By The Light Of The Moon

Chapter 27

I leaned against a boulder and slowly whittled the spear tip to a perfect point. Shane was sprawled out in the sun beside me with his head on his paws, half drowsing in boredom.

I twisted the spear to examine the tip, commenting, "You know, every time I make a spear, I never get to keep it for long. First, it was the dire wolf, then the fox, and the last one was the archer. It makes me wonder what's going to happen to this one."

Shane lifted his head and eyed up the spear. Reaching forward, he snagged the base between his teeth and whipped his head to the side, flinging it across the clearing.

With a smirk, I watched the shrubs sway from the impact. "I guess I get to add 'stolen by a werewolf' to that list."

He wolf-grinned at me and chuckled, which was a strange sound, but clearly one of amusement.

My smirk grew wider as I gestured to the still-swaying branches. "If this is your way of telling me to fetch, do I get to whack you with the stick when I bring it back?"

The chuckling was replaced with a snort of disdain. He grabbed a small branch by his feet and tossed it at me. I threw it right back at him, and he used his paw to purposefully bat it into the empty firepit.

"Yeah, yeah. I know your opinion of my spear. Just pretend it's a walking stick with a pointy end," I said as I got to my feet to retrieve it.

He rolled his eyes and flopped back onto his side, clearly buying my reasoning. Not.

~

   Shane paced back and forth, and I pulled out his necklace, figuring it'd be his top priority once the sun set. Milly watched him, but she had grown accustomed to his new form over the last two days and didn't seem bothered as long as he didn't go too close to her.

Like last night, Shane didn't seem to know exactly when the sun set. His ability to shift mysteriously returned with no muscle tremors or any other signs.

One moment, a large brown wolf was pacing, and mid-step, his attempts to shift succeeded, and a shimmer of green and orange blurred his body, leaving a werewolf where he had been standing. Predictably, he immediately came over to me.

I held out his necklace, which he took it with surprising restraint. After my earlier struggle to get it over his head, I watched closely, noticing that as he lifted it, the chain lengthened enough for him to loop it over his head without any difficulties. The shimmer of lights interrupted my view, but when they cleared, the necklace was the proper length for the man who stood beside me.

I furrowed my eyebrows. Surely if the chain had lengthened like that before, I would have noticed.

"Can you shift to your werewolf form and back to human?"

He raised an eyebrow, but removed his necklace, shifting to a werewolf, then replaced it again. The weird lengthening happened again, but it left me with the distinct impression that I would have noticed had I seen it before. I could only think of one difference...

"Can you shift again, but make your necklace disappear, then bring it back and put it on?"

He gave me a long look but removed his necklace again. It faded out as he lowered his hand. When he lifted his hand, the necklace reappeared – only it was already large enough to fit over his head.

"Wait. Look at your necklace – it's easily big enough to fit over your head. The last two times, it actually stretched as you lifted it. I only just noticed it, although I don't think I've seen you not make it disappear between shifts."

With a faint frown, he shifted a few more times, experimenting with the new information and watching the chain lengthen to easily fit over his head.

"It is the same necklace, right?" I asked.

"As far as I know," he replied. With the necklace in one hand, he swiped his other one through the air as if trying to make another one appear, with no success.

"What if you tied a hair around the chain? Your hair and fur shift, so that might help us figure it out."

He shifted to human form and plucked a hair from his head. After tying it around the chain, he shifted a few times, although it was present each time.

"It's definitely the same necklace," Shane finally said.

"I'll clearly never understand magic," I murmured. "After how hard it was to get it over your head this morning, it just seemed weird that you never had a problem."

"As much as I hate to admit it, that didn't even occur to me. But thinking back, it's almost as if it doesn't recognize my wolf form as a werewolf, which would explain why I couldn't summon it and why it didn't do anything."

"That kind of makes sense."

"After how the necklace prevented me from shifting into wolf shape the other day, I'd been hoping-" he was interrupted by a deep rumble that made the ground under our feet tremble.

I hastily stood up, unsure what was happening, but quite certain it wasn't good.

Shane spun around and pointed at something halfway across the mountain slope. "There. Mudslide."

We watched as rocks and mud flowed down a steep part of the mountainside like a slow wave, taking trees and boulders with it. It looked particularly menacing in the fading light, making goosebumps prickle along my arms.

"That's one of the dangers of being in these mountains with so many storms," Shane quietly said, his eyes never leaving the mud flow. "The trees don't have deep roots, and once that much dirt and rock start moving, they don't stop until they reach flat ground. At least it would have wiped out our trail."

I turned my head to warily regard the mountain above us. "Will we be able to get out of the way if one of those comes our way?"

"That's one of the biggest reasons we haven't been camping near a stream. I also try to pick a spot with solid rock uphill."

"And at night?"

He exhaled heavily. "It'll always be a risk in these mountains. If I yell 'run', give Milly a swat on the rump and get the hell out of that area. Run straight across, not uphill or down."

A labored horn call came from the direction of the mudslide. Shane quickly removed his necklace and climbed a tree, his werewolf form surprisingly agile among the branches.

Before long, he came back down. "It looks like one of their patrols didn't get out of the way fast enough. At least one survived for that call."

"I can't believe they're still after us. We've been out here, what, twelve days? Most fighters would have given up by now. And it's not just a couple of close comrades – there has to be at least a couple hundred men in this valley."

"Let's not get caught," Shane said grimly.

"I agree."

With so many soldiers still hunting for us, if they did catch us, the outcome would not be good.

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