Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 135
135
Nilia was deep in thought, walking down that narrow path that would lead her back outside, back into the frozen hell of blood and snow. Back into the insane world of comrade turned enemy turned mindless animal. She had barely made it through the gauntlet last time. One unlucky grab, one misstep, one stumble and she probably would have died. And now she was going to try and get through that place again?
She had been carrying Dorin on her back, though. This time should be easier, but she didn't want to take any chances, and since the real danger was still out there, wandering the woods, she didn't want to go it alone. Unlike Ander, she had no intention of jumping headfirst into danger half-nocked. This place needed all the defenders it could get, but even just one or two Wolves would be a great help. Just two or three good, strong Wolves she could trust, or anyone stupid enough to volunteer to go hunt down a crazed maniac who's killed at least half a dozen Wolves this night alone, all by himself.
By the Cora, this might be impossible.
She was just beginning to think about how she was going to word such a suicidal request when a new sound invaded the already chaotic rumblings of the storm. Underneath the roaring wind, underneath the rippling of the tent and the whisper of snowflakes, underneath the growling drone of hundreds of Wolves, underneath the screams, the shouts, the yelps of pain, a dull, repetitive pounding could be heard, swelling by the second.
Ears perked up. Injured Wolves opened their bleary eyes and looked all around the tent, searching for the source of that noise. It kept building and building, a sound that brought back nothing but unpleasant memories of punishment and condemnation.
It was the steady beat of drums.
Drums, drums, drums in the night.
Nilia could feel it, like an animal scenting danger. It was in the air, cold and heavy. It was in the ground, shaking beneath her feet. Something coming. Something bad...
Something already here.
It was as if the sun itself suddenly came breaking through the clouds all at once, shining a light so bright that the sides of the tent changed from a drab brown to a dirty orange, pulsating in time with the drums, brighter and brighter, throwing distorted shadows across the canvass walls; black shapes overlapping with each other at different distances, a discordant sea of hungry faces staring in at them, tall and short, fuzzy and sharp, each of them flowing through and between each other. Fans of shadowblood flew across the flickering fields of dusty light and splattered as dark spots against the side of the tent. Bloodcurdling howls tore through the air, carried aloft by the pounding of the drums, a dying, screaming heartbeat in the night.
Nilia sprinted for the exit and burst outside, where she was immediately blinded by a wash of light. She cringed back and shielded her eyes against the glare, cursing underneath her breath. After the gloom of the tent, with its one little campfire in the middle, this was like stepping into -
Hell... Nilia thought, lowering her arms and staring, open-mouthed, at what was happening.
A wall of fire. Flames towering high above their heads, waving in the wind and spewing smoke and embers up into the blackened sky. Nilia could see the defenders as miniscule silhouettes in the distance, retreating with their arms up and covering their faces. By the Cora, she could feel the heat from here.
"Get back! Get back!" someone shouted.
"Crazy bastards!"
The injured were moving away too, closer to the tent, but many of them were unable to stand. They were crawling along on all fours, backlit by the raging inferno, their faces covered in masks of flickering shadow.
"Come on! Come on!"
Foxes swarmed together to help them out, dragging them along in groups of two and three, gritting their teeth and digging their heels while their charges screamed in pain, sometimes leaving streaks of blood along the ground, glimmering in the harsh firelight.
But the Wolves couldn't help. They couldn't move too far away from the flames because the crazies were still there, the ones who had stayed the same, the ones who had surrendered completely to their hunger, dancing and leering just beyond the flames, staring in at them with madness in their eyes and blood on their teeth.
One jumped right through the wall of flames, his fur singed almost all the way down to the skin, smoking just like Rufio's little wooden contraption. He howled to the sky, not in pain but in triumph, and sprinted for the nearest Fox, his tongue hanging from his open mouth, his claws gleaming.
"Jiro!" Two Wolves grabbed him and forced him down, cringing away form his snapping jaws and flailing arms. "Calm down! You're acting crazy! Just snap out of it, damn you!"
Jiro didn't listen. He raked the air with his claws in a desperate attempt to reach the Fox, who was backing away from the whole sordid affair, shaking his head in total denial.
"Throw him back!" someone shouted.
"But it's Jiro, damn it! It's Jiro!"
"It doesn't matter! He's one of them!"
They picked him up and heaved him back through the wall of fire, and this time the shriek that followed really was one of pain.
Nilia's eyes were burning, telling her to blink, but she couldn't stop staring at the shape Jiro had turned into, that bloody shape beyond the wall, every boil and blister standing out in cruel relief against the glare of the flames, running around in circles and waving his arms in the air until he finally collapsed in a twitching heap, still screaming into the ground.
This was utter madness.
Nilia stepped forward without knowing it, like a sleepwalker, entranced and horrified.
Someone grabbed her hand. She looked down and saw Danado sitting where she had left him, his eyes wide and staring. "Where are you going, Nilia?" he asked, his stubby fingers closing around her wrist to the point of pain.
"I have to leave..." she said simply, pulling her hand away.
"It's Banno, isn't it? That bastard is still alive, and he took Kiana. That's why you came alone. That's why the others haven't shown up yet. Is she dead? Tell me, is she dead!?"
"I don't know," Nilia said truthfully. The flames... they were impossibly high. Just how?
There came a sound of breaking glass, and suddenly it was as if a section of the wall turned liquid. It bloomed outward like a tumour and spilled a puddle of fire across the ground, just barely missing Tokayna by inches. She backed away with her tail between her legs, her arms crossed in front of her face.
Nilia kept moving forward, elbowing injured Wolves and Foxes out of the way, leaving Danado behind, screaming her name. She was the only one moving towards the fires, struggling upstream, and faces kept flashing before her eyes, turned into horrific masks by the surging flames. Faces cut and bleeding. Faces stitched by yards of black thread. Faces with gushing noses and missing eyes. Faces with shiny burns spreading across their cheeks and foreheads, their fur singed into blackened spikes. Faces screaming in the shadows. Faces weeping openly in the glare.
She shoved her way into the open, and the closer she came to that impossible wall of fire, the more clearly she understood what had happened. What was _still_happening.
The fire really was a wall. The attackers had lain logs, maybe even entire fallen trees, all the way around the medical tent in a massive circle. In the dark, with a line of blood-crazed Wolves constantly attacking from the front, no one could have seen what was happening until the whole thing was set alight, trapping everyone inside.
The defenders were still trying to hold their formation, their shadows stretching across the ground like the spokes of a wheel.
Or the bars of a cage.
Nilia pressed on, covering her mouth and nose, her eyes watering. The wind had turned from ice and snow to scorching heat and smoke.
"Nilia! Thank the Cora! Help us with this!" A defender was approaching her, but he was all blurry. Nilia blinked and his face solidified into that of Torjo. "They're still trying to get at the Foxes! I've never seen anything like this! They've all gone mad!"
How quickly you forget that you were one of them just hours ago, Nilia thought, looking down at the base of the fire to see what the hell they were burning.
At first she thought it was just a bunch of logs, perhaps scavenged from the camp or maybe even freshly chopped from the surrounding woods, but then the wind shifted and she saw the ends, sharpened to cruel points by many hatchets over several days.
They were burning the wall. The same wall that had kept them out of the valley, the same wall that had killed them with a mountain of snow, was now being used to hem their enemies in and burn them in a lake of fire.
It was the exact opposite of Ander's plan.
"Take this, you damn traitors!" a voice erupted from the other side of the raging flames, and the next moment something large, something glittering, flew through the air and shattered against the ground in an explosion of flames and shards of glass.
It was an oil lamp.
Nilia had a sudden flash of that one lonely Wolf, chucking lamp after lamp into the campfires, watching the flames soar into the sky while he laughed and cried at the same time.
Apparently one of them must have figured out that the odd boxes of glass and smelly water could be used for something other than mindless distraction.
Nilia cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled: "Look out!" but it was already too late. No one could have done anything to stop it. That single explosion, that spreading pool of flame, was only the start. Oil lamps and lanterns of all shapes and sizes began soaring over and through the wall of fire, leaving burning orange trails in their wake, as if scorching the sky itself. They rained down in random profusion, shattering into wicked shards of flaming glass and spewing puddles of oil across the ground. They lit up with muffled roars, flashes of blue and orange, spreading out, consuming the carpet of dead leaves and pine needles, anything dry enough to burn. Those that landed in the snow hissed and fizzled like swarms of snakes.
A lantern, its base and handle already cloaked in flames, sailed over the wall of fire in a deadly arc and smashed apart against Tikani's back, showering him with shards of glass and burning oil. The flames spread across his body like a living thing, enshrouding him even as he flailed and screamed, running around and beating at his own body, succeeding only in fanning the flames. The bandages were peeling right off his arms, curling at the edges and dripping to the ground in flaming tatters.
"Stop!" A Fox dove in and grabbed him around the ankles. Tikani overbalanced and crashed into the snow. More Foxes came pouring in and began to roll him back and forth across the powder, scorching their hands in the process. Another rushed up to them with a big armful of snow and dumped it all over Tikani's back, who was finally beginning to calm down, whimpering in pain and gratitude.
Nilia turned back to the wall of flames, squinting through the dancing orange tongues and the shapes moving just beyond, at the insanity her former tribesmen had succumbed to. Nothing but pain, carved into the faces of those who could express their grief in no other way than to carve it into someone else. They were running back and forth along the wall, whooping and hollering, carrying burning lanterns in their hands, chucking them at the wall, through the wall, over the wall, and suddenly she understood. She understood exactly what they were trying to do. It was the same thing a lazy hunter would do to catch a rabbit, hiding safely in its warren.
They were trying to burn their prey out.
A Fox, mad with fear and disbelief, broke away from his friends and sprinted for the wall, covering his ears against the noise of blooming death and destruction, screaming the entire way.
"Stop, you fool!" Nilia shouted, reaching out to him.
It was a close call.
He leapt for the flames, his eyes shut tight. Whether he would have made it through without getting burned too badly was something Nilia did not know, but what she did know was that the flames themselves weren't the truly dangerous part of this trap. It was the horde of Wolves on the other side, waiting for just this moment, waiting for their prey to come jumping into their arms in a panic, one by one, alone and afraid, blinded by the smoke and flames, completely vulnerable.
Nilia grabbed the Fox by the scruff of the neck, mid-jump, and yanked him back down to the ground with a painful bump.
"Ow!"
"Get back to the tent!" Nilia screamed into his face. The poor Fox gave her one bewildered look and burst into tears, but he did exactly as she asked, scrambling back the way he came, rubbing his arm across his eyes.
"Nilia!" Torjo called. "What the hell are we supposed to do!?"
"Keep the formation!" Nilia shouted back. "Stop anyone from jumping through!"
As if on cue, a screaming Wolf with both legs wreathed in flame came bursting out of the crowd, his eyes wild with panic, not knowing where he was going, just running, running, trying to run away from the pain. He sprinted for the wall of fire, where a gap had opened with the wind. Nilia could see the crazies already gathered in that spot, at least five, waiting with bated breath. Perhaps they had made that spot weaker on purpose. Perhaps they had left gaps like that all over.
Rokah grabbed the Wolf around the middle and hoisted him up into the air, kicking and screaming.
"Let me go! Let me go! By the Cora I want to get out! I want to get oooouuut! Let me oooouuuutt!!"
"Calm down, you're gonna get yourself killed!"
"We're _all_gonna get killed!"
Hajari ran up to the thrashing pair and threw a dirty old blanket over the hysterical Wolf's legs, wrapping it around and around, smothering the flames, but he kept thrashing and flailing as if he was still on fire, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"They're gonna kill us all, don't you get it!? They've gone over! They've gone all the way over!"
"Quiet, Kennet! Just -"
"We can't stay here! We'll burn alive! We have to go! All of us at once! It's the only way some of us might make it out! The only way! The only -"
Hajari clocked him right in the face. Not hard enough to knock him out, but certainly hard enough to get him to shut up and stare back with hurt, tearful eyes, a thin line of blood running from the corner of his mouth.
"Great idea, idiot!" Hajari bellowed. "Let's run blindly into the middle of a blizzard in the dead of night so we can all freeze to death!"
More lamps came sailing over the wall of fire, bright orange balls of light against the sky like fireflies. They crashed down amidst a crowd of Foxes and puddles of liquid fire erupted beneath their feet, scattering them to the four corners with their hands above their heads. Those spots of fire were breaking out everywhere now, simply bursting into existence with no warning save for the crash of breaking glass.
Nilia stood there, a single life among many, wondering what to do. A dozen different thoughts and plans were trying to worm their way to the forefront of her mind all at once, clamouring to be heard, but they made about as much sense as the cacophony breaking out all around her, with no rhyme or reason, just a rhythmless bunch of noise, just like the drums pounding through the wind and roaring in her ears.
She thought about what Kennet had said, about everyone making a run for it, but slammed that idea down almost immediately. There were too many injured here, both Wolf and Fox. Hezzi and Mateo. Everyone else. And even if they could get out of here, where would they go? The pass? The woods? The village? Half of them would get slaughtered before they even left the camp, and even more would perish along the way. And even worse, what if they led the crazies directly into the heart of the valley, where the women and children were still waiting for their husbands and fathers to come home?
It was beyond unthinkable.
But what was the alternative? Sit around and wait for them to run out of ammunition? Who knew how long that could take? And what if the fires spread beyond their control? There were children out here. She could hear them all huddled together, crying into the shoulders of total strangers because their parents were either dead, missing, or insane.
Nilia thought about putting the fire out, but that wouldn't work either. Maybe if everyone worked together, they could pour enough dirt and snow over it to get the job done, but there were too many Wolves on the other side, feeding the flames with logs and branches and broken barrels and shredded tarps and anything else they could get their paws on. And even if those crazies really did just stand back and let them stamp out the fire, it still wouldn't do anything to stop them from throwing burning oil lamps into the crowds.
Then fight. Every able-bodied Wolf and Fox still capable of firing a bow. Put everything into a single attack. Kill them before they get a chance to kill us.
Yes, and while you're doing that, Ander will be getting himself killed trying to rescue Kiana. If he isn't dead already.
Nilia's hand went up to grip her mother's necklace, but it wasn't there anymore. She had given it to -
A lamp sailed high through the air, higher than any that had come before it, and crashed down less than a stride from the medical tent. Fire bloomed outward in a spreading ball of orange, lapping at the canvass walls.
"Put that out!" Nilia screamed. "Put that out right now!"
Several Foxes began scooping handfuls of dirt and snow onto the flames, burying them before they could get a proper taste, but the black scorch marks rising up against the side was a testament to how easily the whole thing could go up in flames with just one lucky throw or one unlucky gust of wind.
You have to fight. There's no other way.
But that wouldn't work. She knew it wouldn't work, because -
We're too different now. We're just too different...
"Qin! Qiiin!!" Feto screamed into the open flames, tears streaming down his cheeks. "What are you doing!? It's me, can't you see it's me!?"
A burning log shot through the wall of fire and exploded across Feto's chest in a shower of red-hot coals. He landed on his back, beating frantically at his smoking fur, his tears catching the hellish red light of the flames.
From the other side of the wall, Nilia heard a high, shrill voice screaming: "They killed him, Feto! They murdered him in cold blood!"
Cadasi and Kanin dragged Feto away from the fire, wearing identical expressions of pain and sorrow.
All along the line, Nilia was seeing the same thing, repeated a dozen times over. Different names and different faces, but all the same.
"Tarbo! Stop this madness! The Foxes aren't our enemies!"
"And you're not my brother! Not anymore! You're just a backroller!"
"Tarbo!"
"You saw what they did! And if you're siding with them, you're no better than them!"
More.
"Taili! Please stop this!"
"Killers! Murderers!"
More.
"They didn't murder us! We came to kill them! Don't you understand we came to kill them!?"
"Cora curse you!"
And even more.
"Pleeease!!" Gardo, screaming at a face beyond the flames, pleading with it, his arms outstretched. "Enough of us have died tonight! I don't want to watch you die, too! Just pleeease! Stop this!"
Broken glass. Towering flames. Howls of pain, sorrow, and anger, born from throats beyond the wall, heard but not seen.
This wall of fire was a line drawn in the sand, separating those who had changed from those who had not, those who were different and those who had stayed the same. On the inside, the ones who were tired of fighting, who were sick of all this bloodshed, who only wanted to go home. On the outside, the Wolves who demanded blood and revenge, sacrifice and death. They were insane, but they were still friends. They were still family. Nilia could see the truth in every tear-streaked eye this side of the fire. Every face wracked with unimaginable sorrow and loss.
They would not raise their hands against their own kin. They couldn't. Not anymore. Too much had happened. Too much had changed. They had changed.
Nilia's hands went up to her head, as if to keep it from splitting open. She didn't know what to do. Should she stay and fight? Defend her loved ones? Hezzi, Mateo, Renna, Sarah, Layla, Bethany, Rufio, Mellah, so many Wolves and Foxes she would gladly risk her life for. Or should she try and break free of this place? Go to help Ander and Kiana? All alone out there, in the dark and the cold, up against a true monster.
Nilia didn't know what to do. No matter what she chose, she would be abandoning someone. Many someones.
With all her heart, she wished she could be in two places at once, but that was impossible.
What makes you think you even have a choice?
They were staring at her through the curtain of flames. So many eyes. Dozens of eyes. Hundreds of eyes, each of them wreathed in hellfire. They shifted back and forth, merging, fusing, becoming one with the inferno. Embers spiralled upward, caught in gusts of blazing hot air, reflected back as pinpricks of orange light inside those hateful, murderous orbs. Black smoke and ash, red blood, golden glimmers like scythed blades, unblinking. Maws tearing open, not beyond the flames, but part of the flames, stretching wide, splitting, cracking into rows of teeth, their growls fusing with the roars of the wind and the fire, everything coalescing into a single, irrefutable certainty.
Nilia stepped back, shielding her face against the blazing heat.
"Ander..." she whispered, so softly that she could barely hear it herself. "I'm sorry..."
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