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13

The whole world was quickly sliding down into hell, and Danado didn't have the faintest idea of how to deal with it. Normally he wouldn't even be in a position where he felt he actually needed to deal with anything. He usually just kept himself to himself and everyone was happy. He'd do a bit of hunting, do a bit of bartering, and that was always more than enough for Lana and him. He'd keep his head down and walk the same old dirt path (the path he was walking down right now, as a matter of fact), and nobody would look at him twice, and that was the way he liked it.

So then what in the Cora's holy name possessed him to be so damn stupid last night!? Tripping Ivio!? And where everyone could see!? Daaargh!! He might as well have painted a gigantic target on his back, which is why he was sneaking around in the middle of the night, a dead pheasant in one hand and a gourd of water in the other, hoping to get back to their tent before anybody saw him out here, all alone, completely vulnerable, a walking lump of meat ready for the chop...

"Stupid, moronic, idiotic, foolish," he muttered under his breath, throwing rapid glances to the left, to the right, double checking each shadow for any familiar shapes stalking him in the night. He knew he was being paranoid. There was no way anyone would try something inside the walls. All it would take was one scream and half the tribe would come down on their heads, but that didn't stop him from running his eyes across the walls and the sky, as if a Wolf might pounce down from the moon. Just in case.

No! Absurd!

It did look rather eerie, though. Not quite a halfmoon, but not quite a quartermoon either. Somewhere in-between. And it never hurt to be over-cautious.

Crickets chirped and an icy breeze blew through the village, allowing the trees to whisper their secrets to each other, making the skulls rattle at the gate. How he hated that sound, that hollow, clunky, dikkety-dok. He'd fantasised about cutting those damn things off and burying them somewhere more than once, just to be rid of that incessant sound.

He would do no such thing, of course. What he would do is shiver in the dark, rub his elbows for warmth, and get a move on before he had a chance to creep himself out any further. Lana hadn't eaten anything all day (and neither had he, now that he thought about it). She kept telling him not to worry, but he did. She punched Wardo right in the face.In the face! As satisfying as that was to behold, it would only come back to bite her later, especially after the stuff he saw at Garten's funeral. When you're not some bloodcrazed marauder or howling brawler with a collection of trophy teeth tucked away under your bed, most Wolves don't even notice you. Their eyes just skim right over, like you're not even there. But Danado notices. He notices a lot. Like the way certain Wolves were crowding around Wardo like body guards, or the way others were giving the Chieftain the evil eye. And then somebody went and burnt Ander's old tent to the ground. How blunt could you get? Those three things put together spelled big trouble for him and his sister. Wardo was the kind of Wolf who held grudges, and if he was gathering support, and the Chieftain was losing support, then that meant the village might not be a safe place to stay much longer. Hell, even before that fiasco of a trial this place wasn't exactly friendly, but what else was there? You either learn to cope or you... don't. That's really all there is to it. And if that meant you couldn't hunt in the daytime with all the others anymore out of fear for what they might do once it passes through their thick skulls that they were out in the woods all alone with yet another 'betrayer' who was in a pretty convenient location where any horrible 'accident' might befall him at any moment and he was far enough away from the village so that nobody could hear his screams were such an 'accident' to occur, then so be it. You learn to keep your head down. You learn to keep invisible. You learn to sleep with one eye open. You learn to cope. Or you don't.

He didn't notice their scents right away, partly because the dead pheasant at his side smelled strongly of blood, and partly because their scents were always around the village anyway. Even if he did notice, it wouldn't have made any difference.

There was a faint rustle, and then suddenly there was something loose and flappy around his head, throwing him into total darkness, sticking to his face, scratching his nose with short bristles.

"I got him! Grab his legs, quick!"

Danado was suddenly jerked back by a strong pair of arms, and he could feel even more grabbing at his hands and feet. He dropped the pheasant and the water, heard them strike the ground. He flailed his limbs trying to break free. He gasped for air to scream, but only managed to suck the thing around his head against his mouth and nose. It smelled like an old doeskin that had been left to absorb ten years' worth of sleep sweat and stale farts.

"Shut him up! Shut him up!" he heard someone say, and then something hard and heavy decided to make acquaintance with his stomach at roughly the speed of a startled jack-rabbit, although in Danado's panicked state all he was aware of was a crushing pain to the midsection that forced all the precious air out of his lungs in a noiseless whoosh and a sense of being pushed down.

He hacked and coughed against the doeskin, forming a sickeningly warm, moist patch against the scruffy fuzz with his breath, and swung his arm around as hard as he could, blindly hoping to hit something.

Someone grabbed his arm and pinned it behind his back, pushing it up and up until it felt like it would pop right out of his socket. He cried out, his voice muffled against the skin, and suddenly it was being pulled tight against his face. It was dark and it was hot and he couldn't breathe!

"Pick that up! Get over here! Hurry!"

"I got it, stand back!"

Their voices were muffled, almost buried under the senseless dull rubbing of the skin against his ears, and his imagination conjured up the most awful images of knives in the dark and a buzzard-hollowed corpse for his sister to find come morning.

"Careful, not too hard!"

Danado kicked out and felt his foot connect with something. The muffled "Oof!" that followed told him that the 'something' must have been the gut of one of his attackers.

"Just do it quick, before someone hears!"

"The bastard ki -"

Massive pain, sharp and quick, exploded against his forehead, and then the absolute darkness inside the old doeskin gave way to a deeper darkness still.

There was nothing else.