was said that her aged gaze could see forever, see so far that it could see events yet to come.

“Do not do this,” she told him.

Roka bristled.  “Move aside.”

Vex met his glare.  “We far-seers speak of a day when the Packs will meet in a field of battle and be lost.  We speak of a day when our kind will perish.  We speak of the one who will avenge us.  These are not words.”

“They are words.  Move aside,” Roka repeated.  He forced his way past her and strode towards Aekar’s burrow once more.

Her words called after him: “You are setting us on that path, Roka-wolf!  The Packs will face that day soon!”

Aekar stood at his entrance.  “Roka-brother.  It is good you are here.  We must leave the Den.”

That froze Roka in his tracks.  “Who is this scout?  From where?”

The scout stood.  “I come from Burlock-pack.  We and three other Packs will be preying on Braedegorn.  We must hunt these weakbloods before we are driven from our lands.  Burlock has already led my brothers south where he will meet Derth.”

“Why now?  After so many days?”

Aekar dismissed the scout.  “We must leave at once if we are to catch up to Burlock.”

Roka lowered his head.  “Aekar-brother, it is not with pride I ask you to stay.  Why do you believe a scout when I have begged you for many moons to attack these weakbloods?  Am I not your brother?  Is Burlock not an old fool as you have named him?”

Aekar growled.  “Burlock is an old fool, but our place is with the Packs.  We would lose great honour to refuse this Hunt.”

Troubled, Roka opened his mouth to retort.  Vex’s chilling warning still rung in his ears.

Before he could speak, Aekar grabbed his neck and threw him back against the side of the burrow.  “Do you challenge me, Roka?  Do not speak to me again, unless I speak to you first.  This is my Pack, not yours.  Summon the hunters, scouts and jackals.  We run at nightfall.”

Roka growled as Aekar released him and strode from the burrow.  Why couldn’t he fight Aekar?  Roka’s mind was telling him to challenge the Alpha, but all his instincts resisted.

*

Epp stood at the cell door and watched Roka.  This wolf was such an entertainment.  Epp watched him squirm, his longer-than-human limbs trying to find a way out of his shackles.  Roka’s fur, which normally covered him from head to toe excluding a patch around eyes and nose, was now missing in strips and slashes from the battle and Epp’s torture.  As he struggled, Roka clenched his large jaw, much larger than Epp’s human one, and ground fang-like teeth back and forth.

Epp smiled and strode away from the cell.  He wondered how long Roka would last.  Epp enjoyed the sport of breaking men, and he knew a Lycan would simply be a more enjoyable challenge.

He made his way onto a balcony overlooking the ruined city.  The Spider had orchestrated this whole thing.  How to seize a city?  How to expand an empire?  The answer was simple, take two equal forces and pit them against one another.  Messengers and promises to the wolves had earned their servitude.  Once Braedegorn had fallen, the Spider had claimed his next conquest.  Brilliant.

*

As three Lycan Packs fell out of the valley and into the green farmland, Braedegorn dispatched assault parties to ‘scare’ them back into the mountains.  Aekar had Roka join the hunt, and the Men were left in scraps of clothing, flesh and metal.  Some of Burlock’s Pack wore similar metal plates over their fur, but Roka thought it was a useless and heavy excuse to look like a weakblood.  After the fighting in the farmlands, Roka found many bloody gashes on his arms from the metal sticks the weakbloods wielded.  He accepted a similar blade from one of Burlock’s hunters, but only to defend himself from Braedegorn’s spears and swords.

At noon the following day they reached the walls of the city.  Braedegorn was built in the foothills of Barrow Peak, the farthest north of any weakblood settlement, and had walls only to defend it from borderland threats like bandits.  That said, its formidable garrison was reputed for its ruthlessness.

The Packs approached the walls with caution.  Roka watched as the men on the battlements lifted wooden contraptions.  Suddenly, the air was full of lines and wolves around Roka yelped in pain.  Roka found sticks appearing in the earth around him and retreated with his brothers.  No more of those sticks fell from the sky.

Gelden approached Roka and Aekar’s fire later that evening.  They had camped near the city.  Two Packs had gone to opposite sides of Braedegorn to stop the villagers from fleeing.

“Gelden-son,” Aekar said.  “Are you unhurt?”

“Yes.  I bring you one of their claws.”  He showed them one of the wooden sticks that had cut down their brothers earlier.  “We must find a way to avoid these,” Gelden told them.

“We are much faster and stronger than these weakbloods,” Aekar said.  “We shall storm the gate and break in as quick as we can.  This will avoid more fallen hunters.”

Roka tapped the head of the air-claw against his other hand.  “These would be useless in a close fight.  We should find a way onto the walls, and kill the cowards.  Storming the gate would be – ”

“Silence!” Aekar roared.  He stood up.  “Roka, you are brother no more.  Go join the other Packs as a jackal or run away like a coward!”

Roka barked in shock.  “Aekar-brother… I apologize for – ”

“Leave my sight, Roka!”

Roka ran.  His feet took him into the foothills as he mindlessly howled at the moon.  He could see the fires of his kin on the flatland below, but no Alpha would speak his name now.  He clawed at his hair, tore the pelts he wore, split the bark of the trees around him.  How could he go and present himself to another Pack?  He would have no honour.  He howled at the skies.  Why would Aekar abandon him?  Forfeit his life?

When the sun started to rise, Roka still stood on top of that same hill, unable to take a step in any direction.  Below he could see his Pack joining the others.  They would attack the gate soon.

Finally, Roka knew how he had failed.  It was not in resisting Aekar, it was in accepting him.  Roka should have protested while their hunters still guarded the Den.  He should have made Aekar listen, or challenge him for leadership of the Pack.  An Alpha that led the Pack to disaster was not an Alpha.

Roka hung his head in defeat.  This was how he had failed his Pack.  They deserved more than Aekar and Roka had not known his place.  Was it too late?  He couldn’t give up.  That would be as good as surrendering to the weakbloods.

He ran towards Braedegorn.  No Pack would take him, but he wouldn’t stand and watch the Hunt play out.  He didn’t go to the gate.  That would have been as foolish as a pup.  He pressed against the city wall, several dozen meters from the battle, and began to follow the palisades.  He found two log sections with enough of a crevice between them.  He dug his claws in and forced one hand higher.  Levering all his weight another inch, he lifted a foot and forced it into the wood.

It felt like the sun held its position in the sky for an hour, beating down on him as he crawled up the wall.  Wolves were never meant to climb.  He nearly fell at least twice, held to the wall by only his will and well chosen handholds.

Finally he swung himself over the palisades and onto the battlements, lying still on the rampart for a dozen gasped breaths.  When at last his breath returned to him, he dropped off the battlements and into Braedegorn.

Still sticking to the wall, he ran towards the gates.  He could hear howls and yelps as the Packs outside battered against the massive doors under the rain of air-claws and weakblood curses.  Roka slit the throat of a sentry, grabbed his metal to protect from other swords and threw himself into the body of guards holding the gate.

Their surprise filled his nostrils, followed by their blood.  With claw and metal he parted flesh from flesh, man from man.  A spear spiked his side, threw him sideways.  He jumped up again and kept fighting.  A sword glanced his right shoulder.  He nearly decapitated the attacker with a massive under-swing of his opposite claw.  His assault soon caught the attention of the men on the battlements and arrows started raining on this side of the gate too.  He grabbed a nearby Man and marched toward the gate.

The Man soon bristled with arrows and Roka was dripping from a dozen gashes and grazes.  At last he made it beneath the battlements and the cowards on top could not reach him with arrows.

As the remaining guards in the street dashed across the arrow-planted ground, Roka heaved the massive wooden bar off the gate and it blasted open under the Packs’ assault.  A hundred wolves flooded in, tearing down the guards in the street.  Another storm of arrows slew many of them, but soon his brethren had made it onto the walls.  There were far fewer than a hundred by the time it was over.

Roka found Gelden among the carcasses littering the ground.  His once-kin was already gone, the smell of decay starting.  Roka howled and fell to his knees.

The remnants of the Packs preyed through the streets leaving a river of carnage behind them.  Roka followed, but did not take part in the slaughter.  The streets led them to the Keep in the center of the city.  There was no gate here, but more walls for archers.  Roka watched in near blindness as the two sides slaughtered one another.

He wandered the streets for an hour after that.

“Roka,” a voice gasped.  Another Lycan stood several feet away, as torn and bloodied as Roka.

“Aekar,” Roka said.  “What have you done to our kind?”

“What needed to be done,” Aekar growled.  “These weakbloods needed to be taught to stick to their own land.”

“Our Pack is no more.”

“My Pack,” Aekar retorted.  “You are not part of it.”

Roka closed his eyes.  “Aekar, you have no honour.”

Aekar roared, but stood his ground.  Roka watched a transition across his old brother’s face.  Aekar truly had not realized the outcome of this cursed day.

As they stood in mute communion, a bedraggled group of guards surrounded them, and a Man named Epp brought them to the prison.

*

“Why did you serve the Spider?” Epp asked.

Roka was looking at Braedegorn.  When had they come to the ramparts?  The city was still smoking from the battle, but the streets were being cleaned.  “I don’t,” Roka said, and spat into the Men’s town.

Epp looked deeper into his face but still did not see Roka’s wounds.  “Why don’t you break?  What holds you together, Lycan?  Why do you still resist me?”

Roka held his tongue.  Epp grabbed his arm and turned him away from the city, towards the flatland and foothills outside.  The corpses of the Packs still littered the highway.  Aekar hung from a rope nearby, his skin blue and purple, blood dripping from his heels.

“All the world’s a web.  People, places, connections.  The Spider now rules this city.  He had your Packs destroy it and themselves,” Epp said.  “You did this, Roka.  You let your Packs into the city.  You served the Spider.”

“Who is the Spider?” Roka growled.

Epp laughed.  “I am.  All the world’s a web and I’m it’s Spider.”

Roka stared at him for a moment, glared into those watery green eyes, into that hole where a soul should be.  He let loose a blood-curdling howl, tore claws through the ropes that bound him and threw his guards off the walls.  Epp spun out that blade he kept at his side, and Roka took it in his left side.

Roka forced himself further onto the sword until he pressed against the hilt.  He grabbed hold of Epp’s neck and closed his claws.  They sunk to their knees on the battlements as Epp’s air turned to poison in his lungs.

Face filling with blood, Epp’s eyes finally saw.  They saw Roka’s rage.  They saw his hurt, his shame, his pain, his honour.  For the first time since they had met, Epp saw Roka.

Then Roka snapped his neck and threw him off the wall.

The sun was setting and it’s rays lit up the River Brae like a golden serpent.  Roka sat on the wall with a metal blade through his side.  He could see where Burrow Peak and Durle Cap met, see where a wolf named Sasi and he had hunted, and it was the most beautiful thing his eyes had ever seen.

*

A short story I wrote last semester for Writing of the Short Story.  It is not set in the Shadow Glyph world and has no connection to my series, but I really love the way this one turned out.  Hope you enjoyed it!