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55

Dorin kept putting one foot in front of the other, tramping through carpets of scorched pine needles and red puddles of snowmelt and blood, knowing that if he fell now, if he gave up now, it would be the same as killing himself, and he had promised... he had promised he wouldn't do that.

"Aisa..."

He didn't want Dan to break his promises, either. It was because of a promise he had made that Dorin was alive to walk this impossible path in the first place, that he wasn't some half rotted skeleton tied to a tree with a knife sticking out of his ribcage. It was because of a promise...

I promise...

A Wolf stepped into Dorin's path, and he immediately felt Tio's grip tighten around his middle. Without looking up, all Dorin could see were his bare feet, but he didn't need to look up to know that this was bad. Anything blocking their path right now would be bad.

"That you, Dorin? I almost didn't recognise you under all that garbage."

Dorin raised his head, feeling his energy slowly ebbing away for every second he stood still.

It was Dekori. His right arm was broken in several places, but other than that he appeared to be mostly unharmed. In fact, he didn't even appear to be aware of the fact that his arm was hanging off his shoulder at a strange angle, or the way it had grown a few extra corners.

"Hey, did I hear you whisper Aisa's name just now?" he asked, staring straight ahead with an oddly blank expression on his face. "You two have gotten pretty close lately, haven't you?"

"Let us by," Dorin said, trying to sound as intimidating as possible. At his side, little Tio made an illegible whimper and buried his face against Dorin's hip.

Dekori smiled. "Or what? You'll kill me, too? Oh, but I probably shouldn't joke about such things. Wolves have a nasty tendency to drop dead wherever you're concerned. Have you noticed that?"

Dorin blinked. His knees were shaking and the pain was constantly drilling into his insides. Even Dekori's face seemed to double and swirl before his eyes, turning it into a horrifying, smirking mask. "What are you... talking about?"

"First it was your mother. Then your father. Pure coincidence, or maybe just bad luck, who knows? But then Garten kicked off, giving you a clear shot at the position he once held. Then the Chieftain practically melted out of his eyeballs right in the middle of the village centre, and once Wardo took over, he gave you the best spot a conniving little backstabber could have asked for; right at his feet, licking the dirt from between his toes. And what then? The moment you mess everything up, Banno comes and cleans up the mess, and you just kept shooting up the ranks, climbing a mountain of corpses to reach the top."

"You're an idiot, Dekori... That's not what -"

"And then you go and ingratiate yourself with the Foxes at the cost of hundreds of Wolven lives. That's why you did it, right? That's why you made such a big show of it, putting your back up against the wall like that, spreading your arms, begging for peace. You might as well have prostrated yourself before them. Did you know that the snow was going to come down? It wouldn't surprise me. Everything is just so convenient for you, isn't it? So very, very convenient."

Now Dorin could begin to feel the anger swelling up inside him, making the pain even worse. "You're a fool, Dekori. We should have turned around when we had the chance. All of this could have been avoided."

"Hey." Dekori took a step forward, boring into him with those oddly expressionless eyes. "I just thought of something. All those deaths in the pass, those weren't even the most convenient ones for you, were they? No, that came much earlier."

"What are you talking about?"

"Rinno!" Dekori exclaimed with hollow glee, cracking a mirthless smile. "It was Rinno. His was the most convenient death for you. I wonder, did you sit around for years, waiting for him to croak, just so you could swoop in and steal his mate, hm? Or maybe, did you actually cause it yourself? I wonder..."

Dorin didn't have the words to respond to that. The very accusation was so nonsensical it didn't even warrant a rebuttal.

"Personally, I don't know what you see in that scrawny bitch," Dekori continued. "All stringy and sinewy. Plus, she's popped out a kid, so you know she's all spent down there. Oh! But wait!" His eyes widened. "Maybe little Renna is the one you're actually after? That's sick, Sai."

"Get out of my way, Dekori."

"At least give her a year or two to develop some curves! Damn!"

"Dekori, I swear in the Cora's name, if you do not let me by..."

Dekori took a step forward, his vacuous cheer slowly giving way to something else, something gaunt, almost skeletal, completely stripped bare. "You don't seem to understand, Sai. You go around carrying those two corpses on your back when you can barely stand. You've got a kid clinging to your side like a parasite. You whisper Aisa's name under your breath. For what? What do you hope to accomplish? Are you trying to make it out of here alive? Are you trying to protect someone? Save someone? What's the point? What's the point when you're stuck inside aaaaaall thiiiiiiiiss!?" He threw his arms wide and turned in a circle, encompassing all the horror, the bloodshed, the Wolves crashing and tearing into each other, the bodies lying prone and helpless on the ground in spreading pools of blood. "You think this is a fight, Dorin? You think this is actually a battle? Some war with a winner and a loser? Think, Dorin! Think! You should know better than anyone else what's really going on here!"

Dorin clenched his teeth, using every last shred of strength he had left to stay upright. He did know what was happening. He had felt this sensation himself, holding the tip of a knife against his heart. That terrifying, yet inviting feeling. The sensation of letting go, of falling forward. That slight breeze against his face and the knowledge that everything would just go away, just disappear... no more pain...

Dekori nodded, as if privy to Dorin's every thought. "That's right, Sai. We're not killing Foxes. We're not even killing each other, that's just a means to an end. What we're actually doing, what we've been doing ever since the snow came down... maybe even before that... is killing ourselves!!" He threw his head back and laughed, laughed with his broken arm swinging uselessly by his side, laughed with the snow falling down into his open mouth, laughed until the tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. "Hey... Hey, Dorin. Dorin, hey... you know why I came over here? You know why I followed Banno and everyone else to this forsaken valley? I came here because I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to feel alive by tasting the life of another on my tongue, just like Banno used to go on about. I wanted to feel alive because I didn't feel alive before. I still don't. Isn't that funny? Maybe I was never alive in the first place. Maybe I'm just some dead body being jerked about by invisible strings. Maybe everyone else here feels the same way. Except I still want to know what it feels like to be alive, Dorin. That's what gets me. I don't feel alive, but I _want_to feel alive. I want to feel... I want to feel something, Dorin..."

Dorin slowly shook his head. "Don't make me do this, Dekori. Please, don't."

He chuckled. It was a high pitched sound, dripping with insanity. He took one step forward, then another.

Dorin thought about retreating, but he couldn't possibly get away with Dan and Layla hanging over his shoulders like a pair of dead deer. He thought about tossing them to the ground and fighting, but even though Dekori wasn't a warrior, he wasn't sure he could pull off a victory. Hell, right now Tio was probably in better fighting shape than him.

"No choice, Dorin..." Dekori said, perhaps reading the desperation in Dorin's eyes. "I'm going to kill you... or maybe you'll kill me... That's fine. Either way, I'll finally get to feel something, right?"

"Dekori -"

With a wailing shriek, Dekori sprinted straight for them, his broken arm flapping and his tongue hanging from his mouth. His eyes shone like river pebbles, completely empty and devoid of emotion.

"Nooo!" Tio jumped in front of him, throwing his arms wide. "Leave Layla-Kai alone!!"

"Tio!" Dorin tried to shove him aside, but it was already too late. Dekori was sailing through the air, his jaws open wide, his teeth gleaming in the -

A screeching ball of fur, stained ochre, slammed into the maniac mid-leap and they both rolled across the ground in a tangle of flailing limbs and scratching claws.

"Graaah, I'mma stick you!"

"Ivio!?"

The crazy bastard reared back with Dekori's broken arm between his teeth, shaking his head from side to side and drenching the both of them in a shower of blood. Dekori screamed and punched at Ivio's face with his good arm.

"Damn you! Let me go!"

"Ivio! That's enough!"

"Nooaargh!" Dekori raked his claws across Ivio's face, but it accomplished absolutely nothing. Once Ivio got something between his jaws he was like a wild animal.

"Ivio, stop it!" Dorin yelled, feeling that strange clash within himself yet again, the feeling that what was right and what was wrong were at odds with each other. Ivio was helping them. He was fighting to protect his friends. But then why did this feel so wrong? If fighting was wrong and doing nothing was wrong, then what was right?

"Ivio! He's had enough! He's..." The world began to sway. Back and forth in lazy arcs. Colours dissolved like melted wax.

"Dorin!"

Was that Ivio? His voice sounded so far away.

Dorin felt himself pitch forward. Felt the rush of freezing air against his face.

Where did the knife go? Is it still in my hands? No... no, I promised I wouldn't...

Four hands grabbed hold of him - two small, and two big. Ivio and Tio, struggling to keep him upright.

"I've got you, Dorin-Sai!" Ivio panted. His face was a streaky mess of fresh blood and clay. "Just lean on - that's it, just..."

Dorin blinked, looked down at the ground. Dekori was lying in a half-melted mush of snow, curled up into a tight little ball and shivering like a leaf, cradling his broken arm to his chest. The breath plumed from between his chattering teeth in tiny, irregular bursts of vapour.

Dorin had never felt so helpless in his entire life.

"Here, I got 'er! I got 'er!" Ivio slid Layla off Dorin's shoulders and onto his own, being remarkably gentle for such a spastic Wolf.

"Thanks, Ivio..." Dorin said. Or at least, he thought he said it. His lips had gone numb with the cold, and all his words seemed to come out in a barely audible mumble. Even without Layla's weight, Danado alone was still so heavy he wasn't sure if he could get moving again. But then Ivio said something so outrageous, so fundamentally stupid, that Dorin didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or slap him upside the head.

"What are your orders, Sai?"

Orders. Did this fool really just ask him for orders? As if he were still the Wolf in charge? Did he really think -

"Sai! Look out!"

Dorin turned his head just in time to see another animal streaking through the battlefield, hunchbacked and low to the ground. He had a large, frost-covered stone in one hand, and was raising it high above his head, ready to strike...

Thoka appeared out of nowhere. The crook of his elbow connected squarely with the charging animal's throat, sending him into a perfect three quarter flip, spinning around and landing in a puff of snow. His fingers closed spasmodically around the stone, then went limp.

"Sai!" Thoka came running up to them, panting and heaving, his considerable gut swaying with every step. "Sai, what are your orders?"

Dorin only stared. First Ivio, now Thoka?

"Sai! Hey, Sai!"

Dorin turned towards the source of that sound and could only shake his head in disbelief at the sight of Yanek, Seffer, and Vekka running through the snow. Even Denko was bringing up the rear, lurching along and stabbing at the ground with an improvised crutch.

These fools...

"What are your orders, Sai?"

Dorin blinked stupidly, wondering if he was having some kind of hallucination. "Orders?"

"Yes, orders!" Seffer barked. "As in what the hell do we do, Sai!?"

He felt it build up inside himself. Something... something pushing up from deep down, something that didn't belong in a night as dark as this.

"Sai?"

A weak chuckle burst out of Dorin's mouth. Little more than a sudden expulsion of breath, really, but he couldn't help it. It was just too funny.

Ivio? Thoka? Seffer, Yanek, Vekka? Even Denko, blundering around with that splintery branch wedged under his armpit? Fools?

No. The biggest fool here was himself.

"To the doctoring tent..." he wheezed, hiking Danado a little higher onto his back. "You snivelling curs can cover me at least until then, right?"

"Yes, Sai!" they snapped back in almost perfect unison, spreading themselves out in a crude circle with Dorin and Ivio in the centre.

All right, Dan... Dorin thought, surprised to find that he was actually getting a bit teary-eyed. We're gonna make it to that tent. We're gonna get Aisa. Renna. Layla's mother. Anyone else willing to come along. Then, if need be, we'll fight our way out of this mess. You spared my life, and if the only way to repay that debt is to carry you through a snowstorm in the middle of the night, then so be it.

"Come on..." he said. "Let's go."