Hunters' Shadow (Book one of the Hunter Chronicles)

Chapter Sixty Eight

 
“Run!”
 
Muffled. Everything was muffled. The voice reached out to Hannah as though from a great distance, dulled by the vivid blood dripping through her fingers.
 
“Go –  the gate – "
 
Wet and viscous, it shone strangely in the dim light, holding her attention. She tilted her hand upwards, and a crimson bead trickled across her palm and rolled slowly down her wrist in a rich, red rivulet.
 
“For Goddess sake, Hannah, please – ”
 
Just beyond the object of her fascination, two figures engaged in a vicious struggle. A foot slid over the floor, catching the hilt of the discarded knife and sending it clattering noisily across the uneven cobbles. She raised startled eyes upwards, first to the blade, then to the blood spreading rapidly down her uncle’s shirt.
 
Did I do that?
 
Able to finally gain the upper-hand in the wake of his father's injury, Dylan had taken advantage. With enormous effort, he kept his father pinned against the wall, one arm across his thick neck, holding him in place.
 
Macleiry, his face contorted into a scowl of fury, struggled to release himself from his son's grasp. His back however, arched with pain; one hand pressed against his kidney in a futile attempt to control the flow, impeding his attempts to regain control.
 
“Hannah!” Dylan yelled again, desperation lacing his voice. “Run! Go!”
 
Run? Hannah gaped at them both, shock holding her hostage. The blood pumping so fiercely in her ears, she was surprised she could hear anything over her own body.
 
With the effort of a man under serious strain, Dylan gasped out a final plea. “Remember the plan, find your Alpha!”
 
My Alpha? Who... Blake!  Sound returned with a roar, the world around her suddenly, blindingly, clear. Instinct took over. With a gasp of breath, she span away from the bloody scene. Fleeing down the narrow alleyway as fast as her feet could manage, the still-healing lacerations cutting into her as deeply as the blade she'd just wielded against her uncle.
 
Find Blake! She ran blindly. Her breath coming in ragged gasps, her heart pounding wildly.
A left turn and the cobbles changed to smooth flagstones, every house looking the same; tall, blank shadows rising up to loom menacingly over her small form. She had to get out, had to escape the claustrophobic alleyways and courtyards, had to put some distance between her and the –  
 
A roaming guard emerged through one of the battered gates just a few feet ahead of her and she skidded to a halt just in time. Pressing herself into the shadows and forcing herself to take deep breaths, she waited for him to disappear, his lazy gait and lack of fervour apparently a common trait among the upper village guards. Where am I?
 
Her knife had penetrated deep, rendering shifting next to impossible, even for a powerful wolf like Macleiry. But, injured or not, he would come for her, she was certain, Dylan wouldn't be able to hold his father for long. If she could just get out of the village she might stand a chance.
 
She looked around, willing her eyes to adjust to the growing light. Ahead of her, the street opened out into a large square, surrounded on three sides by large, functional-looking buildings. Nestled between them, a squat stone arch leading out into the forest. Hannah could just make out a sliver of the trees beyond. Somehow her blind footsteps had led her exactly where she wanted to be. Excited, she took an unthinking step towards the circle of light illuminating the square.
 
Soft laughter rippled across the clearing, catching her attention. Two figures huddled by the archway sharing a flask of something warm and numbing, blocking her escape. She paused, a swearword rising unbidden to her lips. Of course it was guarded. Wary now, her eyes scanned the square. How many? She couldn't tell, two? Three?
 
A muffled cough came from the shadow of the largest building, and a new guard emerged, wrapped up tightly against the cold in a thick parka. The two heads turned to glance in his direction with a look of sublime lack of concern, acknowledging the new arrival with barely perceptible grunts. Definitely three.
 
Now what? There was no way around them, no time to turn back. Her only real option was distraction, a subterfuge to force them away from their posts long enough for her to slip through. Obligingly, the faint threads of a howl drifted over the houses, lingering long enough on the cold breeze to send the third guard scurrying over to his companions, a look of concern on his face.
 
“What was that?”
 
“Pro'lly nothin',” one of them muttered dismissively.
 
The other waved the flask vaguely in the new arrivals direction. “Drink?”
 
A pause. “Yeah, go on then.” They watched while he imbibed. The expression on his face suggested a liquid akin to paint thinner had just sloshed down his throat, and he let out a hoarse gasp of appreciation.
 
“Strong, innit?” the first guard chuckled, his sleepy eyes shifting to peer in the direction of a second faint howl resonating from deep within the village.
 
“It’s definitely something,” the third guard muttered. He seemed significantly more alert than his companions who, it appeared, had been sipping from the flask for most of the night. “Think we should check it out?”
 
The first guard shrugged. “Nah, ‘prolly from t' battle.”
 
“Rogue,” his companion agreed taking another swig. “The warriors'll get ‘em.”
 
“An' if they don't,” the first declared, his upper body swaying gently. “We'll stop ‘em dead afore they get in ‘ere.”
 
The third guard frowned. Something seemed fundamentally faulty with their explanation, but a night patrolling the freezing streets and the lingering aftereffects from his alcoholic indulgence had numbed his ability to reason it out. He shrugged and reached out for the flask once again.
 
Her mouth half open in disbelief, Hannah rapidly reassessed how hard it would be to make it out of the village. Forget subtlety, these three didn't have the intelligence to appreciate it. Standards had clearly slipped in the Elmwood pack. A plan began to form in the back of her mind. All she needed was...
 
A third howl reached the open square, and the newest guard took a half-hearted and hesitant step its direction. “Are you sure we shouldn't – ”
 
Now was her chance. She fixed an expression of terrified panic on her face, willed her eyes to water and, weeping copiously, flew towards the Elmwood wolves, a shrill cry on her lips:
 
"Help! Rogues! Help!"
 
"What?" The nearest guard turned to stare at her with slack-jawed astonishment. His companion, quicker to react, rolled his eyes around the square, his confusion obvious. Neither of them made any effort to leave the shelter of the arch. The third responded with a level of apathy that suggested he'd barely even registered her presence.
 
She withheld a sigh of exasperation. If this was truly all that stood between Elmwood and the rogues, they were all in trouble. They clearly required more incentive to get moving.
 
"Quickly!" she shouted, waving her arms wildly. "Over by the pack house, Rogues! Dozens of them! They're killing everyone they find!" She sounded so distressed that two of the guards didn't stop to question her further, but set off up the street as fast as they could go.
 
The third, clutching the flask, finally reacted, peering at her owlishly for a moment, his nose wrinkling as he tried to separate her scent from the miasma of alcohol released with every breath.
 
Giving him no time to start thinking clearly, she flung herself on him in an impressive display of hysteria, allowing herself to be enveloped by the smell. “They're killing everyone,” she wailed again, clinging to him with limpet like persistence, making sure to knock the flask out of his hand and spill the remaining liquid on the floor. It splashed up their legs, releasing an additional eye watering aroma so strong that she was confident he'd have extreme difficulty recognising any scent out of the ordinary.
 
Suddenly a damn sight more sober than he had been two minutes ago, the guard made a valiant attempt to extricate himself, keen to escape her grasp. She let him pry her fingers from the folds of his coat, concealing a small smile as he backed hastily out of her reach.
 
“Stay – stay ‘ere,” he ordered in the most authoritive voice he could muster, before fleeing after his companions, leaving the crazy she-wolf behind.
 
She waited patiently until the sound of his heavy boots faded away, before calmly slipping out through the archway and disappearing into the trees.
 
Come and find me Blake, I'm right here.
 
*
 
They heard the screams long before the first tendrils of fire flickered over the tree tops.
Thin keening wails and terrified shrieks rang through the forest, punctuated by the sounds of falling timber and the tell-tale crackle of open flames.
 
"Goddess,” Marcus hissed between his teeth. “What the hell is that?"
 
"Not us," muttered Blake. "And not Elmwood either, no wolf in their right mind would set a fire in their own forest." Alarm bells rang in his head as his keen hearing tracked the direction of the screams. "They're under attack."
 
As they approached the lower village chaos reigned, the trees suddenly alive with fleeing families. Most completely ignored their presence, too caught up in corralling their children and belongings to the relative safety of the thick undergrowth; away from both the fire and the fury of the rogues. Those that took a second look at the four huge wolves panicked and veered off to the side in a desperate attempt to escape yet another perceived threat.
 
There was no organisation to the mass exodus of wolves. No obvious plan or universally acknowledged direction to follow. The lower village had clearly been left to fend for themselves, scattering without rhyme or reason into the forest, many straight into the arms of those from whom they sought to flee.
 
Sadly, it didn’t surprise Blake that it had been abandoned to its fate, nor that the evacuation plans for Elmwood hadn't included the lowest ranking wolves - Syrus didn't deem them important enough to spend any funds on them in everyday life, why would he go out of his way to protect them in their time of need?
 
As the trees thinned out to reveal the squat little houses and cobbled roads that made up the lower village, they could see a smattering of rogues still roaming between the buildings, climbing over the rubble to smash through locked doors and steal anything they couldn't kill. A few of the villages had rallied to fight back, but they were outnumbered, and outmatched.
 
Shrouded by the scents of the Blackridge wolves and much changed physically since he'd last set foot in Elmwood, so far Kaden had remained unnoticed by those too busy with their own survival to pay closer attention. But, with a rumble of furious thunder, the young heir sprang from Blake’s side, heading straight for one of the makeshift barricades the defenders had thrown together. Once there he shifted and began barking out orders to wolves who gaped at him as though a ghost had just appeared in their midst.
 
“I guess, this explains where all the border patrols vanished to,” Marcus said, his eyes a little wild as he instinctively moved to cut off a rogue before it could reach a fleeing mother and child. The rogue veered around him, only to run headlong into Alex's waiting jaws.
 
“It seems we have the answer to where all the rogues disappeared to as well,” the Gamma observed dryly, stepping over the now-dead rogue, his muzzle stained with fresh blood. The she-wolf looked at her saviour with startled eyes before scooping up her child and fleeing into the trees.
 
“Some of them, at least.” Marcus glanced at Alex. "But we can argue semantics later. What do we do?" He directed his question towards the Alpha, worried eyes scanning the chaos. "This wasn't part of our plans."
 
Blake took a glance in the direction he knew the upper village lay and swore under his breath. "Our plans have changed."
 
"Clearly," Marcus muttered, his wolf's dark eyes seeking out his next prey. “But what to?”
 
"I don't see why," Alex protested, absentmindedly pouncing on a second rogue, tearing out its throat before it could even begin to defend itself. “Let Elmwood fight the rogues, our business is with the Alpha.”
 
"It might have escaped your notice, Alex,” Marcus snapped, heading for his next target. “But we've literally just finished taking out Elmwood’s main defence force. The pack is completely defenceless, and it's entirely our fault."
 
"Thanks for reminding me," Blake muttered in a sour tone. Marcus was right. They couldn't abandon the fleeing wolves so easily.
 
Technically, I'd argue that it's entirely Syrus's fault, Rothan corrected their Beta silently.
 
Blake ignored him, watching as one of his warriors tore after a rogue, only to have to redirect his attack after being cut off by an angry and fearful Elmwood warrior that emerged from between the trees. While it was immediately clear that the main fight now raged beyond the village to the east, as soon as Liam's wolves had arrived, the fight had devolved into a furious and futile three way battle and, at some point during the initial skirmish, several buildings had been set alight, the dry timber had providing the perfect foundation for the flames to take control, a stiff breeze carrying the embers into the trees. The destruction of Elmwood's lower village seemed to be raging completely out of control.
 
Blake shifted, the lieutenants following suit, entirely unconcerned by their lack of attire. Almost immediately, one of his warriors appeared from between the houses, a short handled axe in one hand, and what appeared to be an empty bucket in the other. He skidded to a halt in front of his Alpha.
 
"Alpha, the rogues are everywhere, the lower village is on fire, the houses are burning and the wind is blowing the embers into the forest."
 
"Yes, I can see that," Blake replied with uncharacteristic asperity. "What happened?"
 
"I don't know!" The warrior's ash-streaked face was wild. "But the Elmwood wolves are panicking, they weren't prepared for this. Liam's trying to force them back towards the border, but there aren't enough of us to keep the buggers pinned down. Most of the Elmwood wolves are trying to flee – "
 
"Leaving chaos in their wake," Marcus observed, watching several groups of wolves run past them across cobbles slick with blood, trailing their belongings behind them. “I've seen more organisation at a children's party.”
 
"If they're fleeing, they're not fighting us," Alex pointed out.
 
“They're not fighting them either,” Marcus countered. “and I'm starting to suspect we're a tad outnumbered.”
 
“Plenty for everyone then,” Alex grinned.
 
As if on cue, Issac came barrelling out of the forest, pursued by half a dozen ragged-looking rogues. Hot on his heels followed two Elmwood warriors in wolf-form, clearly at a loss as to which enemy they were supposed to be fighting.
 
Marcus let out a piercing whistle and Issac swerved towards his Beta. So caught up in their battle fervour, the pursuing rogues ran straight for the waiting Blackridge wolves. Blake caught the first rogue to reach them with a savage right hook that sent him crashing into a nearby wall.
 
Several rogues hung back, firing tiny silver pellets towards both the Blackridge wolves and the barricades with near-perfect accuracy, each hit leaving tiny, but painful cuts upon the skin. While unlikely to cause any serious injury, they served as a deadly distraction for the fighting wolves.
 
Issac countered the aerial assault with one of his own, utilising the rubble strewn across the road as free ammunition, hauling rock after rock towards the advancing rogues. His aim wasn't the most accurate Blake had ever seen, but each slab of stone that met its mark stopped the rogue in their tracks with a single crushing blow.
 
Alex snarled as one of the pellets bounced off his head, missing his eye by only millimetres, and took his irritation out on the first rogue to engage him, snapping his neck in a display of brute force. The rogue died instantly, dropping his knife on the rubble strewn floor.
 
Marcus, his right eye already swollen, rolled clear of his second rogue and reached for the fallen blade. With a quick twist, he found his feet, just in time to dodge a third attack and tore a deep hole in his opponents side with one flick of his wrist. He then threw the blade with such force, the rogue it hit flew several feet across the clearing.
 
The axe wielding warrior, tired of dodging the incoming missiles, targeted the throwers, running towards them shrieking a battle cry that made several of the attackers think twice before engaging them further. Those that chose to stand their ground found themselves fighting in close quarters with little more than knives to defend themselves.
 
Thundering through their centre, one rogue, a mountain of a man, swung the end of a broken beam in front of him as though it weighed little more than a bamboo cane, swiping wildly and taking out several of his own men in the process. He caught Marcus a vicious blow to his side that flung him into the makeshift fortifications nearby. The Elmwood wolves scattered.