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There’s a loud thud behind me, and I’m barely able to scramble out of the way before being crushed by the limbs of a fallen tree, split in two. There are pained yipes coming from somewhere inside the branches, and I try to clear away some of the thick branches, but there’s now so much smoke it isn’t easy to see, and I’m losing time. A group of wolves join me, and I leave it to them, taking those who weren’t hit and continuing on.
The edge of the wall is up ahead, and I put on extra speed, focusing all my attention on reaching it, then rounding it before any of the witches catch on. I see them through the haze of magic, see the way they throw energy this way and that, while wolves I helped train duck and dodge without being able to defend themselves, thanks to a wall which, if they try to breach it, will burn them to a crisp. I don’t want to think about the handful of charred, smoking bodies lying on the ground and who they belonged to.
The pack will honor them always, but the best way to honor them now is to exact revenge in the form of blood. I run beyond the outer limit of the wall, making sure I’m well out of its range before picking up a squirrel that must have gotten caught in the crossfire. I toss it across the border between us and the witches roughly ten feet from the far end of the shimmering, electrified wall, and relief pierces me when the squirrel lands unburnt on the other side.
The wolves around me take that as their cue, rounding the wall before charging headlong at the witches gathered behind it.
The first cluster of witches is startled, and they look as though they’re preparing to attack when they’re overrun by wolves who are all too happy to tear out their throats. I continue past them at a full run and come face to face with a snarling, ugly witch with bone-white skin and eyes that glow like sapphires. She raises a hand, staring straight at me, and I leap into the air before landing on her, my claws tearing into her chest while my jaws clamp down on her throat. I shake my head viciously, snarling, sending blood shooting up in a fountain. By the time I’m finished, the light behind her eyes has gone out.
It’s all-out frenzied fighting now, and I see Forrest in the distance, leading his forces, mowing down everything in their path. The deadly wall doesn’t fade in strength, however—it’s just as bright as ever, and now I see it beginning to curl in on itself from both sides, like the witches controlling it intend to bind whatever they catch inside. I can imagine the walls closing in until they enclose dozens of wolves or more, forcing them to crush each other as they try to escape the deadly energy until every last one of them is incinerated.
We have to get to them. We have to stop them before they can trap the wolves on the other side, now helping each other, attempting to fall back, to retreat to the healers’ tents.
From across the swarm of bodies, both witches and wolves, I meet my brother’s golden gaze. As one, we bare down on the witch in the center, preparing to take her out as one.
We aren’t quick enough to catch her unaware. She whirls on us, and I throw myself at Forrest, both of us just missing a sizzling blast, which burns a hole in the ground where we were standing only moments ago. She swings around, prepared to fry us, but Forrest cuts her off at the knees, and she drops to the ground. He gets the pleasure of ending her life, and I notice, with no small amount of glee, the weakening of the energy comprising the wall. It’s fading, breaking up, and only now do the dead witch’s sisters see what’s happening.
They turn on us, probably prepared to fight, and the wall vanishes once their attention shifts.
That’s when the real fun begins. Any wolves strong enough to fight waiting on the other side of that electrified border now come pouring through, howling, snarling, like a wall of our own. A wall made of muscle and fur and very sharp fangs. The surviving witches fall back but continue their attack—our fighters are prepared for them now, working in twos and threes, confusing the witches, forcing them to spread their attention too thin to be effective. I throw back my head and howl with pride at their efforts, and Forrest does the same. This seems to energize them further, and I’m only prouder of them for it.
“Look out!” Forrest shouts from inside his wolf, and I narrowly miss the body of a witch as it sails through the air, having been torn in half and flung in opposite directions by a pair of our guards.
