Kaden was the first to react. "It's them again," he muttered. He let out a cry and shifted almost instantaneously, leaping through the window in a crash of glass and drywall, leaving a gaping hole.
The pack grounds had fallen silent. Baying noises drifted through. They were coming from far away. What the hell was going on? What had Kaden meant by his last words?
Here goes. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I felt my bones crack. There was pain. Then the momentum of the shifting process overtook my faculites momentarily.
A smorgasbord of conflicting smells assaulted my senses as I adjusted to my new form. I felt the nearby prescence of my (single) packmate, and the faint mind-presence of hundreds of other minds beyond that. Someone was trying to link to me. Brian.
Jim. Where are you?
Kaden's.
Western border. Now. Quickly. Rogues.
Brian's messages were very short. We'd known each other long enough to know that this was serious.
Are you there?
Guarding pack house. You, border. They need you.
I leapt into the night, breaking into a gallop almost before I hit the ground. I could see a hulking silhouette ahead of me. which I immediately recognised as Kaden. His coat glistened, jet-black in the dappled moonlight. The rumours did not do justice to his wolf form. It was truly impressive.
I ran after him, darting through undergrowth, leaping over gullies and fallen logs, and soon we were galloping neck to neck. We were sprinting as fast as we dared over the uneven ground.
I linked Brian again. How many rogues?
Many. More than we can handle. Probably need backup.
I was nearing the border. The baying had subsided to low growling. I could see the motley crew of the Salmon Creek wolves and Thurgood's gang, standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the hillside, which seemed to be sparkling, as if someone had seeded it with rhinestones. Then I realised that the rhinestones were eyes.
Rogues. As far as the eye could see.
Kaden made his way through the centre of our phalanx like a natural, parting it. The Salmon Creek wolves, sensing their leader in their midst, resumed their baying. I could feel their morale lift through the mind link. It was a good feeling.
He stepped forward. The wolves behind him, me included, tensed. I swore some of the rogues stepped back a bit. I could almost hear them thinking twice about this.
He raised his head and howled. We charged as one.
Thurgood's voice in the mind link. Go. Go. Go. Attack!
Growls filled the air as we charged at each other, two massive entities colliding. Russet wolves, black wolves, white wolves, wolves of every shade and colour ran into each other at high speed in every direction. The sound of rending flesh and spurting blood filled the air.
The next few seconds were an utter pandemonium of flying fur and claws. I could barely tell who was attacking who. Wolves jostled each other for space without thinking. None of us were thinking anymore. The wolf had taken over.
The smell of blood filled the air. I could scarcely tell who was gaining the upper hand. It was impossible to tell who was winning.
I finally gained purchase onto something with my jaws. He fought bravely, but I gained the upper hand and ripped his throat out.
No sooner had my assailant dropped to the floor, another one slammed into my midsection, crushing my body. He was trying to get free. Not so fast.
I was almost certain now that these were the same wolves we'd seen before. Their scent was overwhelmingly familiar.
I wanted to kill. I wanted to rip them apart.
Bloodlust filled my mind as I fought back, tearing wildly at anything I could gain purchase on, revelling in the sensation of tearing through muscle and sinew, not stopping until I was scratching marks on bone. Any doubts about what I was doing were completely sidelined.
Another of them charged at me. I laid into him at a gallop, almost separating his head from his body as I tore into him in mid-flight. Blood spurted everywhere. Ignoring the sticky mess, I shook myself free and continued.
All round me, people were also laying into rogues. A short distance away, a russet wolf with a prominent black eyepatch tore his opponent from limb to limb, then moved onto the next target with lightning speed. Thurgood was in a frenzy. I could see it in his eyes. There was no reaching him now.
I watched through the corner of my eye as a giant black wolf tore his way through his opponents like they were nothing. Kaden.
But they kept on coming, relentlessly. Wolves continued to pour in from seemingly from every conceivable angle.
A large brown beast charged at me. His fur was matted and his smell was overpowering. Without even stopping to think I lashed out, biting at his neck, clawing at it, relishing the sensation of tearing flesh and dripping blood.
I found another one. He gave no resistance and gave way easily. I resisted the pain, wrangling with his writhing body until I had him at an awkward angle and ripped upwards, red mist filling my eyes as the memories rose from the back of my mind.
The next few minutes seemed to pass in a numb frenzied blur as I tore and ripped in every direction I could sense the smell of the rogues, intent only on wreaking as much damage as I could. I felt almost detached from the whole thing, as if I was watching from above in the third person. I bit into bone, ripped through sinew and flesh indiscriminately, slashing and tearing everywhere, not caring where my strikes landed, craving desperately the need to destroy.
It was almost impossible to tell friend from foe in the spilled blood. But we were standing our ground. But still they came at me, relentless as ever. Some of them already had chunks ripped out of them. Some were even more grievously wounded. But still they kept coming, the severity of their wounds not seeming to make a whit of difference to their stamina.
All of a sudden, Brian was linking me. Backup arrived. I think.
I found a quiet spot in the carnage, in the shadows of an old oak tree, where several limp carcasses had formed a makeshift hide.
How many?
Just one truck. Going out to meet them.
Maybe it was just a scout from a neighbouring pack. Seeing if the threat was real.
OK. Be careful.
It's fine. Everyone else is already in the bunker. I'm the - then the mind link suddenly disconnected. It felt like someone had punched me in the head.
I knew immediately that something was wrong.
Of course. The battle was just a distraction. Everyone was focused on the western border where the rogues were coming from. Nobody would notice a lone truck coming in from the main road. A lone truck that had nothing to do with backup of any kind. One that had been sent to extract a specific someone.
Against all of my instincts, I turned my back to the battle raging around me and headed for the pack house.
Brian is missing, I linked Thurgood. Unidentified truck heading towards main road.
I'll get some of my men to head them off.
A brown-gray wolf charged at me from my right flank, suddenly. I was ready for him. He whimpered and darted away before I could finish him off.
Darting through the shadows of the house, I got to the pack house just in time to hear the sound of an engine and a tall, squat silhouette peeling away. Not a pickup truck. An armoured car, the type that human police used to deal with riots, heading away towards the main road. I presumed that Brian was lying inside somewhere, incapacitated.
Escape. Enemy escape.
Suddenly the carnage behind me seemed a mile away. All that mattered was getting to the truck.
Old man Anderson is going to kill me.
Staying a safe distance from the road, I sprinted as fast as I could, keeping in the shadows of the houses, roughly parallel with the black shadow hurtling through the pack village. Acceleration was not one of the greatest virtues of these tanks. If I could get on, I still had half a chance.
I changed direction. Timing was key. If I was off by even half a second this would all be for nought.
I leapt onto the roof of one of the houses. Roof tiles dislodged beneath my paws. These things were in worse condition than I'd thought. I was going to have to have another talk with Kaden. But that could wait.
I leapt into the air, into the oncoming path of the armoured car. As it turned out, I'd jumped a fraction of a second early. Instead of landing on the roof, I ended up clinging onto the mesh covering the front windscreen.
The driver swerved, his field of vision compromised. We left the road. The beast jittered and bounced on its springs as we rode over bumps and undulations hidden in the overgrown grass. Anticipating the crash, I closed my eyes and hung onto the mesh for dear life.
The was an almighty jolt as the armoured vehicle drove straight through the house as if it wasn't there. Wooden splinters exploded around me, embedding themselves in the mesh.
I dug my claws into the mesh, ignoring the pain, climbing upwards. I threw myself onto the vehicle's roof, struggling to gain purchase on the slick metal surface. If my reckoning was correct, Brian was somewhere in the back, and I needed to get to him.
The collision with the house had alerted the other wolves. The sounds of battle subsided, and now there were wolves pacing us below. But it was useless. We were going much too fast for them to jump on. Still they tried, and they bounced off the armour-plated flanks like flies.
The surroundings were just a blur now. Just keeping my balance was a challenge, as I edged across the roof towards Brian. I found something protruding. A ventilation duct. I bit into the housing. It gave with a noise of rending aluminium. There was hope.
Someone was shouting something in the distance. I could barely tell if it was through the mind link or actual shouting. I ignored them as I tore into the housing with my teeth.
I heard something else, something hitting the top edge of the truck. I turned around just in time to see the overhanging branch I'd spotted on the way in.
Then everything went black.