The First Wolves

22. YOU’VE BEEN CAUGHT

Rushing through the camp and undergrowth to ensure everybody had escaped, Pepin and Ewan were finally satisfied that nobody had been left behind. Winnifred was pouring the containers of urine and excrement over the remaining food that was too heavy to be carried.

“I’ve not spent my time saving and persevering these supplies for those monsters to use,” Pepin could hear Winnie shouting as he returned to the main camp.

“Well, you’ve achieved your goals, let’s set off before they arrive and make us eat it.” Pepin joked, breaking her fixation with the food.

“I’ll set off and catch up with the pack, put that extra grain bag on Brodie’s back. He can manage it.” Ewan decreed. He was loaded with grain bags and salted meat all tied in a sheet around his back. As promised, he raced off eager to catch up with the pack, and help Iselda, who had led the evacuation.

“It was nice here,” Fidella sighed, and Conri kissed her gently, trying to ease her sadness.

Sadistic shushes swept through the air, accompanied by dangerous crackles and spits of fire. Repetitive thuds hit the ground when the remaining members of the pack realised that the humans' plans weren’t to capture them, but to burn the camp around them. Fidella shifted into her wolf, Isla, preparing to carry Winnifred, when her worst nightmare was actualised. Conri cried out as one of the arrows pierced his thigh, the flame climbed up his hip and torso. With incredible presence of mind, Winnifred tacked her alpha to the ground, and suffocated the blaze.

“It’s OK, son. Einar will heal you soon,” Winnifred whispered to the man she raised.

Pepin snapped the shaft of the arrow, but left the metal in to prevent it creating a blood trail to later be followed. Isla ran over, licking Conri’s face to rouse him.

“Better he sleeps for now Luna, let me lift him onto your back, and then run from this place,” Pepin insisted as he lay his alpha across the silver-furred Luna.

“What will you two do?” Fidella mind-linked Winnifred. “Your wolf is too small to carry Pepin,” Fidella questioned.

“We’ll figure it out. Run Luna!”

The next release of arrows sang songs of doom as they whooshed through the air. Fidella ran to the north, and Pepin and Winnie sprinted in the direction she had gone in.

“Come on sister, we can do this,” Pepin encouraged her.

If Pepin hadn’t been with her, Winnie would have accepted it was her fate to die in the hidden temple with the statue that looked so much like the woman she admired: Pepin’s adoptive mother. It was a better place to die in than she deserved after all she had done in her life. Despite Pepin’s optimism, the fire was closing in around them, and the smoke was so thick they had to hold hands in order to keep together.

“There’s a gap there, Winnie. You can make it if you shift.” Pepin called out to her.

“I’m not leaving you. You shift, or we will die together, and then we can see Aoife again.” She replied.

“She is not dead, I feel her still. I can’t shift though, the wolfsbane is still in my body.” He argued with her.

“If you don’t shift, we will die here. You’ll never spend time with your son, and you will never find Aoife. If you're right, and she is still alive, then your death will kill her. The Pepin and Clovis that I knew would never let that happen,” Winnifred retorted.

Pepin didn’t hear Clovis in his mind, nor did he feel his presence in any greater way than he had before, but as if he were determined to prove Winnifred right, his bones quickly snapped and reshaped. Winnifred wasted no time sitting atop his back and gripping onto his fur. The snaps from the fire whipped out beside them as they raced against the progressing inferno that bit at Winnifred’s skin. They were head to head with the flames. Chasing them down with devastating determination, Pepin tried to outrun death. The heat was only a meter away from blocking their escape, and Clovis ran with a fury that was on par with the conflagration. Winnifred closed her eyes, happy not to witness her end as the gap became compromised. Cool air greeted her, and she peeked through the darkness not sure if they had made it, or if the moon Goddess was going to greet her.

Tarquin had waited for the fire to burn out, excited to look upon the blackened bodies of the slaves that had caused so much destruction and heartbreak. Irony was the general’s favoured form of humour, therefore he found it amusing that he had used fire to eradicate them even though his need for revenge still burned as painfully as ever. Soon enough, they found what was left of the camp. Trees were scorched, ash crumbling away in place of the bark. The ground was still hot underfoot. Columns from a forgotten building were still glowing red, retaining the intensity of Tarquin’s fury. Apoplectic at the sight, he kicked everything in sight, watching as it powdered around his feet. There wasn’t a single body to be seen. How could they all have escaped? Had they already left, or were they expecting an attack? He kicked the pile of sacks that seemed to have contained grain and meat, only to withdraw his sandals and find them covered in something brown and soft: s**t.

Maniacally, he laughed.

“How appropriate, this entire plan has turned to utter crap!”

Returning to his legions, he had Quintus prepare hot water, so that he could wash the fumes and failure off his body. He would have to embellish his report slightly, and pretend some bodies had been found. Truth would lead to his disgrace. How had the slaves known of his plan? Did they have such enhanced hearing that they heard his men’s approach? These were the thoughts that occupied his strategic mind as his body slave filled up the wooden tub with water.

“Quintus, why have you not tried to run to these devils? They are your kind after all.” Tarquin asked him, as the old wolf washed the soap into his body, scrubbing the dead skin away just as the general liked.

“I am loyal to you, master,” Quintus answered.

“You are afraid of me,” Tarquin corrected him.

“Yes, but from that fear comes loyalty. I know the consequences of betrayal, so I would never leave.” Quintus adjusted his answer.

“Do you think these upstarts will be successful?"

Quintus paused, concentrating on preparing the oil, but it was a delay that cost him dearly. Tarquin reached over and held Quintus’ face under the water near his feet. He thrashed in fear, wondering if this would be the day he died. When his chest felt as though it would burst, he was pulled to the surface.

“Do you have an answer now?” Tarquin yelled.

“The wolves…will never be…victorious” Quintus quickly answered, while gulping in deep breaths.

He didn’t bother to explain that he had been concentrating on preparing the oil, excuses would only lead to further lessons.

“Now you have a little more fear in you, so that your loyalty will be assured,” Tarquin laughed, as if the entire attack had been nothing more than a prank.

Prompt as ever, his tribune arrived and began to deliver the camp reports as Tarquin was wrapped in warm linen to dry off.

“Two died of dysentery, three caught fighting, and setting up gambling rings are now in the cages for a week as punishment. One of the scouts from cohort VIII has been injured, and is in the medical tent with three deep claw marks across his stomach-“

“Stop…How has that scout been injured by a wolf if we haven’t engaged with the wolves? When he told me the location of the enemy he said he had a stitch.” Tarquin’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is the scout’s name Caius?”

The tribune looked at his notes, before nodding in confirmation. It was unnecessary. Tarquin was already pulling on his tunic. Experience told him that when something didn’t add up there was always a suspicious reason for it. He was a successful general, but every plan he had put in place had been detected by those wolves, he was always one step behind him. He knew he had accredited those animals with more intelligence than they were capable of. There was a spy in their camp, and he had just found him.

“Drag that traitor out of his bed, and bring him to me.”

The tribune ran from his general’s tent towards the medics, but unbeknownst to him, a faster solider had raced ahead. Caius’ partner wasn’t going to let the general, who was making increasingly poor choices, blame his brother in arms for his own mistakes. He had watched Caius flourish since he first arrived in cohort VIII, shocking everyone by fighting them off even though he was hardly a man yet. The day he was accepted into camp and presented his son, Marius immediately developed a soft spot for them both. When he saw Ewan shift for the first time, he didn’t report it, he kept it a secret from them, just like he pretended to not know that Caius had been trying to help his son this entire time. They were brothers, and that bond was stronger than any loyalty that was owed to General Tarquin.

Caius was lying out on a bed, his injury had been tightly wrapped in bandages. Grabbing more linen, alcohol and thyme from the medical cupboards, he walked to his friend’s bed, and nudged him awake.

“Tarquin knows what you’ve been up to. You need to run.” He rushed him, and was surprised by how alert Caius suddenly became.

Stuffing the medical supplies into his friend’s bag, he helped him stand up, and lifted the canvas at the back of the tent, pushing them both through it.

“You knew?” Caius asked him.

“I’ve known a long time, but I care for Ewan like an uncle, so I don’t care if he’s a wolf. I will do what I can here, but it’s likely they will send me back to cohort VIII now.” He clasped his arm tightly, “Take care brother.” He said, before helping him onto his horse, and doubling back to his own tent.

“Thank-you, I pray we meet again in friendship someday.” Caius called to Marius, who had always been a better friend than he had ever realised.

Storming into the medical station, Tarquin was eager to get his hands on the betrayer. It was taking his tribune far too long to return, and he was worried the scout had already died. It would be a very disappointing result if he was unable to torture his answers out of the man. Unexpectedly, he saw his tribune holding the doctor by the scruff of his tunic, yelling about his unprofessionalism. Seeing the general, he forced the doctor to his knees.

“He went outside to collect more boiling water. He has no idea what has happened.”

Tarquin looked around at the injured soldiers. They were unconscious, most of them dying from their injuries. Looking for answers that he realised were becoming less likely to be found, he turned back to the doctor.

“Where is the patient known as Caius?”

The physician extended his trembling hand to the bed that the patient was lying on only ten minutes before. The tent was undone, and flapping slightly in the breeze.

The bloody bed was empty, and Tarquin’s scream of frustration could be heard by Caius, who was galloping in the distance towards the pack, his friends and his son.