Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 145
145
The breath whistled in and out of Dorin's chest as he limped across the battlefield, splashing through puddles of blood and snowmelt. Serrated walls of fire had appeared like scars upon his path, casting an otherworldly glow upon the earth.
This was hell. This was a burning, freezing, hell.
"Run! For the love of all the gods, come on!"
A small group of Foxes ran by, going as fast as their injuries allowed. They kept throwing terrified glances over their shoulders, but they needn't have bothered. The Wolves were far too busy fighting each other to notice their retreat.
No, they weren't just fighting. They were brutalizing each other; tearing flesh and breaking bone, howling into the storm above their heads with maws dyed crimson.
His tribe. His people. They were ripping each other apart...
It was as he stood frozen, staring in horror at what his fellow Wolves had become - perhaps what they had always been - that he spotted them, miraculously untouched despite being in the thick of it, trapped within the very eye of the storm itself: Danado, Tio, and Layla, the young vixen girl he had only caught glimpses of through a hazy fog of pain and delirium, looking down at him with the warmest, most out of place smile he'd ever seen, like a rose blooming in the middle of a blizzard.
He pressed a hand against his stitches and hurried on as fast as he could, gritting his teeth against the pain. He tried to pick out a path between the clashing bodies, but it was next to impossible. Still, he had to get through this. He had to reach them. He still had so many debts to repay...
Two Wolves suddenly came rolling across his path, biting and clawing at each other, growling through mouthfuls of blood. They were both so badly torn up he didn't even recognise them, and all he could do was lurch around them lest he be dragged into the conflict himself.
Keep going... You have to keep going...
A Wolf broke away from his fight, or maybe he was shoved back, Dorin was never sure. Either way, he smashed into Dorin from the side, knocking him flat onto his stomach in a red flash of pain that seemed to tear all the way into the centre of his body, leaving him gasping for breath in the middle of a freezing puddle of ice water.
Come on, keep going, you pathetic bastard! he berated himself, blinking the blood out of his eyes. You didn't make it this far... you didn't get carried this far... just to drop dead now!
He pushed himself off the ground, watching as his tired reflection retreated back into the muddy depths, and somehow got up on one knee. Every gasp for breath sent a needle of pain through his side, and he knew even without looking that he had torn his stitches.
Well, there was nothing could be done about that, so he stood up, pressing both hands against his side to hold the wound shut, and kept going, forcing himself along one exhausted, lurching step at a time, trying his very best to dodge and weave between the battles. He was so close now... so close... He could see them just up ahead, so perfectly still... standing out amidst the chaos...
A flaming branch came sailing out of nowhere, carving bright orange loops through the frigid air. Dorin turned away at the last second, but was unable to avoid it completely and it smashed into the left side of his face in a flurry of sparks and jagged splinters. He stumbled away, reeling on the inside. He could already feel the blood beginning to pour down his temple in long, thin streams.
A hand closed around his ankle and he fell flat on his face once again. This time the pain that tore through his side was much sharper, more urgent, like a long sliver of twisted metal slowly drilling its way through his flesh. He opened his mouth to scream, but could only cough, and even that was enough to make the world sway before his eyes.
No... I have to keep going... have to... keep...
He twisted around, clutching at his broken stitches, and saw a creature that barely even resembled a Wolf anymore crawling along the dirty pine needles, dragging himself up Dorin's leg. He opened his mouth, a vacuous red maw filled with broken yellow teeth, and Dorin instantly knew what was about to happen, as if he were looking an instant into the future. He saw the cur bite down with every ounce of crazy strength still pouring through his veins, severing muscle and tendon and leaving him a useless, writhing hunk of meat in the middle of the battlefield, waiting for death to come and put an end to his misery.
No!
Dorin kicked out with everything he had and caught the bastard underneath the chin, making his teeth come together with a sharp click. The grip around his ankle loosened and Dorin ripped himself free, twisting around on his belly and crawling along the ground like a slug, pulling himself through clumps of bloody snow and carpets of sharp, stinging pine needles, snuffling back the blood constantly dribbling from his nostrils, desperate for air but unable to breathe without feeling that sharp sting from inside his chest.
Keep going, Dorin, you sack of excrement! Keep going!
The world had become a very small, narrow place in his eyes. There were only his two arms, pistoning back and forth, and a small wedge of ground about three strides ahead. Feet sometimes smashed down within this wedge, crunching snow or splashing up pools of blood. Sometimes they were entire bodies, slamming down and lying still, their faces turned away.
Flaming branches. Rocks encrusted with bloody clumps of fur. A severed ear.
Keep... going...
Plumes of white mist burst from Dorin's mouth, faster and faster. Filthy grey flakes of snow and ash constantly struck his face, and still he kept going, knowing that if he slowed down even a little, it would all be too late. His debts would remain unpaid for whatever remained of this miserable life.
He reached out. Sunk his fingers into the hard, frozen ground. Pushed off with his legs. Pulled himself forward. He did this again and again, crawling like a worm while the battles raged on above and around him. Countless Wolves fighting each other like animals, Wolves he used to know, Wolves he used to hunt with, spar with, talk with. Wolves he used to share fires with. All gone... consumed.
Dead.
Keep... going... Dorin... Don't give up... not yet... not yet...
Dorin raised his head off the ground, only wanting to check how far he still had left to go, but he was already there. He had made it. He...
The tears welled up and cascaded down his bloody cheeks. He clenched his teeth, trying to hold it back, but it burst through in a strangled cry. He raked his claws along the frozen earth, not knowing what he was seeing, not knowing what it meant, only knowing that something like this should never have come to pass.
Had he really thought them untouched? Had he?
Layla. Bethany's daughter. Kiana's sister. She was sitting on the ground with her legs tucked underneath her, perfectly prim and proper. Her eyes were closed, swollen shut, and her bottom lip was torn. But despite this... there was still just the faintest hint of a smile playing around the corner of her mouth, as if she had fallen asleep to a beautiful memory.
But how... Dorin wondered. How can she be smiling like that with all those branches sticking out of her back?
They were short and stubby. Jagged and broken. Wooden teeth as thick as spears. They protruded from her back in a hundred different directions like the quills of a porcupine. The back of her dress was saturated with blood.
How long did she last like that? How long did she fight like that? How long...?
There was a kid snuggled up underneath her arm, as if she had been trying to protect him till the very end. A Fox girl, fighting so hard to save the life of a Wolven child...
Dorin could not speak. The only sounds coming out of his mouth were a series of short, meaningless moans.
He looked down, following her gaze, had her eyes been open.
Danado was lying down on the ground with his head resting upon her lap, and he, too, almost appeared to be smiling, even though he was carved up unlike anything Dorin had ever seen. Terrible gashes across every inch of exposed flesh. Deep, gaping wounds filled with blood. Teeth marks like dark pits. Maybe it was Layla's hand, lightly touching his cheek, or maybe it was the clear tracks in his blood, left by her tears, but... he looked happy...
He looked so happy...
Images flashed through Dorin's mind. Demons in the form of memories, so clear it was if he had gone back in time to relive all his greatest shames in the blink of an eye. He saw his hands, grabbing one of Danado's feet while he squirmed in fear, shaking his head and pleading for mercy. He saw the tip of his knife sliding underneath the claw, bringing blood. Heard the screams as he twisted the blade around, gouging out the flesh. And then the laughter, coming from his own throat, echoing through the woods, almost loud enough to drown out Danado's screams, his screams, his never-ending screams, screaming -
Screaming into his sister's dying face, asking her, begging her to not leave him alone. A knife, a plain, wooden handle protruding from her chest, just above her heart, twitching, twitching, and finally coming to rest. The moment he became a murderer. The moment he truly knew what it felt like, looking down at his own crimson hands, dripping blood, that sense of unreality, that none of this was real, that none of it had really happened, that this was all just some terrible mistake, that it wasn't supposed to feel like this, that he'd rather die than feel like this, he'd rather slit his own wrists than feel another moment of this, just like his mother, anything to be rid of this, anything to end it, anything, please, he couldn't keep on living like this he just wanted it to be over he wanted it to end he wanted to die he wanted Dan to just -
Take that knife and shove it in my neck! Do it, Dan! DO IT!!"
A flash of steel, slicing through curtains of falling snow. The sound of a cursed blade embedding itself in the trunk of a tree. And a single promise kept... despite all anger, despite all hatred, despite all sorrow...
I promised her... I promised I'd stay different...
And just like that, Dorin was back in the world of real things, down on the ground, in the blood and the mud, staring at this arrangement with tears in his eyes. A Fox. A child. And a Wolf. Huddled together, here, in the eye of the storm, covered in blood. All of them trying to protect each other while all anyone else could do was lash out.
It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.
Dorin slammed his fist into the ground.
It wasn't right! It wasn't fair!
He tried to push himself off the ground and a shot of blood spurted from between his clenched teeth. He wavered, nearly fell, and continued to push.
No. He refused to let this happen. He refused to let things end like this. Not after everything he had gone through, not after everything Dan had gone through, not after all the suffering, all the pain, both inflicted and received, not after all the blood and death, not after all that!
"No... no..."
Too far had he been carried. Too easily had his sins been forgiven. He wouldn't let this night end like this. Not like this. Not with so many debts still unpaid. Not with so many sins still weighing down the scales. Even if he couldn't do anything at all to right the wrongs of the past, he would do his damndest to keep fighting till the very end. Just like Dan. Just like Layla. Just like everyone else who had given him so much.
"It can't end like this..." he whispered, slowly rising to his feet. "You can't end like this... I won't let you. Do you hear that, Dan? I won't let you end like this!"
A Wolf came tearing in from the south, screaming at the top of his lungs, blood flowing from the gashes in his body. He was nothing more than a screeching demon, no different from the memories flashing through Dorin's mind. It saw the three of them, down on the ground... easy prey... and charged straight for them. Perhaps they had been his target all along. Perhaps he had fought through the entire battlefield just to reach them.
Just to kill them.
No, Dorin. They're already -
"Noooaaargh!" Dorin rose up, red clumps of snow crumbling off his furrowed brow and blood seeping from his torn stitches. He curled his fingers into hooks and swung his arm in a wide arc, putting all his weight, all his momentum, all the energy he had thought he had used up so many times before now, into this single blow, and struck the charging creature right in the face, shredding his lips and cracking his jaw. The shockwave travelled up Dorin's arm, through his elbow and all the way into his shoulder in a blazing line of pain. But somehow he kept going, screaming through a thick mouthful of blood, stepping up and pushing forward until he slammed the animal's head straight down into the ground in an explosion of pine needles and melted snow.
Past his own fingers, he could see the creature's eye staring back at him; dark brown, almost black. His mouth opened and closed, and Dorin could actually feel the words riding the currents of his breath, pale white spectres in the cold.
"They killed her, Dorin..." he said. "They killed... her..."
The eye closed, and when Dorin pulled his hand back, he realized that the warmness coating his palm wasn't just blood.
It was tears, too.
The world seemed to slow down just then. He could see the flames, reaching up from the fallen carcasses of trees with long, slender fingers, as if to grab at the snowflakes falling from the sky, but whether to kill them or be killed by them was something he did not know, could never know... Either way, all it amounted to was a wisp of steam in the dark, like the breath of so many lives, scattered by the frigid winds.
His tribe. His people. Wolves fighting Wolves. Wolves fighting to kill Foxes. Wolves fighting to protect Foxes. Wolves fighting to protect each other. Wolves fighting to kill each other.
Wolves fighting to kill themselves.
None of this was right. None of this was fair.
Dorin tore his eyes away, knowing he was as much a part of this as anyone else, knowing that he was a killer, knowing that he would always be killer, knowing that to fight, to murder, to protect, to save... they were all a part of the same thing, constantly flowing back into each other, feeding off of each other. To save one was to condemn another, to kill one was to protect another. Both of those could be the same thing, only seen from different sides.
None of this was right. None of this was fair.
Not for anyone.
He dropped down to his knees and screamed at the ground, screamed and raked his bloody claws across his face, screamed until all his breath was gone and his cry faded into a meaningless whimper.
He didn't know what to do. At the wall, he had turned his back, had spread his arms wide, had begged, had pleaded, and so many had died... And now... now what? What was he supposed to do in the face of so much pain? So much grief? Was he supposed to stand back again and just let it happen? Let them kill over and over and over again until their vengeance was finally satisfied? Or should he wade into the blood himself, fight for what was 'right', fight to protect, fight to kill? Murder one to save two? Murder five to save ten? A hundred for a thousand? Who was he to make any of these choices? Who was he to know, to understand any of these things? He didn't know what was right anymore... he didn't even know what was _wrong_anymore... All he knew was... All he knew was...
He didn't want to kill. He didn't want to feel that way again. Not again... never again...
"Come on, Dan..." he said, wiping a mixture of blood and tears from his face. "I'm getting you out of here. All of you... Somehow... I don't care if I have to break my back to do it... I'm getting you out!"
Dorin grabbed him by the shoulders and heaved him up into a sitting position. His fur was slick and slippery in some places, but tacky in others, and his head kept lolling like a dead weasel's, ready for the spit. There was a bright red patch of blood on Layla's dress where he had rested his head.
"Come on! Come on! Work with me, dammit!"
Dorin began to heave him over his shoulders, but Dan was a dead -
He is not dead! He was supposed to kill me, but he didn't! He had a promise to keep! That couldn't have been for nothing! I refuse to believe that that was all for nothing!
- weight on his back, and the pain was already unbearable.
"Gr- ah!" He bit down on his scream, stopping it dead. He could feel his stitches tearing loose, could feel his wounds opening up, inch by inch. At this rate, he would only get weaker and weaker. If he was going to do something, it would have to be now, and it would have to be quick.
Gritting his teeth, he got up on one knee. Fine beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. The tendons stood out in his neck like cords. He tried to get up all in one go from there, but the weight was too much and he dropped back down again, gasping for breath while Dan's arms swung like a ragdoll's, smearing streaks of blood across his chest in a crimson curve. Even more of Dan's blood was slowly crawling down his back, mixing with his own, reminding him that he didn't have any time to waste.
"Come on..." Dorin whispered, taking quick, shallow breaths. "You have to do this. You have to... You -"
"Dorin-Sai?"
It was the kid. He had opened his eyes and was staring at him from underneath Layla's arm, so much like a woodland critter peeking out from the safety of its burrow.
"Kid! If you can stand, then help me! Quickly!"
He looked up at Layla's face. So eerily peaceful, with that ghost of a smile hovering around the corner of her bloody mouth, and his eyes immediately began to tear up. "I hoped it was just a nightmare..." he said in a quivering voice. "I prayed... I prayed to the Cora that -"
"Praying won't help anything, kid! But you can! With your own two hands, you can help me right now!"
His shimmering eyes fixed on his, then moved across his body, stopping on every gash, every zigzagging line of stitches, every torn and bloody bandage. His bottom lip trembled. "But what about Layla-Kai? You can't do anything like that! You can't -"
"I can!" Dorin insisted. "I can and I will! I have no choice! Just please, for the love of the Cora, just help me to get started and I swear I will get them out! Both of them! You, too! Just, please..."
The kid looked at him for what felt like a very long time, but in reality couldn't have been more than a few moments. His brow furrowed, and although a single tear did slip free of its constraints, his hands balled into fists and he gave Dorin a single nod, looking remarkably like his father. "Okay!" he slid out from underneath Layla's arm, moving quickly, and helped to push Danado the last of the way up onto Dorin's shoulders.
"Okay... This is nothing..." Dorin said, hoping that the strain wasn't showing. He was still down on the ground, for crying out loud, and already the burden was so great he didn't know if he could possibly get up.
"Layla-Kai?" Tio had turned back to Layla and was lightly touching her face, trying to wake her up. "Layla-Kai, come on! We have to get out of here!"
"That's not gonna work, kid. You have to get her up here, too. On top of Dan, come on."
Tio looked at him as if he had gone crazy. "Dorin-Sai, you can't -"
"I promised, didn't I!?" Dorin shouted, making Tio flinch. "I promised, so you better not make a liar out of me, Tio, son of Traido!"
"But -"
"Are you insulting the head warrior of the tribe, kid? What kind of a Wolf would I be if couldn't carry one tiny little vixen?"
Tio shook his head so hard it made his ears flop back and forth. "No, Dorin-Sai!"
"So be a good little warrior and move it!"
"Yes, Dorin-Sai!"
Tio grabbed her around the middle and tried to drag her closer, even going so far as to push his head against her chest to try and get that tiny bit of extra leverage. He grunted and wheezed and bit down on his tongue while his feet scratched little trenches in the sodden mess of half melted snow and blood. But even with all that effort, the whole operation was in question. Layla was just a Fox, a _female_Fox at that (and although Dorin wasn't completely sure, he thought she might be a hair shorter than the average vixen as well), but she was still a good deal bigger than Tio.
Dorin kept a watchful lookout, knowing that if anyone tried to charge them down right now, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot he could do about it. Most of the Wolves had split off into groups of three and four, tearing into each other with all the madness and ferocity of wild beasts, growling and roaring through mouthfuls of blood and fur. So many Wolves trying to help, trying to defend the Foxes that had saved their lives from the snow. But what frightened Dorin the most was that it was starting to become impossible to differentiate between the two groups. Any semblance of 'order' this battle once had was now only a mindless whirlpool of frenzied destruction. There were no lines in the dirt anymore. No ring to keep everything nice and tidy. No 'outside'. No 'inside'. No distinction between sane and insane. Only chaos and confusion. Only flesh. It was all just one great giant battlefield, and they were all caught in the centre of it.
"H- Here!" Tio wheezed, dragging Layla through the snow.
"Good kid." Dorin crouched down a little lower, feeling like his back was about to snap through the middle. "Can you get her up? Right on top of Dan, now. Hurry."
With many a grunt and a wheeze and a clenching of teeth, Tio finally managed to push Layla on top of Dan in such a way that Dorin could hold them both in place. The weight was...
I don't think I can do this...
It was taking all his strength just kneeling here, with their arms dangling in front of his face and their blood running down his back. Just the simple act of breathing seemed to send shockwaves of stress throughout his bones, making them creak and shudder like an old tree caught in a gale. The bitter taste of blood in his mouth was stronger than ever, and the needle of pain in his side was quickly growing into a spike.
"Dorin-Sai?"
"I'm fine, kid. She's light as a squirrel. Just stick close and don't wander off, okay?"
"Where are we going?"
Good question.
Dorin blinked a few times, trying to clear away the encroaching shadows, and the big tent in the middle of the basecamp swam out of the blurry, throbbing mess his vision was rapidly becoming. The Fox equivalent of a doctoring tent. The girl's mother might be in there. Wolves, too. Including...
Hey, Aisa? What if we made a deal?
What kind of deal?
I'll promise not to kill myself as long as you promise not to kill yourself.
What, you mean like... a reverse suicide pact?
If that's what you want to call it.
And it goes both ways?
Both ways.
Dorin got up on one knee, twisting his foot into the blood-soaked earth for purchase. His eye never left that hazy smudge on the horizon that was the doctoring tent.
All right, Dan. Layla. You guys aren't the only ones who have promises to keep.
"Hrngh..." Dorin stood up, taking their full weight onto his back, one hand curled around Danado's wrist, and the other around one of Layla's ankles. His knees shook. Every breath whistled through his chest and stabbed at his ribs from the inside. He could feel his stitches stretching to the breaking point and then snapping under the strain, wounds yawning open like mouths.
He took a single step forward, focussing on balancing their weight so they wouldn't slip off, and a gigantic bolt of pain, the biggest one yet, shot right through his body, right to left, like a jagged crack through his ribcage. He tried to tough it out, but a fine spray of blood burst out of his mouth completely against his will and pattered into the snow, sinking down deep...
I can't...
All his strength simply bled away and his knees buckled beneath the weight. He would have crashed down for certain, spilling Danado and Layla and all their hopes to the ground, had Tio not been there to make the save.
"No, Sai!" he yelled, slipping underneath Dorin's collapsing body in a move of pure desperation, turning himself into a crutch. Bent over double and mewling in agony, little Tio couldn't possibly have lasted for even a second underneath the weight of two fully grown Wolves and one vixen, but somehow he did, and a single second was all Dorin needed.
He got one foot underneath him and pushed himself upright, straightening his back and screaming inside his head at the amount of pain racing through his body, ordering it to back off, willing it to subside for just one moment, just one moment, and then one moment more, and one moment more... pushing it back, forcing it back... one infinitesimal moment at a time, over and over. He didn't care if he had to feel it all at once when this was over, just as long as it stayed out of his way for now.
"Thanks, kid..." His voice sounded like gravel. "Now come on..."
Tio clutched at Dorin's pants leg, his eyes darting in every direction, knowing full well that they hadn't even begun yet. The doctoring tent looked as far away as the end of this horrible night, but somehow... somehow...
We all promised...
They began to move.
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