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It doesn’t feel fair that this is the way it has to end. I wish my old life could have just stayed away from me, rather than having to follow me here and tear this one apart. But that’s the challenge of it all, I suppose. You can never leave your past behind you, not entirely. You can be a new person, but you still have to face what you were.
The wolf and I come to a rest. The wolf is over me, claws dug into my shoulders and thighs. I do my best to punch at his flanks, but everything is spinning around me, and I feel weak. The bite will come any moment now, and then, it will all be over.
That’s when I hear a howl. But not just any howl. It’s one I know very well. One I love almost as much as I love Amara.
Alfa!
I raise my head to look behind me and I see Alfa, little but confident as ever, running in. Behind him are dozens of wolves who I’ve never seen before. But the fact that they’re with Alfa tells me they’re on his side, and that’s all I need.
The large, dark-furred wolf on me tenses at the sight. Immediately, his mouth opens, and he goes straight for my throat.
He doesn’t get there. Alfa’s arrival has given me a new surge of hope that there might be a chance of coming out of this okay after all. Besides, I could accept Amara watching me die, but Alfa? Not a chance. It would hurt him and his bold spirit too much.
My hands grab onto the top and bottom of the wolf’s mouth, and I hold his mouth open just in front of my throat. His teeth dig into my hands, but it’s okay. I can hold him. Immediately, I start to kick at his underside with my legs. The wolf hisses, snaps, and claws at me wherever it can.
Just as I’m starting to wonder how long I can hold this, one of the wolves that Alfa bought leaps onto the one on top of me and sinks its teeth into the top of its neck. The two of them claw at each other on the forest floor, and I struggle to my feet and toward Amara.
She and Alfa are sitting together. She’s obviously taken some hard hits during the battle, though I can tell from the blood all over her spear that she’s dished out at least as many. I drop to my knees next to the two of them.
“I’m lost,” I admit. “What’s happening?”
“Alfa found help!” Amara says. “She ran all the way to the neighboring pack in order to tell them what Tavor was doing and bring them here to stop him.”
Alfa looks up, proudly, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. I can’t resist scratching him behind the ears.
“He really did that?” I ask, genuinely startled. “Isn’t that a long way? And… dangerous?”
“It could have been a lot longer than it was,” Amara answers, joining me in petting Alfa. “This time of year, the other pack would normally have retreated for winter. But apparently game was scarce this season, so they’ve been stuck trying to prepare for the trip.”
“Probably to do with the orc army looking for me,” I grumble.
“Could be. Anyway, when they heard that Tavor was trying to bring in outsiders to rebel against his own pack, they came immediately. It’s the sort of thing I would have never thought of because they’ve never been our official allies. But Alfa says she knew that it would work the whole time.”
“That’s what makes her such a great warrior,” I say, hugging myself to her. “She knows that she can win.”
I look around, and I see that the tide of the battle has completely turned. Tavor’s wolves are either wounded or dead, and the orc soldiers have had their battle line completely destroyed. Right now, they’re being picked off one by one by the various wolves hiding among the bushes and pouncing.
For the first time, I really understand the way that Amara treats the wolves like family. Because that’s what they are. Anyone who would go out into the forest alone in search of a potential enemy who might not even be there deserves to be called family.
I can’t imagine a life without Amara. And suddenly, the idea of a life without Alfa sounds pretty hard, too. At some point, I’m going to have to leave this forest and rejoin the world I left behind.
At least, I think I’m going to have to. Don’t I?
“Well, I’ll be cursed,” I say. “We really beat them, didn’t we?”
“We sure did,” Amara replies.
I can see the way she smiles that she realizes just how close it all was. If I hadn’t been able to beat the general in that duel, the orcs would have already been on their way home with our heads in sacks by the time Alfa and the other wolves arrived. The same if Amara hadn’t fought the way she had. There wouldn’t have been much of us or her pack left to rescue.
I wrap my hands around her and pull her closer to me.
“We made it,” I tell her.
And we certainly have. This battle doesn’t need us anymore. We’ve done our part, and we’ve done it well. Now, finally, we get our chance to relax and heal.
Other wolves, some injured and some not, start to gather. I feel a few friendly licks on me as I hold her there. I’ve often had the sense that I was at a distance from the pack, that they suspected I wasn’t really one of them. But I don’t feel that right now. I feel completely accepted. I feel like a part of this family, too.
Maybe it was that wolf, Tavor. He must have been the one making a thing about how I wasn’t one of them. Now that he’s defeated, so is the hostility that he tried to ride his way to power on. It’s as if they all want to say the same thing. “That battle is over. Let’s not fight another one.”
