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17

Ander entered his tent and let the flap fall shut behind him. He was absolutely soaked, but that hardly registered in his mind. He allowed his eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom, then picked up the flame-box he always kept by the entrance. He remembered building it years ago - one of his first creations. It was such a simple little thing, really, but he was still proud of its basic usefulness, and it was one of his few inventions that were never dismissed outright by the other Wolves with a roll of the eyes or a shaking of the head.

He walked over to the candle attached to the support post in the middle of his tent (unlike all the other candles in the village, which were made from tallow, this one was made from beeswax). Ander turned the crank in the side of the flame-box, which in turn spun a rounded piece of flint on the inside which scraped against a sharpened piece of steel. Sparks jumped from the mouth and ignited the wick in a matter of seconds. The dancing flame lit up the tent with its warm glow, revealing all the bits and pieces of Ander's tinkerings and artworks strewn about in various stages of completion. Here were some of the locks he designed for the trappers, their inner workings based off of the way his teeth fit together inside his very own mouth. There, on the other side of the tent where they wouldn't be stepped on, was a small pile of newly designed arrow heads, still waiting to be tested. Some penetrated deeper, but couldn't fly as far, and Ander wanted to find the best of both worlds.

Randomly dotted all around his tent, wherever a spare bit of flat surface could be found, were various wooden carvings. Some of Wolves, some of the wild animals of the forest. Most would say this little hobby was even more useless than his affinity for mechanics, but Ander didn't mind. He liked to keep his hands busy when there weren't any new projects in the works, and his carvings have brought joy to others in some unexpected ways, such as the tiny sculptures he carved of his family members, each still residing within the tents of their respective owners. Hezzi was absolutely thrilled with his likeness when Ander had surprised him with it all those years ago, nothing strange about that, but what Ander didn't expect was that even Banno would be so taken with his little copy. It was one of the few happy memories he had of the big Wolf. Ander's parents were accepting of his atypical gifts, too, although his mother was only interested in effigies of the Cora - which Ander carved for her, of course, even though he didn't like those very much. With its extra eyes and stony maw, the Cora always made him feel uneasy.

Near his cot, suspended over another candle, was a metal ball filled with water. Lighting the candle would cause the water inside to boil, and steam would shoot out of an angled hole in the side, causing it to spin. He hasn't found a use for it yet, but it did delight the younger Wolves when he first showed it to them. That was until his mother forbade its use, spouting claims of "evil spirits" within the ball that would surely eat their souls or some such.

And finally, even though he always tried to avoid looking at it, his eyes fell upon the device lying on top of his worktable, innocently reflecting the golden glow of the candle.

A biter.

A low growl escaped Ander's throat. How he hated that blasted thing. It wasn't even meant to do what it does! He made that contraption with the idea of attaching it to the gates. In case of an emergency all it would take was for a single tower-guard to pull the release and the mechanism would slam the gates shut instantly. He even went as far as to build a full-scale version, but it didn't work. The gates were simply too heavy. He would have left it there and moved on, but then Wardo asked to see his scaled down model. If Ander had known what that demented bastard was planning to do with it, he never would have given it to him, but a fellow Wolf showing an interest in what he did was so rare he was all too happy to show it off.

And then Wardo went and turned his failed creation into those damnable biters. He didn't even have to change the design all that much, just reversed the trigger and added teeth. That was all it took to change something that was supposed to save lives into a cruel trap that would leave its victims mewling in agony for hours.

Just like that Fox outside...

Ander violently swept it off the table, hating the noise it made as it hit the ground, the pins and springs rattling in their metallic frames.

No, this was not good. Ander could feel himself losing control, so he forced himself to slow down. He breathed deep, took the bow and quiver of arrows from his back and laid them on the table. This bow was also one of his inventions, in a way. Not many other Wolves used ranged weapons, but those that did used bows of a single, solid piece of curved wood. Not Ander, though. He took many strips of wood, glued them together with resin, and tied the ends together. Made the whole thing much more pliable, and gave his arrows more speed and penetration. The others hadn't even noticed his bow was different yet, and this was one discovery he did not intend to share with them.

"What a mess..." Ander said and lied down on his cot. He covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow (what he thought of as his best thinking position), and listened to the rain patter against the sides of his tent. Every now and then a bolt of lightning would flash outside and shine right through the leather canvass, turning the black emptiness behind his eyelids into a dull expanse of red. Before it faded back to black, the thunder would come, and Ander would find himself thinking of the Fox outside, sitting in that cage, all alone in the freezing rain, terrified, waiting for death. He wanted to go to her, talk to her, maybe just cover the top of the cage with a piece of rawhide, but that would look very bad, especially for what he had in mind.

No, if he really wanted to help her, he would have to wait till nightfall, while everyone's asleep. He would wait for his candle to burn itself out, would wait for the darkness outside to match the darkness he felt approaching within his heart, because after today, things would never be the same. He knew that for a fact. Even if he managed to get away with it, after the things he said, they would know. They would know as surely as they knew that the Cora would still be there the next day, and the day after that. They would know what he did.

Even so, the alternative was even worse. He couldn't just stand by and watch her get burned alive, sacrificed to a mountain, of all things.

That was why he would wait. He would wait for the dark, and he would wait for the perfect time, the time when he would get her -

*

• the hell out of here!

Kiana scraped that rock against the lock of her cage until the ache in her arms became unbearable.

"Urgh! This is useless!" She flopped onto her back, her chest rising and falling. She'd been scraping away at that exact spot for hours, until the false gloom of a stormy day gave way to the absolute blackness of a stormy night, and all she'd managed to do was buff out a shiny spot in the metal. She tried to smash it open at first, but the noise soon attracted the attention of the Wolves in the towers and the nearby tents.

And by the gods, her leg was killing her! It burned constantly, like an anklet of fire. Although she really didn't want to, she lifted the corner of the bandage she had made for it from her dress, just like with her fingers, and took another quick peek. She was no healer, but even she could tell it was really bad. After all this time, her wound was still trickling blood, and she was starting to feel lightheaded.

Kiana raised her arm and covered her eyes with the crook of her elbow. This was partly to keep the rain from dripping into her eyes, but it also helped her think.

Should she have spoken up earlier that day, while they were still deciding her fate? She'd asked herself this question many times in the past few hours, and even though her rational mind insisted that doing something would have been better than doing nothing at all, her heart assured her this was not true. The Wolf that found her by the river didn't heed her pleas for help or mercy, and that one seemed positively laidback compared to some of these others, like the big black one who kept going on about "tasting" her, and that crazy Wolfess with the white eyes. What would they have done if she had tried to speak with them? Laugh, most probably. Maybe something worse. Maybe they would have killed her right then and there. There was simply no way of knowing.

Well, you know now, she thought to herself. They already intend to burn you, so you've got nothing to lose. Come next morning, you are going to demand to speak to that chieftain of theirs and negotiate your release. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like they can sacrifice you twice, can they?

No, but they can beat me half to death before sacrificing me...

There was already so much water pouring down her face Kiana couldn't even tell if she was crying anymore. If only she -

"Psst! Hey!"

Kiana gasped and sat upright, the stabbing pain in her ankle completely eclipsed by the horror she felt at the sight of the monster that stood before her, huge and black in the shadows, close enough to reach through the bars and touch her if it so wanted, close enough to taste her...

She opened her mouth to scream, but the Wolf reached in and closed its fingers around her muzzle, quick as a flash, and she could produce no more than a feeble whimper. She clawed at its fingers, desperate to pry them off, but they were like the steel teeth of that wicked contraption by the river, impossibly strong.

"Shhh! It's all right, it's all right. I'm not going to hurt you," it said, and suddenly Kiana realised that this wasn't the black Wolf from before. She squinted, but it was so dark she couldn't tell for sure what was at the other end of this muscular arm.

"Can you understand me?"

Kiana nodded.

"All right. I'm going to let go, but you have to promise not to scream, okay? If you do, we might both get sacrificed to the Cora tomorrow. Do you understand?"

Kiana nodded again, wondering what on earth was going on.

"Okay. Just... don't... scream..." The Wolf slowly loosened its grip and pulled its arm back through the bars. She could still feel where its fingers had pressed upon her muzzle, warm and soft, despite their obvious power. She waited for something to happen, but the seconds dragged by. She didn't know what to do. Was it just staring at her? Was this just another pervert who wanted to get a good look at her before the festivities?

"W-What do you want?" she asked, dreading the answer that would surely come.

"Oh, um... My name is Ander," it said, taking her by surprise. This was the Wolf that had wanted to let her go! "What... what is your name? If I may ask?"

Kiana shifted her way to the bars, being very careful not to move her ankle too much. "Kiana," she said, "my name is Kiana."

"Kiana..." he didn't say it, exactly. He merely mouthed it, allowing the word to pass out on his breath. "Well, Kiana. Let's get you the hell out of this cage."