Quarter Square (15 page)

The breakfast feast became a war council. Everyone in the tribe had a say, although some voices carried more weight than others, but there was no strong dissent. Only a short time passed before Shad declared his decision.

“We will help Min. We will fight to defend her friends in Quarter Square against Hare and Tin.”

The ragged cheer that followed had hardly started before it was interrupted by a new voice from the doorway.

“We will, will we?”

Smiling in greeting, the people parted for a tall, massively brawny man with a presence as powerful as his physique.

“Ban.” Warriors growled his name and clapped him on the back as he passed.

After sweeping his gaze across Min and me, he embraced Anya and left his arm around her shoulder when he fronted up to Shad. “What is this, now? We are going against Tin?”

Shad’s nod was emphatic. “We are going to fight against Tin
and
Hare if we have to.”

Ban arched an eyebrow. “Then you have picked the right time to do it. I ran through the night with Owen Tin’s message. He orders us to take Quarter Square tonight.”

A murmur passed through the crowd.

Anya sat, holding on to Ban’s hand over her shoulder. “My little brother,” she told Min. Love and pride shone in her eyes.

“Tonight?” Shad asked. “So the Hare will be moving into Plymouth soon?”

“They are moving now. They will attack an hour before dawn tomorrow.”

Anya craned her neck to peer up at him. “King Owen knows Hare’s plans very well.”

“He has spies in Fiona’s camp. And Fiona has a spy in Quarter Square who has told her of increased tension in the settlement. I do not know what has occurred in there, but something has set the wind blowing.”

“It’s Tyac,” Min announced. “He attacked us in Quarter Square a few days ago. We escaped him, but it created an uproar. I bet that’s what they’re talking about.”

She bowed her head to Ban, who returned the greeting.

“Min.” His eyes met mine. “Cayal.”

“Who is the spy in Quarter Square?” Min asked.

“I do not know. If I had a name, I would give it to you.” He turned back to Shad. “We should talk.”

They walked from the hall together, two impressively powerful men in the prime of their lives, and left behind them a groundswell of anticipation.

Min reached across the table and touched Anya’s hand. “What will happen?”

“Exactly what Shad said.”

“Ban doesn’t seem very happy about the change of plan.”

“Ban will do what is best for the tribe.” Anya’s pride shone again. “He always does. Part of his job is to discuss plans with Shad and suggest other ways to look at a thing. Ban is our beta.”

“Beta?” Min asked.

“Is that like a second in command? I thought that would be you.” I hoped I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, but Anya clearly exercised personal and social power.

“I am alpha, as Shad is alpha. Neither is above the other.” She grinned fiercely. “And Shad is the last person who would ever forget that.”

“So what’s a beta?” Min wanted to know.

Anya frowned. “It is difficult to find a single word. He makes things happen. If there is trouble between people, he stops it. He is strong, and he makes trouble go away.” She shrugged. “Yes. Like that.”

“This is all new to me,” Min said. “The Axe never had anyone perform such a function before.”

“We are wolves now.”

Wolves. For the first time in my life I wasn’t scared of them. Tyac was a different thing altogether. He was still terrifying, but he wasn’t a wolf. He was a monster. The people of the Axe were genuine wolves, and around them I felt safe, protected and at home.

Ban wasn’t happy. Not one bit, and he made no effort to hide his displeasure. He submitted to Shad, bowing his head for the alpha to place a hand palm down on top of it, but his shoulders were hunched in anger and his face was dark. He avoided making eye contact with Min, while glowering in my direction. His tribe was in danger, both from Tyac in the next few hours and from a betrayed and vengeful king further down the line. And we’d brought the danger.

But he’d accepted Shad’s decision—which was also the majority decision, and I didn’t know which of those held more weight—and he’d accepted the task Shad and Anya had entrusted to him.

“Ban is going to shepherd the youngsters and mothers with babies by a different route,” Anya explained. “He will come to us in a wide circle to protect them and keep them well clear of Tyac.”

Because Tyac would be coming to
us.
I shuddered.

Min squeezed my arm.

“Hang on.” The implications of Anya’s words dawned on me. “Everyone is coming to Quarter Square? You’re all leaving this village?”

“Yes.” Shad swung one arm around my shoulder and the other around Min’s and hugged us both tight. “We do not leave anyone behind.”

“Surely you only need to send warriors to fight the battle. Why drag the whole tribe along?”

Shad chuckled. “Trust me, Joe. I know what I am doing.”

I shrugged off his heavy arm and faced him. “No, Shad. This is wrong. You’re putting everyone in danger, and there’s no need for it.”

He raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t a friendly gesture.

“Send a war party. You said yourself no one can beat you. Why take the whole tribe? What’s the point?”

“My decision, Joe.” His tone carried a warning.

“It’s the wrong decision. You’re going to remove all these people from the protection of the ward.
Tyac
is out there, for fuck’s sake. If Min and I stay here with your tribe, he’ll stay in this area. When your war party goes, he’ll let you go. It’s us he wants. But if you put your tribe between him and us outside the ward, you’ll be putting them all in danger. For nothing.”

“
My
decision, Joe. My people, my decision.” Shad’s nostrils flared. He thrust his head forward and planted his massive fists on his hips.

I hoped for support from Min, but she pulled a stressed face and said nothing.

Shad raised his right arm towards me at shoulder height, parallel to the ground.

I stared at his flattened hand. What?

He jerked his hand imperiously and glared at me.

He wanted me to submit to him? No way.

He jerked his hand again and gave an ominous, low growl.

“Joe, please…” Min said.

Anya nodded her encouragement.

I didn’t believe this.

Shad tucked his chin in slightly and inclined his forehead away from his raised arm. His next movement would be to hammer me into the ground.

With seething bad grace, I bowed my head.

Shad placed his hand on my head for longer than I considered reasonable. When he removed it, he studied my burning eyes curiously, almost playfully, all his aggression gone. Satisfied, he and Anya turned and walked away.

I trembled violently, filled with rage and nowhere to put it. Min made herself busy talking with two of the children, but I caught Ban’s eye, and we exchanged a nod of understanding.

The Axe prepared to leave, planning to move out as soon as they changed into wolves when the sun set.

Min and I dressed in our own clothes and joined the tribe in the compound. I counted forty-eight adults and nineteen children. Mothers fussed around their children as Ban gathered them together. Older boys and girls released the goats from their tethers and the cattle from the pen.

“They don’t expect to come back,” I said to Min.

“I was thinking the same thing.” She looked drawn, stressed beyond tears. “Look what they’re giving up for us.”

“Come with me.” I took her arm and guided her into our hut.

“This is wrong, Min. You know it is. There’s going to be a tragedy, and I can’t believe you won’t help me prevent it.”

She cast her eyes down. “I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You’re their goddess. Order Shad to change his plan.”

“It doesn’t work like that. They honour me as their goddess, but I don’t rule them. I doubt they’d take any notice if I tried.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t bother.”

She gripped my arms. “I do know. I’ve known the Axe for thousands of years. I know how they think and how they react to threats. This is typical of them. They’re going to put their lives on the line for me whether I want them to or not, because I’m their goddess and they’ll do whatever they deem necessary to ensure my safety.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You think I like this? You think I wanted to come here and put them all in danger? You were
there.
What other option did I have?” Her eyes filled with tears. “You saw how Shad responded when you challenged him. If I tried that, even if all I did was question whether they would succeed in a battle with Tyac, I wouldn’t only be questioning Shad’s authority as a leader. I’d also be suggesting the whole tribe is weak and not worthy of me. This is what they do for me, and it’s my duty to accept it.”

“You won’t say anything because you don’t want to hurt their pride?”

“Pride? How condescending are you? It isn’t pride. It’s their culture. It’s their
identity.
They’ve been headstrong, brave, fond of grand gestures, faithful and utterly fearless like this for six thousand years, and that was before they became fucking werewolves. All that is probably times ten now.”

Her tears fell. “And there’s this too. I love these people, Joe, but you mean everything to me.”

“Don’t put this on me.”

“I can’t watch you die. Not so soon. I can’t do it.” Her face crumpled. Then she sank to the ground and hugged my legs. “I’ve seen it too many times, and we’ve been apart for so long, and I’ve only just found you again. I can’t bear it.” She clung to my legs and sobbed.

I helped her to her feet and held her tenderly, pulled in two different directions at the same time and hating it.

“I know I’m selfish.” She wiped her eyes. “But if others have to die, even people I love, so you can live, then so be it.”

A distant howl came from far away in the east, and the skin crawled from the base of my spine to my scalp.

“We will protect you.” Anya and her daughters appeared in the doorway of our hut. Anya beckoned us out, then placed a hand on each of our shoulders, and the warmth of her grip nearly reassured me. I wanted to believe her. Surely even the mad savagery of Tyac wouldn’t be enough to beat a whole pack of werewolves. Would it?

Min turned her blotchy face to Anya. “I love your people, and I love you even more for wanting to help, but you know some are going to get hurt.”

“We are ready to die for you.” Anya stared hard into Min’s eyes.

Shad joined our group. “It is true,” he rumbled. “We would all die for you. Today I think some of us
will
die for you, and it will be our honour. You are our goddess.”

Min shook her head and looked around the tribe, her tear-filled gaze pausing on each of the children.

“We will protect the young ones,” Shad promised, squinting at the sky. “It is nearly our time. Will you sing for us?”

Anya hugged first Ban and then Shad, kissing her husband tenderly.

Min sang a sad song in an old language, while the tribe waited for the sun to go down.

As had happened the previous night, the children changed first. Parents smoothed hair and murmured soothing words to their young ones as pain racked them briefly. In a short time Min and I stood tall in a moving sea of huge wolves.

Of all the wolves there, the only ones I could identify for certain were Shad and Anya, but the two female wolves who shadowed Anya’s every move had to be their daughters, Vua and Tae. General Anya and her two lieutenants. Those three females were as magnificent in wolf form as they were in their human shapes. They herded the pack towards the main gateway and took the lead, while Shad tasted Min’s fingers and rubbed his flank against her hip.

“Do you want me to ride you?”

He pushed against her again.

Min cocked her leg over his back, settled comfortably behind his shoulders and gripped his mane.

Another wolf waited patiently beside me.

“Karn?”

He took my fingertips in his mouth and nibbled them delicately.

I climbed onto his back. It was like mounting a small horse. I imagined so anyway, having never ridden a horse. He felt awesomely strong and powerful beneath me, and he smelled like a heavy dog on a hot afternoon. I took two fistfuls of coarse hair and used my inner thighs and knees to adjust my seat as he paced forwards.

When we reached the head of the column, Anya barked once, and the pack moved through the main entrance as one, while behind us the huge black wolf that had to be Ban quietly led nursing mothers and youngsters along a trail at the back of the village.

The tribe wasn’t likely to see their home again, no matter what happened in the next twenty-four hours. King Owen would destroy their village in revenge when he found out they’d defied him. If Min and I thought that, the Axe must know it with even more certainty.

We moved fast. Trees flashed by, and the ground disappeared underfoot, and it dawned on me what the timing of this meant. It was barely sunset, and the Hare attack on Quarter Square was due an hour before dawn. In order to arrive there in time to defend the place, we would have to cover in a few hours the same distance it’d taken Min and me three days to travel on the way here.

Our progress was amazingly quiet, considering there were nearly fifty animals running at great speed through the woods. The loudest sound in my ears was my own panting, which was a mixture of fear and occasional jolts of pain.

It took me some time to get used to the motion, and I kept adjusting my position, trying to find the most comfortable seat on Karn’s back. Eventually I discovered that by bending my knees and gripping his flanks with the insides of both knees and with my calves and insteps, I could get into the rhythm and move with him. My groin stopped taking a hammer blow every time he leapt over something, and I was able to settle down and enjoy the ride. In a manner of speaking.

The village was half an hour behind us, and we’d covered tens of miles, when a distant crashing noise came from somewhere over to our right.