Ashes Of The Night (on hold)

Chapter 5

It is better to die as a wolf than living like a dog. (Herbert Wehner)



For the first time since as a pack we cried in the cliffs, a shed tears of anguish. A recognized the dead and battered wolf, lying so helplessly. Mehto was being treated like a circus side show. The inescapable fate had followed me here.

"Silvah!" I heard a voice call out.

I instantly recognized Nightshades worried tone, but I was froze and unable to move. I tried to peel my eyes away from the wolf, but knowing I wouldn't be successful. Though the crowd was loud, all that found my eardrums was deafening silence. I looked deeply into Mehto's clouded eyes, realizing they were wide and his face was arched into a fleeting glance, full of fear.

His last ever thought would have been of moon, and I was sure that he was there now, at last with a sense of peace.

Something warm brushed against my palm. Nightshade was beside me, his shoulders square and tense. I looked him straight in the eye and his lip pursed into a grim line. I knew hed seen it, the wolf lying dead. He couldn't have missed it.

"Alexander," a low voice chimed.

He had a gun hazardously slung over his left shoulder and a smirk firmly set in his cheeks. It was the same man that had so unmercifully shot one of my pack brothers in cold blood.

"Tavien," Nightshade ground out, though it sounded like an animalistic growl.

Tavien smiled smugly when he noticed me, though I didn't have tears in my eyes now. I fought the urge to scoop up Mehto and take him somewhere for a proper burial.

"That's a real wolf, right there," he said, pointed to Mehto's lifeless carcass, "Their meant to be extinct. Aren't I lucky to find such a trophy?"

Every muscle in my body tensed, and Nightshades features turned into an icy glare. I was broken, as if some unseen force had chiseled a hole in my heart and lefts its own darkness to spread through my veins, swallowing me entirely. Nightshades voice turned hard, sharp as a cutting blade.

"You always seem to shoot without looking Tavien. Why take this wolfs life? Haven't you gotten word of whats in the book of the Moon? The wolves are saviours, not cold blooded predators," he snapped, every word dripping with a deadly venomous sting.

I had remembered  one of the elders teaching me as a young pup about the book of the moon. It was said the Moon wolf  herself wrote it in the language of mankind so that they would know the events to come.  

Tavien snorted loudly, while tinkering around with a silver bullet he'd ejected from the guns barrel.

"Don't tell me you believe that nonsense Alexander, wolves are no sign of salvation. Soon the world will end, nothing is going to change that. Don't wast your time on stupid myths, you should be out hunting down every last one of them," Tavien responded, letting out a short laugh that echoed all around.

The crowd of people had since died down, yet some curious children scurried up to the table where Mehto laid still and peaceful. I flinched at the images of Tavien hunting down Mehto in a barren plain of land, Mehto's wide scared brown eyes, the moment he knew he would not carry on in this life anymore.  I felt a sudden burning hatred for the ruthless killer before me, a sudden spread of flaming anger. 

Nightshade was breathing heavily, his nostrils flared with every inhale, a dead giveaway of the animal he was behind this well played facade. I watched as his large, rough hands rolled into fists and a sinister look set upon his face. Taviens hostility towards wolves was becoming to much for Nightshade, his  inner untamed beast was ready to be set free and unleashed on the unsuspecting hunter.

I knew the only thing that could calm him. Careful and slowly, I moved one of my slim, small hand towards Nightshades face, that was almost imitating a snarl. A placed my hand flat against his left cheek gingerly, half fearing his reaction. Almost immediately, the tensed muscles in his face relaxed and his expression softened.

"Alexander," I began, hating the way his human name rolled off my tongue, laced with irony,  "Please don't do this. You cannot let the other side of yourself take over." 

It was wise, yet wasted words coming from me, as I too felt my real form pushing closer to the surface and willing to be moulded out of my bones. Nightshade turned his head ever so slightly to meet my eyes. His were a glorious shade of chocolate brown with flecks of gold. Kaleidoscope eyes. I gave him a soft smile and slid my hand away from his warm cheek. 

Tavien stared with wide eyes and shaking hands. Fear rolled off his body like the furious grey waves crashing onto jagged rocks in the ocean just metres behind us. Nightshade, with his features softened and more childlike, stared Tavien down. Taviens face was as white as bone. I held my breath. hoping and praying that he did not comprehend what Nightshade and I had said. 

With a sudden staggering movements, like a deer that had been spoked by a predator that roamed to close, stumbled backwards away from us. Only now did I realize why. His eyes had turned from their glorious brown, to a golden hue. A golden hue that gave us away for what we were. Behind the disguise, the lies, the hate. 

"Your, y-your one of them?" Tavien stuttered, creeping backwards with uneven movements.

My breath was labored, Nightshade had led us into a town with hunters swarming around like angry wasps and now Tavien knew his was a wolf. That meant we had to run again, that we were not safe as Nightshade had lead me to believe. I was quaking with anger and fear. 

Tavien had shakily reloaded the gun and now held up to Nightshades chest, his finger tremoring on the trigger. 

"Your a monster!" Tavien cried.

Nightshade flinched, but his entire body was still and a fire built within his eyes, as if I could see down to his soul. A darkness overcame him, curling around the vast mass of his body like a plague that was never intended to be unleashed. A deafening shot rang out through the square, dust kicked up in clouds. I was so blinding by the sound, hazed over by the utter shock. 

Nightshade hadn't moved from his spot, but Tavien had fallen to the ground,clutching his wrist with his gun thrown half way across the square. I felt a sudden searing pain in my shoulder, and reached up to touch the tender skin. To my surprise my hand was slick with blood. Nightshade was wide eyed, and immediately cross the small distance between us. 

"Silvah," he breathed.

"I didn't mean for him to hit you, he was about to shoot me, I twisted his wrist...." Nightshade trailed off, looking at my shoulder with deep concern.

Tavien shouted out with a unstable voice that trembled with every word,"Wolf! Their wolves! Beasts in disguise!"

So the boy cried wolf with fear in his eyes, and with a sorrowful sob, the wolf cried to.