Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 83
83
Aisa could barely believe her ears. Miracle after miracle, and still this child could deliver. To actually beg for the life of the miserable she-wolf who had caused her nothing but pain and hardship her entire life...
Dorin sidled up next to her with a groan and hooked his arm over her shoulder. "That's quite a daughter you've got there," he said, and Aisa could only nod in silent agreement.
The pass, however, was a different story. The shouts and growls were starting to heat up, drowning out the roars of the wind. She could feel their burning glares against her back, their bloodlust, their hunger and thirst. She knew exactly what they wanted, because she used to be one of them, not too long ago. She knew how they wanted to bite into soft meat, tear it apart, feel the hot gushing torrents of lifeblood splurting onto their tongues. She knew how they wanted to listen to the screams of those weaker than themselves. She knew how they wanted to fight and fight until their muscles were sore and their lungs burned in their chests and they couldn't take another step. She knew how they wanted to drown out the empty holes their lives had become by filling it with the deaths of their enemies.
"Aisa?"
She wouldn't allow it.
Aisa handed Dorin over to Thoka, who took him without complaint, but Dorin seemed confused by the sudden switch. "Aisa, what are you doing? Hey?"
She would be a mother. A real mother. Now, if never again. Even if it cost her her life.
"Aisa? Aisa! Where are you going!?"
She walked through the snow, shielding her eyes against the freezing wind. The wall loomed higher and higher, but it did not fill her with fear or dread. She reached out and touched it, letting her fingers drag along the rough, splintery surface, feeling nothing but hope. This was the border that marked her enka's new home. Her new life. She only wondered what might be on the other side. Thick, shadowy woods, just like back home? Jagged mountain ranges that made the Cora look like an anthill? Endless meadows? Fields of flowers as far as the eye could see?
A small smile touched the corner of Aisa's mouth, salty because of the tears drying on her lips. She hoped it was something like that. Renna would like that...
She swallowed back her sadness, her tears, her doubts, and turned around, baring her teeth.
Her people were there, inside the Cora's throat, amorphous shapes in the blizzard fused together into a single living entity comprised solely of hunger and hatred, writhing and undulating, thousands of eyes glaring from inside the darkness.
Aisa spread her arms wide, shielding as much of the wall as she possibly could. "If you want to get at my daughter, you'll have to go through me!!"
*
Hezzi saw the way Renna's face first cracked, then shattered. She tried to cover it up, but it wasn't enough to drown out her sobs, and he found himself drawn towards her. He couldn't resist that pull even if he wanted to.
He hated seeing her cry. The only tears that should ever leak from those eyes should be tears of happiness. But these... there was happiness in those tears, no doubt. He could feel it just as surely as he could feel his own heart hammering in his chest. But there was a deep sadness in there, too. She was watching her own mother, a single Wolf, stand up against a thousand, her arms spread wide to protect a daughter she once threw away. She seemed so small from up here, so inconsequential. Just a tiny speck against the snow, wedged between a wall infinitely taller and wider than herself, and an army of bloodthirsty Wolves, growling in the dark. It was an act of defiance that held no weight at all, save for the message behind it.
I will fight to protect my daughter. Even if it costs me my life.
She threw away the life of her daughter, and now she was throwing away her own, anything to make up for her sins, to balance out the scales. That was why Renna's tears were both happy and sad. Happy because she finally got her answer, and sad because that answer came far too late to make a difference.
She was down there, and they were up here. That's all it came down to, in the end.
"Renna?" He put his arm around her, shielding her from the freezing wind as best he could, wishing he could do something more useful, more meaningful.
She clung to him, her stubby, chewed-to-nubs claws dragging against his shoulders, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from the horrorshow down below. It would only be a matter of time until this eternal moment, the gap between the lightning strike and the thunder, finally ceased and the battle began.
He held her close, feeling the way she shook against his embrace. When the moment came, he would grab her and turn her face away. He'd even drag her down to the floor if that's what it took. He couldn't let her see them tearing her mother apart. It would destroy her.
A lone figure stepped forward, out of the rushing haze of snow and wind, limping badly.
It was Dorin.
*
The wind and snow came in bursts, crashing against him like waves, sometimes pushing him along, and sometimes driving him back. His head ached and throbbed, and his leg screamed with every step, but he kept going. Even when the snow came up to his knees, even when sharp pieces of ice blew against his face like angry wasps, he kept going. Even when the wind roared and everything went white, as if the whole world had been erased, he kept going, because he knew she was right in front of him, all alone, and he couldn't leave it that way.
He couldn't.
The gust died down and the blizzard cleared just enough for him to make out her shape against the hulking form of the wall, barely able to cover three of its massive posts, even with her arms outstretched.
She wouldn't let him stand alone when he begged to be heard, and now was the time to return the favour.
"Room for one more?"
She gave him a sad smile. "If you think you can squeeze in."
He limped to her side, pressed his back up against the wall, and spread his arms wide. "You'll have to go through me, too!" he yelled into the storm, knowing that if he was going to die either way, he'd rather do it right here, on the border of everything.
Her hand closed around his, and when he turned to look at her, he saw that her smile wasn't as sad as it was before.
She whispered, "Thank you," and Dorin knew that this was right.
He could die like this.
"Sai!" Ivio came out of the haze, his arm held in front of his face to ward off the worst of the storm.
"What are you doing out here, Ivio?" Dorin asked only as a formality. He knew perfectly well what that Wolf was doing out here.
"Being ivvy!" he said, falling into place on Aisa's other side. He spread his arms and screamed into the night: "Bring it, bastards! I'll stick each and every last one of you sons of bitches!"
Aisa took his hand, turning their little protest into an impromptu chain. Ivio peeked at her from beneath that mess of paint and snow on his face and then quickly looked down at his feet, both ears twitching like crazy, and Dorin felt that mad urge to burst out laughing again. He didn't think he'd ever seen Ivio embarrassed before.
Seffer, Yanek and Vekka emerged from the white expanse mere moments later, huddled together against the cold.
"I don't want to die," Seffer said, rubbing his arms together, "but if I'm going to die either way, I'd rather die the way that makes me feel the least bad."
"Speak for yourself!" Thoka loomed up behind them. All the clumps of snow stuck to his exceptionally long fur made him look more like a child's failed art experiment than an actual warrior. "I intend to do as little dying as possible, thank you very much!"
A particularly large clump of snow on his back (which turned out to be Denko) leaned over his shoulder and asked: "Well then what are you doing over here, where everyone has a giant target painted on their foreheads?"
"Because - Shut up, that's why!"
They all fell in line, making the chain longer and longer. Dorin doubted if they covered even a hundredth of the wall's width, but that wasn't what this was about. The important thing was that they were here, even though they couldn't possibly do anything to dissuade their people, they were here, even though they would surely perish holding each other's hands, they were here.
Dorin found himself wishing for a free hand so he could wipe the tears from his face. But no matter. The cold was doing a well enough job of freezing them in place.
This is it, he thought, looking out over a sea of black hatred, spewing forth from the Cora's pass like the froth from the mouth of a rabid animal.
This is where we make our stand.
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