Children of Night and Snow

52. Run For Your Life

Next day I was the last one to wake up. I strongly suspected they let me sleep as long as possible, too. I tried not to feel guilty, but needless to say I was unsuccessful. It was hard to see why this group of seven people with the strength of warriors and experience with life over here still allowed me to stay around when I was nothing but a burden. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to ask them either. What if they saw my point and ditched me? Even if they did call me part of the family on multiple separate occasions, it was still barely a few months since we met. I hated this feeling. I hated being weak. Back in Moonvalley I was the strong one. The leader. But here I was the exact opposite. A weakling trying to catch up on years of training and life experience in harsh conditions of life over here.

"Okay, time to go. Today may be the hardest part of our journey. We need to run straight through that mountain pass. No stopping, no looking back. It's highly likely that we'll end up triggering an avalanche or two. The grounds were unstable to say the least three years ago, right now it's likely even worse. And this is the centre of the largest rogue territory on this side of the continent, so we will probably have some company on the way too. If we're lucky, we'll be out in roughly two hours. If not. It may take longer. But whatever we do, we have to be out by the end of the day. After ten hours our chances of making it out alive reduce to next to nothing," Nolan spoke to us all. He stood at the cave's entrance, twins by his sides. We all nodded in understanding.

Over the last two weeks or so, mostly due to our messed up schedule just before uprising, I got to see a side of Nolan and the twins, which I haven't had the chance to see before. I didn't know their history, but I could tell it went much further than I originally thought. Somehow it didn't surprise me that he knew what we were about to face. He was here before. Likely with them. Doing whatever they were doing at the time. Was he also from Midnight City? From training with him I knew he fought differently than them. He was slower, his style much less subtle. They definitely didn't share a teacher. But did it mean they didn't come from the same place? I couldn't tell.

"Freya, stay close to me," I heard Nolan's voice in my head once we shifted. There was a pleading tone to it, which I didn't expect.

"I will," I replied. Things were tense between us, there was no denying that. And whenever we finally had a chance, we needed to talk. But that didn't mean I would defy him out of spite. Not when he knew what he was doing and I did not. I liked being alive. And he was still my boyfriend, who knew this land so much better than I did.

We took off at greater speed than we were running past two days and headed straight for a narrow passage surrounded by massive rock mountains covered in feet of snow from both sides. I did my best to focus on the road ahead of us and on Nolan running a little ahead but still somewhat by my side. Still I would be blind not to notice massive piles of heavy snow above us ready to tear themselves away and slide directly at us. I didn't want to imagine that scenario and what it would mean to get trapped underneath something like that. Even with our size and body heat, I had a feeling digging a way out would be next to impossible.

"Fuck! A snowstorm," Aaron cursed down the mental link just as few snowflakes appeared in the air in front of us. Not a good news. Even I knew that.

"Snow may be the least of our problems. Look at your feet," Az replied dryly and we all did as he said. There were paw prints everywhere. So many of them, too. We weren't alone.

The next thing we heard was a loud growl ahead of us. We all turned our heads up to see a whole pack of what I assumed were rogues. Very, very angry and quite possibly also hungry ones, who seemed to like the idea of us being their next dinner despite being their own kin. My stomach turned.

"We need to get this over with and soon," Devan said in our heads just as the falling snow started to pick up on speed and amount. The storm wasn't going to wait. And neither were our enemies. With another loud growl, like a command, they all went straight at us. There was nothing we could do other than to defend ourselves. And there were at least twenty of them. In the rapidly worsening conditions I soon lost a big part of my vision to a very different kind of darkness, one somewhat much more horrifying than the usual eternal night. This one was white. It brought winds so sharp and cold my fur was hardly enough to protect me. And it was full of predators set on killing me.

I stuck with Nolan and Devan, the two men whose wolves I had the easier time recognizing in all that madness just as long as they were in reach enough for me to see them at all. And I fought off anyone else who got closer. These rogues were likely driven mad by hunger. They were attacking senselessly, their recklessness clouding their judgement. This gave us at least a little bit of an advantage over them. I managed to bite two of them enough to make them stagger and for Nolan to finish them off. I sank my claws deep into the side of another just a second before his teeth pierced my neck. He fell to the ground and howled in agony, but I had no time to think about it. To worry if he gets up. If I killed him or if the boys finished him. No, I suddenly had a very different worry on my mind.

I could hear the howls all around me. Pain, so much pain. I didn't want to think about the possibility that some of those were my friends. My brothers and sisters. My family. It was clear that the storm didn't just catch us by surprise, it wasn't something our enemies anticipated either. Still in that terrifying white darkness, I briefly turned around only to see an outline of a wolf fighting another two with a third creeping up on him. I knew that outline. The large black wolf with two colored eyes. Az. He was going to die. There was nobody around to warn him. To help him. I couldn't let that happen. I yelled his name down the mental link. A last minute warning. But he didn't seem to hear me. And so I ran. My fur much lighter than everyone else made me nearly invisible as I ran through the wind and snow, ignoring Nolan shouting my name in my head. I knew I said I'd stay by his side, but I couldn't. I had to save Az. I was the only one who could at that moment. Everyone else was too far away now to catch up.

"Freyaaaaa!" I heard him scream in my head. He was absolutely terrified. The ground began to shake and I could hear what sounded like a loud thunder. An avalanche. We had seconds to get away. Maybe a minute if we were lucky. I could hear the silence that took over our minds upon that realization. And I could see the rogue launch at Az from behind. I didn't have time to think about it. It was pure instinct. But in that moment saving him was all I cared about. And so I lunged myself at the same time, colliding with the enemy mid air. I sunk my teeth into his neck and pulled, breaking it in one swift move. His blood filled my mouth before I could let go of his motionless body and it fell on the ground.

"RUN!" Az commanded in my head and I didn't hesitate. With all the strength I could muster I bolted side by side with him, praying to all the Gods that we took the right direction. The next thing I knew we were running from tons and tons of heavy wet snow falling down the mountain above us with a thundering sound so loud it sounded like pure fury of the very Gods I prayed to to spare us. If we were human or if we didn't train the way we did, we wouldn't stand a chance, that I was sure of.

"Don't stop. We can't stop," Az spoke once again when the horrible sounds finally stopped, indicating that the avalanche finished it's fall and we were by some miracle not buried under. We ran and ran not stopping for what seemed like an eternity. There was nothing but silence in our heads and the thought of what it could mean was enough to make me go insane, but I obeyed his commands and kept running through the seemingly endless whiteness of nothing.

"Freya! Az!" Six voices suddenly shouted in unisom making my head spin a little and the next thing I knew the snowfall eased and we could finally see what was in front of us.

"Gods, you're okay. Oh Gods," Nolan ran towards us, his inner voice shaking.

"Yes, thanks to her. She saved my ass," Az sighed. He was surprisingly calm considering what we just survived.

'Is everyone okay? Connor! Lucia!" I ignored their little exchange and instead began checking if we were all there and in one piece. Unfortunately Connor and Lucia laid on the ground, each of them with a gruesome wound. Connor had his torso all scratched up and his leg was in a bad shape with a bite so deep I could see a hint of a bone. But Lucia was even worse as she laid unconscious with blood everywhere. There were bite marks and deep scratches all around her neck and shoulders. It was a miracle she was breathing. And she still had her backpack on.