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18

You can prepare yourself for your own death as much as you want. You can think of better things, like the happiest moments of your life, or the ones you're laying your life down for. You can tell yourself that by sacrificing everything you have left, the ones you love will be allowed to live and be happy, even if you're not around to share their happiness. This gives it meaning, reason, a purpose. All these things can keep you from going crazy with dread, but it's always there, snaking its way through your thoughts like an icy undercurrent, and then...

Suddenly it becomes real.

Death is no longer some dim future occurrence, something that may or may not happen, something safely buried away inside a mountain of time, where it can never be seen.

For Ander, the moment that final sentence left his father's lips, death suddenly became very, very real.

The undercurrent in his mind blossomed into a river of blood, but it didn't stop there. It burst its banks, overflowing everything inside of him: his thoughts, his memories, his hopes and dreams, drowning everything in despair.

To be 'Thrown To The Wolves' is an ancient punishment reserved for those who have committed atrocious crimes, but, either through circumstance or 'preferential' treatment, are not quite deserving of a full death penalty. But all that was a farce. Of the seventeen who have been Thrown to the Wolves since its inception, only four have ever made it through the process alive, and out of those four, two later died of their injuries. These Wolves weren't even given a proper funeral pyre, but just dumped in the woods for the wild animals to feast upon. To be 'Thrown To The Wolves' is a punishment of Len, because Len is what gets taken from you, and in the old Wolven tongue, Len means life.

Being Thrown To The Wolves is nothing more than a drawn out execution.

Such is the fate that now awaited him.

Cheers erupted from the crowd and the remaining drums pounded a frenzied rhythm through the night; erratic at first, but they soon synchronized with each other into a steady beat, counting down the seconds until the punishment would begin.

Mother's face cracked open into that hideous smile again. He's never gotten along with her very well, but to think that she would find so much pleasure in what was almost a certain death sentence for her son was something Ander couldn't even fathom. Did she really love Banno so much more than him? Was she so desperate to get her revenge that she would be willing to lose not just one son, but two? As Ander pondered these questions that no one should ever have to ask themselves in a sane world, Shekka threw her head back and laughed. She just laughed and laughed until tears streamed from her dead eyes, wide open and staring. And then the answer came to him in one fell swoop.

This isn't a sane world we live in.

A dark world he could understand. A painful world he could understand. He could even understand living in a world of hatred. But a world of insanity? There was no reasoning with something like that.

Up in the northern watchtower, Hezzi had buried both his hands in his hair, and was now tearing fistfuls from his head while Renna cried and pleaded for him to stop.

And right in front of him, Father had become like an empty wasps' nest, an abandoned burrow, a hollow ribcage picked clean by carrion beetles. These were things that once bustled with life, but were now dead and empty. It was like looking at a corpse that had learned how to walk and talk, but not much else.

"I'm sorry, Ander," he said. "There isn't anything else I can do. This is the only chance I can give you. You have to last. Do you hear me? No matter what, you have to last!"

Those that are Thrown to the Wolves may defend themselves in whatever way possible, and if they can survive until sunrise, all their debts will be considered paid in full, and all their crimes will be forgiven. Not forgotten, though. Never forgotten.

But how long until sunrise? Ander checked the glowing quarter-moon, but it hadn't even reached its apex yet. Six hours? Seven hours? More!?

"I don't think I can, Father," Ander said, trying to will the moon to move faster just by sheer force of will.

It only hung there, frozen in the sky, three quarters of it a pitch black lid of nothingness, the remaining quarter like his mother's eye: dead and uncaring.

Nilia stepped forward and pulled her knife from its sheath. "Chieftain?"

Father nodded. "Cut him loose."

Nilia slipped her blade between Ander's wrist and the rope, then cut through the knot in one hard tug. Hers came loose easily enough, but she really had to work the knife to get underneath the one that Garten had tied, painfully grinding the blunt side against Ander's wrist until he could feel his own pulse beating against the cold metal. As the fibres snapped one by one and hung loose like dead earthworms, she leaned in close until her lips were almost brushing up against his ear, now tacky with clotted blood, and whispered, "I want you to know, I will not enjoy what is about to happen to you."

Before Ander could think of anything to say, she cut through the last inch of rope in an angry jerk (it was always difficult to tell with Nilia, but it certainly seemed angry), and walked back to her spot along the outer edge of the crowd at a very brisk pace, leaving him with his arms still outstretched, the ropes now hanging limp and powerless from the Cora's hands.

Ander slowly lowered his arms. After getting used to the constant, throbbing pain in his neck and shoulders, the sudden absence of it was a bizarre feeling. Even though he could feel them brushing against his sides, it still felt like they were being pulled tight, as if they were still stuck five minutes in the past. He bent his elbows back and forth and flexed his fingers, trying to work some the stiffness out of them while he still had time. Now that the blood was flowing back to where it belonged, they were getting all tingly.

"Are you quite done?" Garten said, emerging from the crowd, apparently eager to re-establish his dominant stance after the embarrassing spat with Nilia.

"I am."

"Gooood!" Garten wrapped his arm around Ander's shoulder as if they were the best of friends, and marched him along towards the centre of the crowd, near the bonfire. The Wolves parted to make a path for them, their eyes like icicles - sharp, piercing and cold. One of them smacked his fist into his open palm, another slowly ran his thumb across his neck. If Garten wasn't standing so close, they probably would have spat again.

"You know, Ander," he whispered, resting all of his weight on Ander's tired shoulder, "I was surprised by the Chieftain's sentence, but I'm glad. Sure, it would have been nice to see you burn. Or hang. Or be disembowelled. But this way..." His tongue snaked across the gap in his teeth, the tip poking in and out like a rabbit in its hole. "This way is so much more... hands-on, if you understand my meaning."

Ander said nothing.

"A normal execution would be performed by just one Wolf while all the others watched, but this? To be Thrown to the Wolves... It's fun for the whole family, is it not?"

"You and I have very different definitions of 'fun', Garten."

"Well of course we would! Last time this happened we were just pups. Remember that, Ander? Because I sure do. It was Nomi. She was accused of pushing her mate off a cliff. She said he slipped on his own, but we all knew the truth, didn't we? She pushed him because he beat her. The only problem was, nobody could prove that she was lying. That's why she was Thrown to the Wolves..."

Ander listened to all this with only half an ear. He was more concerned about the way the other Wolves were closing in on them, cutting off all paths of escape.

"Banno got in quite a few good hits, if I recall. As did I," Garten said, his eyes misty with nostalgia. "But you? You didn't go for it at all. Only watched the first two minutes and then shut yourself away in your tent. Probably cried into your pillow all night long, didn't you? The rest of us were out here doing our duty, creating justice, and all you could do was listen. Do you remember the noises she made, Ander? Can you hear them clearly in that oh-so-clever head of yours, hmm?"

"No," Ander said. "I was too young."

"Ha! You're lying, Ander! I can see it on your face! You remember every cry for mercy! Every whimper of pain! You sat in your tent, all alone, and you listened to the rest of us make justice with our blows. Every thud of our fists against her body, every rock cracking open against her face! They always start out... what's the best way to put it? Kind of muffled. Dry..."

"Shut up."

"But by the end, the blows become so wet, Ander. You can clearly hear the difference. Wet and dripping..."

"I said, shut up."

"Oh? What's this? Getting scared? Imagining what it will be like to experience that kind of pain for yourself? The kind of pain whose sound alone was enough to reduce you to a quivering puppy? Or maybe..." Garten scrutinized every inch of Ander's face, his eyes furrowed in mock concentration. He was getting so close Ander couldn't keep from leaning his head away in disgust, which only made Garten's smile wider. "Oh, now I see! You're getting angry! If so, you should direct your anger not at me, but at the whole tribe, including that father of yours. We're the ones who made her cry, Ander, but your father is the one who gave us permission to do so. The same Wolf whose been trying to save your sorry hide is the same one who has been leading this 'bloodthirsty' tribe you hate so much. That makes him a hypocrite. But I guess that runs in the family. I mean, just look at you. You were always so quick to talk about how we should try and live in peace with each other, and what do you do? You kill your own brother. Why so quiet, Ander? Aren't you going to tell me to shut up again?"

Ander said nothing.

"You may be quiet now, but we'll fix that. We'll make it so that you scream and scream and scream..."

The last line of Wolves parted before them, and suddenly a wave of heat from the fire washed over Ander's face, stinging his eyes with its golden glare.

That small hesitation was all it took to trigger what happened next. Ander felt Garten's hands against his shoulderblades, and the next moment he was violently shoved towards the fire. He planted his foot on pure reflex just in time to keep from falling face-first into the flames, but he had no sooner come to a stop than another Wolf rushed forward and pushed him from the side, sending him careening into the crowd. It happened so fast he didn't even know who pushed him, but now he was being pulled back and forth, wrenched from side to side, being passed from Wolf to Wolf like a plaything, their claws tearing at his vest, ropes of drool hanging from the corners of their mouths, white and frothing. Faces that were once so familiar now flashed by in a rapid series of snarling teeth and shouts of vengeance. Someone completely ripped the vest from his body and tossed it into the air, where it was greedily snatched up by dozens of reaching hands and torn to shreds. Suddenly Wardo was there, saying the same word over and over through fits of hysterical cackles: "Fun! Fun!! FUN!!!"

Every time Ander tried to correct his balance, he'd just be pushed on to the next Wolf. Every time he tried to regain his footing, a myriad of legs would be there to trip him up. Sometimes he'd feel a blow against his back, or a kick to his calves. Nothing serious though. Certainly nothing to result in a real injury. No, they wouldn't want to end this too soon. Collectively, they were a lot like Banno.

They'd want to drag this out for as long as possible.

They'd want to taste his death.

And suddenly he came full circle, back in front of Garten. The warrior kicked out, hard, and Ander went sprawling. Small pebbles and bits of bark scratched at him as he skidded along the ground. He knew he couldn't stay down like this. If he didn't get up right away, they might grow bored too quickly, and that would be the end. He got back up to his hands and knees as quickly as he could, coughing uncontrollably. It hurt, but he couldn't help it. There was dust in his throat, and they just burst out of him one after the other, each like a blow to the gut in their own right.

When the fit finally settled down, Ander noticed the baking heat. He looked up and saw that his head had landed only a single stride away from the roaring fire. A log, glowing red and burnt all the way through, buckled under the weight of its brothers with a resounding crack and sent a small avalanche of coals rolling along the ground in a shower of sparks. The small ones winked out quickly, but the larger ones were still alive, pulsating like beating hearts.

It was the voice of his father that brought him back down to earth.

"You all know the laws of this punishment," he said, speaking very slowly. Even if it was just a few seconds, Father was still trying to buy him some time. "This is a test of power and resolve, so the use of any weapons is strictly forbidden. This punishment will end when the accused breathes his last breath, or when the first rays of the morning sun strike the Cora's statue. If the accused can last till then, then surely it means the Cora wants him to survive."

"We don't need weapons for this, Chieftain," Garten said as Ander got back to his feet. "All we need is your go-ahead."

Ander couldn't see his father through the crowd, but his voice had come from the Cora's statue. He could imagine him in his mind's eye, as if from above, standing by its claws of stone, wrestling with his duty. He held a thousand leashes in his hands, and if he did not let these monsters loose, they would tear into their master as well as their prey.

"Do it, Kadai."

That voice belonged to the she-wolf that had raised him. Ander simply couldn't think of her as his mother anymore. His real mother was on the other side of the mountain this very moment, waiting for him to come back. There was still so much he wanted to know...

"Let the punishment..."

Ander looked around at all the furious faces staring in at him, pure hatred to the front, to the left, to the right, and a scorching fire at his back.

From above, it must look like a giant egg. The Wolves were the shell, the fire the yolk. And standing in the empty space between them was Ander. All alone in the white.

"... begin."